Unknown Speaker
Hello and welcome to ask the mayor on WFIU, I'm Joe Hren in Terre Haute. Beautiful day to be in Terre Haute today. It's always a great day to be in Terre Haute. Joe
Unknown Speaker
with Mayor Brandon Sakbun. It is beautiful, sunny, warm, still, and Hoosiers just off the big win and you were on the field. I did. I got to go and swear in some cadets for Indiana University. I graduated from the Army ROTC program there two time IU grad. So always happy to help the university when they reach out. You were busy with veteran day activities yesterday, too. I was so I had a really busy couple of days. Of course, Friday, going into Veterans Day, you know, doing the school circuit, communicating with our kids at middle school, high school, elementary school, what the military means, what it means to serve. I even went down to Carlisle, Indiana, to the Wabash Valley Community Corrections, correctional facility, and then Veterans Day hits, right? So you've got a parade, you've got the VFW event, but I enjoy it because it's important to honor those who have served. Pray for those who are serving. And, you know, share a message to those who may serve one day, saying, This is the ultimate team sport, right? Being in the United States military, there's not a red jersey or a blue jersey or a green jersey. There's the United States of America's jersey with that flag on your arm, and it's a true answer to the call to service. Well, it's been a week since the election. Indiana pretty much a GOP suite. Not that surprising for Indiana. But as night went on, of course, we saw more in the federal election as well as we're at President Senate and so forth. What were your thoughts as the night was unfolding? What an interesting, you know, election, of course, and a lot of those swing states, you saw Democratic senators being elected, as well as individuals Voting for President Trump. So I think it's pretty, pretty unique, different style election. Of course, North Carolina, that's a state where Democrats swept statewide offices, but they voted for President Trump. So I really think that Trump effects interesting, and it'll be something that political scientists studied for years. But here on the front facing and in local government, you know, we all woke up went to work, December, November 6, and said, We've got to deliver for the people at Terre Haute. We have been blessed here in Terre Haute to receive large tranches of funding from the Beane Harris administration, as well as large tranches of funding from the state legislator and Governor Holcomb. And we hope to continue those relationships, regardless of who's the governor or who's the president, who's a cabinet secretary, who's not a cabinet secretary, we work with everyone. And that's really my message to the people of Terre Haute, video county that you know, partisan politics, while it might be great for engagement in Facebook, likes and podcasts, we are focused on progress here in Terre Haute. That's what we've been focused on this entire year, and we'll continue to do that. And by focusing on progress instead of politics, you'll see some of the results that you and I talk about every month, strong housing growth, new parks being built, construction across the community, building permit data that backs this up. That doesn't happen just in DC, right? You know, sometimes policy is transformational, but when you look at what you've got to do with local government, you've got limited time to deliver these results and interesting election. But you know, we move forward right with the same amount of energy and focus on improving the daily lives of those that live in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Unknown Speaker
And it's very early, but now that you know who's going to be in office, does your strategy change at all from a local, town, city perspective, you know, I think I'll use a military reference here. One of the tenants of mission command is a term called Creating a culture of shared understanding, right? So essentially, if your commander's commander says, Hey, this is one of our priorities at lower levels in the military, you are looking at that commander's priorities saying, Hey, are we nested in our initiatives, in our goals? So, you know, I do look at, you know, incoming Governor Brown's comments about workforce development, right about economic development. Are we on the same sheet of music? Where are we different? And if so, you know, how can we reflect internally here to meet and match his priorities, or at least get close? And we always do that with new state legislators. You know, returning state legislators, priorities always shift. You know, a personal goal of mine has always been to assist public education in the state of Indiana, especially.
Unknown Speaker
Actually here in vivo County, because I am not against school choice, right? That is not my frustration. My frustration is when some communities don't have the charter schools or the vouchers that can be used at some of these top private schools. A lot of that happens in the donut County, but here it's a different fight, right? So, you know, really trying to localize issues and bring that information to our leaders and say, hey, look, this is why, you know, we think what we think, or would you be willing to have a conversation on this? And at the federal level, you know, Congress is always difficult, right? No matter who's in charge, it's, it's painfully slow at times, and we just stay nested and in conversations about, hey, what federal opportunities are there for cities like Terre Haute, Indiana, we have covered the EPA cleanup at 19th and beach. That was a prime example that communities like Terre Haute are no longer going to settle for being left behind. We reached out to our federal legislators, we reached out to the Biden Harris administration, and we received cleanup funding for that problem, I would expect that same conversation with President Trump and Vice President Vance, like, if we have a problem here in, quote, rural style communities or class two population sized cities, can we bring these to you and say, Hey, here's everything we've done at the state and local level, and Here's why federal involvement will make this nation better.
