There has been some confusion lately about the role of the Gazette. I feel is it worth restating it to our readers.

I am not a journalist. I am an Electrical Engineer and a historian. My reason for starting the Broad Ripple Gazette was to bring history to people and hopefully get more history back. Gathering and publishing Broad Ripple history, in the paper and on www.broadripplehistory.org (and photographically on www.virtualbroadripple.com), helps to preserve where we came from.

The Gazette also gives me a way to bring our readers the local, neighborhood happenings that other media can't cover. We try to cover as much as we can, but being an all-volunteer, neighborhood paper, we don't have the resources to do investigative reporting.

Instead, it has always been my goal to simply cover the local news by explaining what is happening. No opinions added. We are independent from any group. When we interview those in charge of what is happening, we just use their words and let the reader decide. Sure, some interviewees have not been truthful with us in the past, but we have to start with the idea that this is not the norm. When we cover a meeting, we try to simply convey what was said, in case you couldn't attend to hear for yourself.

As we start our 16th year of publishing, I thank all of the loyal readers for picking us up every two weeks.

- Alan