This and that on frigid Wednesday
Catching up with a few notes while keeping an eye on those cold pipes.
Thanks today for ongoing help from Based in Lafayette sponsor Long Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Lafayette, with a 2025 lineup that includes Ashley McBryde on Jan. 30. For tickets and details on all the shows and events, go to longpac.org.
A few frigid afternoon notes …
NEW WLPD CHIEF SWORN IN: Adam Ferguson was sworn in Tuesday as West Lafayette Police Department’s new chief during a morning ceremony at city hall that featured a room packed with family and officers from other police departments in Greater Lafayette. “I’ve got a lot of good teams,” Ferguson said. “That starts with … all the badges in the room. That includes my West Lafayette family, Purdue family, county family, fire family. The outpouring of support has been tremendous.” Ferguson, a WLPD captain of patrol named to the post last week, replaces Troy Harris, who retired on Dec. 13 after nearly six years as chief and 27 years with the West Lafayette Police Department. Still to come: West Lafayette Mayor Erin Easter also will host a Facebook Live Q&A with Ferguson from 12:30-1:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 24, on the city’s Facebook page.
A NEW LOOK AT DEI: The new administrations of Gov. Mike Braun and President Donald Trump have been swift to take aim at diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in state and federal agencies and policies. Among the moves, the fallout and the pushback …
From the Associated Press: “President Donald Trump’s administration moved Tuesday to end affirmative action in federal contracting and directed that all federal diversity, equity and inclusion staff be put on paid leave and eventually be laid off. The moves follow an executive order Trump signed on his first day ordering a sweeping dismantling of the federal government’s diversity and inclusion programs that could touch on everything from anti-bias training to funding for minority farmers and homeowners. Trump has called the programs ‘discrimination’ and insisted on restoring strictly ‘merit-based’ hiring.” Here’s a full account from AP reporters Alexandra Olson and Zeke Miller: “Trump administration directs all federal diversity, equity and inclusion staff be put on leave.”
From the Indiana Capital Chronicle: “Indiana’s Black Legislative Caucus on Tuesday condemned Gov. Mike Braun’s anti-diversity moves as benefiting only those who ‘feel attacked.’ Braun last week signed an executive order replacing “diversity, equity and inclusion” (DEI) throughout state government policies and programming with “merit, excellence and innovation” (MEI). It also closed the Office of the Chief Equity, Inclusion and Opportunity Officer created by his predecessor. ‘Diversity, equity and inclusion is not about giving any group a handout,’ said Rep. Earl Harris Jr., the caucus’ leader. ‘It’s about giving everyone access by expanding opportunities for even more talented and qualified individuals, regardless of their identity.’” For more, here’s the story from reporter Leslie Bonilla Muñiz: “Black lawmakers denounce governor’s anti-DEI order, budget proposal.”
From the Tippecanoe County Public Library: During an annual Martin Luther King Jr. Community Celebration Monday, Natasha Watkins, a clinical associate professor in Purdue’s Department of Human Development and Family Science, focused a keynote address on the seeds of some of King’s earliest activism, dating to his teenage years. And she talked about how King came to understand the importance of youth in the Civil Rights Movement and tried to model for them a blueprint for their lives. “We need to be visible mentors and models for our young people,” Watkins told a standing-room crowd in the library’s McAllister Rooms. “Something that we all share in common in this room is that we see Dr. King as a model for courage, love and justice, and I hope, through programs like this and days of service, that our young people will too. But in their day-to-day lives, they're interacting with us. They are seeing us – the way that we show up, the way that we speak out, courageously, lovingly and trying to advance the ideals of justice.”
Someone asked her, during a program that came less than an hour before Donald Trump’s inaugural speech, about how do deal with that a time when the nation was “transitioning back to a president that has made it hard, and has announced plans to make it hard or even harder for young people and people of color.”
Watkins offered this, pulling from King’s “the fierce urgency of now:” “We need to continue to do what we have been doing, and more. This moment, as I read Dr. King's life, is not new. You read his works, and you feel like he's prophetic. I think what's happened is that things did change in the ‘60s and ‘70s, or they became cloaked. And so now the cloak, the veil, is coming down. We're seeing like this is the same thing that it was before. And so I think we go back to his words, go back to his teachings. We stay aware of what's happening in our world, and we think about the investment that we have. I think we need to hold ourselves as well as our political leaders to account.”
In the meantime, here’s a portion of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” from Monday’s event:
KEEPING UP WITH TRUMP’S EXECUTIVE ORDERS: From ending birthright citizenship, pardons for those who had roles in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, halting federal DEI programs, plans to rename the Gulf of Mexico, a policy recognizing individuals’ biological sex rather than their expressed gender identity and more, the Wall Street Journal had this keeping up with the executive orders coming in the opening days of Trump’s second administration: “A List of Trump’s Key Executive Orders—So Far.” Axios also has this running list: “Tracking Trump's executive orders: What he's signed so far.”
