Mayor Sakbun explains storm clean-up procedures, Entek's billion-dollar loan, housing update, and Twelve Points revitalization.
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: We were going to meet at Fairbanks Park to talk about economic development, but the remnants of the hurricane have arrived so we'll try again next month. How's debris clean-up from the Indiana storms a couple weeks ago?
Sakbun: One of the first things I do in our kind of crisis management plan, open up all communication channels with our utility partners ensure that the streets department, wastewater department, parks department, police and fire are all prepared. Our first goal always is safety. And then it's traffic. How are the utilities dealing with getting power, getting gas back on? And can we open our main thoroughfares and our side streets?
Then it goes to pickup all the limbs, all the debris, these are three or four week pickup times that we enter in. We did a lot of preventative tree cutting and trimming with Duke Energy around our circuits. So we have about 40 circuits in Terre Haute, 28 went down last year, only 12 went down a few weeks ago. So how can we make sure we're managing the areas in around these circuits to keep the power on.
We divide our two chippers and our two dump trucks to a north, to the south team working towards the middle. Of course, sometimes will come through four or five streets and then we see stuff on the side of the road again, that's fine, it happens. I would say three weeks from now we'll be in a good spot.
Every time we allocate our resources to pick up, you see us as a municipality fall behind in terms of alleys sometimes even large item pickup? So you know, it's always a juggling act of where you're diverting your resources. Our cemetery department actually needed to fill in kind of some craters. So we were able to divert a lot of limbs there, which saves us time, energy and resources to get back on the road.
Read more: Storm recovery: Debris collection begins
Hren: The U.S. Department of Energy's loan programs announced a conditional commitment of up to $1.2 billion direct loan to Entek, the lithium battery service that will finance a new facility in Terre Haute. So that's great news for Terre Haute from a development perspective.
Sakbun: As you're moving towards the industrial park, you're asking yourselves a couple of questions. Are we setting the conditions for this project? Or are we setting the conditions for future projects while also improving services to those along the improvements? And it it sounds complex, but here's how I phrase it, are you going to do an eight inch water pipe with Indiana American Water or 12 inch that allow surrounding neighborhoods to now tap in.
So you're really trying to synchronize utilities, I think that's really the difference that you're starting to see here in Terre Haute, whether it's the development of a billion dollar company to a project like the Indiana Theater, it's really practicing the principles of capital stacking - municipal finance, and also collaborating not just with other county governments and state government, but with the private sector.
Hren: I know a city council vote is coming on right of way changes and sidewalks. And I believe these are what you called outdated ordinances that need relevance.
Sakbun: We want to start the Terre Haute sidewalk initiative. So these are projects that when you look at the federal government's push when it comes to pedestrian safety, it aligns with those, it stimulates the local economy, getting that pedestrian foot traffic back. And honestly, some folks have been in this community for generations and haven't had a sidewalk or haven't had their sidewalk repair.
So now before we just earmark and start pushing money to something, we've got to get the software, right. That's a key part of all those. It helps us create a plan that we can follow over 10 years to address the sidewalk inventory here in Terre Haute.
Hren: Let's talk a little bit about the Twelve Points area in Terre Haute. I remember talking with former mayor Duke Bennett about this a couple years ago, can you explain Twelve Points and what's all happening there in terms of a resurgence of that area.
Sakbun: The best way I can describe it is imagine kind of a neighborhood pharmacy and neighborhood grocery and a neighborhood kind of shopping hub that is off of your downtown area. It's away from your interstate and this neighborhood used to have strong characteristics to it. Even had its own little movie theater.
But what we're seeing here is small businesses coming in. We have Terre Foods, right? It's a food co-op. We have Twelve Points Market, and we're starting to see businesses pick up their energy, their investments, we're doing our best to match that in terms of sidewalk improvements, connecting neighborhoods to some of these centers that are now popping back up. There was a food truck village, we just opened our first cat cafe in Terre Haute.
Fortunately, we do have a 501 C3 revitalization group. They are great to work with - they bring their passion for the neighborhood to help work with the city when it comes to, hey, how do you fund ideas or hey, what's kind of in municipal government and more so on the private sector?
