Today is the official end of an era in Calhoun County, an era of cooperative court government. When the Ridgeview News opened its cyber doors in January 2022, my attempt to cover the Calhoun Circuit Court was thwarted when the Calhoun Circuit Clerk, Sheila Garretson refused to provide court information such as criminal complaints, court dockets, etc. While I could have forced the issue with a FOIA (Freedom of Information act) request, Prosecuting Attorney Nigel Jeffries stepped up and provided the information to me, most of the time before I requested it. Criminal complaints where provided by him shortly after an arrest and any question I had was a simple email away.
I could have gotten much of the information from Calhoun Magistrate Court but the Magistrates are no longer permitted to provide information and the Magistrate Clerk’s office charges for every document, even those that are emailed. Which may not seem like much, but for the very thin Ridgeview News budget every single penny counts.
So, the fact that Nigel Jeffries was such an awesome help and an open book for all public matters of the court was much appreciated and should be noted by every public official worth a grain of salt.
Tomorrow we enter the era of Michael Hicks as Prosecuting Attorney and what I will assume, as Publisher of the Ridgeview News, will be the era of the secret squirrel. Until proven wrong. They began this entire process by changing a meeting date and failing to notify anyone involved with the exception of that wonderful modern notification system of the courthouse bulletin board. It was said there was “no time” to make the announcement, another unproven fact.
We certainly didn’t start out on a good term when no press was notified of the swearing in of Michael Hicks yesterday, August 17th, 2023. Why hide something that the Democratic Party was so proud of?
Multiple Republicans have reached out to Michael Hicks to sincerely welcome him into his new position and he has failed to even acknowledge their attempts. A meeting was offered, he refused to respond. Are we to believe the community will be guaranteed access to the information that they deserve to have from the highest law enforcement position in the County?
Add this information to the fact that the wife of Michael Hicks is the deputy clerk to Shelia Garretson, his only experience as a trial lawyer having been that of a guardian ad litem, he was appointed by the good ol’ boy network of Commissioners Kevin Helmick and Matt Walker. Those who served with him for years and following their interview of the other candidate, Betty Gregory, whose experience made Mr. Hicks’ resume look like that of an infant, hired their buddy.
This isn’t the first questionable behavior from this bunch. When Michael Hicks first became an attorney, a whole three years ago, he then went to work for Minnie Hamilton Health System. It was during that period of time that he helped to broker the deal between Minnie Hamilton and the Calhoun Youth Live stock program where Minnie Hamilton built a pole barn in exchange for the Arnoldsburg School worth considerably more, that now houses the clinic in Arnoldsubrg. Clearly not a conflict of interest, right; if Michael Hicks serves on the Livestock board?
So here we sit in our secret squirrel society of Calhoun County Politics with the newly appointed highest law enforcement officer in the county making it known that he is accountable to no one.
