Unknown Speaker
All right. Hello and welcome to ask the mayor on WFIU I'm Joe Hren second week of the month, as always, we find ourselves in Terre Haute with Mayor Duke Bennett in person this time, and we missed you last month. So it's been a couple of months. Good to see it. Thanks for having us here in Terre Haute.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, it's always good to have you here and lots to talk about. So it's always an exciting time.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. i Let's get to some of the new stuff that I heard about and want to get your take on this. And I know some of this is county related. But we'd love to get your your take. The first thing I came across was Vigo county looking for an RFQ for a feasibility study on a sports complex and waterpark. Right? What's that about? How much does that involve the city as well, we're
Unknown Speaker
half partners in that, basically. So it's the CIB, that's doing that. And it's kind of our next big project after the convention center that we're beginning to look at. It fits into our tourism model of our community plan, it fits into the quality of life component. So what we're trying to do here is we've got, you know, many communities have done this, they've gone out and build some athletic facilities. And we're not trying to recreate or you know, outdo anything, not trying to be a Westfield kind of a Grand Park environment, but a local facility that are pariah for baseball diamonds, and for softball, diamonds, probably some indoor facilities later, possibly a REX baseball stadium, they're looking at doing their own stadium. And then we'd like to have a water park a destination or kind of a facility there. So on maybe 100 acre somewhere here in the community, we have this complex. So we received some ready funds to do the preliminary feasibility study. So we're in the process of negotiating that contract, we should have that we've identified the company, we're negotiating the final contract, we hope to prove that at the end of this month, and get them started in that feasibility study. So it's an exciting project, ready funds to kick it off, but the CIB would own and control this entity, as the next piece of what we're doing is the CIB.
Unknown Speaker
CIB? Do they also look over the convention center?
Unknown Speaker
Yes, that's our only project right now. But, you know, we get food and beverage tax money in that feeds that and we're looking at our next beginning to start looking at our next projects. And this would be the next big one.
Unknown Speaker
And this is very early in the process. So really, right now you're looking to feasibility
Unknown Speaker
study. So we'll make sure that our market will sustain this, you know, what were the scope of what we're thinking about is a doable project. And I believe that it will be but that's why you have to walk through these, you have to have a professional and outside entity look at it and tell you whether it makes sense to move forward or not.
Unknown Speaker
It's got an update on turn to the river project. I see. Artspace is asking about one and a half million dollars. Phase two, it's more of a it's about a $1.8 million project. Can you tell us a little bit about what this is?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. So it's it's there's five phases of the project. The first one was completed, you know, between City Hall and the courthouse. Now they're looking at doing additional phases as we move forward. And so one of the requests they have is to the CIB for some funding for the future phases, and we're taking that under advisement a presentation was made last month at our meeting. And we will probably will do something to help them out with that, and maybe do some more in the future. This is a multi year project. So part of the legislative piece of this when when the state approved our CIP, the ability to create a CIP there's an arts component in there. So we are able to use those food and beverage tax funds that come to us for arts related projects. That's why they made the request.
Unknown Speaker
No Bloomington is looking in Monroe County to start their own CIP. They don't have one yet. What what goes into creating a CIB?
Unknown Speaker
You know, you have to have legislative approval, in essence to outline how you're going to fund it. So a lot of times the food and beverage taxes associated with that. So the framework was laid in the legislature to have that funding source and then we created the CIB, based on the existing state statutes that were out there. So but you have to have some kind of funding source or whether it's local funding or not, you kind of have to have that figured out before you create the CIB. But all based on statute. And so we're moving forward, you know, the convention center was the big one. Now we're beginning to look at some other pieces.
Unknown Speaker
So phase two of turn to the river project, what does that entail
Unknown Speaker
an area out here to the south of City Hall, that will be encompassing, tying in into what's you know, on the the first phase, and then on the north side, it's an area that goes across the parking lot more towards the river. And then there's a piece between the courthouse and the jail. So they're trying to figure out which comes first, but it'll be all part of that next two phases that they're trying to fund And
Unknown Speaker
this these are projects that would enhance the area into a more visitor
Unknown Speaker
basically getting people from downtown, across Third Street through the government campus to the river. And so it's a multi phase project to accomplish that corridor, if you will.