Unknown Speaker
One more question on this, what does the Democratic Party need to get voters and people in office, especially after this last election? You know, that's a that's a political question that I'll leave to the state party and the national party. I do think some introspection is definitely needed and really a strong look at messaging, right? You know, there's some stuff. I'll use a local example here, we have a responsible bidders ordinance for public projects that's where companies with apprenticeship programs that follow federal standards that includes ensuring that either legally vetted migrants are working, or those who are in an apprenticeship program are working right. That helps unions. It helps contractors and construction companies that make the right decisions thrive when it comes to public sector projects. Bringing messages like that to the the American people in the Hoosier State is definitely something that's needed to do to be done more. But I really just, I tend to focus on the local aspect of it. You can get a mere tons of gray hairs thinking about national and state politics, or you can help transform someone's life at the local level. And that could be something as simple as a new park or a sidewalk, or ensuring that the ambulance is there when they call 911, well, you just mentioned the EPA cleanup on the asbestos cleanup at the former Colombian enameling site at a public forum October 30, what did you learn from the public? They were definitely happy, right? And, you know, there have been calls complaints and frustration from some of those neighbors for years, and it's, it's really refreshing for them to kind of come to these public meetings and see like, oh my goodness, like we're not tweeting about problems, we're providing solutions. And they see the EPA trailers, they see a fence going up, and they see clean up starting. They can physically see progress. That is one of my best memories so far as being mayor is saying, hey, no, like we said, we're going to help North Terre Haute. We've committed to working with the EPA to clean up a crumbled factory. We've committed millions of dollars to rebuild their neighborhood park, so that way we've got consistent quality of life across the city, not just if you live on the east side, on the south side, but all portions of this community can have a quality green space and can have a neighborhood that's clean and up to standards, and it's just, I think it represents a true community when, and of course, they're frustrated, right? And there's, there's some health related questions that we're happy to get them connected to the Department of Health or idem to follow up on, and we're thankful that so many people participated. That, to me, is another huge win is seeing a pat city hall with people who live in the neighborhood who are like, wow. Like, you know, we're just curious. We didn't have a question. We just want to be here. Man, you don't see that in government every day. And that was good to see. This has to be a multi step plan. What's happening right now? What's next? So we are in phase two of the operation. Phase one was reaching out to the state and federal level for financial assistance and cleanup. Of course, this is a fully funded project from the federal level, so no local property taxes are being used. Here we are in phase two, which is clean up as well as site recovery. So Site Recovery does focus on the cleanup side, but there's also a legal conversation with the developers and the hands that be that created this situation. The EPA will pursue cost recovery on the private side, but we are, you know, the city has made it clear that they have.
Unknown Speaker
Area interested in acquiring that property. When you look at some of the success that we had in housing, this would be a truly transformational site to bring market rate housing to a community that can use it. This might be the environmental show. I feel like everything we're talking about today has to do with the environment, because there was a controlled burn this past week as well. I think you said in a press release, 20 years of brush and debris that was just piled by the city. I assume is this from like Storm cleanup and construction, sure, Storm construction and even leaves. So we had three sites strategically spread throughout the city, and we'll do, I mean, these mount there's mountains of brush. It was creating a, really a safety hazard for our employees to be back there. We did this through multiple steps. We disc some of it up, cut some of it up, packed it down, consolidated the debris into one area, split it up into multiple piles. We did have an industrial Shredder, which did provide some it's not mulch, but it's like wood chips for our trails, and then we had to burn some of it. And it was a control burn. The fire department was made aware, and they were on close watch. And look when. This is a prime example of when you kick cans down the road. This is what happens, right? The leaf season starts. Started today, November 12, and we're already bringing more stuff back there, so we have got to have space available. Keep in mind, we've got a partnership with Vigo County Solid Waste Management and their dump site in southern Vigo county to start composting materials. And not everything, not all of our debris is going to be moved to the compost site, but some of it will be, and will pursue that environmentally friendly option. But we are also going to use a controlled berm, because to rent an industrial grade shredder and chipper to take care of all of this, that would have been a $500,000 cost. Instead, we reduced that cost to about 45,000 to do this entire operation. So will that take care of the long term plan then, of not having those piles, it will Okay, yeah. And, I mean, you