Jerry Davich: Cattle farmer says he ‘never thought things would come to all this’

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Bernard Seegers in the basement of his Wheatfield home. | Jerry Davich~Sun-Times Media

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Updated: March 1, 2012 8:09AM

Today’s column is the first in a series involving Jasper County, located south of Porter County, and named after a famous scout for the Continental Army.

Its total population is roughly 35,000; less than, say, the city of Portage. But over the past few weeks, I’ve heard from quite a few residents who are disgruntled with their county, claiming everything from nepotism and double standards to intimidation and stonewalling. Bernard Seegers is one of these residents.

“This is who I am. This is what I’ve done. This is my life right here,” he told me in the basement of his rural Wheatfield home.

The 75-year-old grandfather has thick calloused hands, a soft smile and a bulldog mentality when it comes to what he perceives as right versus wrong.

“I never thought things would come to all this,” he said solemnly.

I’ll get to what he’s talking about in a minute. But first, a little background.

In 1961, Seegers and his wife, Betty, began renting 320 acres of property to raise their cattle, crops, and kids. In 1973, the couple of now 54 years purchased that property, using 120 acres of its sand ridge area for cattle.

In the 1980s, wind erosion exposed a Native American burial ground on his property, and his basement is now filled with hundreds of artifacts, from old bones to primitive arrowheads.

His basement also houses long tables buried under neatly organized legal paperwork, aerial maps and court documents dating back nearly a decade, as well as cassette tapes of various public meetings.

In 2004, a heavy rainfall flooded much of his property, destroying some of his crops. He blames a neighbor’s sand mining, and the county’s negligence, for allowing this to happen. The following year, after selling 200-plus acres of his farmland, Seegers tried to develop a residential subdivision on the remaining 120 acres of his property. It would be called Scenic View.

He was told he first needed approval from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, and to confirm the proposed subdivision was not located in a flood plain. The day he drove to Indianapolis to do this, he returned to a brush fire on his land. High winds spread the fire to a neighbor’s property.

The neighbor alleged that Seegers intentionally set the fire. He said he didn’t. A claim was later filed against his insurance company, which later dropped him, he said. This is when things went from bad to worse for Seegers, who was hoping his proposed subdivision would be valued at more than $4 million.

A dream denied

In 2006, he submitted his plans along with a rezoning request, but his neighbors opposed it, citing flooding concerns and drainage issues. After two years of hearings and legal wrangling, his plan — his dream — was denied.

Along the way, he also was involved in the false reporting of a fire involving the Wheatfield Volunteer Fire Department. He was accused of falsifying a fire report on a neighbor’s property that he called in to authorities. A neighbor claimed it was a prescribed fire, but Seegers thought differently.

A similar situation took place again last fall and Seegers has been charged with false informing, a Class B misdemeanor. It’s a complicated story that could easily take up this entire page, but Seegers is fighting for a jury trial after refusing to plead guilty.

“I seen smoke, and I smelled toxic fumes, which is against the law,” Seegers explained. “I may have put a burr under their tails, but right is right and wrong is wrong.”

The Wheatfield Volunteer Fire Department initially fined Seegers $300 but then rescinded the fine and apologized in writing for its error.

Indiana State Fire Marshal Jim Greeson told me that Seegers is most likely in the right, but such support has not helped him to this point. He still has ongoing battles of some kind with local officials, the DNR, and the county’s movers and shakers.

“My retirement savings is gone now,” he said, noting that it has been spent on years of court hearings, legal fees and related expenditures.

How much has he spent?

“Somewhere between $150,000 to $200,000,” he replied. “My wife and I worked side by side for 50 years for that savings. We deserve to get it back. We deserve better.”

His wife, Betty, is too frustrated even to talk about all this. When I visited the couple’s home last week, she left for an errand. But not before she illustrated her southern hospitality by offering me a barbecue dinner and a cup of coffee.

This lingering ordeal is clearly her husband’s battle, his crusade, his albatross, of sorts.

“The county shouldn’t have caused me all these problems,” he said. “Plus, it has cost the county tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees, using taxpayer dollars.”

Because litigation is pending, I did not receive responses from a few sources involved in Seegers’ case. But it became clear after meeting with him that he needs an attorney more than a columnist, which is why is now appealing to the American Civil Liberties Union for assistance.

“I don’t have anybody else to turn to anymore,” he said.