Commissioners’ Authority On Constitutional Issues Questioned
Posted
David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
Are the Kosciusko County Commissioners overstepping their legal authority in approving resolutions and ordinances regarding Constitutional rights, Second Amendment rights and a potential one on critical race theory?
About a couple dozen people at Tuesday’s Commissioners meeting seemed to think so.
The meeting began with Bob Conley, the president of the Commissioners for 2021, reading a statement about the special Commissioners session with Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita being moved from 5 p.m. Thursday from the old county courthouse to the Winona Lake Heritage Room due to “tremendous” interest. He also said the commissioners, in their individual capacities, will host Rokita at this public learning session.
The statement is the same news release published in the Times-Union on Tuesday, provided by county attorney Ed Ormsby. The meeting is in regards to Rokita’s “Parents Bill of Rights” and critical race theory.
On June 22, Dr. Chris Magiera, a Republican, who ran for election to the U.S. House to represent Indiana’s 3rd Congressional District and lost, suggested to the commissioners to consider a resolution and ordinance prohibiting or banning the use of coerced teaching of critical race theory (CRT) to county employees and over the school system in Kosciusko County. Ormsby responded that the Commissioners were under review of a CRT proposed policy already and that Rokita was coming to Kosciusko to speak on the issue.
On June 30, it was announced that Rokita would be presenting testimony before the Commissioners at a July 8 special meeting regarding critical race theory and Rokita’s “Parents’ Bill of Rights.”
According to edweek.org, “Critical race theory is an academic concept that is more than 40 years old. The core idea is that racism is a social construct, and that it is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal systems and policies. The basic tenets of critical race theory emerged out of a framework for legal analysis in the late 1970s and early 1980s created by legal scholars Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Crenshaw and Richard Delgado, among others.”
At Tuesday’s Commissioner meeting, former Kosciusko County Democrat Party chairman Brian Smith, of Leesburg, said he read where Thursday’s meeting was no longer a County Commissioners meeting but on the Commissioners’ own volition. He asked if any county funds were used to pay for the rent for the Winona Lake Heritage Room.
Conley said that was taken care of by the attorney general’s office and they were putting everything together.
“We’re asked to be there, in representing the community, and that’s the extent to which we are involved,” Conley said.
Don Zolman told the Commissioners he has written a Kosciusko County Taxpayer Bill of Rights that he will be posting online.
“I will be promoting signatures to get county taxpayers to sign on a petition to encourage our county officials to focus on county business,” he said.
As an example, he said one of the items listed on the taxpayer bill of rights is “Taxpayers, Kosciusko County, deserve to have county officials work in the best interest of the health of Kosciusko County residents. When they don’t follow government mandates and scientific-proven data, they make taxpayers and themselves liable for damages due to illness, injury and death caused by exposing the public to disease.”
He said when there’s scientifically-backed information, then the county should be focused on that and putting those mandates into place.
“I came in county offices many times during the pandemic and saw officials not wearing masks. And, my understanding is, even during department head meetings with health officials that people were not wearing masks,” Zolman said.
He said he knows Rokita is currently suing Gov. Eric Holcomb to hamstring him further, but “the next time we have a situation like this, it may not be as gentle as COVID was with us, if we have something like Ebola with a 90% mortality. So we need to make sure we’re following good health practices.”
Another example of the taxpayers bill of rights, he said, was, “Taxpayers in Kosciusko County deserve county officials who know their boundaries. For example, County Commissioners passing ordinances or resolutions to which they claim to have constitutional authority, know they have no more authority than that granted by the office.”
That drew a loud round of applause from others in the old courtroom.
In April, the Commissioners passed an ordinance declaring the county is a Second Amendment sanctuary. In December, they approved a resolution and ordinance declaring the county is a Constitutional Rights Sanctuary County.
Zolman continued, “They have no right to determine what is or what isn’t constitutional. Those answers lie with Congress and the Supreme Court of the United States of America. Not the County Commissioners of Kosciusko County. To pretend and present otherwise is a violation of County Commissioners’ duties.”
He told the Commissioners he’d be happy to meet with the Commissioners individually on the taxpayers bill of rights. The Commissioners did not respond at the meeting Tuesday.
