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 8 - Inside Richmond: The City's Pulse | Transforming Richmond: How City Leadership is Revitalizing Our Community
Join host Lindsay Darnell as she welcomes Mayor Ron Oler and Public Operations Director Matthew Keller to share Richmond’s exciting progress and community transformation.
Spring has arrived, bringing monthly park cleanup days where neighbors can make a real difference at sites like Middle Fork Cove. “The parks are only as good as everybody who takes care of them,” says Mayor Oler, encouraging residents to get involved.
Last week’s Earth Day event saw 200 sixth graders planting trees they’ll watch grow for decades — a powerful symbol of Richmond’s long-term vision.
Lindsay also highlights the city’s unique partnership with IU East students, whose analysis revealed a 50% surge in Richmond’s median household income over the past decade, outpacing cities like Terre Haute and Muncie.
Mark your calendar for May 23rd! The Depot District Summer Kickoff Party will celebrate the near-completion of Loop Phase 2 and debut Richmond’s new Designated Outdoor Refreshment Area, where you can stroll with a beverage and explore local businesses. The first 100 kids get free bicycle helmets — don’t miss it!
Matthew Keller shares the success of code enforcement teams, who have already removed 27 tons of trash, 315 tires, and over 150 shopping carts in just three months. Meanwhile, the airport terminal project is gaining momentum, with potential grant funding covering up to 95% of construction costs.
From an eighth grader serving as “Mayor for a Day” through the National Civics Bee, to long-range planning shaping the city’s future, Richmond is thriving through community-driven progress.
Interested in joining the team? Visit www.richmondindiana.gov to explore employment opportunities and be part of the city’s exciting future!
Welcome back to another episode of Inside Richmond, the City's Pulse. I'm Lindsay Darnell, your host, and today I have Mayor Ron Oler and Matthew Keller, director of Public Operations and Engineering, joining us. Thank you, guys.
Speaker 2:Glad to be here. Happy to be here.
Speaker 1:So I want to talk a little bit about both, but first we're going to go to the mayor and we are going to talk about volunteer opportunities for parks, cleanup and cleanup days.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, it's springtime in Richmond, springtime in Indiana, and one of the things that happens every spring actually all year long are the park cleanup and invasive removal days. So the first Saturday of every month from 10 am to 2 pm, your parks department will be better off if you come out and help do some cleanup work. So the parks department will provide water, gloves, tools, trash bags, grabbers, everything you need to bring. Of course you want to wear long pants, closed-toed shoes, maybe bug spray, personal gloves if desired, I take my own gloves. But I bring this up because, yes, it is springtime and a couple of weeks ago we did the big cleanup out toward the landfill from Freeman park all the way to the landfill on new Paris Pike, had a great turnout of city employees and opportunity for public to come out and help. So that was a weekday, so Saturdays are probably better. So this Saturday, may the third, is middle fork Cove. So if you enjoy May, the 3rd is Middle Fork Cove. So if you enjoy Middle Fork Reservoir, if you enjoy anything in our parks and you're able to come out and help, do the Middle Fork Cove this Saturday and then Saturday June 7th, they're doing more of the Reservoir Cabin Area, july 5th.
Speaker 2:Glenmiller Park, august 2nd, thistleweight Falls, which is always a cool one to be along the river. September 6th, springwood Pavilion, october 4th. Star Jeanette area, november 1st. Of course, veterans Park, right ahead of the Veterans Day and all the celebration for veterans. So it's 10 am to 2 pm every Saturday. If you want to know more information, don't call the mayor's office, call the Parks Department, brandon Panetsky, or email him, bpansky at richmondindianagov, or just show up at Middle Fork Reservoir, the Cove, may 3rd, 10 to 2. And if you can't get there right at 10, come at 11, come when you can stay as long as you can. Some people will come and stay for the whole four hours, some people stay for two hours. Bring some children, bring some people out to help.
Speaker 2:You know, last week we had Earth Day and we had over 200 sixth graders come out and help at Glenmiller Park for the day. They not only cleaned up trash and picked up a lot of sticks, which was very helpful to the park staff this time of year after the winter. They also planted a hundred trees. So I challenged them, I got to speak with them for a while, I challenged them to come back. So these sixth graders, they're going to be around here for a long time, so come back and look at the tree you planted and see what happens to it, because trees are hugely important to us.
