BAD APPLES: State Board of Accounts forwards SBCSC audit to prosecutors over $767K in questioned costs

By
Logan Foster
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In June of 2020, South Bend voters approved an eight-year property tax referendum authorizing the South Bend Community School Corporation to collect $166.4 million in operating funds. The ballot resolution listed four approved purposes. Curriculum maintenance and expansion. Career pathways. Teacher compensation. Counselors and social workers.

Karen White

A confident woman smiling while standing in front of flags, wearing a gray outfit and a decorative necklace.
Karen White, Official Photo

Karen White, an at-large member of the South Bend Common Council and a former school board president, served as co-chair of the campaign that asked voters to approve the referendum. White also co-authored a South Bend Tribune Viewpoint making the case for the ballot measure. She appeared in the campaign videos. Her photograph went up on the campaign website under the heading “Why We’re Voting Yes.”

The voters trusted her. The referendum passed. Five years later, the Indiana State Board of Accounts filed its 65-page Supplemental Compliance Report on the district’s 2022-2023 fiscal year. The auditors identified $767,585 in questioned costs across the district’s spending. They named a sitting member of the school board and a paid school district intern in two conflict-of-interest findings that, by the audit’s own description, fit the elements of an Indiana felony statute. They forwarded the file to the Indiana Attorney General and the St. Joseph County Prosecutor’s office.

On April 27, 2022, two years after the referendum passed, the school district paid Karen White $25,000. The check was made out to her personally, not to Reaching Higher Grounds, the Indiana nonprofit she serves as registered agent. The agreement that authorized the payment was a one-page general statement signed by Kareemah Fowler, the then assistant superintendent of business and finance. The State Board of Accounts, in its findings, noted that it “is not aware of any policy authorizing Fowler, as the Assistant Superintendent of Schools, to negotiate and enter into contracts or purchase services for the School Board.” The school board never approved the payment.

A year later, on April 6, 2023, the school district paid White another $25,000. Same one-page document. The date had been written in by hand. The school board approved the docket containing the claim only after the check had cleared the bank.

Reaching Higher Grounds is incorporated as an Indiana nonprofit. The state expects payment for services to a nonprofit to go to the nonprofit. Both checks went to White personally.

I reported in January, based on records we received from our SBCSC FOIA request, that the district paid White or Reaching Higher Grounds $99,020 between July 2018 and May 2024. The district has confirmed in writing, through a public records determination letter dated January 8, 2026, that no contracts can be located for any of the payments to White.

Lynn Coleman

Older man smiling and pointing to his t-shirt that reads 'LTIA Let's Turn It Around!' with a red heart symbol, standing in front of a similar poster on the wall.
Lynn Coleman (LTIA Website)

Lynn Coleman is the founder of an organization called Let’s Turn It Around. He appeared on the 2020 Vote Yes campaign website alongside White, under the same heading. He also published a South Bend Tribune Viewpoint making his case for the referendum.

The school district paid Let’s Turn It Around $14,000 in federal pandemic relief funds across two installments. Eight thousand dollars in September 2022. Six thousand dollars on April 6, 2023, the same day one of White’s $25,000 checks cleared. The auditors found no documented evidence that the original Memorandum of Understanding had been reviewed or approved by the superintendent of schools, as the district’s contract policy required.

Gladys Muhammad

A mature woman with braided hair, wearing a gray cardigan and a round pin on her chest, sitting attentively in a gathering.
Gladys Muhammad, City of South Bend

Gladys Muhammad has been a fixture of South Bend Democratic politics for decades. She was also the secretary of the St. Joseph County Democratic Party. The City of South Bend’s Department of Community Investment has retained her as an independent contractor in 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, and 2026 each contract authorizing payments of up to $60,000 a year for community engagement and outreach. Across those five years, the city authorized cumulative payments of up to $300,000.

The school district also paid Muhammad $12,000 on July 8, 2022. The accounting system recorded the payment as “Consult/Cares/GFP/Henry.” The auditors identified it as one of six questionable payments totaling $210,445 issued before the school board had approved the underlying claims. The district paid Muhammad earlier amounts as well. Thirteen thousand dollars and ten thousand dollars on February 2, 2021. Three thousand dollars on March 4, 2021. The district was unable to produce supporting invoices.

Brown Intermediate

The school district decided in 2023 to convert Brown Intermediate School, which had been closed in 2018, into the corporation’s new administrative offices. At the May 15, 2023 board meeting, the project budget was communicated as $2.8 million, with soft costs projected to take the total up to $3.5 million. According to a financial analysis the district’s finance team presented to the board in June of 2025, the renovation ultimately cost approximately $7.5 million, with general maintenance costs bringing the total to $8.4 million. The analysis identified the project as approximately $4.7 million over budget.

Chekesha Donaldson/Alignment Ventures

A smiling woman with curly hair wearing a striped blouse, set against a solid light background.
Chekesha Donaldson, LinkedIN

Painting at Brown Intermediate began on January 10, 2023. There was no contract for the work. There was no bid. The school district could not produce a record of who was on the job. Forty-five days later, on February 24, 2023, a limited liability company called Alignment Ventures filed Articles of Organization with the Indiana Secretary of State. The Articles list one person, Chekesha Donaldson, as the sole governing person. The principal office is a P.O. Box. The contact email is a Gmail address. Donaldson, at the time, was three weeks into a paid office internship at the school district. Her LinkedIn profile lists a two-decade career in administrative and clerical work. Permit secretary for the City of South Bend’s Building Department for nearly nine years. Medical receptionist. Customer service representative at Liberty Mutual Insurance. Administrative assistant at the South Bend Community School Corporation from 2018 to 2020. Her listed work history does not include painting, construction, or facilities work.

The school district paid Alignment Ventures $271,568 across twenty checks while Donaldson was an employee. By September 2024, the cumulative total had reached $506,534. The district could produce no contract for any of the payments, no bid form, no financial statements, no bid bond, no performance bond, no non-collusion affidavit, and no vendor evaluation. The auditors found invoices dated before the corresponding purchase orders had been entered into the district’s accounting system. For Alignment Ventures specifically, six checks were processed by the bank before the dates printed on the checks. Three of the company’s invoices carried service completion dates from before the LLC legally existed.

Donaldson did not file a conflict-of-interest disclosure with the State Board of Accounts or the Clerk of the St. Joseph County Circuit Court, as Indiana law requires from a public servant who has a financial interest in a contract with the entity that employs her. Indiana law makes that conduct a Level 6 felony.

