Commissioners approve appointees, Brenton and Marshall clash over bidding

The January 6 Commissioners Meeting began like normal with the Pledge of Allegiance followed by a prayer. However, with this being the first meeting of the calendar year, it was time to approve the president and vice president positions within the Board of Commissioners. All three commissioners agreed that Commissioner Phillip Marshall should be retained as president, and Commissioner Todd Ewen should be retained as vice president. Following this and the approval of the agenda, Lucy Brenton was called forward to present her public comment regarding “county business.”

Commissioner Phillip Marshall

“Before I sit down and have my three minutes begin, I have a question for April [Geltmaker] since she is the attorney on the board,” began Brenton. “April, I’m curious as somebody who lives in the county, what is the duty that each of our commissioners – whether on this board, or others here in the county – have to the citizens for honesty? Are these meetings under penalty of perjury? Is there a higher duty that they are called to in the space of honesty and integrity?”

“I’ll need some more information,” replied Geltmaker. “I don’t know what you are referring to.”

“Are public officials allowed to lie to us in a public meeting such as this?” asked Brenton.

“I’m not going to have the back-and-forth,” said Geltmaker. “If you have a public comment, now is your time. You have three minutes, and then you can reach out to me for further questions.”

“All right, so note that the attorney refused to answer whether or not public officials are allowed to lie to their constituents in person,” said Brenton. “I would like to bring to light Luke 12:2-3. It says: ‘nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be made known. Accordingly, whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.’ Todd, I’m going to ask you first. Have you met with or had discussions with anyone from Hecate or any of its affiliated or parent companies or entities and talked with them about the proposed solar in this county?”

“No,” replied Commissioner Todd Ewen.

“So, you have not talked with any Hecate representative, affiliate, entity, or anybody involved in that project?” asked Brenton.

“I don’t even know who you’re talking about,” said Commissioner Ewen.

“Okay. I don’t believe that,” Brenton replied. “We have talked about Hecate, the solar company, many times. But that’s okay, I’m not going to use my time on you anymore. Phillip, yes or no? Tony, yes or no?”

“No,” replied Commissioners Phillip Marshall and Tony Cardwell.

“Okay, there we go,” continued Brenton. “Yesterday, a gentleman stood up and shared a startling opinion about ordinances passed by the city commissioners. It seems he is of the opinion that signatures have jumped from one document to another. [He said] that signature pages were photocopied from one ordinance and then attached to another without actual wet signatures that would signify the intention and agreement of each signing member. Surely, no one would be that fraudulent or stupid. Kyra, you were at that meeting yesterday as the auditor. Are you the person that would investigate this situation?”

“I don’t have to answer you,” said Auditor Kyra Stephenson.

Auditor Kyra Stephenson

“There you go. Let it be said that there is a lack of transparency, and everybody has declined to answer questions honestly,” said Brenton.

“That’s not true, I answered your question,” said Ewen.

“Well, you answered my question, but I doubt the veracity of it,” remarked Brenton. “There’s an 8,000 acre proposed solar project in our county, and you mean to tell me that you and Ken Temple and people who would profit from the excavation–”

“Who?” asked Ewen.

“Why have a big excavation company that gets priority and preferential treatment, and we were just spanked by the State of Indiana for the actions of the county commissioners, specifically you Ewen and Phil, in awarding that contract,” Brenton said.

“That was paving,” said Ewen.

“Okay, well, I see excavation on there, too,” said Brenton. “But I think there will be some paving for those big solar projects. Anyway–”

“Wait, wait. You said, ‘Ewen and Phil.’ How did ‘Phil’ get into this? What are you saying?” exclaimed Marshall.

“She’s trying to accuse you of lying,” said Ewen.

“No, I’m not accusing him of lying. I’m saying that I don’t believe you – actually, I said I don’t believe Todd,” Brenton stated. “What I brought up with your name is that when there was the opportunity for us to take the lowest bid, you and Todd did not take the lowest bid. And then later, we were spanked by the State of Indiana. Tony Cardwell was the only one to vote to give that contract that was in question.”

Lucy Brenton

“I have to be honest with you as an individual and as a commissioner,” began Marshall. “I am looking out for the people of Washington County, and I’m not going to hide that whatsoever. There are a lot of people – and I don’t know half of them down at Temple & Temple anymore – I will tell you that most of the money that we spend in this county stays here. Are you aware that Harrison County, for instance, used to give us 2% of the river boat, but Harrison County said that we need to look out for ourselves right now. They don’t have enough money, so they’re going to cut us back to 1%. That is about a $200,000 cut that we’re going to make. Where do you think that money is going to come from to maintain this county? Now, if I turn around and half of the people from Temple & Temple are any place else – I don’t care, I am looking out for the constituents of Washington County to maintain the money to operate this county. Are you aware of the taxes – are you hearing anything on the news about the taxes and what we’re headed for? Do you know how we maintain this county? Do you know how we do all of this?”

“By stealing from the constituents,” said Brenton. “Taxation is theft.”

“No, we don’t steal from the constituents! You came in here a while back wanting to make a speech about the city water and the streets being torn up. We don’t have anything to do with the city. The city is the City of Salem. But you accuse us of doing the street tearing up of the county. We don’t have anything to do with that.”

“That is not true,” said Brenton.

“Yes you did, it’s on tape!” replied Marshall.

