Unknown Speaker
Hello and welcome to ask the mayor on WFIU. I'm Joe Hren. First week of March. And as always, I'm with Columbus Mayor Jim Lienhoop. Hello, welcome to march.
Unknown Speaker
Glad to be here. Thank you, Joe.
Unknown Speaker
Well, I came across this in the republic and I thought it'd be good just to kind of start off with because of the the national news made from the train derailment in Ohio, the threat of toxic waste back in the news today, the governor objecting to some of that being moved to Indiana. But I think about trains through so many Indiana communities, including there in Columbus and saw headlines saying is your town next, right? It's complicated. It's very complicated, but it's probably a good discussion to have,
Unknown Speaker
is really complicated. I will start off by saying that we train for events such as what happened, we have a pretty active first responder group, not only just through, managed through the Columbus Fire Department, but our EMS service and, and the relationships that we have with surrounding counties. I mean, we, we do train for events, such as what happened what what happened in in eastern Ohio, is, it's kind of unusual in that the volume, I mean, what, what you can't train for is mass. I mean, they, you know, it's easy to be overwhelmed. Because at the end of the day, you know, we've got only so many first responders, right. And I want to say that one of the reports I read indicated, there were 10 rail cars that derailed and, you know, then spilled and the the contents got fire mixed with others. And, and so, you know, part of what you have to deal with there is the volume that was presented. And that's a bit of a challenge. And so, we've always got the opportunity to have an overwhelming event, whether it's a flood, or a fire, or I guess we could have an earthquake. But we're talking about, you know, a spill on a railroad. And candidly, you know, that kind of spill could happen with a truck. You know, you could have an airplane fall out of the sky. I mean, there's just a variety of calamitous events that can occur. And, and so we do train for that kind of stuff. And hopefully, when if it were to happen, it does so on volume that we can we can manage.
Unknown Speaker
I did read a report, this may have been a couple of months ago, never get been able to get to it on this show. Something about regulators testing for toxic forever chemicals in Columbus, what precipitated that and what their results from that. Well, we
Unknown Speaker
have no results. But the Forever chemicals, I think, excuse me, I think sometimes they're referred to as PFA s. And they relate to slickness. You know, if you think about Teflon, you know, I'm not sure that Teflon I don't want to get trouble here with DuPont, you know, and there, folks, but you know, the, the ability to make surfaces that are slippery, has been a big advantage to to us in our industrial capacities, but it also carries the risk of some kind of chemical that works its way into the water system, because it it doesn't really last forever, but it might as well, I mean, at the last long enough time that it just doesn't degrade. And so we've been asked to test for that stuff. Right now, as I understand it, the EPA has not identified any limits. You know, they don't tell you, you can have so many parts per billion in your water or you can't debate it's not a identified substance. But we've begun to test on a testing basis, if you will, just to sort of see if there's anything out there. And maybe perhaps from that we developed some regulations, but But yeah, we've you we're always testing the water. I mean, I think we draw water from some location at least once a week. And typically you're testing for bacteria. And, and we've been lucky that you know, we've not Well, I just thought his luck. I mean, we're playing it this way but but we've not had any exposure to Ecoli or some of the things that people may be more familiar with. But But yeah, it's it's on the list of things to look into. And I've not heard back on how we're, we're doing with them.
Unknown Speaker
Now something I know you're excited about Bloomington a couple other Indiana cities Meridiam installing fiber for high speed internet, throughout municipalities. How was the has the installation started?
Unknown Speaker
The installation has started if you know where to look or how to how to tell you can drive around town and you'll see the guys working away. I mean, they're putting conduit in the ground. They typically follow the existing utilities. The Primarily the overhead electrical wires. But some of the stuff that I've seen has been been underground. But yeah, their expectation is to begin to sign up customers. I want to stay in the second quarter of this year. So, so we're kind of excited about that. And yeah, we have a program that looks a lot like the one that got Bloomington with respect to some assistance for low income households so that they can get high speed internet, but basically just to be able to provide that all throughout the city so that there are no, what you might call a brown area where, you know, they've got internet service, but it's not real good. You know, this, this should be, I can say good. Yep. Gig down over about 90% of the city.
Unknown Speaker
Now, some Bloomington residents reported, you know, tore up lawns, broken sewer lines, as installation has started. And, of course, some very upset homeowners. I talked with Mayor Hamilton. So the installation company will pay the bills, they're they're looking into that. Is that something that's that's been happening in Columbus as well. We've not received
Unknown Speaker
any reports of any Well, broken, wrote anything broken, you know, now we have you know, there's obviously some holes being dug in the ground. I mean, that, you know, that's going on. But But no, no, no broken sewer lines, no disconnected gas lines or anything like that.
