{"id":6943,"date":"2024-04-08T14:33:41","date_gmt":"2024-04-08T18:33:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/munciepostdemocrat.com\/?p=6943"},"modified":"2024-08-06T22:25:19","modified_gmt":"2024-08-07T02:25:19","slug":"dirty-partisans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/munciepostdemocrat.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/08\/dirty-partisans\/","title":{"rendered":"Dirty Partisans"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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As citizens we have little to no access to what\u2019s going on in local government. Every detail that we can be provided is designed to obfuscate the meaning and push us out of the process all together, so now we\u2019re stuck to only trusting a small social club of people who just barely understand it either. For any issue that is a widespread concern (E.G. what Middletown Property Group was doing in 2022 or how the city handled the Muncie Inn situation<\/a><\/span>), it gets met with excuses that the city has no ability to act on it. At which point you\u2019re supposed to feel halted from even asking what they can do for you, because you can\u2019t make demands if you don\u2019t know those hazy ins and outs (which were never explained to you in the first place).<\/span><\/p>\n

In our city government, it\u2019s either pure incompetency or blatant corruption. And none of us want to make the worst accusation and have it turn out to just be the result of mere ignorance, but the fact is they both work hand in hand with each other. Incompetency is the perfect excuse for that outcome, and most sane people would rather turn the other cheek and say \u201cbless their heart\u201d than confront stupidity head on.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last week we had a fiasco with the recording of April\u2019s city council meeting. Meetings are livestreamed to Facebook, broadcasted through Comcast, and available after the fact, but due to several errors the video was nowhere to be found. Early in the meeting the City of Muncie Facebook page wrote \u201cDo to a non-city issue with our Comcast connection, tonights Council meeting will be posted following the meeting. We apologize for the delay.\u201d Later that night the same post was deleted, and the recording was never livestreamed, broadcasted, or subsequently posted online as they said. For two days we were all asking when we\u2019ll see it (you should know that some of us work during those meetings), and finally the page told us that the video wasn\u2019t recorded.<\/span><\/p>\n

The post was met with over 150 comments, including one impassioned resident who cited SB 1167<\/span><\/a> that requires city council meetings to be livestreamed and archived. At which point the page acted swiftly and posted a Dropbox link to another audio source from the Council Secretary\u2019s laptop. Less convenient for those who wanted to watch in real time, but we voiced our angst and they acted when a consequence was probable. We had one attainable objective, not the most important one in the scheme of things, but the public got a bit of transparency for once. Otherwise, we would have had to wait another month for a single page worth of minutes.<\/span><\/p>\n

How often does this success really happen do you ask? Well, it can be next to impossible with this current administration. Even with the kind of messages we\u2019ve heard before from previous mayors about \u201cefficiency\u201d and \u201cprofessionalism,\u201d which ends up translating into privatization and favoring business interests, they at least did things legally and could dress it nicely. The Ridenour administration has used transparency as a selling point, and \u201cwe can\u2019t go back\u201d as their slogan, yet Ridenour\u2019s ghouls can barely hide their true colors anymore. <\/span>Ridenour, <\/span>in his estimation, doesn\u2019t feel the need to even acknowledge something like the <\/span>Ratchford deal, let alone make up a half believable story. He doesn\u2019t have to <\/span>be at contentious meetings to face the public, or provide details to said <\/span>public or even help the council to understand.<\/span><\/p>\n

The most major development happening recently is the new firehouse, first formally introduced to be voted on in October of last year and at the last meeting before the election. Ridenour’s purpose in doing this was highly political, and despite him and other Republicans accusing Democrats of playing dirty politics, they never explained why this had to be introduced at the last minute.<\/span><\/p>\n

For the council and the public that\u2019s concerned about the process, it\u2019s about avoiding potential grafting, debt to the City of Muncie, incompetency leading to construction delays, and letting the public know about what \u201ctransaction documents\u201d were being referred to in the first place. A month-long delay for council to get the answers is nothing compared to the amount of time it will take construction from happening.<\/span><\/p>\n

