Dearborn County IN - Public Forum: 07/01/2024

Dillsboro Emergency Unit, Inc. 25 July 2024 Meeting-

Videos and Complete Handout

I attended this meeting as did Marc Emral, Editor -Register Publications.

The videos are courtesy of Sam Mortenson who has graciously supplied direct links. WARNING- there is language from some of the attendants that I normally do not allow on this blog.

I think the actual experience will give a better representation of what obstacles the DEMU has been facing than what I could capture in writing.

Please note that the meeting was preceded at 6 PM by another rally across the street with signs, chants, and honking lead by Dillsboro Town Council President, Doug Baker, and attended by Commissioner Jim Thatcher. The rally group crossed the street to attend the outdoor meeting just before 7 PM. Total attendance was about 35-40 people. DEMU Board President, Steve Gemmer contacted Indiana State Police (2 cars onsite) who agreed to be present to assure order was maintained.

Christine Brauer Mueller

Lawrenceburg Township

Primary Video 57 minutes (entire meeting)

https://youtu.be/V3yO1gmkmtA?si=0JWZ0MqO1nsoh2sc

Secondary Camera Video 17 minutes Different angle of mid portion of meeting.

https://youtu.be/blnz_CIueWQ?si=nCRg2RrJkeYWxvMt

The following is the handout that was passed out for all attendees at the 7/25/24 meeting at the DEMU building at 7 PM by the DEMU Board:

This hand out is to try and help explain to all who are concern and who are looking for the truth what The Dillsboro Emergency Unit Inc. is doing to restore service to the Dillsboro area once again.

Seems to be a lot of conversation about the Dillsboro DEU lately but let me be clear, The Board of Directors for The Dillsboro DEU is working on fixing the many problems we inherit from the previous administrator who were in charge, plus a few wrinkles we received since working on improving the Corporation. The Board understands that how the Corporation ran in the past did not work and did not serve the Community and we have and are addressing those issues so that we can serve the Community the way it needs to be served.

The Dillsboro DEU is a Corporation a company that has to be run like a company. The DEU need money to pay its employees and to be able to operate. One thing that stood out in the redesigning of the Corporation is that only having Dearborn County as a customer was not going to work. The reason is simple math as the county does not have the funds to pay out the money required to have a staff on call 24 hours a day 7 days a week 365 days a year. The days of volunteer are over and as it should be the EMT and the Drivers are paid. As we started on of the new rules to be an EMT and a Driver for Dillsboro EMS requires while you are on duty you will be at the building so we do not waste time coming from home to the squad. The basic cost for this will be over $ 350,000 year.

Currently Dearborn County according to the spread sheet used on March 12, 2024 Council Meeting Dillsboro portion of the LIT money is around $ 175,200.00 a year. This puts us in the whole of $ 174,800 for basic pay roll expenses. This does not cover all other expense that we have as well such as insurance, fuel, vehicle maintenance, building maintenance etc.

We are working on doing private runs as a supplement to doing 911 runs. There is a need for this and from what we have found thus far this will help fund The Dillsboro Emergency Unit Inc. so we can provide the service we need to serve the Dillsboro community as well as the South Western side of the county.

While we were reforming the way the Corporation would run we did reach out to different people and different organization who I found out were concerned with the performance of the DEU. The answer was always the same they did not want to get in the middle of it and as the waters were to poison.

To name a few who declined to work with us and are now so vocal, The Board on May 11, 2024 wrote a letter to The Dearborn County Commissioner District 3 Mr. Rick Probst. The DEU Board reached out to Mr. Rick Probst to help resolve the issue at hand. Mr. Rick Probst refused to come and talk with us. It should also be noted that at the June 18, 2024 Commissioners meeting Mr. Rick Probst made it clear he is not a commissioner for Dillsboro.

I was under the impression he was supposed to represent District 3 which is Dillsboro.

