Support for this edition comes from the Wabash River Cycle Club. On Aug. 22, the WRCC and the Lafayette Lions present the 2026 Wabash River Ride. You can ride anywhere from 16 to 100+ miles, on road or gravel routes. It’s your adventure, your choice. Special pricing for kids and students. Adult registration is $55 until Aug. 19. The price is $60 for day-of-event registration on Aug. 22 (checks and cash only). Well-stocked SAGs, wonderful homemade goodies, live music, and great scenery. Food trucks will serve an after-ride meal until 5:30 p.m. Start at 7:30 a.m. from Fort Ouiatenon, 3126 S. River Road, West Lafayette. For details, see wabashriverride.com.
WABASH TOWNSHIP FIRE REQUEST FOR SHARE OF LOCAL INCOME TAX ON THE ROPES, AGAIN
Wabash Township’s pleas to get a cut of the $12 million in revenue from a countywide income tax used for public safety needs was shot down Tuesday morning by the Tippecanoe County Council for a second consecutive year.
The county council voted 5-2 against offering a $750,000 share the township trustee requested to fund staffing and equipment for the Wabash Township Fire Department, saying that the money was already committed by the cities, the county and towns.
Wabash Township’s last shot to get the necessary support to get cut in for 2027 with the 0.18% local income tax is to win over the Lafayette City Council in a hearing set for Monday, Aug. 17.
“Obviously, we were disappointed in the decision that the council made today,” Township Trustee Angel Valentin said Tuesday. “We’ve highlights our level of need and the level of growth that’s coming into our community, and obviously we’ll continue to do so. … I think that the hard part throughout this conversation is that this is money that that residents have already paid, that isn’t being used and isn’t being leveraged to be able to provide emergency services to them. That’s a big concern to us.”
Wabash Township submitted a request that included $375,000 going toward adding three firefighters – essentially a sixth firefighter on each of three shifts – and another $375,000 for equipment costs, including township board decision in July to finance a $2.4 million ladder truck for the fire department fleet.
Valentin, township board officials and members of the fire department have pitched the request as a way to keep up with development and population growth in the unincorporated area that has led to an 18% increase in fire calls so far in 2026 over the same time in 2025 and up 46% this year over the same period in 2024.
They argued again Tuesday that residents of unincorporated Wabash Township – living just west, south and north of West Lafayette – had paid $7.2 million of the $72 million collected since the local income tax was first approved in 2019. The Wabash Township Fire Department, like other township fire departments across the county, hasn’t received direct funding from the local income tax in that time.
“A lot is happening right now, and with every new housing addition, apartment, gas station and hospital that gets approved in our area, our run load increases from the moment the first shovel goes into the ground,” Dan Huff, vice president of Wabash Township Professional Firefighters 5383, told the county council. “A no vote says you don’t care about the people who will live in those houses soon, that will live in those apartments and seek medical care at IU Hospital, which, contrary to popular belief, is not in the city of West Lafayette. It’s in unincorporated Wabash Township.”
Valentin pointed to how county decisions on rezonings and projects had perpetuated pressure on the township fire department. One example on Tuesday’s county council agenda: Moves that would help set up the Reserve at Millbrook, a $62 million, 251-unit apartment and retail project expected to open in November 2028, just north of West Lafayette.
Travis Merkel, president of the firefighters union, said: Not granting this is not responsible growth. It’s gambling with people’s safety.”
The Tippecanoe County Council had been cool to Wabash Township requests for a share of the money in the past.
