Pike Township Board President Demetrice Hicks sent three separate demands to township officials over roughly an hour Sunday night, escalating a monthslong dispute between the board and Trustee Annette Johnson.
The emails went out at 10:02, 10:23 and 11:08 p.m. Each was copied to all five board districts and to the township attorney.
The first was addressed to Fire Chief Jeff Beam rather than to Johnson, who was listed last among the recipients. It seeks every township fleet vehicle record generated since Jan. 1, 2019 — more than fifty enumerated items across six categories, including insurance policies and applications, underwriting submissions, correspondence with the township’s carrier and broker, a VIN-level inventory of every vehicle, take-home and loaner vehicle agreements, and documentation of how township vehicles were described or classified to the insurer. It also asks for any documents identifying limits on personal use, commuting, after-hours use, and use of township vehicles by elected officials. Hicks described the request as part of the board’s fiduciary oversight of township assets.
The second was labeled a final follow-up to a June 26 request for every current job description in the trustee’s office, along with signed employee acknowledgments, employment status, hire dates, pay rates and reporting structure. Hicks wrote that the board asked again on July 12 and that both emails went unanswered. The request “is not optional,” he wrote, and the materials “cannot be withheld or denied.” He set a Friday deadline.
The third, written in the first person plural on the board’s behalf, told Johnson what her monthly report will consist of beginning next month: more than forty individual data points on township assistance, submitted in writing in advance of each meeting. Anything else, Hicks wrote, “shall require the prior approval of the Chair” before going on a board agenda. He carved out an exception for emergencies, then specified that it does not extend to general informational updates, departmental updates or program reports. Hicks attributed the format to a February meeting at which, he wrote, the board agreed to it.
Indiana law gives the board a strong claim to the salary material. Under IC 36-6-6-10, the township board fixes the compensation of every township officer and employee, and the township is heading into budget season. Portions of the request, including signed acknowledgments, fall under the discretionary personnel-file provision of the state public records act at IC 5-14-3-4(b)(8).
The agenda directive is less settled. The trustee is the township executive under IC 36-6-4-2, elected separately from the board, and a governing body ordinarily takes official action by vote at a public meeting rather than by email from its chair. Hicks is one of five board members. The February minutes would show whether the board voted.
Both officials were on the May 5 primary ballot. Hicks finished second in a four-way Democratic primary for Indiana Senate District 29, taking about 26 percent to Kristina Moorhead’s 51 percent. Johnson won renomination as trustee with about 57 percent, defeating Claudette Petersen.
Earlier this year, the board raised its own per-meeting stipend and eliminated funding for the IT position in the trustee’s office.
Disclosure: I am the plaintiff in Shabazz v. Pike Township, Petersen, Hicks, Perkins (Cause No. 49D02-2505-MI-024945, Marion Superior Court 2), which remains pending. Demetrice Hicks and Claudette Petersen are named defendants in that case. I am also a Pike Township resident and voter. Read accordingly.