Two other contractors were paid for work on the Brown renovation without contracts, bids, or vendor evaluations. Coach Ready Mix received $74,778 to remove lockers, whiteboards, shelving, and other debris. M. Haywood received $40,260 for mobilization services moving items from the existing administration building to Brown.

Leslie Wesley

A woman with long, wavy hair sitting at a desk, smiling while wearing a black suit and pearl necklace.
Leslie Wesley, Campaign Photo

The audit’s second conflict-of-interest finding involves Leslie Wesley. Wesley served on the school board from 2017 through 2024. She is also the incorporator and chief executive officer of a nonprofit called the Indiana Parenting Institute of St. Joseph County. The school district paid the institute $1,177,903 over the school years that overlapped with her tenure on the board, in payments tied to two grant-funded programs called Pathways 2 Success and Gear Up South Bend. Wesley filed conflict-of-interest disclosures with the school board itself in 2021, 2022, and 2023. She did not file the annual disclosures Indiana law requires with the State Board of Accounts or with the Clerk of the Circuit Court for St. Joseph County for any of the four years between 2021 and 2024.

Credit Cards & Miscellaneous Spending

The school district spent $635,171 on credit card transactions during the audit period. The auditors tested $248,979 of that. Seventy-two percent of the transactions reviewed lacked sufficient supporting documentation. The district could not produce a credit card log because it had not kept one. Cards were retained continuously by select administrators in violation of the district’s own P-Card agreement, which required cards to be signed out per transaction. The school board approved monthly payments to the credit card issuer without reviewing the underlying charges.

The charges included $55,206 in unsupported lodging, $10,887 in airfare with seat upgrades and excess baggage, a $1,200 luxury ride that included a $200 tip, catered meals with no record of who ate them, a $2,635 catering bill at a DoubleTree charged to the Operation fund, and a $220 floral order charged to the Education fund.

Milton Lee

A close-up portrait of a middle-aged man with a light brown skin tone, wearing a blazer and a checked shirt, smiling slightly in an office setting.
Milton Lee, LinkedIN

On July 27, 2022, Milton Lee, the district’s director of communications and athletics, who is also married to SBCSC board member Kate Lee, used a school credit card to buy a $100 cash bar charge, three mixed drinks, and eleven import or craft beers. He charged it to ESSER III, the federal pandemic relief program. Federal regulations governing ESSER funds prohibit alcohol purchases. District Policy 6550 prohibits the purchase of alcohol with public funds.

Conference Spending

Conferences accounted for the rest. Twenty-two employees attended the Building Expertise Educators Conference at Walt Disney Resort in June 2023. The district spent $27,896.85. There were no travel requisitions on file. One employee’s airfare was paid before her registration was confirmed. Fifteen of twenty-two staff stays had no room receipts. Twelve employees attended the Innovative School Summit at Caesars Palace in July 2022. The auditors found $615.33 in unjustified room upgrades and early check-in. Four employees attended an Art School Network Conference at the Golden Nugget in October 2022. The district paid $3,143.45. There were no travel requisitions, one attendee booked a different airline at extra cost, and the only conference materials the auditors could find was a Golden Nugget promotional flyer.

The district could not produce contracts for six of nine administrators reviewed. None of fourteen hourly employees tested had a time sheet on file. One was paid for seventy-five hours that did not appear on the supervisor’s attendance report. The federal grant schedule understated the school breakfast program by $2,979,484 and the school lunch program by $7,948,337. A $2,390,000 bond series was not reported. A $3,155,000 bond series was reported twice. The payroll account was not reconciled in June of 2023 and remained unreconciled for over two years until July 2025. A separate bank account for electronic vendor payments had never been reconciled in the district’s history.

The ballot resolution voters approved in June 2020 listed four purposes for the operating referendum. Curriculum. Career pathways. Teacher compensation. Counselors and social workers. The South Bend Tribune Viewpoint White co-authored urged voters to support reading specialists, college counselors, social workers in every school, increased teacher pay, and subject-certified teachers. That was the pitch.

The audit shows what the district spent some of the money on. County ditch fees, including a delinquent tax and a delinquent penalty. A Chevrolet Equinox substituted for a service plow truck after backorder delays. Custodial services. Vehicle repairs. Utilities. Staff parking fees. Bottled water for teacher lounges. Payroll for a building and grounds employee. None of those items appear on the ballot resolution voters approved.

SBCSC’s Response

The district’s chief financial officer, Ahnaf Tahmid, defends the practice in his official response to the audit. He notes that 86 percent of the district’s roughly 1,000 teachers are paid from the Education Fund, that the referendum fund is capped at $30 million annually, and that the operating referendum fund therefore “provided the strategic flexibility to cover operational costs beyond our General Operations Fund.” He cites Indiana Code 20-40-3-5, which permits the fund to be used for “any lawful school expenses.”

He may be right that the law allows it, but the voters who passed the referendum were not told the money was for any lawful school expense. They were told it was for teachers and counselors.

Tahmid took the chief financial officer job after most of this happened. He inherited bank reconciliations years behind, an Empowerment Zone fund $9.7 million in deficit, a credit card program with more than fifteen cards, and a Brown renovation that ran approximately $4.7 million over its $2.8 million budget. By his own account, he has been cleaning the mess up. Cards reduced from fifteen to two. Reconciliations brought current. Capital assets inventoried. The audit does not contradict him. That is what an administration is supposed to do when it inherits a mess.

But cleaning up the mess doesn’t excuse the mess. A school district that promised voters teacher raises and student counselors paid for ditch fees and parking out of the same bucket. A school district that wrote policies requiring board approval of every contract paid a sitting city councilwoman $99,020 over six years and couldn’t produce a contract for any of it. A school district that adopted Indiana’s public works bidding statutes paid half a million dollars in painting work to a company that did not legally exist when the brushes hit the wall. A school district that wrote a credit card policy ran the program with no log, no documentation, no review, and allowed alcohol to be purchased with federal pandemic relief money.

2020’s Vote Yes Campaign

The 2020 Vote Yes campaign was carried by South Bend’s Democratic establishment. Former mayor Pete Buttigieg appeared in the campaign videos. Sitting mayor James Mueller appeared in the campaign videos. Common Council members Karen White at-large, Rachel Tomas Morgan at-large, Sheila Niezgodski of the 6th District, Troy Warner of the 4th District, Sharon McBride of the 3rd District, and Canneth Lee of the 1st District appeared in the campaign videos urging support. Then-superintendent Todd Cummings and then-assistant superintendent of business and finance Kareemah Fowler appeared in the campaign videos reading from the same script that promised reading specialists, college counselors, and increased teacher pay. Milton Lee, who purchased alcohol with federal relief funds, also appeared in the campaign videos.