In April of this year while we were working on putting the DEU back together and was deciding who could serve ion the DEU Board of Directors, The Board reached out to The Town of Dillsboro Town Council and offered them a unique position on the New Board that was being put together. In this way they could help get The Dillsboro EMS back in service to serve the people of Dillsboro as at the time we felt this would be beneficial for all parties to have the Town Management involved with their ideas.

The Town Council turned us down and we were told they did not want to be in the current troubles that were surrounding the DEU. They wanted nothing to do with the Dillsboro DEU as it was too toxic. We were also made aware that they were afraid they could lose some funding they receive from Dearborn County.

Interesting how loud the Dillsboro Town Council is now what is sad they are like the Dearborn County Commissioners, for they will not have a conversation with the people who are working on fixing the problems, no they just are talking heads on Facebook and deal with people who have no clue of what the current Board of Directors are doing. Also is interesting on July 15, 2024 we were told that we did not make that offer and after several back and forth Doug Baker had to admit we did. WHY DID Doug Baker not bring this to the Dillsboro Town Council?

Where was Doug Baker in Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb, March, April, May, June? In the July 25, 2024 Doug Baker made it clear he did not want to work with us and ever since then has done nothing but try and tear everything down.

Just a quick over view of some facts:

On November 27, 2023, a group of individuals with the help from Three (3) Dearborn County Deputy Sheriff took it upon themselves using an illegal NTO order to terminate several members of the DEU’s Executive Board by removing them from the premises.

On December 04, 2023 (Seven Days after the Dearborn County Sheriff’s Department help install The Illegitimate Board to the Dillsboro DEU;) Jason Willoughby and Corey Cutshall Went to the Dearborn County Court House into the Clerk of Courts and sign a contract to be given to The Board Of Commissioners Of Dearborn County.

At the next Commissioners Meeting (December 19, 2023) all Three Commissioners Jim Thatcher, Rick Probst, Allen Goodman signed the contract with Jason Willoughby and Corey Cutshall.

On January 11, 2024 under pressure by The DEU attorney and an investigation into this illegal take over Jason Willoughby left the Dillsboro EMS Building.

On January 12, 2024 Sheriff McHenry finally removed the illegal NTO No Trespassing Order against the legitimate Board of Directors.

There is over $ 110,000.00 in damage and missing items to date because of the act allowed by the Sheriff Department.

January 17, 2024 The Dearborn County Commissioners: Terminated the 2024 contract with The Dillsboro EMS of 2024.

March 04, 2024 Harry Witteride, who was The Current Captain DEU went to The Commissioners Meeting wanting to talk about renewing the contract with the county. Jim Thatcher was upset that the Bank Account was froze while Jason Willoughby and Corey Cutshall were running the Dillsboro EMS. He wanted to know why they did that. In the meeting The Commissioners said they would reconsider if they can get together with Fire Dept. Thatcher made it clear he wanted them to consider merging with Aurora EMS.

(SIDE NOTE) from what we discovered it is told to us often that it has been the desire of Jim Thatcher back in January to have Aurora take over The Dillsboro EMS.

On March 12, 2024 Alan Goodman a Commissioners said they would work with The Dillsboro EMS on a month to month basis but we would not receive any money until we could prove we could do the job. It was agreed upon to do this.

On March 17, 2024 Commissioner Jim Thatcher told the 911 call in center to stop paging Dillsboro for EMS calls.

To this day we never can get an answer from Alan Goodman or Jim Thatcher as to why this was done after we were given the chance to prove ourselves and if we did not the county would not pay.

On April 2, 2024 I went to the Dearborn County Commissioners meeting to find out why they stopped the County Dispatch from calling The Dillsboro EMS. I outline what I had learned from meeting with the Dillsboro EMS. I started with the Sheriff’s department Illegal served a No Trespassing Warrant and I ask why there were 3 deputy there to do this.

Here a copy of that Meeting:

PUBLIC COMMENT- Steve Gemmer- Dillsboro IN- asking questions regarding Dillsboro EMS. He proceeded to read a statement of what he researched regarding the contract signed on Dillsboro EMS. This is nearly a transcript of that interchange:

Gemmer- Dec 4, 2023- Board sent contract that was not the legitimate board to Commissioners. The 3 current Commissioners signed that contract in December 19, 2023. Why did they sign a contract with people who had no authority to enter into that?