just said leaf season is underway. And I, you know, I, if I remember, correct, I think former mayor Bennett used to say that was one of the number one calls they used to get here was, When are you coming to pick up the lead? So it's happening. And we released about two weeks ago. So we gave 10 days notice, a five Zone program. So we've got five zones that will be tackled at different times over the next month. And then we did remind residents that if you bag it, and we prefer that you bag it in paper bags or compostable plastic bags, if you do bag it, Republic Services, who we've got our trash contract with will pick up up to 10 bags of leaves, so long as they are by your trash can, and you can do that without having to call or without our teams picking up the leaves. One question that we have been getting a lot of is, why aren't we encouraging, you know, people to use those leaves for their backyard or their front yard? One because not everyone has the time to be able to do it, to cut it up, to spread it. And two, if the city doesn't pick up leaves, I think most mayors would agree, we all know where they go, and that's the storm water drain, and we cannot clog our city's infrastructure. So you know, yes, in a dream scenario, would be great if everyone used their leaves for that great backyard of theirs, but not everyone's able to do that. So we do offer leaf pickup, and we've received some calls, and it's been well received because we put the information out there saying, hey, look, some of you will not get picked up for four more weeks as we get the other portions of the city, and we've got teams that are deployed at different zones, and we're very, very pointed effort to unveil that information early, and we'll keep unveiling it throughout the weeks. So I just got a press release from the governor's office on millions of dollars being awarded through the community crossings matching grant program, something I think we've talked about on this show many times over the years. It's been going on a little bit a while, but this is infrastructure, roads, bridges, and the number one up, yo. I mean, look, so it worked beyond happy that Governor Holcomb heard the concerns and anytime frustrations from Hoosier mayors. We said, Hey, a million dollars means a lot. And just for the folks who aren't aware of this program, community crossing grant, if a city says, I will pave a million dollars worth of roads, the governor's office created a program where we would receive an additional million that would bring your total to $2 million now that cap is one and a half million, so we're going to do $3 million worth of paving next year, which is a 50% increase of previous years.
Unknown Speaker
And we're really looking forward a lot. A lot of it's preventative. So we're getting our streets that are rated three or two, and some of it is to completely rebuild those streets, right, those streets that are rated one out of the scale of one to five. So I've been very impressed with our city engineering office. They put that application together. We did receive the funds, and we do want to thank Governor Holcomb and indot and everyone who's involved with making this a successful.
Unknown Speaker
Program. And something I think people don't realize too over the years is how you talk about back burner with the leaves and so forth, that that happens with city roads and bridges. Some of those really need repair, and they get put on the back burner. They do and, you know, well, Joe, I mean, here's one of my bigger frustrations in the political realm, in the state of Indiana, we tout being one of the most pro business states, right? We're a top state for business. Okay, well, we need the infrastructure to continue to bring businesses in, as well as support our current businesses. So when I use the word infrastructure, a lot of folks, okay, we'll break that down, right? Whether it's water, natural gas, roadways, storm water. I mean, if we are not built to be pro growth, we continue to push this problem down the line. That is one of my bigger frustrations with the conversation around tax abatements and economic development incentives. You want to incentivize coming to your community, because if you don't, another community will but when you do that, you open up a flank your side to be hit with problems like archaic infrastructure and a lack of a tax base to pay some of that. So there's always this balance in economic development that I think is an interesting problem set that I'm sure every mayor handles differently, and I say you're keeping up the parks construction that, again, former mayor Bennett was it was a priority with him, Hearst rose Park. Hearst rose Park. And you know, that was one that I really enjoyed, finishing right getting it through the goal line. We did have to do some value engineering to meet the price. And a lot of our projects have come in under bid this year. This one, unfortunately not so we did some value engineering. We did have to tweak the designs, but it is one project that you know any mayor, Republican or Democrat should want to do, right? And that's provide a safe, quality place for kids to play. Kids are on their phone for hours a day, and they used to be outside playing two hours a day. Now it's 15 minutes, according to some surveys and studies, oh my goodness, right? Like, let's create an environment for kids to play pickup basketball or go down a slide or get on a swing. But with that comes structured programming, and our parks department is Parks and Recreation. We've made a lot of changes on the recreation side. We actually almost doubled some of our recreational revenue for the year because we've created programs that more kids are participating in. So really good year for the Parks and Recreation Department. Let's