Unknown Speaker
All right. Hello and welcome to ask the mayor on WFIU. I'm Joe Hren. Here we are in March in Bloomington with Mayor John Hamilton. Hello, thanks for being with us here in City Hall.
Unknown Speaker
Good to be with you again, Joe. We've made it through spring break, and everybody's back at it now. That's
Unknown Speaker
right, March Madness, boy 1224 hours in Bloomington. But you know, you have to give Terry Morin a lot of credit for what she's done with that program. Here in Bloomington, bringing the NCAA here, of course, brings a lot of fans to Bloomingdale's, an
Unknown Speaker
extraordinary gathering. It's wonderful to see the women's team, excel as a team, but also the sport kind of getting a little more profile than it did five or 10 years ago. And they fantastic effort. Fantastic team. It's tough and 24 hours to lose the men's and women's team to the same university. But it happened and we'll move on.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, you have any trips to Miami coming up?
Unknown Speaker
I'm gonna go. I'm not going.
Unknown Speaker
We have a number of things, of course as always to get to and stuff that we've reported on and when it gets some update and a little bit more insight from your perspective. I know you've asked members of city council to consider permanently closing part of Old State Road 37. This runs through lower cascades Park to drivers. But there's been some statistics more than 50% of park visitors surveyed say they preferred the road open 70% said they arrived by vehicle. So why is it something that's on your radar?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, that's a great question, Joan. It's a little complicated. And let's try to frame it a couple of ways. One, if we built a park today, we would never build it with a road right down the middle of it. This was a park that developed when that was the main way into town. And it's great. It's 100 years old. And it's wonderful to have that park but you typically don't want to road right through the middle of the park. We do want to trail through that park in our in our transportation plan says we need to have a Bike Ped trail from Miller showers and the kind of that center college wallet up through to the park and on north up to Griffey and all that. And so the question really is do we build a new side path for quite a few million dollars next to that road to give bicyclists and pedestrians a way to get up there? Or do we convert the road to that side path? And I do think it's I this is a vote for the council to decide. And I'm gonna make some recommendations about it. And I do think it probably makes sense not to have a major thoroughfare going through a park and turn it into a Bike Ped path. It saves us millions of dollars, which we can use in other places. But I understand there's some issues, different people have different views about it. And we'll let the City Council vote on it. And ultimately,
Unknown Speaker
and this is interesting to the city of Bloomington utilities requesting construction of a new campus at the site of the former. Is it Winston Thomas wastewater treatment plant is something I'm not familiar with. But that's on the city south side. But the public works which I believe oversees the utilities.
Unknown Speaker
Well, they're separate department they're set up right next to each other right now. Okay? Look, this is utilities is continuing to grow, where we serve the whole much beyond the city with our utilities department, the water goes to 140,000 people and sewers connect many more people and we continue to grow. And they're there. They're too tight where they are they don't have room. So moving utilities to the Winston Thomas area, which we own already they own is a great plan. It's not decided yet, but it's a proposal. There's some work to be done. If that goes through which I hope it will down off tap road that opens up the utility footprint for public works to be able to consolidate. We have expensive equipment that sits out in the weather. We have inventory that we can't protect from the weather. We have sanitation is separate from the street department right now we have a fleet garage that serves a lot of people that isn't big enough to do the vehicle, sir. So this would let two departments really be in position for the next 20 or 30 years utilities and public works. So I hope it'll get decided this
Unknown Speaker
year. So where's the conflict on that?
Unknown Speaker
I don't think there is a comp.
Unknown Speaker
So both of both are on the same page. Public Works wants to stay there. Utilities wants to move more than it's more space for them
Unknown Speaker
is good for both of them are kind of working together. Public Works would take over the utilities building, probably and there's a big garage next to that right. And
Unknown Speaker
that's where all the salt is kept to right.
Unknown Speaker
That's right. And we have it really puts us in position to have both of those major departments be really well positioned for the next decades.
Unknown Speaker
So let's move ahead to the 501 C three nonprofit that you introduced by yourself. City council members agreed to door Sims Be one of the representatives on the board. But at that meeting, there was disagreement on the day we're okay with Sims. They like Dora Sims, that wasn't the we want to make sure that that that, but they feel like that they weren't getting enough representation on the board things were already happening with the appointments from the mayor and not from the city council. What's your response to that?
