The City of Hobart has won a summary judgment against the owner of a long-closed downtown bar, but the city is still willing to avoid demolishing it if the owners were to put forth a real effort.
Lake Superior Court Civil Judge Stephen Scheele on March 8 ruled in favor of the City of Hobart, The Hobart Board of Works and Building Official Karen Hansen against Jimmie Batalis and Harold Killian, owners of 235 Main St., which housed Main Street Station for decades, court records indicate.
Batalis was paroled in December after serving 16.5 years of a 57-year sentence for the May 2003 murder of 28-year-old Jason Nosker. Nosker was the boyfriend of Batalis’ ex-girlfriend, and they were threatened repeatedly by Batalis before he shot into their bedroom window while they were asleep, according to court records. Nosker was paralyzed from the waist down before dying of his injuries.
Batalis’ sentence was handed down before the state of Indiana required those with high-level felonies and murder convictions to serve at least 75% of their sentence.
In the building case, Scheele found “no genuine issue as to the fact that Plaintiffs failed to file a timely complaint for judicial review as required by the Indiana Unsafe Building Law,” the city “is entitled to judgment as a matter of law on Count I of Plaintiffs’ Complaint for Judicial Review,” the judge wrote. The court also found that the city “did not violate Plaintiffs’ procedural or substantive due process rights,” he wrote in the judgment.
Scheele’s ruling is final, but Batalis and Killian may appeal it, he wrote. Plaintiffs have 30 days to appeal, according to Indiana law.
Hobart Mayor Josh Huddlestun, who was the 2nd District Councilman while the Main Street issue was before the Board of Works, said that while the city is satisfied with the judgment, he still feels that perhaps there’s an opportunity to get something in the building rather than tear it down.
“We’re creating a new standard in our downtown, and we’re seeing the benefit of public-private partnerships. Our downtown is hopping now; we’re on the map,” Huddlestun said. “It’ll cost the city to demolish (235 Main St.), but even if we knock it down, we still don’t own the land. If the owners come to us in good faith, we want to talk to them.”
The owners previously offered to put $60,000 into renovating the building, but Huddlestun said that won’t be enough to make the building habitable.
The Board of Works set 235 Main St. for condemnation during its July 5 meeting after at least a year of trying to get representatives from building owner Batalis Inc. to repair it, the Post-Tribune previously reported. During that meeting, a local contractor appeared before the board with attorney Dana Rifai and said Batalis had given him limited power-of-attorney to act on his behalf while he was in prison.
Since the contractor’s company wasn’t licensed with the city to do work at the time, he told the board he reached out to Tak Construction, which is licensed to work in Hobart, to do the work with him acting as the project manager — a move the board immediately shot down.
The contractor then said he had a copy of a report that says the building is structurally sound, a point which Building Official Karen Hansen disputed. The building’s east wall needs to be replaced, plus the owners failed to maintain it, she said.
Additionally, the owners did have a Hobart-licensed contractor lined up to do the work at one point, but that contractor claims they never got a deposit from the owner, Hansen said.
Former Hobart Fire Chief Randy Smith added that there have been two fires at the building, and as it stands now, he would not allow his firefighters to enter the building if there were a third.
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
