Speaker 1
Hello and welcome to ask the mayor on WFIU. I'm Joe Hren for WFIU WTIU news and I'm with Brandon Sakbun in Terre Haute. Hello, welcome.
Speaker 2
Well, we made it through that Eclipse. Right. Good to see again. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker
I mean, did you survive? Did the city survive?
Speaker 2
The city did so we did really well. We're still going through the total number of visitors. Anecdotally, I spoke with folks from Belgium, Scotland, Japan, as well as a myriad of states within the United States of America. One really important piece that I think Terre Haute did well, compared to other communities, we were very spread out in terms of our events, right? So yes, we had a downtown event that was some are saying five to 7000. We should have those total numbers here soon. But we had a ton of smaller events within our parts system between the city and county that was averaging 1500 to 1000 people at each event, plus some other neighborhood church Block Party type A clips, you know, viewing events, all collectively we'll add those numbers up to see what it looked like from the community's perspective. But that actually helped us out because when it came to traffic and leaving, we were all able to link in two main thoroughfares different through different side roads. So that was good in terms of a public safety standpoint. What
Speaker 1
was it like for you, personally, to see not only the Eclipse, but just to see a community, a city, a town, a state? I mean, the country come together under something that's cosmic?
Speaker 2
Yeah. You know, it's really fun to see that sense of community. Right. Folks from all generations are on the sidewalk in their front lawn looking at this eclipse and you know, our downtown has had a great last couple of weeks between Indiana State Universities and it run and several downtown festivals for that university. Now the eclipse of downtown Terre Haute has kind of been on like a two to three week hot streak. 1000s of people coming together on Wabash Avenue, really bringing back that downtown feel in the city of Terre Haute. I think what's more interesting is whether it was up in Indianapolis and Carmel Mayor su thinking was doing and Mayor Carrie Thompson what she was doing in Bloomington and, and even me, we are all looking at this through, you know, you can learn so much through what these other mayor's are doing when it comes to really problem sets like this. You know, I took a very public safety and tourism approach to it. Right, kind of based off my background and military background still being in the National Guard, I was thinking in terms of how many officers do we need? What is traffic going to look like? What's our ingress egress routes, then letting others in the community manage the events, the tourism and just helping them out with marketing communications, which is what some members of my staff did. But I took more of a street department, police fire and emergency management perspective. So that was really good to see in the city of Terre Haute, so many community leaders being put into positions where they can succeed in terms of their portion of the planning.
Speaker 1
When something like this happens, and I know you just mentioned the the NIT run in. You have a bunch of community members coming out and doing things. So much planning. I mean, the Eclipse months, years in plan. Now that you look back, is there a couple things that you thought Oh, we didn't think of that.
Speaker 2
Yeah, you know, I really did like our digital marketing presence. Right. I like how we layered it on top of other events within Terre Haute. And then moving forward, we need to look at how we mark it outside of Terre Haute, right? are we purchasing you know radio time through a downtown or event organizer in other communities? So from an overall marketing perspective, we can always improve right we had about 30,000 is what I think the numbers will look like. How could we have gotten to 60 whether it's a downtown Eclipse festival, or our air show that we're now trying to make changes in terms of marketing communications to the city of Terre Haute is always in a never stop always growing mentality. So we'll take some lessons learned and apply it there.
