Ask The Mayor

A week from today, the mayors of Lafayette and West Lafayette have been asked by a local Jewish congregation to attend a talk about how to combat hate crimes in Greater Lafayette. It’s an issue that statistics suggest local police forces have trouble grappling with, and one which doesn’t seem to be going away.

When IU Health took over Frankfort Hospital in June of last year, executives made it clear the facility needed retrofitting.

How, the company is reportedly considering building an all-new hospital in the city. So would it offer the same basic services as its predecessor, or is it a chance for the city to boast an amenity that might draw in more investment and residents?

We say often on Ask The Mayor that if a topic is affecting one community in our rotation, there’s a good chance it’s affecting others, too.

For months, we’ve talked to West Lafayette Mayor John Dennis about a lack of coordination between traffic signals in the city. Now, two listeners have written in to ask why Lafayette seems to be battling a similar issue.

For months, tenants have slowly been moving out of West Lafayette’s Chauncey Hill Mall, in anticipation of the bulldozing of the space at the end of 2019. But current tenants are beginning to voice more concerns about what the redevelopment of the space – and the surrounding area – are doing to the economics of the neighborhood.

When Crawfordsville State Representative Tim Brown was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident earlier this month, it caused many questions to come to the fore, even outside concern for his health.

But in the city he’s represented in the Indiana General Assembly for the last 24 years, who’s waiting in the wings if he’s unable to resume his position as a state lawmaker?

For the last month, Frankfort residents have been expressing their concern about the goings-on at the Clinton County Humane Society. After a well-liked director was fired, a community uproar began. What’s transpired since has led to questions not just about the shelter, but about how public funds are spent. This week on WBAA’s Ask The Mayor, Frankfort’s Chris McBarnes weighs in.

Right now, Lafayette’s Five Points neighborhood looks like a twisted jumble of streets surrounded by businesses and homes in need of more than a little TLC.

But in a few years, city leaders think it’ll be a hub of rebirth, with developers sinking millions of dollars into replacing the old with the new.

What hasn’t been floated publicly in those talks is the G-word: gentrification. The neighborhoods surrounding Five Points have plenty of history, but also play host to many low- and middle-income Lafayette families. If investment comes in and raises the value of the property, would that drive some of those residents out of the market?

During last month’s Ask The Mayor show with West Lafayette’s John Dennis, one intrepid listener had time to measure how long it took him to travel the length of the redesigned State Street as he listened to the program. It’s a stretch of road that still frustrates drivers, and people have begun to ask whether the large price tag was worth it.

This week on WBAA’s Ask The Mayor, Crawfordsville is on a quest for funding to mitigate train challenges through the Local Trax program — we ask where they stand in the application process, and how their application stands out.