Urban chicken ordinance, drug abuse prevention, road funding, ethnic expo and city architecture programs.
On this week's installment of Ask The Mayor, Columbus Mayor Jim Lienhoop addresses these issues and more. Listen to the full conversation with Indiana Newsdesk anchor Joe Hren 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.
Hren: You've been out of town, actually more like out of the country on a business trip?
Lienhoop: We were in Japan and China. The Japanese side was spent primarily on relationship building for economic development. We want to maintain and expand, some of the leadership is transitioning so it's important to begin a relationship with the next generation. The leaders that are in Japan they visit here from time to time and I'm pleased to report we had two takers. It's one of my goals of mine since the first of the year is to deepen those relationships.
In China, we're looking for more direct investment where you have a Chinese company that wants to come to the United States and we have a nibble, so hopefully that goes somewhere.
Hren: Are these overseas trips that beneficial that you'll continue them?
Lienhoop: Oh yes, Columbus is a neat place but it's relatively small and most of the site selection search starts from the top down. Most of the people who look for these sites are not going to find us so it's important for us to go look for them and it's why we've had the success that we've had.
Hren: The railroad data came out last month, but it takes time to interpret that data before it becomes something you can use, does anything stick out at you right now?
Lienhoop: It's a little hard to digest all the information. I think the bottom line is your commute to work is likely to double in late 2017 or early 2018. The study is to be able to explain to the people who live here what's likely to happen and the second thing is to be able to go to the Indiana Department of Transportation and explain to them our proposed responses, why those need to be moved up that list.
Hren: Herion and drug abuse is continually making headlines, but especially in Columbus with another report of a heroin overdose this week, this has to be troubling for you and the community?
Lienhoop: Yes, it's a particularly vexing problem. Law enforcement works on the supply side, they seize, arrest suppliers and our police are doing a pretty good job of engaging with other law enforcement officials, our county and state police. But you can eliminate the supply and there was still demand, we'd still have an issue. So we've engaged with health care providers, faith based initiatives to address the demand side issues. Those are going to be a little bit longer.
Hren: City budget deadline for next year is coming up, what's the latest on your proposal?
Lienhoop: The budget we're proposing is 1.5 percent greater than the budget for 2016 so really isn't much going on there except inflation. Adding three police officers and a person in the human resources department, we've not done a change there for a number of years and employment related issues intend to get more complicated. We also want to initiate a healthy living approach to our employees, we're invested in their health care and so we're invested in them.
We do have a little bit of money in there for a salary survey. We've seen what's happened over at the county where they found they were way out of whack with market salary in their IT department. Well, we don't want that to happen here. We have lost police officers to communities on the north side of Indianapolis who were lured up there by wages so we want to be sure we're aware of where the market is and we're appropriately positioned.
We have significant repairs at Fire Station Number One and the construction of a fire training facility out on the Columbus Municipal Airport grounds. We now send firefighters away to do training. We think if we can offer that training here, it would be better training and attract other departments to come here so instead of us paying them, they would pay us.
Hren: What seemed to make headlines was the 1.5 percent wage increase among city workers, is that an overall increase?
Lienhoop: That's a cost of living increase that will apply throughout the salary ordinance and of course, people who follow this for a while understand the salary ordinance provides a range - a low and a high - for each position that the city has. So if someone is in the middle of that range and they are a high performer, their department head can authorize a merit increase in addition to any kind of cost of living adjustment.