Unknown Speaker
I see to the city has also designated COVID relief funds to help you match us a little bit a low income residents connect to the new broadband infrastructure, how was that being allocated?
Unknown Speaker
Well, that's a certain amount that was set aside by our city council. I've drawn a blank on how many hundreds 1000s hundreds of 1000s that was, but you know, we'll we'll parse that out based upon income grant guidelines, that will be consistent with what's in the COVID law.
Unknown Speaker
Okay, so people could apply for that. Is that how that works?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, yeah, they'll apply. I mean, and candidly, the provider, the meridian won't be ready. And like I'm drawing a blank on the name, but they will have a internet provider. And those people will be all over the the income requirements and the filing requirements. And, you know, they'll make sure that it happens.
Unknown Speaker
So I have to follow up on the Nexus park or now named Circle K Field House had it hammer breaking. Is that the the terminology a couple of weeks ago? Yeah,
Unknown Speaker
well, we busted up a piece of drywall, you know, a big section of drywall, we were doing some demolition, on the inside. Part of the next part project will include, well, just a renovation of what had been the Fair Oaks mall, we're going to put some parks offices in there, as well as just a variety of other rooms, that will have a variety of uses. And there just happened to be a big piece of drywall that needed to come down. I mean, it was, I don't know, 2030 feet long and 10 to 12 feet tall. And we thought that, you know, in lieu of a groundbreaking, where you typically go out and dig a shovel full of sand or, or dirt. Why we would just get some small sledgehammers and let people just have a whack, or two or three. And, and I'm pretty proud that I was actually a switch hitter, I was able to hit the wall from, you know, right handed and left handed, but but it was fun. We had a good way about 250 people show up. And we talked a little bit more about the project and gave some updates on the progress. I mean, you can go out there now and they are assembling, assembling. That's the word steel that will serve as the structure you know, so that the supports the vertical supports are on site, the some of them and then the roof components, the beams I think that's the right phrase. And those will start to be installed in about a week. Got to get some big trains, I mean, some couple of really large ones that will come down here from what most likely Indianapolis and they will, they will erect the steel superstructure for for the Fieldhouse, but yeah, we're gonna call it the circle, K, Fieldhouse and happy to be able to invite them. You know, they've been in Columbus for a long time. But they've not had a real high profile and so we're happy to see them sign on to support the Fieldhouse project.
Unknown Speaker
So I thought we'd go ahead and get a quick update on the river front development, too. I came across an article The Columbus Redevelopment Commission is doing a property swap to prepare some of that riverfront for future development. We haven't talked about this project in a while. Can you update us a little bit on What's new there?
Unknown Speaker
Well, the property swap that you talked about was with the Louisville and Indiana railroad. You know, there's a spur line of railway if you will, that. Oh, it goes by the pump. House and then sort of parallels first street for a while and, and runs out towards the small industrial complex that we've got out nice Columbus. And you might think that the property lines along that spur line would sort of mirror the arc of the tracks, you know, and, and maintain that curve, but they don't, when you look down on paper, I mean, you can see it's more of a sawtooth type effect where, you know, you get down and over to the side and down over the side, it's a little hard for me to do that without trying to draw on on the screen here. But we've got somebody interested in some of the ground down there. But they've asked us to sort of clean up the property lines. And what we found was that not only do you have the sawtooth pattern, which makes a little bit more difficult to develop, because you don't have the, you don't have the ground that you think you get, you know, that you see. But we also had some easements that crossed the rail lines, and, you know, there were some things that wouldn't be helpful to the railroad to have cleaned up. And so what we wanted to do was to swap some of the ground that they own some of these jagged edges, if you will, give that to us. And that will give you the right away that you're, you know, that under our entity goes underneath your tracks. And we've gotten a verbal agreement from the railroad that they're prepared to move forward on that. But I haven't seen the signed documents yet the attorneys still seem to, you know, find, there's always something else to question. So. So yeah, we're, we're working together with them on that. And that really will provide, hopefully another development in that area, and where it's sort of way too early to be able to describe what that is because I don't even think like I say, we don't have a buyer yet, we've got an interested party. But once we get a feel for what that might be, we'll obviously be interested in announcing it. But that will be an enhancement to the riverfront project that we've got, you know, which is designed to clean up that section of the railroad, what we call the land between the bridges between the Second Street Bridge, the Stewart bridge, and the Third Street Bridge, we want to take the dam out on new armor is or stabilize the banks on either side, protect a former landfill that was on the western side of the river, and protect some erosion or some erode or stop some erosion that is occurring on the east side. And then hopefully maintain the water level that we enjoy upstream at Melrose Park. But you know, we've got boat ramp up the air and a number of people who use that area to, to, to fish and just to get in in the river and go upstream go up the roof of river for, you know, a couple of miles. And, and then to to maintain the round pond. That's, that's there in the in the northeast part. So you know, that projects pretty ambitious. And we continue to have conversations right now with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers. They've got some say, you know, into what we do with our river. And so we continue to have conversations with on that and, and hope to hear something from them soon. I've we've been hoping to hear something from them soon, for quite a while. But we continue to wait, they tend to move at their own at their own pace.
