Highway garage BOT project remains hot topic during commissioners meeting
- Jacob Dufour | Publisher
- 2 hours ago
- 7 min read
On Tuesday morning at 9:00 am, the Washington County Board of Commissioners held their semimonthly meeting. In attendance were Commissioners Tony Cardwell Jr. and Todd Ewen. Also in attendance were Auditor Kyra Stephenson, Attorney April Geltmaker, and Councilmen Mark “Bubba” Abbott and Preston Shell. Commissioner Phillip Marshall was absent.
After the Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of prayer, Lucy Brenton came forward for public comment. The last few weeks, Brenton’s public comments have been concerning the county's BOT (build-operate-transfer) project – the large highway garage being constructed just south of Salem off SR-135. This time was no different.
“All right,” Brenton began. “I think I've got probably the most, disheartening and eye popping things that I received anonymously.
“So once again, we're talking about the BOT project, which you'll all remember, according to Indiana law, is supposed to be first built out by a contractor to the specifications set out in an RFP (Requests For Proposal, for those of you that may not be in construction), and then once it's done and meets all the specifications, at that point, the municipality can buy it.
“So we started out with about $4.8 million on this, and by my count, it's up to about $6.4 million now. We've only got 30,000 taxpayers in this county. So I don't know how much that works out to, for every man, woman, and child, for something that I don't believe is going well. And in fact, it's my opinion that there is now fraud and collusion to defraud our county taxpayers of the $6.4 million.
“Specifically, and I know, April [Geltmaker, attorney], you've told me that nobody up here on the dais has evidently the requirement to be truthful. I mean, you've sent that to me in an email. I'd also like you to think about your response to my next question, which is, I'm still following up trying to get public access to the records that I requested. But specifically, I'm going to approach and show y'all what is the latest and most terrible thing.
“There is a seal, there is a notary seal here for a Michelle Milligan from Orange County, Indiana, and she received her notary in 2025, specifically February 8th of 2025. She accepted and requested a notary public position.
“Now, notary publics – I have been one multiple times in my life – you'll notice here, that we have a signed date of Paul Eckert as notarized and attested to by Michelle Milligan for June 11, 2024.
“Now, this June 11th, 2024 date, which is actually signed, and attested to in February 2025. So, and April, I know, as an attorney, you'll understand the criminal statutes behind this – Paul Eckert signed that, Michelle Milligan notarized it. This was in June of 2024, but she didn't get her notary until 2025.
“Now, I can tell you as somebody who's been a notary – Kyra, this would have been your responsibility to do the most cursory of checks and investigations – so you can see this was signed in 2024… 2025. Now, when you become a notary, as I’ve been before, you're given a commission number by the government, by the governor, so this is a position by the governor of Indiana.
“When you receive that commission number, that commission number is issued at the time you get your commission. You go through a notary class, and you take tests to make sure that you understand the statutes. The statutes say that you cannot backdate something. And it's a very serious thing under Indiana code 33-42-9-12, that a notarial act must be authenticated and must be completed contemporaneously.
“So what we have here now is evidence, hard evidence that was sent to me anonymously, that this notary signed for this and backdated it. That is a criminal act under Indiana code.”
“Your time is up,” said Commissioner Todd Ewen. “Thank you.”
“Is there a way of verifying the information that you gave to us?” Commissioner Cardwell asked.
Yeah, absolutely,” said Brenton. “Actually, if my printer hadn't died, I would have made you all a courtesy copy of this because this is not just the June one – there are actually four of these. But I went to the Indiana State website and found that Michelle Milligan of Orange County has apparently never had a notary commission before. She got her notary Public Commission issued on February 10th of 2025. So the only way that you would see 2024 dates – and I have four different documents showing this – is if she was willing to collude with Paul Eckert, who signed these. So the two of them got together, and she signed attesting as a notary public, that these documents were actually signed in June of 2024.
“Now, I've been a notary. I actually served on the Notary board for the Indiana Notary Association years ago, so I'm very familiar with the laws. And I looked at this document very carefully, because sometimes a notary will just simply attest that that's your signature, so you could bring something already signed to a notary, say, ‘this my signature, you are known to me,’ you know, maybe it's a friend, maybe it's somebody that you work with. I think they both work for the same contractor–”
“I think you've had enough time,” interjected Commissioner Ewen. “I would suggest that you call the State of Indiana if you're going to–”
“Oh, I've already been in contact with the Indiana State Board of accounts,” Brenton replied. “I've also referred this to the Governor's office, I know a few people there… but we actually have a total of $1,882,650 in these four separate requests for payments that would have gone through the auditor's office. So it would have been Kyra's responsibility to do the most cursory of investigations. And if you simply look at this pay request, the most cursory of investigations would have shown you that this woman's notary public was issued after the date in which she's attesting to sign. That's very, very serious. We're now into millions of dollars of fraud. I have the proof right here.
