Seven city cases remain Wilder’s in Jeffersonville

Clark County

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July 4, 2009

Attorney resigned from representing city council last week

By DAVID A. MANN The News and Tribune Sat Jul 04, 2009, 09:47 PM EDT

The city of Jeffersonville will continue to use the services of attorney Larry Wilder on seven pending cases.

Wilder resigned as attorney for the Jeffersonville City Council earlier this week, just a few days after he was found asleep in his neighbor’s garbage can after a night of celebratory drinking. The story made national headlines and Wilder also offered his resignation as the Greater Clark County Schools Board of Trustees.

Around the time he resigned from his council post, a few members of the council were quoted as saying that a vote should be held on whether or not to keep Wilder as attorney on cases that were pending.

That vote never took place, however, as it’s Mayor Tom Galligan’s decision on who represents the city — not the council’s.

“There’s no need to reinvent the wheel,” Galligan said in an interview Thursday. “[Wilder] does a good job, we’ve had good results.”

Larry Thomas, communications director for the city, noted that there have been times in the past when the city would use two different attorneys — one representing the council and one representing the city.

He said the council and the mayor’s office came to a decision to end that practice when Galligan returned to office in 2008.

“It works better when both parties are represented by the same person,” Galligan said, noting that if a lawsuit is adversarial to the council, it is typically adversarial to the city.

Wilder said it would have been a bad financial move to bring a new attorney in on cases, because a few are in their late stages. Wilder was paid more than $107,000 by the city for his legal work in 2008, city records show.

The cases that Wilder will continue to handle include:

• Eric Dowdell’s case against the city challenges Jeffersonville’s ban on sex offenders in local parks. The case is expected to be argued before the Indiana Supreme Court, Wilder said.

• Pleas have been made in a lawsuit regarding advertisements on park benches, which had been placed around the city by a private company. That case is awaiting summary judgment, Wilder said.

• A lawsuit filed by Buckhead Mountain Grill and Rocky’s Italian Grill — regarding parking issues along Riverside Drive — is expected to go before the Indiana Court of Appeals, he said.

• For now, Wilder is representing the city in a case involving a former Jeffersonville firefighter who alleges he lost pension money after being forced into early retirement. That case may be handed off to the city’s insurance company, Wilder said.

• A zoning case against the city involving resident Patty Ballard — carried over from the previous mayoral administration of Rob Waiz — is scheduled for trial later this summer.

• A case involving an apartment complex’s responsibility for sewer tap-in fees, also carried over from the Waiz administration, is set for trial, Wilder said.

• And a case between the city and its police union, regarding the number of promotions made during Waiz administration, is on hold for now, Wilder said. Attorneys are gauging how a new union contract affects the case.