get a quick update on city ordinance updates, something we talked about months ago. Once again, you had students from Terre Haute coming in looking at did older, maybe out of date ordinances that you really want to get up to speed. Yeah. I mean, well, look the city codes, 990 pages for a town of 60,000 right? How many of those are old and archaic and just aren't applicable to 2024 so we had some students from Indiana State University help us out, and they looked at a handful, and those handful we are taking the council to get changed, one of which is, you know how permitting works for mobile food vendors, which is the academic term for food trucks, right making sure they've got the right required paperwork. One is about commercial dumpsters and residential trash bins. The way the ordinance was written didn't take into account that all of our trash bins are now uniform, but now it also states that, look, if you're a commercial dumpster and your bin is not closed, you know you that's responsible for more trash than grandmother Susie, who lives off of a street with just one trash can. So that was a very good rewrite there. And of course, I don't know of other Hoosier communities deal with this, but we've had a major animal control issue over the last couple of years, really coming out of COVID is when it really amplified. So we are take, we've taken a look at it, and we're going to bring it to council to increase the fines and the repercussions for folks who are not taking care of their pets, and, you know, spayed and neutering them or letting them run loose. And now there's a lot of state legislation that I also advocate for that needs to be changed and updated, because those laws that can be a little bit old as they surround animal care, and folks love their pets and they love animals, and we get calls all the time about it, and spend a long couple of months trying to get this ordinance ready, we believe we've got it to a good point, so we're Going to take it forth here in about a week or so. In our Dora, we've been working on that designated outdoor refreshment area, another economic development tool to really spice up downtown. And it is not. Everyone always assumes it's just open container. That's not what it is. There's some specific parameters to it. And you know, businesses were the ones that advocated for this, and we will follow the lead of the business community. Do you hope that that collaboration, partnership with ISU and the students to work with the new president? Oh, he has been amazing. So working with President Goddard and the new Board of Trustees has been just genuinely refreshing. Um.
Unknown Speaker
Everything from the football team, you know, with Terre Haute on the side of their helmets when they step out there and they beat a 15th ranked team in the nation with the Terre Haute helmets, okay?
Unknown Speaker
But also, we are seeing more and more companies sign on to be preferred partners, which is, you know, their employees can get a discount if they go to ISU for a undergrad or graduate degree. We're seeing more Indiana State University students apply for some of our local internship positions, which is always a refreshing site, and we will support President Goddard and ISU Terre Haute does better when that enrollment is strong and it's a strong relation. We talk very frequently. He's been great to work at from a strategic planning perspective, but he's also just a genuine person and leader. And I know higher education has become a polarizing topic the last couple of years, and it really shocks me as to why. Because so many of these universities, they're focused on workforce development, they're focused on offering a quality education, bringing in first time college students and transforming someone's life. And that's what we're doing here at ISU. And of course, Rose Holman, we saw their large project. They're doing very well, and we are very big supporters of Ivy Tech as well, really filling a workforce need in the Hoosier State. And the chancellor here, Leanne crooks, cannot speak highly enough about her, and St Mary's enrollment continues to go up as they've done some changes over the years. So really good university vibe here in Terre Haute. So we're out of time, but I'd like to leave that last minute to you any announcements, things that you'd like to say, yeah. So you know, look, we've had a very strong 11 months here in Terre Haute, and we're going to finish the year strong. But as we get to the winter months, construction slows down a little bit, and we kind of enter some of those planning months and start really focusing on schedules for 2025 and we've got a lot of stormwater improvements, a lot of sidewalk improvements, a lot of housing improvements, but the number one improvement that I'm very proud of to see in Terre Haute is people are engaged. They're positively engaged in you know, we're also doing as what we can here in local government to deliver at a very quick rate, at a very quick speed. I think in politics, the trust loop has been very frustrating, right? People put these politicians in the office, and, you know, by the time they expend their political capital or pass something, it takes years to see that net effect. We try to shrink that like we try to say, hey, look, you know, we've added building inspectors and right of way inspectors. We will fix the work or call out, you know, private utility companies or landowners who are not held to our standards. Those are the quick, you know, fixes that we've done so good year. And we're looking forward to 2025, and what the future holds. I can't believe we're saying that already. 25
Unknown Speaker
right? One more show this year, and then, yeah, thanks so much appreciate having you Absolutely. Thanks for the time
Unknown Speaker
Thank you.