Unknown Speaker
It's funny seeing Columbus trying to do the exact same thing there were as mayor Lenovo, we said, we used to turn away from the river yet years and decades ago, and now we're seeing it as an economic tool to the river. And that's exactly what's happened about
Unknown Speaker
1213 years ago, we recognize the same thing. And we've been moving towards that ever since.
Unknown Speaker
It was a groundbreaking for veteran's village. How did that come to be? Why Terre Haute?
Unknown Speaker
You know, I think a lot of people look at what can we do to help homeless veterans. I mean, I think that's a very targeted area. There's a lot of groups out there a lot of organizations that are always looking for ways to help homeless veterans, the Terre Haute realtor Association stepped up and said they wanted to do a project. So there was some land donated to them, they're going to build six houses and in a small little office building there to provide services. And they're they're just the owner of the property, if you will, that reach services they're going to contract with to kind of operate it. And so there'll be, you know, an individual living in each of these small homes are tiny homes, and then have services provided on site with them, I think it'll be one of several that will probably come I've just, that's what my gut tells me that these will be pretty successful because of who's involved with getting them built. And then who's operating them. We just we do need to find continue to find ways to help our veterans and you hate to have homeless people who are willing to be helped, but they have nowhere to go, there is no place for them. And so trying to create that opportunity for housing for them, hopefully, they'll only be there for a short period of time, they can move on and get their own home. Once they have that stable environment. I think that'll go a long way towards helping people to be successful.
Unknown Speaker
And something we've always talked about here on this show is the sewer, long term control plan and the sewer over flow project, which I know is still something that has always been on the docket here we talk about what's the next phase, what are you looking at now. So
Unknown Speaker
we're looking at about a $300 million plan that we've submitted to IDM and the EPA, to re up our existing plan. We've already kind of spent all the money that was in that plan that was approved several years ago. Now. Of course, they want more work done to continue to capture more stormwater and not let it go into the river. So it's about $300 million worth of work that we hope to do over the next 30 years. And that's what we've asked for is 30 years versus the typical 20. So we're negotiating, we had a republic meeting recently, that's, you know, gotta check the boxes off, you have to do certain steps along the way we did that got great feedback from the people in attendance, no big issues, we think we got a good solid plan, it's just now going to be up to IDM. And the EPA, whether they give us a 30 year plan versus a typical 20 year plan. So we can keep rates down as much as we can and do these projects and knock them off, pay old debt off and then be able to use those funds to move into new projects. It's maddening in a way, it's so much money, it's so much work that needs to be done. But you're under the gun of you know, the federal government, we have to do it, we don't get to say we don't want to do it, we're on a river. So we have to reduce that amount of raw sewage and or, you know, just stormwater that goes into the river, which we've cut back, we've done or we made great strides, but they expect you to do even more. So it's tough, it costs a lot of money. And a lot of people don't see it, it's underground. It's not something that's visible. And that's a hard sell for people to pay more on their sewer bill. So we're trying to stretch it out as long as we can. So we can manage those sewer bill rates as much as possible.
Unknown Speaker
And it's not something like a new convention center, or a waterpark.
Unknown Speaker
You can use it. This is something you flush your toilet, if you have stormwater in your neighborhood and you want it to go and not go directly into the river because it's dirty. And it's not cheap to do these things.
Unknown Speaker
And you said 300 million. Yeah. So how does the city look at that and say, how do we fund that?
