Perhaps the biggest surprise in the Henry administration’s decision to relieve the city purchasing director of his position was that it didn’t happen sooner.
Purchasing chief Jim Howard – vice president of Allen County Right to Life and a 2008 candidate in the GOP County Council primary – was a very Republican department head in a Democratic administration. While patronage laws and court rulings prohibit mayors from firing rank-and-file workers simply because they had been hired under previous mayors, Henry – like his predecessors – has clear authority to name top administrative members as well as department heads.
Those appointments usually occur soon after a new mayor is elected, but a new term can be a time for change. And you can be sure that had Paula Hughes won the mayor’s office, numerous appointees would have been replaced.
Still, party affiliation on its own likely did not cause Henry to replace the department head. Among positions the mayor can replace for any or no reason is deputy police chief, and there’s been no talk of replacing Republican City Council member Marty Bender. And Henry hired Ken Neumeister – a well-connected Republican – as a consultant to help coordinate the space-sharing in Citizens Square and the City-County Building.
Howard’s name had most recently been in the news as the government official coordinating the requests for proposals for the multi-million dollar replacement of radios that city and county police and other public safety officers use.
No word yet of his replacement.
City Court judges
Last week was not a good week for city court judges.
Hammond’s city court judge, Jeffrey Harkin, agreed to serve a 60-day suspension without pay after being accused of diverting about $180,000 in court fees from the state and county to the city’s accounts. Though the disciplinary measure was announced last week, Harkin agreed to it before he was re-elected on Nov. 8.
Also last week, a spokeswoman for the Indiana Supreme Court said the Indiana Judicial Qualifications Commission had been investigating the former Alexandria city court judge for “repeated administrative, constitutional, and ethical errors,” the Anderson Herald Bulletin reported. Judge Brandy Goodman resigned in October, and the mayor of the Madison County city said she would not be replaced.
While Harkin is an attorney, Goodman is not, and state law does not require city and town court judges to be lawyers. The Indiana Supreme Court has proposed such a requirement for all judges, but a legislative effort to establish the condition died this year.
Thomas for Senate?
Bob Thomas, the Fort Wayne and Indianapolis car dealer who unexpectedly jumped into the 3rd District GOP congressional primary last year before Mark Souder resigned, is reportedly considering a run for U.S. Senate. If so, he could complicate a primary that thus far was shaping up to be a two-person match between longtime incumbent Richard Lugar and State Treasurer Richard Mourdock.
