Inside Richmond: The City's Pulse
Inside Richmond: The City's Pulse is your go-to podcast for staying connected with the heart of Richmond, Indiana. Dive into the latest community updates, local events, city initiatives, and stories that matter most to our vibrant community. Whether you're a lifelong resident or new to the area, this podcast keeps you in tune with the pulse of Richmond!
Inside Richmond: The City's Pulse
Episode 2 - Inside Richmond: The City's Pulse | 'A Safer and Revitalized Richmond: Transformative Changes Ahead'
Discover the key to a safer Richmond as host, Lindsay Darnell sits down with Mayor Ron Oler to discuss game-changing advancements in our city's public safety landscape. Learn how the Richmond Police and Fire Departments are stepping up their efforts with new vehicles, increased personnel, and innovative initiatives like the Safe Haven Baby Box. These moves are set to strengthen community ties and enhance safety as we look forward to 2025. Plus, find out about the upcoming community policing meeting in the Starr District, providing a direct line between residents and law enforcement.
Get ready to envision a transformed Richmond as we explore the exciting developments reshaping our urban scene. From the demolition of the old Elder-Beerman building to create luxurious apartments, to the ambitious Revitalize Richmond project fueled by a $25 million Lilly Endowment Grant, the city is on the brink of a renaissance. This investment promises to inject $150 million into downtown over the next four years, revitalizing the area with striking renovations and park connections, and addressing the housing shortage with modern amenities that aim to retain local talent.
The journey doesn't stop there—hear about the strategic revitalization efforts of Main Street and the newly opened US 27 Bridge, designed to blend modernity with historical charm. With a focus on enhancing community spaces and potential plans for a Designated Outdoor Refreshment Area, Richmond is poised to become a vibrant destination for families and visitors alike. We also delve into the city's strategic rebranding efforts and the updating of its comprehensive plan to align with post-COVID realities, ensuring that Richmond's growth is in harmony with the vision of its residents. Plus, we take a moment to express our gratitude to the unsung heroes, our city snow plowers, who work tirelessly to keep our roads safe during winter's toughest challenges.
Lastly, the City of Richmond invites you to participate in the survey, "Shaping the Future: Connectivity, Quality of Place, and Infrastructure." Click the link to share your input!
Welcome to Inside Richmond, the City's Pulse. I'm Lindsay Darnell, Community Development Coordinator with the City of Richmond, and today we have Mayor Ron Oler joining us.
Speaker 2:Hello Lindsay and everyone out there. Thank you for listening or watching. I hope you learn a lot today.
Speaker 1:Yes, thanks for joining us. So today we're just going to be talking about some previous projects that we've had going on within the city. I know some of them have completed, some of them are just brand new, getting ready to get started. So I wanted to start off with public safety. I know that was a big thing that the police department and then a fire department. They've been going through many changes last year. Can you give us some information about what's been happening?
Speaker 2:Certainly glad to you know. As a new administration comes in, you have the opportunity to change a lot of things, and we really focused heavily on public safety in 2024. Not that we won't focus heavily on that continue, but we really did hammer down some issues there and brought through a lot of good changes. So one of the things I'm happiest about we were able to purchase a record number of police cars and SUVs in 2024. And that's good because we'll put them to good use in 2025 because we're increasing the headcount in the police department. We're getting very close. This afternoon we're going to go through a process where we look at three more candidates and before we know it, we'll have more police officers than we've ever had in the city.
Speaker 1:That's great. So also the fire department's been doing a lot of changes as well, correct?
Speaker 2:With the new fire chief and assistant chief they've been able to change a lot of their policies and procedures and I'll let them talk specifics later on in the year. But they're bringing a lot of their training. The training ground has been great, but they're bringing some extra things to the training ground that will help them speed the onboarding of new firefighters faster. And one of the things they were able to accomplish this year they were able to have a large storage facility behind Station no 5 on the west side. They had some equipment that had sat outdoors for many years, really had no indoor space to go. So building that pole barn, if you will, with some heat, will help maintain equipment better so it doesn't have problems with mold and mildew in the summertime and wintertime and it'll just last longer. We'll get better service out of the equipment stored indoors out of the weather. So that's a good thing. But also back on the police department, we forgot to mention that, with the police and communities together, community policing.
