This second term of the Ridenour administration somehow manages to both insult your intelligence and, simultaneously, can’t possibly be rewarding for the political actors who do so much mental gymnastics, their excuses have made them into contortionists. There are so many demands that we could be making on a municipal level, ones that don’t have to do with dysfunctional luxury apartments, and instead could provide us with public utilities, better housing opportunities, and of course transparency. In the interest of giving Muncie residents the chance to know what’s happening at City Hall, the Post-Democrat has done all we can with what we’re told. This website vows never to make that happen through compromises with the Republican party, and instead will only get to that through the type of aggravation that spills out long overdue discourse.
As I’ve said before, I’m a rough and tumble kill joy of a Transexual Menace.TM I can read your fears from a far distance, and I already know that I both terrify and give a strange thrill to these people. Just like when Craig Wright first made eye contact with me at a public meeting, he looked like he’d been cummed on by ghosts. It was back at the June council meeting when he could only defend this administration’s union busting tactics by incessantly repeating “36-4-7-3,” as if we’re supposed to be impressed that he could memorize a state code but could hardly understand it.
State Code “36-4-7-3” was used in defense of the administration trying to skip bargaining agreements with city workers, with faulty reasoning that held unsuccessful in the face of our council that tabled it. The next council meeting stood both Wright and this time Matt Wagley. Wagley, in the middle of his monologue, couldn’t help but throw in a right-wing talking point about inflation at grocery stores. I’d call it lazy, but it also reminded me of the time when Dr. Oz ran for Senate, recorded himself at a grocery store to say “we’ve got Joe Biden to thank” for high food prices, only for us to find out that A. He didn’t even know what store he was at (because he actually resides in a different state), B. he ignored the employees who showed him better prices, and C. you’re not relating to any Pennsylvanian steelworkers when you complain about crudité without the tequila. That completely aside, I sincerely think Wagley consciously treats his job as a joke. On the negotiations with AFSCME Local 3656, Ridenour’s people don’t stand a chance.
If they made any effort before to appeal with reason, they gave up after I called them dirty partisans. Their only hope at this point is to gaslight anyone who isn’t following this closely, because most people who’ve been engaged for the last few months are aware of his cruelty in this regard. At last week’s “Dreaming w/ Dan,” a city-ran public forum, there was no audience in the room to ask questions. On top of that, you can’t comment on the Facebook livestream. They’ve moved commenting to a separate page, and if you’re a Muncie citizen just now wanting to become more engaged, it’s both harder to find out that a separate page exists and the commenting feature is faulty on the new page as well. And yet, at that meeting, Mayor Ridenour had the audacity to say “we hope you’ll ask some questions online and we’ll do our best to get to them.”
His administration knows what they can get away with on limiting public comments, which is the only route to engage with the Mayors office and has now been totally stifled. Many of us pointed out that the Facebook page was being used to help Ridenour’s reelection campaign, provide misinformation, and directly threw insults at other comments. Instead of attempting to improve how they were using the platform to engage, the decision pulled by Communications Director Michele Owen is doing the complete opposite of the transparency they claimed to advocate for in 2019. The decision to pull the comment section also happened right when the Dustin Clark controversy, reported on by the Star Press and Post-Democrat, came to light. The decision to pull public comments was done as damage control to prevent the public from being able to question the press release on their platform. Not only can they make announcements there, but also using the Chamber of Commerce’s Muncie Journal, where Michele Owen recently wrote on the new fire station plan. She wrote that several council members were enthusiastic about the location, without any detail whatsoever about how the majority of the council repeatedly asked for answers about the financing of the project and felt coerced into supporting it without answers.
On the topic of Fire Station 6, let’s talk Dale Basham: he’s claimed that the feasibility study Ridenour gave him answered everything about the Build Operate Transfer process, then when pushed on that statement he changed his story to suggest he had a separate document “tucked” inside of it that had those answers instead. The Post-Democrat offered $50 to Basham or anyone who can give us this document, given that it’s different than what we’ve seen before, and through email he once again changed his story to now say it was the resolution from October this whole time. In other words: 1. I never borrowed a kettle from you. 2. I returned it to you unbroken, and 3. The kettle was broken when I got it from you.
The administration’s only route to getting out of this is by lessening the noise we’re making. While in reality, they’ve faced issue after issue that Munsonians will continue taking close note of. And for the many that don’t have the time to engage in city politics, because of the kinds of precarious jobs that prevent us from thinking outside of means of survival, they would fully agree with our message to be proactive and not reactive in local government. For the aim of accessibility for the Muncie community, these limits perpetuated by Ridenour need to be made clear, and fought tooth and nail beyond just the writings of the Post-Democrat.