Shane McHenry interrupted at this point.Gentlemen do you want me to address some of this?

Rick Probst said he was comfortable listening to the comments, he did not need a rebuttal unless you want…

McHenry said, If you are getting false information, you want somebody to..

First we did not have any part of the removal until after the meeting took place. The deputy was called. They presented the bylaws, they presented the meeting stuff. A no trespass order was issued to Mr Codell(sp?) and Mr Witteride (Harry) and the board, OK. To my knowledge it was Harry because he called me the next day and we talked about it. I agreed with Harry- it was more of a civil issue One groups claiming they are not following the by laws, the other groups saying no They aren’t following the by laws, so at this point, there probably needs legal to be involved in this, we don’t need to be involved in this. I sent an email immediately out and said we are not enforcing any kind of trespass for this kind of thing. Later I got an email from Harry’s lawyer asking his to do the same thing and I explained to her what the process was and what we were doing. From that point ( the next day) we were completely out of it and it was for the groups to figure out between the by-laws.

Steve Gemmer- One point - he did that before the meeting.The trespassing order was issued before the meeting because Harry got there an hour before the meeting and there were 3 deputies there that told him he could NOT go in. There were 3 deputies there and we would like to know who they were. The reason the other ones did not show up is because he called them and told them not to come down because there was a no trespassing order.

McHenry- I know t was deputy Surette was the one that issued the no trespassing, I don’t know anyone else - no one told me any of that. The one thing wit the disruption- Iu think you could look by the dispatch notes they made more runs in a short amount of time than the other group had made for the prior few months, so the ambulance wasn’t leaving Aurora taking runs for Dillsboro.

Gemmer- Following that no trespassing order they are now missing the radios, damage to the vehicles…

McHenry- I cannot comment on any of that.

Gemmer- I understand- I’m just saying if they didn’t have had the order none of that damage etc would have happened. They would not be in the mess they are in. Because of that order some of the people they were training are no longer with them.

McHenry - I think that would be a stretch to say that were in worse shape, blaming the sheriff’s order that got dropped the next day put them in worse shape. They’ve been in bad shape for a while.

Gemmer- They’ve been in trouble, but Harry took over just before all this happened, and he’s changing that and he loves working o getting people in.

McHenry- I just wanted to address the things that were incorrect in your statement.

Gemmer- Not a problem - not a problem. But it just makes me wonder why the Dearborn County Commissioners signed that contract with someone who wasn’t there that shouldn’t have been there. And there is a letter dated Dec 14, 2023 a letter by the attorney for the legitimate corporate board was sent to the Dillsboro EMS to one Jason Willoughby that outlined why he was not authorized to be in charge of the Dillsboro Emergency Unit and to step aside and let the authorized board resume their duties. There is a letter dated Jan11, 2024 from Jason Willoughby, the one who entered the illegitimate contract with the Dearborn County Commissioners, stating he is resigning from the Dillsboro EMS and which also states he is dropping a trespass order against Harry Witteride, the only authorized captain and the authorized board member of the Dillsboro Emergency unit Inc. That is one of the reasons I questioned about dropping that order, because everybody that is involved thought that the no trespassing order was still in effect. Up until January 11th. You know so the question is - did the Dearborn County Commissioners ever receive this letter from Jason Willoughby?If you did, when did you do it? And did our Dearborn County Commissioners bring it up in any of the meetings?Did the Commissioners make this known to the Council members who were voting this LIT ( Local income tax) so that they would have full knowledge of situation? Did they share this letter with the committee that they created to disperse the LIT fund? The one you were just talking about earlier. Again- its a little troublesome here. Why do Commissioners who put together this committee to disperse LIT money have the sheriff on there when the committee should have been aware that the sheriff was responsible for removing those legitimate board members from the Dillsboro EMS and put the illegal and illegitimate group to operate the Dillsboro EMS.