Speaker 2:They're having their next community policing meeting in the Starr District coming up on January 15th at 6.30 pm at 204 North 10th Street and that's in the they call it the Columbian Properties Building.
Speaker 2:It used to be Knights of Columbus, so everybody, I think, knows where that is, so you don't have to sign up. Used to be Knights of Columbus, so everybody, I think, knows where that is, so you don't have to sign up, just show up. If you live in a star neighborhood and you want to know what the police department's doing to make the star neighborhood a better and safer place, show up at that meeting, 630 on January 15th. If you want more information, though, definitely follow the police department's Facebook page, their social media. They put a lot of good information out there, just like the city does with its Facebook page and X page and other pages, but check that out if you live in the neighborhood, and if you don't live in the neighborhood, they'll eventually get around to other neighborhoods, so anyone's welcome to come and interact with the officers that will be there and start talking about their neighborhood association, reactivating those for community policing there as well.
Speaker 1:And this is a neighborhood crime watch that they're doing correct. Yes, basically yes, so they're trying to bring that back.
Speaker 2:I know years and years ago we used to have neighborhood crime watch here in Richmond but now the name has changed and the focus is kind of the same, but they call it community policing now.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:This is a nationwide change of an idea and how they do it, but I'll let them talk about that. So go to that and figure out what that's all about. It's a good thing.
Speaker 1:Okay, and then I know we're kind of bouncing back and forth. But the Richmond Fire Department one thing that I wanted to let the community know is I'm not sure if everyone knows, I know that they had a big ceremony, but they have the first ever Safe Haven Baby Box here in Richmond. It's located at Station 1, which is at 101 South 5th Street. This is something that's great for our community. You know, if there's any women out there that, just you know, just feel like they're not ready yet or they are having some issues and they want to anonymously give up their baby, there is a safe option they can take it to the fire station.
Speaker 2:And the laws changed years ago where you could bring a baby to any fire station but some were hesitant to because it wasn't anonymous and they were afraid they'd be in trouble. So creating these safe haven baby boxes if a baby is dropped in there, an alarm immediately goes off inside the fire station and if no one's in the fire station it goes off on several phones so they immediately get in there and get that baby and get it the assistance it needs and take care of it. And it's a heated box. It was crazy expensive because we had to drill through about three foot concrete walls so it was crazy expensive to install it but absolutely necessary to save lives, very important yes, I'm excited.
Speaker 1:I know Connersville has one, so with us here in Richmond finally getting one, I think that is a great move forward to shaping the future. That we are heading in yes, so let's also talk about the former elder Beerman. It is finally down. I don't know if any of you guys have gone driven by it, but it's completely down. There is still some rubbish, but they are clearing it quickly, so let's talk about that.
Speaker 2:And we're excited about the future, but we're also emotional about the past. I mean, that was the first building that had an escalator that I rode in as a child, so I remember a lot of history at that building, buying clothes, and we tried for six years to find a different use for that. But just after COVID, 100,000 square foot retail spaces are not coming back to downtowns. So for six years we marketed it. We really tried and we just could find no better use for it that wasn't overly expensive. And at the end it was determined by some developers and after this is the third developer to look at it that it made sense just to demolish it and build new. So, yes, the building is all the way down. They'll start working on a slab soon. Once the slab is done and they go a little bit below grade, then immediately civil work will start under grade for the water, sewer and foundation.