Unknown Speaker
Well, we've been talking about the nonprofit for many months have been talking to council in the public generally about the importance. And again, to put it in, kind of in the context, we have really big projects going on at city government, including the development of Hopewell 24 acres of the former hospital site, that'll be a multi year, many 10s of millions of dollars of project, we have the trades district developments still going on, we have new arts facilities, you know, the Waldron that we manage, and in a new report that suggests how to go forward. Right now, all of that planning, all of that oversight is inside city government. It's in our economic Sustainable Development department or controller, we're all meeting regularly about all this stuff. And it's, it's frankly, a lot to do. And my proposal has been let's create a nonprofit that can oversee some of that on behalf of the whole community. So instead of only having inside the administration, have it in front of a department, a nonprofit like that we've been talking about for months, we've just launched it, it's brand new, it's kind of probably going to start with the Hopewell project, which is a very big and very exciting new neighborhood in our community. And I'm working with counsel, and I'll be meeting with him in a week or so to talk more about it and the conversations will continue. But I think it's a really important opportunity to help create a community based nonprofit that can help steer that big project for years to come.
Unknown Speaker
And that board, I think, what were the dispute comes from is at the city council saying that they don't have enough representation. They're getting one person. Yeah. Compared to the mayor's appointments of four a four.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. So I'll be happy to be talking to him soon about that. I mean, my my basic view, and look, as you know, I'm not going to be mayor next year. So this isn't about Hamilton wants to have this. This is I do think that what is now an entirely internal to the administration project, which which I oversee, with my cabinet, we're actually opening it up to make it less inside City Hall and a little broader. And I want to be sure that the next mayor has the authority to make sure that project goes well. It's really it's not an advisory board. It's an execution board. It's an implementation board. And that's really important for for the next mayor, not again, not me to have the ability to make sure it's functioning well. That's where that comes from. But I'll be happy to talk to the city council.
Unknown Speaker
Another issue councilmember Sandberg raises about a perceived private private privatization of city assets with that board, and we talked about this before with the convention center. Is that something that concerns you to that it's removing the public from the representation on these types of government dealings?
Unknown Speaker
Well, I actually think this is opening up more to public engagement. But I appreciate the issue of do we want the city to own something? Or do we want another entity to own it that privatization? And I first point is City Council retains all of its authority over those issues of how to spend money, if we're going to make substantial acquisitions of property. There is involved tomorrow as they are today. And that and that's important. I personally am not a big fan of privatization or outsourcing of ownership. But like with the Buskirk Chumley, the city owns that but we we hire a nonprofit organization to run that theater. And in a way that's similar. We're we're creating an entity to operate the Hopewell project while the city retains ownership. And so I think she's got that a little bit wrong in terms of what's happening with the nonprofit. But I do think I share the view that we don't really want to privatize public assets generally.
Unknown Speaker
I wanted to give you a chance to respond quickly with the Herald Times reporting last week about the fire department not being funded enough fire department members leaving for other jobs Edwardsville paying more than the Bloomington Fire Department understaffed this has a similar ring to the police that we talked about the last couple of years. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker
Well, there is no doubt that as an employer, like many employers these days we're facing pressure from competition and More and more retirements kind of we've had the great resignations happening. We're seeing that. And that is true in the police department and the fire department both we're seeing it a little more in the fire department now than we did four years ago. And we're dealing with it very directly. I look, I'm incredibly proud of our police department, our fire department, we're the only city in Indiana you've heard me say that has a one ranked Fire Department, ISO one and a nationally accredited Police Department. No other city in India has that we're really proud of that. And we'll continue to work on but look, it's true. Wages are up wage pressures are up public. It's not as fun in a way that there's a lot of public stress now compared to 10 years ago, and being a police officer and a fire department to they're dealing with overdoses, we've had a lot more overdoses this year than we did five years ago. It's a stressful job. So I'm very proud of them. We're very proud to work with the unions on making sure we stay top ranked and all of those ways. And it's it's a, it's an ongoing process, we wouldn't be able to do what we're doing now, if we didn't have the new revenue from last year. So I do appreciate the City Council support and that they didn't give me quite as much as I asked for. So we did have to trim some things which otherwise could have helped. But we'll continue to work, the public is safe. The police and fire are on duty every moment of every day. But it is it's a challenge we're all facing. I was just with mayors from all around the country and every city is facing these issues. And frankly, not just in police and fire though those are pretty pressing right now. But we're facing it in utility Department and in the street Department and in the parks department. So as as an employer of choice, were going to continue to invest in their employees and address those issues.