Probst- Steve- Can you come to the point in this? We are strict on the time for public comment and I appreciate your comments and the background information.

Gemmer- My point is that it doesn’t seem like people knew about this going on. I didn’t know about it the last time when I asked about a contract and you said you did not have a contract with Dillsboro EMS.But you cancelled a contract with Dillsboro EMS that you said you didn’t have in then first place. We were told in that March 12 meeting that the committee would work with Dillsboro EMS. Mr Goodman and Jared were part of that committee and told this would happen and then you guys pulled the rug out from under them on March 16th.You said it was because of the letter you had sent- but that letter was not sent to the legitimate people , because you had contracted wit the illegitimate people. You were asked by the attorney for the legitimate people in February when she sent you all a letter to negotiate with the legitimate board. You have yet to do that. Why? Why is Dillsboro left out in the cold? And why do you think will help the county? You have the ambulance in Aurora about to break down and the one in Moores Hill is not running very well and they are having trouble. Dillsboro has 2 brand new ambulances they bought and paid for themselves. They are working to have people on this and I know that they have people in school and they are paying for it themselves and yet you won’t deal with them. So how is that helping the county? And how is it helping the county that you almost have money to an illegitimate organization?

Thatcher- One thing you are leaving out is they only made 12% of their runs.

Gemmer- That is the old regime.

Allen Goodman - Harry is part of the old regime. He’s co-captain and has been co-captain for a long time. And you misspoke - it’s not a committee- it has never been a committee- it was not formally organized by the Council and it was not formally organized by the commissioners. And you have been told that multiple times Steve.

Gemmer- BUT in that meeting you called it a committee and everybody in that meeting called it a committee - you did in the beginning. And when he (Baudendistel) came up and told you something - you started calling it a group.

Silence

Baudendistel- I’ll just say this - the commissioners do a lot of contracts and they are not privy to or scholars in by-laws of all these non-profits or who the elected officers are at any given time. When the termination letter was sent to them, it was the fact that there was a question about leadership in Dillsboro - it was highlighted in that letter from the county to Dillsboro, right? And I will just note as someone who is licensed to practice law in the state of Indiana, that the letter from the attorney that Dillsboro has hired - her own letterhead says she is not licensed to practice in the state of Indiana. So that is an issue. I think the office that she works for has an office in Indiana, but she is not licensed in the state of Indiana. But the issue about who was proper is highlighted in the letter.

Numerous voices talking together-

Gemmer Is there any way you will negotiate with them or is it a dead deal?

Thatcher- We are discussing it with the city of Dillsboro on how they want to move forward with this issue.

Gemmer- Really?

Thatcher- That is correct

Gemmer- When I talked to them yesterday…

Thatcher- I told you that I was discussing with them before…

COMMISSIONER COMMENTS- Probst- Hope all enjoy the eclipse next week.

Goodman- Be safe in bad - weather predicted, Upgraded to another level so keep that in mind today.

ADJOURN- 10:20 AM

Christine Brauer Mueller

Lawrenceburg Township

Posted by cebmueller at 9:30 PM

Address for this blog https://dearborncounty.blogspot.com/2024/04/2-april-2024-dearborn-county.html

Understand I was not a member of the DEU at this time I was trying to help right a wrong

On the day of the Eclipse Shane McHenry called me and told me I was right on what had happen and there were 3 and they did not report it. Last I heard from Shane

April 04, 2024 Glenn Wright found out that the commissioners did not do what they said the do to the council and he sent this off to Liz Morres