Speaker 2:For the apartments that are coming in and what's coming in at 6th and Main is, you know, these are market-rate apartments with amenities that Richmond has never seen before in an apartment complex. There's a swimming pool, there's a fitness center that comes with it. So people will look at the rents and say, well, this rent is higher than I could pay elsewhere. Yes, but when you consider everything you're getting, you're getting your fitness center. You're getting your two dog spas, you're getting your bicycle storage. They have an Amazon package delivery space lockers so they don't just put packages in the hallway. You're getting a community room. You're getting all that and you're getting walking distances to three city parks. You're getting walking distance to summer farmer's market, to winter farmer's market. You're getting walking distance to the food truck Wednesday. They'll come back this summer, so it's going to be a great place to live.
Speaker 2:And talking to a lot of the local businesses, they struggled with keeping employees here, especially younger employees, because they don't have apartments with amenities that they can find, even the donut cities of Indianapolis. We're getting the exact same thing here. So we have about 12,000 people a day who commute to Richmond, wayne County to work, or they work remotely and come in. So one of the reasons they cite for not living here is due partially to a shortage of high quality housing. So these apartments will retain and attract employees for our local employers and one of the ones we're thinking of.
Speaker 2:You may have seen the expansion of Blue Buffalo. They're doing a $220 million expansion. It's finished. They're hiring 50 more employees and we need places for them to live, and a lot of young people aren't ready to buy a house or not ready to rent a house. They want to try out an area for one to three years and an apartment like this is a perfect place to do it, with easy community to all the amenities you need. You can either walk, bicycle ride or drive your car. There'll be plenty of parking for all the residents surface parking and they're also going to lease space from the parking garage. So we're going to see a lot of activity. The the plan is right now. They'll start constructing those later this spring, summer and start leasing in 2026.
Speaker 1:So so we're getting there, we're moving forward, we're trucking along.
Speaker 2:Yes, this is something rich was needed in a long time, and that just became really the best space for it, with close closeness to three city parks and all the other amenities. There's not going to be anything quite like it, even in the state.
Speaker 1:Yes, and, and then, not to mention, there's several businesses here on Main Street walking distance as well.
Speaker 2:That they can visit Shops, retail restaurants, bakeries. Yes, and more to come. Yes, we're excited there's a lot of pent-up demand, a lot of people out there in the wings waiting. Once the apartments start leasing, they'll start opening these storefronts and bringing in shops well, I'm excited.
Speaker 1:I'm excited to see what it's going to look like. Hopefully they'll have a tour. I don't know if there'll be lots of fun things.
Speaker 2:You know one thing if you stand at the corner of fifth and main not six main, where the explosion was in 68 and you look around, you'll see the social security office, you'll see the library, you'll see city hall, you'll see the county jail and sheriff's department, you'll see the county annex, the county courthouse, the county health department, you'll see the fssa offices, you'll see dcs offices. There are 800 government employees working in this four block area and having an option to live closer and walk to work. I'm sure a lot of people jump on that.
Speaker 1:That's great. Yeah, I'm excited to see what it's going to look like. So, moving on, we're going to talk about Revitalize Richmond with Earlham College and the Lilly Endowment Grant they received of $25 million. Is there any more updates on that?
Speaker 2:Sure, they're starting to activate some of that stuff. If you know, revitalize Richmond is a project that is funded partially $25 million from the Lilly Endowment Grant to Arlem College's managing. But when it's matched with local investment dollars, we'll be at about $150 million of investment downtown in the next four years. So they're starting to purchase some buildings, starting to renovate some buildings and it really will start spinning up this year. There's three primary aspects of that campaign to build, connect and activate. So it even includes some stuff in the Gorge Park, not just the buildings downtown. This is just an awesome time for the city of Richmond. The next four or five years for the city of Richmond it's going to be incredible. But since Earlham is managing that project, you want to find out more information Revitalize Richmond, go to Earlham's website and follow Revitalize Richmond, our website. But they also post regularly on social media too updates what they're doing, moving forward, and it's really going to. You're going to see a lot of stuff spinning up this summer.
