It might be spring break week but that didn’t keep people away from Wednesday’s Kosciusko County Republican Party fish fry, including political candidates and state officials.
State Comptroller Elise Nieshalla has been in her office just since Dec. 1 after being appointed to the position by Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb after the departure of Tera Klutz.
“It’s going very well. This office is meeting its constitutional duties and then some, and it’s a privilege to follow in the footsteps of Tera Klutz who served us so incredibly well as state comptroller, and move on with making sure that we serve Hoosiers with excellence,” Nieshalla said.
Two legislative sessions ago, the legislature changed the name of state auditor to comptroller to be a better title to match the duties of the office.
“The auditor, that name implies that you audit. This office does not audit, that would be the State Board of Accounts,” she said. “This office handles the accounting and reporting of the state’s funds, handles all the payroll for the state’s employees, pays all of the vendors, distributes the tax revenues to all the local units of government ... runs the deferred compensation program and manages Indiana’s transparency portal that puts all of our state’s finances really at the fingertips of Hoosiers for transparency sake. Those duties are better represented by the title comptroller versus auditor, and that’s why the legislature made that change.”
As to how the state is doing financially, Nieshalla said from her standpoint, “The state is doing very well. We are on rock-solid financial footing with low debt, low pension fund liability, healthy cash reserves, a balanced biennial budget and one of just a dozen or so states that have received the highest credit rating from the three credit rating agencies, and that’s the rating of triple A.”

    Kosciusko County Republicans take turns working at the party’s fish frys. Working at Wednesday’s spring fish fry toward the start of the event were (L to R, on the right side of the table) Dan Richard, retired Kosciusko County Area Plan director; Ryan Prince, candidate for county surveyor; Jeanie Stackhouse, Wayne Township trustee; Elise Nieshalla, Indiana state comptroller; Sue Ann Mitchell, Kosciusko County Councilwoman and candidate for northern district county commissioner; and Tyler Huffer, incumbent and candidate for county coroner. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

Diego Morales, Indiana’s secretary of state, made his second visit to the county so far this year at the fish fry.
“We’re here, obviously, to support Kosciusko County, but also to thank our veterans,” he said, after handing a couple veterans a Challenge Coin. “I’m honored to give them a Challenge Coin from the secretary of state’s office, but I’m also telling everybody what we did this session.”
Morales said the state legislature passed House Bill 1264. “This bill will allow us, first and foremost, to clean the voter rolls. Number two, to ask for proof of citizenship because, as far as I know, only U.S. citizens should be able to vote in our elections. Proof of residency.”
The bill also eliminates private money into the state elections, he said.
Last year, Morales also pointed out, he toured all 92 counties within six months. This year, he said he did that in half that time.
“I’m out there being the most-accessible secretary of state in the history of Indiana,” he said.
The state legislative session for this year ended almost four weeks ago. District 22 state Rep. Craig Snow said the session went “fast and furious.”
“We spent a lot of time on a lot of bills. There were a lot of education bills that went through. Still trying to figure out how those are going to pan out. The biggest concern I had was the reading one - the third-grade retention,” he said, referring to Senate Bill 1.
He met with Warsaw Community Schools Superintendent Dr. David Hoffert and the WCS Board of Trustees about the bill, what effect the bill will have and their concerns about it.
Snow said he’s also met with a lot of folks leading up to the coming budget session in 2025. “That’s the one I’m kind of focusing on, to be honest with you. So I’m working on that, looking forward to what next year is going to bring,” he stated.
District 18 state Rep. David Abbott said the short session which finished March 8 was a flurry of activity.
“It’s fast and furious. Sometimes I think it’s too fast and furious, but still we had five bills we were allowed to offer. I got my language through - I had to put my language in another bill or here or there. I got three of my priorities passed,” he said.
One was regarding flood plain mapping and holding the Indiana Department of Natural Resources more accountable to make sure the maps are accurate. The other two dealt with Medicaid qualifying and disabled hunters.
