Unknown Speaker
All right, we begin another month in the year of 2020. It is September, I am with Columbus Mayor Jim lindop via zoom, I guess until the foreseeable future. Thanks for being on the show. And today you come to us from your basement.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, yeah, we're down here in the basement. Took a late lunch today and just sort of working from home. So glad to host you here. All right,
Unknown Speaker
well, let's just start with what has always been the top of our topics, the COVID-19 cases, you know, and making my weekly journey with the other mayors throughout Indiana. You know, I see this pattern of the spike in the COVID cases. It was so low at the end of June. And then you know, July 4, happen kind of spiked up. And then August 13 seemed to be a huge spike, not just it was it seemed everywhere. And I know I know today we see about eight cases in Bartholomew county or up to About 1070 are you looking at these these patterns too? And are you seeing anything that is giving you some hope of what's coming?
Unknown Speaker
Well, we, we still worry a lot about the flu season. And and just, you know what it will be like when it gets here. What I would tell you is that we were cautious or nervous a little bit. I think we understood the rationale behind the reopening of school or at least the in person learning here, but only consolidate schools. And, and we felt like it was a thing to do, but nonetheless a little nervous about just how that was going to turn out. And so, we talked about August 13, being a high watermark that's not quite two weeks after school reopening. And so you know, that's it, but it's that kind of sort of fits with the pattern of that disease that you use tend to see your spikes two weeks after whatever event you might want to associate But I do believe that I don't think that the reopening of the schools caused the spike that we saw, they should just don't sense that there's a connection there. Nonetheless, you know, we continue to be concerned and cautious about any kind of gathering and hope that people practice the distancing and mask wearing that never talked about. But, but no, I tend to think our numbers have managed fairly well here in bartholin. County. I feel good about that. I think that some of our efforts early on to get the word out, you know, in terms of how you, you protect yourself and protect others from this virus. So I think that had a little I had a lot of effect on people's behavior. And that's really what we have to manage is the behavior that people exhibit. We're putting them out in public.
Unknown Speaker
And I know you always talk a lot about hospitalizations. I believe you had a record number earlier. Was it Monday?
Unknown Speaker
Oh, we did. It was Late last week, we were up to 21. And that beat the previous high watermark or 20, which was, that was back in April. So we were, you know, a little concerned about where that was headed. But those numbers have moderated. Some and I the last number I got was down around 10. So, so we feel like we've maybe turned a bit of a corner there.
Unknown Speaker
Do you see this being one incident? Or is it just something that happens across the county?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, it's really hard to say I mean, our community, the population is small enough that these numbers can be moved by a pretty localized event. We've had a couple of retirement communities nursing home tweezed call where there were, you know, more than 30 cases apiece, and when something like that hits the system, it makes a makes a big jump in the percentages that we see and so attracts your attention and makes you think that perhaps something's going on in the community when in fact, it's just You know, a couple of institutions, a couple of buildings actually. And, and excuse me, and more to the point, it doesn't really give us any indication that a particular business or you know, a sector of the economy, or the schools, for example, or a church, you know, should change its behavior. So it's always important for us, even when we see the numbers go up to understand what's behind that. And today, it's simply been, you know, some bad experience in a couple locations.
Unknown Speaker
We're still on the mask mandate statewide reopening plan 4.5. And, of course, the pandemic is really shaping lives. We hear people talk about evictions, utility shut offs on employment. What are you hearing the most about in Columbus right now where people needing help the most?
Unknown Speaker
Well, most of it is just unemployment. I mean, we are numbers have gotten better and then the percentages of the unemployment percentage has declined from about half of what it had. But, but I'm concerned that if we don't get people back to work in greater numbers, pretty soon, we will begin to see, you know, some evictions, we've begun to see a an increase in delinquencies that are utilities, you know, people paying the water bill late or not at all. And and we can ride some of that out and help those folks. But But yeah, after a certain point, it becomes a becomes an issue for us.
Unknown Speaker
And of course, I know there are federal help. And there's state funding that that the governor has been pushing through, are there any local, county or city programs that can that are helping people that people should know about?
Unknown Speaker
Not on the rental side? I mean, we will manage that. I mean, we encourage typically that landlords are a little bit better aware or more aware of what's going on with those kinds of programs. So we reach out to them so that they can inform their tenants. Tell them to come talk to us, the lady at City Hall, Rob Hilbert manages that for us. And she's, you know, got all the programs and you know, we've got money that we could we can put to this use. So we just need to know about the need.
