Unknown Speaker
Hello and welcome to ask the mayor on WFIU. I'm Joe Hren. This week, we're in Terre Haute on Zoom with Mayor Duke Bennett. I believe you were on vacation last month. So we haven't seen you in a while. Hope you're doing well. Hello, Mr. Mayor.
Unknown Speaker
It's great to be here. Joe, good to see you. And yeah, I was out. I had a couple of vacation days. But I also went to Washington DC for the police Memorial. You know, we lost an officer last year. And so I spent a couple of days and then headed to DC for a few days. And, you know, another tough week from that perspective. I mean, that's our third officer, since I've been mayor, that we've lost that. It's really a great thing to go and be with a family and do that. It's just, it's just you can relive it again. And so it was it was a rough week, but I'm back and doing things. Oh, it's just it's been a great year so far, really, in a lot more positives than negatives.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. So much going on. I just wanted to catch up a little bit. Want to remind those listening, we're always looking for your questions, you can submit them to news at Indiana public media.org or on Twitter at Ask the mayor just start little post election the school referendum didn't pass. They're just wanted to get your take on how important was that to the school system in Terre Haute and what now?
Unknown Speaker
Well, it's a big deal. So I guess there's a you know, it's easy to Monday morning, quarterback a little bit on some of these things, as you look through and before the election, you kind of think about okay, I'm hearing where the feedbacks coming from and not, you know, this sector and that sector. And then there's, you have supporters over here. So I knew I thought I was going to be close, I really did I miscalculated on on the numbers. And I what I would attribute that to is people just kept quiet, they just kept their opinions of yourself and didn't really share it publicly. So you didn't know where they were coming from and looking back, and now looking forward, it's going to be a bumpy road. Because the folks that were opposed to it felt like there wasn't enough transparency with the school corporation, there's been some financial things that have been unclear exactly what's going to be the money's gonna be spent on the news, the high schools, but not the specifics of that, or in what order and just you hear all this stuff after the election from people have what made them feel uncomfortable about it. And so, you know, we got to do something with the high schools, I don't think anybody disagrees with the fact that we've got improvements to be made in schools, they just didn't like a second referendum, this one being for capital, when the other was for operations, until they get that figured out why they need money to pay the daily bills, and then want to tackle 200, you know, $260 million worth of improvement. So, you know, it's unfortunate from a perspective of, we've got to do something, and you need to get started immediately on the school. And this is going to delay that without any questions part of our overall approach to our community. We want good schools, and good physical facilities, we've got to be able to sell those to people in our community. So we're going to have to figure out how they're going to get there and do it without this Big Mom. I'm gonna guess it's going to be smaller bones on the way they're going to use some of their federal relief money to do some things. So they're circling the wagons and figuring out how to move forward. But as a community, we're going to have to make those investments at some point. I mean, it's inevitable.
Unknown Speaker
Now, more taxes could be especially now a hard sell with inflation gas prices, do you think that had something to do with it to the end?
Unknown Speaker
So there's a couple of things that happened in the last really a couple of weeks where it became more apparent that gas prices were going through the roof inflation wasn't getting under control in any way, shape, or form, when the tax forms came out. But your tax bills, and then the reassessments came out the day before the election. And so next years, my taxes are gonna go up. I mean, worst case scenario, I'm not laughing about it in a way that it just like, you can't make this stuff up. You know what I mean? Like, all the worst things happened in a short period of time. That just really blew it up. And I think that's just simply what happened and there wasn't anything they can do about the timing of those things. But all of that building up to being like No, as a community, you know, we don't want increases costs. I mean, that was a clear message that people spam a
Unknown Speaker
lot of city tanks to fill cars police, fire. How does the city maintain a budget with the high gear Ask prices.