Speaker 1
The bottom line too is economic development. Spring, the economy in the downtown. You said that the city just went through high traffic this past month or two Yes. Any numbers are At anything overall,
Speaker 2
we will see those numbers more in about 60 days when those food and beverage tax numbers re when we get the final numbers. But I think what's important to notice in terms of our downtown, we are pursuing some different federal opportunities for large grains to add on to it. A complete overhaul. We've talked in previous shows about a downtown revitalization, we've seen some activity with the two hotels that are coming to downtown and new parking garage and skywalks. Connecting our hotels and Convention Center. We are looking at some city owned properties in downtown and working with developers just to keep that growth mindset going. There's two organizations I love to work with the IDC right and their push for tourism. We are going to do a partnership with them. And they've been very helpful when it comes to how do we look at tourism here in the city of Terre Haute with our Convention and Visitor's Bureau. And then of course, okra, right, you know, seeing former mayor Bennett there and having conversations with his organization now about downtown and Main Street revitalizations and how it's impacting the Hoosier economy. That's always a good friend to have up there just to communicate, say, Hey, what are other communities doing that we can look at? I think speaking with the Jasper mayor, they've got a really nice downtown push. I've seen Mayor Carey Thompson's discussions around pedestrian safety and Kirkwood. So you're seeing these these other mayor's pick up some nuggets here and we're applying that already in the city of Terre Haute. Great example. Mayor Jensen and Noblesville, in their designated outdoor refreshment area, as well as other communities have now passed a door so we're looking to do a door in our downtown. And
Speaker 1
it's amenities to I mean, people want to like where they live. And so the more that happens it there. I mean, there's just it's multifaceted. It
Speaker 2
is multifaceted, indeed. Right? Because 40 years ago, we watched cities do this, expand out instead of airports. Right? And that can almost put a strain over several generations in terms of infrastructure, public safety, police, routine patrols, fire departments, fire houses. So now you're seeing folks look at communities like your Terre Haute. It's like your Evansville is your Bloomington and even your Solomon Indiana's and say, Okay, how can we grow a little bit up? Right? What's that eat live work model look like in cities like Terre Haute. And that's, that's really what we look at to capture some of those Gen Z and Millennial Hoosiers and folks from outside the state who want to move in, as well as retirees who are downsizing. So blending that all together and applying it to our downtown is a huge focus of the administration.
Speaker 1
Presidential Search is bringing or has brought three candidates to Terre Haute you talk to all three, right? I
Speaker 2
did. I did and had longer conversations with two of them. And you know, there was a whole search committee. There are members of the Board of Trustees who are very actively involved, even former state legislators and I enjoyed those conversations. I really did. I think the push there is, you know, obviously enrollment retention, and how can you develop the community, right, these students that you're bringing in for a couple of years, can we can we find ways to get some to stay through the private sector and some of the many businesses in town? How do we look at housing? How do we look at student housing, blending all this together. So I'm looking forward to Indiana State University's decision on their next president and continuing to work with all of our university. They've been strong partners. Rose Hulman, just announced last month, a new innovation center with a surgery center and a partnership with the Union Hospital on our east side, right another area of town that is just really exploding in terms of growth potential. So we got roads, we've got ISC, you've got St. Mary, the woods hitting record enrollment numbers, and you've got Ivy Tech, which is just the pulse of workforce development right now. And this is a great time to be a mayor and taro because we have strong partnerships with our universities, with the business community and of course, with you know, FET fellow elected officials at the county, state and federal level.
Speaker 1
Yeah, I mean, I asked the same with Carrie Thompson in Bloomington, how important is that town and gown? I don't think people understand how much a big university has on the city and the city on the university. Well,
Speaker 2
let's look at a tangible example. Right? You put 8000 to 9000 people inside the home and center for a basketball game. They need to park they need to eat. They need to safely be able to walk right pedestrian safety is very important. And you want to make sure you have clean and safe streets as well. That type of nucleolus for economic development as a driver in your community is huge. Of course you know are you it's at a larger level you're packing pack in the rock Memorial Stadium right at West Lafayette another example of a much larger university but at ISU is a strong economic driver in a city like Terre Haute as well.
Speaker 1
Nicer Other, my goodness yesterday could not have been a better day. For the Eclipse. It was great. We were very fortunate. Yeah,
Speaker 2
the weather was 75 and sunny. But with nicer weather, you do see an increase in street paving. So we got to wait through the winter through the rainy season. And you'll see us transition from away from cold patch potholes to more permanent long term fixes in our community crossing grant program, we release that in January, what streets will be improving, and our target date is to have all that finished by July. And then the next step is to start looking at the 2025 2026 2027 budget, looking at incoming casino dollars, motor vehicle highway tax dollars, of course, and the community crossing grant increasing from one to one and a half million. And so we're going to take all these factors and and say how do we apply a data driven approach to not just roads, but sidewalks. We have neighborhoods right now that aren't connected to the nearest grocery store, or the nearest park, or the nearest school, right? So those are three compounding factors that hurt these these neighborhoods that we want to see grow, or continue to develop. So we take a data driven approach, we rate all of our streets on a scale of one to five. And we'll take that same mindset and apply it to sidewalks so we can sequentially tackle the neighborhoods that need them either updated or added. First, we'll apply this also to our long term control plan in our stormwater upgrades and say, hey, when we break the ground, can we do a sidewalk utility improvement and stormwater improvement all at once? So that way it's a packaged approach.
