"Exhibit Columbus" is on full display throughout downtown grabbing the eye of residents and visitors alike, the city's premiere of a feature film is in the books, city budget discussions continue and Indiana University officially selects Columbus as home for its architecture program.
On this week's installment of Ask The Mayor, Columbus Mayor Jim Lienhoop 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: We are outside of City Hall and down the street near the Visitor's Center sitting on top of a rather large wood sculpture on display for "Exhibit Columbus." Tell us what this is about?
Lienhoop: Part of "Exhibit Columbus" was designed to do two things, to talk about our design heritage and find another way to interpret it - a little bit of a different twist. So we had several designers from across the country come to Columbus and look at some of the iconic structures that we got. We've promoted this throughout the country and had conversations with international media.
One initiative to come out of this is preservation. Some of the significant buildings we have here, I don't know if they're reaching middle age, but they've got some age on them. We want to try and use the focus of "Exhibit Columbus" to focus attention on some of those buildings to get some of the local people here understand the need for preservation.
Hren: I've noticed some of these exhibits use where we live as part of the artwork such as Bloomington limestone in one of the exhibits in a park.
"Another Circle" which is down near Mill Race Park uses all limestone that wasn't used. Where we're seated here, the idea is to show how Indiana hardwood can be used in construction.
Hren: City Council meeting coming up Wednesday night, on the agenda is a new city ordinance that would ban abandoned cars on city streets?
Lienhoop: We don't necessarily have the tools we need to effectively deal with an abandoned or inoperable vehicle. Our police need the authority to be able to go onto somebody's property and anytime government seizes someone's property you have to make sure you dotted all your I's and crossed all your T's and so we want to make sure we've done that in a transparent way. The notion will be the city will pay to have your vehicle towed and we'll take it out to the recycling center on the east side of town. There's usually a monetary amount the vehicle is worth and we'll let that amount go back to the owner.
Hren: IU has officially selected Columbus as home for its architecture program – we knew it was coming, but it must be nice to sign off on that?
Lienhoop: Now you transition in trying to make this thing a reality. So there are people here busy at work recruiting students and recruiting faculty and making arrangements for physical space. It's a great example of what I call leverage. Indiana University will create this educational program, but we think this will be a significant economic engine that will benefit Columbus and the entire state and I think a renewed focus on preservation.