Hello and welcome to ask the mayor on WFIU, I'm Joe Hren in Terre Haute. Beautiful day to be in Terre Haute today. It's always a great day to be in Terre Haute. Joe
Unknown Speaker
with Mayor Brandon Sakbun. It is beautiful, sunny, warm, still, and Hoosiers just off the big win and you were on the field. I did. I got to go and swear in some cadets for Indiana University. I graduated from the Army ROTC program there two time IU grad. So always happy to help the university when they reach out. You were busy with veteran day activities yesterday, too. I was so I had a really busy couple of days. Of course, Friday, going into Veterans Day, you know, doing the school circuit, communicating with our kids at middle school, high school, elementary school, what the military means, what it means to serve. I even went down to Carlisle, Indiana, to the Wabash Valley Community Corrections, correctional facility, and then Veterans Day hits, right? So you've got a parade, you've got the VFW event, but I enjoy it because it's important to honor those who have served. Pray for those who are serving. And, you know, share a message to those who may serve one day, saying, This is the ultimate team sport, right? Being in the United States military, there's not a red jersey or a blue jersey or a green jersey. There's the United States of America's jersey with that flag on your arm, and it's a true answer to the call to service. Well, it's been a week since the election. Indiana pretty much a GOP suite. Not that surprising for Indiana. But as night went on, of course, we saw more in the federal election as well as we're at President Senate and so forth. What were your thoughts as the night was unfolding? What an interesting, you know, election, of course, and a lot of those swing states, you saw Democratic senators being elected, as well as individuals Voting for President Trump. So I think it's pretty, pretty unique, different style election. Of course, North Carolina, that's a state where Democrats swept statewide offices, but they voted for President Trump. So I really think that Trump effects interesting, and it'll be something that political scientists studied for years. But here on the front facing and in local government, you know, we all woke up went to work, December, November 6, and said, We've got to deliver for the people at Terre Haute. We have been blessed here in Terre Haute to receive large tranches of funding from the Beane Harris administration, as well as large tranches of funding from the state legislator and Governor Holcomb. And we hope to continue those relationships, regardless of who's the governor or who's the president, who's a cabinet secretary, who's not a cabinet secretary, we work with everyone. And that's really my message to the people of Terre Haute, video county that you know, partisan politics, while it might be great for engagement in Facebook, likes and podcasts, we are focused on progress here in Terre Haute. That's what we've been focused on this entire year, and we'll continue to do that. And by focusing on progress instead of politics, you'll see some of the results that you and I talk about every month, strong housing growth, new parks being built, construction across the community, building permit data that backs this up. That doesn't happen just in DC, right? You know, sometimes policy is transformational, but when you look at what you've got to do with local government, you've got limited time to deliver these results and interesting election. But you know, we move forward right with the same amount of energy and focus on improving the daily lives of those that live in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Unknown Speaker
And it's very early, but now that you know who's going to be in office, does your strategy change at all from a local, town, city perspective, you know, I think I'll use a military reference here. One of the tenants of mission command is a term called Creating a culture of shared understanding, right? So essentially, if your commander's commander says, Hey, this is one of our priorities at lower levels in the military, you are looking at that commander's priorities saying, Hey, are we nested in our initiatives, in our goals? So, you know, I do look at, you know, incoming Governor Brown's comments about workforce development, right about economic development. Are we on the same sheet of music? Where are we different? And if so, you know, how can we reflect internally here to meet and match his priorities, or at least get close? And we always do that with new state legislators. You know, returning state legislators, priorities always shift. You know, a personal goal of mine has always been to assist public education in the state of Indiana, especially.
Unknown Speaker
Actually here in vivo County, because I am not against school choice, right? That is not my frustration. My frustration is when some communities don't have the charter schools or the vouchers that can be used at some of these top private schools. A lot of that happens in the donut County, but here it's a different fight, right? So, you know, really trying to localize issues and bring that information to our leaders and say, hey, look, this is why, you know, we think what we think, or would you be willing to have a conversation on this? And at the federal level, you know, Congress is always difficult, right? No matter who's in charge, it's, it's painfully slow at times, and we just stay nested and in conversations about, hey, what federal opportunities are there for cities like Terre Haute, Indiana, we have covered the EPA cleanup at 19th and beach. That was a prime example that communities like Terre Haute are no longer going to settle for being left behind. We reached out to our federal legislators, we reached out to the Biden Harris administration, and we received cleanup funding for that problem, I would expect that same conversation with President Trump and Vice President Vance, like, if we have a problem here in, quote, rural style communities or class two population sized cities, can we bring these to you and say, Hey, here's everything we've done at the state and local level, and Here's why federal involvement will make this nation better.