Unknown Speaker
Is that something that you're able to open up this this year before the end of your term for, for for for Fire
Unknown Speaker
For Fire, you know, they're in a contract, labor contract, we have done substantial things this year outside of that contract of $1,000 bonus and a almost $800 Savings incentive we've offered. We're offering major housing incentives, we're actually offering $100,000 to help firefighters buy homes in the city and live there that we forgive over 10 years. So we're doing a lot of things and then we'll begin to labor negotiations early next year to get a new contract for the firefighters.
Unknown Speaker
So the city hasn't signed new operating agreements with Scooter companies. So though we see a still a few scooters around so they must still be under contract. The city will propose next steps for agreements with a council in the next few weeks. What how do you see that forming?
Unknown Speaker
So there have been really good conversations I think around this issue. You know, scooters arrived on our doorstep five or six years ago, we've had over a million rides taken in Bloomington by those scooters that are very popular people use them to get around. We've been working really closely with Indiana University and a scooter companies to identify ways to keep people safe, number one, and then to make sure that it doesn't impinge on other transportation options, but that we let people use this new option. So in the next week or two, I think pretty soon there'll be a presentation to city council about some recommendations of changes. They'll get the chance to weigh in if they want to from city council. And I expect we'll see some tweaks in that as we go forward to maybe restrict where the scooters can go maybe restrict some speeds and make sure they're complying with all the rules that we have.
Unknown Speaker
A lot going on and I still have to get to annexation because there was a major court decision and least in my mind that that happened a couple of weeks ago where a judge ruled in favor of the city. Regarding remand, Streeters wanting more time to gather petitions. The petitioners cited COVID. And the judge said no, that really isn't a valid reason. So right after that the city came up with I don't even know what how you call it but a asking maybe a judgment or a summary judgment to move forward with annexation, but yet the city had it has a couple of lawsuits from last year too. So I'm kind of can there's a lot going on kind of confused how that compares to what's going on from last year.
Unknown Speaker
We really have two separate lawsuits going on and and the one that has been most active and where we just got the judge who agreed with us that said, No, we don't start this over with new remonstrance we've done that we had the period we got signatures, that covers the two big areas on the west side. And the next thing to happen should be a trial. Because what happens if you if the city council annexes and then reminds traitors get a certain percentage over 50% It goes to trial and the judge under state law says is this an appropriate annexation or not? We're confident They will say yes, that trial we hope will begin in the months ahead. That's going forward. And that was the decision that said, let's go forward with the lawsuit. A second whole lawsuit is about the remonstrance petitions themselves. And as you many people remember, the state legislature stopped us in the middle of annexation in 2017. It took us four years to get the state Supreme Court to say that was illegal. It was unconstitutional legislation. So now you can start it again. In the meantime, the state legislature did another law that said all those remonstrance agreements, where property owner said we will join the city when you ask us to state legislature nullified 10 1000s of those. So the second lawsuit is saying that action by the state legislature was not legal either. And that lawsuit is proceeding as well, if that succeeds, which we think it should, and will, that actually means virtually all of the annexation goes through, because all of those signatures were not allowed, because the property owners had already said, If you give us sewer service, we will join this city. So it's complicated, two different lawsuits, but we're, we're looking forward to expeditious resolution, and both of those.
Unknown Speaker
So what was it that the city asked for a couple of weeks ago,
Unknown Speaker
couple of weeks ago, we asked a judge to declare that that 2019 action of the legislature nullifying those remonstrance what was illegal, just like the 2017 Act was and that will be a constitutional issue. So it's not really very complicated. There's not a lot of facts involved is just did they have the authority to do that, which we do? We think they do not.
Unknown Speaker
We're almost out of time. But I always like to leave the last question for you. Any announcements, anything that you'd like to let us know about? What's new?
Unknown Speaker
Thanks, Joe. Nothing big, you know, I had my my eighth and final State of the City address, and I got to celebrate so much good that's going on in the city. I'm really excited about the future. And I kind of tried to challenge us to think about 2030 and where we want to be and that was a neat exercise. And also just to thank all my 16 department heads who've worked so hard every day, but half of all of us and and we appreciate their leadership. And if people want to find out more about it. There's tons on the website.
Unknown Speaker
Thank you. We'll see you in April. Thanks, Joe.
