By Mark Coddington
mark.coddington@theindependent.com

Rodney Wetovick made his first court appearance in the suit in Nance County District Court on Friday.

In the suit, filed in November, Wetovick contends that the Nance County Board of Supervisors was unreasonable in rejecting his budget request for a full-time secretary last September.

Wetovick, who took office in January 2007, said he needs the help to make a better effort to fulfill his office's contract with the state Department of Health and Human Services to enforce child support.

"I think a full-time position is just the bare minimum," Wetovick said in an interview Friday. "(Child support enforcement) is something we want to improve on, not go downhill on."

The petition's circulators counter that Wetovick has been unwilling to compromise with the board on budget issues.

They cite on the petition Wetovick's "inability to productively interact with the County Board of Supervisors, especially on budget issues" as the first reason for the recall.

"I think the lawsuit was going too far out of bounds," said Jeff Cuba of Genoa, the petition's primary circulator, on Friday.

County supervisors and their attorney in the suit, George Martin of Omaha, declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.

At issue in court on Friday was a motion to dismiss the case filed by the board.

Attorneys on both sides argued that the burden was on the other to show that its opponents' actions were, according to case precedent, "arbitrary, capricious or unreasonable."

Wetovick's attorney, Mark Sipple of Columbus, said that if the board couldn't show that his client's budget request met that threshold, it had no legal standing to disapprove it.

Martin, on the other hand, argued that an appeal of the board's vote required more deference to its decision-making authority.

"You're being asked to issue an order that would override the discretion of the board," he said to Nance County District Judge Michael Owens.

Owens did not issue a ruling at the hearing, saying he would take the motion under advisement.

The board allowed Wetovick to hire a full-time secretary when he moved into the Nance County Courthouse in January 2007. But it balked when Wetovick requested the position in his 2007-08 budget, which it considered in September.

The board offered to allow Wetovick to hire two part-time secretaries to avoid paying for a benefits package, but he refused. Wetovick said Friday he did so because he believed the arrangement would lead to high turnover and the need to train more people on the state's complex child support system.

Wetovick said the board's rejection of his budget left him with two options: Live with the cut, or appeal to the courts.

With state officials requesting his office to spend more than twice as much time on child support as it already did, he felt the former wasn't feasible.

"I didn't really have much other choice," Wetovick said. "It certainly was the last thing that I ever wanted to see happen."

Cuba argued that Wetovick's predecessor, John Morgan, employed a full-time secretary in his private practice who spent only about 60 percent of her time on county business. He faulted Wetovick for rejecting what he called the county board's "adequate alternative" of two part-time positions.

On the petition, he also accused Wetovick of nepotism for hiring his sister, Cyndy Pilakowski, to the position.

Wetovick said he advertised for the job and went through an application and interview process during which one applicant he was considering dropped out of consideration and another expressed an interest only in part-time work. By the end, he said, he determined his sister was the most qualified person for the job.

The recall petition was approved Monday, said Nance County Clerk Danette Zarek. In order for the recall to reach the ballot, organizers must gather 592 signatures from Nance County voters by April 2.