Unknown Speaker
You didn't mention schools there, just for those who listen to this program and are not familiar with what's happening in your area. What was the plan for reopening schools? And then how has it been executed so far?
Unknown Speaker
Well, it's the plan was, it's several facets to it. I mean, they've got a an in in at home learning or elearning. I guess I know, it's funny. when my kids were in school, I was on top of all this stuff. And now I just have to remember but we had an E learning option, and in school option, and then a hybrid. And as I understand it, about 3000 or 30% of the kids have opted for the elearning or some form of hybrid that would allow them to stay out of the building. Those who come to the building are tested each day, you know, their temperatures taken, and they are asked to answer a series of questions related to the health in their household. And the whole notion is to try to be able to identify early on those students who might, you know, have been exposed to the virus, either maybe themselves carrying it or somebody in their family is carrying it. And so we can, you know, begin to either isolate them or encourage them to pursue e learning or, you know, some something that keeps the rest of the students safe. But we got to remember part of what our issue is that schools do so much more than just teach. You know, they in many cases are the, the organization that, you know, as a surrogate parent, in some respects, it's gonna be either feed kids, or re identify opportunities or identify occasions of child abuse, or other kids who are in need. And that just doesn't happen if the kids aren't showing up. And so they're like I say, there's a lot more to the mission. school system just teaching, and we're happy to be able to facilitate that. I think that today, you know, the results have been pretty good and the administration of the program is also good. I mean, they, the mask wearing I think the compliance is pretty high. And the screening that they undertake on a daily basis is pretty thorough. So I feel I feel good about the way that's unfolded.
Unknown Speaker
I have to mention that there's extracurricular activities to I see where I was at the Yes, cinema jumped in and was was viewing at the football game, as was at last weekend.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Columbus, East Columbus north, which typically draws several thousand attendees. I think they were limited to 500. And so yeah, and I did not go for the first time in several years and I don't live that far from from the stadium but they played in north and you know, usually you could tell who was winning or losing based on the crowd noise but A little hard to hear 500 people so, so we didn't know we had to pay attention to the radio. But yeah, they live streamed it at Yes, cinnamon, there were some other outlets that couldn't carry it. And that's just part of what we were having to do is learn how to live, you know, with this virus among us, I don't, this isn't going to last forever. But for the period, which is with us, we've we've got to come up with what you might call work around. So that's a good example of one.
Unknown Speaker
As elections start to creep in close. There's been a lot of talk about voter mail. And of course, the state has been pretty adamant that there will be no mail in voting for with COVID. What what's your stance on voting by mail if people don't feel safe in November?
Unknown Speaker
Well, yeah, I don't see a problem with it. But, you know, the it's not my decision. So you know, what we're going to try to do is accommodate, you know, the voting process as best we can. And, excuse me What that means is that in Columbus, we will accommodate voting at Fair Oaks mall, you know, you're probably aware of that city and CRH comes Regional Health bought that some while back. And we're continue to look for uses while we're waiting to to pursue it the development. And so one of the uses that came up was voting center, particularly for early voting. We can do all the appropriate social distancing, we can allow, you know, one exit end or one entrance and a separate exit. We can accommodate quite a few people there and should be able to make everybody feel comfortable. But so anyway, again, it's another example of a workaround trying to find a way to to continue our regular routine and pay attention to the virus at the same time.
Unknown Speaker
hasn't had statewide testing COVID testing center moved there to to the Oh
Unknown Speaker
yeah, you know, it sparked a little bit of confusion. We've got some great big signs out front of the former JC Any location saying that, you know, COVID testing here, nonetheless, we get people you know, wandering in the mall, you know, some of the other locations or other doors. And so, you know, sort of oriented toward the correct entrance because the the entry to the COVID testing is there's there's no entry from that location to the mall to the interior of the mall. You know we're using the exterior entrances and exits that had been there for the pennies store. But yet we get people walking around inside the mall and that's really not what we're after if they're there for covid testing. So we've we put some big signs out there to try to direct people in the right way we'll probably get some bigger ones and and see if we can make that a little bit easier. But you know that testing had been done up at our armory. And the armory is not an easy place to find. It's all you know, on the airport to campus and it's not air conditioned. And so for a lot of people that was It's a bit of an impediment to the to getting tested. And so we rectify both of those problems. So at the Fair Oaks mall site, we just got to get people coming in out of the right door.