April 04, 2024

I MOVE TO RECONSIDER DILLSBORO EMS LIT DISBURSEMENT

DEARBORN COUNTY COMMISSIONERS ENTERED INTO A CONTRACT WITH INDIVIDUALS ON DECEMBER 4, 2023 WHO WERE NOT LEGITIMATELY AUTHORIZED TO ENTER INTO AN EMS CONTRACT.
A DEARBORN COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPUTY ON NOVEMBER 27,2023 ISSUED A NO TRESPASS WARRANT AGAINST THE LEGITIMATE OFFICERS OF THE DILLSBORO EMS. THIS WARRANT RESULTED IN AN ILLEGITIMATE GROUP TAKING CONTROL OF THE DILLSBORO EMS PROPERTY WHICH RESULTED IN DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY, ATTEMPT TO EMBEZEL FUNDS & DESTRUCTION OF RECORDS.
THE COMMITTEE OR “GROUP”, WHO PRESENTED THE EMS LIT DISTRIBUTION TO THE DEARBORN COUNTY COUNCIL, DID NOT PRESENT ALL OF THE RELEVANT FACTS IN ORDER FOR US TO MAKE A FAIR & LOGICAL DECISION.
DUE TO THIS INFORMATION THAT I RECEIVED AFTER OUR MARCH 12TH MEETING, WHICH WOULD POSSIBLY HAVE HAD A DIRECT IMPACT ON THE DECISION THAT WAS MADE ON THAT DATE, I MOVE THAT WE RECONSIDER THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE DILLSBORO EMS FUNDING.

After the interview was posted about the DEU Commissioner Jim Thatcher text this to Harry

So as one can see Jim Thatcher idea all along was he was going to tear everything down then he would put it back

Same Jim Thatcher who wanted Harry to merge with Aurora

Notes from the May 14, 2024 Deqrborn County Council Meeting Notes

FOLLOWING IS A DISCUSSION RE: DILLSBORO EMS ISSUES INITIATED BY GLENN WRIGHT

Glenn Wright- asked if LIT money had been distributed- Yes- 1st month. Asked if any oversight?

Baudendistel- each unit is to provide financials annually and schedule meeting with the county administrator.

Wright- said he’d heard there were thing like TVs and recliners purchased for EMS

Kevin Turner- asked if he could find out where the TV’s and recliners were being purchased.

Kevin Turner- said they (who is they?) had met with Dillsboro and it went flat and wants to try to schedule something with Harry after the meeting. Harry Witteride asked if they were to meet with Fire Dept. or him. He wants to meet with Harry.

Thatcher said that he, Jason?, and Drew?. Wants an open discussion with them. To try to meet next Wednesday to try to put Dillsboro back on line. [NOTE: Perhaps this meeting needs to be public, considering the recent issues there.]

Glenn Wright- asked about dispatch being cancelled.

Steve Gemmer- Shane McHenry called the day of the eclipse( April 8, 2024) and admitted that 3 officers were there. One out back and 2 in the building. And he also admitted that he did not stop this on the day after the No trespass order issued. It wasn’t until Jan 12th that he got rid of the no trespassing order. And just so you know we are still trying to get records together that the people that were not authorized to be there destroyed. So Workers comp wants last years records and we don’t have them We are dealing with some other issues. There are also legal investigations going on, now criminal… On the 12th we were told that you would work with us. We had people lined up to do it. And 5 days later you pulled them. So we lost 4 more people because of that. I’d like to know why it was OK to make. a contract with an unauthorized board? That you won’t make with the authorized board. There were no stipulations on the unauthorized board. From what I understand this has been going on for 10 years- the mess. That is why I got involved. I kept getting that I was lied to by several people and it did not make sense. And they kept changing the story. So I went straight to sources to try and look into it. Alan Goodman told me he couldn’t talk about it- that it was criminal. We agreed to do it month to month for a short time with no payment. And that is NOT what happened. Five days later after we put all that together and we scrambled so we could do it, without telling anybody they took dispatch away. How we found out was when Auroras showed up in Dillsboro. This man and that man lied to us too many times. They are not going to be the ones we are going to deal with. I’m just being honest with you.

Mark Dole- This is not a Council issue anyway- we funded and gave the money to the Commissioners - so your issue is with the Commissioners.