Speaker 2:So I thought that was a pretty cool idea. So for the next 20 years, hopefully, they'll be coming back and watching the tree they planted grow, and I challenge them every time they go into the park. Now that they know, if you see a piece of trash, just go ahead and pick it up. It may not be your trash, maybe somebody else's trash, but the parks are only as good as everybody who takes care of them, and that's all of us. The park staff is limited. They have limited manpower, limited time. So everybody help. Every little bit of help helps. How's that?
Speaker 1:and that shows having pride in your hometown as well. Now, both of you actually participated in the cleanup from fre Park to New Paris Pike right.
Speaker 3:Yes, we did.
Speaker 1:Do you guys know how much trash you picked up in those areas? Was it?
Speaker 2:a lot, a lot. It was Matt's first time, so tell us about your experience, matt.
Speaker 3:It was pretty cool. The code enforcement team and myself were able to go out together as a team and we started at the very beginning and went down the whole entire way, all the way down towards the landfill and sanitation, and other crews were out there and it was kind of fun to have some collaboration street and parks and just get to know people you work with yeah, I met a lot of people that day that you don't see every day from other departments.
Speaker 2:That's always good too yeah now.
Speaker 1:I stopped out there and there was a lot of people helping, so I was really, you know, shocked to see how many people were there picking up trash.
Speaker 2:It was great hope that it was a good weather day too and people appreciated the chance to be outside and make a difference. There were so many bags of trash pickup. They had a backhoe that was just constantly running up and down the road. We were dumping bags of trash in it and it was going to the dump truck and dumping it in the dump truck and the dump truck was going to landfill and coming back, so we just had a constant. There was a logistics study in there, which would be pretty good. As you study logistics, that would have been a good one to study.
Speaker 1:Probably yeah, okay, so moving forward, I want to talk about our tell us how much we picked up.
Speaker 2:Oh, we don't know exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you? I don't know, I didn't see the numbers it, but I don't. I don't know. I'm gonna have to track that down. Then it was a lot. Yeah, I'll have to figure that out. I know I saw numerous trash bags so I know it was a lot. It was um. So I want to talk about our partnership with iu east, their class. I know you are going back to your old roots of being a professor. It's a great time yeah, so tell us a little bit about that. What are you doing?
Speaker 2:So last year, fairly new Chancellor Dennis Rome asked a fairly new mayor, Ron Oler, who had been a college professor for almost 33 decades myself. So what can IU East do to help partner with the city and what can the city do to take advantage of some of the talent at IU East? And I had this cool idea that we have a financial consultant, financial advisor, in Indianapolis, we have a finance department and we're really good at fixing this year's budget. We're really good at forecasting the last five years, but nobody really has the time and expertise to go back many years. So they created a class and it is two things. It went back eight years and looked at the city's budget for eight years and marked trend lines. So the great thing for the students was they had a real-world example in their community Instead of a class where you're just doing a case study. I have a book. They interacted with the mayor, the controller, deputy controller. They came to city hall. They looked at everything. We opened up all our books to them, turned out to be a really great class so well that our US Representative, jefferson Shreve, came last week for the presentation and got to hear some things and ask some questions and spend some time with the class. We got the report and eventually it will be a presentation to council, probably at our Committee of the Whole meeting coming up.
Speaker 2:But the other reason we did this is government accounting is so much different from for-profit accounting. So city's controller has been great, the last controller was great, the new deputy controller is great, but not a one of them took a class in government accounting. So we know there's a gap there, not just the city, but the county, the state and even the federal level. So colleges and universities. I know our controller said when she went to college she had one paragraph and one chapter about what government accounting is.
Speaker 2:And fund accounting is so much different than for-profit accounting because you can't mix funds. So if we get money from the state from fuel taxes, from motor vehicle highway for roads and streets, we can't spend that on parks. If we get money from this, we can't spend it on that. We get money for that, we can't spend it on this. So there's lots of regulations. So knowing how to manage basically 12 businesses in one is very challenging. So I think it worked out really well. The students really got a lot out of it and we're looking forward to possibly hiring some of them, so that'll be great too do you think you'll do this again in the future?
Speaker 2:the every. They're going to run this class every spring, so now that they have a baseline. But they didn't just look at richmond. They compared us to specifically compared our finances to a couple other cities, but overall, for all the aspects of the city, they compared us to 14 other cities in Indiana. Wow, so some of the things that were revealed to us. You may or may not if you pay attention, may or may not pay attention.
