Welcome to Politically Speaking.

I'm Elizabeth Bennion, Chancellor's professor of political science and director of Community Engagement and the American Democracy Project at Indiana University, South Bend.

In March 2023, Goshen Mayor Jeremy Stutsman stepped down as mayor after serving since 2017.

Democrat Gina Leichty was chosen to complete his remaining term and is now competing in the November 2023 municipal election to stay on the job.

Republican candidate Benjamin Rogers is running against her and both are seeking to be elected for a four year term.

Both candidates have joined us for exclusive one on one interviews in this election episode of Politically Speaking.

thank you for being here.

I want to start by asking you to talk a little bit about the circumstances that led to your appointment as mayor and what made you decide to say yes and how it's been going these first 120 days or so?

Yeah, well, thank you, Elizabeth, for the opportunity to be here and to share my story with people.

It has been an exciting 120 days, and I started the job on June 16th of 2023.

And prior to that time, my focus had really been in corporate communications and I worked in both manufacturing and in the not for profit sector before my husband and I opened a company together and we have a marketing firm in downtown Goshen called our Eyedart Studio.

And our focus, besides doing corporate communications, has been finding ways to to focus on community development initiatives in our community and in our region.

So we've made a concerted effort over the past 20 years to really find ways to dig in and get involved and just be a contributor to our community as well as business owners in our communities.

So we were instrumental in forming the First Fridays program, which most people that's how most people actually know me.

They're like, Oh yeah, she's the first Fridays lady when our, you know, my vocation and my work has really been in more of the corporate communications world and, you know, volunteering and contributing to first Fridays and other ways.

But it was such a success for our community that it led to people, you know, asking us to help consult and other communities as well, and seems to be an idea that has really helped transform and shape people's understanding of what our community is capable of.

And through that whole process and being so involved in the community, I really developed deep relationships not only with the current mayor but the previous administration and all of the city departments through all of those various projects that we've been involved with.

So when the current mayor decided to step down, he invited me to consider stepping forward.

And you know, people for a long time have been asking me, when are you going to run for office?

And my answer was always, Oh, you know, the current administration is doing a fantastic job.

I feel like I can do the best that I can as a supporter and a champion for our city from where I'm at.

But when the question came forward and he asked me to consider stepping in as he had taken another position elsewhere, I felt like this was really an opportunity for me to step in and contribute to Goshen in an even more meaningful way and use all of those years of participation and relationship building and project building for the good of our whole community.

So that's really what led me to say yes and, and it's been going great so far.

So as you mentioned, we're about 120 days in and we have been going gangbusters since since the day I stepped in.

So as you think about what you've heard from residents in Goshen over those last 120 days and even before that is an involved member of the community, what would you say are the most critical issues facing Goshen and how do you plan to address these if you're given that full four year term?

Sure.

I mean, the question for any mayor in any city is, are you growing or are you shrinking or dying?

And, you know, Goshen has had the opportunity to have some really wonderful growth over the past number of years.

We're a small city of about 35,000 people, but we have another 20,000 people that commute into the city every day, which is great.

We have a very robust manufacturing base and a wonderful small business community.

But as you can imagine, when you have 20,000 commuters into a small city like ours, that also creates certain issues like traffic and things like that.

And of course, if people are commuting and they're not living in your community because we don't have enough housing to accommodate all of those people, we're reall property tax income resources.

So housing at all levels, we need to make sure we're not just looking at affordable housing, but the full spectrum of housing availability in our community, as well as addressing things like traffic issues and the other issues that really the quality of place issues that are really those determining factors.

When people are deciding what community they want to live in.

It's the places that have all of the resources that give people reasons to love their city and feel really proud to be part of that community.

So quality of place, traffic and housing will be amongst the primary issues that we're addressing.

What are some specific things that a mayor can do working with others to address those issues?

Housing, for example, but also the issue of traffic and quality of place?

Yeah, well, of course, with the housing issue, public private partnerships are so critical in making sure that we're building good relationships with developers and builders in our community.

And also, you know, one of my focus is coming from the private sector, have a lot of experience and customer service and making sure we're focusing on continuous improvement.

