St. Joe County Council dispute over possible rule changes

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- The St. Joe County Rules Committee passed a motion at their Friday afternoon meeting, to push a bill to the full council with a favorable recommendation.

That bill is a resolution to amend the rules and regulations of the county council. Those changes were made by the rule committee, which includes President Dan Schaetzle, and committee members Bryan Tanner and Mark Catanzarite.

This comes after the council saw some changes back in January. The 9-member board split, creating a new bipartisan group.

The bipartisan group, titling themselves ‘a government of common cause,’ is comprised of the three members of the rules committee: republican Schaetzle, and democrats Tanner and Catanzarite. It also includes democrats Diana Hess and newly elected Jen Shabazz.

The other group, and now minority, includes four republicans: Drake, Randy Figg, Joe Thomas, and Andy Rutten.

Some council members, including Councilwoman Amy Drake, say the new rules are set up to favor one group of council members, while silencing the others.

“The president can now just knock something off the agenda… These new rules include checks on that president’s power, but those checks right now consist of all collation members, whether it’s the three-person rule committee that’s run by our coalition, or if it’s the majority of the council members, which is also the coalition. So, while it says that there’s these checks, it definitely still keeps the minority under their control,” said Drake.

While Tanner explained that’s not the way he views it, saying the new group came together because those that held their positions last year felt their voices weren’t always heard.

“A lot of what we see in the proposed rules is a direct reaction to better governance that we didn’t experience over the last year or the last couple years… if it doesn’t make it into the current agenda, it could always be filed again to end up on the next agenda. So, the voice of the people will always be heard, but we also want to be really effective in the government that we provide to those who elected us,” said Tanner.

These rules will be brought up at the county council’s public hearing on March 11, and both groups are encouraging the public to show up and speak out.