C’ville Rolling With Mayor Barton at Helm

Last Friday, Crawfordsville Mayor Todd Barton waxed poetic about the wonderful place we live in. It isn’t often the little paper that could gives a politician front page space to say whatever they want, but Barton deserved it.

The only man to be a four-term mayor in a long history dating back to 1865 was absolutely gushing about how well the weekend with the 2025 Motocross of Nations international event went. Like a winning coach, Barton doesn’t tend to gush very often, so we reached out and asked him a little bit more about that weekend and the overall feeling of positivity going on in Crawfordsville.

Barton told The Paper that the event took more than a year of planning and took a host of people all working together to pull it off.

But that’s only one event. It feels like there are a number of positive things going on. Some longtime businesses are changing hands. People are investing here. It seems that others besides the owners of The Paper have decided Crawfordsville is a great place to own a business.

“Our community is definitely experiencing a period of change,” Barton said. “It has taken us years to build a strong foundation for this to happen and it’s finally paying off.  It’s really about creating an environment of confidence for investors and convincing the community to believe in itself.  We’ve been addressing quality of place for years with the realization that we are competing for residents, especially young families, and must create the type of community in which they want to live. This has been followed by thinking outside the box and reshaping our approach to economic development.  We, both city and county, now carry out the economic development role in-house. This streamlines the process and businesses respond positively. In short, we make it easier for them to invest here, knowing they have options elsewhere. This means we have to be different than everyone else. This approach has been very successful with approximately three quarters of a billion dollars in ED announcements in this community the last several years. That is astounding for a community our size and has led to close to 1,000 new jobs. This is being coupled with innovative new approaches to developing the workforce and substantial infrastructure growth. Lastly, all of this instills confidence on small business owners to purchase existing businesses, or start new ones.  We are definitely seeing business owners who are of retirement age, selling their businesses while things are good, and new owners with the optimism to purchase them. Lastly, another trend that the public hasn’t noticed yet is the purchase of downtown buildings by out of town investors with the capital and expertise to rehabilitate them appropriately. That wave has just begun and will further transform the downtown in a positive manner. The growth in our assessed value alone, says it all.  We have consistently set records for new AV and are seeing $117 million in new AV for the 2025/pay 2026 tax year.  This spreads the cost of local government across a broader tax base.”

Barton has brought exactly that to the office – a management approach that asks everyone to think about things a little differently. It’s just how he operates

We asked him to compare Crawfordsville today with the city he became mayor of 13 years ago.

“Crawfordsville is much different than it was in 2012,” he said. “We have continued to evolve and grow as a community. Our strength clearly lies in the teamwork and synergy that exists in this community. As I look around today, the difference is almost surreal. In short, this community now believes in itself and we’ve been able to build their confidence.”

And going forward?

“There will be more noticeable change over the next few years, especially on the south and east sides,” he said. “We are very well positioned and have strong momentum.”

We can’t wait!

Two cents, which is about how much Timmons said his columns are worth, appears periodically on Wednesdays in The Paper. Timmons is the publisher of The Paper and can be contacted at ttimmons@thepaper24-7.com.