Hello and welcome to ask the mayor on WFIU. I'm Joe Hren this week we're with Bloomington Mayor John Hamilton. Hello, and welcome on this beautiful fall day in Bloomington.
Unknown Speaker
Good to be with you. As always, Joe, thanks so much. Don't forget,
Unknown Speaker
you can submit your questions to me or Hamilton or any of our mayor's to news at Indiana public media.org. You can also tweet us at Ask the mayor, let's start with the city budget recently passed for 2023. Its 120 $9 million. But it's without some raises for some of the union employees. So was wondering, no, those are still under negotiations. Do you have any update on that?
Unknown Speaker
Well, first, thanks. It was a really big day passed into budget unanimously by the city council. So I'm very pleased with that. It's a transformative budget.
Unknown Speaker
I've talked about that before. That is really helping us invest in major ways in our in our people, our employees, and our community with sustainability and public safety and housing and bus transit and our climate action plan and so many good things. So I'm really pleased with that budget, you did indicate we are every few years we negotiate labor contracts, we have three different labor organizations. And this year, we're negotiating with the American Federation of State County Municipal Employees, often known as asked me, and we have not concluded negotiations yet. So they don't go in the budget until we conclude, but I expect we'll conclude them before the end of the year. We sure hope, Sue, and we've had, I think, a dozen meetings and it should get resolved. And then we'll go back to council to appropriate the money for that.
Unknown Speaker
And it was about 175 employees. And during the public comment, they asked if the city wanted to see maintenance technicians walk off their jobs, City Hall employees are getting to $500 bonuses. Why are they upset?
Unknown Speaker
Well, look, I am so proud of what our employees do. We have 800 plus employees, and they've been fantastic as they typically are. But particularly through the pandemic, it's been really a dramatic challenge. And we are incredibly lucky as as members of Bloomington community to have such a dedicated workforce. We have done in the non union side, some very substantial benefits, some of which will go to union members, for example, the two $500, bonuses are going to go to everybody next year, virtually everybody. And then we're doing a bunch of other things. To increase the, I guess I put it this way, we want to be an employer of choice. And that's really important these days. And we're working really hard to make sure everybody's treated well. And with respect and well trained. And again, they do a great job serving our community
Unknown Speaker
budget is up about $22 million from last year. I believe most of that due to the local income tax increase. So people are paying more in taxes. Are they getting more back?
Unknown Speaker
They absolutely are, Joe, that you know, we talked about that in the spring when we pass the local income tax. And I made the case and the council agreed unanimously that these were critical investments. And they, for example, they pay for substantial investments in public safety, police, fire equipment, salaries, benefits, facilities. So that's a huge investment. They pay for almost $4 million a year new for our transit system. We have a great transit system. But we are going to be one of the best in the country, actually, as we move forward with the new bus rapid transit system and micro transit and Sunday service and more frequent service. Now that all takes a little time. But one of the first things that happened after we put this budget in place was our bus system got an $8 million federal grant to buy more electric buses. So you know, we've we've already seen the benefits. And people are going to see that as the as we go forward. We're going to have for example, a million dollars a year for housing investment. We never had that before. We're gonna have 1.6 million a year for investing in our climate action plan to put put teeth into that so that we can actually move forward. So I'm really pleased with it, and it's going to make our city a much brighter place in the future.
Unknown Speaker
All right. Let's get to the convention center expansion project. A couple of weeks ago, Friday's city posted a Facebook entry, saying the city would move forward with the expansion since talks with the county calling it dead. So this is the time I think with everything that's been going on I can just ask what The heck is going on?
