Vanderburgh County and the city of Evansville recently received over $1.1 million in state matching grants to accelerate road and bridge improvements, according to area legislators.

This local funding is part of the nearly $100 million recently awarded to Indiana cities, towns and counties through the Community Crossings Matching Grant program, according to State Reps. Holli Sullivan (R-Evansville), Wendy McNamara (R-Evansville) and Matt Hostettler (R-Fort Branch). Grants are made available through the Indiana Department of Transportation and funded through the state budget.

“Our long-term investment and commitment to roads and bridges resulted in Indiana being named the top state in the nation for infrastructure,” Sullivan said. “These funds will help our communities improve our local roads and bridges, ensuring we have a strong foundation for the future.”

As part of the program, Vanderburgh County received $401,754 and Evansville received $752,008 for local road projects.

“This program demonstrates how our state and local communities can work together on behalf of all Hoosiers,” McNamara said. “Roads and bridges connect us, and this investment will go a long way toward keeping our infrastructure in good condition.”

McNamara said grant funding can be used toward road and bridge preservation, road reconstruction, intersection improvements, guardrail replacements and signage. Smaller municipalities must provide a match of 25% in local funds, while large communities must provide a 50% match.

“Programs like Community Crossings are a win-win for our community and state,” Hostettler said. “With Indiana’s constantly changing weather, we have to work hard to keep up the maintenance on our roads and bridges.”

Since 2017, state road investment is up 50% as Indiana has dedicated $3 billion to road and bridge projects across the state.

More information about the program and recipients can be found at www.in.gov/indot.

THIS WEEK, SENATOR BRAUN spoke out about Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Adam Schiff’s “unfair, unprecedented, and illegitimate” impeachment inquiry, made good on his campaign promise to visit every one of Indiana’s 92 counties in his first year in office, commented on President Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, and continued to fight for issues that have been sidetracked by Democrats’ impeachment hijinks, such as the USMCA trade deal and lowering prescription drug prices.

Senator Braun joined WNDU in South Bend to discuss House Democrats’ impeachment proceedings against President Trump and the administration’s decision to withdraw American troops from Syria.

IMPEACHMENT | “Speaker Pelosi is playing politics with this,” said Braun, Indiana’s junior senator. “If you’re going to do impeachment, put it out there for a vote, and if you don’t have the nerve to do the vote, let’s do the business that the people are interested in,” he said.

SYRIA | “We can’t police the world, and even though we did it in the past, at some point, you’ve got to say, ‘Hey, allies, pay your fair share of the burden.’ President Trump, I like that when he brought that up, many thought that was a little crass. I didn’t,” Braun said. 

Senator Braun promised to hold a public event in all 92 Indiana counties in his first year in office, and this week completed that goal with stops in Brown and Shelby counties. Read what he heard from Hoosiers in every corner of the state along the way in this op-ed in the Courier Press and other local papers around Indiana.

“During my time growing a company in the private sector, one of my guiding principles was to meet and hear feedback from as many customers as possible. Since being elected to serve Hoosiers in the Senate, I’ve adopted a similar business model by visiting all 92 counties in Indiana this year – and will do the same in years to come.”

Senator Braun spoke with the Rensselaer Republican during a county stop at Fenwick Farms Brewing Company in Jasper County to discuss agricultural issues and President Trump’s trade deals with Japan, as well as the USMCA which is currently being held up by Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

When asked what this deal means for farmers, Braun said farmers need more markets to be open to U.S. pork and other products to help them out of the condition that they are in presently.

“Farmers, where they were the ones that kind of got us through the ‘08 recession, because the farm economy was so good, ‘09-’13, they’re in the toughest stretch that I’ve seen in a long time,” Braun said.

He cited other trade agreements, which he said Democrats in Congress have apparently held up, that would help everyday Hoosiers, like the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

Senator Braun sat down with the Tribune Star in Terre Haute to discuss President Trump’s announcement that American troops will be withdrawn from Syria.

“I am going to be in the camp that I think we need to be less engaged to the extent than we have been in the past,” Braun said in a stop Monday in Terre Haute at the Tribune-Star.

“When President Trump said, ‘Hey, our allies shoulder more of the burden,’ help pay for stuff, help be responsible. It doesn’t mean we don’t do things smartly and we don’t lead. I think we can do both of them,” Braun said.

