Speaker 1
okay, hello and welcome to ask the mayor on wfiu. I'm Joe Hren. This week, new month, it's March. We're back in Columbus with Mayor Mary Ferdon. Hello, welcome, Happy March to you.
Speaker 2
Well, thank you. It just struck me that daylight savings time change is coming up this weekend. So while I'm on here, I'm just gonna remind people that it's not fun, right? Because this is the time of the year when we actually lose an hour. But
Speaker 1
I forgot to someone reminded me, oh, that's not for another month. But no, that's this
Speaker 2
spring forward Saturday night, yeah, yeah. I think it's like two, 2am Sunday morning or something.
Speaker 1
And we're up in the 50s, starting to feel a
Speaker 3
little bit spring. That's right. I think 60s come next week. So yeah, are you?
Speaker 1
Are you done with the cold weather, the snow, the salt, that's
Speaker 2
right, we are so done. We're ready for spring. So
Speaker 1
we also move into the second half of the legislative session. Governor Mike Braun saying he's predicting a wrestling match over the property tax reform, but he's confident lawmakers refine that happy medium. What are you bracing for coming from the state house?
Speaker 2
So I like what the represent House of Representatives have done right the house has done with their bill, and I think it's a lot, it's a better feel for the local city. We still, we still aren't 100% sure how much we would lose with property taxes, but I think with a lot less than the Senate Bill one, and I had a good conversation with Representative Ryan Lauer last week, I've been talking with our senator, Greg Walker, and they're both on the same page. They understand that as a community, we can't we can't exist for long periods of time with a tax cap on property taxes, with inflation considerably higher, the majority of how we spend our money, aside from schools right at the other local level, is on public safety and people, and so hopefully they will find the right balance. And I'm little bit more confident now than I was a month ago. And so I just really appreciate in our case, that we've been able to talk to our local legislators, and they've been listening in to what we're talking about. So it's a delicate balance. I believe Governor Braun ran on reducing property taxes and eliminating, you know, waste and that type of thing. And so it takes time to figure out the right the right way to do that, right? So remember
Speaker 1
former mayor Duke batten over in Terre Haute, saying, you know, I don't mind the cuts, but what's the replacement revenue? Who's also looking for that replacement revenue too?
Speaker 2
It's replacement revenue, and it's, it's going to citizens and saying, okay, if I'm going to lose, if we're going to lose 10% of our revenue, what are you willing to give up? And that's the tough thing, because everybody wants to cut taxes, right? But it's the same thing in your household. If you lose 10% of your income, something has to go. And it's probably easy to do the first 5% but then you start talking about employees who provide services. And you know, public safety, again, is the largest part of is the largest part of our budget, and that's not something people want to give up. They love their parks. They like having the trash picked up on time. Like having the streets, streets in good shape. So, you know, making sure that animals are taken care of. So it becomes a really tough, tough decision. Obviously, we have to do whatever the state legislator ends up. We have to live with whatever ends up with the final bills. But we have been talking to our legislators,
Speaker 1
and I know the city of Columbus is going through a change in the class of city. It was what a class three and moved to a class two, right in 2024 in 2024 so that that has changed, the change has happened and is complete, right? Are you starting to see the effects of that, right? Right? Yeah.
Speaker 2
So two biggest effects is, we went from a clerk, Treasurer position to a controller, because we are financial picture is so much larger, and so that's provides a level of professionalism. It also gives our clerk position the chance to really work hard on record retention and that type of thing. So that's the first change. The bigger change is we went from seven city council members to nine, so we have three at large instead of two at large, and we added a district. So in my state. City address. I said, we're playing, we're playing with a baseball team now, and so there's some adjustments to make there. And then for me personally, as the mayor, I no longer preside over a city council meeting, so I'm sitting in the back. And, you know, a lot of times it feels pretty good. Every now and then, I'd like to be running the show, but, but it's just a transition that we've gotten used to.
Speaker 1
And does that, I mean, how does that affect the way the city is run, right?