Unknown Speaker
Well, look, you know, we've been working for six years on a convention expansion. And we've taken two swings at it. Basically, I would say one, for a long time, we worked toward getting a Capital Improvement Board and an a joint project. And we weren't able to land that that was right before the pandemic, we couldn't get that done. Just recently, over the last three or four months, with support from the Chamber of Commerce, we've proposed a different way forward where the transfer could happen from the county to the city, and we could move forward with it. And they didn't want to go that way, either. So that that's what concluded that that offer we made kind of an offering the county didn't seem interested in. So look, I'm actually quite optimistic, though, Joe, I think the city is in a position to move forward, fully collaborating with everybody. I mean, county commissioners, county council, city council, Chamber of Commerce, the whole public to move this forward. But we may just do it in a slightly different way from a Capital Improvement Board, we have the site that's ready, we have a good design that's kind of outlined, we have the funding that's been in place since 2017. And the city is ready to move forward. So we're still working out some of the details. But we basically took two swings at it, they didn't work. So we'll take another cut at it. And I think we have good chance of making it move forward. And it's really important for the city. Our convention center is old, it's small, many people want to come here to Bloomington. And between Sunday and Thursday, we really could use some more visitors who can help support our arts and our restaurants and our nightlife and all the things going on downtown. So we'll see what happens next. We need a few weeks to kind of plot out another approach, but it will be very inclusive, very consistent with what we've been talking about today.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, and I've obviously been covering this for a while understand that I understand that frustration at one point I wanted to zero in on or ask about was that CIB? Because I know you said that that kind of dropped off the pandemic hit everything stopped at that point. But it does seem like the what I'm hearing from the commissioners that they do want to go back to that together?
Unknown Speaker
Well, the commissioners have expressed a lot of different things. They've expressed a lot of doubt about the whole convention center. And that's fine. I think, you know, there, it's not unanimous there are people in the community who aren't in favor of it. And I think the commissioners have expressed that they're not sure about it. And so that's that viewpoint is fine. But the problem with the CIB approach is that gives that viewpoint a veto over anything that happens. So under a Capital Improvement Board structure, the commissioners have the right to say no at any point along the process. And if they're not committed to it, and I think they do have doubts. And again, that's fine that they have doubts, but we need to move forward with a team that is committed to success and committed to making it happen. And we can do that in full consultation with with everybody, including people who don't think it's a good idea. And again, that's fine. But the CIB makes that structure inherently, you have people who have doubts about the program who can veto it at any point along the way. And it's just very hard to get a big project on that way.
Unknown Speaker
Last question on this, just how would that work? I think when when people read that Facebook post, and some media has been covering us, including us to thinking that there could be a separate convention center across the street from the current convention center, that doesn't seem to make sense.
Unknown Speaker
Well, you know, you really just think about it as two buildings, there are always going to be two buildings, whoever oversees it and owns it. And one thing I think we'd be very committed to is having an integrated management, you really just need one person to book the conferences and to oversee the facility, operations and such. And it's really just two separate buildings. But we need a new building, we need a bigger building a better building to help our downtown thrive. And I want to make sure that gets done in an excellent way in an efficient way and in a timely way. So we're going to be looking at options for how to make that happen.
Unknown Speaker
And then but if you need that you need parking for hotels.
Unknown Speaker
Well, interesting, Joe, if you look at the site that we're talking about, which is immediately north of the current Convention Center, there's a big parking garage right to the east. There's a big hotel right to the north and right to the south. So it may well be we can move forward with an expansion that does not need those pieces because they're right there now, over the next 10 or 20 or 30 years, they're quite muted. Quite have some more things happening.
Unknown Speaker
Let's move on city plan Commission held the first hearing on rezoning land the county wants to use for a new jail. There's some environmental considerations side access but no bus lines moving to jail from downtown. Just curious, your thoughts on that. And that process that's happening right now?
Unknown Speaker
Well, first, I have toured the jail and we need a new jail. Our current jail is a stain frankly, on our county because the conditions there are not appropriate. They don't reflect who we are and our values and they're not treating people well. We are not as a county And I'm a county resident, and I care deeply about that. So I absolutely support the importance of improving the criminal justice system with a different jail. Now, and where that is, I've been very clear, let's just let this process run, you know what let's let's look, do the kind of regular stuff that we do on location, things that leave downtown, they could have a negative impact on downtown. But I'm trying to keep an open mind about that and let the process run. We'd like to be at the table, maybe a little more. But let me the most important point I want to make is this. We as a county, have many, many millions of dollars in American rescue plan act and new local income tax coming into the county. And I think we need to improve our services. Right now, as we're building a new jail. I think that we have the opportunity to invest more in mental health services and substance use disorder services. And a lot of what we're stressed we're seeing in our community is people who are kind of bouncing in and out of the criminal justice system, and the jail is not a place to get well. And we need to do better on that. So I think we need to do both. I think we need to look at a new jail, figure out where it should be what should be there. And I think that process is underway. But at the same time, I think we need to seriously invest in more mental health services and more substance use disorder. You probably know Indiana is at virtually the bottom of public health spending in the country, per capita. Maybe we're gonna get some more from the state government. But we need to do more locally to on those issues to help our people get better lives.