Speaker 1:I'm excited. I know as a kid we used to come down here to the promenade. It's main street, we call it main street now. When I was a teenager we used to cruise the promenade and then it just kind of you know, dissipated. So I'm excited. You know I have kids, so hopefully, with all of the renovations, all of the businesses that they're going to attract down here, it'll bring the kids back down here as well yeah, they bring everybody back down.
Speaker 2:I mean the boutique shops that are planned, more restaurants that are planned. It's going to be a destination place. As much as time and energy that the city spent in the historic depot district years ago. That really paid and we're about to do the same thing downtown and those two are connected, so they're in walking distance of each other. So this is really going to change the way people visit and interact with the entire city.
Speaker 1:That's something that the community can really do is reminisce on the past of what the Promenade or Main Street was, and yes, we can be sad of what it was, but you know, that's the past. The future is always going to be before us and so I think, you know, if we can just all get on board and be like you know what we're trucking forward, we're moving forward. We're never going to be able to move backwards. So it's it's time for us to see the change and start, you know, building up the main street.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, I'm excited.
Speaker 1:Okay. So other exciting news this week we had the US 27 Bridge open. Let's talk about that. I know it was.
Speaker 2:I'm looking out a window and we could just drive right up there. Now it's so nice. Two years.
Speaker 2:Two years, yeah, it took two years to demolish and replace that bridge and it was. It was passed to. It took end up plan this for several years and one of the things they did, they took. They did a lot of cool things and very important things.
Speaker 2:One of the things that had to change, though that precipitated this, was the height clearance for railroads. That bridge it was there was too low for the new standards for bridges over railroad tracks because of the way they stack cargo containers and other stuff, so it had to be raised a bit. So when you drive over, especially heading north, you'll notice the ramp is steeper and you notice it's a little bit higher. That was one of the things. The other thing is, of course, the bridge, the piers, were deteriorating. Its design was really outdated with so many piers, so now there's fewer piers. And, of course, the other thing that happened is that area between North E and Elm Place where you could drive under. That's totally unsafe. We don't want cars driving into piers that hold up a ridge with heavy traffic on it, so that is now blocked off to traffic.
Speaker 2:Elm Place is open, north E is open, but that space the city will be meeting with the depot association and depot businesses and people interested in depot on how to make that into a, a public space or a park, or you know, I was recently I was I got to talk about this I can't stop talking about. I was recently in shelbyville and right off of main street there's an alley that people take between some main street buildings to a parking lot in the back and through a quality of price program they were able to decorate this alley even with chandeliers hanging across it and I envision something like that in that space. You know that's within the city's first Dora, so when there's Dora events that'd be a great place to hang out and be in the shade, especially in the summertime you get free shade from the bridge. So looking forward to developing that space and does someplace people would want to hang out.
Speaker 1:And for those of you that don't know what a Dora is, a Dora is a designated outdoor refreshment area. So in the vicinity of the Depot District there is on our website, the city's website, a Dora map that shows you. But certain there are certain days and times that, uh, you can go down there and if you have a special Dora cup and you go to the businesses that supply Dora, you can get a alcoholic beverage, whether it be a beer or a mixed drink. Now, there is an ounce restriction, but you can walk around the depot district outside with that cup. You just have to stay in that district. You cannot go out or it would be public intoxication then yeah, yeah, good deal.
Speaker 2:And again, that was an NDOT project, not a city project, but they were very forward-thinking with us. Several years ago, when I was on council, we found some extra money to make the concrete decorative and that fence that had to go on a sidewalk side. Anytime you build a bridge over a railroad track nowadays you have to have a certain height of fence to keep people from falling onto the track, so that one side, the west side, has that fence where the sidewalk is. And we were able to. Instead of just putting a plain chain link fence, they put a more ornamental fence. They put the city of Richmond and the city's red color letters right on the fence and it looks looks a lot nicer than industrial bridge. So it really ties in the aesthetics of the historic depot district. That was important because we know that bridge will be there for 50 years, like the old one was. So we need to make it look nice, not only be functional but fit the space and they did, and dot did an amazing job.