Unknown Speaker
One more question on this, what does the Democratic Party need to get voters and people in office, especially after this last election? You know, that's a that's a political question that I'll leave to the state party and the national party. I do think some introspection is definitely needed and really a strong look at messaging, right? You know, there's some stuff. I'll use a local example here, we have a responsible bidders ordinance for public projects that's where companies with apprenticeship programs that follow federal standards that includes ensuring that either legally vetted migrants are working, or those who are in an apprenticeship program are working right. That helps unions. It helps contractors and construction companies that make the right decisions thrive when it comes to public sector projects. Bringing messages like that to the the American people in the Hoosier State is definitely something that's needed to do to be done more. But I really just, I tend to focus on the local aspect of it. You can get a mere tons of gray hairs thinking about national and state politics, or you can help transform someone's life at the local level. And that could be something as simple as a new park or a sidewalk, or ensuring that the ambulance is there when they call 911, well, you just mentioned the EPA cleanup on the asbestos cleanup at the former Colombian enameling site at a public forum October 30, what did you learn from the public? They were definitely happy, right? And, you know, there have been calls complaints and frustration from some of those neighbors for years, and it's, it's really refreshing for them to kind of come to these public meetings and see like, oh my goodness, like we're not tweeting about problems, we're providing solutions. And they see the EPA trailers, they see a fence going up, and they see clean up starting. They can physically see progress. That is one of my best memories so far as being mayor is saying, hey, no, like we said, we're going to help North Terre Haute. We've committed to working with the EPA to clean up a crumbled factory. We've committed millions of dollars to rebuild their neighborhood park, so that way we've got consistent quality of life across the city, not just if you live on the east side, on the south side, but all portions of this community can have a quality green space and can have a neighborhood that's clean and up to standards, and it's just, I think it represents a true community when, and of course, they're frustrated, right? And there's, there's some health related questions that we're happy to get them connected to the Department of Health or idem to follow up on, and we're thankful that so many people participated. That, to me, is another huge win is seeing a pat city hall with people who live in the neighborhood who are like, wow. Like, you know, we're just curious. We didn't have a question. We just want to be here. Man, you don't see that in government every day. And that was good to see. This has to be a multi step plan. What's happening right now? What's next? So we are in phase two of the operation. Phase one was reaching out to the state and federal level for financial assistance and cleanup. Of course, this is a fully funded project from the federal level, so no local property taxes are being used. Here we are in phase two, which is clean up as well as site recovery. So Site Recovery does focus on the cleanup side, but there's also a legal conversation with the developers and the hands that be that created this situation. The EPA will pursue cost recovery on the private side, but we are, you know, the city has made it clear that they have.
Unknown Speaker
Area interested in acquiring that property. When you look at some of the success that we had in housing, this would be a truly transformational site to bring market rate housing to a community that can use it. This might be the environmental show. I feel like everything we're talking about today has to do with the environment, because there was a controlled burn this past week as well. I think you said in a press release, 20 years of brush and debris that was just piled by the city. I assume is this from like Storm cleanup and construction, sure, Storm construction and even leaves. So we had three sites strategically spread throughout the city, and we'll do, I mean, these mount there's mountains of brush. It was creating a, really a safety hazard for our employees to be back there. We did this through multiple steps. We disc some of it up, cut some of it up, packed it down, consolidated the debris into one area, split it up into multiple piles. We did have an industrial Shredder, which did provide some it's not mulch, but it's like wood chips for our trails, and then we had to burn some of it. And it was a control burn. The fire department was made aware, and they were on close watch. And look when. This is a prime example of when you kick cans down the road. This is what happens, right? The leaf season starts. Started today, November 12, and we're already bringing more stuff back there, so we have got to have space available. Keep in mind, we've got a partnership with Vigo County Solid Waste Management and their dump site in southern Vigo county to start composting materials. And not everything, not all of our debris is going to be moved to the compost site, but some of it will be, and will pursue that environmentally friendly option. But we are also going to use a controlled berm, because to rent an industrial grade shredder and chipper to take care of all of this, that would have been a $500,000 cost. Instead, we reduced that cost to about 45,000 to do this entire operation. So will that take care of the long term plan then, of not having those piles, it will Okay, yeah. And, I mean, you