In this week’s installment of Ask The Mayor, Terre Haute Mayor Brandon Sakbun 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 some families are starting to see November SNAP money on their food cards. But in the meantime, local communities are filling food banks, helping people get food. I'm assuming the same thing happened in Terre Haute?
Sakbun: Yes, thankfully, Terre Haute Catholic Food Charities is on track and is doing well and maintaining the high demand and the high amounts of food that we're seeing currently.
At this time, is the city considering financial assistance to some of our food charities? That answer is no. For the time being, we do have what I call a break the glass plan in an emergency situation, whether there's USDA food issues, and say, January or February of next year, which there are some indications that might happen. We do have a break the glass plan to immediately release some funds. We did not hit that criteria yet.
I think there's some early indicators that there could be some financial troubles with folks here in the community. You add in the high cost of housing, private utility bills continuing to go up, and it really creates a worst-case scenario. And at the mayoral level, there's only so many levers you can pull as you try to keep it all together as state, federal and frankly, international policies and failures really combine.
Hren: We can move from food to canceled flights, but I know you have a lot to worry about in Terre Haute, but all this affects communities too.
Sakbun: If you look at a lot of our larger city projects, there's a little bit of federal funding tied to several of them. A great example is the overpass that Joe, you spoke about it with the previous mayor almost as long as I've been alive. I mean, some of these are 2025 projects, and it seems like every single year there's some sort of snafu or delay.
We're working with folks who need SNAP benefits. We're trying to work with folks who are struggling with the unemployment issues, we do have members of the National Guard and active duty in our community, and I really feel for them, having personally lived through shutdowns being an active-duty United States military member and even in the guard, navigating some of those challenges.
It's beyond frustrating that folks at the congressional level can't quite get this together. I mean, especially when one party controls the House, Senate, Supreme Court, the presidency, you know, you got to find a way to get those additional votes in compromise.
At the local level, if we were ever in a dispute this bad, we would hear it nonstop, at the grocery store, at churches, in and around our parks, with our family and friends. But sometimes I do think some of our federal elected officials are simply detached and a little bit out of touch with reality, and then you see the negative side effects.
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Hren: Are you surprised Indiana Governor Mike Braun called the special session over redistricting?
Sakbun: I don't quite agree with some of those decisions. I certainly hope he takes the opportunity to review some of the problems that are affecting Hoosiers in their everyday lives. When it comes to a failure to really plan our energy utility grid, we see rising rates across the state. You see the challenges with some of our utilities, like water and I think it's shocking that data centers get a sales tax handout from the state of Indiana, yet home builders can't seem to get relief to be able to build affordable homes.
But that's his decision, and that's the legislator's. I just say, okay, well, I'll remember what issues we were talking about in a special session here in the next couple of years, because I know my people are remembering.
Hren: I want to get your take too on the merger between Union Health and Terre Haute Regional Hospital being approved by the Indiana Department of Health. Why is this COPA important?
Sakbun: The COPA is a mechanism to ensure that when our public hospital, Union Health takes over our private hospital, Terre Haute Regional that quality health care is still there. There are some guardrails for the price increases, and you can still see a doctor from the get go.
Do you support this merger where these jobs are maintained, right? There's an economic development piece, there's the guardrail piece, and there's a healthcare piece, or do you just kind of back out, let a hospital just basically flash sale real estate, and then your public hospital could eventually buy the real estate and have an unregulated monopoly?
So very interesting situation that played out the last two, three years, really. And you know, you're stuck sometimes as mayor looking at the card deck right, saying, okay, what's our best possible hand?
Hren: Let's get to the announcement about the Urban Homescape Initiative. From what I understand, it's a public private partnership bringing more housing on underused parcels. How does that work?
Sakbun: I love the concept of infill housing for decades or else you're going to keep building out and really straining your government resources. So we had a lot of lots northeast of Indiana State University. They're in and around our downtown. Indiana State says, hey, you guys seem to be doing okay at development. They send those lots over to the city of Terre Haute. City of Terre Haute says, okay, there's a huge challenge for builders right now, not just in the state of Indiana, but in the United States of America.
What we are able to do is use some of our funding from the American Rescue Plan Act and say, hey, if you fill in some of our urban lots, here is an infrastructure grant to help you lower your cost to build and then lower your cost to sell ever so slightly.
So we're working with these private builders to a very public, open process. We've got plans for 50 single family homes, couple of duplexes, couple of town homes and a green space. All of it is to own, none of it is to rent.
Hren: I just want to get a quick take on the new jail in in Terre Haute, because this is an ongoing issue in Monroe County, still cannot come to terms on where a new jail should go, how it should work. Just from your experience, how is the new jail working, separate from the courthouse downtown?
Sakbun: This is a problem that many Hoosier counties are facing right now. I talked to several friends who are county commissioners, and I can think of about 10 to 12 that have made comments of the similar situation in their cities and towns.
Here's the truth - at some point, we gotta look at this from the state level. Counties are being absolutely crushed, being forced to pass income taxes because of federal mandates, federal mandates that I actually do believe in. I think they're very sound.
What I get frustrated in is when you look at the statewide criminal justice system... When you look at all the prosecutors in the state of Indiana... and then you look at the price to send someone out of county to a prison, very quickly you realize that this situation is spiraling outside of local control in the criminal justice system.
Here's a little bit of a hint, Joe, maybe if the state of Indiana spent more money on classroom space instead of jail space, 20 years from now, the next 29-year-old mayor is not having this discussion with you.
