Combative Ridenour Administration Defends Opioid Fund Use
4.14.2025 / Op-Ed / munciepostdemocrat.com
In a community update video, Dan Ridenour pointed at an email he sent from February 24th to council members Nora Powell and Jerry Dishman. While continuing to suggest he gave notice to the council months in advance, the email was actually just a week before the ordinance was introduced and the same day that the March meeting agenda was due to be posted by the city. Then in the month between the March 3rd and April 7th meetings, community members mobilized against the ordinance.
Nora Powell told the Post-Democrat that the email sent by Ridenour wasn’t provided until after multiple attempts of herself reaching out to the mayor. What she clarified at the last meeting and to local media since is that council was not made aware by Ridenour that the pay raises were contingent on passing the ordinance, and that by not passing it they would put the city at risk of an economic emergency. Council was not let in on negotiation meetings either. Ridenour made Dale Basham their representative at those meetings with police and fire, but Basham wouldn’t provide any details to the rest of council.
The fall out from Ord. 7-25 was unsurprising if you’ve followed council meetings in the past year, but the whole event struck a nerve with the community. And, there’s the fact that the people Ridenour surrounds himself with don’t even want to deal with the opioid crisis to begin with.
Shareen Wagley is Ridenour’s Executive Assistant, his appointee on the Redevelopment Commission, and whose bug-eyed hubby is Deputy Controller. A community member over the weekend said online that victims of addiction should be left to die by the city, and Wagley liked the man’s comment.
Fox59 and Indiana Public Radio tried to remain neutral, but ultimately Ridenour was given opportunities to repeat his own talking points about how the funding is unrestricted, and therefore legally okay for him to use towards anything, and his lie about giving plenty of time to council.
Predictably, lightweight journalist Steve Lindell gave Ridenour a softball interview on his radio show.
The Star Press, which could have highlighted comments from someone like Neil Kring or Robert Miller, joined the FOP in going full bitch over Joe Souza’s “kickbacks” comment. Far from the worst thing that a Ball State student could have said about our police department’s reputation, it was probably why so many officers stormed out of the meeting as soon as they were awarded raises. Several people made it clear that we weren’t making any “defund the police” arguments (we’ve had enough austerity in local government as it is) but that wouldn’t stop FOP leadership from ignoring the community. I can break bread with whoever (and I wouldn’t be surprised if some officers reading this are Post-Dem-curious) but for anyone to hear Rev. Kring speak and take nothing away from it is borderline insane.
And lastly, the local Democratic party needs to get its shit together. Aloof Jerry Dishman didn’t surprise anyone with his vote, but the fact that Brandon Garrett could listen to the hour and a half of opposition and immediately vote in favor of Ridenour’s dream of a real estate hellscape is beyond me. He knew Wagley and Wright were full of shit that whole meeting, and there are probably more firefighters and police who are against their leadership on this than we’ve been told to believe.