County gets earful on Fairfield Trustee Taletha Coles, as she silently faces ouster vote
Questions about receipts, other actions leave trustee in precarious position. Plus, about ‘Eleven’ enrolling at Purdue. And the county health officer on new CDC guidelines for COVID precautions.
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For more than three years, Fairfield Township Board members had been fighting so much with Trustee Taletha Coles over her spending, lack of receipts and belligerence over how the budget is kept at her locked Wabash Avenue offices that when it came time to use a new state law to try to oust her, the conclusion seemed obvious.
That happened three weeks ago.
Monday morning was the first time Fairfield Township Board members had to make a case to another body that Coles is unfit for office – in this case Tippecanoe County commissioners, the second of four stops in a new, state-approved process expected to string out into October, at least.
For those following the feuds in Fairfield Township in the past year, not much presented was new. But county commissioners, looking for proof that Coles deserves to get the boot before her term is set to end in December, pressed during Monday’s hour-long hearing for details proving that the trustee had failed or refused to perform her duties – details that long ago had become familiar shorthand when Coles and her three-member board confronted each other in the past.
They heard a bunch.
According to a state law that went into effect July 1, commissioners need to wait at least 10 days before voting. Commissioner David Byers said the county commissioners likely would call a special meeting before the first week of September.
If the commissioners rule against Coles, the Democratic trustee would have another chance to prove the board was wrong before the Tippecanoe County Council. From there, the question would go to Tippecanoe Circuit Court for a final decision, according to the timeline in the state law.
“I’m hopeful,” Monica Casanova, one of three township board members and the Democratic candidate for township trustee in the November election, said after the meeting. Casanova won a three-candidate Democratic primary in May; Coles received 11% of the vote in that re-election bid.
“I think they understand the stakes,” Casanova said. “I hope they heard us.”
On Monday, no one other than her Indianapolis-based attorney spoke on Coles’ behalf. And Coles did not offer public comment to commissioners or say anything after the meeting, at the suggestion of her attorney, Alexandra Hawkins.
Hawkins’ defense of Coles remained consistent Monday, as board members and former employees piled up anecdotes and allegations about Coles’ administration and her spending habits with public money.
Her point: Complaints about spending, lack of receipts and even ongoing investigations of the township by the Indiana State Police – including a raid of township offices and Coles’ home in May – and the State Board of Accounts weren’t aimed at allegations about Coles’ actions after July 1, when the law went into effect.
“Our position is that she has not violated (anything) as of July 1 of this year,” Hawkins said.
Among the moments during Monday’s hearing:
• Casanova told commissioners that she filed a public records request on July 13 to see bank statements and itemized credit card receipts, among other things Coles had not offered to the board. (The township board had filed at least two public records requests in 2021 and 2022 looking for spending details. Board member Rocky Hession said those were never fulfilled.) After assurances from Hawkins that Coles would comply, Casanova said she was greeted at the township offices’ locked door by an employee who at first said she’d have to wait outside to see the records. After consulting with Coles’ attorney, Casanova was allowed inside. Casanova said she’d brought Angel Valentin, Wabash Township trustee, to help her sort through the records. She said that caused another delay when staff members said he couldn’t look at the records. Casanova said that issue was cleared up, too. (“We were told we couldn't sit next to each other,” Casanova said.) But when it was done, only parts of what she’d asked to see were there.
“If the argument is made that we can’t go before July 1, I want to make the argument that even after July 1, we haven't received any document, either as a member of the public or as a member of the board,” Casanova said.
• Perry Schnarr, Fairfield Township Board president, said he’d asked for mileage logs and gasoline expenses for township vehicles, saying he was told by Coles that there were none because former employees had destroyed them.
“It just keeps going and going, the things that she does that she doesn't report to us,” Schnarr said. “She tells us she's the boss. She tells us that everything we ask her for, it's not our business. … You know, she’ll be out in a few months. But Lord knows what can happen between now and then.”
• Trisha Fogleman, a former township employee, backed that up: “If you had ever seen her in action, during her shopping trips, you would know the damage she could do in one afternoon.”
Commissioners asked if Fogleman had seen that firsthand. She told about being with Coles at a Lafayette consignment shop where the trustee bought a fur stole for herself and a comforter for a family members on the township card. (Previously, Fogleman said she’d been there when Coles spent hundreds of dollars on pedicures, massages and lunch for staff members on an August 2021 day when Coles was trying to avoid board members as they tried to hold a meeting at the township offices.)
“She does what she wants and does not feel she has any accountability,” Fogleman said. “Please show her and other like-minded folks who run for public office that this is not so when working with taxpayer funds.”
Hawkins responded.
“I'm not going to sit here and say that they're lying,” Hawkins said. “I have a client who's saying that that thing didn't happen. And we saw no evidence today that that did happen. We saw no receipt saying that she did purchase a stole on the township credit card, and Ms. Coles is sitting there telling me she purchased it on her credit card.”
(In the audience, Schnarr grumbled: “That’s because she won’t show us any receipts.”)
• Hession retold about how the board pieced together spending Coles did on Dec. 31, 2019. That day, according to minutes from a township board meeting months later, Coles bought a 2020 Ford F250 crew cab 4X4 pickup truck for $36,511 from Advantage Ford Lincoln dealership in Connersville. She also bought a 2020 tandem trailer for $2,899 from Mayes Trailer Sales in New Whiteland. Coles used money the board had set aside in a rainy day fund that had been targeted for a land purchase that never happened that year.