Unknown Speaker
So you know, I looked at that data just last week, I asked our comptroller just give me an update, show me where we're at for the end of May. And some of our areas were exceeding what we had budgeted their departments that are heavy users, as you can imagine, police department etc, you know, we can't cut back and we're not going to cut back in those areas, we're just going to have to shuffle some funds around, we've got some other line items, that we're probably going to make some decisions and holding off on doing something that isn't critical. Or, you know, we may have to appropriate some funds at the end of the year, we'll see how this plays out for the second half of the year. But yes, we're spending a lot more gas is costing us twice as much as it did last year. And the budgets are reflecting that. But I don't anticipate any reduction in service. And I'm hopeful that in the coming months, it'll start trending back the other way. But we're going to spend a lot of money on both diesel and gas this year, more than we've ever spent.
Unknown Speaker
All Finally, some news on the casino. Groundbreaking. I see set for June 21, the queen of Terre Haute, we've been reporting a $260 million casino hotel. I we've been talking about a date for three or four months now. So I bet it's at least on your perspective, it's really good to have this in the calendar.
Unknown Speaker
Timely. I mean, you know, it's, I understand that you're reluctant to pick the day because you've got all these, you know, hoops, you have to jump through in all red state, state related and FAA related to other things because of their location. But I always felt like they were going to get it done in June, we were hopeful it was going to be made. So I knew we were really tightening that down. And it was just great when they finally let us know last week of the specific date time, because now it becomes real to people, you know, they're still skeptics out there saying, Is this ever gonna happen? And I answer those questions on a daily basis, I'm telling you, still a daily basis. And there's a lot of excitement from the casino to come, whether you're a gambler or not people know that it's going to bring revenue to our community, it's going to bring people and it's just a real energy boost for us, and economic development driver. So we've all been waiting for this for so long. And now it's just exciting to hear that the scope of the project remains huge, it's going to be a major investment. But a lot of people to work, as I said, generate that revenue back to the community for us to do some great things with so, you know, across the board, I'm just glad we're getting to that point, get it get the building started, we're working on some traffic related issues right now that are, since they kind of moved to a different spot than the original casino plan or hard rock was gonna go. We had, you know, really pick up the pace here. I'm figuring that out. But I'm feeling good, how it's all coming together here in the month of June to really turn that into something started.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, and I know that the site is farther out east off of I 70. What kind of infrastructure will the city have to help provide or as most of that come from the casino?
Unknown Speaker
Well, they're going to help with that, obviously. But there's things that we don't plan to do before the casino ever announced they were going out there. So it's a combination of things over the coming years that will do to improve access on the north side, increase the flow on existing market Avenue on the south side of their facility. And so it's going to be kind of coming from both directions over the next three to five years and getting all of those projects that are already on the books completed with this new edition out there, you know, the VA clinics open and that's generating new traffic, the casinos gonna drive additional things. So we're kind of capture all of that now and beginning to move forward on several projects, including a new fire station out there to support all this development on the east side.
Unknown Speaker
So it sounds like you're you're talking about roads.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. For that infrastructure, utilities are all there. So with some road improvements, yes. Just to be clear, I guess I think about talking about it every day. So just want to be clear on that. We've got new Margaret Avenue to the north of their property that needs to be extended. We've got existing Morgan avenue that needs some improvements. And so it's all of the above when it comes to that.
Unknown Speaker
Do you have any jail update? I stopped when I was there the last time and really it's amazing from the least from the outside how close they're getting.
Unknown Speaker
The staff was there now so they have moved in the offices are at the new jail. The inmates are still here, you know across the sidewalk for me, but they will begin to move them sometime in July. then. And that's the loop the last plan that they talked about to get everybody moved in the month of July. So over the course of that time, they'll in sections, they will do that. And so it's open for business. And just trying to make the put the final touches on it in preparation to bring the MH down.
