Valparaiso Mayor Jon Costas vetoed the town council’s 5-2 vote in favor of a revamped Advisory Human Relations Council, redesigned to serve each the wants of the mayor and the town council.
The veto motion from Costas got here Thursday.
The town council meets at 6 p.m. Monday, offering the chance for additional dialogue and debate if the council decides to deal with the matter. The ordinance will not be on the assembly agenda, which was launched late Thursday.
If one other vote known as on the advisory council, a minimal favorable vote of 5-2 can override the mayor’s veto.
On the final council assembly on July 28, the ordinance, which was crafted and launched by Valparaiso Metropolis Council President Ellen Kapitan and fellow at-large member Emilie Hunt, discovered additional help from Barbara Domer, D-Third, and Robert Cotton, D-2nd, together with a noticeably hesitant vote by Diana Reed, D-1st.
Peter Anderson, R-Fifth, and Jack Pupillo, R-4th, voted towards the ordinance.
“I knowledgeable the council by e-mail Thursday about my resolution to veto this ordinance,” Costas mentioned Friday morning.
He mentioned he determined to not signal the ordinance because it handed as a result of he believes the present make-up and performance of the advisory council is “very efficient” for advising him in his function as the town’s government.
“I’ve continued to induce the council to create their very own Human Relations Council or the same committee by choosing their very own member to serve on that physique moderately than absorbing my present appointed member and including to that quantity. As I’ve mentioned publicly, I don’t want for there to be mayor appointments to this council’s created advisory group. I haven’t seen the collaboration I’d hope for this, and consequently, I felt that vetoing this (ordinance) was warranted.”
Heated dialogue and public tug-of-war between Costas and metropolis council members concerning the goal, mission and a future imaginative and prescient and altered definition of the Advisory Human Relations Council have continued constantly through the previous six months.
On the March 10 council assembly, Alison Quackenbush, a center faculty civics trainer who serves because the chair of the prevailing Advisory Human Relations Council as appointed by Costas, was questioned pointedly by Hunt and Kapitan concerning the lack of programming and occasions hosted by the advisory council, together with in February for Black Historical past Month.
Along with Quackenbush, different members of the advisory council are Elisabeth Cohon, Debi Sibray, Mark Fesenmyer, Patrick Lyp, Carolyn Rodea, David Muniz, Mike Hendren and Jack Tipold, along with non-voting members Katie Shideler, Olivia Krutz and Valparaiso Police Chief Andrew McIntyre.
Whereas Costas has mentioned he created the concept for an advisory council “greater than a dozen years in the past,” Cotton has publicly corrected him, sustaining “it was the Valparaiso Metropolis Council who created this council, not the mayor.”
Costas mentioned in June that he fashioned the advisory council to make sure the town’s mayor receives “a broad vary of impartial recommendation and perspective on issues associated to the town’s rising minority populations.”
He disagreed with reconstituting the advisory council so it was appointed by the town council, with the aim of organizing, selling and funding cultural occasions within the metropolis, as a result of the advisory council has been efficient as it’s for greater than 14 years.
Costas additionally mentioned on the time that he was involved “that metropolis assets and tax funds shouldn’t be used to advertise cultural/social occasions organized by teams or non-public residents.”
The town’s residents, he mentioned, rejoice completely different cultures, beliefs and existence.
“I imagine that my job as mayor is to not elevate one over the opposite, however moderately to make sure that all residents really feel revered, protected and free to precise their very own cultural views and beliefs as they see match.”
Philip Potempa is a contract reporter for the Submit-Tribune.