Unknown Speaker
I don't remember if it was last month or two months ago, what we talked about, is it the greenbelt golf course. And basically the city just has too much golfing. And I think we do. Yeah. And you were looking at trying to get to another way of, I guess, privatizing a golf course, whatever happened to that?
Unknown Speaker
Well, it was back up a half a step. You know, back around. The first of this year, Cummins decided to reduce its involvement with otter Creek, you know, for the past 50 years, it had pretty much run the show out there and they decided they wanted to step back from that and, and that's okay. But that brought that more or less on to the city's responsibility, and it also doubled the monetary commitment that city was making Golf went from about 200,000 bucks a year to about 400,000 bucks a year. And we felt like 200 was about the right number. And so we really need to make a decision about number one, what the right number is whether it's 200 100 or 500. And then number two, given that we're going to limit ourselves in terms of what kind of subsidy we put towards golf, or where should it go. And our initial assessment was that we ought to close Greenville. And we were prepared to do that Greenbelt, by the way is a nine hole golf course. For those who don't know, it's a nine hole golf course in the center of our community. Columbus has got 54 holes of golf, we got 27 out at otter Creek 18 and a par three course on rocky Ford road. And then nine holes, as I mentioned that golf, Greenville and our our initial assessment was to close greenbelt and to do that about the middle of August. And we you know, found that there was a great deal of consternation in the community about that. There were some people for whom greenbelt had a you know, especially Place. And so we we also heard from a number of folks that there might be some private interest or some interest by private companies in in managing greenbelt and sort of conserving that or preserving that for the community. And so we wanted to give all that a chance to play out and we authorize the issuance of an RFP or request for proposal to anybody to come forward and manage or operate. The greenbelt golf course we were prepared to lease them. The acreage there it's about 83 or 84 acres. And I don't know what it's worth, but yeah, it's it's it's not cheap. I mean, it would be a fairly decent price if it were to go on the market. We were prepared to lease that at a buck a year to anybody who wanted to run a golf course there. And we had a few people call us up and express a little bit of interest. We had four parties that that did so three who showed up at a parks department event to answer questions and tours. facility. But at the end of the day around, I guess I should say at the deadline, middle of the day, last Friday, no one, no one applied or no one submitted a proposal. And so we've got to, you know, go back to the drawing board, so to speak, and figure out just where what we what we do and what where we, where we go from here. At this point, you know, it's late enough in the year and late enough in the golf season that I don't know that it makes a lot of sense to just try to pursue an immediate closure, given that we were prepared to do it 15 days or so ago. But we'll see. I mean, we're going to meet this afternoon with the administration at the parks department, and some of the staff at City Hall and we'll just come up with a proposal to take to the parks board and to the City Council, and we'll see. We'll see where that goes.
Unknown Speaker
And then I know you've delayed and so as Bloomington with plans to build a new conference center hotel, downtown But the one in Columbus seems to be still has some steam behind it though you're still moving forward on
Unknown Speaker
it. Yeah, I don't know if you call it steam or
Unknown Speaker
make the vSphere like steam point two five or something. But But yeah, well, we announced some time ago was a plan to build a hotel conference center on the what's now the court Services Building parking lot north of our jail. And the the developers have asked for a little bit of time, as you can well imagine, you know, the, they participate using their own money and then they they participate with lenders to build these facilities. And the lenders right now a little skittish when it comes to hospitality projects. And so, you know, they're gonna delay that for about a year. We've continued to go ahead and move forward though, with the relocation of the Bartholomew court Services Building what some people call the probation department. That's a building that sits on the south east corner of Third and Lafayette, it's good third Franklin. And we're going to try to move that to a location south of the jail, and then re re redevelop that parking lot so that it is ready for the hospitality item when it comes forward. And so it actually in terms of timing in the construction, this, this delay works in our favor. We were a little concerned that we might have to find some temporary workspace for the probation department. But that doesn't appear to be going to be an issue where hopefully we can get their new new location constructed within about a year say February or March of 2021 excuse me, 2022 and that should be about the right time to break ground for the hotel conference center that you know that the people involved the Sprague's the developers and their contacts at Marriott are still committed to the project. They still believe that it is a viable project for us. But just trying to make sure that everybody's got all their COVID jitters out of the way is, is going to take us a little while, at the same time where we are moving forward with the mixed use development that is contemplated for the area east of the jail. And this would be on the south side of Second Street between Lafayette and say, oh, Sycamore street or somewhere along in through there, that we still believe that's going to go forward and in a reasonable timeframe. Hopefully we can get a shovel in the ground by March of next year. So we're moving forward is just down down low. Well, COVID jitters with respect to the hotel conference center, we just gotta wait for those to dissipate.
