If the aforementioned scenario is in fact the reality, as alleged by the cover story in the Aug. 16 edition of Current in Carmel, then it’s indeed a public matter for investigators and lawyers to sift through. However, according to Carmel City Councilman Rick Sharp, many of these recent allegations have been made by questionable sources. Sharp also said that these allegations have been aired without evidence of wrongdoing being brought forth, and before an audit of Center finances has been completed.
“The [Center for the Performing Arts] Foundation is doing exactly what it should be doing and that is protecting the interests of the foundation and what they’re doing is they’re not talking,” said Sharp. “That’s because they haven’t got their audit completed or their investigation completed. That’s why I pretty much find it irresponsible that we’ve had this reckless speculation.”
“The mayor and Current and The Indianapolis Star have turned this into tabloid reporting, rather than dealing with the facts,” said Carmel City Councilman John Accetturo. “If there’s evidence that Mr. Libman did something wrong let’s see the evidence.”
Just the Facts?
As reported in Current, Carmel City Attorney Douglas Haney hired International Investigators, Inc. to investigate Libman for an $8,100 fee several months ago. The city sought out the investigative firm after Current had informed Carmel city government that Libman might be having an affair with a subordinate. The private investigators were brought in to verify this information because “initial evidence was deemed insufficient to warrant a criminal investigation,” according to Current.
What the investigators found, according to unnamed sources for this weekly Carmel paper, confirmed that Libman was not only involved in a relationship with a subordinate but that—on more than one occasion—he took flights with her to various cities on the Eastern Seaboard with expenses paid by the $175 million arts center. (These charges were echoed by Brainard himself who was quoted extensively in a front page article in The Indianapolis Star on Wed, Aug. 17)
Libman was confronted with these allegations about inappropriate activities by the board of the Center for the Performing Arts on the afternoon of July 29. That day, Libman tendered his resignation after agreeing to a settlement deal.
Current also brought to light another accusation by Mayor Jim Brainard—apparently unearthed by Indianapolis-based International Investigators, Inc.—that Libman had inappropriately promoted his subordinate. As quoted by Current, Mayor Brainard stated, “He [Libman] promoted her and paid her more money in the middle of their dating relationship without posting (the position) or making it available to other employees.”
Regarding the mayor’s allegation and the Current story as a whole, Sharp said, “I don’t know if it’s accurate or not… I have a difficult time putting my stock in a story that’s based almost entirely on unknown sources, a terminated employee, and speculation on the part of the mayor.”
“In essence the mayor has become the story,” continued Sharp. “He is the lead on the story. He is the source that has gone on the record and made all the allegations and I know that I for one am going to expect to see the evidence to back up each and every one of these charges because aside from the allegation of infidelity or an inappropriate relationship… The other items that the mayor alleges are rather damning for the man’s career. By the man, I’m saying Mr. Libman.”
Sharp also implied that the allegation that the mayor made might be very hard to prove in a court of law. “I’m sure that was a rather dynamic period of time for the center [when] they were building an organization from the ground up,” he said. “The allegation that the individual received a promotion and a pay increase is quite damning but if you were to dug into it and you found that 30% of the people who worked for the center initially evolved into different job titles and job descriptions and 40% of the people received pay increases as a result of that, that suddenly makes the allegation against Mr. Libman have a little less substance to it.”
On his Facebook page, Sharp speculates that the reason Current in Carmel started investigating Libman in the first place is that the free weekly was “miffed” at the Center for the Performing Arts for withholding information from them. But then, Current had, in Sharp’s words, previously “leaked this year’s entertainment lineup,” at the Center so it’s possible that the Center for the Performing Arts didn’t want any more information to leak prematurely. In any case, as indicated on his Facebook page, Sharp continues to believe that the investigation into Libman’s activities is politically motivated. See http://www.facebook.com/ricksharpforcarmel
(One of the people used as a named source in the Current article was Anne Poynter, a former Center employee who is now the director of the Downtown Westfield Association. Poynter called Libman’s spending “irresponsible.” Current neglected to mention that Poynter is Republican congressman and gubernatorial candidate Mike Pence’s sister.)
If the Allegations Are True, Then What?
Another issue the Current cover story raises is the potential legal action that might arise because of potential violations of state and federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) provisions from the activity that Mayor Brainard alleged.
Sheila Suess Kennedy, Professor of Law and Public Policy at IUPUI, indicated that, whether or not there are EEOC violations, there could potentially be legal ramifications due to violations of employment law provisions.
If I am a current employee that applied for that position but didn’t know about it, I could bring a lawsuit alleging it is unequal treatment, certainly,” she said.
Would Carmel taxpayers on the hook? Protecting taxpayers was the justification Current used in its story as a reason to bring its preliminary findings to the city of Carmel. But according to Accetturo Carmel taxpayers are protected by a contract.
“There is a contract signed between the Carmel Redevelopment Commission and the city and the Center for the Performing Arts,” says Accetturo. “That contract is a public document so it’s not anything secretive or anything like that. In there, the city’s indemnified against anything the Center for the Performing Arts does.”
But his main concern is focused not on Libman's activities, but the city's. “I’m worried about illegal activities of private investigators hired with city money following people around,” said Accetturo.Another City Council Member’s Perspective
At-Large Carmel City Council member Ron Carter is of two minds about the former Center for the Performing Arts president. “As far as Mr. Libman is concerned, I’ll tell you what I’ve told other people and that is that I’m angry,” he said. “I’m disappointed. If I see Steven Libman, I would tell him that. I would not let that take away from some things that I think he did in regard to getting the whole performing arts center online. He put together an excellent opening season. He did an outstanding job of marketing. And brought some divergent entities together.” Carter sees the role of oversight of the Carmel City Council, in regard to Libman’s tenure at the Center for the Performing Arts, as a limited one. “Libman is not an employee of the city of Carmel. And the role of the city council should not be one of jumping into the middle of this fray that was handled appropriately by the Performing Arts Foundation board and the board is doing a very good job from a due diligence standpoint of looking at the financial records of the center.”
But Carter does see some oversight role for the Carmel City Council. “Since the city council has provided some funding in the way of tax dollars,” he said, “the city council certainly needs to make sure that the entity to which the money was given, which was the performing arts foundation, has the appropriate safeguards in place to make sure that taxpayer money is spent in an appropriate fashion.”
(In 2010 and 2011 the city, with council approval, funded theCenter for the Performing Arts’ operating budget at the rate of two million dollars per year.) Appropriate Oversight
And yet, according to Kennedy, “There has not been at least so far as I can see the kind of attention to process that would make me feel comfortable if I were a Carmel taxpayer.”
Would greater attention to process (and oversight) have prevented the current scandal? And, perhaps more importantly, was (or is there still) anyone lining their pockets at Carmel taxpayers’ expense?
“The issues that have been raised in the press reports that I’ve seen suggest that there might have been a certain sloppiness in the decision making process all along,” said Kennedy. “In the decision to build the facility, and in the entities created in order to effectuate this particular development, perhaps they didn’t dot every i and cross every t. But I don’t think it was intentional. I think that sometimes when people are trying to get something done, which is admirable, they don’t always [act] as we might hope they would.”
City Councilman Rick Sharp