Unknown Speaker
As the same answer every mayor gives on this show for that question. Terre Haute just built a new jail down by their mall mall area and moved it from downtown as well. So it's very interesting. Something we haven't talked about in a while but Mary emailed in, and she's concerned about the growing numbers of deer in South East Bloomington. There was a deer taskforce for many years ago they made recommendations, such as allowing higher fences. Have any of these recommendations been acted upon? And any updates on deer?
Unknown Speaker
Well, thanks for the question. You know, this was this was an issue when I ran for mayor seven years ago and there were two deer questions right one was the deer question at Griffey Lake, which was the impact on our nature preserve and the other was the deer question inside the city and in our neighborhoods and the Griffey Lake, we've moved forward and we are protecting our nature preserve, and it's doing really well, I think, inside the city, the the kind of the urban deer, as we call them issue is still undecided and settled. I have seen some recent data and there's a report, I think that's either out or coming out soon. That's looking again, at the data. What that's telling us is going on it is I believe true in the southeast quadrant is where we're seeing the most dear human interactions, deer car interactions, if you will, that kind of thing. There are some changes in our rules from for fencing that have come. But I do think as a community, we still need to decide how do we want to manage this. And my approach has always been, it may be different in the southeast side of the city than the northwest side of the city or on IU campus versus not. And this is not a uniform impact in our community. So I'm encouraging neighborhood groups to weigh in on that. And the city council I know is interested too. So I wouldn't be surprised if city council takes up this issue.
Unknown Speaker
Thanks, Mary, for your email. I want to ask about East scooter companies, the city asked to stop their service from 11pm to 5am. Are the companies complying? And what what's the feedback then?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, the companies are complying so far as I know, we've just put that in place recently with them, telling them we think this is a prudent thing to do. You probably know, I've been generally a fan of of alternative transportation, having ways for people to get around our community, whether it's walking or biking, or scootering, or skateboarding, or all these other ways people get around the community. And scooters, we've had over I think 1.2 million rides of scooters in the city. So people are using these a lot. But we have noticed, of course, we had a very tragic fatality of a solo rider in August, along 10th Street, a student who's who, who died from a scooter accident and then we had a scooter rider who was basically run over by a apparently criminal act. It's under the criminal justice system, which which was a terrible tragedy to between 11 and five, we've looked at other cities as well that we feel like that may be a good step to try to protect safety. Those two incidents, for example happened around 2am. scooters are less essential for transportation back in from classes. So we're kind of trying it out as a pilot. It's not a curfew for example, if you own your own scooter, you're allowed to use it whenever you want, but it's just working with these companies to try to see if this will help improve safety and The overall effectiveness of the program.
Unknown Speaker
I know we're running out of time, I wanted to ask you and I just heard this on the way over. So I don't know if you know anything more. Is there an annexation hearing scheduled Friday? And it's the city part of that.
Unknown Speaker
I do know, Joe, that the annexation lawsuits are proceeding. There may be a hearing Friday. We are we are in two different lawsuits. And I don't know for sure, but I have no reason to doubt that there may be a hearing. I don't think we're going to be at a dispositive point yet. I hope they will move forward with some dispatch, but we have two different lawsuits that are proceeding forward.
Unknown Speaker
Early voting is open. So go vote.
Unknown Speaker
Please go vote. I haven't voted yet. I will, I think before voting day, full Election Day, but please, please vote get involved. The city's doing great, but we need everybody to step in. There's a lot of important races and get your vote counted. If you do it early. You know, it's done. And actually one of the benefits is people may stop calling you and knocking on your door if you want, you know, once you get voted. So
Unknown Speaker
did you get any announcements or last word from the mayor?
Unknown Speaker
Well, Joe, I'm really pleased we I think since we met we had a regional climate summit, regional climate convening, which was really important, proud worked with Columbus and Brown County and us to bring 100 people together to work on how are we going to address climate. And then actually, that same week, we had another big event for the city, which was groundbreaking for the fiber infrastructure. So actually, all through the city, we're now starting to see fiber getting put down and it's going to be a really transforming thing for our community.
Unknown Speaker
And we were there covering that to you. We're appreciate your time. Thanks so much. We'll see you next month.