Speaker 1:You know we want to give them credit. We know it was a time, but if you had seen pictures of the bridge before, they had to tear it down. It was very deteriorated and unsafe, so it was something that needed to be done.
Speaker 2:And it looked industrial. It did not look like it wasn't interesting.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Didn't make the place appealing. But we met with NDOT yesterday for quite a while and one of the things we're excited about when that bridge opened, you know, they finished the work on 8th Street and 9th Street. They finished the work on Chester Boulevard. They finished the work on 27th through town. They finished work on 40th. All of our state highways through the city have been rebuilt and they're going to leave us alone for a while.
Speaker 1:That's good, because I know that.
Speaker 2:Except for Interstate 70, that's next. But they're going to downtown's open for business, traffic's open now. I say that. But the bridge isn't quite finished, the 27 overpress bridge. They'll have to come back and put some permanent striping in when the weather's nice and it won't freeze. But they don't even think they'll have lane restrictions when they do that, they'll just have the trucks and putting down the permanent reflective striping and stuff. They have a punch lift of a handful of items to do and while they're doing that they'll finish the surface paving. On Fort Wayne Avenue it was paved before winter but the top coat wasn't paved before the asphalt plants come down. So they'll come back in the spring and they'll finish that top paving and some of the stuff, some of the soft landscaping around there. So the whole depot will be finished in the spring. I mean, it's usable now, drivable now. It's open. That's the best part. But there'll be some cleanup to do in the spring and that'll be nice, that'll make it look nice.
Speaker 1:So if you guys haven't been down there, drive across the bridge, go down in the depot district, check out the new multimodal bike path. It's really coming along down there path um it's it's really coming along down there. Um revive i-70 I know you briefly touched on that um, they did have some lane closures about a month ago. Um then they got it open back up, so I know they're starting to kind of move forward. Do you have an update on the revive i-70 project?
Speaker 2:sure, as you know and you should visit revive i-70.com to keep updated now, some of the things we're going to tell you in a few minutes aren't even on the website yet, because we just found out yesterday and I'm allowed to share it today, so you're the first to know, other than three of us that were in a room yesterday. So you know they had a plan 10 years ago to revive the first 21 miles of Interstate 70 from the Ohio line west, 21 miles. There's about 42 bridges and culverts in this 21-mile stretch and their plan was to make it six lanes, three lanes both way, all the way across. When they first started planning this 10 years ago they thought it would cost about $400 million for all 21 miles. When they finally let the first seven miles from Ohio US 40, to 35, that came in over $400 million. So they're modifying phase two and three from Highway 35 all the way to State Road 1. When they let that, they're going to go ahead and do all the infrastructure and get it ready for a third lane, but it's not going to have a third lane. So you're the first to know the three lanes, or six lanes, will go from 40 to Highway 35. And then from there on out it'll have four lanes. They'll have the infrastructure for it, but they don't think they won't have the resources, financial resources, to actually make those other two lanes for phase two and three over the next four or five years. Now, unless something changes in financing and suddenly they have the money, they'll be ready for it, but they're just not going to add them right now so that last 14 miles will come at a later date. They'll go ahead and get it ready.
Speaker 2:So their their plan is at highway 40 there's kind of a roundabout. Those ramps will change. At highway 35 there's definitely a roundabout. It's it's richmond's. First full roundabout will be at 35. But I say richmond's, it's on the inters, off the interstate, so it's a little bit different. The one at 40 is more like a half about hourglass shape underneath the bridge and it's it's. Yeah, it's great that. It's great that they're investing in that. You know I was concerned.
Speaker 2:For years they've been building six lanes and are all the way out into Hancock County. They've been coming East for a long time. So now they're going to slow down that and start on the East side and work their way West and to really help our industrial park, our Midwest industrial park all the way out to Round Barn Road. We get a lot of heavy truck traffic and we're expanding that. So having that, at least having you know, six lanes from Ohio to 35, that'll definitely help. Eventually we'd like to have the rest of it too, and probably all the way across the state with all the truck traffic, because Richmond, Indiana's industrial corridor, the expansion, is Hancock County to Wayne County. If you go around the other interstates out of Indianapolis with all the housing and some other problems with nature, it's really not good industrial park space. So the next 25 years Indiana's industrial park is from Hancock County to Wayne County along I-70.