Speaker 2
So the, again, the purpose of going from a class three to a class two is really twofold. One is when you financially, when you've added more citizens and you've added more finances, right? And so we've got a, you know, our total budget is over 100 million when you adding a lot of different funds. And so that's a so that's why we have a CPA who's who's overseeing the finances. And then the other part of it is the belief that if you have 50 plus 1000 citizens, you need more representation. And so you went from seven representatives to nine,
Speaker 1
well, and you were mentioning the State of the City address a couple weeks ago, booked solid events at next park where you had your event. And it was fun. I did watch it, and you can hear all the events going on kind of in the background. It looks like a busy place, but is the that income starting to match? You know, the revenue the expenses that the city has for that. I mean, that it's a beautiful facility. It is a big facility. It is a
Speaker 2
big facility. Yeah. So our original projections were take about three years, so we're in year two. But like last, last weekend, we had a huge football tournament there. I don't remember how many teams were coming in this weekend, we've got a wrestling tournament with about 1500 people coming in, and then across the street at Lincoln, at our Hamilton center, we have another 1200 ice skaters coming in. So yeah, we're seeing, particularly on the weekends, we're seeing a lot of tournaments coming in and bringing a lot of people to Columbus. So I feel like it's we're really moving in the path that we need to for it to for it to be sustainable. But I will say to what you the point that you made, the reason that we held it in the field house on a Wednesday evening is because that's a busy night for us, and we, I wanted the community to see that we have pickleball going on, lots of volleyball. We had baseball, the little guys were behind the stage. And, yeah, there were a few times when people said they couldn't hear me over the, you know, the noise of the field, Field House. And I was okay with that, because I wanted to show that it is being well used by local residents.
Speaker 1
And it's the main part is done. And right now they're finishing with the campus, the landscaping, right?
Speaker 2
Yes, so the campus, and if you've driven by recently, it's we've got the turf in. We've started putting in most of the trees, got the benches in. The restroom is almost completed. It's called the Midtown green, and we will be doing a ribbon cutting the first part of July.
Speaker 1
And of course, a major part of your address was the lack of housing, housing studies, strategies, and you were talking all levels of housing. We're hearing this. Every mayor is saying, Yes, I think it's the theme of this new wave of mayors and government officials. So I remember last year, you're talking about a lot of studies, right? Is the housing study one of those that's now you're starting to see the data, and you have something to
Speaker 2
work with, right? Yeah, we just, we completed it last year. It was done by an organization or company called RDG, which also did one in Bloomington. And so now, in fact, is this morning at our Board of Works meeting, we officially adopted it, and it's really some guidelines and a lot of recommendations that we've already started putting into play. Our redevelopment commission is using that as they provide TIF dollars for some so as developers come in, they have TIF dollars that we use because we are putting a priority on housing, we've been able to use it to help. We had two local developers who got some of those Indiana tax credits that are so difficult in order for them to move forward with projects. Both of those are low income. One actually has senior care and child care, so we're really excited about that. So yeah, the study told us, gave us back up for a lot of stuff that we did know, but it also helped us understand just the breadth of the the issue, basically, what we've what we've found, is that we we need to create 300 housing units per year till the year 2035, well, that's, you know, that's huge, but okay, but now we have a target, and so Every year we're trying to target. So what does 300 look like, right? Is it single family homes? Is it multi family? Do we try to go to tiny homes? Part of what came out of the recommendations of the study was what we needed to do zoning wise through our planning department, which allowed us to look a little bit differently at accessory dwelling. Right? Which is allows you maybe to move your in laws, or you maybe not your in laws, but your you know, your parents, your parents into into your backyard, right? And so these are things. These are just options. And so I think every city is looking at what fits best for us, and a study like we did just gives us the the knowledge and the information to move forward. We also did a transportation study, and I talked about that in the state of the city, and so we were getting recommendations out of that, and we're actually going to kind of release that to the public, I think, in April, for the City of Columbus, if you are familiar with it, we what we've heard over and over for years is that we need a way for residents to get on a bus line get to the south part of the community, where we have a lot we have a huge industrial district that workers need to get and then we have people who want to get to the north side of the county, where we have Edinburg outlet mall and so and there's a lot of retail up there. And then we have a lot of people who need to get to doctors out in the community. So trying to figure out, how can we change up the system so that there's more of a an Uber option, and there's a term that I can't remember right now, but gives you the ability to do more of a point to point, so that you're not riding a bus for two hours to get somewhere. So yeah, studies are they're frustrating sometimes for the community, but it really is a way to have an expert come in, look at your data, and then come back and say, Okay, if you want to achieve this, here's some steps that you can take, and it gives us a road map,
Speaker 1
yeah. And what's so interesting too? It's, I mean, sometimes people get upset at cities, or, you know, if they're developing too quick, or why? Why is this big building going up downtown? And it said, well, the city isn't building that a developer is building at the city is just trying to entice Right, right developers to come. But then, as we saw in Bloomington, and there's this need for workforce housing, but then there's all these open hundreds of open apartments because the rent is too high, right? So, you know, how you know, how much can the city do, right?