Steve Gemmer- It is your issue - because Glenn and Dennis wanted to table this because there were other issues involved and wanted it tabled till we could get it straightened out. Because now you are asking the people of Dillsboro to pay this LIT ( Local income tax) money- you are asking the people of Dillsboro to do all this but get we do not have any representation. And do you realize how much money we have wasted- $110,000 that insurance is looking at paying, money stolen out of the bank. There was damage done to our building and damage to a lot if stuff. All because the deputy sheriff decided to give a no trespassing order to him ( Harry Witteride) If that wouldn’t have happened we wouldn’t be here right now. And that is a fact.

Liz Morris- that you for your comments.

Glen Wright- here’s the issue Liz- we are expected to make wise financial decisions with the taxpayers money. How can some people in a group make a presentation to the Council know these things and not let the Council know?

Morris- I think those are pretty strong accusations.

Wright- I think there are things that were not told to the Council that night.

Morris- that would be surprising to me- but I don’t think we need to go down this path tonight. There is nothing. That we can do about it.

Wright- So we are just going to sweep it under the rug?

Morris- I’m not sweeping anything under the rug.

Wright -You sure are

Morris- Actions were taken - there are contracts with the different departments people are involved with the distribution of funds, but I think we are beyond our scope.

Wright- In order for us to make a valid decision - like we have done with everything else tonight - we need to have all he info presented to us that is known by that committee or group. For example Mr Grieve presented info about the trucks he was asking for. The same thing should have been done with the Dillsboro EMS. We should have known these things were going on. I feel there are members of this Council and also the group that came up with this, that knew these things were going on but they did not tell us.

Morris- Those are pretty strong accusations.

Tim Doll- I’ll speak to that because I was part of the group as was Mr Turner. That group was tasked with finding the most equitable way to distribute those funds. That group was made up of individuals, I don’t know what they knew because of all the different backgrounds. I can tell you with 100% certainty that I did not withhold any information at that meeting. What we had was a spreadsheet and explained what we did and how we landed there. Then those funds were requested by the commissioners so they could distribute them. So that group of citizens and elected officials worked together- and it was a group- to come up with a best recommendation and this body moved forward with that and made a motion exactly as that spreadsheet shows. And that’s exactly what has happened with those funds since then, Glenn. So when you sit up here and make accusations about any one of us personally…

Wright- I’m not making accusations. I’m just saying someone had to know. No one knew that the sheriff’s deputies had been to Dillsboro EMS?

Kevin Turner- Mr Wright- there is somethings that you can learn if you are there At that time I was not a law enforcement officer. So as far as who got the trespass for what wherever, I did not have access for any sort of database system to look any of that up. I did not know anything was going on with that. Other than rumors and innuendoes. And then when the changeover or takeover happened I was not involved in the fire dept or EMS at that point. I did not know till well after it happened. Did not know that they disputed things until well after it happened. Did not know that attorneys and bank accounts frozen. Did not know that until well after it happened. Now that I am a law enforcement officer again I do have access to law enforcement databases, but I don’t search for stuff that is going on with Dillsboro EMS, because that is not my purview. I work for Ohio County Sheriff’s Dept.I don’t know who the heck was trespassing and as far as that is concerned that is an issue best taken up with the sheriff and his deputies and if his deputies acted inappropriately he has to discipline them. That is up to the Merit Board and the sheriff and all that. If it’s criminal it has to be take to the prosecutors office and she would have filed charges on them for official misconduct or something like that. If that was what happened. As for saying things are hidden from you. This group is just about the money That is the lane we stay in.

Morris- this group has done a great deal of research on their own time and I thought it was rather extensive and I was appreciative about the responses and amount of territories. I think what Council did on that evening was the appropriate thing action to take at that time. As far as I am conceded that issue is not on our agenda and there has been enough discussion, so I’ll call for an adjournment.

Two nays to motion to adjourn were Glenn Wright and Dennis Kraus Sr. Meeting adjourned.

Adjournment- 6:55PM

Christine Brauer Mueller

Lawrenceburg Township

Posted by cebmueller at 10:04 PM

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Dillsboro Emergency Unit , Inc. 25 July 2024 Meeting- Videos and Complete Handout