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Resident faults council over Brown School Road development, urges referendum and charter enforcement
Summary
During public comments at the July 21 Vandalia City Council meeting, resident Jack Froshower criticized council handling of a proposed residential development on Brown School Road, said nearly 600 referendum signatures were ruled legally insufficient, and urged the council to put the ordinance to a referendum or revisit petition irregularities.
Jack Froshower, who identified himself as a Vandalia resident, used the public‑comment portion of the July 21 meeting to sharply criticize the council’s handling of a proposed residential development on Brown School Road and to challenge the city’s handling of a subsequent referendum petition.
“They have found us, and they're here coming for us,” Froshower said, referencing press coverage of developer plans. He told council members the nearly 600 signatures collected as part of the referendum effort were “deemed legally insufficient by the city of Vandalia, despite a recommendation to the contrary by the Montgomery County Board of Elections.”
Froshower said residents near Brown School Road “stated their objections to what was presented as new residential construction” over a six‑month period and that the council ignored those objections. He described events in March, when the council discussed an ordinance on the development: “On March 3, there was a second reading of that ordinance. … The mayor finally called a vote on that motion. It failed.” He said the law director then “came to the rescue with a do over” by allowing the developer to present amendments that ultimately led to the ordinance passing.
Froshower asserted the council failed to follow the charter’s procedures on amendment notice and waiting periods and called on the council to place the ordinance before voters or otherwise “revisit the citizen's petition for referendum and the stipulations of the charter in section 9.” He further said petition forms had “critical errors on petition forms prepared by city law director Gerald McDonald.”
Mayor Herbst thanked Froshower for his comments; no council action followed from the public comment segment during the meeting.
Later in the meeting, Council member Lewis (who noted he is also a lawyer) said he had “listened to several … explanations from our city attorney” and that he was “convinced that his reasoning is sound and correct and that the course of what the city is doing is proper under the law and our city charter.”
Froshower’s remarks raised procedural and constitutional concerns he asked the council to address; the council did not take up the request as an agenda item that evening.
