Southport Council To Request Mayor Thoman's Resignation

Fox 59 News' Russ McQuaid is reporting tonight that Southport council members intend to unanimously ask for Mayor Robin Thoman's resignation at a council meeting Monday night. McQuaid reports:

"Citing a breakdown in communication, stonewalling on city spending and recent revelations about the mayor's criminal past, council members Jim Cooney and Susie Schmoll placed a call to Thoman Sunday afternoon to privately request his resignation before going public during the upcoming meeting. . . .

Thoman has been controversial from almost the day he took office in January of 2008. Within months he launched a devisive and expensive legal battle with a citizen over the practice of opening council meetings with a prayer. This past summer, his police chief and virtually the entire Southport police force resigned partially because of the mayor's directive to officers to write speeding tickets and instruct motorists to pay those fines directly to the city without availing themselves of traffic court.

This past week, an exclusive Fox 59 News investigation revealed the mayor was arrested for theft, embezzlement and intimidation in Colorado Springs in 1981 as a college student and while those charges were all dropped, Thoman concealed a nolo contendre plea to two charges on his application for a Indiana dental permit in 1987 and another state permit in 2003. He also concealed his less than honorable discharged from the army medical corps in 1980 and petitioned the court to seal his criminal case file in 1999.

"We see a pattern with you and we just can't keep going on the way we are," Cooney told Thoman. "I mean...something has to give."

Monday night the council will seek Thoman's resignation, oppose his proposed ordinance to borrow $161,000 against future property tax receipts to pay this year's bills, consider hiring a fraud investigator to probe what it calls the mayor's secretive spending of city funds and send letters to the Indiana Attorney General, Indiana Secretary of State, Marion County Prosecutor, Marion County Election Board and Marion County Republican Party seeking independent investigations into the mayor's activities and record, citing the potential for perjury.

Mayor Thoman told the council members he would think about their resignation request. He refused comment to Fox 59 News.

Fox 59 News is beating the pants off the rest of the Indianapolis media on coverage of this story. For more on this story, click here.