Unknown Speaker
And I've talked about just because it's just been in the news so much about the mass shootings, you've all the school shooting, of course, recently in NPR reporting more than 240 mass shootings this year. As a mayor, you know, when you watch this on TV or read about it, I mean, what goes through your mind? Or do you automatically think about? Boy, what would happen if this could happen here?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, you know, I think more along the lines of, well, first of all, I feel really good about our school security plan that we put in place here. We're one of the leaders in the state school resource officers, and I can't even tell you what year that was now, but it was probably back in 2009 2010. We have armed officers in every school, some schools have more than one, you know, lockdown of the doors, you know, to come through the main entrance, and, and all those things. But then every time this happens, especially in a school particular setting, I mean, that's a worst case scenario. Anyway, when you're talking about kids, you want to be able to send your kids to school and have them be safe. I mean, that's every parent is like that. There's nobody there, no matter what your politics is, you want your kids to be safe in school. And so I feel very strongly about that. But that doesn't mean something can't happen, just like it happened down there. Last week, last couple of weeks that we've been hearing over and over again about failures of the system and things I hope and pray that never happens here in Terre Haute, but it can. And we've got to learn from this particular scenario. I mean, it sounds like they had some failures in their planning process. But we can't let those things happen here. And I hope I'm sure mayors are doing this in school corporations, and everybody's looking at your plan again, what can we take it to the next level, we can't just have a plan and have a few things that if we need to make more investments, we need to make those. But then when you step back and look at it, you know, it's almost automatic that some politicians immediately run to the gun control things and others say it's all mental health or something else. It's kind of a combination of a lot of things. And I really do believe COVID has had some impact on the mental health of people, I just don't really believe that it's affecting crime in general. I have no proof of any of that. It's just my gut and my experiences. I think we need to do more to head off these potential people who are going to commit these crimes. I mean, this kid send out every message in the world and he was gonna do this. Yeah, he did. He got away with it. I mean, he said that he pulled it off. And then we do a better job of keeping weapons out of the hands of people like that. You know, that's it doesn't mean they're not going to go find another way up into how do we continue to tighten the reins on people who are not stable when we've made threats? And we don't do anything about that. I mean, I, I want to learn more on the investigation to be completed that from what I hear, and when I'm looking at this, you know?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. And of course, I hear you say, we have to do more, we have to do more our local cities getting the support they need from state and federal officials think
Unknown Speaker
generally speaking, we're going to be left to come up with the money to do more things ourselves anyway, it always seems to work that way. But having more mental health resources and more people in schools, I think that's the key is having staff in the schools that are dealing with kids every day that are there, and helping the ones that are having issues. I mean, bullying and social media, and all this stuff is pushing people to limits and we've not seen before. I mean, I don't there will be people will dispute me saying that, but it's true. I'm telling you, I know it is true. And I talked to mental health providers here. And they say these kids are facing more pressures and more things in their lives now than they have ever seen. You know, some of these people have been doing this for 3040 years. We've got to figure out how to soften that blow get kids through school, did not face those pressures and not feel like something is build up to where were the suicides or, you know, blood uses. These kinds of shootings are up. All of this has got to stop. And I don't have all the answers. I don't think any mayor or anybody else has all of them. We need to come at it from lots of different directions. I'm editorializing now. But it's like I just get frustrated too that we only kind of focus on one area or two areas. You know, there's probably three or four areas We need to really be looking at and get a handle on this. And parents need to do a better job of raising their kids. They just knew we have some great parents out there in our community. But there's some that are letting their kids run amok. And this stuff builds up. And you know, it's I don't know, all the situation down there in Texas, we'll learn more, I'm sure in the future, that it's just really sad that it came to a situation where this kid can go get again, do this. And it's just, it's devastating to all of us. I just, I hate it for those folks down there. It's terrible.
Unknown Speaker
And like you said, when you mentioned these other areas, you are it's not one thing. It's many different things. You do you agree gun control was part of the issue, too.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. I just think that, you know, most people who have guns are law abiding citizens. What are we doing about the people that are committing crimes of guns now that turned around and commit other crimes? I'm not saying we're school shooters, but there's others? How many other shootings have happened since Texas, just all around the United States with mass shootings? You know, it's why are they doing that? Why all of a sudden, are we seeing that, let's get to the root of the problem. And if some of that is background checks, and keeping people from getting weapons, you get through a process. But I think it's important that people still are able to access guns, you want them to protect their families. So after a few more hoops, I'm okay with that. But I really want to focus on the mental health side and try to get some of these people off the streets who are fragile, or, you know, could be the next shooter. I don't know. It's a very frustrating thing. And I don't think there's no one answer no matter what anybody says. I think it has multiple answers to the problem.
