By CHRIS MEYERS
Staff writer

With 11 days to go until the petition carrying begins, those opposed to the Columbia City High School building project met Wednesday night to go over their plans for the remonstrance.
“There are numerous views, but we’re all saying no … we’ve been quiet long enough,” Gene Heckman, Thorncreek Township trustee and Code Blue Whitley County member, told the crowd of about 75 people.
Heckman and Mark Roach, also a Code Blue member, laid out the legal specifications for those wishing to carry petitions.
Roach said the petitions will be available June 6, but cannot be signed until the following day, at which point those on both sides of the issue have 30 days to get signatures for their respective causes.
Only registered voters or people who own land in the Whitley County Consolidated Schools district can sign the petitions, and they must be notarized.
Those carrying the petitions must also witness every signature.
“We want to make sure all our i’s are dotted and our t’s are crossed,” Roach said.
Those in attendance signed up to be carriers in various precincts in the WCCS district, with hopes of having a petition carrier for each precinct.
“A dozen of us can’t do it. We need your help,” Heckman told the crowd.
Plans are for another meeting to be held in a couple of weeks to see how well the petition drives are doing.
Roach said he would have preferred the remonstrance be a referendum instead of a petition so it could be a private vote to avoid what one Fort Wayne Community Schools resident told him about how the remonstrance effort “tore this community apart.”
Despite being a public petition, Roach said this is a chance for all WCCS residents to voice their opinions.
“Every one of their reasons for this high school is arguable,” he said.
For now, both sides will have to silently gather support before the petition carriers for and against the project take to the streets.
“I never anticipated I would be on the opposite side of the school board, but here we are,” Heckman said.