“Well then play the tape. We’d all like to hear it,” Brenton remarked. “I’ll tell you what we do know, Phil. Might does not make right, or it shouldn’t. We’re supposed to be a county of laws. I don’t care what Harrison County is doing. It’s sad that they have less money to give us, but that was always apparently a gift… The fact of the matter is, the state law is very clear that we are supposed to take the lowest bidder, and we didn’t. That was not my vote. That was not Tony Cardwell’s vote. That was your vote and Todd’s vote. And then we got spanked by the State of Indiana, and you put hundreds of thousands of grant money at risk. Not just for the present, but for the future. The state was very clear that if our county fails to follow the law as required, we are in danger of not having those funds in the future.”

“I will stand my ground on my vote on that, and I will not decline,” said Marshall. “I am looking out for the people of Washington County.”

“Are you looking out for the employees of Temple & Temple that live in Harrison County?” Brenton asked. “You brought up Harrison County. Are we going to take a vote and say, ‘we have ten people that live in Harrison County that work for Temple & Temple, so they need that contract versus the 11 people that are in Washington County’? No. We are supposed to follow the laws. We’re not supposed to make individual judgements on whether or not that contract gets here. It’s supposed to go to the lowest bidder.”

“Not always,” said Ewen.

“Well, the State of Indiana says that we are required to take the lowest bidder unless there is some reason that can be clearly demonstrated that the company is incompetent or inexperienced. C&R Construction was able to do it, and they had proven it before. They are a big company as well,” Brenton said.

“In the 13 years here, I have called Temple & Temple many times to help me out in a situation of life and death in some cases,” said Marshall.

Marshall went on to give several examples of how Temple & Temple Excavating and Paving has assisted him in many different situations.

“When I can call a local company to help the constituents of this county, I do owe them respect, and I do appreciate what they do for this county,” he said. “I do not have anything against C&R. I don’t have anything against anybody else. [Temple & Temple] is a local company that has local equipment that we can’t afford in this county. You think everything goes to Temple & Temple. You’ve got something against [Ken Temple].”

“I don’t, I think he is a fine man who has done a lot for this county, but he has to follow the law just like you do,” said Brenton.

“I have to respect what I’ve got. Otherwise, next time I need help, I’m not going to have it,” Marshall said.

“This is what I’m hearing you say: Ken Temple is only a good neighbor to this county and does things because he expects to get a pay back in the end. But as Christians, we’re called to do things for the Lord, and without thought of gain. So, either he’s a good neighbor who would do it anyway, or he is expecting and hoping that you’re going to get him on the back end. Ken Temple had the opportunity to have the lowest bid, and he didn’t because he felt confident that you, and perhaps Todd, would vote for it regardless of the amount of the bid. You get one chance to make those bids. He could have come in $100,000 less and saved us an extra $11,000.”

“Your time is up, and I’m not talking about Ken Temple anymore,” said Marshall. “I am talking about the company. I respect it.”

“Yeah, I am grateful for the things that he does,” Brenton said. “He employs a lot of people here. That employment flows down into taxes that were all stolen from at the point of a gun. If I didn’t pay my property taxes, you would have somebody with a gun at my door eventually to kick me off the land that I paid for. Taxation is theft.”

With that, Lucy Brenton left the stand, and the meeting proceeded. The commissioners then approved the minutes from the previous meeting as well as claims and payroll. They then invited Zach Richards from Knapp Miller Brown to speak about commercial insurance.

Zach Richards

“What I handed you are the updated appraisals,” began Richards. “You guys have the third-party – Bucklin and Associates – that do the appraisals for the courthouse, the detention center, Superior Court building, government building, the women’s center building, and the ambulance service building… On average, the replacement costs were not too bad this year. It went up to about 4%. Just to give you an idea, the estimated replacement cost for the courthouse last year was $11,557,200. The new estimated replacement cost is $12,437,200. So, we did have a little bit of an increase there. This is just to give you guys an idea on what these buildings are insured for. The detention center and Superior Court buildings are going up to $30,206,500. The Washington County government building is $3,557,800. The women’s shelter on the Square has an estimated replacement cost of $1,514,800, and the ambulance building on Webb Street has a replacement cost of $1,465,400. You’ve got a third-party doing this that specializes in these types of buildings just to make sure that we are accurate in how much we are insuring these buildings for.

“On the renewal side for the commercial insurance coming up here in February,” continued Richards. “I have received updated information on the exposure summary which includes a number of employees, the population numbers, as well as vehicles – I’ve got all that information. I’ve got a couple more documents that are still coming in: updating drivers lists, and then also there is a law enforcement questionnaire that needs to be coming in. I believe they were supposed to come in yesterday afternoon or this morning, so we’re still waiting on that. Once we get those in, we will get those numbers to you as soon as possible. I was hoping to have renewal numbers for you. Like I said last time, they’re not expecting a large increase, if any. It should be single-digit increases. I’m hoping we’re going to fall into that 4-8% increase. A lot of that has to do with property increasing in value.”

Commissioner Tony Cardwell

Commissioner Todd Ewen

Paul Eckart

The commissioners then read a list of board appointments for 2026:

Director of Hoosier Uplands – Lana Sullivan

Cemetery Commission – Carrie Chastain

ABC Board – Lori Jackson

Borden Tri-County Regional Water District – Thomas Hein

Blue River Fire District – No Change

Washington County Redevelopment – No Change

Property Tax Assessment Board of Appeals – Lori Gilstrap and Michael Carlile

Public Defender Board – Phillip Marshall

Southern Indiana Workforce Board Region 10 – Jennifer Bowers

Economic Growth Partnership Board – Tony Cardwell replacing Todd Ewen

The commissioners then approved the board appointments listed above.

The meeting concluded with a brief update from Paul Eckart regarding the construction of the Highway Garage project. Following this update, the January 6 commissioners meeting was promptly adjourned.