Unknown Speaker
Oh, and other items still going on, although not as thought was exhibit Columbus this year was the symposium. I know last year. We enjoyed the displays right throughout town. But most of this will take place online this year. Right? It's it starts in September.
Unknown Speaker
Right right. This guy It'll be very similar to what they had before. But again, like we've talked before, that you just have to make accommodations to to the virus. Exhibit Columbus or landmark at the symposium drew a fair amount of visitors from out of town. And, you know, people just aren't traveling yet to the extent that they had. So you know, that we felt like the crowds would be down and some kind of virtual response was appropriate. It'll be interesting to see how it works out the folks who work on that. They're really pretty, pretty inventive, they're pretty creative. So my guess is they'll come up with some stuff that so that's really kind of neat and it'll be interesting to see how they do it.
Unknown Speaker
And I just pulled up the republic to this morning and see that the December Festival of Lights parade has been canceled already.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, it's you know, you just hate this stuff to happen. But But yeah, I typically with the with the parade, this was always the first Saturday in December. We would have about 1000 people as part of the parade. And then you would have several thousand who would line the streets of Washington Street. And chief among them would line the streets to watch the parade. And you just never really saw any, you know, there was really no effort. Well, in the past, there was no need for social distancing. But it was really hard to see how we were going to get people that number of people spread around and there were concerns that we would create a bit of a spread or events so best thought was just cancel it out this year. The the notice is a little earlier than we typically find. But you know, some people put a lot of work into their displays. And so we were hesitant to go out into go ahead and get started on a float or some such thing and then had it cancelled, say a month out, that just wouldn't be fair. So. So the folks who run the parade, it's actually not a city event. I mean, we close the streets and do what we can to accommodate but it's a privately run activity and they're the ones who made the decision to cancel for this year.
Unknown Speaker
I know we just have a couple minutes left, but I wanted to leave you with the last word. As always you have any announcements or anything else you'd like to say,
Unknown Speaker
I just hope people if they haven't already see our overpass, you know, that's a pretty exciting event. We, we came into office in 2016 in January. And I told our crew at that time that we really had two primary objectives one a and one B, we didn't identify which was which but one was the overpass to get up and over the railroad so you can get in and out of town in a timely fashion and in a safe fashion. And the second one was our response to substance use disorder. And and I'm really pleased that we've been able to bring both of those online. The response to substance use disorder was what we what we call ASAP and it's already beginning to make a difference in in people's lives and and we have been able to to make an inroad into the most difficult part, which is the residential rehabilitation part, you know, it's one thing to put folks through a 12 step program or eight stamp or what have you. But if they go back to the same environment, that's, that's not helpful. So, you know, what we needed was some residential rehabilitation options, and those are coming forward. But, but back on the overpass, I mean, whether it's one eight or one B, we now can get in and out, I get in and out of town, without concerns with respect to the train traffic, and do so in a safe fashion. And, and it's kind of fun. I mean, you don't realize how flat Columbus is until you get up a little bit like that and realize how far you can see. And then as you're coming into town and you line up with the Stuart bridge, it gives you a really neat VISTA on the barthelona mechanic courthouse. So it's it's kind of exciting to watch that come forward. on of course, this was all planned because of the trains and I saw report I think this just past week that the freight trains were increasing their speed between Louisville and Mitchell or snow Seymour and Mitchell, I think,
Unknown Speaker
but but we know that that's part of the plan that more trains faster trains, eventually coming through Columbus to
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, CSX is the company that has a perpetual lease now on that on that track, and it's their trains. And if they have trained south of Louisville, and they want to get them up to Chicago, there's no better way than to come right through downtown Columbus. And so it was important for us to, you know, to get this overpass built and, and will will reap the benefits from that for decades to come.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. Well, thank you very much. Appreciate your time and hope to see you in that in October.
Unknown Speaker
Sure. Yeah. Thanks. Thank you.