Stephanie Ball appeared in the campaign videos as the fourth-district representative on the South Bend school board, walking voters through how to request and complete their absentee ballots. Her campaign biography lists that she worked for Karen White. Ball is currently running for St. Joseph County Clerk of the Circuit Court on the Democratic ticket. The Clerk of the Circuit Court is the office where, under Indiana Code, the conflict-of-interest disclosures the audit found Wesley and Donaldson never filed should have been filed.

Voters get to decide whether someone who advocated for this institution, and who campaigned for the figure the audit traces $99,020 to, is the right person to keep its records going forward.

South Bend voters are five years into an eight-year property tax increase. They have three years left.

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UNHINGED: Amy Drake’s Closing Argument Before The Primary Is Four Pages About Me

By
Logan Foster
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Amy Drake’s newsletter hit my inbox at 8:14 Sunday morning.

My wife threw on some coffee. I sat down at the kitchen table. I read it.

It was about me. All four pages about me. Two days before the Republican primary, the sitting councilwoman from Clay Township sent her last message to her voters and the message was that I am a paid weapon of the St. Joseph County Republican Party.

The coffee was on the table. I read it again. Then I went to review the things she said.

She said I scrubbed articles off my own website to hide work I did for the GOP. She listed them out. Article, removed. Article, removed.

I opened my laptop. I typed in the address of my own website. The homepage came up.

There is a notice across the top of the page. “Please note: Redress South Bend recently migrated its website platform. As a result, some previously published news and opinion articles may be temporarily unavailable. Efforts are underway to recover and republish this content.”

Screenshot of the Redress South Bend website, featuring a header with navigation options, a breaking news banner, and a note regarding content migration.

The notice has been there for weeks. Drake had to load our website to compile her column. She wrote four pages accusing me of destroying evidence and never mentioned the notice on the front of my website.

Drake’s column then claimed my mailer was a hit piece. I stopped reading. I went and got it.

The Redress newspaper was on our counter. Volume 1, Number 1. April 2026. Tabloid size, folded twice, weight just over an ounce.

I held it up at the kitchen table. It has a masthead and page numbers. There is an “About Redress South Bend” box on the back, ad inquiry boxes with my email address, and QR codes to register subscriptions.

A newspaper article titled 'Redress South Bend' from April 2026 discussing Jamie O'Brien's salary exceeding budget and political campaign controversies featuring images of O'Brien and Amy Drake.
Page from a newspaper titled 'Redress South Bend' featuring articles about local politics, including endorsements and opinions regarding the Indiana District 11 primary.

The lead story is about thirteen thousand dollars in extra compensation paid to County Council attorney Jamie O’Brien. O’Brien is the candidate Drake is fundraising for in the same column where she is calling my newspaper a party hit piece.

A party operation does not lead its mailer with an investigation of one of its own candidates. A party mailer carries a paid-for-by line. The newspaper does not have one because it is a newspaper.

Drake looked at it and saw a conspiracy.

The phone buzzed. I received a text. “How are you feeling about Amy Drake’s latest conspiracy?” 

By 9:30 I had read the column three times. The coffee was cold.

I went back to the laptop.

Drake had put the words “monthly memberships and one-time donations” in quotation marks. She made it sound like a line I had cooked up to fool people, then asked her readers to wonder who was really cutting the checks. She suggested it was party leadership.

I clicked the menu bar on my own website. I clicked “Support Redress South Bend.” The page came up.

Three tiers. Ten dollars a month. Twenty. Thirty. Plus one-time donations of any amount. The labels on the page are the words Drake put in quotation marks.

Promotional image for supporting Redress South Bend with three tiers: Tier 1 - Supporter for $10/month, Tier 2 - Sustainer for $20/month, and Tier 3 - Patron for $30/month. Each tier includes descriptions of benefits and an option for one-time donations.

She had quoted my own donation page back at me and called it a slush fund.

Then I read the part where Drake said I had mysteriously moved into her district to run for state delegate. I read it twice. I went back two paragraphs.

In the same column, two paragraphs earlier, Drake had written that she was kicked off the ballot for state delegate by a corrupt ex-judge.

She accused me of moving into her district to run against her in a delegate race. Then she told her readers, in her own words, that she was not in the delegate race.

A delegate is not a council seat. You can run from anywhere you live. I am on the ballot because I chose to be. Point blank. I believed running for delegate would further our journalism. I want to document the process from the inside, the precinct caucus, the convention, the rules, the rooms most reporters never see.

Drake’s list of enemies, by the end of the column, includes a former judge she calls corrupt, a political consultant, two news websites, a blogger she compares to a hit man, and me. All of us, she says, out to get her.

This is the message Amy Drake sent to Clay Township two days before the primary. Not her record. Not her votes. Not her constituents.

Me.

Q&A: Lt. Earl Wigfall on the jail, the courthouse, and his run for St. Joseph County Sheriff

By
Logan Foster
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Lt. Earl Wigfall has spent more than 30 years in law enforcement, 25 of them inside the St. Joseph County Sheriff’s Department.
“I do not need to learn this job. I have lived it, he said.” That is his pitch to Tuesday’s Democratic primary voters.
Redress South Bend spoke with Wigfall by phone this week. The conversation below has been edited for length and clarity.

Q.) For voters who may not know you personally, who is Earl Wigfall, and why are you running for St. Joseph County Sheriff?

A.) Earl Wigfall is a resident of South Bend, Indiana. I grew up here. I went to Harrison School, then Dickinson when it first opened, then LaSalle High School. I met my wife in college and have been married to her for 40 years.

I’m an Air Force veteran. I started my police career in Indianapolis, as a Police Officer with Indianapolis Public Schools where I held the rank of Sergeant. I returned to South Bend along with my wife and three sons in 2001, to care for my mother, who was ill at the time.

I initially worked in the jail as required, then to the Patrol Division. Shortly after being on patrol, I was promoted to the Detective Bureau, then to Sergeant. Sheriff Redman promoted me to be the Training Commander, where I annually trained over 300 officers.

People do not realize we have multiple Divisions within the Sheriff’s Department such as the Jail, Courthouse, Transportation, Detective Bureau, Warrants, Civil, and Records Division to name a few. The jail holds inmates within the various cities and townships in St. Joseph County, with South Bend having the largest population. The Sheriff’s Department is a hidden gem, people may not realize how much we impact them and the community.

Q.) Scott Ruszkowski is running on his record as the South Bend Police Department’s Chief of Police. In your view, in general, does a municipal Chief of Police have the experience required to run the Sheriff’s office efficiently from Day 1?

