Pierceton Dems Nominate Town Cop for Fall Election
Posted
Daniel Riordan-driordan@timesuniononline.com
PIERCETON – The Pierceton Town Council will have at least one new member in 2012.
And one of those members may be a current town employee.
During a convention Saturday morning, Democrats from Pierceton nominated incumbent Armando “Mandy” Espinoza, Ronald Hall and town police officer James Bumbaugh to appear on the November ballot.
They will appear with Republican incumbent Jerry Kreger and Carus Shaffer.
The top three vote getters will serve a four-year term starting Jan. 1.
Of the 39 ballots cast, Espinoza earned the most votes Saturday with 33 out of 39, Ronald Hall received 32 votes and James Bumbaugh earned 23 votes.
Current councilman Jerry Hartman only received 12 votes and will not appear on the November ballot.
Hall previously served 12 years on the town council in the ’80s and ’90s.
The town will hold its election Nov. 8, and the county will run it.
According to Pierceton Clerk-Treasurer Janet Castle, the town will enter a contract with the county for the county to facilitate the election.
Bumbaugh said he wasn’t aware of Saturday’s convention until Wednesday afternoon and didn’t get a list of voters until Friday.
Bumbaugh is currently one of three full-time police officers in Pierceton.
Bumbaugh was hired as a police officer for Pierceton in 2003.
He said he would abstain from all votes concerning the police department.
If a vote was tied at 1-1 with Bumbaugh abstaining, Castle would be forced to break the tie.
According to the county clerk’s office, nothing prohibits Bumbaugh from running for town council.
Trent Deckard, co-director of the Indiana Election Division, said there are no laws on the books currently that prohibit town employees from running for elected office.
Deckard said he has known of instances in the past where a deputy sheriff has served on a county council or town employee has served on that town’s council.
Deckard said there are also currently no laws prohibiting those town employees elected to office from voting on their own department.
The issue of town employees also serving in local office was one brought up by Governor Mitch Daniels during his State of the State address in January.
“The conflict of interest when double-dipping government workers simultaneously sit on city or county councils, interrogating their own supervisors and deciding their own salaries, must end,” said Daniels.
A story from Indiana NewsCenter out of Fort Wayne in June reported that Fort Wayne Council President Marty Bender took issue with Daniels’ stance.
Bender is also the deputy chief of police in Fort Wayne.
The report noted that in 2008, East Chicago’s nine council members all held some sort of government job.
