The Valparaiso City Council voted unanimously for the appointment of retired Valparaiso Parks Director John Seibert as the city’s representative on the Shared Ethics Advisory Commission, despite hesitation expressed by council member Emilie Hunt at the March 11 meeting.
“I don’t have any inherent objection to Mr. Seibert, but I had hoped to see some new names,” said Hunt, D-At-large.
“To us, this appointment, to a lot of people, is less consequential, although it is important. To others this is an opportunity, could be an opportunity.”
Hunt said she would like the council to “open the doors to other names and get away from the gatekeeping that we’ve seen for quite a while. Mr. Seibert is a well-respected man. But just to add my own personal comment, I’d hoped there would be another choice.”
After 34 years leading the Valparaiso Parks Department, director John Seibert, now 69, retired last July, saying he was “ready for his new calling.”
It was in January when Valparaiso City Attorney Patrick Lyp updated both new and returning city council members and Mayor Jon Costas about the city’s existing ethics ordinance and encouraged the appointment of new members to the city’s ethics commission, explaining, “The council has gone for about 4½ years now without having anyone appointed to that ethics commission.”
“I think initially this (entity) needs to be made up of elected officials,” Lyp advised in January.
“To a large part, it’s for overseeing all of your actions and so I think it’s important to see who the council wants to see on this commission, and then what tweaks for the (ethics) ordinance.”
Council member Ellen Kapitan, D-At-large, advised the committee would be balanced best if comprised of other leaders and appointees not already serving as elected officials of the same governing offices.
Lyp said he understood Kapitan’s concerns but also fears that if “the genesis” of the group isn’t comprised initially of elected officials, the result will be a return to the current “non-functioning ethics commission.”
Lyp said the original ethics commission created in 2005 was led by Bruce Berner, faculty and administrator for the Valparaiso University Law School.
Costas said he’d also submitted “some new names and will continue to do so (for future appointments).”
“I agree with that point (by member Hunt), but in this case, you really need somebody who really knows, has relationships, understands and knows how city hall works and they can be very influential,” Costas said.
“So you really need someone that has had that experience and that background and that person will be more effective in that role.”
Seibert began his tenure as director of parks in Valparaiso at age 30 in 1985. As leader of the Valparaiso Parks Department, he managed 40 full-time employees in addition to 250 seasonal workers and more than 900 volunteers with 20 park landscapes and an $8 million annual budget.
Philip Potempa is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