Unknown Speaker
Thank you, Joe.
Unknown Speaker
Good to be with you. As always, Joe, thanks so much. Don't forget,
Unknown Speaker
you can submit your questions to me or Hamilton or any of our mayor's to news at Indiana public media.org. You can also tweet us at Ask the mayor, let's start with the city budget recently passed for 2023. Its 120 $9 million. But it's without some raises for some of the union employees. So was wondering, no, those are still under negotiations. Do you have any update on that?
Unknown Speaker
Well, first, thanks. It was a really big day passed into budget unanimously by the city council. So I'm very pleased with that. It's a transformative budget.
Unknown Speaker
I've talked about that before. That is really helping us invest in major ways in our in our people, our employees, and our community with sustainability and public safety and housing and bus transit and our climate action plan and so many good things. So I'm really pleased with that budget, you did indicate we are every few years we negotiate labor contracts, we have three different labor organizations. And this year, we're negotiating with the American Federation of State County Municipal Employees, often known as asked me, and we have not concluded negotiations yet. So they don't go in the budget until we conclude, but I expect we'll conclude them before the end of the year. We sure hope, Sue, and we've had, I think, a dozen meetings and it should get resolved. And then we'll go back to council to appropriate the money for that.
Unknown Speaker
And it was about 175 employees. And during the public comment, they asked if the city wanted to see maintenance technicians walk off their jobs, City Hall employees are getting to $500 bonuses. Why are they upset?
Unknown Speaker
Well, look, I am so proud of what our employees do. We have 800 plus employees, and they've been fantastic as they typically are. But particularly through the pandemic, it's been really a dramatic challenge. And we are incredibly lucky as as members of Bloomington community to have such a dedicated workforce. We have done in the non union side, some very substantial benefits, some of which will go to union members, for example, the two $500, bonuses are going to go to everybody next year, virtually everybody. And then we're doing a bunch of other things. To increase the, I guess I put it this way, we want to be an employer of choice. And that's really important these days. And we're working really hard to make sure everybody's treated well. And with respect and well trained. And again, they do a great job serving our community
Unknown Speaker
budget is up about $22 million from last year. I believe most of that due to the local income tax increase. So people are paying more in taxes. Are they getting more back?
Unknown Speaker
They absolutely are, Joe, that you know, we talked about that in the spring when we pass the local income tax. And I made the case and the council agreed unanimously that these were critical investments. And they, for example, they pay for substantial investments in public safety, police, fire equipment, salaries, benefits, facilities. So that's a huge investment. They pay for almost $4 million a year new for our transit system. We have a great transit system. But we are going to be one of the best in the country, actually, as we move forward with the new bus rapid transit system and micro transit and Sunday service and more frequent service. Now that all takes a little time. But one of the first things that happened after we put this budget in place was our bus system got an $8 million federal grant to buy more electric buses. So you know, we've we've already seen the benefits. And people are going to see that as the as we go forward. We're going to have for example, a million dollars a year for housing investment. We never had that before. We're gonna have 1.6 million a year for investing in our climate action plan to put put teeth into that so that we can actually move forward. So I'm really pleased with it, and it's going to make our city a much brighter place in the future.
Unknown Speaker
All right. Let's get to the convention center expansion project. A couple of weeks ago, Friday's city posted a Facebook entry, saying the city would move forward with the expansion since talks with the county calling it dead. So this is the time I think with everything that's been going on I can just ask what The heck is going on?