Unknown Speaker
Well, I know we just have a couple minutes left, but I did want to get I went on on that one. Oh, no. And I you know, it's it's just such a tragedy and just adding the minds of everybody right now. And I think if you talk to anybody about this, you're gonna get, you're gonna get a long answer. There's just so much to talk about.
Unknown Speaker
We just got to keep doing something. I mean, we can't just talk we have to act. And so we need to try some things and see if we can tighten the reins a little bit. That's the first sale.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. Terre Haute hosted its first Pride festival this past weekend. I know you weren't supported this. You had great weather last weekend. How did the festival go? And I heard you made a proclamation to
Unknown Speaker
it was a huge turnout. So when I first got there and saw all the booths and vendors they had, I thought, Well, I mean, this is going to be big, just because that's as big as any other event that I've seen, you know, for quite some time, especially after COVID. Great turnout, you know, a lot of folks. It's just exciting. Anytime we have festivals, I love him anyway, I love getting people out and mingling and doing things that are community. So it's always fun to see that this was the first obviously for them. And so I think we have some things that we got to work on in the future. But they must they have to be happy about the crab that came out and support they received just generally speaking. It turned out to be a great event. You know, we had the ball basketball festival going on at the same time in Fairbanks Park, just a few blocks away. Great turnout for that we got the strawberry fest coming up this week. So it's kind of that time of the year, you know, late spring, early summer, when a lot of things begin to happen. And you just love to see people out and having fun and enjoying themselves. And that's what it's all about. And the more different kinds of festivals and events we can have, the better. I want to be able to, you know, reach all segments of our community and and encourage people to come and be a part of it. And so I just love seeing those things.
Unknown Speaker
Now, I'd be talking Nashville, they were working on a human rights ordinance for their town. It's Terre Haute have anything like that?
Unknown Speaker
Yes, we do. And we have a Human Relations Commission here that deals with a lot of issues, discrimination kind of issues and things. So you know, we do a lot in that area. And it's been pretty successful. So whether that goes in the future, I don't know whether we put even more resources in it, but I feel really good about the accomplishments that they've made over the years.
Unknown Speaker
I always like to kind of leave the last minute up to you any big announcements anything else you'd like to say any city council news?
Unknown Speaker
No, you know, city council Shubin quiet you asked me that every month and we've had a lot of rezonings and things and write you abatements That kind of normal business. But things have been going really well pretty smoothly. From that perspective, that administrative side of it. You know, we're working on our next Aren't was spending plan. So spend some of those federal dollars that's taking up quite a bit of our time we're working on updating our housing and doing a little bit of a Housing Survey because we have a lot of issues with housing in our community, that ramp up some things we want to work with our home builders, we've got some new apartment complexes coming to the community. So we are making some progress there. But that's a targeted area. And workforce development is big. So we're kind of working on a plan that we're going to roll out here this fall related to some components of that. So there's a lot of heavy, big things going on behind the scenes that seemed to be talked about publicly. And then just you know, we're very start budgeting again, it just never fails that you get them and it's time to start planning for next year. So there's just a lot of a lot of things and good swap. And we're just excited about where we're at right now and some things that we're going to be talking about very soon and you know, just just it's an exciting time to be here
Unknown Speaker
and Pharaoh I did see you through the first pitch I Rex game. I'm just curious, did it make it across the plate
Unknown Speaker
was it was a bit outside? Ever since I've had my shoulder surgery, my accuracy is not there. I got it up to the plate but it was it was a little bit outside. It was at least catchable people get a holiday.
Unknown Speaker
Mayor Bennett thank you so much for your time and hope to see you in July.
