Hardinsburg Debate Sparks Heated Discussions at Commissioners Meeting
- Jacob Dufour | Publisher
- May 21
- 10 min read
Updated: May 24
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The Washington County Commissioners meeting this week was marked by passionate debates over the potential rescission of the 2022 decision to dissolve the town of Hardinsburg. Residents and officials voiced divergent opinions on whether the town should regain its incorporated status or remain under county governance.
Resident Stephen Coots, a vocal opponent of reincorporation, urged the commissioners to delay taking action. He emphasized that the original dissolution was supported by a majority of residents seeking lower taxes and improved services. "75% of the people wanted to see the town dissolved and the de facto town board eliminated," Coots said. "The town was being governed by an illegitimate group, and the State Board of Government Finance had even decided that they were going to cut funding to the town because the town governing body was not a legitimate government structure.
"We now have lower taxes, we have the roads being taken care of by the county, snow removal is excellent, right of ways are mowed, if a tree goes down in a storm, they're immediately down there taking care of it - services are great. We are now being governed by you gentlemen, and I would hope that in your opinion, you would think you are doing a good job... which a lot of us in Hardinsburg feel like you're doing a good job.
"To wrap up my comments, I'm asking you today not to take action, not to rescind what has been done. Table your action. I've directed this to you and to you," he said, pointing to Commissioners Ewen and Marshall, "because you carry the majority vote here. I don't believe anyone at this point knows whether the registered voters within the town limits of the unincorporated town of Hardinsburg do or do not want to be reincorporated.
"I'm asking you to table the action today until it can be established what the true wishes of the people of the town of Hardinsburg are. And the way to do that would be to include a referendum on the next election ballot."
"We heard from Tony (Commissioner Cardwell) that the town of Hardinsburg wanted to be reinstated," said Commissioner Marshall.
"I have never spoken to Mr. Cardwell," Coots replied. "I've never heard from him, my support in his campaign was neither solicited, nor I believe desired, and quite frankly, I don't consider him my representative. So for him to tell you what the townspeople and the town of Hardinsburg desire... in my opinion, Mr. Cardwell represents a very limited and self-serving constituency."
Stephen's wife, Denise Coots, echoed his sentiments, questioning the legality of reinstating the town without thorough investigation and public input. "This does not fix anything; it actually makes it more confusing," she remarked.
Pamela Lockhart raised concerns about the senior center's future. "The town of Hardinsburg's never done nothing for us. We paid for everything, and they owned it. Is it gonna go back that way? They actually stole it from us," she said. "Are we gonna go back in limbo, that we don't own the building, but we're gonna cover everything again, when it's not our building?"
"I can't answer that right now," Commissioner Marshall replied. "Mr. Cardwell – I understood – had said that the people of Hardinsburg wanted the town reinstated."
"The majority of it does," Cardwell chimed in.
"If the town's like it was last time," concluded Lockhart, "We're basically up a creek without a paddle."
Not everyone present was against the reinstation of the town. Citizen Lucy Brenton approached the stand and immediately addressed Stephen and Denise Coots. "This gentleman and lady just got up and claimed that 75% of people wanted the town of Hardinsburg dissolved," she began, "but every single person I have talked to feels incensed and feels like it is a power grab that the county came in, took the money from Hardinsburg, and took the land from Hardinsburg.
"There's also some rumors that have been going on for years about the ballpark," she segued. "The rumor about the ballpark is that someone has control of it... and I don't know if it's true, I just want to put it in the record – that they are not wanting the town to come back as a town because that gives them an in to continue controlling the ballpark and the profits from it. Apparently, keeping the town dissolved would allow this person to profit."
She then shifted her attention to Pam Lockhart. "What I've been told from being around town is that she was somehow promised the senior center? She seems to have somehow been promised the senior center years ago, she just used the exact words, 'you stole it from us'. Who is us? She seems to think that a lot of people are confused about the senior center and who owns it now, I mean, could I squat in a building and have it mowed a few times, and get a nice $300,000 - $400,00 piece of property? The fact is that these assets belonged to the town of Hardinsburg and its taxpayers, and so it seems that this is not an imminent domain situation."