All right, we begin another month in the year of 2020. It is September, I am with Columbus Mayor Jim lindop via zoom, I guess until the foreseeable future. Thanks for being on the show. And today you come to us from your basement.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, yeah, we're down here in the basement. Took a late lunch today and just sort of working from home. So glad to host you here. All right,
Unknown Speaker
well, let's just start with what has always been the top of our topics, the COVID-19 cases, you know, and making my weekly journey with the other mayors throughout Indiana. You know, I see this pattern of the spike in the COVID cases. It was so low at the end of June. And then you know, July 4, happen kind of spiked up. And then August 13 seemed to be a huge spike, not just it was it seemed everywhere. And I know I know today we see about eight cases in Bartholomew county or up to About 1070 are you looking at these these patterns too? And are you seeing anything that is giving you some hope of what's coming?
Unknown Speaker
Well, we, we still worry a lot about the flu season. And and just, you know what it will be like when it gets here. What I would tell you is that we were cautious or nervous a little bit. I think we understood the rationale behind the reopening of school or at least the in person learning here, but only consolidate schools. And, and we felt like it was a thing to do, but nonetheless a little nervous about just how that was going to turn out. And so, we talked about August 13, being a high watermark that's not quite two weeks after school reopening. And so you know, that's it, but it's that kind of sort of fits with the pattern of that disease that you use tend to see your spikes two weeks after whatever event you might want to associate But I do believe that I don't think that the reopening of the schools caused the spike that we saw, they should just don't sense that there's a connection there. Nonetheless, you know, we continue to be concerned and cautious about any kind of gathering and hope that people practice the distancing and mask wearing that never talked about. But, but no, I tend to think our numbers have managed fairly well here in bartholin. County. I feel good about that. I think that some of our efforts early on to get the word out, you know, in terms of how you, you protect yourself and protect others from this virus. So I think that had a little I had a lot of effect on people's behavior. And that's really what we have to manage is the behavior that people exhibit. We're putting them out in public.
Unknown Speaker
And I know you always talk a lot about hospitalizations. I believe you had a record number earlier. Was it Monday?
Unknown Speaker
Oh, we did. It was Late last week, we were up to 21. And that beat the previous high watermark or 20, which was, that was back in April. So we were, you know, a little concerned about where that was headed. But those numbers have moderated. Some and I the last number I got was down around 10. So, so we feel like we've maybe turned a bit of a corner there.
Unknown Speaker
Do you see this being one incident? Or is it just something that happens across the county?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, it's really hard to say I mean, our community, the population is small enough that these numbers can be moved by a pretty localized event. We've had a couple of retirement communities nursing home tweezed call where there were, you know, more than 30 cases apiece, and when something like that hits the system, it makes a makes a big jump in the percentages that we see and so attracts your attention and makes you think that perhaps something's going on in the community when in fact, it's just You know, a couple of institutions, a couple of buildings actually. And, and excuse me, and more to the point, it doesn't really give us any indication that a particular business or you know, a sector of the economy, or the schools, for example, or a church, you know, should change its behavior. So it's always important for us, even when we see the numbers go up to understand what's behind that. And today, it's simply been, you know, some bad experience in a couple locations.
Unknown Speaker
We're still on the mask mandate statewide reopening plan 4.5. And, of course, the pandemic is really shaping lives. We hear people talk about evictions, utility shut offs on employment. What are you hearing the most about in Columbus right now where people needing help the most?
Unknown Speaker
Well, most of it is just unemployment. I mean, we are numbers have gotten better and then the percentages of the unemployment percentage has declined from about half of what it had. But, but I'm concerned that if we don't get people back to work in greater numbers, pretty soon, we will begin to see, you know, some evictions, we've begun to see a an increase in delinquencies that are utilities, you know, people paying the water bill late or not at all. And and we can ride some of that out and help those folks. But But yeah, after a certain point, it becomes a becomes an issue for us.
Unknown Speaker
And of course, I know there are federal help. And there's state funding that that the governor has been pushing through, are there any local, county or city programs that can that are helping people that people should know about?
Unknown Speaker
Not on the rental side? I mean, we will manage that. I mean, we encourage typically that landlords are a little bit better aware or more aware of what's going on with those kinds of programs. So we reach out to them so that they can inform their tenants. Tell them to come talk to us, the lady at City Hall, Rob Hilbert manages that for us. And she's, you know, got all the programs and you know, we've got money that we could we can put to this use. So we just need to know about the need.