Unknown Speaker
It sounds like something very similar. I just read about the commission approving funding for the Columbus airport property to be used for industrial commercial use, I think what's been called the AirPlay commerce center. So is there interest there for development?
Unknown Speaker
Well, the airport, airport board is trying to do everything they can to develop that area out there. And we've say out there we're talking from City Hall perspective that's north, north of 25th Street North of 35th Street actually. And they continue to have some success. They're a little bit hampered by the fact that you, you know, a prospective investor really can't buy that ground. And the net is still tied up with the US Air Force. I mean, the tie is pretty tenuous. And I always joke that if the US Air Force ever needed that airplane at their airport, you know, we're in a world of hurt, because they've got a lot of better facilities, you know, to turn to then then Columbus Municipal Airport, but nonetheless, you know, they're kind of protective of their rights up there. And so it presents us with a challenge in terms of trying to find developers but but we do want to create the infrastructure that would support that and so providing for roadways and sidewalks and assist with the the educational campus that's already there. You know, those are those are the things that we're trying to do with it. With the funding that you talk about.
Unknown Speaker
So we see you have your last State of the City address coming Monday, March 4 6pm. Do we get a little bit of a preview today?
Unknown Speaker
Well, you know, yeah, I guess it's still a work in progress. So, you know, we're, we're trying to finish it out. But yeah, it is. So people picked up pretty quickly that this, this will be your last one, Jim, you know, and, and, yeah, I got 10 more months to go. But But yes, this will be the last state of the city. And so what we intend to do is spend just a little bit of time reflecting on, you know, where what we've come, what we've been able to do, where we've come from, you know, over the last, well, not quite yet, eight years. And candidly, we've accomplished a lot. And we did a good portion of it with pandemic at our hit, you know, there are headwinds. And so I feel good about what we've been able to accomplish, we've got a variety of projects, we're talking about a couple of them here, that are still in process. And so we'll try to give people an understanding, you know, what we have attempted to do over the last seven years in a couple of months, and then provide an update on Nexus Park. I mean, once people see the steel, I mean, this thing is going to be really big. And you won't be able to drive down national road without seeing, you know, what's over there, the people at Circle K are going to get their money's worth, in terms of visibility, and in connection with a big I attractor, but we're gonna give an update on where we stand with Nexus Park and sort of provide that to the public as well as some of the other things we've got going on. Like I mentioned earlier, you know, we we anticipate a ready 2.0 You know, and we began to have conversations about that. We know that there is a mental health initiative, you know, that's coming forward, funded by the state of Indiana, and we want to be positioned to to participate in that. And so there'll be a variety of things to talk about in terms of what comes next.
Unknown Speaker
Again, thank you so much. I always like to leave the last update to you any special announcements or anything else you'd like to say?
Unknown Speaker
Well, we haven't mentioned that Columbus is the community of the you see that every
Unknown Speaker
month. I
Unknown Speaker
never want to get let go by or a session. Goodbye. Okay. Well, that reminded everybody that, you know, we've been designated the Indiana community of the year and, yeah, it comes with a little bit of pride, as well as a satisfaction that we were recognized. And so I think the people who live in Columbus can take a little bit of confidence that maybe we're getting things, you know, somewhat somewhat straight. So I appreciate that. And I know Joe, once again, welcome to Columbus back. Glad to be back and yeah, hope March comes in like a lion so we can go out like a lamb.
Unknown Speaker
Thank you so much. We'll see you in April. You're
Unknown Speaker
welcome. Take care.
