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April 14, 2009

Mayor visits with northside residents

Neighborhood Summit series stops at Terre Town

By Brian M. Boyce

TERRE HAUTE — If money weren’t an object, Terre Haute streets might be paved with gold and crime would be a fairy tale.

But the country is in a recession and state-mandated changes to the property tax system have city officials a little short on cash, so Mayor Duke Bennett has decided to take questions and offer answers at neighborhood summits throughout Terre Haute to keep up communications with the public.

“When I first took office, the biggest issue on my mind was finances,” Bennett told about 50 northside residents in the Terre Town Elementary School gym Tuesday evening.

While much progress is being made within the city, Bennett said the property tax changes in Indiana’s House Bill 1001 mean Terre Haute’s annual $30 million budget will lose $1.8 million this year, $3.7 million more next year and an additional $1.7 million in 2011.

“If you had to cut one-fifth of your budget at home, you’d have to make some pretty drastic changes,” he said, explaining that the city has frozen most open positions in an attempt to reduce costs by attrition.

Several audience members, complaining of poor neighborhood lighting and congestion, asked when progress on expanding the streets around Lafayette Avenue and Fort Harrison Road would occur.

Bennett said that the $7 million project is one of several that are planned but still unfunded.

On the other hand, projects involving Brown Avenue from Locust Street to Maple Avenue, and Margaret Avenue between Third and Seventh streets, should be under way this year, he said.

The costs associated with acquiring affected properties along those streets is one of the largest considerations, in addition to the labor and materials, Bennett said.

“The key is you have to have the cash flow to these projects,” he said.

State officials had believed a 1 percent sales tax hike would offset property tax caps, but as the nation’s economy darkens, fewer sales are being generated. Every municipality’s belt must be further tightened, the mayor said.

“There are a lot of places that are much, much worse,” he said, pointing out that while Vigo County’s 9 percent unemployment rate is higher than desired, Elkhart’s is about 20 percent.

Bennett was informal and candid about what limitations lie in the immediate future, but he spoke with optimism of economic development projects in the works.

The “health innovation corridor” between Indiana State University, Union Hospital and the Indiana University School of Medicine’s campus at Terre Haute eventually will bring a one-of-a-kind rural health program to the Wabash Valley that will draw professionals from across the country, he said.

Even as construction lags nationally, three new bank buildings are going up in Terre Haute in addition to a new Federal Bureau of Investigation building, a new federal courthouse and two projects at ISU.

Bennett offered frank criticism of past attempts to market the Terre Haute International Airport-Hulman Field, something he said will be rectified with the hiring of a new director.

“That’s an industrial park with an airport,” he said, describing his vision for the third longest runway in the state.

Bennett cited extensive warehousing complexes in Plainfield that have grown up around the Indianapolis airport and said there is no reason Terre Haute can’t work toward a similar end.

“It’s all about the marketing and how aggressive we are,” he said.

Complaints about drugs and other criminal activity were frequent during the hour-plus question-and-answer period. Bennett said “alcohol, drugs and broken families” are at the center of the community’s problems. As the economy worsens, those issues become more exacerbated. “If we could ever solve that, a lot of the rest of this would take care of itself,” he said.

Meanwhile, the city pays about $700,000 a year in utilities just to keep the street lights on, and road salt cost $140 a ton last year, he said.

Bennett will host another neighborhood summit today in 12 Points from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at Harmony Hall, 1257 Lafayette Ave.



Brian Boyce can be reached at 812-231-4253 or brian.boyce@tribstar.com.

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