But frankly, I for one am at a point where I just want this to be done with. Republicans are at fault for delaying the process because they wouldn\u2019t let us look critically at how this is being done, and if making Muncie into Ridenour\u2019s real estate hellscape is an exchange for a desperately needed fire station, then fuck it. But this doesn’t change the fact that they brought this out during a contentious election just to campaign on it, that Dale Basham lied and changed his story multiple times about the resolution<\/a><\/span>, and the fact that this administration has denied requests by council-members to talk at length about the Build Operate Transfer process. What they have done and will continue to do is make us exhaust all resources to get answers only to get nothing in return. In my experience doing FOIA requests for instance, they have slowed down the process for weeks (or months) before outright rejecting requests by the end of that timeframe.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the Post-Democrat’s attempt to provide local journalism in some capacity, I called City Hall about an interview with Ridenour. It’s no secret that mayors are busy and I clearly wasn’t expecting him to drop everything and give me an interview, so I asked for 15 minutes max and having it months down the line. Ridenour’s assistant Shareen Wagley first said he was busy for another two weeks, and when I checked again about doing an interview afterwards or even months later she then said he’ll never accept an interview. Now, are we a partisan paper with the word “Democrat” right in the name? Yes. But what local news do we have here besides the Post-Democrat?<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Raise Hell, Praise Dale<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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Now there are a thousand complaints people have had with Wagley. Being short on the phone is one (so much for business class efficiency) but she takes on a bigger role in the Muncie Redevelopment Commission. At the last MRC meeting, Andrew Dale brought up concerns with the minutes of the meeting prior. There were several concerns he had, which included fixing public comments that were cut out. But for two Republicans, Wagley and Isaac Miller, adding relevant information is something they despise when it comes from a Democrat. There would have been nothing consequential for them to vote in favor of the amends, and yet they went on record voting against transparency all because they can\u2019t stand Dale that much. No matter how you spin this, Ridenour\u2019s appointees voted AGAINST transparency.<\/span><\/p>

We’ve covered the MRC here<\/a> <\/span>and there<\/a><\/span>, so definitely be on the look out for more developments. In short, if you want to know the dynamics of that commission, Dale was one of two Democrats appointed this year and the rest are this administration’s cronies. Believe me, and I mean this in the most loving way possible, but Dale’s uncompromising and quixotic nature is the best defense against Ridenour, who more than once has come close to admitting that Dale is a hellraiser keeping him up at night.<\/span>\u00a0That former shell of a credit score coach continues to have his sanity dwindle until he’s trapped in his own flat of angles, void of any close allies and staring into mirrors of his inevitable existential folly.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Owen and the PR Disaster<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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Michele Owen, who unironically started a Ted Talk with the phrase \u201cwe live in a society,\u201d<\/a><\/span> runs the City of Muncie Facebook page. The page has been used to help Ridenour\u2019s reelection campaign, repeating misinformation that could land Muncie into lawsuits, and hardly serving its original purpose to provide answers to the public. However, there are others who also have access to it, like Wagley who couldn\u2019t help but log in to write \u201cyou might want to check your facts.\u201d That also raises the question about whether Dan himself, who can sometimes be seen frantically pacing back and forth in that livestream room, is also commenting. As the page is currently run, it paves way for any future administrations to give biased information, let alone how scary it is to think what an extremist administration might decide to use the social media account for.<\/span><\/span><\/p>

As for Owen, I will 100% hold my sympathy for her. Because even if she\u2019s just an innocent Ball State grad who\u2019s stuck in the middle of Ridenour\u2019s lies, she absolutely sucks at protecting the brand. I\u2019m sure she\u2019s pulling her hair out over the PR disaster created by the dirty partisans, but she is also complicit in their political interests. But while I was curious about it for a while, there was no way of getting the solid truth out of them. After having all of my FOIA requests rejected, interviewing Michele Owen in person, and mind numbingly scrolling through comment after comment, this project became pointless. And besides, not only do they look like jackasses already, but some of Dan\u2019s ghouls are commenting between 9 and 5 (during what we\u2019d assume would be working hours for a job of theirs).<\/span><\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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We can’t provide any catch-all solution to this, other than collectively making those loud demands or getting the right “behind the scenes” appointments, because these problems are really just scratching the surface. <\/span>The larger problem here is that if we’re being slowed down because city employees can get away with mistakes that limit public knowledge, said employees and elected officials can openly insult your intelligence, <\/span>and we have a stubborn mayor who will compromise transparency for his farcical ambitions, how can we ever make the kinds of municipal demands we used to make here in Muncie? <\/span>Above all, for the sake of utilizing public goods that we should very well be accustomed to, we should gain access to the city that’s ours.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As citizens we have little to no access to what\u2019s going on in local government. Every detail that we can be provided is designed to obfuscate the meaning and push […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/munciepostdemocrat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/munciepostdemocrat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/munciepostdemocrat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/munciepostdemocrat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/munciepostdemocrat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6943"}],"version-history":[{"count":88,"href":"https:\/\/munciepostdemocrat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7199,"href":"https:\/\/munciepostdemocrat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6943\/revisions\/7199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/munciepostdemocrat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/munciepostdemocrat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/munciepostdemocrat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}