Hello and welcome to ask the mayor on WFIU. I'm Joe Hren. First week of March. And as always, I'm with Columbus Mayor Jim Lienhoop. Hello, welcome to march.
Unknown Speaker
Glad to be here. Thank you, Joe.
Unknown Speaker
Well, I came across this in the republic and I thought it'd be good just to kind of start off with because of the the national news made from the train derailment in Ohio, the threat of toxic waste back in the news today, the governor objecting to some of that being moved to Indiana. But I think about trains through so many Indiana communities, including there in Columbus and saw headlines saying is your town next, right? It's complicated. It's very complicated, but it's probably a good discussion to have,
Unknown Speaker
is really complicated. I will start off by saying that we train for events such as what happened, we have a pretty active first responder group, not only just through, managed through the Columbus Fire Department, but our EMS service and, and the relationships that we have with surrounding counties. I mean, we, we do train for events, such as what happened what what happened in in eastern Ohio, is, it's kind of unusual in that the volume, I mean, what, what you can't train for is mass. I mean, they, you know, it's easy to be overwhelmed. Because at the end of the day, you know, we've got only so many first responders, right. And I want to say that one of the reports I read indicated, there were 10 rail cars that derailed and, you know, then spilled and the the contents got fire mixed with others. And, and so, you know, part of what you have to deal with there is the volume that was presented. And that's a bit of a challenge. And so, we've always got the opportunity to have an overwhelming event, whether it's a flood, or a fire, or I guess we could have an earthquake. But we're talking about, you know, a spill on a railroad. And candidly, you know, that kind of spill could happen with a truck. You know, you could have an airplane fall out of the sky. I mean, there's just a variety of calamitous events that can occur. And, and so we do train for that kind of stuff. And hopefully, when if it were to happen, it does so on volume that we can we can manage.
Unknown Speaker
I did read a report, this may have been a couple of months ago, never get been able to get to it on this show. Something about regulators testing for toxic forever chemicals in Columbus, what precipitated that and what their results from that. Well, we
Unknown Speaker
have no results. But the Forever chemicals, I think, excuse me, I think sometimes they're referred to as PFA s. And they relate to slickness. You know, if you think about Teflon, you know, I'm not sure that Teflon I don't want to get trouble here with DuPont, you know, and there, folks, but you know, the, the ability to make surfaces that are slippery, has been a big advantage to to us in our industrial capacities, but it also carries the risk of some kind of chemical that works its way into the water system, because it it doesn't really last forever, but it might as well, I mean, at the last long enough time that it just doesn't degrade. And so we've been asked to test for that stuff. Right now, as I understand it, the EPA has not identified any limits. You know, they don't tell you, you can have so many parts per billion in your water or you can't debate it's not a identified substance. But we've begun to test on a testing basis, if you will, just to sort of see if there's anything out there. And maybe perhaps from that we developed some regulations, but But yeah, we've you we're always testing the water. I mean, I think we draw water from some location at least once a week. And typically you're testing for bacteria. And, and we've been lucky that you know, we've not Well, I just thought his luck. I mean, we're playing it this way but but we've not had any exposure to Ecoli or some of the things that people may be more familiar with. But But yeah, it's it's on the list of things to look into. And I've not heard back on how we're, we're doing with them.
Unknown Speaker
Now something I know you're excited about Bloomington a couple other Indiana cities Meridiam installing fiber for high speed internet, throughout municipalities. How was the has the installation started?
Unknown Speaker
The installation has started if you know where to look or how to how to tell you can drive around town and you'll see the guys working away. I mean, they're putting conduit in the ground. They typically follow the existing utilities. The Primarily the overhead electrical wires. But some of the stuff that I've seen has been been underground. But yeah, their expectation is to begin to sign up customers. I want to stay in the second quarter of this year. So, so we're kind of excited about that. And yeah, we have a program that looks a lot like the one that got Bloomington with respect to some assistance for low income households so that they can get high speed internet, but basically just to be able to provide that all throughout the city so that there are no, what you might call a brown area where, you know, they've got internet service, but it's not real good. You know, this, this should be, I can say good. Yep. Gig down over about 90% of the city.
Unknown Speaker
Now, some Bloomington residents reported, you know, tore up lawns, broken sewer lines, as installation has started. And, of course, some very upset homeowners. I talked with Mayor Hamilton. So the installation company will pay the bills, they're they're looking into that. Is that something that's that's been happening in Columbus as well. We've not received
Unknown Speaker
any reports of any Well, broken, wrote anything broken, you know, now we have you know, there's obviously some holes being dug in the ground. I mean, that, you know, that's going on. But But no, no, no broken sewer lines, no disconnected gas lines or anything like that.