All right. Hello and welcome to ask the mayor on WFIU. I'm Joe Hren. Here we are in March in Bloomington with Mayor John Hamilton. Hello, thanks for being with us here in City Hall.
Unknown Speaker
Good to be with you again, Joe. We've made it through spring break, and everybody's back at it now. That's
Unknown Speaker
right, March Madness, boy 1224 hours in Bloomington. But you know, you have to give Terry Morin a lot of credit for what she's done with that program. Here in Bloomington, bringing the NCAA here, of course, brings a lot of fans to Bloomingdale's, an
Unknown Speaker
extraordinary gathering. It's wonderful to see the women's team, excel as a team, but also the sport kind of getting a little more profile than it did five or 10 years ago. And they fantastic effort. Fantastic team. It's tough and 24 hours to lose the men's and women's team to the same university. But it happened and we'll move on.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, you have any trips to Miami coming up?
Unknown Speaker
I'm gonna go. I'm not going.
Unknown Speaker
We have a number of things, of course as always to get to and stuff that we've reported on and when it gets some update and a little bit more insight from your perspective. I know you've asked members of city council to consider permanently closing part of Old State Road 37. This runs through lower cascades Park to drivers. But there's been some statistics more than 50% of park visitors surveyed say they preferred the road open 70% said they arrived by vehicle. So why is it something that's on your radar?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, that's a great question, Joan. It's a little complicated. And let's try to frame it a couple of ways. One, if we built a park today, we would never build it with a road right down the middle of it. This was a park that developed when that was the main way into town. And it's great. It's 100 years old. And it's wonderful to have that park but you typically don't want to road right through the middle of the park. We do want to trail through that park in our in our transportation plan says we need to have a Bike Ped trail from Miller showers and the kind of that center college wallet up through to the park and on north up to Griffey and all that. And so the question really is do we build a new side path for quite a few million dollars next to that road to give bicyclists and pedestrians a way to get up there? Or do we convert the road to that side path? And I do think it's I this is a vote for the council to decide. And I'm gonna make some recommendations about it. And I do think it probably makes sense not to have a major thoroughfare going through a park and turn it into a Bike Ped path. It saves us millions of dollars, which we can use in other places. But I understand there's some issues, different people have different views about it. And we'll let the City Council vote on it. And ultimately,
Unknown Speaker
and this is interesting to the city of Bloomington utilities requesting construction of a new campus at the site of the former. Is it Winston Thomas wastewater treatment plant is something I'm not familiar with. But that's on the city south side. But the public works which I believe oversees the utilities.
Unknown Speaker
Well, they're separate department they're set up right next to each other right now. Okay? Look, this is utilities is continuing to grow, where we serve the whole much beyond the city with our utilities department, the water goes to 140,000 people and sewers connect many more people and we continue to grow. And they're there. They're too tight where they are they don't have room. So moving utilities to the Winston Thomas area, which we own already they own is a great plan. It's not decided yet, but it's a proposal. There's some work to be done. If that goes through which I hope it will down off tap road that opens up the utility footprint for public works to be able to consolidate. We have expensive equipment that sits out in the weather. We have inventory that we can't protect from the weather. We have sanitation is separate from the street department right now we have a fleet garage that serves a lot of people that isn't big enough to do the vehicle, sir. So this would let two departments really be in position for the next 20 or 30 years utilities and public works. So I hope it'll get decided this
Unknown Speaker
year. So where's the conflict on that?
Unknown Speaker
I don't think there is a comp.
Unknown Speaker
So both of both are on the same page. Public Works wants to stay there. Utilities wants to move more than it's more space for them
Unknown Speaker
is good for both of them are kind of working together. Public Works would take over the utilities building, probably and there's a big garage next to that right. And
Unknown Speaker
that's where all the salt is kept to right.
Unknown Speaker
That's right. And we have it really puts us in position to have both of those major departments be really well positioned for the next decades.
Unknown Speaker
So let's move ahead to the 501 C three nonprofit that you introduced by yourself. City council members agreed to door Sims Be one of the representatives on the board. But at that meeting, there was disagreement on the day we're okay with Sims. They like Dora Sims, that wasn't the we want to make sure that that that, but they feel like that they weren't getting enough representation on the board things were already happening with the appointments from the mayor and not from the city council. What's your response to that?