Circling back, she concluded, "Todd Rokita said Hardinsburg was created by an act of legislature, so it has to be dissolved by an act of legislature. So it seems to me the proper thing to do is to rescind, take care of the taxpayers and the townspeople of Hardinsburg, and let them bring up their own leaders to run their own town, just as it was done in the past. And I want to make sure that I put out there that the money that was taken from the bank accounts needs to be restored. There was money in the bank accounts, from what I've been told –"
"Everything has been accounted for," Marshall cut in. "Everything is in a private account. Everything went to the town of Hardinsburg. The county has used no part of your money. The only money that was used was to pay your expenses."
Well, I'm sure we would all love to see the spreadsheet," Brenton replied.
The meeting also addressed issues beyond Hardinsburg's status. Ron Blackman, a local contractor, alleged bias in the awarding of county contracts, claiming that small businesses are often overlooked in favor of larger firms. He submitted bids for upcoming projects, expressing hope for a fair evaluation process.
"As a small contractor here in the county, most of the time I don't even bother to bid, because God knows that every single job in this county goes to the one and only big contractor here, who apparently must have his fingers in everybody's pockets who want to buddy up to him," Blackman said angrily. "Small businesses deserve the exact same rights. It's actually in the State of Indiana's rules. Furthermore, I am legally disabled, and there is the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Program for the State of Indiana."
He presented some folders. "Now, I have two bids here for work to be done on Olive Branch and Garrison Hollow Road. No, I did not turn these in downstairs, because my personal belief is, that my bids would be filtered out and not presented before this board. Minorities, disabled, and veterans are supposed to have preferential choice over other contractors. I live in an economically blighted area. All these weighing factors are things that are supposed to give a disadvantaged veteran a chance.
"Now, we all know the 'one contractor' in the county just got a nice bid that was $80,000 over another company that I've done work with that is a very good company. In fact, they do better quality work. As a matter of fact, as a small contractor, I've had to go back numerous times on different jobs that the 'big boy' does, and pardon the expression, screws up. Quality over quantity. Some fairness would be really, really appreciated. I would love to have the opportunity to give you these, and these bids be considered solely on the merit of price. I know there is a process for turning the bids in, but like I said, I figured my bid would be filtered out before it ever reached here."
"I don't understand why you're saying 'filtered out'," replied Auditor Kyra Stephenson. "I receive these in my office, they are sealed, they are date stamped, so to imply that we are filtering them out... I don't know who that's coming from."
"All bids must be presented, they are opened in a public meeting, they are not filtered," said commissioner attorney April Geltmaker. "We have received three for each bid. By law, we can take it [indicating Blackman's bids], but it's going to be excluded as unresponsive."
Blackman then left the room, and Geltmaker opened and read aloud the bids for Olive Branch and Garrison Hollow Road. For Garrison Hollow Road, the submitted bids were:
Walls Excavating: $93,600
Temple & Temple: $58,400
KLB Excavating Inc: $48,900
For Olive Branch Road:
Walls Excavating: $82,000
Temple & Temple: $48,700
KLB Excavating Inc: $46,500
"That is for all bids received before the deadline of this morning at 9 am." Geltmaker said. "No other bids."
Afterwards, the subject shifted back to Hardinsburg as Commissioner Marshall called up Clerk of Courts Stephanie Rockey.
“Mr. Cardwell has been telling us for a year that the people of Hardinsburg want it back," Marshall began, "but I've heard some things this morning from the people who don't want it back. I've heard from the State, that says, 'rescind it'. I've heard from you saying, 'we can't rescind it'. Before we get in the middle of something again, what's gonna happen if we rescind the motion? Can we do a referendum?”
"We can, there is a process to that," began Rockey, who went on to explain that when she was elected, it was brought to her attention that the town board of Hardinsburg was not operating properly because they did not hold elections and records could not be found of the board conducting any government business.
