The Towns of Dyer and St. John have fired back at Schererville for drowning them out of the Tri-Town Safety Village, giving it until next week to come around before taking further action.
A quorum of members — St. John Police Cmdr. Dave Rybicki, proxying for Police Chief Steve Flores; St. John Fire Chief Shane Adams, Dyer Fire Chief Joe Martin, Dyer Police Chief Bill Alcott, St. John Town Manager Bill Manousopoulos, and Dyer Town Manager Dave Hein — met out front of the Safety Village late Friday morning for a scheduled meeting. Because no Schererville member attended, however, they conducted the meeting on the front patio of the village, located at 1350 Eagle Ridge Dr. in Schererville.
The facility is used to teach children and other groups the importance of fire safety.
Without a Schererville representative there, the meeting was short, but the group briefly discussed a letter Dyer Town Attorney Adam Sedia sent to Schererville in response to the letter that town sent June 6. In it, Sedia said Schererville’s declaring itself the sole owner of the Safety Village “an opinion,” Starkey said.
“It’s like if the Lions Club was holding meetings at the St. John Township Community Center, and (St. John Township Trustee) Cathy LaRue decided she didn’t like the Lions anymore, so she says she’s the Lions Club. You can’t do that,” Starkey said. “We’re an independent 501(c)(3), and we’re still in operation.”
Starkey also questioned Schererville’s claim that Dyer and St. John are running afoul of the interlocal agreement and bylaws. He said they’ve made only two changes in years: allowing remote attendance and voting at meetings during the pandemic and the current quorum system, which requires a majority of members but at least one representative from each town. If no one from a town shows up, the majority present calls another meeting a couple of weeks later.
Manousopoulos added that the board brought forth the new candidate for discussion at its May 7 meeting, for which Schererville was present. When Schererville didn’t send a representative to the May 28 meeting, they scheduled the June 13 meeting, he said.
Sedia gave Schererville until June 20 to respond; otherwise, the two may pursue legal action, Starkey said. Neither Starkey nor Manousopoulos responded to a request for Sedia’s letter by press time Friday.
The Town of Schererville, per a June 6 letter obtained by the Post-Tribune, informed the Dyer and St. John that it “will not agree to scheduling, much less conducting, any more meetings of the Board Members in the current structure and content of the existing Agreement.” As such, it “will solely begin the process to conduct and operate the Tri-Town Safety Village, Inc.,” the Post-Tribune previously reported.
The feud sparked in December, when Schererville informed the Safety Village Board that it would assume authority due to Dyer’s and St. John’s “lack of participation” in the village’s operations, the letter said. Along with the lack of participation, Schererville said neither town paid what they were required to pay per the bylaws and interlocal agreement the three had regarding the village, the letter said.
At the end of last year, the Dyer and St. John Board Members “demanded” that Safety Village Executive Director Bill Jarvis be replaced, the letter said and both Jarvis and Schererville Town Manager Jim Gorman confirmed to the Post-Tribune. Jarvis reluctantly agreed to retire with an end date of May 31, and then Schererville set forth a new set of bylaws that would “wipe the slate clean” of the Dyer and St. John’s previous financial obligations.
The monetary obligations changed from year to year, Jarvis said; for 2024, the payment was $36,400 apiece, and Schererville did receive the two towns’ payments. The Schererville paid off the village’s mortgage in 2021, the Post-Tribune reported.
After Jarvis agreed to retire, the Safety Village Board sought applications for a new Executive Director and received around a dozen of them. Per the existing interlocal agreement and bylaws, all three towns needed to be involved in the interviewing and hiring process, the letter said and Gorman confirmed.
The St. John and Dyer Board members, however, conducted the interviews without notifying Schererville and chose someone in April, Gorman said. Their actions, according to the letter, would be allowed only if the three had approved the new bylaws.
Gorman said because the Safety Village is closed to children until September, Schererville will have enough time to have its Parks & Recreation Department assume its duties.
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.