A.) No, they do not. Mishawaka nor South Bend Police, have a Jail, Juvenile Center, Courthouse or Civil Division to run. The Sheriff’s Department also collects unpaid taxes, if businesses do not pay, the Sheriff’s Department shuts the business down until it’s paid. We process the paperwork that comes from the courts, including the subpoenas. If you are not knowledgeable coming into the Department you are behind in the game.

To break it down, if I left the Sheriff’s Department and went to South Bend Police, they would not just hand me keys and give me a car saying, “Okay, Earl, you’ve been a police officer for 30 years, you are good to go.” I would have to go through a training process. So, no matter where you move to, even if you are the chief, several officers will have to guide and train you.

Q.) Trust in law enforcement has been tested by officer use-of-force incidents, jail deaths, internal affairs dismissals, and concerns about transparency. What would be different about the culture of the sheriff’s office under the Wigfall administration?

A.) What would be different with me is total transparency. If we have an ongoing internal investigation, I would let the public know we have started an investigation. At the close of it, I would report the outcome, as well as keep them aware of the process. If the department had to suspend or terminate an employee that would be public record. If an employee is clear of wrongdoing, we would share this as well. The community has a right to know because we work for them. There is no secrecy when you are building trust.

Q.) One of the clearest differences between a police chief and a sheriff is the jail. If the jail is understaffed, that affects officer safety, inmates, and the public. What would you do as Sheriff to fix staffing and reduce turnover?

A.) I would start with building morale by hiring and promoting within the department. We will continue the Law Enforcement Program with South Bend Community School Corporation and hire them in the jail at the age of 18, after successful completion of the program and background check. Working in the jail will give them training and experience on how to talk, deescalate a situation and deal with people who have mental health, drug, and/or recidivism issues. Once they turn 21, they can either continue as a Correction Officer or become Police Officers for St. Joseph County. Some of our graduates were recruited and hired by other local Police Departments.

I would also talk with the Veterans Administration regarding our military veterans who were honorably discharged for employment.

Q.) This race gives voters a choice between two law enforcement leaders. What is the clearest contrast between yourself and Chief Ruszkowski on accountability, transparency, and community trust?

A.) St Joseph County deserves leadership that is ready on day one. Leadership that does not need time to figure things out, but is prepared to move forward immediately with clarity, confidence, and purpose. When elected, I will continue building a sheriff’s office that prioritizes professional training, officer wellness, and community trust. I will ensure that our department remains focused on its core mission, protecting the people of this county while maintaining the highest standards of integrity and accountability. This campaign is not about politics. It’s about service. It is about making sure that the sheriff’s office remains an institution the public can rely on, and one that the men and women who serve within it are proud to be a part of. Every decision made by a sheriff carries weight. It affects not just the officers wearing the badge, but the families they go home too, and the community they serve. That is something I take seriously. When you vote for me, you are choosing leadership, rooted in experience, guided by accountability, and committed to doing this job the right way.

I was disappointed to receive news that the Democratic debate for sheriff was canceled due to Scott declining. If he would have agreed to the debate. The public would have heard answers to their questions from both candidates.

Q.) For any undecided voters heading into Tuesday’s Democratic Primary, why should they vote for Lt. Earl Wigfall?

A.) I am an honest person who cares for my community and believes in the moto “Serve and Protect.”  I am currently working with agencies in the community like Oaklawn, Epworth, and REAL Services to see how we can best service the residents of St. Joseph County. I want to start monthly Coffee with the Sheriff to hear their concerns and continue to build trust. Everyone deserves the right to be treated fairly and with respect, even if they are incarcerated. We will continue to work on reducing recidivism by referring inmates to programs and services in the community to help them become productive citizens of St. Joseph County. Enforcing the law is our job, but to have somebody who wants to work alongside you to help and strengthen the community is important and contributes to St. Joseph County being safer.

When I meet people at their lowest point, or people I have arrested, and I see them later in life thanking me, that is my endorsement. Vote Lt. Earl Wigfall for St. Joseph County Sheriff.

Redress South Bend thanks Lt. Wigfall for taking the time to speak with us.

Drake Voted Twice to Gut Local Labor Protections – Opening Floodgates to Cheap Foreign Labor.

By
Logan Foster
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The crews working on the Amazon data center in New Carlisle came from Mississippi, Tennessee, and Florida. The crews on the solar farm projects in Starke and Pulaski counties came from out of state too. The crew on the north pumping station job near South Bend came from Canada, did defective work, left town, and stuck local taxpayers with the repair bill.

How does anyone know? Because St. Joseph County has a rule that requires every property tax abatement to come with a paper trail. Every abated project is required to file annual records showing what its construction workers are paid, where they live, and whether they’re legally allowed to work in the United States.

Councilwoman Amy Drake has tried to repeal that rule. Twice.

Drake has sponsored three tax abatement bills in an 18 month period, twice she came after the disclosure rule directly, as part of a wholesale repeal. Twice the building trades packed the room. The third time, she came back with a smaller scope and got a piece of the abatement removed.

Now she is asking primary voters to re-elect her so she can try to erase St. Joseph County’s local labor protections a fourth time.

The first time she tried

Bill 21-24 was filed Feb. 6, 2024, with co-sponsor Joe Thomas. It would have repealed Sections 35.01 through 35.46 of the county code in their entirety. Here is what Drake’s bill would have changed:
Out: the wage floor, set at 125 percent of the county’s average wage.
Out: the requirement that a majority of project work go to local companies.
Out: the rule that the company’s contractors and subcontractors all have to follow federal anti-discrimination law.
Out: the certified payroll residency disclosure.
In: a two-page application form and a grant of “broad discretion” to the County Council.

The bill failed 5-4 at the March 12 public hearing. Republican Council President Dan Schaetzle joined Democrats Rafael Morton, Diana Hess, Mark Catanzarite, and Bryan Tanner to kill the bill.

The second attempt

Drake came back nine months later, on Sept. 27, 2024 with Bill 109-24, and filed the same repeal. She added Republican co-sponsors Mark Root and Randy Figg alongside Thomas.

James Gardner of Operating Engineers Local 150 told the Council that contractors on the Amazon work in New Carlisle had already brought in workforces from Mississippi, Tennessee, and Florida. He had documented the same pattern on solar farm projects in Starke and Pulaski counties. He had sent the documentation to then Sen. Mike Braun. He offered to share it with the Council that night.

Murray Miller of Laborers Local 645 was more blunt: taking local workers off these jobs “should not be an option.”

