A South Bend Common Council committee meeting Thursday got off to a wild start when the council attorney asked police to make a council member move from his seat.
Council Member Oliver Davis said he was stunned. The council has a longstanding tradition of members attending meetings of committees they don’t serve on.
But as a Rules Committee meeting was about to start, committee Chair Rachel Tomas-Morgan asked Davis to get up from his usual seat on stage and sit in the audience because he’s not on the committee.
Council Attorney Bob Palmer also told Davis to leave his seat. Davis refused, telling them he would only move if it was required by a city ordinance. Then Palmer went out into the lobby and asked the South Bend police officer working security for the meeting to make Davis move. But the officer declined.
Tomas-Morgan then got out of her seat, walked over to Davis, and stood over him closely, demanding that he move and show her respect as committee chair. Still Davis refused. For nearly two minutes, according to a video recorded by Redress South Bend, Tomas-Morgan stood in what Davis later said was clearly his personal space.
"She was so close to me that if I had just stood up, it would have appeared that I was standing up to fight," Davis said. "I may have even bumped into her hair or whatever. It would have been immediate calls for me to resign tonight and everything else. It would have been bad.
"At the same time I'm glad the public saw it because this is something that they needed to see has been the tenor of the some of the situations that have gone on on our council."
Davis said what made Tomas-Morgan’s and Palmer’s behavior especially odd was that he would have still been able to hear everything that was said in the meeting from a seat in the audience. It was a public meeting. It wasn’t like the committee members were whispering on stage.
Tomas-Morgan declined WVPE's interview request.
Davis, who works as a school counselor, said he’s never seen anything like it in his 14 years on the council.
"My fifth graders and even the ones we have who are fourth-graders, could have solved this problem better than what adults did tonight. It was embarrassing. And then (Council Member) Sherri Bolden-Simpson shows up, they say nothing to her. I'm like, OK, this is extremely personal."
At one point Davis told Palmer that he can't just make up rules, and that the council hires him. Palmer replied that Davis did not vote for him when the council renewed Palmer's contract.
All nine council members are Democrats. Don Westerhausen so far is the only candidate to succeed Diana Hess as party chair at a March 1 caucus. If he becomes chair Westerhausen plans to send council members a clear message.
"People don't have to like each other," Westerhausen said, "they just have to get along, and we have to all realize that as Democrats we have shared values of inclusion and respect and progress, and that's what they should be concentrating on, not between these personality conflicts with each other. It's time to quit."
Once the meeting got started, the committee dismissed complaints alleging that former Council President Sharon McBride has been living out of her council district.
The South Bend Tribune reports that the committee’s three members, Tomas-Morgan, Troy Warner and council President Canneth Lee, voted for the dismissal.
McBride has stated in court records that she has been living at her mother's home in another district because of black mold in her own East Broadway Street home. Palmer said his research of case law supports McBride, partly because she plans on returning to the house.
The St. Joseph County Democratic Party also supports McBride in the matter.
Lee on Friday released a statement saying Tomas-Morgan as committee chair was within her "rights and privilege" to tell Davis he couldn't sit in his usual seat since he's not on the committee.