Unknown Speaker
Well, look, you know, we've been working for six years on a convention expansion. And we've taken two swings at it. Basically, I would say one, for a long time, we worked toward getting a Capital Improvement Board and an a joint project. And we weren't able to land that that was right before the pandemic, we couldn't get that done. Just recently, over the last three or four months, with support from the Chamber of Commerce, we've proposed a different way forward where the transfer could happen from the county to the city, and we could move forward with it. And they didn't want to go that way, either. So that that's what concluded that that offer we made kind of an offering the county didn't seem interested in. So look, I'm actually quite optimistic, though, Joe, I think the city is in a position to move forward, fully collaborating with everybody. I mean, county commissioners, county council, city council, Chamber of Commerce, the whole public to move this forward. But we may just do it in a slightly different way from a Capital Improvement Board, we have the site that's ready, we have a good design that's kind of outlined, we have the funding that's been in place since 2017. And the city is ready to move forward. So we're still working out some of the details. But we basically took two swings at it, they didn't work. So we'll take another cut at it. And I think we have good chance of making it move forward. And it's really important for the city. Our convention center is old, it's small, many people want to come here to Bloomington. And between Sunday and Thursday, we really could use some more visitors who can help support our arts and our restaurants and our nightlife and all the things going on downtown. So we'll see what happens next. We need a few weeks to kind of plot out another approach, but it will be very inclusive, very consistent with what we've been talking about today.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, and I've obviously been covering this for a while understand that I understand that frustration at one point I wanted to zero in on or ask about was that CIB? Because I know you said that that kind of dropped off the pandemic hit everything stopped at that point. But it does seem like the what I'm hearing from the commissioners that they do want to go back to that together?
Unknown Speaker
Well, the commissioners have expressed a lot of different things. They've expressed a lot of doubt about the whole convention center. And that's fine. I think, you know, there, it's not unanimous there are people in the community who aren't in favor of it. And I think the commissioners have expressed that they're not sure about it. And so that's that viewpoint is fine. But the problem with the CIB approach is that gives that viewpoint a veto over anything that happens. So under a Capital Improvement Board structure, the commissioners have the right to say no at any point along the process. And if they're not committed to it, and I think they do have doubts. And again, that's fine that they have doubts, but we need to move forward with a team that is committed to success and committed to making it happen. And we can do that in full consultation with with everybody, including people who don't think it's a good idea. And again, that's fine. But the CIB makes that structure inherently, you have people who have doubts about the program who can veto it at any point along the way. And it's just very hard to get a big project on that way.
Unknown Speaker
Last question on this, just how would that work? I think when when people read that Facebook post, and some media has been covering us, including us to thinking that there could be a separate convention center across the street from the current convention center, that doesn't seem to make sense.
Unknown Speaker
Well, you know, you really just think about it as two buildings, there are always going to be two buildings, whoever oversees it and owns it. And one thing I think we'd be very committed to is having an integrated management, you really just need one person to book the conferences and to oversee the facility, operations and such. And it's really just two separate buildings. But we need a new building, we need a bigger building a better building to help our downtown thrive. And I want to make sure that gets done in an excellent way in an efficient way and in a timely way. So we're going to be looking at options for how to make that happen.
Unknown Speaker
And then but if you need that you need parking for hotels.
Unknown Speaker
Well, interesting, Joe, if you look at the site that we're talking about, which is immediately north of the current Convention Center, there's a big parking garage right to the east. There's a big hotel right to the north and right to the south. So it may well be we can move forward with an expansion that does not need those pieces because they're right there now, over the next 10 or 20 or 30 years, they're quite muted. Quite have some more things happening.
Unknown Speaker
Let's move on city plan Commission held the first hearing on rezoning land the county wants to use for a new jail. There's some environmental considerations side access but no bus lines moving to jail from downtown. Just curious, your thoughts on that. And that process that's happening right now?
Unknown Speaker
Well, first, I have toured the jail and we need a new jail. Our current jail is a stain frankly, on our county because the conditions there are not appropriate. They don't reflect who we are and our values and they're not treating people well. We are not as a county And I'm a county resident, and I care deeply about that. So I absolutely support the importance of improving the criminal justice system with a different jail. Now, and where that is, I've been very clear, let's just let this process run, you know what let's let's look, do the kind of regular stuff that we do on location, things that leave downtown, they could have a negative impact on downtown. But I'm trying to keep an open mind about that and let the process run. We'd like to be at the table, maybe a little more. But let me the most important point I want to make is this. We as a county, have many, many millions of dollars in American rescue plan act and new local income tax coming into the county. And I think we need to improve our services. Right now, as we're building a new jail. I think that we have the opportunity to invest more in mental health services and substance use disorder services. And a lot of what we're stressed we're seeing in our community is people who are kind of bouncing in and out of the criminal justice system, and the jail is not a place to get well. And we need to do better on that. So I think we need to do both. I think we need to look at a new jail, figure out where it should be what should be there. And I think that process is underway. But at the same time, I think we need to seriously invest in more mental health services and more substance use disorder. You probably know Indiana is at virtually the bottom of public health spending in the country, per capita. Maybe we're gonna get some more from the state government. But we need to do more locally to on those issues to help our people get better lives.
