City appointments may get wider scrutiny

Monday, January 18, 2021

For only the third time in his 26 years on the Greencastle City Council -- and second year in a row -- Mark Hammer will serve as Council president in 2021.

Hammer, a Republican, received the unanimous backing of the seven-member Council at its January meeting Thursday night. In fact, his re-election serves to underscore the bipartisan nature of the Council as Democrat Adam Cohen made the motion to select Hammer, which was seconded by fellow Democrat Dave Murray.

Cohen, who is serving his fourth term on the Council, stepped aside from the presidency in 2020 after 11 years in the position.

“Let’s hope 2021 is better than 2020 ... that goes without saying,” smiled Hammer, who from all indications is the longest-serving Council member in the city’s history.

After five terms as Second Ward councilman, Hammer is in the midst of his second term as one of the city’s three at-large councilmen.

The November 2019 election changed the political makeup of the City Council from a 4-3 Democrat majority to its current 4-3 Republican majority.

Hammer, Jake Widner, Stacie Langdon and Cody Eckert are Republicans, while the Democrats are Cohen, at-large member Murray and Third Ward councilor Veronica Pejril.

“It’s not really political,” Cohen said.

“It’s serving the community,” Hammer responded. “You’ve got to check your politics at the door.”

It was pointed out during a discussion of city appointments that some boards -- namely the Park Board and Zoning Board (BZA), Dory said -- must be politically balanced. And that can make the appointment process even more difficult.

Politics, Murray suggested, “is one thing that can scare people off. It’s very difficult at this level. It’s incredibly bipartisan. I wouldn’t know if a person elected is an R or a D.

“If you have good people and you do your homework, a lot of decisions are really obvious,” Murray added.

Discussion of how city appointments are made was initiated with a comment by Widner, the youngest and newest member of the Council.

Widner said “it was shocking” to him, “who we have and who we don’t have” as candidates for city appointments.

He said he would like to challenge “the status-quo mentality,” asking what has been done to reach out to potential candidates.

“I’m more than happy to listen to anybody who wants to be involved in local government,” Widner said, adding that he hopes to “engage the community” in filling volunteer positions on city boards and commissions.

“How am I supposed to vote for somebody if I don’t know who they are?” Widner asked, suggesting that candidates could submit bios to the Council to study or should be invited and urged to attend meetings of the group they might be joining.

It’s not that easy, Councilman Cohen responded.

“We’ve had to twist peoples’ arms,” he said, adding that “the BZA is like poison, nobody wants to serve on that board.”

City Attorney Laurie Hardwick said being a BZA member does require doing your homework and takes a lot of understanding of city ordinances and state statutes.

“You have to make unpopular decisions sometimes,” she acknowledged, “when you’re telling people they can’t use their property in a certain way. So it’s very important that we attract people who are not afraid to say no and who also are very much rule followers and are willing to follow the statutes and ordinances.”

Mayor Dory said nominations are gladly accepted. “We can always do a better job of it, there’s no doubt about that.”

Other suggestions included posting volunteer board and commission openings on the city website, as is currently done with job listings.

Summarizing the discussion he initiated, Widner said “it’s a challenge that I accept and a challenge for us to connect and engage our constituents more to see who we can loop into this system.”

In considering current appointments, the Council tabled the opportunity to name someone to succeed Margaret Kenton on the Greencastle Board of Zoning Appeals. Kenton has served her maximum two BZA terms allowed by the city.

Mayor Dory has a position to fill on the BZA as well.

Widner said he has the names of two candidates for the BZA that he plans to talk to prior to the appointments being made.

The Council also has unfilled appointments available to the Human Relations Commission (three-year term beginning July 1) and one on the Sustainability Commission (three-year term expiring May 31, 2024). John Garner was unanimously reappointed to the Sustainability Commission by the Council for another three-year term.

Mayor Dory said he will keep the open appointments as a recurring item on the Council agenda, noting there is extra time to fill those unexpired terms in coming months.

Dory did announce that he has appointed Pete Meyer, a Greencastle native and former college baseball player, coach and athletics director who now owns Moore’s Bar, to succeed John Hennette on the Park Board. Hennette, who served 18 years on the board, resigned at its January meeting.

Meanwhile, the Council agreed to keep its meetings for 2021 on the second Thursday of each month at 7 p.m. at City Hall.

The group also renamed its two appointees to the Greencastle Redevelopment Commission, Erika Gilmore and Lottie Barcus, to additional one-year appointments.

As far as City Council members’ appointments for 2021, they include:

• Greencastle/Putnam County Economic Development Center -- Langdon (reappointment).

• Sustainability Commission -- Pejril (succeeds Cohen).

• Putnam County 911 Board -- Cohen (succeeds Pejril).

• Plan Commission -- Hammer (remains on board).

• Budget Committee -- Murray, Eckert, Langdon and Pejril (Langdon is a reappointment).

• West Central Solid Waste Commission -- Widner (joins Mayor Dory on the board of what is now a two-county operation with the departure of Montgomery County).

Department liaisons named by the City Council -- with the only change being Cohen and Pejril swapping cemetery and utilities positions -- are:

• Fire Department -- Eckert.

• Police Department -- Langdon.

• Public Works -- Murray.

• Utilities -- Pejril.

• Forest Hill Cemetery -- Cohen.

• Parks and Recreation -- Widner.

• Planning Department -- Hammer.

The City Council will next meet in regular session at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 12 at City Hall.

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