Speaker 1
digital infrastructure infrastructure to it is yeah,
Speaker 2
a great example is are companies like joint and frontier, right, moving towards that fiber optic conversation? So working with utilities, and you know, we had to do some necessary updates to our right of way, right, whether it's right away fees, or right of way enforcement, when you do work in a city right away? What are the what's the standards that we hold folks to the next step for us? Because we really focus on underground is above ground utility poles or when utility poles aren't needed? How do those conversations go with our utilities?
Speaker 1
So other big news, since we've last talked, the casino resort is open? What are the first impressions, what are you hearing? It's been a week or two now? It
Speaker 2
is so we're getting close to that week mark, and the Eclipse bringing a lot of folks from out of town. So they've been saying, hey, it's really clean, it's really safe. It's a good location, because a lot did come off of the interstate. Of course, when we when it comes to State Road 46 and interstate 70. We are going to start looking at what are the necessary infrastructure improvements for traffic and pedestrian safety is that Margaret, the new Margaret, and Poplar, and then footbridge, or what's the correct order there? So the engineering department, they've been looking at this problem set, especially since I came into office of how do we map out our major thoroughfares and the improvements out there?
Speaker 1
Yeah, that was, I wanted to follow up on that. Traffic is that an issue right now getting in and out parking is or other infrastructure issues that so
Speaker 2
in terms of parking, I always say this, you never build a parking lot for the just the numbers on the first day, right? So of course, the parking lots full because it was the opening day of the casino. Now when it comes to other infrastructure, we're looking at some of the roads that were put in that didn't have sidewalks to other nearby hotels or apartment complexes. So we got to do a better job of connecting our assets in a community like Terre Haute. One, it helps the businesses there. But to it, it helps folks who own some of the commercial properties out there, increase the value and increase that one to need for development because we have infrastructure that's set in place for them to thrive and grow.
Speaker 1
So the location is not downtown is a good What 510 minute drive from the downtown. Everything at the casino is there food, drink entertainment? How do you bring people to say you're coming to the casino, but stop on downtown?
Speaker 2
Part of it is marketing. Right? How do you market to folks inside of the casino and driving into the casino? The second part is Wayfinding. Right. So do we have proper signage that's driving folks across our community, not just off exit 11 to a casino. We worked with indot for casinos signage coming off a 46 and the interstate. But what we really need to keep doing as a community is looking at this wayfinding conversation of how we keep folks within our community. And then the last part is when we bring in these events, whether it's a convention center, a large event at the casino or an NIT basketball game, synchronizing all of that together through the Convention and Visitor's Bureau, which we've got a great working relationship with
Speaker 1
I see we're with dozens of mayor's in Indianapolis talk about what housing revitalization TIF districts. Tell us a bit about what that was and what you got out of it.
Speaker 2
So, one, it's a great time to see what people are doing right and wrong. It's a very candid group to be around. Because there'll be there'll be upfront and direct and say, Hey, I tried this. It's not working. What do you guys recommend? So a lot of the mayors are looking at how to better utilize TIF funds, how to tackle the housing problem. That is not it's not a terrible problem. It's a statewide problem. And it's a good one to have, because companies are wanting to invest in the Hoosier State. And, you know, a lot of times, you know, we go there and there quite literally is no political party, because every mayor is having the same problems and a lot of these communities and it's that local government conversation with state and federal government. Okay, how do we come together to bring a solution to the state house instead of just problem identification? Always good to see mayor's like Joe Yocum and Vincenz JD Wilson and Sullivan and of course, Carrie Thompson in Bloomington and Stephanie Terry in Evansville. Because you just get to, you know, you pick up new ideas, new funding opportunities, as well. So just a good group to be around.