Speaker 2
The city can provide incentives and economic tools. TIF is one area doing a study of in fact, as we have a developer who needed that study done and adopted, which helps them go after tax credits that we can get through the state of Indiana. It also helps us focus on the kind of development that we would want, right? But I do hear you when you talk about the cost. Just recently, I was visiting Kansas City, and, you know, again, rents there and housing cost is astronomical. I had a friend who just got back from Boston, and they were talking about, you know, what it takes to get into. You know, an average home, there's a there's no starter home, right? Home start in the three and 400 1000s. Well, we don't, we don't have people who can support that with their income. And so we've got to find a way to attract developers. But developers don't come in and build if they can't make money. And so what can the city offer? Sometimes it's land, right? Sometimes it's TIF dollars. Sometimes it's changing a zoning ordinance that allows it a little bit easier, so we use every tool that we can find.
Speaker 1
Has there been any thought about and I know we touched upon this a little while ago, but it's been a while. Can the city annex certain parts that has not been developed yet, right? One
Speaker 2
of the problems that the city of Columbus has is we're pretty much land locked, and so annexation has become very difficult. And if you may remember, we discussed an annexation case last year that that got locked up four to four. And so I remember, that's right, yeah. So yeah, we're, we're, we are really hampered by the annexation. And the state legislature has really changed the annexation laws, and we do a number of voluntary annexations, a property here and there. But that's one of the reasons why, like other communities, we really have to go up, right? We have to be a little bit more dense. And then the term, that other term we use is in fill. We've got a lot of aging, old house housing in, you know, in the inner, inner city of Columbus, and some of it's dilapidated and it's just falling down. And so how can we, how can we get that redeveloped so that it can provide a home, or, you know, a duplex, to get more people housed. So, yeah, there's a lot of different you try to take a lot of different tactics to figure out how to get there, but it is really disappointing that housing costs are so high and so so many, you know, I'm going to use the term millennials, right? But get out of college or get out of high school, work really hard, and they just struggled to make the rent, let alone being able to save money to get into a house. So you know, that is a frustrating thing, and I know we're all really working hard to figure out how we can change that.
Speaker 1
I wanted to get a very brief background, because I think this is early in its way through the city council. Council, but there's a new noise ordinance for Columbus waiting for approval. What? Where did that come from? You
Speaker 2
know, it's something that we've been talking about here. I'm going to say going back, you know, 5678, years, right? Because there's always somebody who's disrespectful of someone else, right? So this, this came out of, really, a combination of, you know, loud vehicles, fireworks, people, playing music too loud. You know, how can we what tools can we give the police department in order to deal with noise? I mean, unfortunately, what happens is, you know, in your home or your apartment, you play your music too loud, and I call the police, by the time the police show up, you turned it down. There's nothing that can be done, and then you walk away. So like every community, it's another problem we deal with is, is noise and can't can't teach people how to have common sense and be respectful. Sometimes you
Speaker 1
just have to have something in the books kind of to go by, yeah, to go on. Yeah,
Speaker 2
and, you know, I mean, it also causes a lot of disagreement and fights among neighbors. So this is a really important one to try to address.
Speaker 1
We're about out of time. Did you have any breaking news or announcements that you'd like to
Speaker 2
say? You know, if you pay attention to Columbus, you know that we are. We've got a study going on, another study right downtown, study called 2030 downtown, and we've had great response. I think even two weeks ago, we had over 1500 people who have responded to the survey. So we've actually extended it, and if you go to the front page of the city's website, you can participate. And so really excited, because people have been very engaged. And we had a public session where over 300 people showed up. And it shows, it shows to us that the city of Columbus, the downtown, is a very important place for our citizens. It's kind of the center of economic and art and design, and that people really want to see it activated more, and they want to see what it can, you know, look like kind of post COVID. So we should have some responses by July for that. And and this is one where, and I said this in the state of the city, this is one where we're going to, we're going to, we're going to go to work on this quickly. Give me some recommendations, and we'll start pushing things out so
Speaker 1
well, we'll see you in April and see what that brings. Really appreciate your time here. Good to
Unknown Speaker
see you, Joe. Thank you.
okay, hello and welcome to ask the mayor on wfiu. I'm Joe Hren. This week, new month, it's March. We're back in Columbus with Mayor Mary Ferdon. Hello, welcome, Happy March to you.