Unknown Speaker
Well, some of its upfront Well, we have to do the main lift stage, and that's probably going to be about $60 million of that. The other projects are just a wide variety of things that will happen over the course of that plan. So there are all kinds of different things that help us capture the stormwater expand our sewer system, our collection system, the treatment of plants already Bill, we've got that part of it. Now it's the collection side,
Unknown Speaker
anything new city council wise ordinances being looked at or
Unknown Speaker
not really, you know, we did the end of the year business last week, everything went Gray, we had to move some money around to deal with diesel and gasoline prices is everybody's face, we had a few other expenses that kind of exceeded line items a little bit. So we made those final council approved all of those unanimously. We're going to finish the year strong from that perspective. You know, moving forward, I think we're still looking at some zoning things we'd like to do here to tighten up some things on certain types of businesses. But, you know, really, things are going well, we're more focused on external, what we're going to do with ERP funds, ready funds, those kinds of things, and how we build future budgets to make sure we support all of that versus, you know, there's always cleanup work to do when it comes to ordinances, but I will see a lot of new things
Unknown Speaker
coming. Well, you just mentioned ready grants, something that this area this region received. And now already looking forward to next year,
Unknown Speaker
yeah, we received 20 million for this region, we'd ask for 50. And we didn't quite get that. We're setting ourselves up to hopefully get the 50 million in round two, if this legislature approves it, I hear that it'll be, you know, an agenda item. And so we're going to bring some projects over that didn't get funded, we'll probably have some new ones. So we're working on that ahead of time. So we'll be able to tell a good story. If this does get approved, we'll be ready for round two next year.
Unknown Speaker
New jail, is it fully operational, fully operational,
Unknown Speaker
pretty full. They're down there. They're still trying to figure out what to do with the old jail and the dispatch center that remains. I talked to the commissioners about that regularly, they're working through that process, but the new jail is up and running. Everything seems to be going great. So far.
Unknown Speaker
Any word I know it's early, but any word on that the transportation being so far away,
Unknown Speaker
I have not heard anything. I've not talked to the sheriff in the last few weeks. But when they first got it up, I talked to them about a few different things. We had some issues with bringing bond money back to City Hall, people are going city core, you know, some little just logistics things that we worked out. I haven't heard any transportation issues. But you know, that's one of those things that if from the city tariffs perspective, we want to be supportive of whatever they're doing and go to bat for them if they need additional resources. But that's where the jail is. That's where it's gonna be for the next 100 years. So we got to figure out anything and everything to make it as efficient as we possibly can for everybody that utilizes that facility.
Unknown Speaker
On the way out, I might try past the casino site, just to see how it's going out there any updates or
Unknown Speaker
anything? Yeah, no, not really. I mean, just they're working on things, you can see the activity, they got a big crane out there, and they're in there working. Yeah, I still believe they're going to come back at some point and officially tell us it's probably gonna be the first quarter of 24 before they open. But, you know, that's not nothing that we didn't expect. So moving along on that,
Unknown Speaker
and I know the city was working on infrastructure to in that area. Yeah, we've
Unknown Speaker
got that all worked out with them. And so very minimal activity that will lead to do at first, over time, as more things come out there. I think there'll be some bigger projects down the road, but we'll have everything we need to get the casino opened to support all of their traffic flow.
Unknown Speaker
This Terre Haute have East scooters?
Unknown Speaker
No, we do not know. And what was the approving requests, you know, from companies that would like to, you know, do that we've not acted upon or anything yet. So it's just I think that's in our future as it is in many places, you know, that either it's there or it's coming? We got to figure that out. So that'll be one of the things we'll be talking about, maybe from an ordinance perspective, how we would manage something like that. But right now, no, yeah,
Unknown Speaker
yeah. What do you have concerns?
Unknown Speaker
You know, I hear things from other communities, you know, they're left laying on the street. I mean, they find them in the river, you know, or in the canal. You know, they're a bit of a safety hazard for some people, you get kids on them that are being a little irresponsible, and people are concerned about that. I'm not as concerned about those things, because we don't have that much pedestrian traffic or it's going to be a conflict, I don't think, but we're hopeful that as we move forward, we'll begin to have more of that. So if we do it, we want to do it. Right. I guess that's the bottom line.
Unknown Speaker
Larry Bird Museum, have you heard anything more on that?