Unknown Speaker
What's coming up, city council, any ordinances, anything you're working on.
Speaker 2
So we're actually starting to remove some stoplights when we found that we have a couple extra stoplights in town. So we're going to look to remove some actually keep traffic moving, instead of sitting idle, we also are going to look to appropriate the rest of the American rescue plan funds, we've got a big project that we'd like to get across the goal line with Indiana, American Water, which is bringing that utility to neighborhoods that are still on Well, water. So having those conversations later this year, we'll start our building code and building permit, kind of double check, you know, line by line through the city ordinances. And there's a lot there that hasn't been touched in decades. So how do you email fit right, one chunk at a time. And I've been fortunate to have a good relationship with council and working with them. And a lot of folks want a lot of change. But it's not going to happen overnight, right. So just sequentially tackling it day by day. So
Speaker 1
we're about one minute left always like to leave it to you any special announcements or anything else that maybe I missed,
Speaker 2
I'll be doing a state of the city in June and part of that state of the city, about June 18, there's going to be a focus on casino fountains and how they can impact quality of life. There are some big projects that we're looking at. And here's a hint along the river in parks, because those are the types of areas in town that with strong, very detailed and organized funding, we can revitalize something like a YMCA.
Speaker 1
So I'm not obviously at the casino just hoping to week ago, but what is the projected time frame that the city county will start seeing those funds? We're looking
Speaker 2
at the fourth quarter of this calendar year, we do stay in conversations with dlgs, of course and State Board of Accounts. And you know, just to spend some days I feel like I get a different answer than I got yesterday. So that's kind of more of a 2025 conversation that we really look at. And then of course, you know, it's about that time for property taxes done through the county's assessor office and the county offices. So we'll get those those numbers here soon.
Unknown Speaker
All right. Thank you so much for having us. We'll see you next month.
Speaker 2
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it
Hello and welcome to ask the mayor on WFIU. I'm Joe Hren for WFIU WTIU news and I'm with Brandon Sakbun in Terre Haute. Hello, welcome.
Speaker 2
Well, we made it through that Eclipse. Right. Good to see again. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker
I mean, did you survive? Did the city survive?
Speaker 2
The city did so we did really well. We're still going through the total number of visitors. Anecdotally, I spoke with folks from Belgium, Scotland, Japan, as well as a myriad of states within the United States of America. One really important piece that I think Terre Haute did well, compared to other communities, we were very spread out in terms of our events, right? So yes, we had a downtown event that was some are saying five to 7000. We should have those total numbers here soon. But we had a ton of smaller events within our parts system between the city and county that was averaging 1500 to 1000 people at each event, plus some other neighborhood church Block Party type A clips, you know, viewing events, all collectively we'll add those numbers up to see what it looked like from the community's perspective. But that actually helped us out because when it came to traffic and leaving, we were all able to link in two main thoroughfares different through different side roads. So that was good in terms of a public safety standpoint. What
Speaker 1
was it like for you, personally, to see not only the Eclipse, but just to see a community, a city, a town, a state? I mean, the country come together under something that's cosmic?
Speaker 2
Yeah. You know, it's really fun to see that sense of community. Right. Folks from all generations are on the sidewalk in their front lawn looking at this eclipse and you know, our downtown has had a great last couple of weeks between Indiana State Universities and it run and several downtown festivals for that university. Now the eclipse of downtown Terre Haute has kind of been on like a two to three week hot streak. 1000s of people coming together on Wabash Avenue, really bringing back that downtown feel in the city of Terre Haute. I think what's more interesting is whether it was up in Indianapolis and Carmel Mayor su thinking was doing and Mayor Carrie Thompson what she was doing in Bloomington and, and even me, we are all looking at this through, you know, you can learn so much through what these other mayor's are doing when it comes to really problem sets like this. You know, I took a very public safety and tourism approach to it. Right, kind of based off my background and military background still being in the National Guard, I was thinking in terms of how many officers do we need? What is traffic going to look like? What's our ingress egress routes, then letting others in the community manage the events, the tourism and just helping them out with marketing communications, which is what some members of my staff did. But I took more of a street department, police fire and emergency management perspective. So that was really good to see in the city of Terre Haute, so many community leaders being put into positions where they can succeed in terms of their portion of the planning.
