WHITING | Residents are being asked to rally against a so-called property tax relief plan under consideration in Indianapolis. Whiting officials say the plan could shut down the city.

A new Web site, www.SaveWhiting.com, was created over the weekend to familiarize residents with House Bill 1001, currently in conference committee. It would cap homeowners' tax bills at 1 percent of their home's assessed valuation.

That would cut the average Indiana resident's property taxes by 27 percent, but the caps of 2 percent on rental properties and 3 percent on businesses mean a loss of 65 percent of Whiting's annual revenue.

"If HB 1001 passes in its current form, I may be forced to make plans to close the doors of City Hall on Jan. 1, 2009," Mayor Joe Stahura said.

This year's short legislative session ends Friday, and the vote on a joint House-Senate compromise bill is expected before the end of the week.

"We want and need property tax relief, but doing so at the expense of shutting down local government is not the answer," Stahura said.

More than 1,000 people from the city of 5,000 already had added their names by Monday afternoon on an online petition to legislators and Gov. Mitch Daniels asking that consideration for the future of Whiting be included in their property tax reform plans.

"HB 1001 needs to be properly amended," said Brian Lowry, director of community development. "I don't believe that anyone wants to unintentionally destroy a community that has been here for nearly 120 years."

More than half the city is occupied by BP's oil refinery, and homeowners watched their property tax bills triple or worse as the result of special legislation in 2005 that made deep cuts in the taxes paid by BP, Whiting's largest property owner.

Since then, Whiting has cut more than $1.5 million from its annual Civil City and Sanitary District's budgets, reduced the number of municipal employees by 20 percent, and adopted many recommendations from the county's Good Government Initiative.

But all the reductions of the past three years could be made moot by the drastic cuts mandated in HB 1001, which Stahura said would be disastrous for the community.

"I have laid the groundwork with dozens of trips to Indianapolis and dozens of meetings with individual legislators," Stahura said. "Now people's actions can carry us over the top -- to provide real tax relief for all of our residents, while not crippling our ability to provide basic municipal services."