In this week's installment of Ask The Mayor, Indiana Newsdesk's Joe Hren visits Terre Haute's Duke Bennett at City Hall. The mayor talks about why police body cams are more complicated than some may think. He also says the recent winter weather hasn't drained city resources.
Listen to their full conversation above. Here are some highlights:
Hren: Busy time of the year for you, what's all on your plate right now?
Bennett: Trying to get things laid out on a schedule for construction season, that basically starts in April and runs until November. We're wrapping up the year end finances and getting everything into the state system, we accomplished that last week. Looking ahead to the rest of the year, dealing with cash flow issues and funding projects and all the things that come with that. Then you throw on top of that that it's an election year so your dealing with the politics of the job maybe more than you do in other years because that's just the way it is.
Hren: There's been news of an investigation of a police shooting death of a wanted man, so the body cam issue comes up again. Some say it's not the end all of investigations and others say it's a funding issue, where do you stand on the issue?
Bennett: Funding is a big issue, not only to just buy the equipment, but the ongoing costs of maintaining all that data, answering public information requests, getting involved with legal actions, lawsuits, criminal investigations. Anytime you can show the facts that's always a good thing and I think any police officer will tell you that, it's just when do you use them? Do you leave them on all the time? Do you collect all that data when it's just only needed periodically. But the bottom line, is do we have the money to get into it.
Hren: How do you feel about tax abatements, in particular, the recent request from Jadcore for a $100,000 abatement over the next ten years? Does this help the city?
Bennett: In most cases I believe it is, and I believe it is in this one too from my knowledge of it. What I applaud in what the city council has done in the last few years is really tightened up the scoring system for these. So when somebody wants to do one, then there's a scoring system involved not only up front to make a decision, but then we measure that in the years after to make sure they are staying in compliance with that. There's arguments on both sides of the fence about tax abatements, but if you have companies that are here and they want to invest, it's important to help them to grow as along as it's not at the expense of something.
