BTC members are making strides in the right direction but at least one person seems to still have problems with that pesty state law, the Open Door Law (AN EDITORIAL)

AN EDITORIAL BY THE FIRED EDITOR JOHN ESTRIDGE

My Long Suffering Wife Ruth and I were on vacation this past week, visiting what should have been warmer climates. Thus, I could not view the March 23 Brookville Town Council meeting until Thursday night, March 25.

Let me say right off, I must express my gratitude to the Brookville Town Council members, in attendance at that March 23 meeting, for engaging in meaningful dialogue at an open and public meeting about issues related to the Town of Brookville.

It has been so long since I have heard such an exchange of ideas, especially from different viewpoints on a variety of subjects in a public setting by elected officials of a governmental entity; I thought I was watching a meeting from somewhere else. My sincere thanks to all of you.

This seems to be the way our Republic was meant to work, which I believe it was and should be now and hopefully will continue to be in the future.

Of course, this seemed to become a reality after I wrote some editorials about the BTC members engaging in apparently illegal meetings concerning eliminating public participation at BTC meetings and then the notorious new Town Hall project, which seems to be moving at the speed of a bullet train in a darkened tunnel.

However, and I hate to be the incessant gnat buzzing away around those five council members’ heads, the exchange about the Brookville Redevelopment Commission’s issuing of quotes for green space at the Sixth Street property during BTC’s March 23 meeting flies directly in the face of the board’s new found openness and transparency.

BTC President Curtis Ward said, at the March 23 BTC meeting, he talked with BRC members Todd Thackery and Darrel Flaspohler about putting out quotes for a green space at the Sixth Street property instead of the proposed parking lot in the same space. More about this project later in the editorial. But the exchange came outside the BRC March meeting and was not done in a legal meeting.

I covered the latest BRC meeting. I have covered most BRC meetings. At no time during the latest meeting did the BRC members talk about issuing a request for bids for green space. At previous meetings, making the property a green space was rarely talked about. What was discussed at BRC’s March meeting was the BRC not having enough money available to set aside for the BTC proposed project of a 50-50 grant for sidewalks in Brookville.

The 50-50 grant project is a brainchild of BTC’s 21 for 21 Project. These are 21 projects people from organizations related to Brookville and actual taxpaying residents came up with to be done during 2021. The overall premise of the 21 for 21 Program seems to be a very good idea, and the 50-50 grant program has worked in other local communities such as Liberty. It will be funded by the BRC.

But – and for me this is a big but – even if something seems like a good thing, one cannot circumvent Indiana’s Open Door Law to get to that good end. Again, the end does not justify the means.

BRC members, and three spoke up very forcefully as BTC and BRC member Brooke Leffingwell continuously tried to get money set aside for the 50-50 Sidewalk Program, said they could not set aside the money until the BRC found out how much money the BRC needs to spend on the Sixth Street Project and its own Sidewalk Project.

This could get confusing as there are two separate sidewalk projects. The BRC Sidewalk Project is the construction of a sidewalk from near the intersection of Fairfield Avenue and Indiana 101 to the edge of the Brookville Elementary School property along Oxford Pike.

The BRC Sidewalk Project is funded through a federal Department of Transportation Grant administered by the Indiana Department of Transportation. It is a matching grant so the BRC will have to put up a good percentage of the cost. However, bids have not been let or even an engineering estimate released so there is no way the BRC knows at this point how much money it needs to set aside for that project.

Then there is the Sixth Street Project. As Ward said during the BTC meeting, the Sixth Street Project has been ongoing since 2015. There were abandoned buildings at the site, and they were in terrible disrepair. BTC members, at that time, went through the Blight Elimination Program, which was administered by the state.

With the Blight Elimination Program, the state would pay to have the buildings razed. Then, the town, who initiated the process, (but in this case the BRC since it took over the project after its inception) would have other options for the use of the land. BTC and later BRC – after its inception — decided to make it a public parking lot.

This program faced incessant delays caused, in most part, by a state bureaucracy bloated to the point of paralysis. Once the BTC and then BRC finally got the go-ahead to demolish the buildings, there were more delays. For the past 18 months or so after the buildings were demolished, the BRC has had engineering studies done regarding the property.

What has transpired so far is a plan to have seven non-metered parking spaces. Vehicular access is from Sixth Street with pedestrian access going through a narrow walkway between Korner’s and Nixie’s to Main Street. The big money issue for the site is the need for retaining walls. Before the demolition, there was a large retaining wall along Sixth Street. It was in bad disrepair and had to be removed. It needs to be replaced as well as one between the lot and Church Street on the east side.

As mentioned earlier, the money may be better spent on the 50-50 Sidewalk Project. And putting that space in green space instead of getting seven new, free parking spaces for the public may be the way to go. However, it should have been the BRC members discussing it and voting on it all in an open meeting. It should not have been Curtis Ward having a non-public meeting and pressing his will against another board’s public wishes and definitely not all of that being done away from public view.

At the March 23 BTC meeting, Curtis Ward said he told Thackery and Flaspohler of the need for putting out quotes for green space as a way of expediting the Sixth Street Project. However, his desire to expedite the project did not seem to make itself known until the BRC members refused to set money aside for the 50-50 Sidewalk Project at their March meeting.

Again and again, Curtis Ward seems to flaunt the state’s public laws to get what he wants when he wants it. It is as if Curtis Ward knows everything that is right for the town and no one else does.

His going outside the state law has not been right. It is not right now. And it won’t be right in the future. Go through the avenues allowed by state law and do something correctly, and not in the proverbial smoke-filled back room with your cronies.