Unknown Speaker
Thank you
Hello and welcome to ask the mayor on WFIU. I'm Joe Hren. This week, we're in Terre Haute on Zoom with Mayor Duke Bennett. I believe you were on vacation last month. So we haven't seen you in a while. Hope you're doing well. Hello, Mr. Mayor.
Unknown Speaker
It's great to be here. Joe, good to see you. And yeah, I was out. I had a couple of vacation days. But I also went to Washington DC for the police Memorial. You know, we lost an officer last year. And so I spent a couple of days and then headed to DC for a few days. And, you know, another tough week from that perspective. I mean, that's our third officer, since I've been mayor, that we've lost that. It's really a great thing to go and be with a family and do that. It's just, it's just you can relive it again. And so it was it was a rough week, but I'm back and doing things. Oh, it's just it's been a great year so far, really, in a lot more positives than negatives.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. So much going on. I just wanted to catch up a little bit. Want to remind those listening, we're always looking for your questions, you can submit them to news at Indiana public media.org or on Twitter at Ask the mayor just start little post election the school referendum didn't pass. They're just wanted to get your take on how important was that to the school system in Terre Haute and what now?
Unknown Speaker
Well, it's a big deal. So I guess there's a you know, it's easy to Monday morning, quarterback a little bit on some of these things, as you look through and before the election, you kind of think about okay, I'm hearing where the feedbacks coming from and not, you know, this sector and that sector. And then there's, you have supporters over here. So I knew I thought I was going to be close, I really did I miscalculated on on the numbers. And I what I would attribute that to is people just kept quiet, they just kept their opinions of yourself and didn't really share it publicly. So you didn't know where they were coming from and looking back, and now looking forward, it's going to be a bumpy road. Because the folks that were opposed to it felt like there wasn't enough transparency with the school corporation, there's been some financial things that have been unclear exactly what's going to be the money's gonna be spent on the news, the high schools, but not the specifics of that, or in what order and just you hear all this stuff after the election from people have what made them feel uncomfortable about it. And so, you know, we got to do something with the high schools, I don't think anybody disagrees with the fact that we've got improvements to be made in schools, they just didn't like a second referendum, this one being for capital, when the other was for operations, until they get that figured out why they need money to pay the daily bills, and then want to tackle 200, you know, $260 million worth of improvement. So, you know, it's unfortunate from a perspective of, we've got to do something, and you need to get started immediately on the school. And this is going to delay that without any questions part of our overall approach to our community. We want good schools, and good physical facilities, we've got to be able to sell those to people in our community. So we're going to have to figure out how they're going to get there and do it without this Big Mom. I'm gonna guess it's going to be smaller bones on the way they're going to use some of their federal relief money to do some things. So they're circling the wagons and figuring out how to move forward. But as a community, we're going to have to make those investments at some point. I mean, it's inevitable.
Unknown Speaker
Now, more taxes could be especially now a hard sell with inflation gas prices, do you think that had something to do with it to the end?
Unknown Speaker
So there's a couple of things that happened in the last really a couple of weeks where it became more apparent that gas prices were going through the roof inflation wasn't getting under control in any way, shape, or form, when the tax forms came out. But your tax bills, and then the reassessments came out the day before the election. And so next years, my taxes are gonna go up. I mean, worst case scenario, I'm not laughing about it in a way that it just like, you can't make this stuff up. You know what I mean? Like, all the worst things happened in a short period of time. That just really blew it up. And I think that's just simply what happened and there wasn't anything they can do about the timing of those things. But all of that building up to being like No, as a community, you know, we don't want increases costs. I mean, that was a clear message that people spam a
Unknown Speaker
lot of city tanks to fill cars police, fire. How does the city maintain a budget with the high gear Ask prices.