Unknown Speaker
Well, we've been talking about the nonprofit for many months have been talking to council in the public generally about the importance. And again, to put it in, kind of in the context, we have really big projects going on at city government, including the development of Hopewell 24 acres of the former hospital site, that'll be a multi year, many 10s of millions of dollars of project, we have the trades district developments still going on, we have new arts facilities, you know, the Waldron that we manage, and in a new report that suggests how to go forward. Right now, all of that planning, all of that oversight is inside city government. It's in our economic Sustainable Development department or controller, we're all meeting regularly about all this stuff. And it's, it's frankly, a lot to do. And my proposal has been let's create a nonprofit that can oversee some of that on behalf of the whole community. So instead of only having inside the administration, have it in front of a department, a nonprofit like that we've been talking about for months, we've just launched it, it's brand new, it's kind of probably going to start with the Hopewell project, which is a very big and very exciting new neighborhood in our community. And I'm working with counsel, and I'll be meeting with him in a week or so to talk more about it and the conversations will continue. But I think it's a really important opportunity to help create a community based nonprofit that can help steer that big project for years to come.
Unknown Speaker
And that board, I think, what were the dispute comes from is at the city council saying that they don't have enough representation. They're getting one person. Yeah. Compared to the mayor's appointments of four a four.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. So I'll be happy to be talking to him soon about that. I mean, my my basic view, and look, as you know, I'm not going to be mayor next year. So this isn't about Hamilton wants to have this. This is I do think that what is now an entirely internal to the administration project, which which I oversee, with my cabinet, we're actually opening it up to make it less inside City Hall and a little broader. And I want to be sure that the next mayor has the authority to make sure that project goes well. It's really it's not an advisory board. It's an execution board. It's an implementation board. And that's really important for for the next mayor, not again, not me to have the ability to make sure it's functioning well. That's where that comes from. But I'll be happy to talk to the city council.
Unknown Speaker
Another issue councilmember Sandberg raises about a perceived private private privatization of city assets with that board, and we talked about this before with the convention center. Is that something that concerns you to that it's removing the public from the representation on these types of government dealings?
Unknown Speaker
Well, I actually think this is opening up more to public engagement. But I appreciate the issue of do we want the city to own something? Or do we want another entity to own it that privatization? And I first point is City Council retains all of its authority over those issues of how to spend money, if we're going to make substantial acquisitions of property. There is involved tomorrow as they are today. And that and that's important. I personally am not a big fan of privatization or outsourcing of ownership. But like with the Buskirk Chumley, the city owns that but we we hire a nonprofit organization to run that theater. And in a way that's similar. We're we're creating an entity to operate the Hopewell project while the city retains ownership. And so I think she's got that a little bit wrong in terms of what's happening with the nonprofit. But I do think I share the view that we don't really want to privatize public assets generally.
Unknown Speaker
I wanted to give you a chance to respond quickly with the Herald Times reporting last week about the fire department not being funded enough fire department members leaving for other jobs Edwardsville paying more than the Bloomington Fire Department understaffed this has a similar ring to the police that we talked about the last couple of years. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker
Well, there is no doubt that as an employer, like many employers these days we're facing pressure from competition and More and more retirements kind of we've had the great resignations happening. We're seeing that. And that is true in the police department and the fire department both we're seeing it a little more in the fire department now than we did four years ago. And we're dealing with it very directly. I look, I'm incredibly proud of our police department, our fire department, we're the only city in Indiana you've heard me say that has a one ranked Fire Department, ISO one and a nationally accredited Police Department. No other city in India has that we're really proud of that. And we'll continue to work on but look, it's true. Wages are up wage pressures are up public. It's not as fun in a way that there's a lot of public stress now compared to 10 years ago, and being a police officer and a fire department to they're dealing with overdoses, we've had a lot more overdoses this year than we did five years ago. It's a stressful job. So I'm very proud of them. We're very proud to work with the unions on making sure we stay top ranked and all of those ways. And it's it's a, it's an ongoing process, we wouldn't be able to do what we're doing now, if we didn't have the new revenue from last year. So I do appreciate the City Council support and that they didn't give me quite as much as I asked for. So we did have to trim some things which otherwise could have helped. But we'll continue to work, the public is safe. The police and fire are on duty every moment of every day. But it is it's a challenge we're all facing. I was just with mayors from all around the country and every city is facing these issues. And frankly, not just in police and fire though those are pretty pressing right now. But we're facing it in utility Department and in the street Department and in the parks department. So as as an employer of choice, were going to continue to invest in their employees and address those issues.
