Winter storm woes, zoning permissions, new utility service, human rights committee approval, and who trims the trees coming into Nashville.
On this week’s installment of Ask The Mayor, Nashville's Municipal Consultant Dax 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 just wanted to start with the winter storms this past week, what does it take and what does Nashville have to work with when it comes to snow removal?
Norton: It takes a lot of dedication from workers who go way beyond the expectation for them. We have a great team. They jump in those trucks, they stay in them for 12 hours, they go home and get their rest they need to get before they get back in the truck. Nashville just bought three new plow trucks. They came in handy. But everybody did a great job.
Hren: I want to get a little bit into zoning rezoning because our newsroom saw in the Brown County Democrat this past week about the circuit court denying a neighbor's request to stop a logging business from operating as well as a request to have the county pay her attorney fees. This due to a dispute between the neighbor and county zoning that agreed to an exemption to continue the business. Could you explain what's at issue?
Norton: Well you have county zoning ordinance you have a town zoning ordinance. The town is a member of the county area Planning Commission. Obviously this was a project outside of town limits, and the county Board of Zoning Appeals and county Planning Commission makes these decisions on whether somebody is operating their business within their rights in certain zoning designations.
Basically what's been said is that they're running their business as they should within that particular zone. As with planning and zoning, it's not just protect you from your neighbor, but it's also to allow you get the best use out of your land. And especially if you own a business that makes money, you want to make sure that you get that decision correct.
It's funny you bring that up. The town this Thursday is jumping into the plan to look at developing a new comprehensive plan. And the first step in planning and zoning is state statute requires you to have a comprehensive plan. And so the town's since 1999, hasn't developed one. And it's a 30 year plan, it'll be the guidebook for the development of the town.
Hren: Utilities will be important and other infrastructure as new plans and zoning continue, I see a new Nashville utilities service has been formed?
Norton: This is the very first utility service board. So back in October of 2019, it was suggested we should probably think about having utility service board because at the time the town was going through some legal issues with a water utility partner. And then there were some other items with with wastewater side.
So when you're talking about raising rates, the utility service board is a group of citizens who are not the council because right now the council was acting as the board that controlled the utility. It's basically a citizen group that is now a layer between the utility operations, then utility service board, and that board gives recommendations to the Council on everything from capital spending, to the hiring of management, to rate paces, and the point of this is to really make sure that utilities are running as a top notch corporation.
Too many times we see that just as another government office, it's actually a company. I mean, it brings in more money annually than the town budget. As a matter of fact, utilities bring in double the amount of revenue that the actual tax budget brings in annually. So let's make sure that we're running as professionally as we can.
Hren: Something we talked about last summer, the town council also approving a Human Rights Committee. What is new on that?
Norton: The Council passed a resolution to form a Citizens Action Committee, CAC, to begin the process of answering the question of where does the town go from here? Is it a full fledged Human Resources Commission that's created based on statute? So the Citizens Action Committee, I believe, have nine months. They've chose five people at the last council meeting to start the process of finding out what that next step is. And I think this is a very energetic group, they're looking forward to getting together and developing the next program of human relations here in Nashville, Brown County.
Hren: Michael, he's a regular listener, emails in. He says the trees have been horribly trimmed back by either the utility company or the state highway department as you leave Nashville and head towards Bloomington. This cannot be called tree trimming. Rather, it looks like a bomb went off and just destroyed the trees. And it's terrible when pulling into Nashville, a town that is known for the parks and beauty of our state. So anything you can do to address this and correct it?
Norton: I guess we'll find out who's right-of-way that trimming is in and obviously if it's the town, yes, the town can certainly be able to speak to any contractor that does that work. I know a lot of when you're driving into Nashville and Brown County your on a state highway. So I haven't seen necessarily what specifically he's talking about. Certainly understand and we'll look into it and see what we can do.
If it's in state highway, INDOT would be responsible for any of that trimming, or it could also be the utility companies. The utility companies have easements for their lines. And they're responsible to maintain those easements and so it could very well be utility companies.
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