Speaker 2
Well, thank you. It just struck me that daylight savings time change is coming up this weekend. So while I'm on here, I'm just gonna remind people that it's not fun, right? Because this is the time of the year when we actually lose an hour. But
Speaker 1
I forgot to someone reminded me, oh, that's not for another month. But no, that's this
Speaker 2
spring forward Saturday night, yeah, yeah. I think it's like two, 2am Sunday morning or something.
Speaker 1
And we're up in the 50s, starting to feel a
Speaker 3
little bit spring. That's right. I think 60s come next week. So yeah, are you?
Speaker 1
Are you done with the cold weather, the snow, the salt, that's
Speaker 2
right, we are so done. We're ready for spring. So
Speaker 1
we also move into the second half of the legislative session. Governor Mike Braun saying he's predicting a wrestling match over the property tax reform, but he's confident lawmakers refine that happy medium. What are you bracing for coming from the state house?
Speaker 2
So I like what the represent House of Representatives have done right the house has done with their bill, and I think it's a lot, it's a better feel for the local city. We still, we still aren't 100% sure how much we would lose with property taxes, but I think with a lot less than the Senate Bill one, and I had a good conversation with Representative Ryan Lauer last week, I've been talking with our senator, Greg Walker, and they're both on the same page. They understand that as a community, we can't we can't exist for long periods of time with a tax cap on property taxes, with inflation considerably higher, the majority of how we spend our money, aside from schools right at the other local level, is on public safety and people, and so hopefully they will find the right balance. And I'm little bit more confident now than I was a month ago. And so I just really appreciate in our case, that we've been able to talk to our local legislators, and they've been listening in to what we're talking about. So it's a delicate balance. I believe Governor Braun ran on reducing property taxes and eliminating, you know, waste and that type of thing. And so it takes time to figure out the right the right way to do that, right? So remember
Speaker 1
former mayor Duke batten over in Terre Haute, saying, you know, I don't mind the cuts, but what's the replacement revenue? Who's also looking for that replacement revenue too?
Speaker 2
It's replacement revenue, and it's, it's going to citizens and saying, okay, if I'm going to lose, if we're going to lose 10% of our revenue, what are you willing to give up? And that's the tough thing, because everybody wants to cut taxes, right? But it's the same thing in your household. If you lose 10% of your income, something has to go. And it's probably easy to do the first 5% but then you start talking about employees who provide services. And you know, public safety, again, is the largest part of is the largest part of our budget, and that's not something people want to give up. They love their parks. They like having the trash picked up on time. Like having the streets, streets in good shape. So, you know, making sure that animals are taken care of. So it becomes a really tough, tough decision. Obviously, we have to do whatever the state legislator ends up. We have to live with whatever ends up with the final bills. But we have been talking to our legislators,
Speaker 1
and I know the city of Columbus is going through a change in the class of city. It was what a class three and moved to a class two, right in 2024 in 2024 so that that has changed, the change has happened and is complete, right? Are you starting to see the effects of that, right? Right? Yeah.
Speaker 2
So two biggest effects is, we went from a clerk, Treasurer position to a controller, because we are financial picture is so much larger, and so that's provides a level of professionalism. It also gives our clerk position the chance to really work hard on record retention and that type of thing. So that's the first change. The bigger change is we went from seven city council members to nine, so we have three at large instead of two at large, and we added a district. So in my state. City address. I said, we're playing, we're playing with a baseball team now, and so there's some adjustments to make there. And then for me personally, as the mayor, I no longer preside over a city council meeting, so I'm sitting in the back. And, you know, a lot of times it feels pretty good. Every now and then, I'd like to be running the show, but, but it's just a transition that we've gotten used to.
Speaker 1
And does that, I mean, how does that affect the way the city is run, right?
