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Floyd County Gets the Chance for Better Leadership
This November, Floyd County has a chance to elect one of our county’s finest citizens to the county Board of Commissioners. With the encouragement of many residents, Dennis Roudenbush is a candidate for the 3rd District seat. Although the county is composed of 3 districts, each commissioner actually represents the entire county. Roudenbush already represents the residents of Georgetown and Georgetown Township as their elected Township Trustee, and he has expressed much excitement about the prospect of helping even more county residents as their Commissioner. Dennis is a lifelong county resident and longtime manager of the Floyd Central Thriftway, and he says he shares the growing frustration of Floyd’s citizens with recent developments in the community. As a concerned taxpayer, Roudenbush strongly objects to the recently reported waste and misuse of tax money by certain officials, and he believes that he must act to instill more integrity and accountability into the county’s government affairs. Like most residents, he is especially frustrated at the significant sums consumed by the murder trial of former police officer David Camm and the subsequent media circus surrounding the county prosecutor’s apparent misconduct.
A review of official documents obtained from the county auditor and the commissioners’ office shows that the county’s elected prosecutor, Keith Henderson, has spent at least $27,539.00 of taxpayer funds to conduct his own personal legal affairs defending an ethics grievance filed against him, presumably for improperly negotiating a book-publishing deal during the trial. His conduct is specifically prohibited by Rule 1.8(d) of the Indiana attorneys’ Rules of Professional Conduct. Mr. Henderson’s alleged misappropriation of trial funds is the subject of an anticipated investigation by several state agencies, including the State Board of Accounts and the Indian Supreme Court’s Disciplinary Commission. When the matter was brought to their attention at their February 21, 2012 meeting, Commissioners Mark Seabrook (R) and Steve Bush (R) refused to support the efforts of Commissioner Chuck Freiberger (D) to recover the tax funds, essentially voting to let their fellow Republican Henderson keep all of the money. Considering that the sum of tax money is more than 8 months of the average Floyd County wage earner’s income of $39,788.00, many residents are upset at what appears to be an abuse of their trust and the political donation of their hard-earned money. Floyd’s taxpayers are also frustrated and concerned that Mr. Henderson’s handling of the murder trial will necessitate yet a third trial with an estimated price tag of an additional $ 1 million dollars. Indiana’s Court of Appeals and Supreme Court both recently ordered Henderson removed from the case because of his self-inflicted conflict of interest, with his efforts to fight his removal helping to delay the third trial for approximately two more years.
The Board of Commissioners were given more opportunities to demand the return of Floyd taxpayers’ money during their meetings of October 2 and 16, 2012 when resident Joseph Moore presented them with a comprehensive summary of events leading to the alleged diversion of funds, supported by official vouchers and invoices as well as the commissioners’ own minutes of their February 21 meeting. Court documents and the Attorney General’s Office both confirm that Henderson’s personal attorney did not represent him in any of the Camm proceedings, indicating that he had obtained county funds under false pretenses. Despite acknowledging that they had not approved funds for Henderson’s ethics defense, Commissioners Bush and Seabrook again refused any effort to recover the money or even to investigate the matter. Rick Fox, attorney for the commissioners and brother-in-law of Keith Henderson, admitted that no one on behalf of the Board has looked into the matter since it was discussed at their February meeting and, ironically, said their failure to investigate precluded them from taking any action. Following Moore to the podium was local civic watchdog, George Mouser, who admonished the board that a private citizen was the only person to investigate a scandal that the commissioners had known about for at least 8 months.
Mr. Roudenbush, who attended the commissioners meetings, stated that, if elected, one of his first efforts will be to launch an investigation and recover any funds wrongly obtained by Mr. Henderson. “Our residents work too hard to have their money just given away to highly-paid elected officials,” Roudenbush said, “especially for an ethics problem caused by their attempt to profit from a private book deal that conflicted with their official duties. We weren’t going to receive a penny from that book deal but now we’re expected to pay his private lawyer $375.00 per hour? I don’t think that’s right.”
Positions on the issues:
1. Merger with New Albany on services and resources:
Roudenbush believes that our emergency services providers should be consulted; the cost-savings should be analyzed; and commissioners should not be afraid to relinquish some control to the city if fairness and the facts warrant it. Egos should not prevent common sense solutions.
Bush has repeatedly claimed that he favors consolidation to “streamline services” and save money, but several joint city-county efforts have been thwarted or even reversed during his term. He has refused to discuss equitable cost-sharing and insists upon maintaining full control over any merged departments, even where the city clearly shoulders most of the work or cost, e.g., the aborted fire-dispatch merger and the anticipated split of the county parks system.
2. Keith Henderson scandal:
Roudenbush insists upon a full investigation and a demand for the return of any misappropriated tax money.
Bush, while acknowledging that the money appears to have been misspent, has nonetheless stated that he “supports our prosecutor,” and has refused every effort to recover the funds or even to request an official investigation.
3. Open and transparent government:
Roudenbush has proposed a number of changes to encourage public participation in the commissioners meetings and decision-making process, including holding meetings around the county, publishing detailed agendas before meetings, and allowing public comment before voting on any issue. He also favors the use of resident surveys or referendums whenever practical before a vote is taken by the commissioners, to better assess public sentiment on the issues.
Bush, despite campaigning every time on promises of “openness and transparency,” has refused to support the advance publication of meeting agendas and, as president of the commissioners, discourages public comment until the end of each meeting, long after the commissioners have already voted on the issues.
4. Fiscal accountability:
Roudenbush is a proven fiscal conservative who has the know-how and many years experience managing budgets, payrolls, insurance plans, vendors and contractors, and personnel. He believes that commissioners have a duty to scrutinize every request for money rather than merely rubber-stamping all claims submitted by the auditor’s office or other county departments.
Bush is a career police office with no real fiscal training or experience. His lack of knowledge on financial matters causes him to rely entirely on the advice of other county employees, resulting in confusion, overspending, and problems such as the Henderson scandal and the growing costs of the Camm trials.
Bush also has an ongoing conflict of interest because, as a police officer, he votes for every (or almost every) funding request from his law enforcement colleagues without questioning their necessity or merits. His close working relationship with the county prosecutor is also one of the factors believed to be behind his refusal to support an investigation of Keith Henderson’s alleged misappropriations.
5. Economic growth:
Roudenbush believes that Floyd County is best served by reasonable planning and growth, including the expansion of business in common-sense locations such as those nearest to our major highways. By enticing employers first, we can better pay for any future growth of residential areas. This fits in with his belief in reasonable and limited growth that will not drastically alter or destroy the rural character of our county that we all cherish.
Bush has shown no appreciable efforts or results in drawing new businesses and employers to the county, instead relying on residential developments to provide new sources of tax money. However, residential growth arguably consumes more in tax revenue than it generates when taking into account the substantially increased need for roads, sewers, emergency services, and schools required for homes as compared to businesses. This problem is compounded when new residences are built for people who work in Louisville or other places outside of Floyd County.
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