And it's not just a philosophy.

For me, it's been a practice in our business.

So that's something that I hope to bring to the city to make it easy for for people who are interested in making those investments in our community, for them to navigate through that bureaucratic process while at the same time keeping a smart focus on things like sustainability and careful design so that we're not just sprawling and not keeping those things at the forefront of our of our mindfulness.

As we do that and then some of those other areas, you know, it's so important with quality of place we're doing one of the first initiatives that I launched in coming into office through COVID, of course, people sort of contracted into their smaller spaces and homes.

And one of the impacts that we've seen is a decline in volunteerism across the board with our local organizations and not the cohesive or connective neighborhoods that we've had.

So one of the first things that I did is to make a strategic hire of somebody that is a neighborhood liaison representative and actually making the effort to go out and meet with all of our neighborhoods and make sure that they know that they have a connection to our office and also additional resources to help bolster and strengthen their communication and connection with one another.

So, you know, it starts from the ground up.

It starts with listening.

And so that was one of the tangible ways that we wanted to make sure we have strong connections and that we're supporting people across the city and every single neighborhood that we serve reaching out to the neighborhoods and having the community identify ideas, for example, proving their own neighborhoods.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

We don't want it to just be a top down, but we want to be a listening ear and then bring the additional resources that are needed for those neighborhoods.

Because often that's where things, you know, it's in those small, you know, ice cream socials or communications that many of our neighborhood organizations have every month that things bubble up about where their troubles areas are, where there might be a concern for, you know, a particular street or a sidewalk that needs more attention.

And so just having those connections, I think, is really important.

Now, you mentioned private public or public private partnerships when it comes to housing.

How can Goshen attract those developers specifically to really address this issue, which is is a big one if you want to build the tax base, as you said.

Yeah, well, I had a meeting with a consortium of our builders and developers yesterday to ask them that specific question.

I don't come with all of the answers, but I know enough to know to ask the right people and to get them in the room to provide advice.

And there were a number of things that I heard from them that could help, you know, and the way that we manage our city affairs in making it easier for them to navigate the system and to really support and bolster our relationships with them.

So again, it starts with listening and getting the right people in the room and then executing on those ideas, which is what I hope to do.

Now, one of the things we hear in a lot of cities, particularly bigger cities than Goshen, is a focus on safety, safety, safety.

To what extent is the issue of public safety at the forefront of people's minds within the city of Goshen?

It's a it's a significant issue for people throughout the state of Indiana.

There's a shortage of police officers.

And so we're we've certainly experienced that in our city.

So it used to be that when the police department would hire, they had a full bench of recruits at the ready that wanted to step into that position.

And over the last few years, that cultural shift is just totally changed.

And we don't have that kind of pool of resources.

And that's not just specific to Goshen, but that's, you know, it's known issue throughout the state.

So we're working at being very creative in how we approach that and making sure that we're finding ways we are adding some resources to our police force.

We're also taking a more comprehensive look at what policing looks like and a more integrated look at what policing looks like.

You know, what what we hear and experience is that there are tremendous mental health needs in our community.

So policing extends out in many ways.

And so we have a network of supports that's not only addressing, you know, the cop on the street or on patrol, but also dealing with different types of emotional and mental health crises or addiction related crises.

And we're making sure that we're providing the resources to have an integrated support network for our whole community.

You mentioned advising some other communities on the first Friday program and how that can revitalize cities and infuse that new energy.

To what extent do you envision pursuing partnerships, trips regionally with other communities, and what kind of issues would you like to see?

Regional cooperation, if any?

Yeah, well, I've been a longtime member and involved with different regional initiatives.

Going back to the Regional Cities Initiative.

I was on that steering committee and I've served in Elkhart County on the vibrant communities Board, which is a focus on the whole county development development and making sure that we're working collaboratively, not just in our own little city, but we're looking outside our city borders to say, how do we connect on things like bike paths?

So again, it goes back to these quality of place issues where you know, it's great that people can bike around our town.

We have extensive bike paths around town, but we could become a regional destination or even a statewide destination.

And if we work together and we build out a whole network of trails between our various cities and then connecting that regionally and other initiatives as well, I very much believe that to compete economically we have to collaborate.

