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The Chronicle Tribune and Grant County

The Marion and Grant County area gets mixed reviews. Some might say that it is a

splendid place to live with a small town feel that is much simpler and much less stressful than

big city life. Others perhaps may be less than enthusiastic about living in the northern Indiana

town of Indiana, whether it be because of the weather, the structure of the county, or even the

residents themselves. While some people make their own opinions of the area, others will look to

the media in order to gain an idea of what exactly it is that they should be thinking about at any

given time, and the medium they pay attention to may or may not influence the way they feel

about an issue or current event.

The chronicle Tribune is one said news source that residents of the Marion and Grant

County area can go to for the latest news. A new issue is printed every day of the week.

Although the Tribune is not the only newspaper printed in Grant County and certainly not the

only news source that residents of the county have at their disposal, the Tribune is a news source

that has been around for many years, and its articles have been read by many who live in the

area. By enacting the daily process of writing articles, putting the paper together, delivering it,

and the average Grant County resident reading the paper, the newspaper sets the agenda for the

County and makes relevant its contents to the public.

It appears that the Tribune maintains primarily unbiased reporting based upon this study.

However, the other articles in the issues considered in this study may have yielded a different

result. Because the Tribune releases an issue every day, that leaves so many main articles that

were not considered and summarized, so the same project conducted at a different time could

certainly yield very different results. To gain a truly accurate glimpse of the agenda the tribune
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sets for Grant County, it would take a team of people and several more months or even years in

order to yield a very credible analysis.

Based upon the articles reviewed in this study, education is a big deal in Grant County,

and not just because of Indiana Wesleyan and Taylor University. The Little Giants preschool put

on a $300,000 community matching fundraiser that has left the organization with $600,000 to

use for its kindergarten preparation courses. The school intends to prepare 230 more kids in the

next two years for their futures in school. To help ensure that kids get the most out of their

futures, the Marion Ivy Tech community college has partnered with Marion schools to develop

the Credits Count program that gives kids incentive to do well in school to get college credit. An

$800,000 grant was given to support that program this year. So, significant funding is going to

schooling and higher education in Grant County. The money does not go undeserved because the

schools in Grant County have the highest graduation rates in the entire state of Indiana. The state

average graduation rate is 88.9 percent, and even the lowest ranking school in grant county is

three percent higher than the state average. In Fact, Oak High and Mississinewa high schools

were both ranked in the top 50 in the state by the 2016 report of U.S. News and World Report's

"Best High School" at 38 and 42, respectively. College aid rates are increasing as more and more

college students are graduating.

All of this talks about how well everything in the world of education is doing so well

when considering the childhood poverty rate in Grant County is among the highest in the state of

Indiana. In response to this issue, newly elected mayor Alumbaugh and dawn Brown from the

Community Foundation brought in John Pierce, a member of Pierce Consulting, to help lead

children out of poverty using what he calls the Collective Initiative Model. A report on February

5th stated that childhood poverty is on its way down, but the initiative involving over 100
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business and community members was still in a very early stage. The poverty of children stems

from two very important issues that Grant County is facing.

The first of these issues is the economy and the entire financial state of Grant County.

Since the first of the year, United Technologies Electronic Controls has moved all of its

manufacturing endeavors to Mexico leaving. Also, Moorhead communications has left Marion

and moved to after being located in Marion for decades. Most of the major retailers in the Five

Points Mall, such as Sears, JC Penny, Finish Line, and Clair’s have left, though it has been said

that some major retailers may be coming to the mall eventually. All of these events have left

many Grant County residents without jobs, many of which who have children. It appears as

though here are few available jobs in the area for the average working man or woman.

When Mayor Jess Alumbaugh was elected into office last year, he inherited a pretty

terrible financial situation and promised to help bring Grant County out of it. The Indiana State

Board of Audits found that Grant County is inadequately detecting and preventing errors.

Instances such as such as overdrawn insurance reserve, a nonreverting overdraw on animal

control, a loan and temporary transfer of funds from Marion Utilities, and failure to prevent,

detect, and correct in the report of received federal rewards were found in every audit for the past

few years. Mayor Alumbaugh is bringing in a third party auditor to remedy the problem. This

action is a wise one because Representative Hal Slager is lobbying for a bill that would enhance

the consequences of auditing errors, which would not help the state of Grant County if errors

continued to be made.

