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MUNCIE

'Five Minutes with the Mayor' addresses community member concerns

<p><em>Breanna Daugherty // DN File&nbsp;</em></p>

Breanna Daugherty // DN File 

Five Minutes with the Mayor has helped implement initiatives such as:

  • Recognizing law enforcement issues  
  • The 2013 Parks Program 
  • Muncie Potholes Twitter account 

“Spongebob Squarepants” hums in the background of the otherwise quiet mayor’s office. His grandchildren lay sprawled on the carpet, waiting for grandpa to return from a meeting, but instead, grandma collects the three boys so grandpa can finish his job. 

"Five Minutes with the Mayor" was Mayor Dennis Tyler’s brainchild and it stemmed from the lack of opportunity for people to ask questions during town hall meetings. 

Jim Fairchild waits in the corner armchair, a thin stack of papers clenched in his hands. He said he was attending "Five Minutes with the Mayor" in order to discuss sponsoring a golf hole, or team, as a part of a fundrasier for his granddaughter, a seventh-grader named Abigail.

Abigail is a dancer and a part of Premiere Dance Center. The center’s booster club will be hosting a golf outing, Taps & Tees, on May 20.

"I've known [the mayor] a long time. He just seems to try to help kids and stuff like that," Fairchild said. "He’s a great mayor, he comes to really support organizations that need help."

The profits will allow PDC students to continue their studies at a low-cost rate and provide funds for A Better Way Muncie.

"It's for good, healthy lifestyles for children, ya know with all the drugs and everything there is everywhere now, you gotta really support and build up all these dancers and athletes ... to play and travel," Fairchild said. "Kids gotta have something to do to stay out of trouble.”

The program began in 2012, and while its success has kept it going, so have Muncie’s reoccurring issues. 

Despite Muncie collecting the equivalent amount of heroin from the streets in the last four to six weeks as they did in 2016, drugs are still an epidemic community members are concerned about.

“You can’t arrest your way out of drug issues,” Tyler said. “What we have to do is get the drugs off the streets.”

RELATED: Muncie Mayor gives State of the City Address

That’s the first side, Tyler said. The next is convincing the youth to stop using drugs or to never start.

“Using programs like 'Enough is Enough' and our coalition against anti-gun violence, which is all predicated by the drug use, is getting out into these neighborhoods and talking to the neighbors ... to convince them and give them the courage and the comfort level to talk,” Tyler said.

RELATED: Local group 'Enough is Enough' aims to stop Muncie gun violence

Reaching out to communities isn’t something new for Muncie. Community members, business owners and students have tried to bridge the gap between the university and Muncie for years. As far as Tyler is concerned, the partnership today is a vast improvement.

“The coalition and partnership between Ball State University and the City of Muncie today is better than I can ever remember it in my lifetime,” Tyler said.

The gap lessens with immersive learning projects, student involvement and surprisingly, even Ball State’s construction.

“A lot of the new development that they’re doing, the Health Science Building and other projects that they’ll be doing between now and 2019,” Tyler said. "But at the same time that they’re doing that, they’re going to be reconstructing a lot of our roads and streets and sidewalks and infrastructure at the same time. So there’s a huge worth of wealth to the city of Muncie that we would have to be investing in that type of infrastructure that Ball State’s doing.” 

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