Unknown Speaker
So you know, I looked at that data just last week, I asked our comptroller just give me an update, show me where we're at for the end of May. And some of our areas were exceeding what we had budgeted their departments that are heavy users, as you can imagine, police department etc, you know, we can't cut back and we're not going to cut back in those areas, we're just going to have to shuffle some funds around, we've got some other line items, that we're probably going to make some decisions and holding off on doing something that isn't critical. Or, you know, we may have to appropriate some funds at the end of the year, we'll see how this plays out for the second half of the year. But yes, we're spending a lot more gas is costing us twice as much as it did last year. And the budgets are reflecting that. But I don't anticipate any reduction in service. And I'm hopeful that in the coming months, it'll start trending back the other way. But we're going to spend a lot of money on both diesel and gas this year, more than we've ever spent.
Unknown Speaker
All Finally, some news on the casino. Groundbreaking. I see set for June 21, the queen of Terre Haute, we've been reporting a $260 million casino hotel. I we've been talking about a date for three or four months now. So I bet it's at least on your perspective, it's really good to have this in the calendar.
Unknown Speaker
Timely. I mean, you know, it's, I understand that you're reluctant to pick the day because you've got all these, you know, hoops, you have to jump through in all red state, state related and FAA related to other things because of their location. But I always felt like they were going to get it done in June, we were hopeful it was going to be made. So I knew we were really tightening that down. And it was just great when they finally let us know last week of the specific date time, because now it becomes real to people, you know, they're still skeptics out there saying, Is this ever gonna happen? And I answer those questions on a daily basis, I'm telling you, still a daily basis. And there's a lot of excitement from the casino to come, whether you're a gambler or not people know that it's going to bring revenue to our community, it's going to bring people and it's just a real energy boost for us, and economic development driver. So we've all been waiting for this for so long. And now it's just exciting to hear that the scope of the project remains huge, it's going to be a major investment. But a lot of people to work, as I said, generate that revenue back to the community for us to do some great things with so, you know, across the board, I'm just glad we're getting to that point, get it get the building started, we're working on some traffic related issues right now that are, since they kind of moved to a different spot than the original casino plan or hard rock was gonna go. We had, you know, really pick up the pace here. I'm figuring that out. But I'm feeling good, how it's all coming together here in the month of June to really turn that into something started.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, and I know that the site is farther out east off of I 70. What kind of infrastructure will the city have to help provide or as most of that come from the casino?
Unknown Speaker
Well, they're going to help with that, obviously. But there's things that we don't plan to do before the casino ever announced they were going out there. So it's a combination of things over the coming years that will do to improve access on the north side, increase the flow on existing market Avenue on the south side of their facility. And so it's going to be kind of coming from both directions over the next three to five years and getting all of those projects that are already on the books completed with this new edition out there, you know, the VA clinics open and that's generating new traffic, the casinos gonna drive additional things. So we're kind of capture all of that now and beginning to move forward on several projects, including a new fire station out there to support all this development on the east side.
Unknown Speaker
So it sounds like you're you're talking about roads.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. For that infrastructure, utilities are all there. So with some road improvements, yes. Just to be clear, I guess I think about talking about it every day. So just want to be clear on that. We've got new Margaret Avenue to the north of their property that needs to be extended. We've got existing Morgan avenue that needs some improvements. And so it's all of the above when it comes to that.
Unknown Speaker
Do you have any jail update? I stopped when I was there the last time and really it's amazing from the least from the outside how close they're getting.
Unknown Speaker
The staff was there now so they have moved in the offices are at the new jail. The inmates are still here, you know across the sidewalk for me, but they will begin to move them sometime in July. then. And that's the loop the last plan that they talked about to get everybody moved in the month of July. So over the course of that time, they'll in sections, they will do that. And so it's open for business. And just trying to make the put the final touches on it in preparation to bring the MH down.