Unknown Speaker
As the same answer every mayor gives on this show for that question. Terre Haute just built a new jail down by their mall mall area and moved it from downtown as well. So it's very interesting. Something we haven't talked about in a while but Mary emailed in, and she's concerned about the growing numbers of deer in South East Bloomington. There was a deer taskforce for many years ago they made recommendations, such as allowing higher fences. Have any of these recommendations been acted upon? And any updates on deer?
Unknown Speaker
Well, thanks for the question. You know, this was this was an issue when I ran for mayor seven years ago and there were two deer questions right one was the deer question at Griffey Lake, which was the impact on our nature preserve and the other was the deer question inside the city and in our neighborhoods and the Griffey Lake, we've moved forward and we are protecting our nature preserve, and it's doing really well, I think, inside the city, the the kind of the urban deer, as we call them issue is still undecided and settled. I have seen some recent data and there's a report, I think that's either out or coming out soon. That's looking again, at the data. What that's telling us is going on it is I believe true in the southeast quadrant is where we're seeing the most dear human interactions, deer car interactions, if you will, that kind of thing. There are some changes in our rules from for fencing that have come. But I do think as a community, we still need to decide how do we want to manage this. And my approach has always been, it may be different in the southeast side of the city than the northwest side of the city or on IU campus versus not. And this is not a uniform impact in our community. So I'm encouraging neighborhood groups to weigh in on that. And the city council I know is interested too. So I wouldn't be surprised if city council takes up this issue.
Unknown Speaker
Thanks, Mary, for your email. I want to ask about East scooter companies, the city asked to stop their service from 11pm to 5am. Are the companies complying? And what what's the feedback then?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, the companies are complying so far as I know, we've just put that in place recently with them, telling them we think this is a prudent thing to do. You probably know, I've been generally a fan of of alternative transportation, having ways for people to get around our community, whether it's walking or biking, or scootering, or skateboarding, or all these other ways people get around the community. And scooters, we've had over I think 1.2 million rides of scooters in the city. So people are using these a lot. But we have noticed, of course, we had a very tragic fatality of a solo rider in August, along 10th Street, a student who's who, who died from a scooter accident and then we had a scooter rider who was basically run over by a apparently criminal act. It's under the criminal justice system, which which was a terrible tragedy to between 11 and five, we've looked at other cities as well that we feel like that may be a good step to try to protect safety. Those two incidents, for example happened around 2am. scooters are less essential for transportation back in from classes. So we're kind of trying it out as a pilot. It's not a curfew for example, if you own your own scooter, you're allowed to use it whenever you want, but it's just working with these companies to try to see if this will help improve safety and The overall effectiveness of the program.
Unknown Speaker
I know we're running out of time, I wanted to ask you and I just heard this on the way over. So I don't know if you know anything more. Is there an annexation hearing scheduled Friday? And it's the city part of that.
Unknown Speaker
I do know, Joe, that the annexation lawsuits are proceeding. There may be a hearing Friday. We are we are in two different lawsuits. And I don't know for sure, but I have no reason to doubt that there may be a hearing. I don't think we're going to be at a dispositive point yet. I hope they will move forward with some dispatch, but we have two different lawsuits that are proceeding forward.
Unknown Speaker
Early voting is open. So go vote.
Unknown Speaker
Please go vote. I haven't voted yet. I will, I think before voting day, full Election Day, but please, please vote get involved. The city's doing great, but we need everybody to step in. There's a lot of important races and get your vote counted. If you do it early. You know, it's done. And actually one of the benefits is people may stop calling you and knocking on your door if you want, you know, once you get voted. So
Unknown Speaker
did you get any announcements or last word from the mayor?
Unknown Speaker
Well, Joe, I'm really pleased we I think since we met we had a regional climate summit, regional climate convening, which was really important, proud worked with Columbus and Brown County and us to bring 100 people together to work on how are we going to address climate. And then actually, that same week, we had another big event for the city, which was groundbreaking for the fiber infrastructure. So actually, all through the city, we're now starting to see fiber getting put down and it's going to be a really transforming thing for our community.
Unknown Speaker
And we were there covering that to you. We're appreciate your time. Thanks so much. We'll see you next month.
Unknown Speaker
Thank you, Joe.
