The city is revamping a vape store ordinance, free transit ridership starts in 2025, and will the city need a local income tax increase to fund city services.
On this week’s installment of Ask The Mayor, Terre Haute Mayor Brandon Sakbun addresses these issues and more Tuesday on Zoom. 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: I wanted to start with a new ordinance we heard about that limits the number of vape shops in Terre Haute. What's the proposal and where did it come from?
Sakbun: I'm very cautious to use the word limit in terms of the total number. What the ordinance is actually designed to do is say, hey, if we do have a vape shop, a new store that's primary purpose is selling vapes, it cannot open up within a mile of the other store. And of course, we are going to grandfather all the stores who currently are in that criteria, just because that would be completely unfair to come in and force them to close down. We are not going to do that.
We want the city to grow. What we don't want to see is just a vape store on every other corner in the city of Terre Haute. We want to see stronger restaurants, retail, boutique stores, parks, houses. We are also updating to state standards. With this ordinance, a number of state and federal laws have changed when it comes to vapes, so we are updating our code.
Hren: Where is it now and what's next?
Sakbun: I personally tabled it myself only because we do want to add some language in terms of who enforces it. We were not specific. So we'll be more specific and add the Terre Haute Police Department in terms of enforcing and we'll have a registry of all the vape stores for the police department.
Hren: I see you're trying free transit. You had a press conference last week and sounded like fees really weren't much of the overall budget. Is this a step to trying to improve what you already have?
Sakbun: It's very hard to change ridership, to change total number of busses. If more people aren't on the bus, state and federal government will not give you more funding. They are responsible for 95% of funding for the transit department. We are required to have a local source of revenue, which we've used gaming revenue to replace the fare system that we have.
In addition to that, Indiana State University renewed their contract with the city of Terre Haute, and there was a slight increase in their contract. And they were very open. They enjoy the services they get, but they want to be strong community partners.
Transit has been one of the number one barriers to employment, to quality of life, and to growing Hoosier families. What we know and understand is that prices have gone up, and while a mayor cannot change the price of groceries or gas prices, what a mayor can do is advocate for those little policy changes, like free transit that can lead to a couple extra dollars in someone's pocket. Our non profit community that addresses homelessness, they spend thousands of dollars a year on bus passes. This decision now saves their budgets and allows them to pump more back into the people that they serve.
Read more: New bus route gives increased access to Ivy Tech, Park 48
Hren: You retweeted as a story from State Affairs, where Governor elect Mike Braun said local governments will have to replace revenue losses from his proposed property tax plan. I know from our history on this show, this sounds like former mayor Duke Bennett's worst nightmare. Is this alarming to you?
Sakbun: If you were to say we're going to lower property taxes or roll them back to fund your necessary services like public safety, you would need to come up with revenue replacement. To replace that revenue, one option that they are toying with is an additional local income tax that cities and counties can decide to partake in.
So all this is doing is shifting the burden from one unit of government to the other, and it would be different if there was some transformational state funding mechanism that made all of this possible. But unfortunately, that's not the case.
I give my feedback to state legislators, and if they decide, hey, look, sorry, less on property taxes, more on income taxes, that's a hard conversation we're going to have to have with the City Council, as well as with the residents. If you want a strong public safety team, if you want to maintain what services we do have, we would have to have that conversation about a local income tax, which no mayor or elected official wants to have.
Hren: It's our last show of the year, what's your number one thing you're most proud of this past year?
Sakbun: We've really improved our demolition and our home building strategy. So we're seeing investments everything from affordable housing, all the way up to market rate housing supplemented with a strong demolition programs addressing blight that the private sector has not chosen to invest in.
We've made some substantial investments to public safety in terms of training budgets and equipment, and we look forward to ongoing conversations for next year, trying to get that public safety pay where it should be. Really trying to get most of our city employees pay where it should be.
And what Public Works departments have done this year is incredible, anything from wastewater to the street department, and, of course, the Parks Department updating a number of municipal parks and really showing that, hey, this is a community where regardless of your zip code or address, we are going to do our best to deliver quality services like roads, public safety and parks right to you.