Unknown Speaker
Is that something that you're able to open up this this year before the end of your term for, for for for Fire
Unknown Speaker
For Fire, you know, they're in a contract, labor contract, we have done substantial things this year outside of that contract of $1,000 bonus and a almost $800 Savings incentive we've offered. We're offering major housing incentives, we're actually offering $100,000 to help firefighters buy homes in the city and live there that we forgive over 10 years. So we're doing a lot of things and then we'll begin to labor negotiations early next year to get a new contract for the firefighters.
Unknown Speaker
So the city hasn't signed new operating agreements with Scooter companies. So though we see a still a few scooters around so they must still be under contract. The city will propose next steps for agreements with a council in the next few weeks. What how do you see that forming?
Unknown Speaker
So there have been really good conversations I think around this issue. You know, scooters arrived on our doorstep five or six years ago, we've had over a million rides taken in Bloomington by those scooters that are very popular people use them to get around. We've been working really closely with Indiana University and a scooter companies to identify ways to keep people safe, number one, and then to make sure that it doesn't impinge on other transportation options, but that we let people use this new option. So in the next week or two, I think pretty soon there'll be a presentation to city council about some recommendations of changes. They'll get the chance to weigh in if they want to from city council. And I expect we'll see some tweaks in that as we go forward to maybe restrict where the scooters can go maybe restrict some speeds and make sure they're complying with all the rules that we have.
Unknown Speaker
A lot going on and I still have to get to annexation because there was a major court decision and least in my mind that that happened a couple of weeks ago where a judge ruled in favor of the city. Regarding remand, Streeters wanting more time to gather petitions. The petitioners cited COVID. And the judge said no, that really isn't a valid reason. So right after that the city came up with I don't even know what how you call it but a asking maybe a judgment or a summary judgment to move forward with annexation, but yet the city had it has a couple of lawsuits from last year too. So I'm kind of can there's a lot going on kind of confused how that compares to what's going on from last year.
Unknown Speaker
We really have two separate lawsuits going on and and the one that has been most active and where we just got the judge who agreed with us that said, No, we don't start this over with new remonstrance we've done that we had the period we got signatures, that covers the two big areas on the west side. And the next thing to happen should be a trial. Because what happens if you if the city council annexes and then reminds traitors get a certain percentage over 50% It goes to trial and the judge under state law says is this an appropriate annexation or not? We're confident They will say yes, that trial we hope will begin in the months ahead. That's going forward. And that was the decision that said, let's go forward with the lawsuit. A second whole lawsuit is about the remonstrance petitions themselves. And as you many people remember, the state legislature stopped us in the middle of annexation in 2017. It took us four years to get the state Supreme Court to say that was illegal. It was unconstitutional legislation. So now you can start it again. In the meantime, the state legislature did another law that said all those remonstrance agreements, where property owner said we will join the city when you ask us to state legislature nullified 10 1000s of those. So the second lawsuit is saying that action by the state legislature was not legal either. And that lawsuit is proceeding as well, if that succeeds, which we think it should, and will, that actually means virtually all of the annexation goes through, because all of those signatures were not allowed, because the property owners had already said, If you give us sewer service, we will join this city. So it's complicated, two different lawsuits, but we're, we're looking forward to expeditious resolution, and both of those.
Unknown Speaker
So what was it that the city asked for a couple of weeks ago,
Unknown Speaker
couple of weeks ago, we asked a judge to declare that that 2019 action of the legislature nullifying those remonstrance what was illegal, just like the 2017 Act was and that will be a constitutional issue. So it's not really very complicated. There's not a lot of facts involved is just did they have the authority to do that, which we do? We think they do not.
Unknown Speaker
We're almost out of time. But I always like to leave the last question for you. Any announcements, anything that you'd like to let us know about? What's new?
Unknown Speaker
Thanks, Joe. Nothing big, you know, I had my my eighth and final State of the City address, and I got to celebrate so much good that's going on in the city. I'm really excited about the future. And I kind of tried to challenge us to think about 2030 and where we want to be and that was a neat exercise. And also just to thank all my 16 department heads who've worked so hard every day, but half of all of us and and we appreciate their leadership. And if people want to find out more about it. There's tons on the website.
Unknown Speaker
Thank you. We'll see you in April. Thanks, Joe.
