Curt Slyder has an article in the Lafayette Journal & Courier about a workshop to discuss the social and economic future of Warren and Fountain Counties. I was struck in particular by the fact that Warren County has a population of about 8,600 people. That seems like way too few to support an entire county infrastructure, including a judge, prosecutor, sheriff, county council, recorder, auditor, clerk, assessor, and county commissioners (just off the top of my head). Adjacent Fountain County apparently has 17,030. I wonder how feasible a merger of counties would be. (Probably not very, politically, anyway.)
Education and Internet access were cited as areas for improvement. Anecdotally, I’ll just mention that I have heard Warren County is regarded as anti-creditor, at least in the collections community. Not really the reputation you want if you are trying to induce people to do business in the community.
Anti-Creditor? That would mean the sheriff (serving process, conducting foreclosure sales) and the judge handling the filed Court cases? Less involved would be the prosecutor who mainly has to decide whether to/which criminal charges should be filed.
A lot of younger people, especially the 4 yrs. college educated ones, don’t want to stay somewhere that is perceived by them as boring.
They want to be entertained socially so they live in places like Indy or Chicago or maybe near where they graduated from college.