Trash fees, a city pool closure, development abatements, new humane shelter, the Indiana primary election and Donald Trump.
On this week's installment of Ask The Mayor, Mayor Duke Bennett addresses these issues and more. Listen to the full conversation with Indiana Newsdesk anchor Joe Hren by clicking on the play button above, or read some of the questions and answers below.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
Hren: Looks like Deming Park Pool closed down due to costs, but you say it may still open sometime in the future?
Bennett: It's an old pool. We put money into it the last five or six years. The park board looked at the list for this year, about $25 to $30 thousand dollars worth in repairs that needed to be done and just felt like their budget couldn't support that. Well, I still think there's a little bit of life left to it. We need to help them from a financial perspective. Whether we get it open this year or not, I'm not sure yet, but next year for sure. And it's going to last us a few more years. But at some point it has to be replaced.
Hren: The Indiana Primary is complete but not before some national attention to the Hoosier state, Terre Haute hosted some of the presidential candidates and I didn't realize you were able to meet with some of them. As a republican mayor, are you backing any candidate right now?
Bennett: I said all along, I'm backing the republican nominee whoever that is. I know there's a lot of consternation with people as to where Trump is right now but it was good to get to know each one of them just the few minutes you have to get a feel for their personality. All politicians can put on a persona so you get a chance to see them, not in front of a camera or in front of a crowd and feel good about some of the things and some other things you're still questioning, but I'm supporting the nominee.
Hren: We have an e-mail from John, he writes, in view of the reports that Terre Haute has budgetary problems, do you know the total amount of abated business property taxes in any given year, and exactly how those abatements impact the city's budgetary situation?
Bennett: It's a pretty minimal impact. I don't have the specific numbers because there are a whole bunch of factors that go into that. The county is responsible for tracking that. It gets complicated because it all depends at what level they are at their abatement, whether they're following through with all those things, when you take in the tax caps against those numbers they have to pay, whether it's in a TIF district or not... most goes into our general fund, so absolutely there could be an affect, but it's very small compared to everything else.
I think the most important thing to keep in mind, if those companies haven't invested in new equipment or build a new building, then we'd be still collecting the taxes that were being paid prior to that which would be much less than what they're paying now. Even with an abatement, they're paying more than they would have been.