Jason Piontek of IBEW 153 and Scott Calentine of the Carpenters Union of Northern Indiana followed. Piontek said local labor utilization was essential to building “resilient, thriving communities.” Calentine said the question wasn’t union versus non-union. It was whether tax dollars should support the people who pay them.

Kevin Connery told the Council about the north pumping station job. The Canadian company. The inferior product. The defective stainless welding. The repair bill picked up by local taxpayers after the company left town. “Anything that has to do with a tax abatement,” he told the Council, “is local money.”

Bill 109-24 failed 5-4. The same five members who killed Drake’s first bill killed her second.

Earlier the same night, the Council heard Bill 119-24, an abatement for a private contractor that the Plumbers and Pipefitters had also come to oppose. Brock Wislich, business manager of Local 172, told the Council: “I don’t believe that an abatement for a contractor in our county is the right thing to do. Most of us contractors are self-funded. Giving taxpayers’ money to a contractor to build a new facility, I don’t believe that’s the right thing to do.” Drake voted yes. The bill passed.

The piece she got

In 2025, Drake came back with Bill 52-25, co-sponsored with Andy Rutten. This one didn’t try to repeal the whole ordinance. It went after the affirmative action provisions: deleted the definition of “Minority” from the code, stripped subsections from the application and annual reporting requirements.

The bill passed 5-4 on July 8, 2025. Catanzarite, Tanner, Hess, and Shabazz voted no. The Board of Commissioners signed it the following week. It became Ordinance 48-25.

The wage floor, the local requirement, and the certified payroll residency disclosure all survived. They survived because Drake lost her early attempts to remove them from the ordinance.

What’s on the ballot May 5

Drake will say her bills were about competitiveness. She said it at the dais. She said it in her Substack newsletter.

The council meeting minutes tell a different story. They show a councilwoman who heard, in person, from representatives of five building trades locals that her bill would let contractors hide where their workforce comes from and her bill would remove protections for St. Joseph County workers. Drake voted to repeal those protections anyway.

When a company gets a tax break, the tax bill doesn’t disappear. It shifts. Homeowners in Mishawaka, South Bend, and New Carlisle absorb it. They are entitled to know who their money is paying. Drake authored bills to take that transparency away. Twice.

Gene Reese: Making Walkerton Better

By
Logan Foster
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WALKERTON, Ind. — Gene Reese answered the phone on the first ring.

Reese is a retired athletic director, a veteran honorably discharged in 1976, and, since January of 1990, a member of the Walkerton Town Council. On Tuesday, the town of Walkerton will decide whether to send him back for another term.

Reese did not ask for the questions in advance. He answered quickly, in the cadence of a man who has rehearsed nothing because he has not had to.

“The thing that probably drives me the most,” he said, “is being a team leader to our great councils, a servant leader, a leader that helps other people out.”

Walkerton is a town of roughly 2,000 people in St. Joseph County. It has a single high school, John Glenn, named for the astronaut and senator. It has a downtown, a few churches, and, increasingly over the last decade, a list of new public spaces: a library, a community center, a Veterans Park, a splash pad, and pickleball courts. According to Reese, those projects and others have been built with roughly $60 million in grants and private donations.

“Since I’ve been in office,” he said, “our team (Town Council, Town Administrator, Clerk-Treasurer) has learned how to find grants and donations and to do a lot of different projects for our town without costing the taxpayer any money at all.”

Some of those grants come from the State of Indiana. The Community Crossings Matching Grant Program, administered by the state’s Department of Transportation, funds local road and bridge work on an 80-20 match for towns of Walkerton’s size. It is the kind of money that pays for the sidewalk extension to John Glenn High School that Reese says he wants to see finished in his next term. But most of the donations, though, come from one family.

“We have one tremendously generous family in the town of Walkerton, which is the Hiler family,” Reese said. “They have been responsible for helping us build a new library, the community center, the pickleball courts, and some things at the park.”

The Hilers, he explained, have ties to Walkerton through John Glenn High School and through Hiler Industries, a longtime local business. He described them as “very strong supporters of the town of Walkerton in a lot of different ways.”

The relationship between a small town and a generous family is the kind of arrangement that does not explain itself easily in campaign brochures, and yet it is, in many small American towns, how things actually get built. State grants reward the prepared. Our Town Administrator has to know where to look, how to write the application, and how to keep the town’s paperwork clean enough that the next award is easier to win. Major private donations require something harder: years of trust, kept relationships, a council willing to steward the money in a way that makes the next gift easier to ask for. Most of what Walkerton has built in the Reese era exists because someone made the call, followed through, then made the next call.

When asked which of the projects he is proudest of, Reese named two.

The first was the Veterans Park, dedicated in 2021. “I’m a veteran, and I got honorably discharged in 1976,” he said, “I’m a strong proponent of our military and a strong proponent of our country.”

The second was the community center, which opened last year. He talked about it less as a building than as a use. “It gives an opportunity for people now to have different kinds of occasions, whether it be a graduation or a reunion or a family get-together, Christmas, Thanksgiving,” he said. “It gives people in Walkerton a place to go where they can have their families come in and fellowship together.”

If voters return him to the council Tuesday, two priorities sit at the top of his list. The sidewalk to the school is one. The other is a new building for the Christian Community Food Pantry, which Reese said the council is helping plan. The construction, he said, will be funded entirely through grants and pantry money.

When asked what he wanted residents to know about him that wasn’t on a yard sign, Reese paused and came back to where he started.

“It’s way beyond politics. It’s people. It’s trying to help the people in Walkerton to have better communities and better places, things that they can do with their families. Just having things in town that is going to make their lives better.”

Q&A: Dan Schaetzle on public service, community priorities, and why he’s running for re-election

By
Logan Foster
-

St. Joseph County Council’s Dan Schaetzle says he sees public service less as politics and more as problem-solving. In a sit-down interview with Redress South Bend, the District C councilman spoke about county priorities in Granger, his work as a Penn High School teacher, and why he says he wants to continue serving St. Joseph County.

Q: In a few words, who is Dan Schaetzle, and what drives you personally and professionally?

A: I want to be known as a Christian man. I want to be known as a loving, caring father and husband. Those are two really driving forces in my life.

I also want to be known as someone who cares about his community, and I think my work reflects that. I’m a teacher at Penn High School. I tell my students from the beginning of the year that my job is not just to teach U.S. history, but also to help them become the amazing human beings they’re intended to be. I really approach the job that way.

I’m also a small business owner, and that gives me an opportunity to contribute to the community in another way. I hate to call myself a politician because I don’t think of myself as one, but I am someone who wants to use government to improve the quality of life in my community.

Q: What initially inspired you to run for public office, and how has that motivation stayed with you over the years?