Collaboration is an economic and competitive advantage.

And so, you know, part of what I've been doing throughout my career is building those relationships, serving on multiple boards and being involved in the community and volunteer ing as well as, you know, through corporate leadership.

So I look forward to leveraging those relationships and connections to bring us together for the betterment of our city.

That's interesting because so often it seems like people talk about the competition between cities to attract jobs, but you're talking about attracting jobs and tourism to the region as a benefit to Goshen.

Yes, I believe that we rise together.

So we we have to work together if we're going to.

I mean, there are larger economic forces at play.

And here in northern Indiana, there's so much to be gained by working together, identify, find each of our individual strengths and then helping champion each other.

You know, people for a long time have asked, what is it that really makes Goshen different?

So they come and they see all these, you know, range of restaurants and small businesses and our downtown and this robust manufacturing base.

And the downtown is truly beautiful.

We have more than 200 restoration projects that have happened that have kept our beautiful facades and Main Street really lively and vibrant.

And people will say, how does a small city like Goshen support art galleries and things like that?

Or as well as, you know, this big manufacturing community?

And it truly is collaboration.

People are uncommonly willing to help out a competitor.

And I see it all the time where people are willing to sit down and have a cup of coffee together and say, how can we work this out together?

So I believe on that, on the, you know, the individual business level as well as the administrative level and plan on putting that in play.

Well, thank you so much for being here.

Mayor Genomica.

Now, Mr. Rogers, you were chosen to replace a previous Republican candidate who withdrew from the race.

Can you talk a little bit about the circumstances that led to you running for mayor and also your vision for this city?

What made you decide to say yes?

Yeah, it's definitely not something that was on the list of things to do this year.

And it was something that came up rather suddenly in that the previous Republican nominee won the primary pretty convincingly, got a lot of votes in that primary election.

And then there were some things that came up in his business that had that demand, his full attention.

He realized he wouldn't be able to balance both at the same time.

So he made it clear pretty early in the process that, hey, this this was going to come up.

He resigned off the ballot and then the Republican precinct committeemen in the city of Goshen were required to replace him on the ballot.

And it was something that has kind of been on my radar for a while on the idea of being involved in local government, being involved in municipal government.

And it's something I've taken a great interest in through the political system as well as just being a concerned citizen.

And when I was approached by by a number of people asking me to consider running for that nomination, I immediately said no.

And the reason I said no, it's it's kind of an ego stroke.

Like, Oh, you want me to run for office?

This is kind of cool.

But I didn't want that decision to come out of a place of pure ego and I kind of brushed it off and said, I appreciate it, but, you know, let's let's see if we can find some other people.

And then some more people came and asked me and finally to shut him up.

I said, I'll look at it.

I'll look at the numbers just to satisfy your curiosity.

I'll look at this and get back with you.

And I think that was their plan because once I started looking at the numbers started looking at what the job entailed, one, I realized I could do the job.

And two, I realized it was winnable.

And three, I realized there was a big opportunity to bring attention to some issues I feel like have been ignored in past elections.

And so at that point I put my name on up for consideration for the Republican nomination for mayor of Goshen, and that proceeded in that direction.

I was nominated at caucus and then immediately we set about going door to door, getting the campaign around and really trying to get the message out as much as possible.

And vision wise, I've always thought that if you want to make a difference in in your in the community, in the world at large, you have to start in your own backyard.

You have to start in your city.

You have to start in your county because, you know, the swirling of national politics can just sometimes be overwhelming.

And it feels like nothing ever gets done.

But when it comes time for your road to be repaired, when it comes time for you, if you have a question about trash pickup or police service, that's often city hall and that's right down the road and that's your neighbor, and that's where you can actually make a big difference.

And my vision is if you're going to be in public service, it has to be you have to have a mission.

And to me, the mission of local government is to serve the people.

So the people are the mission.

And you have to be mission focused.

You have to put that first.

And when it comes to our policies internally, when it comes to our the way our for example, the billing department deals with with with the client in the community, you have to make sure that you treat them with the utmost respect.

You have to make sure that their needs are put first and foremost.