Speaker 2:Over the last decade the city of Richmond has focused hard on industrial parking, getting better paying jobs here, and that's paid off. In the last 10 years we've increased the median household income in Richmond by 50%. Median household income in Richmond is now slightly higher than Terre Haute and Muncie. So in comparable cities, different attributes they're slightly higher in us in population, but that was really well. So we see some things that are working and some things that aren't working so well. So they found some places where we could save money and restructure some things. That was our other assignment was how can we pay for this and what can we cut? What can we do while still providing services to make government more efficient?
Speaker 3:and that's really cool for the students to get like a real world example and actually be able to work on something that they can see an actual, tangible result from in their town, you know.
Speaker 2:So those are the classes that do internships, but this was a class focused just on the city's budget and not something out of a book from another state yeah on government accounting pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is interesting to get that type of experience with real life.
Speaker 2:They get college credit and one's graduating, so we'll'll see what happens. Maybe they'll join the team yeah, theirs will be back and they're going to come back in the summer and over the fall and help us look at the 2026 budget.
Speaker 1:And, talking about that, maybe trying to get some of them on board at the City of Richmond. We are still hiring, so make sure you check out our job opportunities page on the website. Good deal.
Speaker 1:So this is something I'm really excited to talk about. Last year in September, we hosted a Main Street block party here on Main Street when the construction of Loop Phase 2 was completed. This month, in May, we are going to be doing another party. It's called the Depot District Summer Kickoff Party. Ndot, parsons and Beatty Construction are going to be partnering with us. So, with the completion of the US 27 Bridge, loop Phase 2 will be almost completed. We'll have just a couple more weeks left when we do have the party. So it is going to be on May 23rd that's a Friday from 6 to 8 pm.
Speaker 1:You guys will definitely need to come down there. It's going to have a lot of similar vibes as the Main Street Block Party. There'll be businesses set up outside. There'll be samples of food from the restaurants there that are participating. Some of the other businesses will have some swag item or maybe discount coupons. Registration is underneath the bridge. You'll come in. There's going to be 300 available. You'll come in and get a little card that will have each business on that card and then you kind of walk around. They'll check market that you've been to that business.
Speaker 1:Like a scavenger hunt Kind of yes, and you get to see all of the cool local businesses down in the Depot District. This will also be the first opportunity to use Dora down there, which is the designated outdoor refreshment area. Another thing that's really neat is NDOT is going to have a hundred kids helmets, so the first 100 kids that come Bicycle helmets. Bicycle helmets Very close. The first 100 kids that show up will get a free bicycle helmet, and there should be some other little goodies that they're passing out as well.
Speaker 2:So definitely make sure you guys come out there and, if you'll remember back in January or February we had a bridge dedication ceremony planned, but we had that ice storm come in.
Speaker 2:So, they just decided, instead of postponing it two weeks, they're bringing it to the part of the block party. So the Depot District Summer Kickoff Party is embracing the Depot District. The loop will be done or almost done, almost done, but the bridge is open. So it's also about the bridge through the overpass bridge. That gave us all a little bit of headache for about two years, but we're so glad it's finished because, uh, everybody in this room, uh, it'll be the way it is for the rest of our lifetime, I assume I hope so well that bridge.
Speaker 1:That bridge lasted that long, so I assume we'll never have to go through this again there, yeah yeah, that was a long construction so it was definitely great to have it opened. Um, so I know you. I don't think were you here in september. I know you're newer to the city, so you didn't december in december.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, you, you didn't see the main street block party. Um, the depot district's gonna have live music. We had a dj on main street, but depot district's gonna have live music in a couple different spots, so it's really cool down there too, there's a lot going on.
Speaker 3:That's a good thing.
Speaker 2:A couple different spots. So with the door you'll be able to walk a glass of wine, travel around each one travel around. Just follow the signs, stay inside the district, don't go outside the district, don't be roaming around, and that dora cup will have the name of the company on it or the restaurant or bar that you got it from dora.
Speaker 1:I think it should have dora. I'm not sure if it has each or permitting.
Speaker 3:Each business has their signage on the front saying they're participating though. Right yeah.
Speaker 2:Make sure you dispose of that cup properly, because you've left that restaurant. So plenty of trash cans down there. Dispose of it properly, please.
Speaker 1:And there is a boundary area. So if you go to the city website and type in Dora in the search bar, you can go to the Dora website and see the permittees that are serving the alcohol and see the boundary map.
