Chancellor Jeff Atherton on Tuesday afternoon denied a restraining order seeking to block the City Council from a second and final vote on the upcoming 2020-2021 budget just a few hours later.
“Iin regard to the petition for relief that is being asked for as a temporary restraining order, this court denies the petition for a temporary restraining order,” said Chancellor Atherton.
The judge also denied an injunction and said the plaintiffs will have to pay the court costs.
A few hours later, the City Council approved the budget on second and final reading 8-1 with only Anthony Byrd opposed.
Courtenay Gillean Cholovich filed the injunction without an attorney.
During Monday’s demonstration at Miller Park, she told why she was seeking to block the proposed budget.
“We observed that City Council actually violated what we see as several state and local statues in accordance for how they are supposed to give public notice,” said Ms. Cholovich. “Yes, the public knows there is a Council meeting every Tuesday, but Mayor Berke’s alternate budget was not announced until the day before.
“It wasn’t even announced by City Council they were bringing it on to the agenda. So that’s a huge violation, since they aren’t supposed to be able to take that vote, and that is a state statute under the Sunshine Law.”
The new budget allocates $150,000 from the office of the police chief into the new Office of Community Resilience.
The burden of proof fell upon petitioner Cholovich. Her petition claimed that an insufficient amount of time was given to the public to look over a revised version of the city budget after it was voted on last Tuesday, passing the first reading 8-1. The second reading is to take place today.
Represented by Chad Wilson, Ms. Cholovich was opposed by city attorney Phil Noblett, who told the court he believed the city had provided adequate notice to citizens, stating that a notice was actually put out on May 29.
Attorney Wilson said that this notice was invalid, because the city was “counting their chickens before they had hatched” by assuming what the council had done. In addition to this, the city had announced the revised budget on June 15, and so 10 days had not passed since the revised budget was introduced.
However, Ms. Cholovich could not provide any statute-based proof that any laws had been violated. The four factors being considered were whether there was identifiable harm to the client, the balancing of harm to the petitioner and the defendant, the rights of the petitioner based on merits, and the public interests involved.
Of those four factors, only public interest was cited in favor of Ms. Cholovich.
“I listened closely to the statutory authority that has been presented, and with regard to 844103, the words I received from the petitioner that she is vested is a conclusory statement not a factually supported assertion,” said Judge Atherton. He said the injury to the taxpayers is not enough to support the petitioners claim. He said that while the community might be harmed, the petition regards one individual only, and that “another avenue” can be pursued if the community is involved.
Judge Atherton said none of the statutes the petitioner and her attorney cited have built-in relief worked within them. He again said there is an avenue in the judicial system to address their issues with the system, but he said, “it’s on the back end, not the front end.”
City Councilwoman Carol Berz said she favors pushing ahead with the budget while continuing to deal with concerns brought forth by the protesters.
She said, "I say to the protesters that you have done a good job protesting and getting your point across. I might have used different language, but you have First Amendment rights."
Councilwoman Berz said the city is required to pass a budget by the end of the month and that would be better than to operate on a continuation budget.
She said she wanted to see the city get involved in such issues as pay equity, living wage, minimum wage, having a functional public transportation system, affordable day care, healthcare and mental health.
Councilwoman Berz said, "I want to look at collaborative conferencing. We can't do that unless we get off the dime and get the new budget passed."
Councilwoman Demetrus Coonrod said, "We can make all the tweaks and changes to this budget, but it ain't going to change the racism. We have to deal with that first."
She added, "It's not just the police department. We need to take a deep dive in all our departments."
Councilwoman Coonrod also recommended that all council members undergo racial disparity training.