In this week’s installment of Ask The Mayor, Bloomington Mayor Kerry Thomson addresses this issue and more at 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. Here are some highlights.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
Hren: I hear the city is ready for phase two of public transportation upgrades?
Sakbun: So riderships increased by 100% from 60,000 to 120,000 riders in a six-month span. That's something to celebrate. But we can't just celebrate on our success. We need to improve the transit system. Our next phase is fixing some bus shelters in town. We're using a lot of data. We use the interns that we have here working with the full-time staff to adjust these bus routes, these bus stations, and make them better. Some of them haven't been touched in decades.
I mean, some of these are wooden shelters that are falling apart, and we need to better communicate our routes and our times. There's a bunch of PDF maps on the city's website from years ago, we got to update that and create a modern transportation system to complement our dramatic increase in riders and overall create a positive rider experience.
Hren: I would believe the dramatic ridership increase is the city offering free rides now.
Sakbun: The Brookings Institute did a study, 49% of Hoosiers don't make a livable wage who are employed. Think about that for a second. One in two Hoosiers in our workforce today aren't making enough to live. And you know, folks, I don't have a hand in inflation or interest rates or tariffs, but what I can do is find a way for you to celebrate a little bit more on the Fourth of July, because you saved a buck 50 each time you got on the bus in the month of June.
And for the critics of this program who say, oh, this is some Democrat progressive, woke stuff. I say no, this isn't woke. I'm trying to help our Hoosiers not be broke by changing what I can change as mayor, and I'm proud of that.
Hren: Let's get to another topic creating a lot of controversy, discussion in Vigo County, Terre Haute, and that is the school corporation, reorganization plan, which includes closing some schools, building a new high school. But was precipitated, though, by the no vote for a referendum for more school funding.
Sakbun: Let's kind of do a little bit of history here. The past almost two decades now, when you look at the amount of public school funding in those 2 to 3% increases each year that they have received, adjust that with inflation, and now look at the problems that we're seeing in public education systems, you compliment that with the fact that voucher spending has gone through the roof the last 10 years, and it makes you say, hey, why are public dollars not being used to support public schools?
I am not at all against school choice. I do think a parent should choose where to send their child, and I'm very supportive of that parental decision. This is me criticizing a funding system that put Hoosier public education systems behind.
We're also expanding opportunities for kids here in Terre Haute, Indiana. There's an agricultural center that will be added. There's a career technical institute that will be added in a partnership with Ivy Tech, there's different childcare centers that will be added.
Just three decades ago, the graduating class of Terre Haute North High School was about 900 kids. The current graduating class today at Terre Haute West, Vigo South and North is still barely above 900 - you got to look at the numbers.
Hren: City council is considering an amended property maintenance code to protect in from what I've read, citizens from unsafe building conditions and hold property owners accountable. Does this tool give the city something to help tenants?
Sakbun: It does. I want to be clear here, these are major problems. These are holes in roofs, holes massive holes in the floor, electric wires hanging out left and right. This is a focus on stopping blight.
We visited and talked to a number of communities that have property maintenance codes. It's popular. And these are different means for government to essentially say, hey, look, we cannot let this house continue to crumble. We got to find a way to work with the landowners to get it up to speed.
But we also need is code with teeth, because I'm sick and tired of investors with the Florida or California zip code and address coming in during these tax sales, buying these properties. And, you know, I call them slumlords. I'll be honest here, Joe, the condition that they put some of our working families in into these homes. I go into these homes. My heart hurts. These folks are paying what they can afford.
Now there is an amendment that we put into the code that says, if you're a tenant and you raise that false flag more than once, you're trying to create issues with your landlords. Well, there's a means for the government to say, hey, that's enough. Your landlord is actually doing this correctly.
Read more: City sues Crawford Apartments' owners
Hren: You recently participated in a groundbreaking ceremony, about 56-unit senior focused housing project. And that went with a email from a listener who asked, where's the senior housing? The question is, how to ensure that they will be for seniors and not rentals for students?
Sakbun: This project, as well as another project that I'm happy to bring the council this Thursday, July 10, is a pilot ordinance for a separate project where a third to a fourth of their rentals will be set asides for seniors. However, the one that you're referring to the entire 56-unit project on their application for federal and state housing tax credits, it was put in that it would be senior base. That's how we know it's going to be senior based.
We've had a number of market rate neighborhood development projects. We'll continue to blend our housing stock. It's never for one group and not another group. It's trying to be for all groups.
Hren: Here's another question from a listener email. Electric cars, do EVs have a place in Terre Haute? And if so, what incentives are there to add charging stations around town?
Sakbun: They actually are - our engineering and building inspection department is about to transition their vehicles to EVs. They received a grant from the previous federal administration. Luckily, the current federal administration let those funds free and are allowing us to execute that plan.
Unfortunately, some of the larger federal grant programs to add charging stations are now no longer there. We do see a lot of the private sector improvements when it comes to charging stations. They are kind of sporadic, but they're also around our interstate, specifically interstate exit 11, coming off of I 70.
We're seeing it more and more with our shopping centers, with some gas stations. We certainly hope that we do kind of slowly move towards that. I do think there's a time and place for EVs. It's not every day. What I am saying is the private sector is helping us fill that role. Government's doing what we can with our internal budgets to kind of move some of those vehicles in internally, and we'll look forward to certain federal opportunities that they do present themselves.