“On one side of the aisle almost in its entirety, and a good part of the Republican side, doesn’t put into perspective how much things cost. I don’t think we can be the policeman of the world. We should lead, but we should do it in a way that is sustainable,” the senator said.

Senator Braun sat down with ABC57 in South Bend to discuss the legislative priorities that have been put on the back burner for Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, including the USMCA trade agreement which Hoosier farmers need.

Braun says the deal, already approved by America’s two largest trading partners, is stuck on Capitol Hill even though it has bipartisan support.

“It addressed some of the issues in Mexico. It’s got stipulations on wages. It addresses environmental concerns. It opens up the Canadian market to dairy farmers and a lot of other little things that when you take them altogether are going to be a great improvement,” Braun said.
To subscribe to this newsletter and see other updates from Senator Braun, visit his official website. 

To unsubscribe from Senator Braun’s Weekly Update, please contact press@braun.senate.gov. 

A TALE OF TWO COUNTIES

Gavel Gamut By Jim Redwine

America is a wonderful country from the amazing amalgam of cultures in cities such as Miami, New York City, San Francisco and Portland to the majesty of Yellowstone and the Mississippi River. We are truly fortunate to have the privilege to live here. As for Peg and me, we are most familiar with two counties in two states, Posey County, Indiana and Osage County, Oklahoma.

Of course, the basic element of all inhabited areas is the same, the inhabitants, and those inhabitants are more alike than unalike wherever we live. I have found this to be true from Russia and Ukraine to Palestine and Bahrain as I have taught judges from several foreign countries and from every state in America. Of course, I have also physically visited a few places around the world. It has been my great pleasure to discover practically everybody I meet is interesting. I understand why Will Rogers who grew up near Osage County, Oklahoma said he’d never met someone he didn’t like.

But just focusing on Posey County, Indiana and Osage County, Oklahoma, the two places Peg and I call home, I find much to admire in both. In Posey County, the soil is so rich and the people are so industrious that enough wheat, corn, and soybeans are produced to feed much of the world. And Osage County’s Tallgrass Prairie and hardworking cowhands furnish the accompanying beef. One need never goes hungry if he or she spends time in either county.

I hope I have made it clear that I truly appreciate the county where I was born and the county where I have earned a living. On the other hand, just as there was a serpent in the Garden of Eden, both Posey and Osage Counties fall a little short of perfection due to the foibles of Mother Nature. I suppose life just requires that we occasionally find half a worm in an apple. Let me explain.

Neither Posey nor Osage County has unbearable weather. Each gets a couple of snows each year and each has a hot July and August along with a rainy spring and fall. Both experience tornadoes. For Posey County, Big Creek and the Ohio and Wabash Rivers occasionally flood as does Bird Creek in Osage County along with the Arkansas and Caney Rivers. But all in all the climate for both counties is fairly salubrious. In fact, the weather in both helps make them more interesting and for Indiana, it gives citizens something besides basketball to talk about and for Oklahoma, it expands the topics beyond football. Both states used to discuss politics but recently most rational people do not broach that topic.

However, it is not the occasional weather phenomenon that keeps paradise just out of reach for both counties. No, it is Mother Nature’s diabolical sense of humor. Let’s take up spring in Posey County first. You may know that Osage County, Oklahoma has thousands of roaming buffalo (bison). Well, just to make sure Hoosiers remember who dictates what happens in heaven, each April, May, and June millions of biting/blood-sucking buffalo gnats (flies) descend on Posey County much like the Biblical hordes of locusts. And like beachgoers after the movie Jaws, it simply is not fun to be outside.

But Osage County has its own flies and to add to Mother Nature’s amusement She has supplied Osage County with several varieties of scorpions. Gentle Reader, should you never have been stung by a scorpion, as I have in Oklahoma, trust me, it is an experience you do not want. Peg, who is a born Yankee who spent her childhood in New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, and northern Indiana, has now learned to shake out her boots in the morning to be sure some scorpion has not chosen them as a residence. And the ubiquitous sand rock of Osage County appears to be a scorpion’s version of the Garden of Eden where the scorpions play the serpent’s role.

I guess what it comes down to is both Posey County, Indiana and Osage County, Oklahoma are wonderful places to live. But don’t forget to channel Katherine Hepburn in The African Queen and wear screening over your head and carry a fly swatter in the spring in Posey and shake out your boots in The Osage nine months out of the year.

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