Muncie Mayor Features Positives, Downplays Challenges In State Of City Address

Muncie’s mayor says people working together have made Muncie a great community to live in.  As IPR’s Stephanie Wiechman reports, the annual state of the city address was heavy on positive news and only briefly mentioned the city’s current challenges.

By the end of his hour-long speech, Muncie Mayor Dennis Tyler wasn’t the only one on stage at the Horizon Convention Center.  Surrounded by students from Muncie Central High School and Burris Laboratory School, and hugging his two grandsons –

“We can always stand around and look at the negatives, but look at these great kids up here today.  The reason we’re here today – these kids are our future.”

Tyler says he’s proud that his grandsons are products of Muncie Community Schools.  The city’s district is one of two currently being managed by the state as a “distressed political subdivision.”  Still, he thanked the district’s teachers and says there is hope, with the right work being done.

(Graphic: Stephanie Wiechmann)

“What the Muncie Community Schools board has to do – with the emergency management board, the Distressed Unit Appeals Board, and more than likely Ball State University under House Bill 1315 – is how do we position our elementary schools where we need them to be in our community, what we do with our middle schools, and then how can we improve our high school campus downtown?  And all of that’s going to be a part of how we begin to bring those 2,000 students that are living in Muncie that are going to school someplace outside of Muncie – how we can begin to bring them back into Muncie.”

As is typical for one of these speeches from Tyler, there were a lot of numbers and future plans.  Muncie attracted 11 new businesses downtown last year.  It is planning an initiative to install more than 100 new streetlights next year.  More than 100 miles of sidewalks will be poured or repaired.  Potholes are being fixed.

“I didn’t hit a single one on the way in – I was very careful.  Our infrastructure disrepair and disintegration is the best argument I know of for climate change.”

But Tyler made no mention of an FBI investigation that searched the city’s building commissioner’s office and the Muncie Sanitary District – and has indicted a city official on fraud charges.  He only briefly mentioned a battle with Delaware County over 911 dispatch and emergency services, calling the situation unfair to taxpayers.

Tyler also talked about the need for new upscale housing in Muncie, but made no mention of a deal to build such offerings at the former Mitchell Elementary School location that fell apart after the neighborhood association complained.

He says the city hasn’t settled on a location to turn into new housing, but mentioned building close to the city’s largest employers – Ball State University and IU Health – Ball Memorial Hospital.