Portage begins leadership transition after Mayor James Snyder's bibery conviction, ouster
Chicago Tribune
February 16, 2019
https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/news/ct-ptb-portage-mayor-removed-st-0216-story.html
Evidence that James Snyder had served as the city’s mayor for seven years was rapidly disappearing Friday morning at Portage City Hall.
His portrait in the lobby had been taken down, leaving just a nameplate. His city-issued Ford Explorer sat in a parking lot behind the building, surrendered Thursday immediately after he was convicted on two of three felonies in U.S. District Court in Hammond.
Porter County Sheriff’s Department deputies had been at the building earlier, recording video of the contents in his former mayor’s office, which Acting Mayor Sue Lynch said was to make sure nothing went missing.
Snyder’s personal effects, family photos and memorabilia from his time in office, were removed from the places where they once sat in his office and waited to be boxed up. Lynch, a Democrat and at-large councilwoman who took on the acting mayor’s role as council president under state statute, said the city could have them delivered to him.
At the time of the verdict, announced Thursday afternoon, Portage police officers changed access codes on the doors at City Hall, Lynch said, and, in perhaps her first act as the city’s acting mayor, she sent letters to the city’s employees and department heads.
Between taking phone calls and sending texts, Lynch and City Councilman John Cannon, R-4th, said the two, along with other city officials, had been preparing for whatever they would be faced with after the trial concluded.
“Our employees have been very stressed out the last couple years,” Lynch said, referring to Snyder’s indictment in November 2016. “They didn’t know what would happen to them. We didn’t want them to have more stress.”
With an assortment of city meetings in the coming weeks, business is continuing regardless of the transition in city leadership.
“”We’re not going to let time go by,” Lynch said.
Cannon is uncontested on the May primary ballot for Portage mayor, and Lynch is one of four Democrat contenders for the office in the primary. Regardless, Cannon said he and Lynch agreed to work through the transition process together.
“We want to bring our city together and heal it, and that’s what we’re doing,” he said
Lynch’s letters explain that she will serve as acting mayor until the Porter County Republican Party holds a caucus in the coming weeks to find a replacement for Snyder. The person selected at the caucus will serve until Snyder’s term is up at the end of the year.
“It is important that the transition from the current mayor be smooth,” she wrote. “We cannot allow for the disruption of services to our residents.”
The letters, similar in content, explain that department heads and supervisors will not change.
“This is a very difficult time for our city. I would ask each of you to continue to do your job as you always have,” Lynch wrote to city employees.
She also said in both letters “that from this date forward you shall have no communication with former Mayor Snyder regarding any city business or city issues. You shall not provide him any documentation or information regarding the city,” adding his electronic and digital access to information, as well as physical access to city facilities, had been removed, and city employees and department heads are not allowed to assist him to gain that access.”
Lynch and Cannon are both longtime council members, taking office in 2008 and 2012, respectively, and said they were prepared to handle city business.
In the time since Snyder’s indictment, Lynch said, the city has been under a cloud of uncertainty.
“We’ve been in that holding pattern and it’s time to move forward,” she said.
The cooperation so far, Cannon said, including with the sheriff’s department and city employees, has been “wonderful.”
“We just have great people wanting the city of Portage to succeed, and that’s what we’re making sure happens,” he said.
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