Unknown Speaker
It's moving it a lot of it has to do with just Larry's collection and the agreements that we have with the NBA and Larry and all that. So the legal work continues the build out continues. Soon we'll be able to finalize the displays and all of that and that'll get ordered. You know, I'm hoping by the end of next year that we can get it open but we're not committed to any specific date yet until all the legal agreements are worked out. And then that we know what the timeline is the supply chain issues on the the ordering of the cases so and that kind of display material.
Unknown Speaker
So you know We didn't see you last month, election month, we're heading into a new year. Are you running for mayor again next year?
Unknown Speaker
I'll be making that announcement soon. I, you know, I think about it every day, obviously, I've always waited until after the election to not get caught up in those county and state elections. I typically make some kind of announcement before the end of the year. And so I'm seriously considering that and trying to figure out some timing of some things that if I do move forward with that, so I'm, you know, I'm still I love my job. I love what I'm doing. I'm excited about the future. It's just it's one of those decisions that you just you don't take lightly. You know, it's it's a major commitment. Anybody that runs for mayor will tell you that it's more than you ever expect to do. The hours are long, and sometimes the, you know, the positives come from the community working hard together. And that's what we've seen. And it's an exciting time right now. So I would say well put out something regarding my future plans very soon. All right,
Unknown Speaker
well, this is the end of the year. And last show until 2023. I looked at a year ago today to see what we talked about. And it was the COVID, of course, restrictions, a lot of that there was a lot of that. And you know, now here it is a year later, but now we're talking about the flu, and heard about 11,000 people in hospitals in I forget what region of IU Health, and I assume that's a big story. Here it is.
Unknown Speaker
There's a lot of people that have the flu. I mean, we've seen a lot of illness here in city hall in the last few weeks. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to be a really terrible, terrible flu. But I think our immune systems are down, you know, we went through COVID We wore masks, you know all of that. And I guess I'm not surprised I'm not any a scientist or medical expert in any way, shape, or form. But it kind of makes sense that we're seeing that. But what's there's a lot of RSV T, a lot of young kids are seeing that I mean, some strep throat I've heard about. So my guess is it's going to be kind of a rocky winter, because of all that COVID still out there. But hopefully, you know, as we move forward, that's a thing from our past. And we'll get ourselves and our bodies back to where they were to fight, you know, and have the resistance, we need to kind of knock those things down as much as possible. Once again, no expert, but seems like we're going to be kind of having a sick winter here. It looks like.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, so as we wrap up the year, what are some of the things that when you look back at 2022, that you're really glad that you got done, we
Unknown Speaker
had our first full year in the new police station, it's worked out great. I hate to not, you know, talk about that, because that was a great win for the community, we got the convention center open couldn't be any more excited about that. And every month business continues to build, our budget was solid for the year, we're going to finish, you know, balanced again, with some excess revenues, that will go into reserves, we reduced our borrowing our TA WR and our borrower the temporary borrowing we do, we were at a high of $9 million in 2017, I believe. And now we're down to one and a half million for next year. And I'm hoping to be zero and 24. So that's a huge win for us. We've seen a lot of businesses open, I've had a significant amount of ribbon cuttings this year, we've got some big businesses that are looking to locate here that had a meeting this morning to kind of get an update on that that's looking very positive for the next couple of years. So I mean, we couldn't be in a better spot. And so it's up to us to take advantage of these things. We got to work on the quality of life initiatives, got to work on workforce development, we got to work on housing, all those things. And that's what we're going to be talking about, and really pushing forward with in 2023.
Unknown Speaker
Well, looking forward to 2023 Thanks for having us. Would you like to do maybe a holiday message?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, I'd love to do that. I appreciate you coming over here and doing this. I've been part of this now for 15 years. It's awesome. I really enjoy it. It gets a lot of positive feedback from the community. So I'm glad you continuing to do this. But yeah, just you know, I wish everybody to have a healthy and safe holiday season. You know Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everybody in our community. Great things are coming I hope things are going well on your family and you know we continue to make Terre Haute a better place.
