Terre Haute Mayor Brandon Sakbun's first episode as he settles in 'firing on all cylinders.'
On this week’s installment of Ask The Mayor, Terre Haute Mayor Brandon Sakbun addresses these issues and more Tuesday from city hall. 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: How has this transition been? I know it's only been a week or so and I know you have a lot on your plate.
Sakbun: On election night, former mayor Duke Bennett, he did reach out and we honestly got straight to work. He took a couple of days off, set me up some office space, and we instantly started setting up meetings with previous department heads and a lot of those department heads did stay - I think we kept five in total. But we created a transition team, a mixture of former state senators, business leaders, former mayor Clint Lamb even came up and lend a hand and former city council officials and commissioners and we mapped out where we want to go in terms of the city staff looking at restructuring some folks duties and responsibilities.
We did hire a lot of new department heads as well. And then the game was on right. Through the month of December, we had the administrative kind of handover change over the interview process and we got straight to work looking at what our goals were not just for 100 days, but really the next four years. And that's been truly an eye opening experience. So we are doing some financial audits and reviewing the budget with some independent firms or setting the conditions to apply for opportunities that we just hadn't been as much in the past, working across the region to promote the READI 2.0 program conversations tuned to what's going on with the state legislator and any legislation that might affect municipal government. So we're firing on all cylinders. I'm an early riser. I work late at night. And so just channeling all that energy in Terre-dise.
Hren: Let's talk about a couple of those big picture items for this year?
Sakbun: A big one is the long term control plan. Just getting that mapped out, approved by the state and communicating to the taxpayers that, hey, this is where the dollars are going to update our infrastructure. We have to do it for two reasons. One to take care of the current Hautians here. We owe it to them to provide the best wastewater stormwater situation in a municipal government city.
The second is, if we don't update, it might hamper development. So blending that conversation and taking care of the folks here while appealing to new companies and families moving in - that's really kind of the meat and potatoes. That's always our focus, how can we have the most optimal services in government, and it reduces costs on taxpayers, and that's our goal. But truth be told many of our cities fees hadn't been raised in decades and those stormwater improvements add up.
Hren: You mentioned a grant that could transform downtown, what are you referring to?
Sakbun: Using funds from the American Rescue Plan Act to target the infrastructure downtown to set the conditions for a new downtown hotel. We want to see skywalks connecting hotels and the convention center and we want to see foot traffic, create a walkable community. So working with the downtown TIF district, Tax Incremental Finance District, as well as ARPA dollars and packaging that deal together.
At the state level, we will be very competitive when it comes to READI grants. So the regional initiative and putting on a good unified front and hoping to have a very good City County project combined. So it's all about teamwork. And we've got a couple of good projects lined up and we just approved some enhancements on the east side. Let that development continue to grow. So we're chipping away already.
Hren: Housing is such a big issue on the show, no matter what city we're in, and Mayor Bennett talked about the housing plan for Vigo County as a whole - 1000 homes over the next five years using incentives. What would you like to see in that plan?
Sakbun: I'm a member that steering committee and, the first round of funding we had $1.8 million. The American Rescue Plan comes to the state, the state pushed it out there already. So truly from from the top of the ticket from the president's office and the folks in DC all the way down.
We took $1.8 million, cut it up in the different grants, gave it to builders, which led up $50 million of private investment. Joe, if you and I had done that on Wall Street, I mean, there'd be a movie. That's government getting a return on investment that high. It's truly amazing to see.
So then the county and city put $5 million each again, money from the American Rescue Plan Act and the current administration in DC. And we said, let's do this times five. So we've adjusted some of the the grant applications so that way nonprofits can apply, groups wanting to rehab homes can apply. Bigger builders focused on 10 to 20 homes can apply and smaller builders focused on five can apply.
We're going to look at our city owned properties as well, having a conversation of can we can we offload some of these vacant lots some of these properties and work with the private sector?
But we have another problem on our hand. We've got multiple companies coming to town, some companies that are in town that want to expand, so we don't need the housing in five years. We probably need it in five months. So we're really working with Thrive West Central Indiana. The next application is opening up later this week.
Hren: Churchill Downs announced the casino Grand Opening April 5. Some people though don't think gambling is something to profit of, will increase crime, won't increase the economy.
Sakbun: So you can't go back and change that legislation. Folks. That casino is coming. The doors are opening in the spring but, you don't need to be the Secretary of Transportation to understand that 1.1 million new tourists might create traffic concerns, and we are already looking to address those, kind of restructuring Margaret Ave., and how can we add lanes expand lanes along there to help the flow of traffic. And a lot of businesses are wanting to come to the east side.
We just approved a new connector road to the airport and State Road 46. They're doing a study on that, getting a watermain out there to prep that entire area, the entire east side for commercial development. So we're really seizing on that momentum.
The casino will bring in some some tax dollars and it fluctuates every year. So we'll look at what are some short term capital improvements we can make, let's find five or six different parks that can use some investment this year that have minimal upkeep over the years. Let's pave more streets, let's build more sidewalks. I mean, we're going to take advantage of this casino dollars and put them to good use.
We have extensive meetings, the chief of police myself, the fire chief as well with the casino to ensure that we are prepared. We've conducted some prudent planning in case of any emergencies.
Hren: Residents have been worried about this proposed carbon emission underground storage. We've been covering this and I know this is not a direct city issue, but people are concerned - we had a forum, this has just been a hot topic.
Sakbun: You've got the federal government working with the state government to provide strong financial compensation for this project to happen. But there are folks that are concerned and rightfully so. So I think on the one end from a mayor's perspective, what you can do is have conversations about that business development agreement. What are the soil and water testing and notification strategies in place for all the families in the area and the facilities in the area? What is the emergency services plan? You know, is it a county and city collaboration? Do we need to have folks on call at the state level?
You can start those conversations you can say hey, how can this company invest in the community to make sure that these families feel safe? Not at all able to legally stop the legislation. I mean, that's that is out of my hands. But what is in my hands and making sure we do everything we can at our level to make sure that they're safe, and they feel comfortable. So in part of that is voicing their concerns to the higher level.