In Mayor Alumbaugh’s first attempt to save Grant County, he laid off seven out of eleven

of the city’s contract employees with plans to lay off the other four once those contracts expire.
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This action has saved the county $300,000 at the cost of seven jobs. A second cost saving

measure proposed by the Marion Council involving the closing of the Marion Veteran Affairs

campus and Purdue extension was proposed pas petitioned against and shot down vigorously

because of how many the act would leave jobless and homeless. A public safety tax was

proposed instead, but community members were in agreement that no new tax should be created

and that cuts should be made. As a response to this, Mayor Alumbaugh made the decision to cut

funding to private nonprofit organizations. Funding was taken from the Boys and Girls Club of

Grant County, The Marion-Grant County Senior Center, and Main Street Marion.

The second issue related to childhood poverty is drugs and the amount of adults with

children that have been incarcerated. The Grant County Jail and others in surrounding counties

are absolutely overflowing with inmates. The Grant County jail is overflowing so much that the

jail is going to start citing people for nonviolent offences instead of taking them to jail.

Furthermore, the jail is also going to consider letting inmates with relatively low bonds that

aren’t violent people out of jail so it is a safe and healthy environment for jail staff and inmates.

A study conducted by the Indiana Youth Institute showed that 27.3 percent of teenagers

in the Eastern section of the United States have had a parent incarcerated last year. Studies also

indicate show that 61.7 percent of women and 51.2 percent of men that are incarcerated in this

area have a child less than 18 years of age. Children with parents who are incarcerated are much

more likely to live in poverty.

Many of these inmates mentioned above are in jail because of drugs. Specifically, the

entire state of Indiana has been having issues recently with heroin. It has become popular due to

its ready availability and low cost. The drug has become so popular that it prompted Marion
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General Hospital to create the Heroin Task Force last year. This group exists to help heroin

addicts break their addictions and to study the drug. They have gained attention from the whole

state of Indiana. Two related issues have come up recently making the ordeal even more serious.

The first of these is that another drug that is much more dangerous and deadly, called fentanyl,

has been finding its way into heroin and killing people expectantly. The second issue is that a

drug called Narcon is being used by MGH in order to combat the effects of heroin and save the

lives of people who overdose on heroin. As of now, the drug can only be distributed by medical

professionals, but there has been talk of making the drug more easily accessible in Grant County.

However, this may cause people to think that they can overdose whenever they want, which

could just raise heroin deaths in the county.

The study by the Indiana Youth Institute also found that drug use and child abuse are

linked. If children are severely neglected, they tend to mimic the actions of their parents due to

abandonment issues. They also will suffer physically and psychologically. Teen heroin use is

rapidly increasing in the state of Indiana. A 2015 survey conducted by the Indiana Prevention

Resource Center claimed that 0.7 percent of seniors in high school use heroin. Children addicted

to heroin are very likely to be in poverty or die.

Two terrible wrecks happened in Grant County last Spring semester with both of them

having drugs cited as the primary reason for them happening. The first happened in February on

I-69 where an intoxicated man killed three and wounded one. Another woman, who had used

Heroin and other drugs earlier in the day, ran into a van on 400 East which killed the passenger

and injured the driver.

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Speaking of murder, there was one big murder case in Grant County in January and a

couple other noteworthy crime related events last semester. Three articles follow the story where

Waylon Sadler was accused of murdering James Zook in his residence on January 12th, and the

police were sure he did it because of his criminal record. The autopsy showed that his death was

the result of a stab wound to the neck. Sadler originally claimed that an unknown man broke in

and stabbed Zook, but he later renounced the story and plead guilty. Later, he showed authorities

where the knife was and changed his story a third time. He claimed that Zook and his daughter

were fighting, and when he tried to take the knife from her, the knife made its way to the

victim’s throat as a result of the struggle. Norman D’Souza, the former chief financial officer and

vice president of Munire Furniture Inc., a New Jersey-based furniture company affiliated with

Echelon, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and one count of

conspiracy to commit wire fraud. He was loaned money by New York and Gas City, but he

never paid those loans back. He will spend five years in prison and have to pay his loans back.

Additional felony charges were given to Jeremy Alan Riddle who was arrested on charges of

burglary and robbery after he and Ronald Reed robbed Larry Halloway of Marion at gunpoint.

The Scott W. Morris sexual harassment case also received three separate articles. Supposedly, a

nurse at the Marion Veteran Affairs hospital walked In on a Morris performing oral sex on a

psychiatric patient. DNA evidence was returned that suggested Morris was guilty. Morris

testified as a witness and claimed that he was just changing the patient’s diaper when he went

into a coughing fit, which is why his DNA was on the supposed victim’s genitalia. The case

ended in a mistrial. There was an inexplicable gunfire spree that sprouted in early April where on

three separate occasions within a week’s time three people used guns offensively. Lastly, tension

is still high between the black Marion community and the Marion Fire Department because of an
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incident last year that received national coverage where a noose was thrown over a black

firefighter’s head by a white firefighter.

