North Judson residents will have the chance to weigh in on the firing of Town Marshal John Ramos next week. The town council has scheduled a public hearing for Thursday, June 8 at 6:30 p.m. at the North Judson-San Pierre High School Auditorium.
North Judson residents will have the chance to weigh in on the firing of Town Marshal John Ramos. The town council has scheduled a public hearing for Thursday, June 8 at 6:30 p.m. at the North Judson-San Pierre High School Auditorium.
Council members announced Monday that the hearing would take place next week, but Town Attorney Justin Schramm says it’s now been pushed back due to scheduling issues. Ramos is appealing his termination, after council members voted to fire him on April 21. Ramos had been serving as North Judson town marshal since July 2016, following the death of Doug Vessely the previous April.
Town officials had earlier said the appeal would be considered by council members during a closed executive session. But Schramm says Ramos and his attorney asked that the hearing take place in public, and in the interest of transparency, town officials have agreed. While a hearing generally has to take place within 30 days of when an appeal is filed, Schramm says that time-frame may be extended by mutual agreement of both parties.
For now, Officer Frank Thomas is running the police department on an interim basis. He told council members Monday he hopes to focus more on crime and crime prevention. “I won’t say why or how or anything else like that, but we really need to get back to policing the town,” he said. “Officer Rico [Simpson] here has really been hitting it hard here recently. He’s kind of got a little elbow room to go back to doing his job, and he’s done a really good job here lately, putting in a lot of hours. But I’m just going to say, the last six to nine months, we kind of dropped down in what we call in the police world our productivity.”
Thomas is asking the town council to hire a part-time ordinance enforcement officer, to allow police to spend more time pursuing criminals.
