Bartholomew County is at the blue COVID metric level, vaccine hesitancy and variants could block herd immunity, 20-year-olds are contracting the most COVID cases, and a new gateway project is in the works.
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: Bartholomew County is at the blue metric level. But we're seeing state positivity rates fall, but now starting to go back up again.
Lienhoop: We follow the numbers provided to us by Columbus Regional Health, and pay particular attention to their inpatient rate. The last number I saw, I think, was eight. It's been as low as zero here in the last couple of months. So yeah, it's picked up a bit. But it's a number that the community can manage.
And we're paying particular attention to what we hear from the northern part of this state, the counties up along the Michigan border, have indicated heightened number of infections. And, there's been some reports of what they call the variants that have shown here. But, we're focused on the vaccination rate. And the latest numbers that I saw were somewhere in the 40 to 45% range in terms of residents here, have been vaccinated. We still think we need to get a little bit higher, we need 60 to 65% range.
READ MORE: Indiana Reports 824 Cases, 12 New COVID-19 Deaths Tuesday
Hren: That's something we've been reporting about: vaccine hesitancy. We did some reporting... Morgan County was planning for a 1,200 mass vaccination clinic - 97 people signed up and they had to cancel. Are you starting to get worried that it has plateaued and herd immunity will not be achieved?
Lienhoop: Yeah, we're a little concerned that people will figure that since the virus hasn't hit them yet, they're somehow immune or they're saved, or it's passed. And there's no justification in any of the scientific data that we've seen that indicate that that's the case. And so we continue to encourage people to get vaccinated. And we're contemplating some ways to reach people a little bit more effectively than we have.
Hren: Another interesting statistic, the highest age group with the positive cases now is 20 to 29 years old, more than 18%. So is that another challenge in addressing this to what's now a younger crowd?
Lienhoop: Right? I think early on, those folks thought that they were bulletproof. You think that you're healthy, and you're just not going to be susceptible to this, and that if you do a contract COVID, you'll lay low for a couple days and bounce right back in. And so it's not always the case. Plus, it gives you the chance, if you're not vaccinated, to have a low grade infection, and then pass it along to others.
Hren: I did hear city and county buildings are open to the public again. I'm sure there's still some mask requirements though.
Lienhoop: We'll be able to invite the public back into almost all city buildings, I think fire stations will still be closed. And there'll be a couple others animal care, for example. But yeah, come on in. But if you do come to a city facility, we will still expect you to wear a mask, we will still expect you to maintain distancing six feet away from others. And when the room gets full, all the seats are taken, then we can't accommodate anybody anymore.
We've got a system that livestreams our city council meetings and many of the other commission meetings that we have, with some of those meetings are also available on WebEx. Members of the boards or commissions, or the city council will still be allowed to attend virtually through the least the end of May. Now they can come in person if they want. That's their choice. But the state of Indiana is going to continue to allow for virtual attendance by decision makers by voters through the end of this month.
Hren: Could you catch us up on a project. I saw this in the Republic and I feel like I'm coming in midway on this. It's called AirPark Campus. And there's a collaboration I believe with the Cummins foundation on a landscape design project. Can you tell us a little about it especially for those people outside of Columbus?
Lienhoop: Sure. On the north side of our city is the Columbus Municipal Airport. But it's also the site for some of our higher education facilities. IUPUC has a place out there, Ivy Tech, Purdue Polytechnic. And then we've got a building that we call the Columbus Learning Center, which is shared by all three of those.
This is also a gateway to the city of Columbus. Our terminal will never be very impressive. But we can make the landscaping once you get off the terminal grounds, just that. And so we have put together what we call the AirPark project, which is how we should landscape and project plan for continued development out there and the Cummins Foundation has graciously agreed to to help with the choice of a landscape architect and some of the planning related to that.
Hren: Fair Oaks Mall development is still on hold... how is it being funded since tenants left most likely are not covering the cost of the current facility?
Lienhoop: Oh, not exactly. Yeah, the rental revenues have declined significantly. And that was anticipated that the tenants would relocate. What wasn't anticipated was how long this was all going to take because of the pandemic. But going forward, we anticipate issuing a bond that will be financed or funded through the economic development income tax, and maybe a levy by the parks department. We just we just don't know yet.
EDIT funds are being used now. That's the source that we had always anticipated using to fund operations while we were figuring out what the final design will look like. Economic Development Income Tax. You may recall the rate I think, is 1.75% on your income. And so the county receives that from the county residents and then the city gets a share of that. And that's what we're using to to fund the operations at Fair Oaks Mall while we're waiting for the next year.
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