Lafayette, WL trails along (and over) Wabash River closer to connecting
Plus, sheriff sued by former deputy. IREAD scores show continued lag after COVID. A back-to-school warning as bus routes start
Thanks this morning go to the ongoing support from friends at Lafayette Brewing Co., the city’s original craft brewery in downtown Lafayette, for sponsoring today’s edition of the Based in Lafayette reporting project. For more about LBC, the beers on tap and the specials for this weekend, click the links below.
This and that on a Thursday morning …
TRAILS ABOUT TO CONNECT LAFAYETTE, WEST LAFAYETTE: Things are coming together to link trail systems in Lafayette and West Lafayette, not to mention to create crucial links for the dreams of a 90-mile Wabash River Greenway trail.
This week, the Lafayette board of works agreed to a $321,000 contract with Kimley-Horn and Associates, an Indianapolis firm, to design a trail connection that brings the Wabash Heritage Trail along the Lafayette side of the Wabash River up to the eastbound span of the Sagamore Parkway Bridge over the river. The trail also will extend along Sagamore Parkway, from the Wabash River to North Ninth Street, where a trail heads south into Lafayette.
Construction on the $2.7 million trail could start as soon as spring 2023 and wrap up by the end of that year, Jeromy Grenard, Lafayette city engineer, said.
On the West Lafayette side, city officials said this week that crews should start to move dirt along the north side of Sagamore Parkway, from Happy Hollow Road to the Sagamore Parkway bridge. The 10-foot-wide section of the West Lafayette trail is designed to loop under the bridge spans and join the trail built along the eastbound lanes heading into Lafayette. The trail in West Lafayette also eventually will connect with a trailhead, with a parking area and canoe/kayak launch on the Wabash, along North River Road. The $4.9 million project is expected to be done by August 2023, according to West Lafayette’s engineering projects page.
The two sections of trails, on either side of the river, will be part of the Wabash River Greenway, a 90-mile trail system tracing the Wabash River covering five counties. Grenard said long-range plans include a trail that would go north along North Ninth Street Road, over a widened bridge at Davis Ferry and head to Prophetstown State Park.
“This is a very important connection piece to connect all those trails systems together,” Grenard said of the Lafayette work.
FORMER DEPUTY SUES SHERIFF: Here’s one to watch. Former Tippecanoe County Sheriff’s Lt. Randy Martin, who resigned in 2021 before he faced a disciplinary board over an incident in 2020, filed a federal suit against Sheriff Bob Goldsmith, accusing him of retaliation after Martin declined to campaign for him in the 2018 election. In court documents filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Indiana’s Northern District, Martin contends that Goldsmith and others in the sheriff’s office were out of pay back because he hadn’t been politically loyal and had filed internal complaints about others he claimed campaigned for Goldsmith while on duty. The suit also names Tippecanoe County Prosecutor Pat Harrington, Tippecanoe County commissioners and Chief Deputy Prosecutor Jason Biss.
The complaint references pressure put on Martin after he arrested “two intoxicated and belligerent individuals – even though no external complaint had been filed by any civilian involved in the incident.” In that case, from October 2020, Martin faced an internal investigation for his use of pepper spray and a Taser one a couple he pulled over in a McDonald’s parking lot in Lafayette. He was accused of unnecessary use force in an investigation he contends in court documents was bound to “embarrass and humiliate” him and minimize his chances of finding other work as a police officer.
For the full complaint filed in federal court, here’s a copy …
IREAD SCORES ARE OUT: Standardized test scores for third-grade reading levels came out Wednesday morning with signs of more work to do to catch up to pre-COVID-19 levels. Consider this from WFYI reporter Eric Weddle’s account: “Results out today show the literacy rate for students finishing third grade is nearly unchanged from a year ago, yet still lags behind pre-pandemic reading fluency. Statewide, 81.6 percent out of the 65,000 third graders at public and private schools passed the 2022 Indiana Reading Evaluation and Determination, or IREAD-3 test. That’s less than half a percentage point improvement on results from the previous academic year. But it’s 5.7 percentage points behind the pre-COVID-19 pandemic results from the 2018-2019 school year.” Weddle breaks it down even more from there. For his story, along with a database to look up results from Greater Lafayette (and all Indiana) schools, here’s the link: “Indiana 3rd graders could read better before the pandemic.”
