CORYDON – After being sent home early Friday, the jury received their instructions and started deliberation for the civil trial Steve Green vs. City of Creston, Water Works Board of Trustees 11 a.m. today at the Wayne County Courthouse.
Friday afternoon, Creston Water Works attorney Patrick Smith – subject to his understanding of discussions in the judge’s chamber – had two witnesses from the Creston Water Works testify without the jury present, then ask the judge for a directed verdict.
Green’s attorneys, Michael J. Carroll and Richard Owen McConville, resubmitted their objections to Smith’s witnesses for the record, but made a similar request for a directed verdict in favor of Green.
A directed verdict is an order from the presiding judge in a jury trial to return a specific verdict. It is typically used when a judge determines no reasonable jury could reach a decision contrary to the judge.
“Bottom line is, I think there is enough evidence to submit this entire case to the jury on all the issues that have been pled by both sides,” Judge John Lloyd said. “And that’s what we are going to end up doing.”
Green finishes
After spending all Thursday afternoon on the witness stand, Green returned to the post to start the trial Friday. He spent just over an hour explaining his accrued vacation and other allegations made in the state auditor’s report.
“I earned it, it’s mine, it’s banked, I own it,” Green said about his accumulated vacation time. “It is mine to use.”
Green was not the only employee to receive payouts for vacation time, but he was the only one who accrued vacation year to year and received a payout for his unused vacation quarterly.
“No sense of stacking more on top of it when I knew I was going to retire at 62,” Green said. “They (the board) knew they were going to have to take care of it sometime, so why continue to let it build and build and build and build.”
Smith ended his cross examination with the power washer and generator found in Green’s personal garage where he kept his work truck.
“We needed light for a number of reasons,” Green said. “If you received a call and had to go out, a lot of our things are not by street lights. Most of the problems we have are in the winter.”
Green added that having a light weight generator in his heated garage was for convenience.
McNichols testimony
Current Creston Water Works Chairman Lee McNichols took the stand after Green. He has spent the entire trial sitting behind the defendant’s table across from Green.
McNichols first described his role in establishing the board’s finance committee, which he was the lone member.
“I thought we needed a little more oversight for what was going on at the water works,” McNichols said. “We would go over the financial report, go over all the bills, approve the hiring of a CPA firm.”
He recalled the March 2011 meeting where the board approved Green to receive three weeks paid out for his vacation time, but said it was the only time he recalled Green asking for a payout.
“My understanding was that instead of getting five weeks of vacation, we were going to buy back three weeks of vacation time,” McNichols said. “Steve Green did not have time to be gone five weeks in the year.”
After the 2012 audit, Draper, Snodgrass and Mikkelsen CPA Randy Cook contacted McNichols about his findings that he wanted to report to the finance committee. Bill Stuart attended the meeting with McNichols.
“I agreed to attend a meeting at his office,” McNichols said. “We learned that Randy Cook had some concerns.”
McNichols said he believed it was an ongoing investigation and did not discuss the information Cook presented to anyone else, including other members of the board. The board later put Green on paid administrative leave after a special meeting was called in November 2012.
“We received the auditor’s report and terminated Steve Green’s contract,” McNichols said. “I thought we had just cause at that time to terminate his contract.”
Green was terminated in June 2013.
“I wasn’t happy that this hadn’t been reported earlier,” McNichols said. “They hadn’t reported it to us and second, that the board over sighted that.”
Water works employees
Creston Water Works Distribution Superintendent Rick Reed and employee Justin Davis took the stand Friday afternoon.
Reed discussed his understanding of how vacation time worked for management employees.
“I have lost hours,” Reed said, but he had received payout for some time. “Because I wasn’t able to use all of it, sometimes I would ask for it, sometimes Steve would offer it.”
He also said he never personally saw the generator or power washer Green kept in his garage on site for the Creston Water Works, but said it was understood that employees could use work equipment for personal projects with approval.
“There is no (written) policy that I know of,” Reed said.
Davis recalled a conversation he had with Green in the summer of 2012 about if a generator the size of the portable one found in Green’s garage could power an air conditioner.
If the jury reaches a decision Monday, it will have to be a unanimous 8-0 decision.