just said leaf season is underway. And I, you know, I, if I remember, correct, I think former mayor Bennett used to say that was one of the number one calls they used to get here was, When are you coming to pick up the lead? So it's happening. And we released about two weeks ago. So we gave 10 days notice, a five Zone program. So we've got five zones that will be tackled at different times over the next month. And then we did remind residents that if you bag it, and we prefer that you bag it in paper bags or compostable plastic bags, if you do bag it, Republic Services, who we've got our trash contract with will pick up up to 10 bags of leaves, so long as they are by your trash can, and you can do that without having to call or without our teams picking up the leaves. One question that we have been getting a lot of is, why aren't we encouraging, you know, people to use those leaves for their backyard or their front yard? One because not everyone has the time to be able to do it, to cut it up, to spread it. And two, if the city doesn't pick up leaves, I think most mayors would agree, we all know where they go, and that's the storm water drain, and we cannot clog our city's infrastructure. So you know, yes, in a dream scenario, would be great if everyone used their leaves for that great backyard of theirs, but not everyone's able to do that. So we do offer leaf pickup, and we've received some calls, and it's been well received because we put the information out there saying, hey, look, some of you will not get picked up for four more weeks as we get the other portions of the city, and we've got teams that are deployed at different zones, and we're very, very pointed effort to unveil that information early, and we'll keep unveiling it throughout the weeks. So I just got a press release from the governor's office on millions of dollars being awarded through the community crossings matching grant program, something I think we've talked about on this show many times over the years. It's been going on a little bit a while, but this is infrastructure, roads, bridges, and the number one up, yo. I mean, look, so it worked beyond happy that Governor Holcomb heard the concerns and anytime frustrations from Hoosier mayors. We said, Hey, a million dollars means a lot. And just for the folks who aren't aware of this program, community crossing grant, if a city says, I will pave a million dollars worth of roads, the governor's office created a program where we would receive an additional million that would bring your total to $2 million now that cap is one and a half million, so we're going to do $3 million worth of paving next year, which is a 50% increase of previous years.
Unknown Speaker
And we're really looking forward a lot. A lot of it's preventative. So we're getting our streets that are rated three or two, and some of it is to completely rebuild those streets, right, those streets that are rated one out of the scale of one to five. So I've been very impressed with our city engineering office. They put that application together. We did receive the funds, and we do want to thank Governor Holcomb and indot and everyone who's involved with making this a successful.
Unknown Speaker
Program. And something I think people don't realize too over the years is how you talk about back burner with the leaves and so forth, that that happens with city roads and bridges. Some of those really need repair, and they get put on the back burner. They do and, you know, well, Joe, I mean, here's one of my bigger frustrations in the political realm, in the state of Indiana, we tout being one of the most pro business states, right? We're a top state for business. Okay, well, we need the infrastructure to continue to bring businesses in, as well as support our current businesses. So when I use the word infrastructure, a lot of folks, okay, we'll break that down, right? Whether it's water, natural gas, roadways, storm water. I mean, if we are not built to be pro growth, we continue to push this problem down the line. That is one of my bigger frustrations with the conversation around tax abatements and economic development incentives. You want to incentivize coming to your community, because if you don't, another community will but when you do that, you open up a flank your side to be hit with problems like archaic infrastructure and a lack of a tax base to pay some of that. So there's always this balance in economic development that I think is an interesting problem set that I'm sure every mayor handles differently, and I say you're keeping up the parks construction that, again, former mayor Bennett was it was a priority with him, Hearst rose Park. Hearst rose Park. And you know, that was one that I really enjoyed, finishing right getting it through the goal line. We did have to do some value engineering to meet the price. And a lot of our projects have come in under bid this year. This one, unfortunately not so we did some value engineering. We did have to tweak the designs, but it is one project that you know any mayor, Republican or Democrat should want to do, right? And that's provide a safe, quality place for kids to play. Kids are on their phone for hours a day, and they used to be outside playing two hours a day. Now it's 15 minutes, according to some surveys and studies, oh my goodness, right? Like, let's create an environment for kids to play pickup basketball or go down a slide or get on a swing. But with that comes structured programming, and our parks department is Parks and Recreation. We've made a lot of changes on the recreation side. We actually almost doubled some of our recreational revenue for the year because we've created programs that more kids are participating in. So really good year for the Parks and Recreation Department. Let's