SPEAKING OF EXECUTIVE ORDERS, MORE FROM GOV. BRAUN: Braun, who signed a pile of executive orders last week during his first days in office, followed up with several more Wednesday, including one that steps into a debate over the release of medical records tied to the limited number of procedures allowed under Indiana’s near-total ban on abortion. Braun also signed several that address price transparency in health care. For more, Indiana Capital Chronicle reporter Leslie Bonilla Muñiz had this: “Braun signs executive orders on abortion records, health care costs.” Indianapolis Star reporter Hayleigh Colombo had this account: “Braun directs release of abortion reports previously withheld under Holcomb administration.”
SCHOOL BULLYING NOTIFICATION BILL ADVANCES: The Indiana Senate Education and Career Development committee voted 11-0 Wednesday afternoon to advance Senate Bill 255, a measure that would change in how Indiana schools have to report alleged bullying incidents on their campuses. The bill, authored by state Sen. Spencer Deery, would require schools to report suspected bullying incidents to parents by the end of the school day, instead of a standard that gives districts five days to conduct investigations. The bill also addresses a proposed streamlined process for teacher licenses for those with science, technology, engineering and math degrees and offers a technical fix to a measure from 2024 that allowed release time during the school day for students to get off-campus religious instruction. The bullying requirement stems, in part, from wrangling over policies by the West Lafayette school board, after school board member Dacia Mumford took the matter to Deery. With the committee vote, SB255 moves to the full Indiana Senate for consideration. Here's more about how that’s played out, from an edition of Based in Lafayette earlier this week: “WL school board member sidesteps local debate, calls out bully policy at Statehouse.”
DEERY’S BILL FOR POT AD RESTRICTIONS: Among the raft of bills Deery, R-West Lafayette, has out there is one that would restrict billboards and direct advertising in Indiana for marijuana businesses, including dispensaries just across the border in Illinois, Michigan and the rest of our neighboring states where marijuana is legal. Deery told Indianapolis Star report Kayla Dwyer: "We're in a world where marijuana advertising is now being regulated; because we have not entered the world of marijuana being legal in Indiana, we're behind the game on that. … Whether you think it should be legal or not, I don't think it's good public policy to have unchecked advertising here." Here’s more on Senate Bill 166, via reporting from Dwyer: “Some Indiana lawmakers want to restrict marijuana advertising here. Can they?”
TRASH TRANSFER FIRE: A fire Monday afternoon at the Tippecanoe County trash transfer station on North Ninth Street took cardboard and paper recycling dumpsters and compactors out of service, the Tippecanoe County Recycling and Solid Waste District reported. Those bringing materials to the center should use the green mixed recycling bins in the meantime. WLFI reporter Ella Chew had more details about the fire here: “Multiple crews respond to fire at Tippecanoe County Transfer Station.”
FATAL CRASH DOWNTOWN: Police reported that an early Sunday morning crash that killed Zakary Gaby, 30, of Lafayette, at North Third and South streets involved Yordy Ulises Viveros, 18, of West Lafayette, who was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving. J&C reporter Ron Wilkins had more details here: “West Lafayette teen driver suspected of being intoxicated in Sunday fatal crash.”
Thanks, again, for ongoing help from Based in Lafayette sponsor Long Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Lafayette, with a 2025 lineup that includes Ashley McBryde on Jan. 30. For tickets and details on all the shows and events, go to longpac.org.
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Tips, story ideas? I’m at davebangert1@gmail.com.
Braun could replace the Great Seal of Indiana on his executive orders with a pair of Truck Nuts and it would still be perfectly clear that he is a pathetic Quisling, willing to do anything for fear of his idiot overlord.
RE: "Braun last week signed an executive order replacing “diversity, equity and inclusion” (DEI) throughout state government policies and programming with “merit, excellence and innovation” (MEI).
"Cute," yet unimaginative (a continual MAGAt trait), mirroring the DEI acronym.
MEI actually means:
Merit in sycophancy/Excellence in bootlicking/Innovation in both sycophancy and bootlicking.
It's ironic that Braun's continuing fawning praise of his "God-King" Trump, doesn't seem to extend to the latter's admittance to the University of Pennsylvania's undergraduate for a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (BSBA) was through a connection via his older brother and a hefty donation by his father.
HE DOES NOT HAVE A DEGREE FROM THE WHARTON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS --- as he pathetically claims.
But then...that wasn't DEI...it's called "TOWBC" = The Old White Boy Connection"
As King Donald of Felonistan would say --- "SAD!"