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TOP STORY OF THE DAY: Commissioners’ meeting gets feisty Monday
The monthly meeting of the Clay County Commissioners was its normal mundane self until the audience comment portion on Monday, involving one speaker being escorted twice from the Commissioners’ Court Room.
Romelia Solano did not specify with which group she is affiliated, but she indicated she had driven three hours on Monday from South Bend to make her opinion known on the proposed jail expansion and to seek public disclosure of information.
“Recently, there was a misleading article in the Brazil Times that we would like to clarify,” she said, noting the lawsuit filed against the county who was not dismissed in court. “It was actually voluntarily dismissed in the settlement, where officials agreed to hold a public vote on the jail project. The lawsuit against the county was regarding transparency issues and the proposed expansion. It was brought forth by the coalition of community members across the state called ‘Communities Not Cages In Indiana’ where we alleged violations of open door law and access to public records act.”
Solano elaborated on her thoughts that while regularly-scheduled commissioners’ meetings are at 9 a.m. on the first Monday of the month, that additional “special” meetings need to have more than 48 hours’ notice for people to be prepared to be in attendance.
“We would ask the commissioners to please have that information prepared at a public meeting and share that and make that publicly available to the public,” she said. “County officials have long admitted that their motivation for expanding the jail for ICE is driven by perverse financial incentives.”
Predictably, that last notion did not go over well with the commissioners.
Attorney Eric Somheil acknowledged the lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed.
“The order was signed by Judge [Joseph] Trout dismissing the lawsuit,” he said. “The allegations were that the county was not open and upfront on matters. And we have basically responded that it was a frivolous lawsuit that the nature of the suit was basically for alleged embarrassment for the county.”
Somheil said a meeting such as Solano requested will take place.
“We will have a public meeting on the bond agreement that was always in the plans,” he said. “It’s something that we would have to do by law to have a public meeting. People do that. We give them the same notice that we would give the newspaper and media, which is the notice allowed by law.”
Solano attempted to respond to Somheil’s statement, but Commissioners’ President Marty Heffner had heard enough.
“You’ve had your time,” he said. “You can sit down, or you can leave.”
Solano chose to keep responding, and Heffner then instructed Sheriffs’ Chief Deputy Josh Clarke to escort Solano from the room.
Commissioner Paul Sinders joined in with his displeasure at the tone of Solano’s remarks.
“The thing I don’t appreciate is them calling us liars about things that they think are true, but are not,” he said. “We are trying to be up-front and following the law. Statements like that are totally ignorant.”
Heffner joined in with his thoughts.
“I have no tolerance for that,” he said, his voice rising in intensity. “I will not from here on out. All of you have seen the stuff online accusing the commissioners and the sheriff of taking bribes under the table, being crooked, and all sorts of things. These guys [including Somheil, the sheriff’s department, and the other commissioners] work very hard to represent this county, and that really bothers me. Whenever I see how hard they work, and to see them be called liars and be accused of not following the law. These guys would not break the law at all.”
Heffner added that the commissioners contact Somheil before making any decision to “make sure we are doing the right thing” in the eyes of the law.
“Clay County has something to be proud of with this group that is right here, and we’re not going to do anything that is shady or has any sense of being illegal,” he said. “We’re going to do it because it’s right, and to make Clay County a better place to live.”
Solano returned to the room a few minutes later, and she was again escorted out by Clarke. Two other speakers addressed the jail expansion issue, but neither caused a disruption.