Unknown Speaker
And I've talked about just because it's just been in the news so much about the mass shootings, you've all the school shooting, of course, recently in NPR reporting more than 240 mass shootings this year. As a mayor, you know, when you watch this on TV or read about it, I mean, what goes through your mind? Or do you automatically think about? Boy, what would happen if this could happen here?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, you know, I think more along the lines of, well, first of all, I feel really good about our school security plan that we put in place here. We're one of the leaders in the state school resource officers, and I can't even tell you what year that was now, but it was probably back in 2009 2010. We have armed officers in every school, some schools have more than one, you know, lockdown of the doors, you know, to come through the main entrance, and, and all those things. But then every time this happens, especially in a school particular setting, I mean, that's a worst case scenario. Anyway, when you're talking about kids, you want to be able to send your kids to school and have them be safe. I mean, that's every parent is like that. There's nobody there, no matter what your politics is, you want your kids to be safe in school. And so I feel very strongly about that. But that doesn't mean something can't happen, just like it happened down there. Last week, last couple of weeks that we've been hearing over and over again about failures of the system and things I hope and pray that never happens here in Terre Haute, but it can. And we've got to learn from this particular scenario. I mean, it sounds like they had some failures in their planning process. But we can't let those things happen here. And I hope I'm sure mayors are doing this in school corporations, and everybody's looking at your plan again, what can we take it to the next level, we can't just have a plan and have a few things that if we need to make more investments, we need to make those. But then when you step back and look at it, you know, it's almost automatic that some politicians immediately run to the gun control things and others say it's all mental health or something else. It's kind of a combination of a lot of things. And I really do believe COVID has had some impact on the mental health of people, I just don't really believe that it's affecting crime in general. I have no proof of any of that. It's just my gut and my experiences. I think we need to do more to head off these potential people who are going to commit these crimes. I mean, this kid send out every message in the world and he was gonna do this. Yeah, he did. He got away with it. I mean, he said that he pulled it off. And then we do a better job of keeping weapons out of the hands of people like that. You know, that's it doesn't mean they're not going to go find another way up into how do we continue to tighten the reins on people who are not stable when we've made threats? And we don't do anything about that. I mean, I, I want to learn more on the investigation to be completed that from what I hear, and when I'm looking at this, you know?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. And of course, I hear you say, we have to do more, we have to do more our local cities getting the support they need from state and federal officials think
Unknown Speaker
generally speaking, we're going to be left to come up with the money to do more things ourselves anyway, it always seems to work that way. But having more mental health resources and more people in schools, I think that's the key is having staff in the schools that are dealing with kids every day that are there, and helping the ones that are having issues. I mean, bullying and social media, and all this stuff is pushing people to limits and we've not seen before. I mean, I don't there will be people will dispute me saying that, but it's true. I'm telling you, I know it is true. And I talked to mental health providers here. And they say these kids are facing more pressures and more things in their lives now than they have ever seen. You know, some of these people have been doing this for 3040 years. We've got to figure out how to soften that blow get kids through school, did not face those pressures and not feel like something is build up to where were the suicides or, you know, blood uses. These kinds of shootings are up. All of this has got to stop. And I don't have all the answers. I don't think any mayor or anybody else has all of them. We need to come at it from lots of different directions. I'm editorializing now. But it's like I just get frustrated too that we only kind of focus on one area or two areas. You know, there's probably three or four areas We need to really be looking at and get a handle on this. And parents need to do a better job of raising their kids. They just knew we have some great parents out there in our community. But there's some that are letting their kids run amok. And this stuff builds up. And you know, it's I don't know, all the situation down there in Texas, we'll learn more, I'm sure in the future, that it's just really sad that it came to a situation where this kid can go get again, do this. And it's just, it's devastating to all of us. I just, I hate it for those folks down there. It's terrible.
Unknown Speaker
And like you said, when you mentioned these other areas, you are it's not one thing. It's many different things. You do you agree gun control was part of the issue, too.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. I just think that, you know, most people who have guns are law abiding citizens. What are we doing about the people that are committing crimes of guns now that turned around and commit other crimes? I'm not saying we're school shooters, but there's others? How many other shootings have happened since Texas, just all around the United States with mass shootings? You know, it's why are they doing that? Why all of a sudden, are we seeing that, let's get to the root of the problem. And if some of that is background checks, and keeping people from getting weapons, you get through a process. But I think it's important that people still are able to access guns, you want them to protect their families. So after a few more hoops, I'm okay with that. But I really want to focus on the mental health side and try to get some of these people off the streets who are fragile, or, you know, could be the next shooter. I don't know. It's a very frustrating thing. And I don't think there's no one answer no matter what anybody says. I think it has multiple answers to the problem.