Speaker 2
So the, again, the purpose of going from a class three to a class two is really twofold. One is when you financially, when you've added more citizens and you've added more finances, right? And so we've got a, you know, our total budget is over 100 million when you adding a lot of different funds. And so that's a so that's why we have a CPA who's who's overseeing the finances. And then the other part of it is the belief that if you have 50 plus 1000 citizens, you need more representation. And so you went from seven representatives to nine,
Speaker 1
well, and you were mentioning the State of the City address a couple weeks ago, booked solid events at next park where you had your event. And it was fun. I did watch it, and you can hear all the events going on kind of in the background. It looks like a busy place, but is the that income starting to match? You know, the revenue the expenses that the city has for that. I mean, that it's a beautiful facility. It is a big facility. It is a
Speaker 2
big facility. Yeah. So our original projections were take about three years, so we're in year two. But like last, last weekend, we had a huge football tournament there. I don't remember how many teams were coming in this weekend, we've got a wrestling tournament with about 1500 people coming in, and then across the street at Lincoln, at our Hamilton center, we have another 1200 ice skaters coming in. So yeah, we're seeing, particularly on the weekends, we're seeing a lot of tournaments coming in and bringing a lot of people to Columbus. So I feel like it's we're really moving in the path that we need to for it to for it to be sustainable. But I will say to what you the point that you made, the reason that we held it in the field house on a Wednesday evening is because that's a busy night for us, and we, I wanted the community to see that we have pickleball going on, lots of volleyball. We had baseball, the little guys were behind the stage. And, yeah, there were a few times when people said they couldn't hear me over the, you know, the noise of the field, Field House. And I was okay with that, because I wanted to show that it is being well used by local residents.
Speaker 1
And it's the main part is done. And right now they're finishing with the campus, the landscaping, right?
Speaker 2
Yes, so the campus, and if you've driven by recently, it's we've got the turf in. We've started putting in most of the trees, got the benches in. The restroom is almost completed. It's called the Midtown green, and we will be doing a ribbon cutting the first part of July.
Speaker 1
And of course, a major part of your address was the lack of housing, housing studies, strategies, and you were talking all levels of housing. We're hearing this. Every mayor is saying, Yes, I think it's the theme of this new wave of mayors and government officials. So I remember last year, you're talking about a lot of studies, right? Is the housing study one of those that's now you're starting to see the data, and you have something to
Speaker 2
work with, right? Yeah, we just, we completed it last year. It was done by an organization or company called RDG, which also did one in Bloomington. And so now, in fact, is this morning at our Board of Works meeting, we officially adopted it, and it's really some guidelines and a lot of recommendations that we've already started putting into play. Our redevelopment commission is using that as they provide TIF dollars for some so as developers come in, they have TIF dollars that we use because we are putting a priority on housing, we've been able to use it to help. We had two local developers who got some of those Indiana tax credits that are so difficult in order for them to move forward with projects. Both of those are low income. One actually has senior care and child care, so we're really excited about that. So yeah, the study told us, gave us back up for a lot of stuff that we did know, but it also helped us understand just the breadth of the the issue, basically, what we've what we've found, is that we we need to create 300 housing units per year till the year 2035, well, that's, you know, that's huge, but okay, but now we have a target, and so Every year we're trying to target. So what does 300 look like, right? Is it single family homes? Is it multi family? Do we try to go to tiny homes? Part of what came out of the recommendations of the study was what we needed to do zoning wise through our planning department, which allowed us to look a little bit differently at accessory dwelling. Right? Which is allows you maybe to move your in laws, or you maybe not your in laws, but your you know, your parents, your parents into into your backyard, right? And so these are things. These are just options. And so I think every city is looking at what fits best for us, and a study like we did just gives us the the knowledge and the information to move forward. We also did a transportation study, and I talked about that in the state of the city, and so we were getting recommendations out of that, and we're actually going to kind of release that to the public, I think, in April, for the City of Columbus, if you are familiar with it, we what we've heard over and over for years is that we need a way for residents to get on a bus line get to the south part of the community, where we have a lot we have a huge industrial district that workers need to get and then we have people who want to get to the north side of the county, where we have Edinburg outlet mall and so and there's a lot of retail up there. And then we have a lot of people who need to get to doctors out in the community. So trying to figure out, how can we change up the system so that there's more of a an Uber option, and there's a term that I can't remember right now, but gives you the ability to do more of a point to point, so that you're not riding a bus for two hours to get somewhere. So yeah, studies are they're frustrating sometimes for the community, but it really is a way to have an expert come in, look at your data, and then come back and say, Okay, if you want to achieve this, here's some steps that you can take, and it gives us a road map,
Speaker 1
yeah. And what's so interesting too? It's, I mean, sometimes people get upset at cities, or, you know, if they're developing too quick, or why? Why is this big building going up downtown? And it said, well, the city isn't building that a developer is building at the city is just trying to entice Right, right developers to come. But then, as we saw in Bloomington, and there's this need for workforce housing, but then there's all these open hundreds of open apartments because the rent is too high, right? So, you know, how you know, how much can the city do, right?