A: It was pretty simple. The road I lived on was in terrible shape. It had not been redone in 25 years, and I had been pressing my elected representatives, who were Republicans, to get it fixed. It wasn’t happening.

Then Zach Potts came to me and said, “Dan, Mr. Pfeil is not going to run again for his seat as county councilman for District C. Would you be interested?” I thought this was a way I could get my road fixed, win this district, and then lobby from a position with a little more power. Mr. Pfeil changed his mind and decided to run again, so I had to primary him for the seat.

Q: You’ve faced both challenges and successes in your current term. What motivated you to pursue re-election in 2026?

A: When I ran for election in 2022, I knocked on 6,000 doors, 3,000 for the primary and 3,000 for the general, and many of those doors more than once. I kept a list of what people wanted us to get done, a top 10 list.

We have accomplished most of those things. However, we still have some left to accomplish, and I would like to win again so I can complete what my constituents asked me to do.

Q: What were some of the top issues people wanted addressed?

A: Three or four things really jumped out. One was the leaf pickup program. There were a lot of complaints about that, and we got that straightened out. We took the president of the company that handles our leaf pickup aside and said, “Look, you’re going to have to do better.” He showed us some ways they could improve, they implemented those changes, and people are happier now with the leaf pickup program.

Another was snow plowing. We’re building a new half-county highway garage in central Granger, in an industrial area, and that central location will allow us to do a better job of getting to all the subdivisions in Granger. So we’re addressing that.

Another issue was economic development. People want to see their kids stay here or come back after college. We’ve addressed that by approving projects through rezoning, including projects like Microsoft, GM, Samsung, and Amazon, to try to bring tax dollars and jobs into the community.

And of course, Anderson Road Park was something people really wanted to see built.

Q: Why was the Anderson Road Park project so important to you and your community?

A: The county parks department has owned 115 acres on Anderson Road for 25 years, and no council had been willing to fund building the park.

Every councilman before me in District C was unable to get the funding. People wanted to have a county park in Granger, and I saw it as a challenge to do something my predecessors had been unable to do, which was secure the funding for the park.

I also think it mattered to residents because they did not want to have to drive so far to get to a county park. They knew the land was already bought and wanted to see the county come through.

Q: As a high school teacher and sponsor of the school’s Republican Club, how do you try to inspire and engage young Hoosiers in civic and political life?

A: The way we do it is by discussing national and international events. We bring in elected officials to talk about their jobs. Before the end of the last school year, we had Tony Hazen and Lou Ann Hazen come in and talk about being a Mishawaka city councilwoman and a county commissioner. Sometimes we also go to events. They have been to our Lincoln Day dinner in the last several years. We do those things to help get them politically interested.

I think it’s hard to inspire kids today to get politically interested because they see adults as being rather inept politically. We fight with each other and don’t get things done, and that is not lost on teenagers. Most teenagers want nothing to do with politics because adults are showing a very bad example.

Q: You mentioned your time abroad earlier. Can you talk about that and how it shaped your perspective?

A: I was able to get a scholarship after finishing undergraduate school to study at the Free University in Berlin, which was called the Free University because it was in West Berlin as opposed to Communist East Berlin. I studied there right after the Berlin Wall came down, so it was a very interesting period.

I spent some time in Germany, and then I was a teacher for seven years in South Korea. That’s where I met my wife, and we married there. It was a very interesting period for me because I got to travel all over Asia. Korean culture is amazing. People are incredibly friendly. They love Americans because we were so important in helping preserve their freedom from the Communist North, and I was treated extremely well there.

Q: How did those experiences affect the way you think about the United States and its government?

A: There are a lot of different forms of democracy in the world. What we have that is different from most of them is such a high level of personal freedom.

In Germany, they have democracy, but when you’re in middle school you’re tracked toward a career. To me, that is an elimination of freedom because you do not have the freedom to move outside that track. In South Korea, they also have democracy, but they have a national health care system that is extremely expensive for employers. That eliminates the opportunity for many people to start businesses because they cannot afford the cost. There are different things in other democracies that curtail individual freedom, and I think we, for the most part, do not allow those things to happen in this country.

Q: Looking back on your time in office so far, what accomplishments are you most proud of?

A: I think getting the funding for the Anderson Road Park would be right at the top. My fellow Republicans fought me for two and a half years, really out of personal spite. Because of dislike for me personally, they decided they were not going to allow anything to happen in my district, and they basically told me that, and told other people that. So I had to work some political capital with the Democrats and was able to secure the funding by working with them, with our economic development adviser, and with the commissioners. That is one of my proudest accomplishments.

I think getting the highway facility into an industrial area is another one of my better accomplishments because we first proposed putting it by the park, and there was a public outcry against that. I listened to the public, and we did not put the garage next to the park. We found a better-suited place for it. I think that shows I listen to my constituents.

Q: What advice would you give to someone considering a career in public service?

A: You better have a thick skin, because the people you may expect will be your allies sometimes will not be. That is when you have to have the thickest skin. When the shots are coming from what you think is your own team, those are the hard ones to take.

Q: What do you hope your legacy will be as a public servant?

A: I was taught by my family that we leave a place better than when we got there. I want my legacy to be that Granger and St. Joe County are better places to live, and that the quality of life is higher because Dan Schaetzle got some things done.

Q: As of today, is Dan a Republican?

A: Dan is a Republican, and Dan has been a Republican for some 40-some years.

Q: And as far as Republican principles and beliefs?

A: Absolutely. I believe in efficient government. I believe in balanced budgets. I think government should be as small as we can keep it and still provide the basic things government should provide.

I’m pro-life. I’m pro-Second Amendment. I think I check off all the boxes.

Q: Is there anything you’d like to share with your constituents that we haven’t covered today?

A: Whether you’re a Democrat or Republican, if you’re pleased with the progress we’ve made over the last two and a half years here in Granger, I encourage you to get out and vote because it’s going to be a contentious election, and we need people to get out and vote.

Just one chance to get this right for the next 150 years: Portage Manor Lands

By
Brian S. Collier, Ph.D.
-

When we sell public lands for private development, we, as a community, very rarely have a chance to get those spaces back. These are spaces for all of us to enjoy, learn in and from, and that provide respite and safe habitat for flora and fauna that are necessary. If we sell this land to a developer, we all lose. That isn’t to say we can’t make room for a school to own a portion of this property, but if we do, let’s make sure the public maintains and owns the rest. 

This is why I beg of you to attend the public meeting on April 28, 2026, at 11:00 A.M. on the fourth floor of the County-City Building, 227 W. Jefferson Blvd, South Bend, IN 46601. Come be heard, or if you cannot attend in person, email the Board of Commissioners here: sjccom@sjcindiana.com. 