In the world of IWU, the Wildcats basketball team won nationals for the second time and

the past three years, something that has never been done by any other team in their league. A

much more significant win for Indiana Wesleyan may be in the works if the university wins its

lawsuit against the federal government. Administration believes that it is a violation of the

university’s beliefs to be forced to offer birth control pills to students and faculty by law through

Obamacare. The case is on hold along with similar cases across the nation. Speaking of IWU and

legislation, President David Wright was given much grief for testifying to the senate that the

LGBT community should have equal rights in education, housing, and employment. The

president dedicated a chapel service to explain that as Christians, the IWU community should

accommodate to the LGBT community and make them feel loved. An IWU administrator came

down with a case of the infamous Zika virus the media was raving about in the spring semester.

This was the first case reported in this region and one of only a handful of cases reported in the

United States, Lastly, IWU will be getting a football team sometime in 2016. The stadium will

be constructed sometime in 2017. This is a big step for the university, and administrators have

been debating whether or not to add a football team for several years.

Grant County residents were upset to find that the Splash House water park has

significantly raised its prices. This admission increase is due to the lack of funding from the

Street and Road fund because it was determined that the fund should actually be used for road

repair. Speaking of roads, county officials have debated seriously the idea of a wheel tax in order

to fix the roads in this county, but no one is excited about any new kind of tax, so the decision

remains up in the air. Mixed opinions arose from the new trash removal system, implemented as
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a cost saving measure that implemented recycling bags to be kept in trash receptacles. Concern

was raised about the quality of the bins.

Marion and surrounding towns have much history packed into them, but even historical

buildings don’t last forever. The old Fairmount high school, where James Dean attended, was

demolished to make room for a parking lot. Hotel Marion is also going away after being a city

icon for years. Gas city is planning for some serious investments in its TIF district in order to

rekindle commercial development. Marion is trying to figure out why its TIF district is failing.

Marion is focusing on making changes to its fire department, from the way it enacts its policies

and procedures to an update and repair of the station itself.

A lead poisoning epidemic in Flint, Michigan cost some people their lives and left many

wondering what happened and if it was safe to drink the water. Grant County residents can be

sure that the water they drink is safe because the water treatment facility is top notch, and they

are extra careful to make sure drinking water is safe, In response to this, a bill was proposed that

local environment officials could make laws pertaining to the environment more strict than

federal law so incidents like what happened in Flint, Michigan don’t happen. Governor Mike

Pence vetoed the bill. Speaking of bills that ran into some trouble, a bill proposed to give police

full discretion of police car and body camera footage was shot down in January. Amendments

were made to the bill, which resurfaced in February. The new version of the bill has much more

support.

Let Freedom Ring, a company that provides housing for veterans, had its Marion location

shut down by the fire department for fire and safety concerns. The veterans were moved

temporarily to motels and were later given houses or sent to the Gas City location. On the topic
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of safety, Marion General hospital wishes to commandeer Cherry Street and restrict access to

thru traffic to make it a safer place for employees and the public to cross. While not a bad idea,

the project is inconvenient for many. The home is where the heart is, but it may not always be

the safest place to be. Carbon Monoxide poisoning has left two kids and one adult in critical

condition earlier this year. In consideration of the subject of health, Grant County is not doing

well in that regard. Grant County is the third least healthy county in the state of Indiana, when

considering smoking, obesity, low birth rate and physical inactivity, according to a study

conducted by the University of Wisconsin.

In other news, electronic attendance of public sector meetings is now allowed as long as

one third of the group is physically present. Grant County is meeting in discussion of restrictions

on abatement policies after they decided to fund a seasonal Halloween and firework store. Given

the county’s financial situation, it is necessary. The campaign trail is heating up with the

primaries soon to be in Indiana. Trump and Cruz have a good chance in Indiana. Bullying is

trending down in Grant County because officials are taking bullying really seriously, and school

administrators are supposed to report every instance of bullying. A land deal between Jim

O’Conner and the Boys and Girls club remains undone until the two parties’ attorneys work out

legal issues so the BGC can accept payment. A new slogan for the city slogan was determined by

Mayor Alumbaugh with help from Marion residents through a poll. Grant County Soil and Water

was kicked out of the office of the drainage board, possibly ending the public service.

Employyers in the area, specifically in the manufacturing and healthcare fields, are looking for

employees who possess strong soft skills in order to ensure smooth operations.