Speaker 2
The city can provide incentives and economic tools. TIF is one area doing a study of in fact, as we have a developer who needed that study done and adopted, which helps them go after tax credits that we can get through the state of Indiana. It also helps us focus on the kind of development that we would want, right? But I do hear you when you talk about the cost. Just recently, I was visiting Kansas City, and, you know, again, rents there and housing cost is astronomical. I had a friend who just got back from Boston, and they were talking about, you know, what it takes to get into. You know, an average home, there's a there's no starter home, right? Home start in the three and 400 1000s. Well, we don't, we don't have people who can support that with their income. And so we've got to find a way to attract developers. But developers don't come in and build if they can't make money. And so what can the city offer? Sometimes it's land, right? Sometimes it's TIF dollars. Sometimes it's changing a zoning ordinance that allows it a little bit easier, so we use every tool that we can find.
Speaker 1
Has there been any thought about and I know we touched upon this a little while ago, but it's been a while. Can the city annex certain parts that has not been developed yet, right? One
Speaker 2
of the problems that the city of Columbus has is we're pretty much land locked, and so annexation has become very difficult. And if you may remember, we discussed an annexation case last year that that got locked up four to four. And so I remember, that's right, yeah. So yeah, we're, we're, we are really hampered by the annexation. And the state legislature has really changed the annexation laws, and we do a number of voluntary annexations, a property here and there. But that's one of the reasons why, like other communities, we really have to go up, right? We have to be a little bit more dense. And then the term, that other term we use is in fill. We've got a lot of aging, old house housing in, you know, in the inner, inner city of Columbus, and some of it's dilapidated and it's just falling down. And so how can we, how can we get that redeveloped so that it can provide a home, or, you know, a duplex, to get more people housed. So, yeah, there's a lot of different you try to take a lot of different tactics to figure out how to get there, but it is really disappointing that housing costs are so high and so so many, you know, I'm going to use the term millennials, right? But get out of college or get out of high school, work really hard, and they just struggled to make the rent, let alone being able to save money to get into a house. So you know, that is a frustrating thing, and I know we're all really working hard to figure out how we can change that.
Speaker 1
I wanted to get a very brief background, because I think this is early in its way through the city council. Council, but there's a new noise ordinance for Columbus waiting for approval. What? Where did that come from? You
Speaker 2
know, it's something that we've been talking about here. I'm going to say going back, you know, 5678, years, right? Because there's always somebody who's disrespectful of someone else, right? So this, this came out of, really, a combination of, you know, loud vehicles, fireworks, people, playing music too loud. You know, how can we what tools can we give the police department in order to deal with noise? I mean, unfortunately, what happens is, you know, in your home or your apartment, you play your music too loud, and I call the police, by the time the police show up, you turned it down. There's nothing that can be done, and then you walk away. So like every community, it's another problem we deal with is, is noise and can't can't teach people how to have common sense and be respectful. Sometimes you
Speaker 1
just have to have something in the books kind of to go by, yeah, to go on. Yeah,
Speaker 2
and, you know, I mean, it also causes a lot of disagreement and fights among neighbors. So this is a really important one to try to address.
Speaker 1
We're about out of time. Did you have any breaking news or announcements that you'd like to
Speaker 2
say? You know, if you pay attention to Columbus, you know that we are. We've got a study going on, another study right downtown, study called 2030 downtown, and we've had great response. I think even two weeks ago, we had over 1500 people who have responded to the survey. So we've actually extended it, and if you go to the front page of the city's website, you can participate. And so really excited, because people have been very engaged. And we had a public session where over 300 people showed up. And it shows, it shows to us that the city of Columbus, the downtown, is a very important place for our citizens. It's kind of the center of economic and art and design, and that people really want to see it activated more, and they want to see what it can, you know, look like kind of post COVID. So we should have some responses by July for that. And and this is one where, and I said this in the state of the city, this is one where we're going to, we're going to, we're going to go to work on this quickly. Give me some recommendations, and we'll start pushing things out so
Speaker 1
well, we'll see you in April and see what that brings. Really appreciate your time here. Good to
Unknown Speaker
see you, Joe. Thank you.
