In this week’s installment of Ask The Mayor, Columbus Mayor Mary Ferdon 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: Last time we talked was the snowstorm and burst pipes causing a downtown street to look like a river. Is Franklin and 7th street open again?
Ferdon: I'm glad that that's over, but you know, the cleanup will remain for a while. Streets still not open. Utilities working on it. Once they get completed, then it's got to be repaved, obviously. So I think the hope had been by sometime in March. And it's for just a short block from Washington to Franklin, so it's not a huge inconvenience.
Hren: The legislative session ended a few days ago, and a month ago, you were at the Statehouse advocating lawmakers and I guess we're still waiting for the dust to settle. But can you give any indication did Indiana communities, town, and cities get relief from some of those dwindling revenue sources?
Read more: 2026 session wrap: Did Indiana lawmakers deliver on affordability?
Ferdon: We're not quite sure yet what the effect of the property tax changes will be, the local income tax changes, which were supposed to be voted on in 2027 and then taken effect into 2028. Those have been pushed off, at least I think the goal is to push those off for a year and then give cities a chance to talk with legislators about some of the changes and how the rate structure can be adjusted.
The legislation could be written with the goal of, obviously, keeping taxes as low as possible for citizens, but making sure that cities and towns have the funding that they needed to move forward. You know, it was going to affect a lot of the bonds that cities had. And so that was pretty unnerving.
So I've got a wait and see attitude until we see all the nuances, because there's still a chance to sneak all kind of stuff in some of the bills.
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Hren: I'll talk to Terre Haute Mayor Brandon Sakbun next week. But I know he's been already trying to save for the potential cuts, is that something Columbus is doing too?
Ferdon: Yeah, that's a really great perspective. I think we do try to say we all are constantly trying to be as effective with our dollars as we can, but with the understanding that money that we have today, we might not, we will not, most likely not, have the same level of revenue going into the future.
We know that inflation and costs will continue to go up with what we see happening on the national level, oil prices have already started to rise, right? So gasoline and heating and so we know that there's always cost increases that are out of our control.
Hren: You had your State of the City address a week or so ago, and your word of choice for 2026 this year was 'forward.' What are some of those major action points?
Ferdon: We've got some affordable housing projects, and just housing projects in general that are finally got off the blocks in 2025. Some are affordable, some are market rate, and we'll start seeing some of those probably won't come to fruition in 26 but in 27.
We're also seeing a lot of momentum on the riverfront. If you go to the city's web page to redevelopment, you can see the progress that we're making. Our goal is still to be able to do a ribbon cutting in late October.
We're also starting something this month that we've been talking about for a number of years, and that's kind of a reboot of our transportation system. March 23 I think, is when we start our loop change. We go from five routes to four, but they're much more efficient.
We've got a new transit app that people will be able to use. It'll tell them exactly wherever you are, what bus route will take you, the time it will take you, the route that you will take, which will be huge for people just trying to figure it out.
And then in the coming month or so, we are going to transition and be actually taking a route out to Taylorsville and down to Wellsboro. And so that's something that we have a tremendous number of employers south of part of Columbus.
And then the third phase, which will happen later this year, is kind of our point-to-point Uber phase, which is where the goal will be to be able to set it up in such a way that you won't even have to ride a long bus route. You can do more of a point to point, and save you time, and then allow us to get people to particularly medical appointments or some other kind of appointments, and a quicker basis.