What: Public Hearing by the County Board of Commissioners to Dispose of Public Lands

When: April 28, 2026

Time: 11 a.m. 

Where: Fourth Floor County-City Building (227 W. Jefferson Blvd, South Bend, IN 46601)

If you want to see how I came to care about this issue, keep reading. 

I met Derek Dieter because I thought I didn’t agree with him on anything, so I wrote to him saying I was unhappy with his work and politics. He told me to come out and see what he was doing, and if I still disagreed with him, that was fine. 

So, a bit over two years ago, I met Dieter at the site of the former Portage Manor, and he gave me a tour of the building, which no doubt needed a great deal of work. Some of the spaces told of a tragic past of mental health care, but other spaces told of the religious concern and care taken by the caretakers on behalf of the residents. Still other spaces showed best-faith efforts to care for those housed at Portage Manor, but the facilities clearly no longer met the needs and standards of that population. This realization pained me because I had former classmates whose family members had been relocated from this facility, knew people who had lived there three or four decades earlier, and people who had occasionally played music for residents there during my high school and college years. Yet it was clear that Dieter and others who pushed for the property’s closure were correct in their assessment of that community’s best interests. 

Dieter then took me around the truly amazing property. We saw dozens of wildlife species, big and small. We walked to one of the few remaining places where the Kankakee marshland drainage waters occasionally flow into the mighty St. Joseph River. We viewed flora and fauna nearly unseen in the modern cityscape of South Bend, and Dieter then showed me his hopes and dreams for the property. He imagined extensions of the trail system that he personally began to care for and create. Places where hikers, mountain bikers, and more might enjoy real recreation opportunities. Places where citizens might walk down to study turtles, fish, deer, flowers, native grasses, and so much more. He excitedly showed me that the property for the trails was already adjacent to the city’s river trails. He imagined citizens deciding on other uses for the property, too, possibly frisbee golf, picnic areas, and maybe permit only snowmobile access. 

He talked passionately about people with different learning styles who might benefit from an outdoor school that utilized future-repaired and upgraded, structurally sound Portage Manor buildings. He imagined that there could be goats, maybe chickens, and other animals as part of the school. That students might learn about nature immediately adjacent to them and learn to care for those natural systems, and perhaps later grow into careers where they do the same. We discussed the opportunities for students to learn from and with the Pokégnek Bodéwadmik (Pokagon Potawatomi) about their history in this landscape, and from all they’ve done as a nation to restore native plants, food sources, and grasses. We discussed the region’s immediate proximity to French history, with the LaSalle landing site. A place where René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, landed with a landing party of at least 30 men in December 1679, here at the south bend of the river. We noted that this was before the birth of Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, or Thomas Jefferson.  We talked about how students might learn about the entire Atlantic world in that era, in this context, and about our community’s connection to that Atlantic world in that era and in later periods as well. 

Our shared interest in the outdoors, education, and environmental protection far outweighed any preconceived political notions I had about Dieter. The whole experience was a reminder to get to know the person and their motivations and to always, always pay attention to perspective so that we might learn and expand our own worldview. 

I hope readers and any interested parties might come out and share their thoughts, from any perspective, with the County Council members at the meeting on the future of this property on April 28th at 11:00 A.M. on the fourth floor of the County-City Building at 227 W Jefferson Blvd, South Bend, IN 46601. If you can’t make the meeting, please consider writing to your County Commissioners to be heard. Their information can be found on the St. Joseph County website or by clicking here. You can be assured that all three representatives will hear from you by sending an email to sjccom@sjcindiana.com. The three voting members making this decision are Carl H. Baxmeyer, President, Rafael Morton, and Anthony “Tony” Hazen, Vice President. We need all three of them to truly understand the opportunity to preserve this space. 

We only have one chance for the next 150 or so years to preserve this property and space; it’s incumbent on our generation of voters and taxpayers that we get it right. 

© 2026 Brian S Collier. All opinions are those of the author. The author reserves all Rights and copyrights. To request permission to reprint any or all of this article, contact info@redresssouthbend.com. 
Reprinted with permission of the author by Redress South Bend.
All opinions and views in this piece are attributed to the author and are not necessarily the thoughts or opinions of Redress South Bend. 

Notre Dame Does So Much Good, but Sometimes Branding Misses the Mark

By
Brian S. Collier, Ph.D.
-

In recent years, Notre Dame has done so well with its efforts to better recognize that it is part of the larger community surrounding it, South Bend. 

In October 2024, they opened the Link Trail. This $11 million investment is a real pedestrian connection between South Bend and Notre Dame, and without Notre Dame’s funds, it could never have come to fruition in quite this manner. Yet, the organization that helped market the Link Trail missed a real opportunity.

Banner for The LINK Trail featuring a yellow background, text indicating 'SB to ND' with an arrow and distance of '1.5 miles', along with icons of a runner and a cyclist.

The two-way arrow should have been between SB and ND more like SB ↔︎ ND, but the designer only utilized that arrow to showcase distance, not a real connection. Using SB “TO” ND makes Notre Dame the destination, missing the opportunity to be a two-way connector. While this isn’t a ‘big’ deal per se, it is another example of a Notre Dame-centric universe that belies the support, labor, and love provided to campus from South Bend and, for that matter, Mishawaka, Niles, Elkhart, and other towns big and small all around the area. This isn’t the fault of ND, but of all those involved, even on Soutbendin.gov, they note that ‘The Link Trail’ connects South Bend “To” Notre Dame (see that story here). Someone in James Mueller’s office should have objected to that language and helped everyone involved understand the true nature of the relationship.

Banner for the Northeast Neighborhood Revitalization Organization (NNRO) celebrating 25 years of community.

To that point, roughly half of the poster-hanging poles now advertise “Celebrating 25 Years of Community” with the Northeast Neighborhood Revitalization Organization. The poster features the old No. 7 Co. Victorian Firehouse, which stands as an icon in the neighborhood. An icon constructed in 1904 to serve the neighborhood. 

Less than 500 feet to the south of the old firehouse stands Olivet African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, founded in 1870. About 600 feet to the east stands the First AME Zion Church, founded in 1907. Just down the street is the 1889 Maurice Egan House, a beautiful home built in 1889 and on the National Register of Historic Places (read more about this home here). These are not the only historic properties in the neighborhood. While the signage is technically celebrating the Northeast Neighborhood Revitalization Organization, it appears to celebrate the neighborhood and community, and all that has been done there in the last 25 years, without acknowledging that there was a real and vibrant community in the very neighborhood where the beautiful new homes now stand. The neighborhood, in fact, was diverse, with working-class residents from many backgrounds prior to the big build that began 25 years ago, and now both the architecture and the median income in that neighborhood have changed significantly.