A LOOK INSIDE ILLINOIS’ CLINICS, AS ABORTION LAWS GET TIGHTER: Louisville Courier-Journal reporters Sarah Ladd and Tessa Duvall, along with Indianapolis Star photographer Kelly Wilkinson, spent time during Indiana’s recent, post-Roe v. Wade special session at an abortion clinic in Granite City, Illinois, just outside St. Louis, to get a look inside as patients from surrounding states that no longer allow abortions descend on clinics in Illinois, which does. From the long read: “On the day Roe v. Wade fell, hundreds of people called the Hope Clinic. The staff described it as ‘panic, panic, panic.’” For the full article, here’s a link: “'Targets on us just got bigger': Illinois becomes US abortion epicenter after Roe's fall.”
PSA: ANNUAL SCHOOL BUS LESSON AS SCHOOL STARTS: School started in West Lafayette on Wednesday. Classes begin today in Lafayette. Tippecanoe School Corp. gets back at it Aug. 16. With that, the Tippecanoe County Sheriff’s Office shared this reminder, via its social media accounts, about school bus stop arm safety – including when you need to stop when coming up on a bus on a four-lane road:
“We share this image/diagram/information every school year and this year isn’t any different. School has started in many areas and it will soon be starting in ours. Those big yellow transportation devices for our school kids will be back on our roads very soon, so it is time to start thinking about stop arms.
“We will have deputies working school bus routes as much as possible and some will be working them as an overtime detail.
“If you find that your normal route of travel in the morning or afternoon is also a school bus route, you might leave a few minutes early or alter your route of travel.
“We will begin receiving stop arm violation complaints a few weeks into the school year and we will make sure our deputies are aware of those complaints so they can work in those areas as much as they can.”
Thanks, again, to Lafayette Brewing Co., the city’s original craft brewery and sponsor for today’s edition of the Based in Lafayette reporting project. For more on LBC’s beers and weekend specials, click here.
Tips or story ideas? I’m at davebangert1@gmail.com. Also on Twitter and Instagram.
IMHO the lawsuit is the beginning of the end for Goldsmith and 80+ year old Sheriff Merit Board member Joseph Bumbleburg. Lt Randy Martin was a real hero and well liked. He busted a wrecked car window to get a baby boy out of the fiery wreck which killed the babies' mother and the other automobile driver. When Goldsmith came along and ran as a democrat and got elected by slim 168 votes-he seemed to politicize the Sheriff's Office. Attorney Joseph T. Bumbleburg has been on the Tippecanoe County sheriff merit board and the Election Board for over 50 years despite the Indiana Code 3-8-1-3 limitation that prohibits anyone from holding two lucrative offices at the same time (see Indiana Attorney General Office guideline on holding dual offices and both are the list of lucrative offices. I think Joe wanted his old friend Bobby Goldsmith to win and so people like Travis Dowell did help him campaign. Joe was on merit board and seemed to save Dowell law enforcement career after his criminal arrest for 2009 altercation with his daughter which included attempted strangulation allegation if I read the JC article correctly. Randy Martin lawsuit argument about retaliation is believable to me - his old job at the Town of Dayton is now held by former County Sheriff deputy Evan Tislow the brother of Detective Jeff Tislow who resigned from LPD in Aug 2019 and Bumbleburg seemed to help Jeff Tislow get hired and now works under Travis Dowell. Why did he resign from LPD? Ironic Detective Jeff Tislow's in laws bought Arni's pizza lunch for Goldsmith's office and afterward Goldsmith gives Jeff Tislow an award for being a hero and saving a life - but I am not sure he is on the Crisis Negotiation Team (CNT) that takes dispatch for callers threatening suicide and jumping from the County Building garage (9-15-2021). Seems more likely he gave Tislow overblown praise for being in the car at lunch when Goldsmith stopped by scene. Goldsmith is biased and has his favorites as he refused to do an internal investigation on Tislow trespassing and harassing his former neighbor's families. My sister ended up asking State Rep Klinker to intervene and try to convey to Goldsmith's favorite detective he needs to behave in manner which one expects of a law enforcement officer.
What Lt. Randy Martin did on body cam in that arrest was not something he should have been fired over and basically blackballed from law enforcement. Disciplined yes. but not terminated. I guess we will all have to stay tuned to how the court case moves along.