Kokomo's housing shortage, Amazon's potential impact on Kokomo, population shifts throughout the state and an innkeeper's tax increase update.
On this week's installment of Ask The Mayor, Kokomo's Greg Goodnight addresses these issues and more. Listen to the full conversation with Rural Affairs Reporter Brock Turner by clicking on the play button above, or read some of the questions and answers below. A portion of this segment airs 6:45 and 8:45 a.m. Wednesday on WFIU.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
Turner: We're in Indianapolis today as Mayor Goodnight attends Aim meetings, which represents the official voice of municipal government in Indiana... more than 460 cities and towns in Indiana. What's on your agenda today?
Goodnight: I came down yesterday to serve on the executive board. We had our legislative dinner last night. Today we have a committee meeting basically trying to look to our future. What's going to be our challenges, trying to be proactive over the next five, ten years. But what are the challenges we're going to be facing as a collective group.
Really what do we need to be paying attention to as demographics change. Population shifts are taking place, people are moving to metropolitan areas, how does that impact small cities in outlying areas. How to we provide quality services at the lowest cost.
Turner: Since we're in Indy and you're on the Aim legislative board, legislators passed the half way mark in the General Assembly a week or so ago, what are some of the disappointments and accomplishments so far, especially those everyone here is talking about?
Goodnight: Nothing earth-shattering. Personally, I was a little disappointed... the governor had as part of his agenda consolidation of 300 townships to start paring that down to make those a little more efficient. That was a priority of the Indiana State Chamber, never really got any traction. That seemed like low hanging fruit trying to make our state more efficient.
Turner: Howard County was looking for approval for an innkeepers tax increase that would help pay for a new downtown convention center... any updates on that?
Goodnight: If we had an increase it would make it more viable. Not to say we're going to be prohibited if we don't get that increase. I don't know that we'll get that through the legislature. We're not finished yet, I'm cautiously optimistic, but it's something we need to do.
Turner: A recent study came out on a Kokomo housing shortage. We've covered some of the housing units going up this past year or so... that will help, but occupancy rates for apartments 97 percent. Did this study tell you anything you didn't already know?
Goodnight: It's for people in all different parts and stages of their lives. We want to be sure we hit every demographic and we've been fairly successful with that. So even with all these apartments coming online, there's still a shortage. We're taking that data and sharing it with developers and leaders in the community so they can understand the importance of making sure we have housing.