get a quick update on city ordinance updates, something we talked about months ago. Once again, you had students from Terre Haute coming in looking at did older, maybe out of date ordinances that you really want to get up to speed. Yeah. I mean, well, look the city codes, 990 pages for a town of 60,000 right? How many of those are old and archaic and just aren't applicable to 2024 so we had some students from Indiana State University help us out, and they looked at a handful, and those handful we are taking the council to get changed, one of which is, you know how permitting works for mobile food vendors, which is the academic term for food trucks, right making sure they've got the right required paperwork. One is about commercial dumpsters and residential trash bins. The way the ordinance was written didn't take into account that all of our trash bins are now uniform, but now it also states that, look, if you're a commercial dumpster and your bin is not closed, you know you that's responsible for more trash than grandmother Susie, who lives off of a street with just one trash can. So that was a very good rewrite there. And of course, I don't know of other Hoosier communities deal with this, but we've had a major animal control issue over the last couple of years, really coming out of COVID is when it really amplified. So we are take, we've taken a look at it, and we're going to bring it to council to increase the fines and the repercussions for folks who are not taking care of their pets, and, you know, spayed and neutering them or letting them run loose. And now there's a lot of state legislation that I also advocate for that needs to be changed and updated, because those laws that can be a little bit old as they surround animal care, and folks love their pets and they love animals, and we get calls all the time about it, and spend a long couple of months trying to get this ordinance ready, we believe we've got it to a good point, so we're Going to take it forth here in about a week or so. In our Dora, we've been working on that designated outdoor refreshment area, another economic development tool to really spice up downtown. And it is not. Everyone always assumes it's just open container. That's not what it is. There's some specific parameters to it. And you know, businesses were the ones that advocated for this, and we will follow the lead of the business community. Do you hope that that collaboration, partnership with ISU and the students to work with the new president? Oh, he has been amazing. So working with President Goddard and the new Board of Trustees has been just genuinely refreshing. Um.
Unknown Speaker
Everything from the football team, you know, with Terre Haute on the side of their helmets when they step out there and they beat a 15th ranked team in the nation with the Terre Haute helmets, okay?
Unknown Speaker
But also, we are seeing more and more companies sign on to be preferred partners, which is, you know, their employees can get a discount if they go to ISU for a undergrad or graduate degree. We're seeing more Indiana State University students apply for some of our local internship positions, which is always a refreshing site, and we will support President Goddard and ISU Terre Haute does better when that enrollment is strong and it's a strong relation. We talk very frequently. He's been great to work at from a strategic planning perspective, but he's also just a genuine person and leader. And I know higher education has become a polarizing topic the last couple of years, and it really shocks me as to why. Because so many of these universities, they're focused on workforce development, they're focused on offering a quality education, bringing in first time college students and transforming someone's life. And that's what we're doing here at ISU. And of course, Rose Holman, we saw their large project. They're doing very well, and we are very big supporters of Ivy Tech as well, really filling a workforce need in the Hoosier State. And the chancellor here, Leanne crooks, cannot speak highly enough about her, and St Mary's enrollment continues to go up as they've done some changes over the years. So really good university vibe here in Terre Haute. So we're out of time, but I'd like to leave that last minute to you any announcements, things that you'd like to say, yeah. So you know, look, we've had a very strong 11 months here in Terre Haute, and we're going to finish the year strong. But as we get to the winter months, construction slows down a little bit, and we kind of enter some of those planning months and start really focusing on schedules for 2025 and we've got a lot of stormwater improvements, a lot of sidewalk improvements, a lot of housing improvements, but the number one improvement that I'm very proud of to see in Terre Haute is people are engaged. They're positively engaged in you know, we're also doing as what we can here in local government to deliver at a very quick rate, at a very quick speed. I think in politics, the trust loop has been very frustrating, right? People put these politicians in the office, and, you know, by the time they expend their political capital or pass something, it takes years to see that net effect. We try to shrink that like we try to say, hey, look, you know, we've added building inspectors and right of way inspectors. We will fix the work or call out, you know, private utility companies or landowners who are not held to our standards. Those are the quick, you know, fixes that we've done so good year. And we're looking forward to 2025, and what the future holds. I can't believe we're saying that already. 25
Unknown Speaker
right? One more show this year, and then, yeah, thanks so much appreciate having you Absolutely. Thanks for the time
Unknown Speaker
Thank you.