Speaker 1
When something like this happens, and I know you just mentioned the the NIT run in. You have a bunch of community members coming out and doing things. So much planning. I mean, the Eclipse months, years in plan. Now that you look back, is there a couple things that you thought Oh, we didn't think of that.
Speaker 2
Yeah, you know, I really did like our digital marketing presence. Right. I like how we layered it on top of other events within Terre Haute. And then moving forward, we need to look at how we mark it outside of Terre Haute, right? are we purchasing you know radio time through a downtown or event organizer in other communities? So from an overall marketing perspective, we can always improve right we had about 30,000 is what I think the numbers will look like. How could we have gotten to 60 whether it's a downtown Eclipse festival, or our air show that we're now trying to make changes in terms of marketing communications to the city of Terre Haute is always in a never stop always growing mentality. So we'll take some lessons learned and apply it there.
Speaker 1
The bottom line too is economic development. Spring, the economy in the downtown. You said that the city just went through high traffic this past month or two Yes. Any numbers are At anything overall,
Speaker 2
we will see those numbers more in about 60 days when those food and beverage tax numbers re when we get the final numbers. But I think what's important to notice in terms of our downtown, we are pursuing some different federal opportunities for large grains to add on to it. A complete overhaul. We've talked in previous shows about a downtown revitalization, we've seen some activity with the two hotels that are coming to downtown and new parking garage and skywalks. Connecting our hotels and Convention Center. We are looking at some city owned properties in downtown and working with developers just to keep that growth mindset going. There's two organizations I love to work with the IDC right and their push for tourism. We are going to do a partnership with them. And they've been very helpful when it comes to how do we look at tourism here in the city of Terre Haute with our Convention and Visitor's Bureau. And then of course, okra, right, you know, seeing former mayor Bennett there and having conversations with his organization now about downtown and Main Street revitalizations and how it's impacting the Hoosier economy. That's always a good friend to have up there just to communicate, say, Hey, what are other communities doing that we can look at? I think speaking with the Jasper mayor, they've got a really nice downtown push. I've seen Mayor Carey Thompson's discussions around pedestrian safety and Kirkwood. So you're seeing these these other mayor's pick up some nuggets here and we're applying that already in the city of Terre Haute. Great example. Mayor Jensen and Noblesville, in their designated outdoor refreshment area, as well as other communities have now passed a door so we're looking to do a door in our downtown. And
Speaker 1
it's amenities to I mean, people want to like where they live. And so the more that happens it there. I mean, there's just it's multifaceted. It
Speaker 2
is multifaceted, indeed. Right? Because 40 years ago, we watched cities do this, expand out instead of airports. Right? And that can almost put a strain over several generations in terms of infrastructure, public safety, police, routine patrols, fire departments, fire houses. So now you're seeing folks look at communities like your Terre Haute. It's like your Evansville is your Bloomington and even your Solomon Indiana's and say, Okay, how can we grow a little bit up? Right? What's that eat live work model look like in cities like Terre Haute. And that's, that's really what we look at to capture some of those Gen Z and Millennial Hoosiers and folks from outside the state who want to move in, as well as retirees who are downsizing. So blending that all together and applying it to our downtown is a huge focus of the administration.
