Annexation update: Bloomington mayor, city council to hold closed-door meeting on litigation
Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson has called a closed-door meeting with the city council for next Wednesday evening (Aug 14), to brief councilmembers on the city’s pending annexation litigation.
Under state law, the discussion of pending litigation is one of several reasons why a public agency can hold a meeting that is not open to the public. Indiana’s Open Door Law calls such meetings “executive sessions.”
The pending litigation involves two separate cases, both of which Bloomington recently lost on the circuit court level.
In one of the cases, the city council is a named defendant. The other defendants are the city of Bloomington, John Hamilton as mayor at the time, and Catherine Smith as county auditor at the time.
The case that names the city council as a defendant was a trial on the merits of Bloomington’s annexation of Area 1A and Area 1B. The ruling against Bloomington in the trial on the merits, by special judge out of Lawrence County, Nathan Nikirk, was issued this week.
The other case involves five other annexation areas. It involves a question of constitutional law: Did a 2019 law about annexation remonstrance waivers infringe on the contracts clauses of the state and U.S. constitutions? The ruling against Bloomington, which was issued in mid-June, also by judge Nikirk, has already been appealed by the city.
For the constitutional question, it’s the city of Bloomington that is the sole plaintiff and the county auditor who is the sole defendant.
The trial on the merits arose out of the fact that remonstrators were able to collect remonstrance signatures from more than 50 percent of landowners, but less than 65 percent. It makes sense that both the city council and the mayor are named parties to the lawsuit that was filed, because it was the city council that enacted the ordinances, and the mayor that signed them into effect.
The city council employs two staff attorneys, but neither has ever filed an appearance with the court on behalf of the city council for the annexation litigation. The council’s legal representation for the annexation litigation appears to have been provided by a combination of the city’s legal department and the city’s outside counsel, Bose, McKinney & Evans.
According to the city’s online financial system, the city of Bloomingotn has paid Bose, McKinney & Evans about $1.5 million in annexation-related expenses since 2017. About a half million dollars of that sum has been paid just this year.
Under their rules of professional conduct, lawyers are supposed to keep their clients “reasonably informed” about the status of litigation.
As a named party in the lawsuit about the merits of annexation in Area 1A and Area 1B, the city council could potentially have a different view from the mayor about whether an appeal should be pursued.
If there are any councilmembers who are looking to push the idea that the lower court’s ruling should be accepted, and not appealed, then next Wednesday’s executive session could be a venue to air out their views.
Next Wednesday’s executive session is set to start at 8:45 p.m. The late hour stems from the fact it will follow a “consensus building activity” that the city council has scheduled to address the issue of street homelessness.
