Mayor Dennis Tyler said he tells other mayors and legislators that his “Five Minutes with the Mayor” program is “so simple, it’s hard to put into words.”
Tyler hosted the program on Tuesday afternoon, setting aside time for anyone to schedule an appointment or walk in to talk with him about whatever issue they want.
“Usually they’re very positive, very appreciative that they get a chance to talk to the mayor,” Tyler said. “You never know what the issue’s going to be. I had a lady that was over 100years old that had never been in this building. She had never been in the third floor, in the mayor’s office. All she wanted to do was come in and get her picture taken.”
Some of the issues Tyler said he addressed varied from someone who wanted help confronting a family member housing a meth lab, to someone who had a dog lunge at them. Tyler said the program helps him become aware of problems that are important to individuals and he normally wouldn’t know about.
The program began last summer, but Tyler said the idea has been with him since he served in the Indiana General Assembly.
“I was part of town forums,” Tyler said. “What I’ve found in those town forums is that maybe somebody has a question and they want the opportunity to speak, but they don’t get to because there’s other people there that control the forum.
“My thought was that maybe I give them an opportunity to come in here and talk to me in private. It’s just us, one on one, nobody else gets the opportunity to hear what their issue is. It’s worked.”
The Daily News used Twitter to gather some questions that our readers wanted us to ask Tyler during our five minutes with the mayor, so we wrote them down, took a bus and had him answer those questions.
Q: One question that came up a couple times was about the sidewalks and roads of Muncie. Everyone knows they’re in a bit of disrepair right now. What’s the process of fixing those?
A: The process is one you have to find a revenue and the resources to do that, and we are. As a matter of fact, one of the things that we’re looking at in some areas in repairing sidewalks and creating new sidewalks is using asphalt. It’s much cheaper. In the Ball State area near the Village as we move forward with these projects there will be a lot of new infrastructure improvements on the streets and the sidewalks.
Q: So what are some of your future plans for the city?
A: Well again, reinvesting in the infrastructure as we can find dollars to do that. We’ve got a bond that we’ve recently introduced for the first time at the June City Council meeting that will be finalized in the July City Council meeting that will have dollars going in for the reconstruction and renovation of City Hall and then the Prairie Creek Handicap Access Bathhouse and swimming area. There will be funds left over in that that we’ll use for discretionary funding that we’re going to put into infrastructure repair.
Q: One person brought up an interesting question. Are there any plans to better physically connect campus and downtown?
A: There is. As we do some of the stormwater separation and some of the issues that sanitary district will be dealing with, we’re going to be doing some connections with Ball State through bicycle lanes that will increase not only bicycle access for students but walkways too as we begin to do some of this redevelopment with the University Village project. The interesting thing is that a study IPA did, the developer on this University Village project, is that as this moves forward, students will be less inclined to drive. They’ll be more inclined to walk or use a bicycle. Their study shows that that could put as much as $8,000 in a student’s pocket and that they’re more apt to put that back into the community, which is good.
Q: Another Twitter question: what do you think the city would be without BSU?
A: I don’t really want to think about that. A successful Ball State is critical to Muncie, but I would also argue that a successful Muncie is critical to Ball State, for them to attract the proper kind of students and professors and educators that they need to be a successful university. It’s a very strong two-way partnership.