Speaker 1
Presidential Search is bringing or has brought three candidates to Terre Haute you talk to all three, right? I
Speaker 2
did. I did and had longer conversations with two of them. And you know, there was a whole search committee. There are members of the Board of Trustees who are very actively involved, even former state legislators and I enjoyed those conversations. I really did. I think the push there is, you know, obviously enrollment retention, and how can you develop the community, right, these students that you're bringing in for a couple of years, can we can we find ways to get some to stay through the private sector and some of the many businesses in town? How do we look at housing? How do we look at student housing, blending all this together. So I'm looking forward to Indiana State University's decision on their next president and continuing to work with all of our university. They've been strong partners. Rose Hulman, just announced last month, a new innovation center with a surgery center and a partnership with the Union Hospital on our east side, right another area of town that is just really exploding in terms of growth potential. So we got roads, we've got ISC, you've got St. Mary, the woods hitting record enrollment numbers, and you've got Ivy Tech, which is just the pulse of workforce development right now. And this is a great time to be a mayor and taro because we have strong partnerships with our universities, with the business community and of course, with you know, FET fellow elected officials at the county, state and federal level.
Speaker 1
Yeah, I mean, I asked the same with Carrie Thompson in Bloomington, how important is that town and gown? I don't think people understand how much a big university has on the city and the city on the university. Well,
Speaker 2
let's look at a tangible example. Right? You put 8000 to 9000 people inside the home and center for a basketball game. They need to park they need to eat. They need to safely be able to walk right pedestrian safety is very important. And you want to make sure you have clean and safe streets as well. That type of nucleolus for economic development as a driver in your community is huge. Of course you know are you it's at a larger level you're packing pack in the rock Memorial Stadium right at West Lafayette another example of a much larger university but at ISU is a strong economic driver in a city like Terre Haute as well.
Speaker 1
Nicer Other, my goodness yesterday could not have been a better day. For the Eclipse. It was great. We were very fortunate. Yeah,
Speaker 2
the weather was 75 and sunny. But with nicer weather, you do see an increase in street paving. So we got to wait through the winter through the rainy season. And you'll see us transition from away from cold patch potholes to more permanent long term fixes in our community crossing grant program, we release that in January, what streets will be improving, and our target date is to have all that finished by July. And then the next step is to start looking at the 2025 2026 2027 budget, looking at incoming casino dollars, motor vehicle highway tax dollars, of course, and the community crossing grant increasing from one to one and a half million. And so we're going to take all these factors and and say how do we apply a data driven approach to not just roads, but sidewalks. We have neighborhoods right now that aren't connected to the nearest grocery store, or the nearest park, or the nearest school, right? So those are three compounding factors that hurt these these neighborhoods that we want to see grow, or continue to develop. So we take a data driven approach, we rate all of our streets on a scale of one to five. And we'll take that same mindset and apply it to sidewalks so we can sequentially tackle the neighborhoods that need them either updated or added. First, we'll apply this also to our long term control plan in our stormwater upgrades and say, hey, when we break the ground, can we do a sidewalk utility improvement and stormwater improvement all at once? So that way it's a packaged approach.
Speaker 1
digital infrastructure infrastructure to it is yeah,
Speaker 2
a great example is are companies like joint and frontier, right, moving towards that fiber optic conversation? So working with utilities, and you know, we had to do some necessary updates to our right of way, right, whether it's right away fees, or right of way enforcement, when you do work in a city right away? What are the what's the standards that we hold folks to the next step for us? Because we really focus on underground is above ground utility poles or when utility poles aren't needed? How do those conversations go with our utilities?
Speaker 1
So other big news, since we've last talked, the casino resort is open? What are the first impressions, what are you hearing? It's been a week or two now? It
Speaker 2
is so we're getting close to that week mark, and the Eclipse bringing a lot of folks from out of town. So they've been saying, hey, it's really clean, it's really safe. It's a good location, because a lot did come off of the interstate. Of course, when we when it comes to State Road 46 and interstate 70. We are going to start looking at what are the necessary infrastructure improvements for traffic and pedestrian safety is that Margaret, the new Margaret, and Poplar, and then footbridge, or what's the correct order there? So the engineering department, they've been looking at this problem set, especially since I came into office of how do we map out our major thoroughfares and the improvements out there?
