Is this when Fairfield Trustee Taletha Coles shows the receipts?
Is this when Fairfield Trustee Taletha Coles shows the receipts?
Plus, Daniels on the Feb. 4 arrest that went viral. A new director for Lafayette Citizens Band. Rapheal Davis on handshake lines. And a sign of Dog n’ Suds spring.
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Thanks for checking in to this morning’s collection of this and that around town …
WHAT WILL FAIRFIELD TWP. TRUSTEE TALETHA COLES SPILL TODAY … AND WHO WILL BE THERE TO HEAR IT?
Under an ongoing state audit of her books and already refusing for months to share with the township board receipts from her spending in 2021, what will Fairfield Township Trustee Taletha Coles reveal in her annual report Tuesday?
A bigger question is: Will anyone be there to sign off on it?
Over the weekend, township board members started scrambling after getting notice Friday afternoon about Cole’s annual report, a requirement set by state law and due by Tuesday.
Two of the three township board members don’t plan to be at the 11 a.m. Tuesday meeting, the notice of which appears printed on a half-piece of paper taped to the locked doors of the Fairfield Township Trustee office on Wabash Avenue.
Board member Ronald “Rocky” Hession raised questions Monday about whether the meeting was legal, even if board members were in a position to make it. (Hession told Coles he was scheduled to work at that time. Perry Schnarr said he had a previous appointment. That leaves Monica Casanova as the lone board member confirming she’d be there.)
Hession’s contention: Coles’ memo to township board members went out by email after 3:30 p.m. Friday. State open meeting laws require 48-hour notice, not including Saturdays, Sundays or legal holidays. If Presidents Day counts – it wasn’t immediately clear whether that was on Fairfield Township’s list of recognized holidays; staff members answered phones behind locked doors Monday – that meant Tuesday’s meeting would be held more than four hours too early, by Hession’s math.
Coles said Monday that she planned to hold the meeting – board members or no board members. She said she posted the meeting notice on the glass door “before Thursday.”
“Ronald Hession will do whatever he can to make himself look good and me look bad,” Coles said. “Do I need to say more?”
Coles passed on a chance to give an update during a township board meeting Feb. 8, saying she’d hold her own meeting. (At the same meeting, tensions building for the past two years flared again, as the township board passed a measure demanding that she not buy an ambulance or make moves to start an ambulance service.)
Coles didn’t respond to questions Monday about what to expect from her annual report or whether she planned to share receipts the town board filed public records requests to see. (Coles’ refusal to share those records is under review by the Indiana public access counselor, according to correspondence Hession shared this week about a formal complaint filed with the state.)
Coles also didn’t indicate whether she intended to address a State Board of Accounts audit that started in August and in January included Indiana State Police delivering a load of records – including receipts, ledgers, vehicle titles and more – to the State Board of Accounts.
But the last two times Coles called meetings to talk about budgets and spending, they haven’t gone well. (During the last one, an October 2021 meeting meant to finalize a 2022 budget, Coles made laps around a conference table, trading jabs and insults about who was in charge. It ended with her making no promises to submit the board’s approved budget cuts to the state.)
“I expect nothing new,” Schnarr said Monday. “Just more questions.”
According to the note on the trustee’s office door, the meeting starts at 11 a.m. Tuesday at the township offices, 718 Wabash Ave.
DANIELS ON THE FEB. 4 ARREST ON CAMPUS
In the first meeting of the faculty-led University Senate since a Feb. 4 arrest of a Black student on campus went viral and prompted an Indiana State Police investigation, Purdue President Mitch Daniels told faculty members there was “no pattern, let alone precedent” of Purdue police using excessive force, according to a report in the Purdue Exponent.
The Exponent reported that Daniels said he’d been asked by the prosecutor to say as little as possible, as the Indiana State Police investigation continues. When Daniels first called for ISP help on reviewing the arrest of Purdue junior Adonis Tuggle, he promised the investigation would be “swift and thorough,” promising to release video and other evidence from that night. Video Tuggle posted, shot by his girlfriend, show him struggling in a snowbank as a police officer holds him down, pushing his forearm into Tuggle’s face and neck.
Police and Tippecanoe County Prosecutor Pat Harrington haven’t released timetables for the investigation or for possible charges for any party in the incident that started with a call from a passerby about a woman potentially being held against her will along a south campus street. Meanwhile, Tuggle’s family has a civil rights attorney pressing for a meeting with Daniels.
Daniels did offer this, telling the University Senate, according to the Exponent account: “There is not a single case or complaint of excessive use of force against any student of any color for seven years under the current record-keeping system.”
The University Senate approved a resolution, stemming from the arrest, requesting “that the administration enhance transparency about campus-police incidents involving force and to institute more robust community (faculty, staff, student) oversight over campus police activity.”
A VIEW FROM THE POSTGAME HANDSHAKE LINE
After this from Sunday’s Michigan-Wisconsin post-game, which drew suspensions and fines of various sizes for all involved …
It was good to see this from Rapheal Davis, former Purdue player now an analyst with the Big Ten Network, post this about handshake lines …
A NEW LAFAYETTE CITIZENS BAND DIRECTOR
Matt Conaway, a faculty member with the Purdue Bands and Orchestras program, was introduced in a Facebook post Monday as the new director of the Lafayette Citizens Band. Conaway will replace Bill Kisinger, who retired in September after 32 years of leading the Citizens Band’s summer concerts in downtown Lafayette and its centerpiece role during the July Fourth Stars and Stripes show. More later, but for now, here’s the intro Conaway received Monday …
SESSIONS START THIS WEEK
A new round of the Peer/Union Counseling Program, a 10-week course about community services available in Greater Lafayette, starts Wednesday, Feb. 23. The program, sponsored by the United Way of Greater Lafayette, the Northern Indiana Area Labor Federation and the AFL/CIO, has been running for more than 40 years, offering a guide to community resources for assistance with food, utilities, medical, mental health, legal, financial and substance abuse. Classes at 5:30-7:30 p.m. Wednesdays, through May 4, at the United Way office, 1114 State St., or via Zoom. The cost: $60. For more information, contact Al Salazar, Labor Liaison-Engagement Associate at the United Way, at asalazar@uwlafayette.org or at 765-742-9077 ext. 231
ROOM 2-22-22
Call it a stretch, but in honor of Feb. 22, 2022 – or 2-2-22 – I give you the opening theme to “Room 222.” (Ask your parents. Better yet, ask your grandparents.) If nothing else, it’s a reminder that opening credits/themes used to take forever. And maybe why we all had to play the recorder for about three weeks in grade school. It all seemed normal on, say, 2-22-72.
FINALLY, SPEAKING OF HOLIDAYS … MAY I TAKE YOUR ORDER
Monday, a huge flock of sandhill cranes flew over our house, heading north toward refuge lands in northwest Indiana. That’s a sure sign of the back end of winter. Here’s another reminder, courtesy of Dave Sattler, former J&C cartoonist who is back at it when the mood strikes. (You should give him a follow.) You might need to hustle to beat him to one of the carhop stations at Dog n’ Suds for this (almost-) spring Lafayette tradition. Click the cartoon for a closer look …
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