So my goal is to come in with a fresh vision, fresh outlook, and try to reset that and help build on what we've built currently as we build Goshen for the future.

Let me follow up in two ways.

First, you mentioned a fresh outlook and the fact that the race is winnable.

When you look at the numbers and when you think about a fresh outlook.

Republicans have not held the mayor's office for a very long time.

But you say this is winnable.

I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how you plan to win it.

And then you mentioned issues, some issues that haven't been addressed.

So maybe you could tell us a little bit more about those issues that you hope to address as mayor.

Yeah, I'd be happy to.

The the idea of a fresh outlook is I'm coming into this as a slightly younger candidate, and I think that brings with it some benefits.

I believe that there that the balance of youth and life experience is important in any office, in any government, in any organization, really.

And I believe they can bring that.

And you're right that the Republicans haven't held that the mayoral office in 30 plus years, but it's never been a complete blowout.

It's always been fairly balanced.

Goshen responds to issues response to the idea of working together, and they respond based on who they feel can can approach those issues in the best manner.

And we've done everything possible to get the message out, whether it's door to door, you know, phone calls, just talking to our neighbors, getting mailers out, everything possible that you do in a traditional campaign with a specific focus.

And that's not to attack the other side.

It's to get our message out in regards to those issues.

And it has been a incredibly rewarding process because the more I go around going door to door, the more I talk to voters at meet and greets.

There is an attitude and an appetite for some kind of a change.

But they're not looking for someone to come in and and throw all the plates up in the air and watch them all crash down.

And they're looking for someone that can build, someone that can build on what we've already done.

Because Goshen is a wonderful city and they don't respond to the idea of a of a negative message.

They want someone who has a positive message that still understands that you can always do better and advance down the line so that has been one of the most rewarding parts of the process as you realize that civility can still exist in politics so important.

And so as you think about that message and some of those issues that you'd like to see addressed, what are some of the most critical issues for the city of Goshen that you really want to tackle as mayor?

As I've been going around talking to people, the biggest issues that continue to come up are the housing issue.

We're in a bit of a housing crunch over in the city of Goshen and Elkhart County in general.

We have tens of thousands of people that commute to and about Goshen, Elkhart County, every day for work.

But they don't they don't live here because we have we don't have the housing supply that we probably should.

Recent estimates I've seen is that we are at least ten years behind when it comes to housing development, if not more.

I would say it's probably more at this point.

And that's causing a big housing crunch, especially when it comes to young professionals and seniors, when it comes to cost and everyone else is crunched down in the middle.

And that has caused an increase in property taxes because property tax assessments are up.

That's caused issues in regard to talent attraction.

I know some of the people I know that are looking at moving to the area.

They just realized they couldn't because the housing wasn't available, so they had to look elsewhere.

And that's that's kind of sad because we want to make the city as inviting as possible.

We have to have places to put people.

So making sure that the housing issues taken care of, that kind of ties into development and business friendliness as well.

There's a lot of things that have reared its head over the years, and I'm not saying it's it's personnel issues.

It's more policy issues of making sure that we've modernized the way we do business in the city to make sure it's as easy as possible for people to pull permits.

Easiest possible to bring in new developments to make sure that we have the reputation as a city of one that is welcoming and inviting for that development.

And with that comes traffic issues.

And that was something that I didn't necessarily have on my my initial checklist of like this is what people are concerned about.

But when you talk to people, it's right in front of them.

They deal with it every day.

Goshen has more than doubled in size over the last several decades, and with that has come traffic woes.

And there were a lot of traffic snarls as you try to drive around the city.

And that's going to require a creative approach and a collaborative approach, not just within the city limits, but with the county, with the state and the federal government as well, because some of those those corridors that really become the bottlenecks we don't control as a city government, we have to make sure we network and collaborate with other partners to make sure that that's taken care of.

And there's there's other options, like making sure that we have designated express routes that might route some traffic around the downtown traffic snarls.

There's a lot of things that we can do, and a lot of it involves messaging and making sure that we tackle what, one bite at a time, making people are concerned about their their essential services.

They want to make sure the roads are paid.

They want to make sure that their sidewalks are safe for their kids to walk down.