Unknown Speaker
Thank you
All right. Hello and welcome to ask the mayor on WFIU I'm Joe Hren second week of the month, as always, we find ourselves in Terre Haute with Mayor Duke Bennett in person this time, and we missed you last month. So it's been a couple of months. Good to see it. Thanks for having us here in Terre Haute.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, it's always good to have you here and lots to talk about. So it's always an exciting time.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. i Let's get to some of the new stuff that I heard about and want to get your take on this. And I know some of this is county related. But we'd love to get your your take. The first thing I came across was Vigo county looking for an RFQ for a feasibility study on a sports complex and waterpark. Right? What's that about? How much does that involve the city as well, we're
Unknown Speaker
half partners in that, basically. So it's the CIB, that's doing that. And it's kind of our next big project after the convention center that we're beginning to look at. It fits into our tourism model of our community plan, it fits into the quality of life component. So what we're trying to do here is we've got, you know, many communities have done this, they've gone out and build some athletic facilities. And we're not trying to recreate or you know, outdo anything, not trying to be a Westfield kind of a Grand Park environment, but a local facility that are pariah for baseball diamonds, and for softball, diamonds, probably some indoor facilities later, possibly a REX baseball stadium, they're looking at doing their own stadium. And then we'd like to have a water park a destination or kind of a facility there. So on maybe 100 acre somewhere here in the community, we have this complex. So we received some ready funds to do the preliminary feasibility study. So we're in the process of negotiating that contract, we should have that we've identified the company, we're negotiating the final contract, we hope to prove that at the end of this month, and get them started in that feasibility study. So it's an exciting project, ready funds to kick it off, but the CIB would own and control this entity, as the next piece of what we're doing is the CIB.
Unknown Speaker
CIB? Do they also look over the convention center?
Unknown Speaker
Yes, that's our only project right now. But, you know, we get food and beverage tax money in that feeds that and we're looking at our next beginning to start looking at our next projects. And this would be the next big one.
Unknown Speaker
And this is very early in the process. So really, right now you're looking to feasibility
Unknown Speaker
study. So we'll make sure that our market will sustain this, you know, what were the scope of what we're thinking about is a doable project. And I believe that it will be but that's why you have to walk through these, you have to have a professional and outside entity look at it and tell you whether it makes sense to move forward or not.
Unknown Speaker
It's got an update on turn to the river project. I see. Artspace is asking about one and a half million dollars. Phase two, it's more of a it's about a $1.8 million project. Can you tell us a little bit about what this is?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. So it's it's there's five phases of the project. The first one was completed, you know, between City Hall and the courthouse. Now they're looking at doing additional phases as we move forward. And so one of the requests they have is to the CIB for some funding for the future phases, and we're taking that under advisement a presentation was made last month at our meeting. And we will probably will do something to help them out with that, and maybe do some more in the future. This is a multi year project. So part of the legislative piece of this when when the state approved our CIP, the ability to create a CIP there's an arts component in there. So we are able to use those food and beverage tax funds that come to us for arts related projects. That's why they made the request.
Unknown Speaker
No Bloomington is looking in Monroe County to start their own CIP. They don't have one yet. What what goes into creating a CIB?
Unknown Speaker
You know, you have to have legislative approval, in essence to outline how you're going to fund it. So a lot of times the food and beverage taxes associated with that. So the framework was laid in the legislature to have that funding source and then we created the CIB, based on the existing state statutes that were out there. So but you have to have some kind of funding source or whether it's local funding or not, you kind of have to have that figured out before you create the CIB. But all based on statute. And so we're moving forward, you know, the convention center was the big one. Now we're beginning to look at some other pieces.
Unknown Speaker
So phase two of turn to the river project, what does that entail
Unknown Speaker
an area out here to the south of City Hall, that will be encompassing, tying in into what's you know, on the the first phase, and then on the north side, it's an area that goes across the parking lot more towards the river. And then there's a piece between the courthouse and the jail. So they're trying to figure out which comes first, but it'll be all part of that next two phases that they're trying to fund And
Unknown Speaker
this these are projects that would enhance the area into a more visitor
Unknown Speaker
basically getting people from downtown, across Third Street through the government campus to the river. And so it's a multi phase project to accomplish that corridor, if you will.
