Highland Park's rebuilt playground is open, the city has five new patrol cars, building permits are increasing and a groundbreaking for an assisted living center is set for June 1.
On this week's installment of Ask The Mayor, Kokomo's Greg Goodnight 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. A portion of this segment airs 6:45 and 8:45 a.m. Wednesday on WFIU.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
Hren: It was interesting to hear from Terre Haute Mayor Duke Bennett this month that he heard they will get almost double as much road funding money than before with the new state legislation, are you hearing anything on Kokomo's share?
Goodnight: I don't know we're going to get that much, I don't think our calculations showed that, but we're going to get a little bump. The best part it's a constant funding increase, it's not a one year cash infusion and this should give us the ability to really look at things long term and be a little more strategic and gives us a cushion as well.
Hren: I hear there's been some flooding at Highland Park, so you've had to delay the ribbon cutting for the new facilities there, will you be able to continue this Wednesday as planned?
Goodnight: Last year during the August tornado, we had substantial damage, the playground was destroyed and private businesses have stepped up along with city and county money we've done a great job at making this more integrated, the ADA compliant playground and putting it with the main playground and we've remodeled the restrooms.
Hren: Any construction project updates we should know about?
Goodnight: We're getting ready June 1 for the groundbreaking on the Vermillion assisted living facility, it's a four story $23 million project in the former south side lumber site. The prep work is happening right now. It will have almost 100 beds with nurses and caretakers and more of a luxury assistance for those people who need help with day to day tasks. But it takes an area that was very underutilized and cleans up a blighted piece of property and will be a centerpiece of downtown.
Vermillion Development is building this out of Chicago. The city donated a parcel of land south of this so they can have surface parking and waived some permitting, things like that, to make it attractive, but for the most part we're not doing much for this. This was something they came here and saw potential in Kokomo.
Hren: Summertime in Kokomo means many events going on, tell us a little bit about what people can enjoy in Kokomo this summer.
Goodnight: The Kokomo Jackrabbits baseball team starts this Saturday. Our summer concert series we're very excited about - Kevin Eubanks, Blues Traveler - free summer concerts, downtown Kokomo and we're excited about this.