Unknown Speaker
You didn't mention schools there, just for those who listen to this program and are not familiar with what's happening in your area. What was the plan for reopening schools? And then how has it been executed so far?
Unknown Speaker
Well, it's the plan was, it's several facets to it. I mean, they've got a an in in at home learning or elearning. I guess I know, it's funny. when my kids were in school, I was on top of all this stuff. And now I just have to remember but we had an E learning option, and in school option, and then a hybrid. And as I understand it, about 3000 or 30% of the kids have opted for the elearning or some form of hybrid that would allow them to stay out of the building. Those who come to the building are tested each day, you know, their temperatures taken, and they are asked to answer a series of questions related to the health in their household. And the whole notion is to try to be able to identify early on those students who might, you know, have been exposed to the virus, either maybe themselves carrying it or somebody in their family is carrying it. And so we can, you know, begin to either isolate them or encourage them to pursue e learning or, you know, some something that keeps the rest of the students safe. But we got to remember part of what our issue is that schools do so much more than just teach. You know, they in many cases are the, the organization that, you know, as a surrogate parent, in some respects, it's gonna be either feed kids, or re identify opportunities or identify occasions of child abuse, or other kids who are in need. And that just doesn't happen if the kids aren't showing up. And so they're like I say, there's a lot more to the mission. school system just teaching, and we're happy to be able to facilitate that. I think that today, you know, the results have been pretty good and the administration of the program is also good. I mean, they, the mask wearing I think the compliance is pretty high. And the screening that they undertake on a daily basis is pretty thorough. So I feel I feel good about the way that's unfolded.
Unknown Speaker
I have to mention that there's extracurricular activities to I see where I was at the Yes, cinema jumped in and was was viewing at the football game, as was at last weekend.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Columbus, East Columbus north, which typically draws several thousand attendees. I think they were limited to 500. And so yeah, and I did not go for the first time in several years and I don't live that far from from the stadium but they played in north and you know, usually you could tell who was winning or losing based on the crowd noise but A little hard to hear 500 people so, so we didn't know we had to pay attention to the radio. But yeah, they live streamed it at Yes, cinnamon, there were some other outlets that couldn't carry it. And that's just part of what we were having to do is learn how to live, you know, with this virus among us, I don't, this isn't going to last forever. But for the period, which is with us, we've we've got to come up with what you might call work around. So that's a good example of one.
Unknown Speaker
As elections start to creep in close. There's been a lot of talk about voter mail. And of course, the state has been pretty adamant that there will be no mail in voting for with COVID. What what's your stance on voting by mail if people don't feel safe in November?
Unknown Speaker
Well, yeah, I don't see a problem with it. But, you know, the it's not my decision. So you know, what we're going to try to do is accommodate, you know, the voting process as best we can. And, excuse me What that means is that in Columbus, we will accommodate voting at Fair Oaks mall, you know, you're probably aware of that city and CRH comes Regional Health bought that some while back. And we're continue to look for uses while we're waiting to to pursue it the development. And so one of the uses that came up was voting center, particularly for early voting. We can do all the appropriate social distancing, we can allow, you know, one exit end or one entrance and a separate exit. We can accommodate quite a few people there and should be able to make everybody feel comfortable. But so anyway, again, it's another example of a workaround trying to find a way to to continue our regular routine and pay attention to the virus at the same time.
Unknown Speaker
hasn't had statewide testing COVID testing center moved there to to the Oh
Unknown Speaker
yeah, you know, it sparked a little bit of confusion. We've got some great big signs out front of the former JC Any location saying that, you know, COVID testing here, nonetheless, we get people you know, wandering in the mall, you know, some of the other locations or other doors. And so, you know, sort of oriented toward the correct entrance because the the entry to the COVID testing is there's there's no entry from that location to the mall to the interior of the mall. You know we're using the exterior entrances and exits that had been there for the pennies store. But yet we get people walking around inside the mall and that's really not what we're after if they're there for covid testing. So we've we put some big signs out there to try to direct people in the right way we'll probably get some bigger ones and and see if we can make that a little bit easier. But you know that testing had been done up at our armory. And the armory is not an easy place to find. It's all you know, on the airport to campus and it's not air conditioned. And so for a lot of people that was It's a bit of an impediment to the to getting tested. And so we rectify both of those problems. So at the Fair Oaks mall site, we just got to get people coming in out of the right door.