Speaker 1:Okay. So, and I want to make sure that people know too, they can go to NDOT's Facebook page or they can check the City of Richmond's Facebook page or social media. I'll share updates from them on any of the projects, any road closures, lane closures. So we just really want to just make sure that you're following NDOT, make sure you're following City of Richmond.
Speaker 2:And again that Revive I-70 page soon will be updated and we'll talk about how they just decided to change this week now the next two topics I want to talk about.
Speaker 1:I'm very excited I've um sat right along to the city. Yes, city city. Um, I've had my um share of helping out with these and in the future I'm going to be really um focusing on getting the community engaged on these. So the first one I want to talk about is the branding of the city of Richmond. So I just want you to explain to the community what does that mean? What is branding the city?
Speaker 2:Well, when I came into office last year, it was pretty plain that it was time for the city to do a lot of things. Anytime you have a new administration, it's a good time to look at your comprehensive plan, look at your city brand, your city logo. But really what happened was it was the last year of our comprehensive plan, and if your comprehensive plan is too old, you don't qualify for grants anymore. You can't get some extra funding from the state. So we took it as a two-pronged approach. Some cities have done rebranding and comprehensive plan all in one, which is crazy expensive and takes too long. So we split the two up. Having you in this position and some other people were able to split the two up. So we're doing rebranding first. Well, we're starting rebranding first so the city citizens will have a chance to help have a say on what the city is to them, what the city means to them now and in the future. You know we haven't been the Rose City for a very long time. If you look at the city's flag, it says Gateway to Indiana, and that's okay, but that's not something that advertises the city well. So when we had the Richmond Rising Comprehensive Plan, they came up with this R with a little arrow on it, and it never really took off and the city never changed its logo, never really adopted it. Last last, in 2023, there were 53 new mayors elected in Indiana and in 2024, a lot of them undertook their whole comprehensive plan and rebranding and a lot of them I looked at their budgets and I said you spent too much money. Even a smaller city, some smaller cities spent more than we're going to spend because we split the two up. So we're going to do the rebranding first. Public will have a chance for input and you'll share with them how to have that input.
Speaker 2:What is this? What is the city? What is Richmond, you know? Are we the pet food capital of Indiana? Yes, pretty much. Are we automotive parks, manufacturing? A lot of that. Are we historic Richmond? Yes, Are we beautiful Richmond? Yes, Do we have some really nice restaurants? We have people from Indianapolis that come over here to a couple of key restaurants that are locally owned by local chefs. We're known for that too, but all of that we've got to tie into what is the city now and in the future?
Speaker 1:And who are we. So it's not just a logo, it's a tagline. We want to be unique. We want people to see our logo and be like, oh, I know that place, you know, maybe I've been there and I want to go back, or that looks like an interesting place I want to go visit. Yes, we really want it to, you know, say, hey, here I am. You know, we are unique and we are a place worth visiting.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So comprehensive plan we touched based on that. This one I'm really excited about as well to help work on, just like you had said. You know, every five years it has to be refreshed and what it is is that it's land use, economic development, growth, environmental sustainability, transportation. Am I missing anything else?
Speaker 2:That's about it Transportation studies, all that stuff's in there. So Citi's comprehensive plan guides it. When it comes to a developer wants to come and do something different, does it fit our comprehensive plan or do we need to go through a process and think do we want to do this or not? So Richmond Rising was great. It's just over five years old now and it's A outdated because you have to have a refresh or new one every five years. Qualify for grants, but B what's really important is now's a good time to look at that, see what we accomplished, see what we didn't accomplish, see what we didn't accomplish that we still want to accomplish, because the thing happened in between there called COVID and it changed so many things.
