Ask The Mayor

The West Lafayette City Council is set to decide the fate of a 600-bed high-rise a developer wants to build just south of State Street.

It’d add more beds to the neighborhood, but might also raise concerns about urban sprawl and the culture of the area just off the Purdue campus.

This week on Ask The Mayor, we speak with West Lafayette’s John Dennis about what impacts he sees from the plan and whether they jibe with his vision for the city.

Also on this week’s show: a number of listener questions about roads around the city.

How can we get more bike lanes?

As WBAA tried to report on the fiscal situation with the Hoosier State Line, we were left to extrapolate whether the train was finally in the black financially.

Turns out we're not alone.

The city of Frankfort has a large Latino population – about a quarter of the city’s residents have Hispanic heritage.

So this week on Ask The Mayor, we ask Chris McBarnes what he’s hearing from his constituents about a presidential candidate – with whom he shares a political party – who continues to give speeches about cracking down on immigration and building a wall on America’s southern border.

Quite a number of cities have prominent riverwalks like the one Lafayette is trying to construct.

But Lafayette’s will be built in partnership between the city, a quasi-public group concerned with the river and a private real estate group.

So how does such a project get done with some many groups providing input?

We address that this week with Tony Roswarski on Ask The Mayor.

Also on this week’s show, questions from listeners about whether the paint used in public murals is safe, the writing on fire trucks and how to allow more chickens in urban backyards.

Now that West Lafayette has hired a contractor to demolish the old city hall on Navajo Drive, what's next for the site, and why did it take two years to do something with the mold-contaminated building?

What does Mayor John Dennis want from the city's new Development Director, Erik Carlson? Dennis says Carlson is a "take charge kind of guy" who can recruit businesses to the city of roof tops and tree tops, not smokestacks.

The mayor explains why he's an ardent supporter of putting micro chips in pets.

Like a lot of Indiana cities, Crawfordsville has seen an increase in drug crime in recent years.

The city has taken some steps, such as increasing patrols, but is there more Todd Barton’s administration could do to wield the power of big data in the city’s favor?

We put that question to him today on Ask The Mayor.

Also on this week’s program, the city has some unexpected budget issues to clear up – everything from putting off new power company improvements to figuring out how someone embezzled enough money from the city’s golf course to put it in the red.

Frankfort Mayor Chris McBarnes says he’ll consider running for Indiana’s 4th District congressional seat if incumbent Todd Rokita wins the Republican nod to replace Governor Mike Pence on the ballot.

McBarnes, who’s just a couple years older than the 25-year-old minimum to run for the U.S. House, says he’s discussed the possibility with his wife, but adds he’d have to decide whether he could make more change in Congress than he can in Clinton County.

Some police department across the state have responded to a new police body camera law by discontinuing their programs.

Lafayette took a different approach – choosing to charge as much as the law would allow for copies of any footage.

This week on Ask The Mayor, we do some math with Lafayette’s Tony Roswarski and attempt to determine how providing those copies can cost that much.

Also on this week’s show, we ask about the replacement for Loeb Stadium, a fixture in Lafayette baseball circles for generations.

You might say this week’s Ask The Mayor is all about cameras.

They’re watching us as we drive, and we talk on this week's show about how the city of West Lafayette is trying to use them to streamline traffic.

They’re also on us when police pull us over while driving – and the cost of getting copies of that video may be going up sharply.

Also on today’s show, as construction has gotten going on the periphery of the State Street overhaul, we ask about a couple other ancillary issues.

It appears the money is about to start flowing in to fund the improvements Crawfordsville touted to win one of last year’s Stellar Communities designations.

But there are still some kinks to work out, like: don’t you have to own land before you can build on it?

This week on WBAA’s Ask The Mayor, we get an update on the city’s bank account and its construction progress from Todd Barton.