"If they're going to become a governing body of a town again, they need to do the steps as required, and they would need to pass ordinances, and they would have to pay for their first election because it's a municipality," Rockey continued, recommending that the people of Hardinsburg are asked what they want before taking further action.
"If you just rescind it, you're saying basically, 'elections and the democratic process is moot', and you're putting them right back where they were," Rockey concluded, saying that the best course of action would be to add the question to the ballots of voters living in the town limits of Hardinsburg in the upcoming 2026 election.
Ultimately, Commissioner Todd Ewen moved to table the ordinance to rescind the dissolution, with Commissioner Phillip Marshall seconding. The motion passed 2-1, with Commissioner Tony Cardwell dissenting.
Auditor Kyra Stephenson concluded the meeting by reading a statement concerning the Hardinsburg subject. "This has been going on way too long," she began. "I've been dealing with it since it started, and I'm sick of it. There's so many lies and misrepresentation out there, so I'm just gonna start off by saying that contrary to what you have been told by - I've been told - Tony Cardwell, the decision to dissolve the town of Hardinsburg was not taken lightly. The commissioners, Todd Ewen, Phillip Marshall, and Rick Roberts, had many conversations with state officials on what the options were to deal with the accusations that the town board members had at that time. I would sit through those meetings, and I sit though many phone calls and discussions and know what forethought and work went into this. They looked for any way possible to not have to make the decision to dissolve the town. The commissioners did not know there was an issue with the election board members until [unintelligible name] and J. Davisson requested a meeting in April of 2022, which is when all of this started. Many of you have no idea what all was involved with this decision, nor do you know how hard they worked trying to get the state off the board members' backs. This has not been an easy road for commissioners Marshall, Ewen, or Roberts. They have only wanted what was in the best interest for the citizens of this area. And for Tony Cardwell to spread lies that Rick Roberts single-handedly took down the town of Hardinsburg is asinine. I can assure you there was never any ill intent with this decision. One thing I'm sure most of you don't know is that a political action committee was formed called the Hardinsburg P.A.C. Do you know who the members of the P.A.C. are? Well, I can tell you – it's [unintelligible name] and Tony Cardwell. The very same Tony Cardwell who sits here and tries to make you think he's going to save you. This Hardinsburg P.A.C. filed a lawsuit against the county which then tied the county's hands from doing anything at all. Do you also know who is footing the bill for this lawsuit? Your county tax dollars. He has cost you thousands of dollars with this lawsuit. So if you want to complain and be mad at someone, maybe you should look at him – because of him, the county's hands have been tied and he has cost the county's taxpayers an unneeded expense. I find it disgusting that all of the rumors and lies that were spread have made the citizens of this area so bitter – and not just towards their county government, but even toward their own neighbors and friends. The fact that one individual can cause so much hatred is beyond disgusting. No one has ever tried to make things worse for Hardinsburg and its citizens. Those three commissioners I mentioned above have only tried to do what they were being told to do by the State and what they felt was in the best interest of the citizens. And no money has ever been misused."
After the meeting, The Washington County Times approached Commissioner Tony Cardwell for comment. "I got railroaded again," said Cardwell. "They acted like they were going to do something, and I feel like they had it pre-planned to where they wouldn't. I think that's what they had planned from the get-go. Of course, the personal bashing shouldn't have happened, either."
The next day, May 21st, a poll was posted to the Facebook group Locals of Hardinsburg, Indiana, asking residents if they supported the reincorporation of the town, or preferred to remain under county governance. At the time of this publication, the poll had 36 votes, with 81% voting for reincorporation, 2% voting for continued dissolution, and 17% saying they were undecided and wanted more information.
The Washington County Times is now completely free for everyone — no paywalls, no subscriptions, just unlimited access to local news. We believe journalism should be accessible to all, but it still takes time and resources to produce. If you value our work, you can support it with a recurring donation. Click below to learn more!
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