HARDIN CO.—There’s been a resolution to the bizarre attempt by Hardin County’s state’s attorney to get at another person she perceives has “wronged” her…and once again, Tara Wallace’s legal acumen has been called to the carpet and shown to be severely lacking.
The matter was first brought to readers last month in an article about Wallace allowing an order to lock bed and breakfast operators Rob and Sandy Vinyard out of their state-owned facility, The Rose Hotel.
Padlocked out
The popular tourist attraction was padlocked on December 2, 2013, after Wallace, acting through a “special prosecutor” (Pope County’s duly-elected prosecutor, who gets called to Hardin to handle Wallace’s cases more than probably the people of Pope feel comfortable with), managed to get a “default judgment” in advance of any real court hearing on the matter—despite the fact that the Vinyards had secured an attorney to enter an appearance November 25, thus stopping all action—over an alleged unpaid tourist tax bill.
The Vinyards were fighting certain portions of the amount of occupancy tax the county board (who filed the suit in August after failing to come to an agreement over the situation) claimed they owed, and had retained Lowell Tyson as legal counsel to help them fight it.
However, ignoring the fact that the couple had retained counsel, Wallace acted on the “default judgment” (meaning that she talked a judge into declaring that the Vinyards had ignored the court filing and deliberately and willfully refused to acknowledge the case, resulting in an order of judgment against them) and proceeded with the lockout.
Seeking audit
Wallace also sought a complete audit of the hotel’s books, at the Vinyards’ expense, as noted in the final page of the default judgment entry on file at the Hardin County courthouse.
The unspoken matter of the audit, most likely, was that Wallace, obsessed over her ongoing appearance in Disclosure, wanted to see just how much money Vinyard was making being a vendor for the paper.
Under that circumstance, a little bit of questioning of any vendor would reveal such information, including what cost per issue the vendor is allowed to keep (as most newspapers go, it’s a generous amount); why all the subterfuge and effort, including cost to the taxpayers, of Wallace’s gyrations over the matter remains a mystery.
It’s unlikely Wallace will get the audit in the end, anyway: Sandy Vinyard closed the doors to the place at the end of 2013, not because of Wallace and her machinations, but because her husband is in late stages of cancer, and she has her hands full tending to him, as well as to her mother, who also has health issues; the matter had already been predetermined long before the doors were locked.
The operation of the hotel will be put up for bid by the state, and will likely resume with the new proprietors in time for tourist season (such as it is in southern Illinois) to start up again in the Spring and Summer months.
Critics of Wallace’s administration have openly stated they wish Wallace would start paying more attention to child molesters and dope dealers than to get embroiled with the petty vengeance-seeking she’s been acting out since she took office in December 2012, and that she would quit filing frivolous counts and keeping people locked up beyond when their cases are dismissed (see related story.)