“Did you have any other questions, Tony [Cardwell]? I mean, I know you're trying to dismiss me, Todd [Ewen], 'cause this is probably uncomfortable for you, but I'm not worried about your–”
“It’s not uncomfortable for me,” Ewen replied. “It's uncomfortable for you.”
“No, it's not uncomfortable for me at all,” Brenton said. “But I am not suicidal, the brakes work on my car. I just really want to put that out here, 'cause I'm not trying to take a dirt nap in this county like other people have.”
“Your time is up,” said Commissioner Ewen. “Thank you.”
“Lucy, the Indiana Secretary of State is the agency who holds the authority to revoke commissions,” said Attorney April Geltmaker. “I'd recommend that you reach out to them. We obviously can't revoke any commission for notaries.”
“Yeah, I was just looking for them to do the investigation as well as the state police, because I know nothing is gonna get done in this county,” Brenton replied. “Everybody seems to be getting Christmas cards with cash.”
Brenton then stepped down. Later, at the end of the meeting, Commissioner Ewen asked Commissioner Cardwell if he had anything to add.
“Yes sir,” said Cardwell. “So, on the BOT project, on the $2 million… I questioned some money that I could not account for. I had got it all accounted for, and would like to announce that I don't have to go back to fifth grade math 'cause I was to the penny on it. So, just to put on the record that the money I was questioning about, there was $268,975.92 that I could not account for with the records I had.
“I have since received them, thanks to April [Geltmaker], I appreciate that. Some of it went for – $181,000 went for stone, utility extension, $44,000, a bond, $40,000 – I’m just rounding the numbers up or down here – and there's loading fees of $2,500. Those all went towards the BOT project, which would have been above and beyond the $4.8 million contract. Just so everybody knows that's what happened. I feel there probably should have been change orders, but they say it didn't have to be, so it didn't get listed on the actual running total, correct? But it comes to the penny. I've been called a liar, I need to go back to fifth grade math, and all that stuff. I got 100% proof of all this.”
“Well, we've known all along that it was going to balance out to the penny,” said Commissioner Ewen.
“Well, but it’s questionable on how that should have went,” said Cardwell. “That's that's the question at hand here. I'm not here to argue that point. I'm here to give facts.
“So, with that being all there on there, and then you add the $409,000 on the land value, the money that come out of the ARP account, which I got all the paperwork, and I can prove 100% of this, there's an extra – we've been perceived that the community, believe it or not, Todd, I have got several calls about this – so here's the facts of the matter:
“I can prove to today, there's probably more, but I don't have the proof, so I ain't gonna sit up here and run my mouth about it – there’s been $1,234,180.42 on top of the 4.8 that was approved by the council that went towards the project. Was it legal, or not legal, that's not for me to argue that point. That's just facts. So, and like I said, I got all the paperwork, I spent days and weeks gathering this and doing the math,” Cardwell concluded.
“When this is all said and done your numbers will be proven inaccurate,” said Commissioner Ewen, “but we'll just leave it at that for now, because this project is not $1.2 million over budget.”
"I didn't say it was over budget,” said Cardwell. “I said, this was above and beyond the $4.8 [million] that was approved on the running totals.”
“That makes it over budget,” said Ewen. “It’s not–”
“Exactly!” exclaimed Cardwell. “You said it, I didn’t."
“According to your numbers,” Ewen clarified.
“Well, I got it. I got them all,” said Cardwell.
“You can show them to us after the meeting, cause I’m–” Ewen began.
“Well, myself amongst others in the community have seeked legal advice on this and that,” Cardwell said. “And so that, you know, we'll go, I’ll get his advice. At that point…”
“I'll tell you what, I wanna–” Ewen began again.
“But I got, I got it all,” Cardwell said. “I got paperwork. Not papers on everything, but… emails and whatnot, and you have everything I got because I had to rely on you all to get it.”
"Yeah, well, I'd sure like to see your numbers,” Ewen said. “Anyway, anything else?”
No one else had anything to add. The meeting was then adjourned.
