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McCORDSVILLE — Gregg Morelock from Brand & Morelock Law received a key to the town of McCordsville at the last town council meeting of the year on Dec. 12 for his 36 years of service — this year being his last year working with the town.
Morelock said that he was extremely honored and pleased to receive a key and it now has a permanent spot in his office, which now represents the years of dedication.
When asked if there were any highlights during his time with the town, a few came to mind.
Being involved since the start, Morelock said the town was originally incorporated because the septic systems were failing throughout the town and many people were running sewage into Stansbury ditch. The people decided to get incorporated into a town to start a sewer system.
“So certainly everything revolving that initial sewer system was a highlight because everyone was so excited about it,” Morelock said.
However they weren’t excited about the bill, said Morelock, sharing that he remembers the sewer rate being roughly $74 in the 90s — more expensive than others.
Morelock said another memory that stands out came a few years later when Senator Beverly Gard was able to get the town a grant that allowed the town to pay off bonds for the sewer system and the plant after the engineers had “missed some things” and had the town get another bond for $600,000.
“That allowed them to become much more competitive,” said Morelock when talking about the water rates for the town. “And, of course, it’s just continued quite frankly to go down over time because of the number of new users.”
Morelock said that he remembers the first year they didn’t have any money and they operated out of a motel room but, despite that, he said he had fun and since has seen many great people come through.
One member Morelock mentioned working with was Larry Longman, who served on town council from 2012-2023. Longman said that Morelock had a wealth of knowledge on the history of the town and the way things were done in McCordsville.
“Having his presence just at the table to remind us as to why something may have been done a certain way was pretty valuable for our needs and making decisions,” Longman said. “He is going to be an asset that is missed as the town continues to grow.”
Morelock said another highlight for him was just seeing the economic growth of the town and the fact that past councils always took the approach that they aren’t making anymore land, so if developers wanted to come to McCordsville, they had a set of architectural standards.
“They had a certain look, if you will, that they wanted McCordsville to have. I think they probably started to deviate because of economics and other issues maybe a little bit more than they did but for the bulk of 30 years basically, we told people, ‘Look, if you want to build here then that’s fine, were happy to have you, but here’s the standards and here’s what we expect you to do.’”
That also led Morelock to speak on the town center coming to fruition and said that he wasn’t always sure if that was something he was going to see, knowing that it had been an idea talked about for decades.
“That’s going to be just a tremendous boost to the town and all of its citizens and people in surrounding areas,” Morelock said.
At this year’s last town council meeting on Dec. 12, while also giving Morelock a key to the town, each member of the council thanked Morelock for his time. Council member Dr. Bryan Burney, who sat next to Morelock at council meetings, thanked him for his wisdom and institutional knowledge “… and willingness to help us out as we may need assistance going forward, especially with your voluminous files,” said Burney at the meeting, joking about his paper trail of all the documents from over the years.
It was voted on at the Nov. 14 town council meeting that the town will switch to Taft Law in the new year, specifically having Beth Copeland join the meetings.
“In this business — I’ve done this now for 43 years in various communities — it’s just an honor that they put their trust in you to help guide them,” Morelock said. “You don’t run for election, you don’t make decisions, and that’s always been my approach — is I’m not elected to make decisions. Once the council gives me direction, I try to make sure that they can do what they want to do and that they can do it legally. And so that’s been a great honor for me all my life.”
Morelock will continue to work with the city of Greenfield as their city attorney.
