Accusations were flying towards the Warsaw City Council at their Monday night meeting.
Chad Zartman, who identifies himself as a concerned citizen, says he has evidence that the Board of Works was voting via email instead of at public meetings.
“The Board of Works meetings…it’s nothing more than a charade, because the decision has already been made,” he explained.
Zartman says he has filed a complaint with the Indiana Public Access Counselor Luke Britt. Zartman read an excerpt from an email he says he received from Britt, which said voting over email “is a definite violation of the law and does nothing but erode the public trust.”
Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer says the city needs an opportunity to look into Zartman’s complaint.
“We need to see that information. If you’re publicly going to make that accusation I’d like that information so we can review it with our attorney. Instead of coming to a public forum and throwing that out, I’d like to see that,” he said.
Zartman tells News Now Warsaw he found out about the emails when he made a public information request for documents connected to the alley activation project. Zartman wanted to look into the alley work because he says “sometimes contentious projects have wrongdoings behind them”.
Zartman had packets prepared of the emails in question between Board of Works members. Zartman was seen exchanging some of these packets with former city councilman Kyle Babcock, who has spoken out in criticism of the city’s alley activation project at previous Council meetings.
When asked if he was working for Babcock’s website, Zartman said he was not. Babcock says the two are “just friends”.
Zartman says he expects an official statement from the Indiana Public Access Counselor to be made public. He says a complaint has also been made to the State Board of Accounts, which could review the matter as part of the city audit completed in December.
