Grow What’s Good.
The FUN Township has gone through a lot of change over recent years. From consolidation to new programs to being contested for the first time in more than a decade, the office deserves a Trustee with a vision for continued growth through practical action.
What Will Taelar Do In Office?
The Township Garden
Food Security is one of the most solvable problems facing working families.
A trustee-run garden feeding the pantry, with volunteers and recipients working side by side helps to fill a need gap. Creating a working third space allows community members to find peace of mind when thinking of where their next meal may come from.
Benefits Navigation
Seeking help in a crisis can often feel like jumping through hoops only for the help to come too late.
Attaching a resource map and completed referral to every decision, so even a denial becomes a warm handoff, not a dead end.
Eviction & Shut-Off Prevention
Crisis is Costly - for the Families and the Tax Payers
A weekly scan of public eviction filings and disconnect cycles becomes a friendly letter that reaches households before the crisis lands, and saving tax payers money.
The Office Comes to Rural Areas
With consolidation came more difficulty accessing help for our rural neighbors.
Monthly walk-in hours in each legacy township — library, church hall, fire station, mobile home office — instead of one appointment-only door offer greater accessibility to those who may need help.
The Pantry Comes to Rural Areas.
With consolidation came more difficulty accessing help for our rural neighbors.
Stocked micro-shelves in laundromats and mobile home communities, restocked on the satellite-hours rotation; no paperwork for a can of soup.
Transparent and Easy Access Township Data
Government websites remain stale and hard to navigate, making it difficult for taxpayers to participate.
Small website updates, well nested links, and revamped social media benefit our neighbors by making government easy to understand.
Dive Deeper into the Policy
A working garden run by the trustee's office — seeds, plots & produce flowing into the community pantry, turning a line of the Indiana Code almost nobody uses into the most visible symbol of what this office can be.
IC 12-20-16-13(c) already authorizes the trustee to "buy garden seeds and plant and maintain gardens for township assistance purposes" — standing authority, no new ordinance needed. The office can also buy or accept donated raw materials and process them into assistance items whenever that's cheaper than finished goods, the legal skeleton of a mutual-aid kitchen or preserving operation.
It delivers fresh food in a pantry currently limited to shelf-stable donations, and a place where assistance recipients, volunteers & neighbors work side by side — dignity through participation, not just receipt.
First 90 days: identify one township-controlled plot and confirm water access, convene garden partners (Blue Martin, the extension office, master gardeners) for a spring planting plan, and budget a modest seed-and-soil line item.
"The law has said for decades that this office can plant a garden. Nobody ever has. Let's grow what's good — literally."
Flip the office's required "have you applied for other programs?" screening from a gate that keeps people out into a concierge service that walks people in — so nobody leaves the office with nothing.
The office is already required to determine whether applicants qualify for SNAP, Medicaid, LIHEAP & other programs before spending township funds (IC 12-20-16-2(b)). IC 12-20-6-8 already requires written notice of every denial — attach a one-page resource map & completed referral to that notice, and every "no" becomes a handoff instead of a dead end.
It delivers higher enrollment in federal & state programs, stretching township dollars; a measurable dashboard metric (percentage of denials issued with completed referrals); and an answer to the fairest criticism of any assistance office — "they just told me no."
First 90 days: build a one-page resource map with the agencies the office already partners with (English & Spanish), make "referral attached" a required field on every denial notice, and track and publish the referral rate quarterly.
"A township that can't fund every need can still make sure no one leaves with empty hands."
Move the office's intervention two weeks upstream — a weekly scan of eviction filings and disconnect cycles, followed by a plain, friendly letter before the crisis lands.
IC 12-20-17-3 directs the trustee to investigate and grant relief upon complaint that someone is sick or in need — the statute doesn't require the complaint come from the person themselves, so a court record is notice in plain sight. Van Buskirk (1981) held that aid must "prevent the loss of shelter" where that's the most economical way to help — prevention is the statute's own cost logic.
It delivers real savings (one prevented eviction costs less than one re-housing), fewer emergency 72-hour scrambles (IC 12-20-6-7), and landlord/utility relationships that shift from adversarial to cooperative.
First 90 days: set up the weekly filings review and draft the outreach letter, brief local landlords and utilities on the program, and track and publish outcomes — letters sent, applications received, evictions averted.
"The cheapest crisis is the one that never happens. The courthouse already tells us where next month's crisis lives."
Monthly walk-in hours in each legacy township — a library, a church hall, a fire station — instead of one appointment-only door in Franklin.
State law requires only that the trustee designate when they're attending to business, not where — satellite hours are an administrative choice available on day one. The merger promise was one efficient office for three townships, not one distant office; rotating presence honors both the savings and the geography.
It delivers applications from rural Union & Needham households the current model quietly filters out, face-to-face community intelligence before needs become applications, and the campaign's "consistent community presence" plank made literal and schedulable.
First 90 days: confirm three host sites, one per legacy township, with a published monthly rotation; bring the full office to each session (applications, notary, resource maps, pantry staples); and post the schedule on the township website, at each site, and in the Daily Journal.
"If the township is 106 square miles, the office should be too."
Keep the main pantry at 20 Circle Drive and extend it with stocked micro-sites in the places people already are — laundromats, mobile home communities, satellite office-hours locations. No application required for a can of soup.
The office already operates a pantry and a Community Giveaway; micro-sites are a distribution choice within the existing program. IC 12-20-16-13 lets the office buy and process materials for assistance purposes whenever cheaper than finished goods — bulk staples, repacked, cost less per meal than retail donations.
It delivers food access without the friction of hours, appointments, or paperwork; a soft front door — the shelf card lists office hours & the resource map, converting anonymous need into eventual applications; and visible, everyday proof the township office exists between crises.
First 90 days: pick three pilot sites, one per legacy township, prioritizing laundromats and mobile home communities; set a restock routine tied to the satellite office schedule; and put the resource map and office schedule on every shelf.
"A pantry with one address feeds the people who can get to it. A distributed pantry feeds the township."
Transparent and Easy Access Township Data — government websites stay stale and hard to navigate, making it difficult for taxpayers to participate. Small website updates, well-nested links & a revamped social media presence make government easy to understand.
A public numbers dashboard — assistance tables, indexing sources, and quarterly counts of applications, grants, denials, referrals & decision time — is one part of that system, not the whole of it. Township records are already required to be open for public inspection, and a published annual abstract of receipts & expenditures is already required (IC 36-6-4-3(3), IC 36-6-4-13) — the dashboard extends that duty, it doesn't invent one. The Gateway Annual Financial Report and SBOA audit reports are already public; IC 12-20-6-7 already requires the office to act within 72 hours, so decision-time data already exists in the files.
The rest of the system is just as low-cost: a website audited for stale pages and dead ends, links nested so a resident can find a form in two clicks instead of ten, and social media that actually pushes information out instead of waiting for people to come find it.
It delivers accountability that runs on data instead of rumor, a township website and social presence residents can actually use, and a quiet contrast — the office's recent story has been told through resignations and campaign claims; an office that's easy to find, read, and reach tells it through access instead.
First 90 days: define the quarterly metrics (applications, grants, denials, referrals, median decision time) and build the first report from existing files; audit and reorganize the township website's navigation and links; and stand up a consistent, regularly updated social media presence that points people back to both.
"The state already sees these numbers. The neighbors should too — and they shouldn't have to dig for them."