Speaker 1
Yeah, that was, I wanted to follow up on that. Traffic is that an issue right now getting in and out parking is or other infrastructure issues that so
Speaker 2
in terms of parking, I always say this, you never build a parking lot for the just the numbers on the first day, right? So of course, the parking lots full because it was the opening day of the casino. Now when it comes to other infrastructure, we're looking at some of the roads that were put in that didn't have sidewalks to other nearby hotels or apartment complexes. So we got to do a better job of connecting our assets in a community like Terre Haute. One, it helps the businesses there. But to it, it helps folks who own some of the commercial properties out there, increase the value and increase that one to need for development because we have infrastructure that's set in place for them to thrive and grow.
Speaker 1
So the location is not downtown is a good What 510 minute drive from the downtown. Everything at the casino is there food, drink entertainment? How do you bring people to say you're coming to the casino, but stop on downtown?
Speaker 2
Part of it is marketing. Right? How do you market to folks inside of the casino and driving into the casino? The second part is Wayfinding. Right. So do we have proper signage that's driving folks across our community, not just off exit 11 to a casino. We worked with indot for casinos signage coming off a 46 and the interstate. But what we really need to keep doing as a community is looking at this wayfinding conversation of how we keep folks within our community. And then the last part is when we bring in these events, whether it's a convention center, a large event at the casino or an NIT basketball game, synchronizing all of that together through the Convention and Visitor's Bureau, which we've got a great working relationship with
Speaker 1
I see we're with dozens of mayor's in Indianapolis talk about what housing revitalization TIF districts. Tell us a bit about what that was and what you got out of it.
Speaker 2
So, one, it's a great time to see what people are doing right and wrong. It's a very candid group to be around. Because there'll be there'll be upfront and direct and say, Hey, I tried this. It's not working. What do you guys recommend? So a lot of the mayors are looking at how to better utilize TIF funds, how to tackle the housing problem. That is not it's not a terrible problem. It's a statewide problem. And it's a good one to have, because companies are wanting to invest in the Hoosier State. And, you know, a lot of times, you know, we go there and there quite literally is no political party, because every mayor is having the same problems and a lot of these communities and it's that local government conversation with state and federal government. Okay, how do we come together to bring a solution to the state house instead of just problem identification? Always good to see mayor's like Joe Yocum and Vincenz JD Wilson and Sullivan and of course, Carrie Thompson in Bloomington and Stephanie Terry in Evansville. Because you just get to, you know, you pick up new ideas, new funding opportunities, as well. So just a good group to be around.
Unknown Speaker
What's coming up, city council, any ordinances, anything you're working on.
Speaker 2
So we're actually starting to remove some stoplights when we found that we have a couple extra stoplights in town. So we're going to look to remove some actually keep traffic moving, instead of sitting idle, we also are going to look to appropriate the rest of the American rescue plan funds, we've got a big project that we'd like to get across the goal line with Indiana, American Water, which is bringing that utility to neighborhoods that are still on Well, water. So having those conversations later this year, we'll start our building code and building permit, kind of double check, you know, line by line through the city ordinances. And there's a lot there that hasn't been touched in decades. So how do you email fit right, one chunk at a time. And I've been fortunate to have a good relationship with council and working with them. And a lot of folks want a lot of change. But it's not going to happen overnight, right. So just sequentially tackling it day by day. So
Speaker 1
we're about one minute left always like to leave it to you any special announcements or anything else that maybe I missed,
Speaker 2
I'll be doing a state of the city in June and part of that state of the city, about June 18, there's going to be a focus on casino fountains and how they can impact quality of life. There are some big projects that we're looking at. And here's a hint along the river in parks, because those are the types of areas in town that with strong, very detailed and organized funding, we can revitalize something like a YMCA.
Speaker 1
So I'm not obviously at the casino just hoping to week ago, but what is the projected time frame that the city county will start seeing those funds? We're looking
Speaker 2
at the fourth quarter of this calendar year, we do stay in conversations with dlgs, of course and State Board of Accounts. And you know, just to spend some days I feel like I get a different answer than I got yesterday. So that's kind of more of a 2025 conversation that we really look at. And then of course, you know, it's about that time for property taxes done through the county's assessor office and the county offices. So we'll get those those numbers here soon.
Unknown Speaker
All right. Thank you so much for having us. We'll see you next month.
Speaker 2
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it