Speaker 2:So many things changed since COVID. For example, wolverine Worldwide's call center headquarters with almost 300 employees. They started working from home during COVID and then, after COVID, they decided we can still work from home, we don't need to speak office buildings, so it was recently sold to another company. So there's so many people working from home now, using services to deliver things instead of going out and shopping. So our whole plan was based upon what life was before COVID, and then life will never go back to what it was before COVID. So we need to rethink how we. It's a great opportunity.
Speaker 2:You know, covid was terrible. I wish it never happened, but we're at a good point where we know everything is different about our society and we have. We're fortunate that it's five years old, because we're due for a refresh. You know, we didn't wait 15 years and have to start from scratch. All we got to do is look at what we did, what we, and ask the community well, did you like this? And ask the community well, did you like this? Do you not like that? What would you rather do? This is the time to do that, and that'll guide the city for the next five years or so.
Speaker 1:And that's important too the community is going to be involved. We are going to be coming out with a survey soon that'll talk about proposed projects that were on the previous comprehensive plan, to see if our vision still aligns, if we still want to head that direction.
Speaker 2:And that's like a couple of days away, right, correct. So the first survey is coming really quickly, so watch for that. On projects we want you to help us rank projects. We you know I have ideas, Council members have ideas. People who have been in administration for 20, 30 years have ideas. What really matters, though, is what the citizens want from us. How do we best serve the citizens want?
Speaker 1:so we want them to rank these projects and get this thing started and it's important to note the projects that we are going to have on the survey was um projects that were presented or were talked about, that the community were interested in and wanted um five years ago at public meetings for the comprehensive plan. So we just want to make sure the community is still yeah, we still want that or no. Our ideas have changed and things have changed. We've grown.
Speaker 2:Our habits have changed.
Speaker 1:Habits have changed. So you know, maybe we want something else. So this one's not important anymore and we're going to have you guys rank those. I'll have the survey all set up. We're going to be launching it on Monday next week, hopefully, when this is airing, so that you guys can get on there. We want as many people to take the survey, rank the jobs. They're going to be separated in categories connectivity, quality of place and infrastructure. Are these still projects that you guys want to see? Brankham? One through five, one least important, five most important that you you do want to see these projects yes, that's a great start.
Speaker 2:It's a brand new year. We're in the first full week, you know, and we had a snowstorm and we got to plow streets on the weekend.
Speaker 1:So more snow coming more, snow coming more snow coming, yeah.
Speaker 2:So my week, this this week, started Sunday afternoon at the street department to see if there's anything I could do to help them and just just be available to get things going. So they stayed out till 10 o'clock Sunday night and we're back out again four o'clock Monday morning and they get again did again Tuesday. I think they did a great job with the streets. We've had some really good comments from the people. So that's something. If you see something you like, they would appreciate some positive comments.
Speaker 2:So, yes, it could take two days to get to your street because they start with the major thoroughfares first, but when they finally do, you could say, hey, thanks for plowing my street, thanks for plowing my driveway over. I went out and shoveled it again, and that's kind of a joke because that's going to happen, because plowing the streets and then you clean up your sidewalk is important, you clean up your driveway is important, and I'm the same way. I have to go out several times, reshovel my sidewalk, reshovel into my driveway, but I appreciate it because once I get out I'm on a clear street and it takes several days to do that.
Speaker 1:And we also have to remember that. You know they're out here working from four o'clock in the morning to maybe 10, 11 o'clock at night, getting home, eating, sleeping a few hours and then having to come back in when the roads are bad.
Speaker 2:They get a six hour break, and that's not much.
Speaker 1:Right, so definitely want to thank our street workers. Snow plows, everything but, mayor, I want to say I think that was all of our talking points. We had some really good information let out and I want to thank you again for joining me on Inside Richmond, the city's pulse. This is bringing the city news to you.
Speaker 2:Glad to be here, thanks.
Speaker 1:Thank you.