What you need to know from Wednesday night’s Delaware County Council forum – The Star Press

MUNCIE, Ind. Some of thecandidatesfor three at-large Delaware County Councilseats addressed an array of questions during a community forum on Wednesday, the second in a series of virtual candidate forums during September.

Several community partners have created the Community Candidate Forum Series,a lineup ofvirtualforums during which candidatesrunning for local, state and federal officecan answer moderated questions alongside theiropponents.

The virtualforums are conductedvia Zoom video conferencing and broadcast on Facebook, as well as on The Star Press website.

RELATED:

What you need to know from Tuesday night's County Commissioner forum

Republican state representative candidates avoid forums, press inquiries

The three candidates in attendance included Republican Ryan Webb andDemocrats Ari Hurwitz and Ralph Dowling.The threenot in attendance were all of the at-large incumbents currently on council: RepublicansJessica Piper andScott Alexander, as well asDemocrat Larry Bledsoe.

Here were some of the key issues they discussed:

As the fiscal arm of the county, how do you intend tobalance the budget?

Webb said one of the first things to look at was difficult cuts in some of the countys largest departments. He said ideally its the department heads who have to give the recommendations on where to cut, but council wouldhave to make the hard decisionsshould they not.

Dowling said that the current council has gone about it the right way so far, in that theyve had the needed discussions. Dowling said that each dollar cut from county budgetswill affect services and thats how he would decide to make cuts, by how the cuts would affect individual services.

Hurwtiz said go to the experts."We are making decisions that are going to affect peoples lives," he said.

Hurwitz said that an elected official doesnt become an expert the day they are elected, and he wanted to see more outside input on where the budget can be adjusted. Cuts need to be talked about as a last resort.

Would you support green initiatives within the county?

Dowling said hed support green initiativesas a council member, but a lot of projects are going todepend on what the commissioners do. Down the road, green initiatives are a long-term investment and would make sense for the county.

Hurwitz said he wants the council to have a stronger voice and not simply wait for the commissioners to make calls on what types of development they push for. Hurwitz said that on the heels of the WSP steel-dust recycling plant debacle,Delaware County can be a leader in steering what development it wants to see. He alsosaid partnerships with groups like ecoREHAB, a nonprofit that rehabsabandoned or neglected homes,would make a difference going forward.

Webb agreed with Hurwitz, sayingthat since the council controls the purse strings, they can shape policy. Webb said he wanted to see geothermal or solar initiatives, especially on county property.

Another way to incorporate green technology would be to partner with the city over the use of natural gas-powered vehicles like the city currently uses for sanitation vehicles and some in the police department.

What are your thoughts on how the county has handled the pandemic?

Hurwitz said the mask mandate was theminimum. He understoodthat there is a concern over the personal freedom issue, but there is a community health issue at stake as well. Hurwitz said the county hasthe information to know where danger spots are and follow contact tracing, and they need to continue to do so.

Webb said he sides more on the personal freedom side. He wants mask wearing as a choice and disagrees with the county mandate. He said that many people dont believe the science or the media narrative surrounding the pandemic."To implement that on everyone unwillingly I dont subscribe to that and dont support that," Webb said.

Dowling agreed with Hurwitz. He said the science is overwhelmingly clear on the masks and that the mandateprotects others in the community.

"We dont allow unvaccinated kids in schools, so why do we do it with masks?," Dowling asked. Overall, he wanted to see stronger mask enforcement from local officials.

Would you support more addiction treatment within the county?

Webb said that he doesnt want to see a jail-for-profit system, and if the county was going to house out-of-county inmates the moneyshould fund in-county addiction services.

Dowling said that treating addiction isnt coddling criminals, as some claim.

"The more we criminalize it, the more expensive it is for us," Dowling said. He wantedto see far more treatment than criminal criminal charges, though changes to that law would be beyond what the council could do.

You can not jail your way out of it, he said, noting his support for more work to be done to bring addiction services to the new jail.

Hurwitz said that if the new jail has room for for-profit housing of out-of-county inmates, it has the room to get addiction services.

MORE ON LOCAL ELECTIONS:

Local school board elections see only one contested race

Will Delaware County election office be ready to handle 20,000 absentee ballots this fall?

What about the new Delaware County Jail?

Several questions focused on the jail, including the impact to downtown Muncie as well as how it is being funded using the county's EDIT dollars. All three candidates spoke against moving the jail to its new location.

Hurwitz said it wasnt a good idea to use economic development funds and he was starkly against it.

Webb said that the current administration was worried about the current jail and the issues it posed, but the use of EDIT has become a piggy bank for projects that it shouldn't be funding. He wanted to see it go through proper channels instead.

Dowling said it was terrible to use EDIT on the jail and that it was a misspending of funds. "People have gotten so used to corruption in Delaware County, the fact that people assume someone is getting money out of this deal means that it was wrongly done."

Would you consider raising local incometax to solve county budgeting issues?

Dowling was against the decision to raise the income tax at this time.He said that while the county was hurting for funds, trying to fix it through raising income taxes hurts low-income and fixed-income members.

Hurwitz said raising the tax, if it were to be consideredwould have to be done with sensitivity. "It doesnt work well in most cases," Hurwitz said, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be considered."All tools should be considered when the county is facing with an economic crisis."

Webb agreed with Hurwitz, saying thatnothing was off the table. When county officials haveto tryto cut $8 million out of the budget, itis not aneasy number. Small increases in tax can stack up across the county for additional funding. At the same time, Webb said, the county might simply have to learn to do more with less.

The remaining forums for specific races are on the following nights:

Corey Ohlenkamp is the city/county government reporter. Contact him via email at cohlenkamp@muncie.gannett.com or by phone at 765-213-5874. Follow him on Twitter at @Ohlenkamp

Read or Share this story: https://www.thestarpress.com/story/news/local/2020/09/17/what-you-need-know-wednesday-nights-county-council-forum/3480115001/

See the article here:

What you need to know from Wednesday night's Delaware County Council forum - The Star Press