Terre Haute Mayor Duke Bennett addresses abortion and inflation relief legislation. Also casino construction is underway, prisoners will be moving to the new jail soon, and a quick update on road paving.
On this week’s installment of Ask The Mayor, Terre Haute Mayor Duke Bennett addresses these issues and more on a Zoom interview. 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: At the statehouse this past weekend, the special session concluded - Indiana's near total abortion ban takes effect September 15. I know this isn't a mayoral decision. But Bloomington Mayor John Hamilton took part of his show a couple of weeks ago to talk about what's happening at the Statehouse. Do you have any comment?
Bennett: I didn't know what they were going to do. I mean, I knew what a lot of them wanted to do. And that's kind of what it ended up being - they backed off a tiny bit at the end. But it's such a controversial topic and I get that.
And as you mentioned, I'm kind of glad it's not something that I have to deal with. Because, we've got lots of other issues, but you want our state to be in a good position. And you're beginning to hear some businesses that are having some concerns about the new law that's been passed. I hate to hear that. I just think at the end of the day, we need to do what's right, and what's fair.
I guarantee it's going to be revisited again and again, probably, we'll see what the feds do or don't do in the future. I just think it's in the early stages of settling this from a permanent perspective.
Hren: The governor also signed the inflation relief bill, so $200 rebate payments from the state's surging budget surplus. Some say rebates could further fuel inflation. Just your thoughts on the inflation relief bill?
Bennett: These are always tough because there are people out there that are struggling and they can use it. There's also a lot of people that don't need it. They're in a good financial position. And so when you kind of blanket that it may have an impact on inflation, there's no question. I'm not an economist, but I understand how this stuff works enough to know.
I'm glad they're done with it, and they decided to compromise on what they were going to do. And hopefully, it will help those folks that really need the help.
Hren: Is it hard to see the state with just so much of a budget surplus, but then see Indiana towns and cities struggling?
Bennett: Yes, it is frustrating. I love the fact that we're fiscally responsible, have a triple A bond rating, all that stuff is tremendous. But we're going to need to spend some of that money and what we need to spend it wisely not just more social programs or more things just to make people feel good, but impactful things. And, I think mental health and addiction, I think they're going to next budget, we'll probably have some money in there for that.
The READI grants are another example, Community Crossings, when you put money in those kinds of programs, it helps everybody in your community. So I'm hopeful that in this next budget cycle, they'll be able to take some of that surplus, and put it back into the communities because we can't do anything more than what we're collecting in taxes and doing. We need some of that to flow down to our local communities, to put the programs in place that really will be have the impact on people where the real problems are at today.
Hren: It's always budget time but I know you're really starting to craft next year's budget. What are you looking for right now?
Bennett: Really to hold our own from a service delivery perspective. But to increase some of those capital projects - we want to invest in our parks. And so between the ARPA funds and the READI grant and the casino money that's coming in 2024, we're trying to begin to ramp that up next year in 2023.
Over the next two or three to five years, we're able to make some major investments in our parks, improve some existing trails and trail connectors, I want to do a tremendous amount of paving with sidewalks and ADA compliant corners. We've got it all on our plan, it's just lining that up to find out which revenue source will help us get the biggest bang for the buck.
Now that we've got these new revenue sources, we can begin to do some of these projects, we're going to need a couple of new buildings, we're going to need to remodel City Hall. So it's kind of an across the board. We're going to begin to see the first phases of that in next year's budget.
Hren: Have you seen any impact on budget from COVID now that we're a couple years later?
Bennett: No, we had some first year impacts 2020. They recovered in 2021 and they've stayed just fine. Ever since then, with some of the COVID relief funds, some of the ARPA funds, we're able to pay ourselves back and cover some of those costs we had.
The revenues are not going up quite as much as the state's revenues have gone up. I mean, that's a pretty dramatic thing that's going on at the state level. But locally, we're not seeing any, we will continue to have a slow rise in revenue.
Hren: How are paving road projects coming along now?
Bennett: So we're done with pretty much all the big projects. We just recently did Eighth and Ninth Street South of the downtown area. They were narrow streets but they had two lanes of traffic and two parking lanes. And so over the years we've been trying to figure out what to do with them because there were places where cars would have to stop and you couldn't be side by side because it was too narrow. So we decided to pave both of those streets all the way from downtown and add a bike lane so they're both one way streets. Eighth Street is one way south Ninth Street is one way north.
The feedback has been very positive. So far, people love the fact that now they have a bike path to follow all the way from home into downtown and back. People liked the wider lane a little bit wider, we have one lane of traffic, you don't have to worry about people getting next to you.
It's kind of an experiment for us. Because we don't have any other major streets like that.
Hren: I know it's a county project, but any updates on the new jail?
Bennett: Will be soon moving prisoners, they were supposed to start it in July, there's some issues with supply chain of some fire alarm related things - sprinkler system, they have to have all that in and tested, health safety staff before they can move prisoners. And so as soon as they get that done, they will begin to move prisoners into the new facility. You know how it's just a constant battle to buy things and get them in the timeframes that we used to it's just a real challenge.