Unknown Speaker
I see to the city has also designated COVID relief funds to help you match us a little bit a low income residents connect to the new broadband infrastructure, how was that being allocated?
Unknown Speaker
Well, that's a certain amount that was set aside by our city council. I've drawn a blank on how many hundreds 1000s hundreds of 1000s that was, but you know, we'll we'll parse that out based upon income grant guidelines, that will be consistent with what's in the COVID law.
Unknown Speaker
Okay, so people could apply for that. Is that how that works?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, yeah, they'll apply. I mean, and candidly, the provider, the meridian won't be ready. And like I'm drawing a blank on the name, but they will have a internet provider. And those people will be all over the the income requirements and the filing requirements. And, you know, they'll make sure that it happens.
Unknown Speaker
So I have to follow up on the Nexus park or now named Circle K Field House had it hammer breaking. Is that the the terminology a couple of weeks ago? Yeah,
Unknown Speaker
well, we busted up a piece of drywall, you know, a big section of drywall, we were doing some demolition, on the inside. Part of the next part project will include, well, just a renovation of what had been the Fair Oaks mall, we're going to put some parks offices in there, as well as just a variety of other rooms, that will have a variety of uses. And there just happened to be a big piece of drywall that needed to come down. I mean, it was, I don't know, 2030 feet long and 10 to 12 feet tall. And we thought that, you know, in lieu of a groundbreaking, where you typically go out and dig a shovel full of sand or, or dirt. Why we would just get some small sledgehammers and let people just have a whack, or two or three. And, and I'm pretty proud that I was actually a switch hitter, I was able to hit the wall from, you know, right handed and left handed, but but it was fun. We had a good way about 250 people show up. And we talked a little bit more about the project and gave some updates on the progress. I mean, you can go out there now and they are assembling, assembling. That's the word steel that will serve as the structure you know, so that the supports the vertical supports are on site, the some of them and then the roof components, the beams I think that's the right phrase. And those will start to be installed in about a week. Got to get some big trains, I mean, some couple of really large ones that will come down here from what most likely Indianapolis and they will, they will erect the steel superstructure for for the Fieldhouse, but yeah, we're gonna call it the circle, K, Fieldhouse and happy to be able to invite them. You know, they've been in Columbus for a long time. But they've not had a real high profile and so we're happy to see them sign on to support the Fieldhouse project.
Unknown Speaker
So I thought we'd go ahead and get a quick update on the river front development, too. I came across an article The Columbus Redevelopment Commission is doing a property swap to prepare some of that riverfront for future development. We haven't talked about this project in a while. Can you update us a little bit on What's new there?
Unknown Speaker
Well, the property swap that you talked about was with the Louisville and Indiana railroad. You know, there's a spur line of railway if you will, that. Oh, it goes by the pump. House and then sort of parallels first street for a while and, and runs out towards the small industrial complex that we've got out nice Columbus. And you might think that the property lines along that spur line would sort of mirror the arc of the tracks, you know, and, and maintain that curve, but they don't, when you look down on paper, I mean, you can see it's more of a sawtooth type effect where, you know, you get down and over to the side and down over the side, it's a little hard for me to do that without trying to draw on on the screen here. But we've got somebody interested in some of the ground down there. But they've asked us to sort of clean up the property lines. And what we found was that not only do you have the sawtooth pattern, which makes a little bit more difficult to develop, because you don't have the, you don't have the ground that you think you get, you know, that you see. But we also had some easements that crossed the rail lines, and, you know, there were some things that wouldn't be helpful to the railroad to have cleaned up. And so what we wanted to do was to swap some of the ground that they own some of these jagged edges, if you will, give that to us. And that will give you the right away that you're, you know, that under our entity goes underneath your tracks. And we've gotten a verbal agreement from the railroad that they're prepared to move forward on that. But I haven't seen the signed documents yet the attorneys still seem to, you know, find, there's always something else to question. So. So yeah, we're, we're working together with them on that. And that really will provide, hopefully another development in that area, and where it's sort of way too early to be able to describe what that is because I don't even think like I say, we don't have a buyer yet, we've got an interested party. But once we get a feel for what that might be, we'll obviously be interested in announcing it. But that will be an enhancement to the riverfront project that we've got, you know, which is designed to clean up that section of the railroad, what we call the land between the bridges between the Second Street Bridge, the Stewart bridge, and the Third Street Bridge, we want to take the dam out on new armor is or stabilize the banks on either side, protect a former landfill that was on the western side of the river, and protect some erosion or some erode or stop some erosion that is occurring on the east side. And then hopefully maintain the water level that we enjoy upstream at Melrose Park. But you know, we've got boat ramp up the air and a number of people who use that area to, to, to fish and just to get in in the river and go upstream go up the roof of river for, you know, a couple of miles. And, and then to to maintain the round pond. That's, that's there in the in the northeast part. So you know, that projects pretty ambitious. And we continue to have conversations right now with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers. They've got some say, you know, into what we do with our river. And so we continue to have conversations with on that and, and hope to hear something from them soon. I've we've been hoping to hear something from them soon, for quite a while. But we continue to wait, they tend to move at their own at their own pace.
