Mitch Peters, who has served as chairman of the Indiana Dunes Tourism Board for the past 13 years, said in a letter Friday that there were no political motives for the failed effort to oust him at Tuesday’s Porter County Council meeting. He resigned for this reason.
With one committee member absent, the board was tied when Council President Mike Brickner (R) called for a vote to fire Peters.
“The reality is they don’t stop,” Peters said by phone Saturday morning. “I did not resign for political reasons. This alone cannot continue. Every time I think it’s over, it starts again.”
Peters, who attended Tuesday’s council meeting with five members of IDT’s executive committee and new CEO Kristin Livingston at his side, said he attended the meeting under false pretenses. “I was fooled,” he said.
Peters was told by committee Chairman Jim Biggs (R-North) that all disputes over a contractual settlement with former CEO Lorelei Weimer, who resigned in January in a $225,000 buyout, have been resolved and that she will remain on the board. The association said it was told it might remain in place. If IDT he did three things.
According to Peters, the committee accomplished the following: Peters said there have been few disciplinary issues, but he consented to all disciplinary actions being handled by the county’s human resources department. He agreed to let auditor Karen Martin’s office oversee payroll, which is handled internally by vendor ADP. And he had Mr. Peters attend council meetings to acknowledge his failure to timely update Mr. Weimer and explain the changes being made within the department.
“Back then, they said council or committee,” Peters said of public meeting attendance requirements. “Now I wish I had chosen this committee.”
He agreed to the terms and said Biggs told him he would be contacted by City Council Vice President Red Stone (R-1st). He said Stone was so keen for Peters to resign that he actually called him. “Red said, ‘This is all behind us. I’m no longer calling for your removal.’
But Brickner did.
“It has nothing to do with politics,” Brickner said Saturday. He said there is an expectation of accountability when the council appoints someone to the board, especially in this case where a director has been removed and a large amount of taxpayers’ money has been spent. The council said it will continue to communicate its expectations for transparency to the county board.
Brickner said he could not comment on the statements Biggs or Stone made about Peters. “I was not aware of any such conversations,” he said.
Lorelei Weimer, former CEO of the Indiana Dunes Tourism Authority, speaks before the Porter County Council on Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (From Sherry Jones/Post Tribune)
Peters claims Weimer violated a non-disclosure agreement when he spoke at Tuesday’s City Council meeting. He disputed her claims that she had one day to decide whether to address the IDT board or that the votes were illegally lined up to remove her, and canceled the board meeting. He said it would take more than a day just to hold the event.
“I wasn’t voting,” he said. “We were reviewing the information. All these accusations and allegations are a little disturbing.”
Peters said state law previously required the board to consist of no more than one member with a simple majority of either party, but that requirement was lifted some time ago.
After the last commission meeting, Biggs said the IDT board has tipped the balance in favor of Democrats, and that the board has become too large, including county council members rather than county council appointees. He said that it should be included in
“It seems to me that Commissioner Biggs’ plan is to restructure the board and remove everyone and disenfranchise the community,” Peters said. “It’s set up that way to represent the community from Hebron to Dune Acres.
“It is sad that our focus has shifted to political control of a board that was highly functioning at all levels,” Peters said to the IDT board, IDT staff, county council and everyone else. he wrote in part of a two-page letter. Lawyers involved.
Mr. Biggs laughed off any discussion of political motives. “It was a number of Republicans who put Mitch on the board in the first place,” he said Saturday of the council’s reappointment of Peters in January.
“Somebody had to be held accountable for this,” he said of the county’s governing body not being informed until the settlement agreement was signed and the money was paid. “There was approximately $250,000 left in the hands of the employees they claimed they wanted to terminate.
“It was clear that there was something here that they didn’t want others to know, especially the public.”
Sherry Jones is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
