Terre Haute motorists won't have to wait long for completion of railroad track crossing renovations. And the mayor talks about adjustments the city had to make with the new influx of students downtown.
On this week's installment of Ask The Mayor, Mayor Duke Bennett 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.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
Hren: Now that ISU has been in session and students have moved into the newest housing unit, are there any kinks the city is trying to work out in that part of downtown?
Bennett: The sidewalks haven't been done around both of the buildings and they're wrapping that up, but parking. You get all the new students coming in, some of them have not been here before, so they have to figure things out. We've had to do some enforcement, we've primarily have been trying to warn them to get them to adapt to the new school year. We knew it was going to happen, when you move 300 people downtown that you're going to have residual effect on parking.
Hren: I've looked over a few of the 88 pages of the Wabash River Region Proposal which essentially applies for grant money from the state to boost economic development. It includes Knox, Sullivan and Vigo counties, how is the collaboration coming together to apply for these funds?
Bennett: It's been minimal at this point because you have to do some more formal things. You start with are you guys in or not. But we agreed that this would be a good section of the state to be a regional city approach from Vincennes to Terre Haute of what can we do to improve west central Indiana.
Hren: Let's get an update on the city budget, I read in the Tribune-Star where the city is looking to transfer $2 million from the rainy day fund to the general budget, is that still on the table?
Bennett: That was part of our longer term plan at the end of the year we were going to that to take some pressure off the general fund. We've done this in the past, it's a no brainer really.
Hren: We're talking $2 million in transfer, how much is in the rainy day fund?
Bennett: There's about $2.4 million, so there will still be a few hundred thousand dollars in there. We hope in the coming years to be able to put some more money back in there.
