Responses from J&C Questions
Here are my responses to J&C Questions, for those who don't subscribe to J&C.
My name is Andrea Burniske. I am 66 years old, retired from a career leading international development programs (for organizations such as Save the Children) including eight years at Purdue Agriculture, and Global Engineering. My husband, younger daughter, and I have been homeowners in West Lafayette for 15 years.
2. (for county office seekers) In 2025, Senate Bill 1 provided tax relief for property owners. However, as the relief phases in, local governments are left scrambling to find revenue streams to make up for lower revenue from property taxes. Local income taxes are the proposed remedy. How do you propose to align revenues with local spending?
We need a transparent five-year forecast showing where the revenue losses will occur, what revenues can replace them, and what our projected costs will be under current service levels. We need to identify the level of funding necessary to preserve services residents have said they value, while looking to what we can eliminate or reassign/redesign. For the later response, we will need to look first to contracts for services, and ask what we could do in-house instead. Here’s one place I’d use my County Priority Matrix to weigh Musts (legally required, or essential public service) against Wants, and then also assess whether a service can be delivered differently, by sharing it with another government; consolidating functions; change workflows; automate some of it; renegotiate a contract, etc.
3. (For county office seekers) Tippecanoe County finds itself facing prospects of growth and development that might fundamentally change the Lafayette/West Lafayette/Tippecanoe County community. What are your thoughts on solar, wind, data center developments within the county? What other developments do you support or oppose in the county?
I support development when the full costs and consequences are clear and acceptable, and the project fits the community's long-term land-use strategy. I would apply the same standards to solar, wind, data centers, housing, industrial development and other major projects.
Properly designed solar sites can maintain substantial vegetative cover and infiltration. The issue should be actual impacts of the particular site, not simply whether it is called "solar." The same kinds of consideration should be applied to wind. Data centers raise a very different set of questions. We know they involve very large energy demands, water use, substantial buildings and infrastructure, backup generation, heat, noise and long-term land-use commitments. But where is the evidence of economic benefits, given low employment needs post-construction, and given tax abatements?
I am also very concerned about continued low-density subdivision development across rural and agricultural land. A subdivision adds roads, driveways, drainage infrastructure, and other impervious surfaces, changes natural drainage patterns, fragments agricultural land and can create long-term maintenance obligations for local government.
We should be clear on what the community gains, what land and natural resources are being consumed, and what are the impacts from that, what infrastructure will be required, and who will pay to maintain it down the road. And a major consideration should be whether the development results in the kind of community residents have said they want.
4. (For county office seekers) Tippecanoe County, Franciscan and IU Health have a semi-private/public partnership for ambulance services, which has recently received criticism. Meanwhile, townships have started their own advance-life-support ambulances, driving up property taxes. Is there a better way to provide emergency medical ambulance services, and if so, what is it?
In 2013 a newly formed organization was to take over TEAS under an arrangement involving the County, Franciscan, and IU Health. Its board was to include representatives of the hospitals, the County, and the cities of Lafayette and West Lafayette. The stated purpose included improving long-term planning and budgeting for ambulance replacement. I understand that the County Attorney has been reviewing whether records held by one Commissioner acting as a TEAS director are subject to public-records requirements. A private citizen continues to request these records in order to provide an accurate picture of the system and its finances. So, the County's role in creating and governing TEAS means transparency and accountability are central concerns. We should neither be proposing a new system, nor adding piecemeal to the existing one, before receiving documentation about the actual governance, financial, and operational situation of the existing TEAS system. We should know what we created, who owns it, who governs it, what the County contributes, what the hospitals contribute, what TEAS receives and spends, and what obligations statutes and governing documents impose on the organization. This is basic organizational due diligence.
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