Unknown Speaker
I don't remember if it was last month or two months ago, what we talked about, is it the greenbelt golf course. And basically the city just has too much golfing. And I think we do. Yeah. And you were looking at trying to get to another way of, I guess, privatizing a golf course, whatever happened to that?
Unknown Speaker
Well, it was back up a half a step. You know, back around. The first of this year, Cummins decided to reduce its involvement with otter Creek, you know, for the past 50 years, it had pretty much run the show out there and they decided they wanted to step back from that and, and that's okay. But that brought that more or less on to the city's responsibility, and it also doubled the monetary commitment that city was making Golf went from about 200,000 bucks a year to about 400,000 bucks a year. And we felt like 200 was about the right number. And so we really need to make a decision about number one, what the right number is whether it's 200 100 or 500. And then number two, given that we're going to limit ourselves in terms of what kind of subsidy we put towards golf, or where should it go. And our initial assessment was that we ought to close Greenville. And we were prepared to do that Greenbelt, by the way is a nine hole golf course. For those who don't know, it's a nine hole golf course in the center of our community. Columbus has got 54 holes of golf, we got 27 out at otter Creek 18 and a par three course on rocky Ford road. And then nine holes, as I mentioned that golf, Greenville and our our initial assessment was to close greenbelt and to do that about the middle of August. And we you know, found that there was a great deal of consternation in the community about that. There were some people for whom greenbelt had a you know, especially Place. And so we we also heard from a number of folks that there might be some private interest or some interest by private companies in in managing greenbelt and sort of conserving that or preserving that for the community. And so we wanted to give all that a chance to play out and we authorize the issuance of an RFP or request for proposal to anybody to come forward and manage or operate. The greenbelt golf course we were prepared to lease them. The acreage there it's about 83 or 84 acres. And I don't know what it's worth, but yeah, it's it's it's not cheap. I mean, it would be a fairly decent price if it were to go on the market. We were prepared to lease that at a buck a year to anybody who wanted to run a golf course there. And we had a few people call us up and express a little bit of interest. We had four parties that that did so three who showed up at a parks department event to answer questions and tours. facility. But at the end of the day around, I guess I should say at the deadline, middle of the day, last Friday, no one, no one applied or no one submitted a proposal. And so we've got to, you know, go back to the drawing board, so to speak, and figure out just where what we what we do and what where we, where we go from here. At this point, you know, it's late enough in the year and late enough in the golf season that I don't know that it makes a lot of sense to just try to pursue an immediate closure, given that we were prepared to do it 15 days or so ago. But we'll see. I mean, we're going to meet this afternoon with the administration at the parks department, and some of the staff at City Hall and we'll just come up with a proposal to take to the parks board and to the City Council, and we'll see. We'll see where that goes.
Unknown Speaker
And then I know you've delayed and so as Bloomington with plans to build a new conference center hotel, downtown But the one in Columbus seems to be still has some steam behind it though you're still moving forward on
Unknown Speaker
it. Yeah, I don't know if you call it steam or
Unknown Speaker
make the vSphere like steam point two five or something. But But yeah, well, we announced some time ago was a plan to build a hotel conference center on the what's now the court Services Building parking lot north of our jail. And the the developers have asked for a little bit of time, as you can well imagine, you know, the, they participate using their own money and then they they participate with lenders to build these facilities. And the lenders right now a little skittish when it comes to hospitality projects. And so, you know, they're gonna delay that for about a year. We've continued to go ahead and move forward though, with the relocation of the Bartholomew court Services Building what some people call the probation department. That's a building that sits on the south east corner of Third and Lafayette, it's good third Franklin. And we're going to try to move that to a location south of the jail, and then re re redevelop that parking lot so that it is ready for the hospitality item when it comes forward. And so it actually in terms of timing in the construction, this, this delay works in our favor. We were a little concerned that we might have to find some temporary workspace for the probation department. But that doesn't appear to be going to be an issue where hopefully we can get their new new location constructed within about a year say February or March of 2021 excuse me, 2022 and that should be about the right time to break ground for the hotel conference center that you know that the people involved the Sprague's the developers and their contacts at Marriott are still committed to the project. They still believe that it is a viable project for us. But just trying to make sure that everybody's got all their COVID jitters out of the way is, is going to take us a little while, at the same time where we are moving forward with the mixed use development that is contemplated for the area east of the jail. And this would be on the south side of Second Street between Lafayette and say, oh, Sycamore street or somewhere along in through there, that we still believe that's going to go forward and in a reasonable timeframe. Hopefully we can get a shovel in the ground by March of next year. So we're moving forward is just down down low. Well, COVID jitters with respect to the hotel conference center, we just gotta wait for those to dissipate.
