economic development

As it always does, the cold has descended on West Central Indiana and with it comes the annual challenges for cities: how to keep citizens warm, how to keep roads from cracking and how to make sure efficiencies are identified.

We find out how Crawfordsville is weathering those challenges on this week's Ask The Mayor.

We’re joined in-studio by Crawfordsville Mayor Todd Barton, and we follow up on last month’s conversation about investment in the city.

Crawfordsville, like many cities in West Central Indiana, has a bit of an identity crisis. Do leaders follow the Lt. Governor’s motto of “rural is cool” or do they position themselves as the vanguard of technological expansion?

We ask those questions of Crawfordsville Mayor Todd Barton on this edition of Ask The Mayor, as well as how he plans to weigh those competing interests.

The city of Frankfort is undergoing a construction binge of sorts. A ConAgra factory bigger than the Indianapolis convention center is being built, complete with its own access road from State Road 28.

But that state highway is a problem, as are the various railroad tracks that crisscross the city. WBAA’s Stan Jastrzebski recently took a trip around Frankfort with Mayor Chris McBarnes, who says there are places in his city that make him “embarrassed.”

Some questions for the mayor this week:

Shortly after we spoke last month about the city’s plans to possibly demolish blighted buildings, the state announced another round of funding to cities trying to do exactly that. Is Frankfort getting any of that cash?

You’re getting set to knock down your first home following the creation of the Hearing Authority, right?

You and I also talked last month about INDOT’s plan to rehab SR 28 leading into town and you said you thought it was on the near horizon. How quickly do you think that will start in earnest?

Some questions for Mayor Roswarski:

We did a story the other day on the Fowler mansion and it got me to thinking about how downtown Lafayette must have looked 100 years ago. And the only conclusion I could draw was that it was a more bustling place then than it is now, with more shops thriving, more pedestrian traffic, etc. What’s the long-term plan for getting downtown back to that sort of prosperity?

Some questions for Purdue's leader this month:

There was a lot of talk at the GE Aviation groundbreaking this week that Purdue grads might have something of an inside track to jobs there, since they’ll likely be high-skill positions. Can the university develop some kind of a pipeline there for those students who might qualify?

The trustees last week approved the merger of the Calumet and North Central campuses into Purdue Northwest. What kinds of savings might that reap for the school’s overall bottom line?