Unknown Speaker
It's funny seeing Columbus trying to do the exact same thing there were as mayor Lenovo, we said, we used to turn away from the river yet years and decades ago, and now we're seeing it as an economic tool to the river. And that's exactly what's happened about
Unknown Speaker
1213 years ago, we recognize the same thing. And we've been moving towards that ever since.
Unknown Speaker
It was a groundbreaking for veteran's village. How did that come to be? Why Terre Haute?
Unknown Speaker
You know, I think a lot of people look at what can we do to help homeless veterans. I mean, I think that's a very targeted area. There's a lot of groups out there a lot of organizations that are always looking for ways to help homeless veterans, the Terre Haute realtor Association stepped up and said they wanted to do a project. So there was some land donated to them, they're going to build six houses and in a small little office building there to provide services. And they're they're just the owner of the property, if you will, that reach services they're going to contract with to kind of operate it. And so there'll be, you know, an individual living in each of these small homes are tiny homes, and then have services provided on site with them, I think it'll be one of several that will probably come I've just, that's what my gut tells me that these will be pretty successful because of who's involved with getting them built. And then who's operating them. We just we do need to find continue to find ways to help our veterans and you hate to have homeless people who are willing to be helped, but they have nowhere to go, there is no place for them. And so trying to create that opportunity for housing for them, hopefully, they'll only be there for a short period of time, they can move on and get their own home. Once they have that stable environment. I think that'll go a long way towards helping people to be successful.
Unknown Speaker
And something we've always talked about here on this show is the sewer, long term control plan and the sewer over flow project, which I know is still something that has always been on the docket here we talk about what's the next phase, what are you looking at now. So
Unknown Speaker
we're looking at about a $300 million plan that we've submitted to IDM and the EPA, to re up our existing plan. We've already kind of spent all the money that was in that plan that was approved several years ago. Now. Of course, they want more work done to continue to capture more stormwater and not let it go into the river. So it's about $300 million worth of work that we hope to do over the next 30 years. And that's what we've asked for is 30 years versus the typical 20. So we're negotiating, we had a republic meeting recently, that's, you know, gotta check the boxes off, you have to do certain steps along the way we did that got great feedback from the people in attendance, no big issues, we think we got a good solid plan, it's just now going to be up to IDM. And the EPA, whether they give us a 30 year plan versus a typical 20 year plan. So we can keep rates down as much as we can and do these projects and knock them off, pay old debt off and then be able to use those funds to move into new projects. It's maddening in a way, it's so much money, it's so much work that needs to be done. But you're under the gun of you know, the federal government, we have to do it, we don't get to say we don't want to do it, we're on a river. So we have to reduce that amount of raw sewage and or, you know, just stormwater that goes into the river, which we've cut back, we've done or we made great strides, but they expect you to do even more. So it's tough, it costs a lot of money. And a lot of people don't see it, it's underground. It's not something that's visible. And that's a hard sell for people to pay more on their sewer bill. So we're trying to stretch it out as long as we can. So we can manage those sewer bill rates as much as possible.
Unknown Speaker
And it's not something like a new convention center, or a waterpark.
Unknown Speaker
You can use it. This is something you flush your toilet, if you have stormwater in your neighborhood and you want it to go and not go directly into the river because it's dirty. And it's not cheap to do these things.
Unknown Speaker
And you said 300 million. Yeah. So how does the city look at that and say, how do we fund that?