Unknown Speaker
Well, I know we just have a couple minutes left, but I did want to get I went on on that one. Oh, no. And I you know, it's it's just such a tragedy and just adding the minds of everybody right now. And I think if you talk to anybody about this, you're gonna get, you're gonna get a long answer. There's just so much to talk about.
Unknown Speaker
We just got to keep doing something. I mean, we can't just talk we have to act. And so we need to try some things and see if we can tighten the reins a little bit. That's the first sale.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. Terre Haute hosted its first Pride festival this past weekend. I know you weren't supported this. You had great weather last weekend. How did the festival go? And I heard you made a proclamation to
Unknown Speaker
it was a huge turnout. So when I first got there and saw all the booths and vendors they had, I thought, Well, I mean, this is going to be big, just because that's as big as any other event that I've seen, you know, for quite some time, especially after COVID. Great turnout, you know, a lot of folks. It's just exciting. Anytime we have festivals, I love him anyway, I love getting people out and mingling and doing things that are community. So it's always fun to see that this was the first obviously for them. And so I think we have some things that we got to work on in the future. But they must they have to be happy about the crab that came out and support they received just generally speaking. It turned out to be a great event. You know, we had the ball basketball festival going on at the same time in Fairbanks Park, just a few blocks away. Great turnout for that we got the strawberry fest coming up this week. So it's kind of that time of the year, you know, late spring, early summer, when a lot of things begin to happen. And you just love to see people out and having fun and enjoying themselves. And that's what it's all about. And the more different kinds of festivals and events we can have, the better. I want to be able to, you know, reach all segments of our community and and encourage people to come and be a part of it. And so I just love seeing those things.
Unknown Speaker
Now, I'd be talking Nashville, they were working on a human rights ordinance for their town. It's Terre Haute have anything like that?
Unknown Speaker
Yes, we do. And we have a Human Relations Commission here that deals with a lot of issues, discrimination kind of issues and things. So you know, we do a lot in that area. And it's been pretty successful. So whether that goes in the future, I don't know whether we put even more resources in it, but I feel really good about the accomplishments that they've made over the years.
Unknown Speaker
I always like to kind of leave the last minute up to you any big announcements anything else you'd like to say any city council news?
Unknown Speaker
No, you know, city council Shubin quiet you asked me that every month and we've had a lot of rezonings and things and write you abatements That kind of normal business. But things have been going really well pretty smoothly. From that perspective, that administrative side of it. You know, we're working on our next Aren't was spending plan. So spend some of those federal dollars that's taking up quite a bit of our time we're working on updating our housing and doing a little bit of a Housing Survey because we have a lot of issues with housing in our community, that ramp up some things we want to work with our home builders, we've got some new apartment complexes coming to the community. So we are making some progress there. But that's a targeted area. And workforce development is big. So we're kind of working on a plan that we're going to roll out here this fall related to some components of that. So there's a lot of heavy, big things going on behind the scenes that seemed to be talked about publicly. And then just you know, we're very start budgeting again, it just never fails that you get them and it's time to start planning for next year. So there's just a lot of a lot of things and good swap. And we're just excited about where we're at right now and some things that we're going to be talking about very soon and you know, just just it's an exciting time to be here
Unknown Speaker
and Pharaoh I did see you through the first pitch I Rex game. I'm just curious, did it make it across the plate
Unknown Speaker
was it was a bit outside? Ever since I've had my shoulder surgery, my accuracy is not there. I got it up to the plate but it was it was a little bit outside. It was at least catchable people get a holiday.
Unknown Speaker
Mayor Bennett thank you so much for your time and hope to see you in July.
Unknown Speaker
Thank you
