Nashville residents rallied Saturday for social justice, grant distribution for small businesses is ongoing, late utility fees are being waived, and shops are reopening.
On this week’s installment of Ask The Mayor, Nashville's Norton 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: I see Nashville had a rally for social justice Saturday afternoon like many over the world, how did it go?
Norton: Yeah, very well. The community should be, the community is a great community, should be proud of themselves. Went off without a hitch, great speakers, good collaboration. You know, solidarity. It was a solidarity rally and it truly was just that. So kudos to Brown County, Nashville, the residents, people that joined in and the organizers, it was a very good event.
The Chief of Police Ben Seastrom in the rally, his leadership was phenomenal. He did a very good job, very gentle in handling the groups and he should be lifted up. And I know that his fellow officers on the county side and state side, the National Guard, they were all fantastic. Ben was kind of the organizer of all that, he's from the town perspective, he's to be commended.
Hren: Has anyone in Nashville town government approached you or come up with agenda items for equal rights, police overview, or racism?
Norton: Yeah, so last Thursday I presented the council with the idea of creating a Human Relations Commission. I've been involved with that process in my career and I've thoroughly enjoyed it. So they have a draft of an ordinance. The next step is to form a committee or a group of citizens, community leaders and sit down and go over that and see if they like some things and do they want to add some things.
The state statute enables communities to have our Human Relations Commission for the purpose of dealing with discrimination complaints, but this really creates a proactive, positive, forward thinking group that can put on events and educational opportunities. And I think it's just a good way of teaching tolerance and becoming an all inclusive community.
Hren: Has it been difficult to reopen small Brown County shops and keep social distancing?
Norton: I think you have courteous people that have courteous visitors that have been helpful and understand what they need to do. Not everybody's wearing a mask. For the most part, I don't think there have been a tremendous amount of face covering issues or social distancing issues. There you'll have some that just don't seem to want to follow the rules. This seems to be a very minimal group of people. So the reopening seems to have gone decently well.
Hren: The Nashville Town Council extended the emergency declaration, what does that do?
Norton: Really, for the most part, it is just a title for the time being until July the 6th I guess would be the first business day back after the fifth stage. But we don't know what's going to happen in the next couple of weeks. There are spikes across the country. And so, for instance if Brown County, Nashville starts to see an unusual spike in cases, which is has not, but if it does, and the town council president needs to suddenly close those rest rooms as public restrooms and public facilities again, and she can do that with that order. So the council discussed it pretty thoroughly. The attorney kind of said what I just said and the council approved an extension of that executive order in the declaration.
Hren: Any other town agenda items worth mentioning?
Norton: We just had a very big economic development announcement yesterday with the moving of Quaff On's brewery to Hard Truth Hills and the building of a brand new facility, and then 75 apartment units being built on their old site. It's exactly what you want. It says all infill development. And so I sent an email to the redevelopment commission and council this morning and urge them to have a joint meeting together to talk about capital improvement plans as you know, if the economic development area where to be expanded and they were to capture some increment, what what do they use that for? What's the capital improvement plan look like? So those are huge announcements. It's assessed value. It's exactly what the community needs. And hopefully that will turn into additional developments.
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