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: Governor Mike Braun is looking into eliminating property taxes for seniors and those who have paid off their mortgage. You touched on this on some of your social media posts. Who wins, who loses with this?
Sakbun: Let's start with the second. A lot of folks who don't have a mortgage, who have paid off their mortgage, are frankly a little bit richer than some of the everyday Hoosiers. To say, hey, if you can afford to pay for a home in cash, that's helping the private equity BlackRock organizations that are coming into these rural communities and sweeping up homes left and right.
Look, I don't think property taxes are the greatest system in Indiana. Why would we only target just seniors and just people who can afford to not have a mortgage? That's not really doing anything for our community's most vulnerable.
And remember, the median age of a home buyer in the United States of America is the oldest it's ever been, that's 40 years old. Folks my age, folks younger, folks a little bit older want to be able to know that the American dream is still in reach, and that's home ownership.
I think maybe if we didn't hand out $650 million to data centers through sales tax credits, we would have some room to actually offer real relief for Hoosiers in the short term and medium term.
Hren: We talk about housing a lot on this show. I saw a report with 37% increase in construction permits in Terre Haute. Commercially reported 8% growth. What do you attribute to that?
Sakbun: We're a pro-business, pro-growth city, and I don't mean that as a Democratic or Republican way, I mean in a common-sense way.
Frankly, the government's made it too difficult to build in the United States of America, whether that's an interstate like I-70 or a home. So, from single family construction to multifamily construction to commercial construction, the city of Terre Haute is hyper focused on how we can make this an easy, painless process.
If you look at all the costs, the fees, the laws associated with building, 90% of it is state and federal regulation. So this past legislative session, when the state house tried to say all local governments are making it harder to build, I said, let's slow down here, folks. Let's look at the math. Let's look in the mirror and say, maybe, maybe it's you guys, not us.
Hren: Jails were built downtown and as they age, they need to be replaced. The never-ending discussion how to fund new jails, does the money go to recidivism, prevention services, does the jail need to be downtown? How big do they need to be? What advice would you give Monroe County struggling to build a new jail?
Sakbun: Build it bigger than you think you need to and accept that. If it's away from your downtown courthouse, you will have transportation costs. There's a security factor to this too, when you're moving prisoners, and if you're willing to accept that cost and those additional dollars, you know, great.
Most of these jails are funded through local income taxes, so there are some real financial challenges because of these conversations, and each decision has a second and third order effect.
A few years ago, Vigo County was in a jail lawsuit to simplify the conversation, and we built a new jail, and now that jail is already overcrowded.
State prisons have found it is cheaper to pay the daily per diem and leave inmates in county jails instead of doing their job. I'm talking about a leadership decision at the top that is not fully staffing state prisons, not building state prison beds, and forcing the problem on local county government. It's an unfunded mandate leading to these federal lawsuits.
Hren: You addressed Flock cameras on your Facebook page, you got a lot of responses, as you probably imagined. We just did a story that more than 2000 Hoosier signing a statewide petition. What is your stance for those who are just learning about this?
Sakbun: The county has had these for several years now, which the city of Terre Haute Police Department had access to, and we did get federal funding to add a few more around our schools, specifically.
Just like any tool, if you don't put the right safeguards in place, it can be abused. I'm confident that the City of Terre Haute system, which is a unique ID number that every officer who has access, because not every officer has access, but every officer who has access has a unique ID. We can see exactly what they're looking at. We do an audit once a year.
Five years ago, would I have made the decision to implement Flock cameras? No. But over the last five years, as problems have arisen, different safeguards have been created and put in place. The focus of our flock cameras is a license plate reader. Is there other technology that can be used with flock cameras? Yes, we are not subscribed to that type of technology. We don't have a real-time crime center.
Read more: Bloomington’s Flock contract may have ended, but other cameras still active
Just a few years ago, there was a whole conversation about police body cameras. We need police body cameras for accountability. We need more civilian oversight in law enforcement.
Well, South Bend uses Flock camera technology and has a civilian analytics kind of data real-time crime center that does use drone technology, and to me, I'm very shocked that just a few years ago we went from asking for cameras to now we do not like cameras on public streets and public roads.
Read more: State lawmakers propose guardrails to limit the sharing of license plate camera data
