City Common Council passes the 2018 budget, this year's drug overdoses will be the deadliest in county history, an affordable housing project that got tied up with the city plan commission receives approval and the city's trick-or-treat hours are set for Tuesday.
On this week's installment of Ask The Mayor, Kokomo Mayor 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: The common council passed the city budget, what's new for 2018?
Goodnight: We've come in every year under budget and we're going to do that again this year. As I tell everyone, if you want to see somebody's priorities, whether it be an individual, a business owner or city government, look at where they spend their money. We've tried to shift some money to the parks and trails and to make our community beautiful and I think that's starting to pay off.
Hren: I wanted to follow up with you on some updated drug overdose statistics that point to 2017 being the deadliest on record in county history. What's the city response to those numbers?
Goodnight: There are no easy answers. Even though the problem exists in Kokomo, this is not a Kokomo problem. This is not just an Indiana problem. This is a national problem, specifically in the Midwest. Even though each mayor and each governor has to attack this in different ways, it's really part of a national problem.
We still have a prescription drug problem so we've got to work on that end of it as well. The city is joining some other cities suing some of the distributors of these opioids. Hopefully that will stop the distribution part so we can tackle the issue at hand.
Hren: What can smaller cities do, not just Kokomo, to help combat this issue though, where's the breaking point when cities have to step in?
Goodnight: People want to localize the problem, it is not a Kokomo problem. It's not a Bloomington problem, it's not a Terre Haute problem, it's not a Columbus problem. It's a problem that exists in all those cities, but it's not because of anything specific to those communities. So first thing we need to do is not try to recognize that this is part of a bigger problem equated to terrorism or homelessness - something that is not just specific to one or two communities something that has to be tackled at the national level.
Hren: I see you were just on a panel with other mayors for "Leadership Indy" on workforce development. One of your tweets jumped out at me, it said everywhere you go in the world to pitch Indiana, people ask about workforce and roads. Why are those a big concern?
Goodnight: Amazon told us, they kind of laid out the playbook in the last month or so with their criteria for their location for a second headquarters. They wanted to be in a major metropolitan area, they wanted access to a talent pool, they want good public transportation systems, they want quality of life - all those things... what Amazon told us, that's really what every other business is looking for, but probably on a smaller scale.
The name of the game is talent attraction, how do you attract those best and brightest in your community and that's through quality of place initiatives. The cities that are making those investments and have that vibrancy is the first step.