Unknown Speaker
Well, some of its upfront Well, we have to do the main lift stage, and that's probably going to be about $60 million of that. The other projects are just a wide variety of things that will happen over the course of that plan. So there are all kinds of different things that help us capture the stormwater expand our sewer system, our collection system, the treatment of plants already Bill, we've got that part of it. Now it's the collection side,
Unknown Speaker
anything new city council wise ordinances being looked at or
Unknown Speaker
not really, you know, we did the end of the year business last week, everything went Gray, we had to move some money around to deal with diesel and gasoline prices is everybody's face, we had a few other expenses that kind of exceeded line items a little bit. So we made those final council approved all of those unanimously. We're going to finish the year strong from that perspective. You know, moving forward, I think we're still looking at some zoning things we'd like to do here to tighten up some things on certain types of businesses. But, you know, really, things are going well, we're more focused on external, what we're going to do with ERP funds, ready funds, those kinds of things, and how we build future budgets to make sure we support all of that versus, you know, there's always cleanup work to do when it comes to ordinances, but I will see a lot of new things
Unknown Speaker
coming. Well, you just mentioned ready grants, something that this area this region received. And now already looking forward to next year,
Unknown Speaker
yeah, we received 20 million for this region, we'd ask for 50. And we didn't quite get that. We're setting ourselves up to hopefully get the 50 million in round two, if this legislature approves it, I hear that it'll be, you know, an agenda item. And so we're going to bring some projects over that didn't get funded, we'll probably have some new ones. So we're working on that ahead of time. So we'll be able to tell a good story. If this does get approved, we'll be ready for round two next year.
Unknown Speaker
New jail, is it fully operational, fully operational,
Unknown Speaker
pretty full. They're down there. They're still trying to figure out what to do with the old jail and the dispatch center that remains. I talked to the commissioners about that regularly, they're working through that process, but the new jail is up and running. Everything seems to be going great. So far.
Unknown Speaker
Any word I know it's early, but any word on that the transportation being so far away,
Unknown Speaker
I have not heard anything. I've not talked to the sheriff in the last few weeks. But when they first got it up, I talked to them about a few different things. We had some issues with bringing bond money back to City Hall, people are going city core, you know, some little just logistics things that we worked out. I haven't heard any transportation issues. But you know, that's one of those things that if from the city tariffs perspective, we want to be supportive of whatever they're doing and go to bat for them if they need additional resources. But that's where the jail is. That's where it's gonna be for the next 100 years. So we got to figure out anything and everything to make it as efficient as we possibly can for everybody that utilizes that facility.
Unknown Speaker
On the way out, I might try past the casino site, just to see how it's going out there any updates or
Unknown Speaker
anything? Yeah, no, not really. I mean, just they're working on things, you can see the activity, they got a big crane out there, and they're in there working. Yeah, I still believe they're going to come back at some point and officially tell us it's probably gonna be the first quarter of 24 before they open. But, you know, that's not nothing that we didn't expect. So moving along on that,
Unknown Speaker
and I know the city was working on infrastructure to in that area. Yeah, we've
Unknown Speaker
got that all worked out with them. And so very minimal activity that will lead to do at first, over time, as more things come out there. I think there'll be some bigger projects down the road, but we'll have everything we need to get the casino opened to support all of their traffic flow.
Unknown Speaker
This Terre Haute have East scooters?
Unknown Speaker
No, we do not know. And what was the approving requests, you know, from companies that would like to, you know, do that we've not acted upon or anything yet. So it's just I think that's in our future as it is in many places, you know, that either it's there or it's coming? We got to figure that out. So that'll be one of the things we'll be talking about, maybe from an ordinance perspective, how we would manage something like that. But right now, no, yeah,
Unknown Speaker
yeah. What do you have concerns?
Unknown Speaker
You know, I hear things from other communities, you know, they're left laying on the street. I mean, they find them in the river, you know, or in the canal. You know, they're a bit of a safety hazard for some people, you get kids on them that are being a little irresponsible, and people are concerned about that. I'm not as concerned about those things, because we don't have that much pedestrian traffic or it's going to be a conflict, I don't think, but we're hopeful that as we move forward, we'll begin to have more of that. So if we do it, we want to do it. Right. I guess that's the bottom line.
Unknown Speaker
Larry Bird Museum, have you heard anything more on that?
