Editor, Times-Union: I attended the Winona Lake Town Council meeting, Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2011, as I do quite often. After the normal functions to get the meeting started, it turned into the most juvenile display of town government I have witnessed.
It started with councilwoman Joy Lohse reading a letter many paragraphs long which I can only paraphrase. This letter basically seemed to say the town council and the public should be satisfied with the information on the voluntary donation fund as reported by the clerk-treasurer. Further, the town council president has no right, in her opinion, to question this report and it is totally acceptable that the only ones to know some of these donors is the town office staff – not the town council. Then, councilwoman Lohse left the meeting and was no longer available to conduct town business, which she was elected and compensated to do. Maybe she thought, since the clerk-treasurer has deserted meetings more than once in the recent past, it was the way to handle frustration. Or, it may have been a very important engagement she needed to rush off to.
This episode was quickly followed up by councilman Bruce Shaffner chastising the town council president for asking for the donor information and then proceeding to read an e-mail he had received from a supposed donor to the fund. Again, paraphrasing, as the e-mail was five or six paragraphs long, this donor did not want their name or any other information about them released – to the council members or anyone else. Is our town basically empowered by the needs of anonymous donors? The e-mail seemed to boil down to how could anyone on the council think they could have any right to know who is making volunteer donations to this fund? Councilman Shaffner did not state if this person was a tax-paying Winona Lake citizen, a vendor doing business with the town, or a vendor who would like to do business with the town. Of course, the e-mail was signed anonymous, only to be known to councilman Shaffner, or maybe he did get an anonymous e-mail on his system.
Continually, during this time frame, was Mr. Hicks, asking why anyone had the right to question the actions of his wife, Retha Hicks, the town clerk-treasurer. What Mr. Hicks seems to have forgotten is in our democratic society we have the right to question the actions of our elected officials, be they senators, representatives, governors, etc. I know of no exemption for the office of clerk-treasurer. Not only do we have the right to question, but if we are not happy with the answers, we can go to the polls at the next election for this person and speak our minds.
After all of the discussion on this donation fund, no one at the meeting had a copy of the ordinance which set it up in the first place, including the required information for making a donation. Nobody seems to be able to find a record of this.
The town council finally decided they may need a policy for donations to this fund (where was councilwoman Lohse when they needed her input the most?).
I have a simple recommendation for the policy. To make a donation to this volunteer fund, you must have the name of the donor, address, date of the gift, reason for the gift, and how it is to be used.
During the May primary election, it was stated many times, Winona Lake has one of the lowest tax rates in the county. I would rather see the tax rates go up a few pennies per hundred if the town needs the money, than to accept funds from a donor who is not comfortable giving the above outlined information.
