Bennett agrees with Holcomb's loosening of COVID restrictions and says the city would need to see cases in the 30s before imposing local restrictions. And the city is getting $38 million in federal relief funding.
On this week’s installment of Ask The Mayor, Terre Haute Mayor Duke Bennett addresses these issues and more on a Zoom conference call. 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: Even though COVID numbers and hospitalizations are increasing, do you agree with the end of the state mask mandate?
Bennett: Yeah, I'm okay. But I think people need to make individual choices at this point. Yes, I'm making people wear a mask at City Hall, because I think we need to still send that message. But I think loosening that is the right step. Let's just see if the numbers continue to go up, they're just not going up like that in Vigo County. That's what I'm kind of mostly focused on.
But if we see numbers going up, and the governor has to do that, I mean, I'm all for it. Once again, I just think there's multiple factors involved here.
I don't know, though, Joe, if everybody wore masks for another two months, is that going to completely go away? I wouldn't attribute that to all the masks, but I think masks are a part of it. Definitely a part of the equation.
READ MORE: Indiana Surpasses 700,000 Confirmed COVID-19 Cases, Reports Recent Increase
Hren: Is there a certain threshold that you would need to see there in Terre Haute to do stricter ordinances?
Bennett: I would just say, generally numbers trending upward in a significant way, which to me would be twice as many as we're seeing right now, which is about 14 to 18 a day. So maybe if we were in that 30 to 40 a day, we got to say, okay, it's movement, it's heading the other direction significantly.
I talk to our health commissioner all the time. We have regular multiple times a week sometimes. He's an emergency room doctor. So he knows what's going on in the frontlines from a variety of sources. They agreed to do with what the governor said, but watching it closely, because if we see a trend here, then we're going to do some things beyond what the governor did.
Hren: Why do you think some people aren't getting the vaccine and even today, there's news about Johnson and Johnson vaccine being held back because of medical concerns?
Bennett: You know, I think we're getting to the point where everybody that wants a vaccine is going to get at least their first shot. There's going to be a group of people that are a little bit more reluctant, because they hear these stories like that, or other political statements or positions that have been made over the last year. We're going to have to do some convincing and have some proof to back it up, and it is harmless, it's gonna protect you, it's gonna save lives. And so I think that's the time frame that we're moving into now.
And then hopefully, we'll reach that herd immunity. And then we'll have to see when the cycle may start over again.
Hren: The American Rescue Plan Act allocates about $38 million to Terre Haute, $21 million to Vigo County. I know it's not all at once, there's some restrictions, and it's still early in the process. But I've been asking all the mayors this month on the show, how do you go about planning for that additional money?
Bennett: So it's kind of difficult without the rules, we kind of know the buckets that the money kind of falls into. But they're general and they don't have any specific rules. One of the questions I have is, if I was going to spend some of this on wastewater, which infrastructure is one of the three buckets, can I use it to design a project? Or do I just have to use it on a project that's ready to go?
Thinking about not for profits and small business here, I'm not sure what other programs they have tapped into yet. I know they're out there. But those guidelines haven't been released for some of that either. And so we don't want to duplicate, we want to make sure we spread this money and get the biggest bang for the buck.
But I'm just in a position where we're just gearing up the infrastructure of this in order to create a budget to get the things done with the City Council next month to create the fund. So it's a little frustrating that we don't have any rules yet. The first deposit is supposed to be here by May 11. That means we're gonna get $19 million plus dollars in the bank. And today sitting right here, I have no guidance on how I can really spend that. I do want to make sure that the first thing we're going to do is pay ourselves back for lost revenue.
Hren: You mentioned to me earlier about a financial report Baker Tilly presented, what did it say?
Bennett: They do a lot of different things, one of the biggest things they do for us is our comprehensive financial plan that we typically update every year to every two years. They just recently completed our current updated plan presented from city council last week. And I couldn't have been any happier with the way we project ourselves over the next four or five years of where we've come from since 2015.
You know, we had a negative cash balance of about $9 million in the general fund. And we finished last year with a $2.1 million positive cash balance. So just hearing those things being affirmed by a professional firm like Baker Tilly, but then looking at building cash reserves and how we're going to expend some of our funds and making sure our pensions are rolled, we've got a plan, great plan that's fully funded.
Hren: You met with Senator Todd Young about a proposal to bring more jobs to the community, we talked about this a while back, a Terre Haute U.S. Airforce training site?
Bennett: We just continue to work with the IEDC and the Indiana Air National Guard on the F-35 project for the airport training facility for new F-35 planes that other countries are purchasing from the United States. Be a great thing for our community, and bring flying planes back to our airport, which would be great to have jets out there.
We met with Senator Young last week just to update around the table all the different partners and developing our strategies moving forward. A lot of it has to do with the new administration going in, President Biden getting his staff in place all the way down to the Pentagon level. But we want to make sure they know we're still interested, we're excited about the opportunity. And we believe we're in the top five, we really believe we're probably in the top two or three. And we want to just keep pushing that we'd love to see that in Terre Haute and all of Indiana would benefit from that.
For the latest news and resources about COVID-19, bookmark our Coronavirus In Indiana page here.
