Munoz
A Democratic candidate for Columbus City Council District 6 who may be declared the winner of the 2023 municipal election following a nearly year-long legal fight said he continues to reside in the district even though he has been staying closer to where he works in Indianapolis.
Bryan Muñoz, the Democratic nominee for District 6, said he has been renting a place in Fishers to temporarily be closer to work while the legal challenge over his opponent’s candidacy was playing out but has been maintaining residence in District 6 with what he described as a “close family friend.”
“As I was waiting for the challenge to play out, I started staying closer to work in Indianapolis, but I still have residence in District 6,” Muñoz told The Republic on Friday. “So, when the time comes to be sworn in, I’ll be a resident of District 6. It’s obviously a complicated situation because of how slow the judicial process took.”
On Tuesday, a panel of appellate court judges in the Indiana Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that Republican Joseph “Jay” Foyst was not a valid candidate in the 2023 municipal election for District 6 because the Bartholomew County Republican Party failed to “meet a statutory deadline for filling a vacancy on a general election ballot.”
The appellate court judges sent the case back to a lower court with instructions to declare Muñoz the winner of the election.
Muñoz, who was previously the band director at Columbus North High School, left the Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. at the end of 2022 to take a job at Indianapolis-based Music Travel Consultants.
Muñoz is listed as assistant director of sales for the company, according to his LinkedIn profile and the company’s website.
Muñoz told The Republic in 2022 that he planned to stay in Columbus, remain active in the community and continue supporting public education despite the career change. When asked what prompted the move, Muñoz said he had been considering a change for several years now, and it provides the chance to “free up more time for me to pursue other interests, other opportunities, give myself a chance to explore those options.”
Muñoz sold his home on Cedarcrest Drive on the north side of the city earlier this year, according to county records. The Cedarcrest Drive address, which is in District 6, was listed on his voter registration as of earlier this week, according to the Bartholomew County Clerk’s Office.
Muñoz told The Republic on Tuesday following the appellate court decision that he is “excited about what’s to come.” He also attended Tuesday’s city council meeting.
Even if Muñoz did not currently reside in District 6, it would not matter at this point because he is not currently on the city council and has not yet been officially declared the winner of the election or sworn into office, Democratic Party Chairman Ross Thomas said.
While the appellate court ruled in favor of Munoz and Thomas this week, Foyst and his attorneys have until the end of August to appeal the decision to the Indiana Supreme Court.
Currently, it is unclear if Foyst intends to appeal. Even if the decision is appealed, the Indiana Supreme Court is not obligated to hear the appeal.
On Tuesday, Anderson attorney David W. Stone IV, one of two attorneys who represented Foyst in the lawsuit, said no decision had been made on whether to appeal the decision.
When contacted by The Republic on Tuesday, Foyst declined to comment.
Anderson attorney David W. Stone IV, one of two attorneys who represented Foyst in the lawsuit, said no decision had been made on whether to appeal the decision.
Stone referred further questions to Franklin attorney George Hoffman, the other attorney representing Foyst. Hoffman has not returned a message seeking comment on the decision.
The Indiana Election Division declined to comment on the appellate court decision or speculate on what might happen next.
Generally, if an elected official moves outside of their district while in office, the party that won the seat would select a replacement to fill the vacancy. If Muñoz is declared the winner of the election, the winning party would be the Democrats, Thomas said.
“If that came to pass, if for some reason (Muñoz) was not a resident or chose not to be a resident or — not to be morbid — if he died … if he became a felon, any of those things that would keep you from holding office, then yes, the result is that we would appoint someone to finish that term,” Thomas said.
A similar scenario in which the winning party selected a replacement for a city council member who planned to move outside of his district has occurred in Columbus before.
In 2018, Bartholomew County Republican Party held a caucus to select a candidate to replace Republican Frank Jerome, who resigned in the middle of his second term on the Columbus City Council after getting remarried and planned to move outside of his council district.