“I’m really pleased with those bills,” he said.
With the budget session next year, Abbott is already looking forward to working on that. Wednesday, he’s having a meeting at the Indiana attorney general’s office on squatters’ rights.
He said he’s been approached by multiple people on the issue, especially when there’s a sheriff’s sale for a property that’s behind on mortgage payments and has been foreclosed on.
“A house may sit empty for a couple months. They have a sheriff’s sale because a bank or mortgage company wants to liquidate that property to get their value back out of it. People move in in the meantime. They could be illegals, they could be even previous owners who will not leave. And somebody’s bought that house and come to move into that house, go to unlock the door and there’s somebody at the door. They don’t belong there but they won’t leave,” Abbott said.
There’s some lengthy pathways to remedy the situation, but those take time and while the squatters are in the house, they destroy it.
“With the massive amount of people coming across the border right now, this is going to become a big issue I think,” Abbott said, adding that he’s going to focus on a bill regarding squatters this upcoming year.
There are four Republican county races in the upcoming May 7 primary, and most of the candidates were at Wednesday’s fish fry. The candidates include James Moyer and Ryan Prince for county surveyor; Sue Ann Mitchell, Nathan Scherer and Marcia Baumgartner for northern district county commissioner; Tyler Huffer and Tracy Cutler-Wilson for coroner; and Matthew Buehler and Jack Birch for Circuit Court judge.
Even candidates who are unopposed in the primary were found at the fish fry, including the three County Council at-large candidates for the three seats - Rachael Rhoades, DeLynn Geiger and incumbent Kathleen Groninger - and Middle District County Commissioner Cary Groninger.
No other political party has or announced candidates for any of the county races.
Geiger said he was feeling great about the election this year and potentially joining the County Council in 2025.
“I feel good about it and I’m looking forward to it, and I’m actually excited,” he said. “... Everything I’ve attended so far, I feel like I can be a real contributor there.”
Rhoades said, “I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to serve. I’m really excited to be able to focus on learning the job and really dig in my hills in, and get to know the people and talk about the issues and the growth opportunities. We have a lot of things on the horizon that are coming that are very exciting.”
Kathleen Groninger said she was looking forward to having two new faces on the County Council in Rhoades and Geiger.
“I love the people that we had on the council, but I’m excited for new people as well and some new ideas,” she said. “There’s a lot of things we’re working on currently, like long-term planning and budgeting for the future, so I’m just looking forward to continuing the process that we’ve already started and moving forward into the next administration.”
Barring any unforeseen circumstances, Cary Groninger will be serving another four years as a county commissioner.
“I think we’re on the cusp of really great opportunity between the (orthopedic) money that Craig has been able to get for us from the state, as well as just a lot of processes that we’ve been working on the last four years to kind of get in place - our comprehensive plan, our parks department. There’s a lot of forward-motion that’s going to be happening over the next four years, and I’m just really excited to see whether that’s more parks and trails, whether that’s industrial development, whether that’s just overall updating some of our county facilities: the Justice Building, the parking lots, maybe even a parking garage. Things like that, there’s just a lot of opportunities so it’s just an exciting time to be in county politics,” he said.
On all the primary races, Kosciusko County Republican Central Committee Chairman Mike Ragan said, “I think Kosciusko County is very fortunate because whoever prevails, the county is going to be served well.”
Being a presidential election year, along with six Republicans vying to be Indiana’s next governor and the 3rd District Congressional race being “pretty heated,” Ragan said he thinks voter turnout on May 7 will be big.
“I like all the governor candidates and I like all the 3rd District candidates. I think they’re all good candidates. I don’t agree with everything everybody says, but they don’t agree with me either,” he said.
The Kosciusko County GOP Lincoln Day Dinner is at The Owl’s Nest in North Webster on May 2. Social hour is 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., with dinner at 6:30 p.m. Speakers will be Congressman Rudy Yakym and Indiana Republican State Committee Chair Anne Hathaway, who also is the state’s national committeewoman on the Republican National Committee.