Unknown Speaker
It sounds like something very similar. I just read about the commission approving funding for the Columbus airport property to be used for industrial commercial use, I think what's been called the AirPlay commerce center. So is there interest there for development?
Unknown Speaker
Well, the airport, airport board is trying to do everything they can to develop that area out there. And we've say out there we're talking from City Hall perspective that's north, north of 25th Street North of 35th Street actually. And they continue to have some success. They're a little bit hampered by the fact that you, you know, a prospective investor really can't buy that ground. And the net is still tied up with the US Air Force. I mean, the tie is pretty tenuous. And I always joke that if the US Air Force ever needed that airplane at their airport, you know, we're in a world of hurt, because they've got a lot of better facilities, you know, to turn to then then Columbus Municipal Airport, but nonetheless, you know, they're kind of protective of their rights up there. And so it presents us with a challenge in terms of trying to find developers but but we do want to create the infrastructure that would support that and so providing for roadways and sidewalks and assist with the the educational campus that's already there. You know, those are those are the things that we're trying to do with it. With the funding that you talk about.
Unknown Speaker
So we see you have your last State of the City address coming Monday, March 4 6pm. Do we get a little bit of a preview today?
Unknown Speaker
Well, you know, yeah, I guess it's still a work in progress. So, you know, we're, we're trying to finish it out. But yeah, it is. So people picked up pretty quickly that this, this will be your last one, Jim, you know, and, and, yeah, I got 10 more months to go. But But yes, this will be the last state of the city. And so what we intend to do is spend just a little bit of time reflecting on, you know, where what we've come, what we've been able to do, where we've come from, you know, over the last, well, not quite yet, eight years. And candidly, we've accomplished a lot. And we did a good portion of it with pandemic at our hit, you know, there are headwinds. And so I feel good about what we've been able to accomplish, we've got a variety of projects, we're talking about a couple of them here, that are still in process. And so we'll try to give people an understanding, you know, what we have attempted to do over the last seven years in a couple of months, and then provide an update on Nexus Park. I mean, once people see the steel, I mean, this thing is going to be really big. And you won't be able to drive down national road without seeing, you know, what's over there, the people at Circle K are going to get their money's worth, in terms of visibility, and in connection with a big I attractor, but we're gonna give an update on where we stand with Nexus Park and sort of provide that to the public as well as some of the other things we've got going on. Like I mentioned earlier, you know, we we anticipate a ready 2.0 You know, and we began to have conversations about that. We know that there is a mental health initiative, you know, that's coming forward, funded by the state of Indiana, and we want to be positioned to to participate in that. And so there'll be a variety of things to talk about in terms of what comes next.
Unknown Speaker
Again, thank you so much. I always like to leave the last update to you any special announcements or anything else you'd like to say?
Unknown Speaker
Well, we haven't mentioned that Columbus is the community of the you see that every
Unknown Speaker
month. I
Unknown Speaker
never want to get let go by or a session. Goodbye. Okay. Well, that reminded everybody that, you know, we've been designated the Indiana community of the year and, yeah, it comes with a little bit of pride, as well as a satisfaction that we were recognized. And so I think the people who live in Columbus can take a little bit of confidence that maybe we're getting things, you know, somewhat somewhat straight. So I appreciate that. And I know Joe, once again, welcome to Columbus back. Glad to be back and yeah, hope March comes in like a lion so we can go out like a lamb.
Unknown Speaker
Thank you so much. We'll see you in April. You're
Unknown Speaker
welcome. Take care.