Unknown Speaker
It's moving it a lot of it has to do with just Larry's collection and the agreements that we have with the NBA and Larry and all that. So the legal work continues the build out continues. Soon we'll be able to finalize the displays and all of that and that'll get ordered. You know, I'm hoping by the end of next year that we can get it open but we're not committed to any specific date yet until all the legal agreements are worked out. And then that we know what the timeline is the supply chain issues on the the ordering of the cases so and that kind of display material.
Unknown Speaker
So you know We didn't see you last month, election month, we're heading into a new year. Are you running for mayor again next year?
Unknown Speaker
I'll be making that announcement soon. I, you know, I think about it every day, obviously, I've always waited until after the election to not get caught up in those county and state elections. I typically make some kind of announcement before the end of the year. And so I'm seriously considering that and trying to figure out some timing of some things that if I do move forward with that, so I'm, you know, I'm still I love my job. I love what I'm doing. I'm excited about the future. It's just it's one of those decisions that you just you don't take lightly. You know, it's it's a major commitment. Anybody that runs for mayor will tell you that it's more than you ever expect to do. The hours are long, and sometimes the, you know, the positives come from the community working hard together. And that's what we've seen. And it's an exciting time right now. So I would say well put out something regarding my future plans very soon. All right,
Unknown Speaker
well, this is the end of the year. And last show until 2023. I looked at a year ago today to see what we talked about. And it was the COVID, of course, restrictions, a lot of that there was a lot of that. And you know, now here it is a year later, but now we're talking about the flu, and heard about 11,000 people in hospitals in I forget what region of IU Health, and I assume that's a big story. Here it is.
Unknown Speaker
There's a lot of people that have the flu. I mean, we've seen a lot of illness here in city hall in the last few weeks. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to be a really terrible, terrible flu. But I think our immune systems are down, you know, we went through COVID We wore masks, you know all of that. And I guess I'm not surprised I'm not any a scientist or medical expert in any way, shape, or form. But it kind of makes sense that we're seeing that. But what's there's a lot of RSV T, a lot of young kids are seeing that I mean, some strep throat I've heard about. So my guess is it's going to be kind of a rocky winter, because of all that COVID still out there. But hopefully, you know, as we move forward, that's a thing from our past. And we'll get ourselves and our bodies back to where they were to fight, you know, and have the resistance, we need to kind of knock those things down as much as possible. Once again, no expert, but seems like we're going to be kind of having a sick winter here. It looks like.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, so as we wrap up the year, what are some of the things that when you look back at 2022, that you're really glad that you got done, we
Unknown Speaker
had our first full year in the new police station, it's worked out great. I hate to not, you know, talk about that, because that was a great win for the community, we got the convention center open couldn't be any more excited about that. And every month business continues to build, our budget was solid for the year, we're going to finish, you know, balanced again, with some excess revenues, that will go into reserves, we reduced our borrowing our TA WR and our borrower the temporary borrowing we do, we were at a high of $9 million in 2017, I believe. And now we're down to one and a half million for next year. And I'm hoping to be zero and 24. So that's a huge win for us. We've seen a lot of businesses open, I've had a significant amount of ribbon cuttings this year, we've got some big businesses that are looking to locate here that had a meeting this morning to kind of get an update on that that's looking very positive for the next couple of years. So I mean, we couldn't be in a better spot. And so it's up to us to take advantage of these things. We got to work on the quality of life initiatives, got to work on workforce development, we got to work on housing, all those things. And that's what we're going to be talking about, and really pushing forward with in 2023.
Unknown Speaker
Well, looking forward to 2023 Thanks for having us. Would you like to do maybe a holiday message?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, I'd love to do that. I appreciate you coming over here and doing this. I've been part of this now for 15 years. It's awesome. I really enjoy it. It gets a lot of positive feedback from the community. So I'm glad you continuing to do this. But yeah, just you know, I wish everybody to have a healthy and safe holiday season. You know Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everybody in our community. Great things are coming I hope things are going well on your family and you know we continue to make Terre Haute a better place.
Unknown Speaker
Thank you
