The Town of Merrillville’s Clerk-Treasurer intends to sue the town unless the Town Council doesn’t take another vote on whether to keep the Town Court open.
Clerk-Treasurer Eric January believes he was denied the right to break a tie last month when the council voted on first reading to re-establish the town court after a years-long fight. The council voted at the May 14 meeting 3-3-1, with Councilwomen Shauna Haynes-Edwards, D-2, Leona Chandler, D-3, and Marge Uzelac, D-4, voting for the measure; and Councilmen Rick Bella, D-5, and Shawn Pettit, D-6, and Councilwoman Keesha Hardaway, D-7, voting against it.
Councilwoman Rhonda Neal, D-1, abstained from voting.
Indiana Code says that if a voting member of a body refuses to vote when a majority vote is required, their abstention is considered a “No” vote, Town Attorney Joe Svetanoff said in a statement during the May 28 council meeting. Furthermore, the only way the Clerk-Treasurer would be called in to vote would be if there were an even number of councilors present at the vote; since Neal was present — making it a full council of seven — the ordinance had to be passed by majority, or four votes, he said.
January then sought opinions from attorneys with the State Board of Accounts and Accelerate Indiana Municipalities (formerly known as Indiana Association of Cities and Towns), but told them there were three votes for and three votes against only, Svetanoff said in a statement at Tuesday’s meeting. Once those attorneys were made aware that Neal was present and abstained from the vote, they clarified to him and Interim Town Manager Michael Griffin that they were given “incorrect information” and that Svetanoff is “in the best position” to decide the matter; as well, they told them they had given January “technical advice,” not any sort of official ruling, Svetanoff said.
Additionally, Svetanoff said Griffin offered to get the Indiana Attorney General’s office to weigh in on the matter, but January declined and threatened litigation.
“As has been acknowledged by the State Board of Accounts and AIM, the final legal determination on this matter rests with me, the town attorney. I stand by my legal opinion as being accurately discerning facts and analyzing the most current statutes and secondary case-law authority,” Svetanoff said. “It appears we are destined to litigate this matter. Let me make this clear: This is not an attempt to strip the power of the Clerk-Treasurer. but we simply have a difference of opinion over the legal interpretation of this matter.”
January for his part said that he “shared the exact facts” with SBoA and AIM as well as other attorneys, and that Indiana law says the Clerk-Treasurer is the tie-breaking vote.
“When you all interrupted me during that vote, you broke Roberts Rules of Order while I had the floor by not allowing me to cast that vote,” January said. “There have been other clerk-treasurers that have cast tie-breaking votes in this town since 1972, and there is no way that Roberts Rules of Order is going to subjugate the right for the clerk-treasurer to be the tie-breaking vote when somebody abstains.
“In this case, I was one of the elected members. I was entitled to vote, and you denied me that right, so on that basis, unless we vote on that measure today, we will be going to court to settle it, and we’re going to be setting a precedent for the whole state of Indiana because there’s no way I’m going to allow that to stand.”
“Great. We agree to disagree,” Svetanoff said.
The closing of the town court has been dragging on for more than four years.
The Town Council voted in December 2019 to abolish the Town Court as of Dec. 31, 2020, saying it was losing money on top of having hundreds of thousands of dollars embezzled from it, the Post-Tribune previously reported. On the same day that it was supposed to close, a caucus chose Judge Eugene Velazco to fill the seat of former Town Judge Gina Jones.
Velazco was granted an injunction in Lake Superior Court in January 2021 that stopped the court from shutting down until the matter could be heard and a certified public accountant completed a full audit of the court’s cash bond account. In turn, the Town Court, after reinstating its full operations, was instructed to wind down operations, not take on new cases and start transferring more lengthy cases to Lake Superior Court, County Division.
The matter came up again in August 2022 when the Town Council planned to discuss closing the court September 30, 2022 at a Town Council meeting. The item was met with blowback from the community, and attorneys for Lake County Clerk Mike Brown filed a motion enjoining his office to Velazco’s suit.
The council then amended its ordinance closing the court to remove the closing date and to give the Clerk-Treasurer, Lake County Clerk Mike Brown and the Indiana Office of Court Services instructions on how to wind down the court. It passed in October 2022.
Velazco then filed a new lawsuit against the town council saying the amendments were so substantial, the ordinance should’ve been presented again on first reading, not second reading, court documents said. The two cases were consolidated and the parties each filed for summary judgement, which Velazco lost, according to court records.
Velazco then appealed, but the Court of Appeals in January denied his appeal because Velazco “was not only aware of the amendments to the ordinance; he participated in drafting them and ultimately agreed to them,” court documents show.
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