They're not going to trip or ramp off a broken piece of the sidewalk.

They're worried about making sure that we have enough police officers and firefighters to make sure that that those services are maintained at the highest level.

And at the same time, people want to make sure that we continue the quality of life improvements that were known for Goshen Downtown is absolutely beautiful, and we need to make sure that we build on that and keep going because if we stagnate and we just settle on, well, this is good enough, then that means you're going in the opposite direction and you have to be able to balance that.

And if you're when it comes to the quality of life improvements, one thing I've discovered is it's much easier to get public buy in if they know that all the other essential services are taken care of first.

And it's a balance of making sure each is is looked at equally.

And that's one of the approaches I want to bring as mayor of the city now.

How do you promote quality of life, additional services and attractive venues as well as more police without raising taxes?

How does that all balance out?

Is that where you were talking before about interacting more?

Invest ment and business?

And how do you do that?

Correct.

Yeah.

One of the things that Goshen has been very good with over the past decades is not spending beyond their means and in fact, we are looking at over the last couple of years having a surplus beyond what we thought we would have.

And so some of that comes down to where do you direct that money then?

Do you do direct that towards things like revitalization of the downtown?

Do you direct that towards additional police officers?

I think that's where you have to find that balance.

I don't think there's a huge appetite in the city of Goshen for for additional taxes, and that is one thing that you had to make very clear is you don't want to jump to that is the first conclusion, like we wouldn't need to raise taxes for this.

We need to raise fees for this.

That noise needs to be the measure of last resort.

And then working with actually looking at some other cities as examples, they've been able to pull in an incredible amount of community by.

And whether it's through community foundations, whether it's through additional grants to come up with some of these amazing quality of life improvements ranging from everything from aquatic centers to theaters.

And that's actually another example.

The downtown Goshen Theater is another good example of a private public partnership where that theater in downtown Goshen has been 100% renovated, 100% revitalized.

It's now one of the best features of of the city.

But that wasn't something the city poured a lot of money into.

They were able to support it.

They were able to get loans and they were able to promote it.

And then the community was able to come alongside.

So I think there's public private partnerships are essential if we're going to have additional quality of life improvements.

Now, in many municipal elections, it seems like safety, safety, safety is priority or a concern, number one.

To what extent do you think that's true in Goshen?

How are voters feeling?

You mentioned folks would like to have an adequate number of police officers, but how large does that loom in voters minds?

I think it's always good that to remember that it's easier to tackle a problem head on to begin with than to wait until you're behind the eight ball.

And the Goshen Police Department has done a good job.

The city council has done a good job of making sure that that they're adequately staff.

Now, that doesn't mean that we couldn't add a few more officers.

That doesn't mean that that we're at that level, that we really all want to be at, but to make sure that we're we're not really falling behind.

And the idea of public safety, I think, is multifaceted.

You know, you have your police, you have fire that involves making sure the streets are safe to drive on.

It's there's a lot of things that go go into that idea of public safety.

And for the most part, Goshen doesn't deal with some of those same issues that some some maybe larger municipalities deal with.

But it's important to make sure that we stay ahead of this.

I know that.

And making sure that not everything has to be punitive.

Not everything has to be where going go kick in doors and round up criminals.

Some of it is making sure that people have adequate access to resources through outreaching to our homeless population or outreaching to to those that might need mental health services.

And that all comes into play because if you if you ignore certain elements of society that need our help, then that's where they might fall back into the criminal justice system or fall into the criminal justice system for the first time.

So we have to make sure that our entire focus isn't just on punitive law enforcement, although that's a big part of the equation.

It's a more holistic approach and a broader approach as well.

Broader approach and trying to bring in all members of the community.

Well, thank you so much for being here.

Benjamin Rogers.

Well, that's all the time we have for this week's Politically Speaking.

I want to thank our guests, Goshen Mayor and Democratic candidate Jean Electing and Republican mayoral candidate Benjamin Rogers for joining us in the studio.

I'm Elizabeth Penny and reminding you that it takes all of us to make democracy work.

We'll see you next time.

This WNIT local production has been made possible in part by viewers like you.

Thank you.