In regards to issues of safety, Tyler said it's important for the community to have a good relationship with law enforcement and brought up changes within the police that came in 2015.
“In the last year, we have implemented body cams,” Tyler said. “The body cams have been a great asset to our police officers. They work both ways — they give our department an opportunity to know exactly what they are doing, what they are going into, and it also gives an opportunity after the fact to go back in and review it.”
The Muncie Fire Department and local warming stations were another point on public safety.
“In 2012, as we have said before, we initiated our safe stations at the fire stations,” Tyler said. “We also created warming stations that will allow us at any time of an emergency — if it's freezing weather or whatever it is — [to open] the fire stations and City Hall up 24 hours a day to provide emergency services to people who may have no other place to turn.”
It wasn't all about changes in safety, but the mayor brought up other changes that he said were improving Muncie.
In the downtown area of Muncie especially, Tyler said the city was making a name for itself — not only in Indiana, but also in the rest of the country — for its Erskine Green Training Institute in the Courtyard Marriott Hotel.
This training center, meant to help people with disabilities become employable through job training, is currently the only one of its kind. Tyler said the first graduating class had seven students, and six of them have jobs today.
But the mayor stressed more than just downtown Muncie's uniqueness. Tyler said 98 percent of the residential areas in downtown Muncie are occupied, 82 percent of the commercial and retail spaces in downtown are occupied and 21 new businesses opened in 2015.
The infrastructure of Muncie as a whole was also a major point for the mayor in his address. He said last year there were improvements, but needing money can be a problem.
“[In 2015] we were able to pave 48 linear miles in the city of Muncie,” Tyler said. “The challenge is again when you’re looking at a 450-linear-mile infrastructure, you need to find a lot of money very quick to really keep it going and to get it done the way it needs to be done.”
The city of Muncie is currently in the process of putting together a partnership with Delaware County and the Metropolitan Planning Commission on a new program to better track and manage street assets. Tyler said he believes this will save the city and Delaware County money in the long run.
Tyler said while the street department is working on potholes, he encourages citizens to report them if they find it necessary. Potholes can be reported through the GIS software or on the Twitter page @MunciePotholes.
Apart from just safety issues, the mayor also put heavy emphasis on encouraging diversity in Muncie.
“We want to promote and let everyone know that they are part of this community and they are welcome in this community," Tyler said. "We celebrate diversity in this community.”
Tyler discussed several local establishments that he said were steps toward a more diverse city.
“We had a great opportunity ... over the last two years to partner with the Islamic Center, the community centers and other faith-based centers and other centers that just want to bring peace and hope and prosperity to our community," he said. “We welcome our parks, we welcome our City Hall doors and whatever our resources are to promote that type of hope and peace and care for [one] another in our great community.”
Though Muncie has an unemployment rate of 6.3 percent — which is higher than the state's at 5.4 percent — Tyler said the rate is decreasing. The city’s unemployment rate is 5 percentage points lower than it was in 2011, and Tyler said in the past year, 1,563 jobs have been created.
The address wasn't just about the state of Muncie's human citizens — Tyler highlighted the local animal shelter's 0 percent euthanasia rate for the past year.
The mayor closed by thanking organizations around the community for their impact.
“To Ball State University, to our foundation and all the work they do, to the non-profits that work on shoestring budgets to better the lives for our children and our landscape: as public official we can build, we can invest, we can pave and we can try to make our community an attractive place to live and work and play. And we will,” Tyler said. “But it’s the people in this great community that make Muncie the great city it is.”
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