Unknown Speaker
Oh, and other items still going on, although not as thought was exhibit Columbus this year was the symposium. I know last year. We enjoyed the displays right throughout town. But most of this will take place online this year. Right? It's it starts in September.
Unknown Speaker
Right right. This guy It'll be very similar to what they had before. But again, like we've talked before, that you just have to make accommodations to to the virus. Exhibit Columbus or landmark at the symposium drew a fair amount of visitors from out of town. And, you know, people just aren't traveling yet to the extent that they had. So you know, that we felt like the crowds would be down and some kind of virtual response was appropriate. It'll be interesting to see how it works out the folks who work on that. They're really pretty, pretty inventive, they're pretty creative. So my guess is they'll come up with some stuff that so that's really kind of neat and it'll be interesting to see how they do it.
Unknown Speaker
And I just pulled up the republic to this morning and see that the December Festival of Lights parade has been canceled already.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, it's you know, you just hate this stuff to happen. But But yeah, I typically with the with the parade, this was always the first Saturday in December. We would have about 1000 people as part of the parade. And then you would have several thousand who would line the streets of Washington Street. And chief among them would line the streets to watch the parade. And you just never really saw any, you know, there was really no effort. Well, in the past, there was no need for social distancing. But it was really hard to see how we were going to get people that number of people spread around and there were concerns that we would create a bit of a spread or events so best thought was just cancel it out this year. The the notice is a little earlier than we typically find. But you know, some people put a lot of work into their displays. And so we were hesitant to go out into go ahead and get started on a float or some such thing and then had it cancelled, say a month out, that just wouldn't be fair. So. So the folks who run the parade, it's actually not a city event. I mean, we close the streets and do what we can to accommodate but it's a privately run activity and they're the ones who made the decision to cancel for this year.
Unknown Speaker
I know we just have a couple minutes left, but I wanted to leave you with the last word. As always you have any announcements or anything else you'd like to say,
Unknown Speaker
I just hope people if they haven't already see our overpass, you know, that's a pretty exciting event. We, we came into office in 2016 in January. And I told our crew at that time that we really had two primary objectives one a and one B, we didn't identify which was which but one was the overpass to get up and over the railroad so you can get in and out of town in a timely fashion and in a safe fashion. And the second one was our response to substance use disorder. And and I'm really pleased that we've been able to bring both of those online. The response to substance use disorder was what we what we call ASAP and it's already beginning to make a difference in in people's lives and and we have been able to to make an inroad into the most difficult part, which is the residential rehabilitation part, you know, it's one thing to put folks through a 12 step program or eight stamp or what have you. But if they go back to the same environment, that's, that's not helpful. So, you know, what we needed was some residential rehabilitation options, and those are coming forward. But, but back on the overpass, I mean, whether it's one eight or one B, we now can get in and out, I get in and out of town, without concerns with respect to the train traffic, and do so in a safe fashion. And, and it's kind of fun. I mean, you don't realize how flat Columbus is until you get up a little bit like that and realize how far you can see. And then as you're coming into town and you line up with the Stuart bridge, it gives you a really neat VISTA on the barthelona mechanic courthouse. So it's it's kind of exciting to watch that come forward. on of course, this was all planned because of the trains and I saw report I think this just past week that the freight trains were increasing their speed between Louisville and Mitchell or snow Seymour and Mitchell, I think,
Unknown Speaker
but but we know that that's part of the plan that more trains faster trains, eventually coming through Columbus to
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, CSX is the company that has a perpetual lease now on that on that track, and it's their trains. And if they have trained south of Louisville, and they want to get them up to Chicago, there's no better way than to come right through downtown Columbus. And so it was important for us to, you know, to get this overpass built and, and will will reap the benefits from that for decades to come.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. Well, thank you very much. Appreciate your time and hope to see you in that in October.
Unknown Speaker
Sure. Yeah. Thanks. Thank you.
