Nobody Elected Bob Palmer, and He Must Now Be Fired and Punished By the Indiana Supreme Court for Endangering Elected Officials

February 21, 2025

Nobody Elected Bob Palmer, and he must now be fired and Punished by the Indiana Supreme Court for Endangering Elected Officials

by Rexworth E.F. Washington

In good conscience, I’m not certain that I can recommend anyone move to my hometown of South Bend. 

The vitriol at Common Council Meetings and the South Bend School Board meetings has been far too much of late, and it is symptomatic of people not being heard in our community, by elected officials, and those who work for them misbehaving at every turn. The upheaval continues largely because of a lack of transparency in our community. 

Bob Palmer is one of the problems in our community. 

Nobody elected Palmer to anything. Further, his consistent willingness to say there are rules or laws that he can never point to or provide is treachery. This was again the case on Wednesday night at an Executive session of the Common Council (see video). 

Palmer should not be allowed to solicit Morgan during proceedings, nor should anyone in our community stand for Palmer’s police intervention against an elected official at a public meeting. It’s not just a bad idea, but it also creates a danger to all in the room, and thankfully, the police officer on duty responded calmly and did not further escalate the situation. 

Palmer has a history of interpreting laws and rules for the council members, which is not his role at approximately +/-$8000 a month; his job should be to figure out how to legally carry out the council’s will and issues of procedure that are written in Robert’s Rules of Order or any adopted rules by the Common Council, nothing more. Palmer and City Clerk Bianca Tirado seemingly have not gotten the message that their roles are to speak when spoken to at these meetings. Anything else is outside of their purview and is legally and socially unacceptable.  

His actions against an at-large Common Council member are akin to an attempt to overthrow an elected government official, and he should be fired for his actions and disbarred or seriously punished by the Indiana State Bar Association. When a Parliamentarian is asked for their opinion on a rule they may offer it, it does not make it true and is not the enforceable law. 

Palmer’s actions on Wednesday night show a blindness to real problems we have in our community. Dr. Davis was not belligerent or disrespectful. If Ms. Morgan disagreed with Davis, she should file a violation against him. Nobody should get in another person’s personal space the way Morgan did. Still, Morgan and other council members repeatedly misunderstand Palmer's actual role, and he allows this to occur by repeatedly overstepping his boundaries and role. 

Palmer seems intoxicated with power, and this makes him dangerous. Further, the fact that he has no power and yet elected officials cede authority to him has made him even more of a threat to our local democratic processes. Palmer misunderstands governance completely, which, perhaps, is why his name is not on any ballots. Governance is about service, not power, and the more that Palmer is allowed to wield any power or control, the less safe our community is for anyone.  

Bob Palmer is a disgrace to his profession and an embarrassment to our community, and his time must end with the Common Council immediately. Allowing him to participate further after asking law enforcement to intervene when he was not instructed to do so is a disgrace. His actions Wednesday and in the past show that he is unfit to serve and is a threat to the very institution of local government. 

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