When Muncie’s 2025 civil budget was brought to council, the Ridenour administration knew full well that what they were presenting would be a shit show. Three departments were missing, a lot more than “a few” pages as City Controller Craig Wright said, and it reflects their inability to compromise on bargaining agreements with city employees. Council members were pushed out from working with the finance committee, and there were constant requests by elected and appointed officials to stay ahead on this. Of the many concerns, this takes the cake for proving that we’re past blatant corruption and onto outright incompetence.

Since Ridenour’s reelection their goal has been to cut council out of any and all important decision making, whether that means directly working around the fiscal body or stifling any at-length discussion. And for a while this seemed to work well for them, but now the administration has reached a point where this can’t possibly be a winning strategy. Legal woes are inevitable for Muncie at this point, for many reasons including a data breach that happened last month. Just after bargaining agreements between the administration and AFSCME fell threw, hundreds of city employees had their Social Security Numbers exposed, which was downplayed as “certain W2 documents.” Added to their refusal to compromise with the AFSCME union since May of 2023, all that the administration could do was lessen the fact that hundreds of city employees had their SSN’s potentially given to scammers.

All of this being perpetrated by Ridenour doesn’t rely on any decent legal defense, but on the very fact that our state government can hardly enforce its own rules. The only institutional awareness that this administration has is the art of keeping council officials out of any and all meetings they conduct. But this doesn’t mean the council can’t hold their own. When the administration tried skipping bargaining agreements via going around council, Nora Powell easily put Craig Wright in his place on his loose interpretation of state code.

I’ve joked about Ridenour having an existential crisis, but his support is in fact dwindling. The only people with the audacity to defend him are a handful of “Dan addicts,” half of which directly work for him, who love posting comment after comment daily. In fairness, the copium they inhale does make it easy for them to churn out some of their greatest hits. Lines like “you all are a bunch of nobodies wanting desperately to somebodies [sic]” is a rich and hilarious statement coming from a dirty partisan, so I have to give it to the man for giving us such a fucking treat.

Everything will be closing in on Dan, and this budget fiasco is only but one thing. The Ethics Advisory Committee finalizes their ordinance draft this week, meaning that by next year there will be an entire commission dedicated to dealing with the same kind of offenses committed by people like him. Even if he could convince voters to keep him in office with the phrase “we can’t go back,” the dilemmas he’s facing will only keep getting more and more obvious, and even to levels of Dennis Tyler. We have to wonder if the goal for Dan Ridenour is even to finish his term or not. Does he wish to run in a different election before 2027? Is there at least something else he’s wanting to happen before that year? One possibility is that he could be waiting on a pension from City Hall. Ridenour was elected to council in 2015, though ran unsuccessfully in 2007, and has now consistently worked as an elected official for almost nine years. Can he get a pension after ten years of being on the payroll?

Whatever the case may be, here’s what the Post-Democrat will be advocating for the upcoming meeting: Table this budget, and any spending from the mayor, until ASFCME gets a contract. Make it clear to residents that this administration is refusing to work with elected officials and appointees, and that’s the real reason why we’re forced into this situation. The council might act spineless, but they have more authority than we’ve been told.