Hession recounted that he found out months later that Coles had purchased a second utility trailer that day from Rural King in Lafayette. According to a receipt provided to Based in Lafayette by a former employee, Coles made the $1,899.99 purchase at 6:04 p.m. Dec. 31, 2019. (Brigid Manning-Hamilton, a former township employee, previously told Based in Lafayette: “She bragged about how she essentially pulled a fast one on Dec. 31, right at the end of the budget year.”)
Hession said he found out when Rural King management called him in February 2020 to say Coles wanted to cancel the purchase – she’d never picked up the trailer – and put the return on a different credit card. He said he was told the company wasn’t in a position to do that, based on the store’s policy. Hession said a township lawyer eventually got involved, and the price of the trailer was returned to the township’s account.
• Later in 2020, when the board agreed to set the rainy day fund at zero for 2021 – largely because of the truck purchase – Coles refused to file the budget changes with the state. Hession said she had the full amount to use that year. The board had to maneuver at the end of 2021 to make sure that didn’t happen again in the 2022 budget.
• Several times during Monday’s hearing, commissioners asked whether Coles provided monthly claims to document spending, puzzled when they were told she didn’t. Byers asked Hawkins about how hard it would be to see ledgers for July in Fairfield Township.
“Besides us seeing the charge cards, could we see the bulk ledger?” Byers asked. “I'm saying, there I spent X amount on electricity, I spent X amount on (township) assistance, I spent X on cemetery. … Should be an easy Excel sheet.”
Hawkins said she wasn’t sure whether Coles kept a record like that, but that she believed “my client could put that together.”
• Among the other testimony: Coles’ ongoing refusal to give $100,000 to the Lafayette Fire Department for equipment needs in the unincorporated parts of the Lafayette-centered township; revelations that Coles drove 45 miles – twice – this spring to get more than $900 in flowers from a grocery store in Kentland; that Coles’ defense was being paid by the township; and that everyone is waiting for the results of the State Board of Accounts audit that started in August 2021 and the Indiana State Police raid that landed in May.
After the hearing, Hawkins said she and Coles were going to wait to see what the commissioners do and prepare in case they need to repeat the process with the Tippecanoe County Council.
“We’re going to keep on keeping on, as far as the steps take us,” Hawkins said.
Commissioner Tracy Brown said there was “a lot of information to digest.”
“Like any investigation,” Brown said, “I like to collect all the information before I formulate a decision.”
WHAT’S NEXT: The Tippecanoe County commissioners are scheduled to meet next at 10 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 6. Byers said he won’t be there that day and that the commissioners likely would call a special meeting before that date to vote on the Fairfield Township matter.
This and that …
ABOUT ‘ELEVEN’ ENROLLING AT PURDUE: Not since the Fighting Irish refused to allow the “World’s Largest Drum” in Notre Dame Stadium in September 2021 has Purdue had this kind of free, earned media. The past week has been abuzz for the West Lafayette campus after Millie Bobby Brown, one of the stars of the Netflix series “Stranger Things,” told Allure magazine that she was taking an online course at Purdue University. That led to an array of quick-hit stories, both local and national, as everyone made the connection between the Purdue coursework and the ties to the fictional Hawkins, Indiana, where “Stranger Things” plays out. (Remember that blue Purdue long-sleeve that showed up in one of the early seasons of the show?) But when you’re talking Purdue, that could mean a lot of things, even if you’re talking online classes. Here’s the deal: Brown, who plays Eleven in the show, enrolled at Purdue Global in March 2022 and is working toward a bachelor’s degree in Human Services in Youth/Family Services and Administration, according to Ethan Braden, executive vice president and chief marketing officer at Purdue. Purdue Global is an online affiliate of the university, with enrollment of more than 30,000 students working toward degrees or certificates from across the country and world.
COUNTY HEALTH OFFICER ON CDC’S NEW COVID GUIDELINES: Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lightened up on guidance surrounding the pandemic. Six-foot rules for social distancing now talk about how people “may want to avoid crowded areas.” The CDC still strongly advises vaccination and boosters, but it’s not-so-much on quarantines. For more, here’s the full list from the CDC. Dr. Greg Loomis, Tippecanoe County’s health officer, said the relaxation of the CDC guidelines wasn’t a free pass to ignore COVID-19. But he took the moment as a sign.
“I guess my message to the community would be, Let's get back to some type of normalization with certain precautions in place,” Loomis said. “If you're immunocompromised, wear a mask. If you don’t feel well, stay home. Get vaccinated. All those things. … But if you're healthy, and you don't have comorbidities, enjoy the fall. Let the kids get back to school. Let's get the sports back on line and do what we're supposed to be doing. I'm not saying be cavalier, I'm saying just be cautious, just like we were when there's a bad flu outbreak. … What I hear the CDC saying is that we’re getting much closer to normal. Get downtown, help support our local businesses, go out to dinner with your significant other, take the kids to Olive Garden or wherever, and help support our businesses and get them back up and going. That’s my message.”
Thanks, again, to United Way of Greater Lafayette for sponsoring today’s Based in Lafayette reporting project edition. For more about United Way’s inaugural Run United 5K on Saturday, Aug. 27, at Subaru of Indiana Automotive, click here or scroll back to the top of the page for more.
Tips or story ideas? I’m at davebangert1@gmail.com. Also on Twitter and Instagram.
Thank you for your coverage of this ongoing story. I'm wondering if you have plans to cover the ongoing litigation between the Tippecanoe County Clerk and the Tippecanoe League of Women Voters?