It’s not that Notre Dame isn’t good for our community and even our world. It’s the advertising of victories and connections that frankly, ND doesn’t need. Celebrating 125 years of community in the near campus neighborhood and ALL of the people, old and new, would seem so much more appropriate, and it would provide recognition of the foundations laid by hard-working people, so that a new era of hard-working people can now also enjoy the area. Similarly, getting rid of “to” and showcasing the two-way connection that has been the true relationship between South Bend and Notre Dame would seem much more appropriate, would have been an easy advertising ‘win’ for everyone, and would make so much more sense.  

We are now in an era when South Bend may truly need Notre Dame; however, we cannot forget that without South Bend, its infrastructure, and its citizens, Notre Dame could very well have gone the way of other small Catholic colleges.

Good relationships are partnerships and reciprocal without being ‘a trade.’ They are born out of love, familiarity, kindness, and trust. I choose to trust that whoever is marketing these Notre Dame Avenue banners (and perhaps other marketing) just hasn’t thought enough about the long-term relationships between Notre Dame and its nearby cities. 

© 2026 Brian S Collier. All opinions are those of the author. The author reserves all Rights and copyrights. To request permission to reprint any or all of this article, contact info@redresssouthbend.com. 
Reprinted with permission of the author by Redress South Bend.
All opinions and views in this piece are attributed to the author and are not necessarily the thoughts or opinions of Redress South Bend. 

TRASHED: Drake-O’Brien canvassers threw away Schaetzle’s campaign cards at coffee shop.

By
Logan Foster
-

An employee at a Granger coffee shop says canvassers working for Republican county council candidates Jamie O’Brien and Amy Drake removed incumbent Dan Schaetzle’s campaign cards from the counter on Saturday, threw them in a trash can near the entrance, and put O’Brien’s cards on the counter in place of Schaetzle’s. The employee said Schaetzle’s cards had been on the counter with the shop’s approval. O’Brien did not have approval to advertise his cards.

“It was just rude,” she said. “It was just nasty behavior.”

Promotional flyer for a door knocking event with AG Todd Rokita and local Republicans for St. Joseph County GOP primary candidates, including event details and RSVP information.
Event promoted on Drake’s Newsletter

The canvassing event was jointly authorized by Drake and O’Brien, and funded through their shared political action committee, The Drake and O’Brien PAC.

A flyer for the April 18 event listed the coffee shop as the meeting point and named Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita as a featured canvasser.

The employee said the group arrived around 8:30 a.m., an hour before the advertised start, and stayed in the lobby for about an hour and a half. Customers coming in for coffee complained that the group of canvassers blocked the entryway. The employee said the group was loud and the lobby was getting crowded. Staff went over and offered them a private conference room the shop had open and available. The group declined and continued to occupy the lobby.

After the group left, the employee said, staff found Schaetzle’s cards in a trash can near the entrance, and O’Brien’s cards on the counter. The employee said O’Brien’s cards included messaging against Schaetzle on the reverse side.

O’Brien returned to the shop alone about an hour later to refill his beverage. The employee said she told him about the cards. She said he appeared unaware of what she was describing.

Both the O’Brien and Drake campaigns posted photographs from inside the coffee shop to their Facebook pages Saturday afternoon.

Group of local supporters posing indoors with campaign signs for Amy Drake and Jamie O'Brien, expressing community involvement in local political issues.
Three individuals standing indoors, each holding campaign signs. The woman on the left holds a sign for Amy Drake for County Council, while the man in the middle holds a sign for Jamie O'Brien for County Council. The man on the right also holds a sign for Jamie O'Brien, with a green background.

Amy Drake Called Her District Poor. Her Record Says She Doesn’t Care.

By
Logan Foster
-

Amy Drake called her own district poor five months into her first term on the St. Joseph County Council. In a newsletter to her supporters, Drake wrote: “There’s pockets of wealth and some nicer subdivisions, but there’s also a lot of poor areas.”

Map of St. Joseph County Council District B, highlighting the area represented by Amy Drake, with roads and neighborhood details outlined.
St Joseph County Council District B Map

A lot of poor areas. Her district. Her voters. Poor.

I have been trying to figure out what Drake has done for those poor areas since taking office. I cannot find anything. Not on her website. Not in her newsletters. Not in her public statements. 

She called her district poor. She called the people of Clay Township poor. The very people who wake up early every morning and drive long distances for work to make ends meet, to keep a roof over their family’s head.

On the far north side of Drake’s district, in a subdivision called Wedgewood Park, residents of one of those “poor areas” have been asking for years to get control of flooding.

On April 15, WSBT reported that the streets of Wedgewood Park, near the state line and U.S. 933, are underwater. Neighbors have started calling it Lake Wedgewood. Julie Lyon, the subdivision’s HOA president, told WSBT the drainage problem has gone on for at least ten years, that the dry wells are overfilled and uncleaned, and that when she contacts the county she is told there is no funding and the county is working on potholes.

Invitation to the 3rd Annual Afternoon of Sporting Clays event hosted by Jake Teshka and Congressman Rudy Yakym, scheduled for August 18, 2023, at Deer Creek Hunt Club in Three Oaks, MI. Includes event details, sponsorship opportunities, and RSVP information.

Drake did not have to call her district poor. Nobody made her write that. She volunteered it. She sat down, typed it into a Constant Contact email, and sent it to her supporters under her “Unmask Tyranny” branding. In that same newsletter, she promoted numerous political fundraisers, including a sporting clays fundraiser at a hunt club in Michigan featuring Congressman Rudy Yakym. Five thousand dollars for a sponsorship. That is what shared space with “poor areas.” A description of her constituents as poor and an invitation to a high-dollar fundraiser in another state, in the same email.

This is not new for Drake. She called South Bend a “shithole.” She described individuals over the age of 55 as “probably at the end of their life.” She has called people inside her own party “a pack of wolves” and “mean girls.”

Drake labels people. South Bend is labeled a “shithole.” People born before 1971 are labeled “near death.” Former allies are labeled “wolves.” Her own district is labeled “poor.” Everyone gets sized up and sorted, and the sorting always goes the same direction. Down.

“Families First” is her campaign slogan. I would like to know which families. The ones in the “nicer” subdivisions seem to benefit from Drake’s legislative efforts. The families in the poor areas got a line in a newsletter. That is it. That is the whole thing.

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