Speaker 2:The boundary signs are up now, though, aren't they? I see one in front of like Olery's, like. This is the end of that corner, yep.
Speaker 1:So we had to wait for a lot of the construction on loop phase two to be completed before we could install those boundary signs. So, yeah, it's going to be exciting. Everyone needs to come down there and check it out. Now there was another thing that you actually got to participate in the National Civics Bee 2025. Tell us about that, and what does the winner get to do?
Speaker 2:All right, so this is the second year for the US National Chamber of Commerce local chamber of commerce to have National Chamber of Commerce local chamber of commerce to have a national civics bee, not a spelling bee. So sixth, seventh and eighth graders write all these essays and then there's a team that looks at the essays. The top 20 of those essays got to come to a US Vivian Auditorium last Friday Myself, commissioner Jeff Plaster and County Councilwoman Kathy Williams. No, no, yeah, kathy Williams. We were the three judges this year. I was a judge last year too.
Speaker 2:So the 20 finalists get to go through these quizzes and go back and watch it. It's kind of cool. So there's 20 questions on these quizzes about the US Constitution, articles of Federation, the Bill of Rights, all these kind of stuff. So like in a third paragraph of Amendment 2, the Article of Constitution, all these kind of stuff so like in a third paragraph of amendment to the article constitution says this and we're like I don't know when. I'm the mayor and these kids knew that's crazy, so they outscored me. So what the reason? I bring it up because after that the top five of those who went that there's a break, and then it was top five. They have to present their essay to the three judges the whole audience. So family members there, other students are there, teachers are there.
Speaker 2:So the top five present their essay that they wrote that got them in the top 20. And then they ask your questions. So we ask questions of them and out of that we rank the top three. So the top three get to go to the state competition and they get I think it was like $175, $250, a $500 check and they go to state competition. Last year, richmond's winner not only won the state and got to go to the national, she and her mother got to go to Washington DC that's cool and compete there. This year's winner, as an added enticement to get more people to sign up and a lot more did is the winner gets to be mayor for a day. And so this young lady from Hibbard, an eighth grader from Hibbard, this coming Monday, may the 5th you may be watching this later, so that may be moot she'll be mayor for a day. So she'll be at the council meeting at 7 o'clock, sitting next to the mayor and the city attorney, and I'll let her do.
Speaker 2:She'll get to go to a big luncheon and I find out she likes coffee, so we'll be stopping a couple coffee shops on the way.
Speaker 3:What if we like her better than you?
Speaker 2:Well, she stay, stay. Yeah, she's got to go back to school, though, on Tuesday, so it's going to be kind of rough, oh yeah, that's really cool that they have the opportunity to get involved like that no-transcript.
Speaker 2:Actually, they did a weird one like a fundraiser. It's whoever raised the most money for parks, something or other. And I decided, well, let's get the people who are involved in civics, people who are so interested in government that they win a competition, make that the mayor for the day. And who knows? I mean who knows? She's 15, so in a few years she could be the next mayor if she wants.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I guess so. Or at least get into government or you know, going into your college years and everything right.
Speaker 2:She has college plans I mean she, when you get to that point and you've really focused on learning about government and being in government, so we'll see what happens with her. Yeah, I think it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Good deal I'm excited to see what happens with her future as well. So this past Saturday you were able to do a proclamation at the farmer's market for Arbor Day. Now, this was my second time seeing this. Last year we got to plant a tree. I don't believe they planted a tree down there in the Stargenet building by the Stargenet building this year, but maybe give the public a little information about what Arbor Day is.
Speaker 2:So Arbor Day recognizes trees, of course, and Richmond has been a tree city like this is the 29th year, so one of the things that happened during that event and I'll do it every year is they give away tree plantings. They get these small tree plantings. You can get a couple of trees to take home and plant in your yard.
Speaker 2:I got two sycamores from TL down there. Oh, you did All right, I went down and picked them up, right, good deal. So trees are hugely important to us. Like you said, we planned a tree last year. The weather wasn't great, so we didn't plan to plant a tree this year, although the weather was better we could have.
Speaker 1:The ground wasn't great either ground wasn't great.
Speaker 2:It was hard to dig that hole so no, it was, it's a good good. So arbor day fall falls on I think it was that friday. So we were there saturday. But down to star jeanette pavilion it was a last winter farmer's market there too, so this kind of all ties together. They had live music and everything, so it's kind of a big day.
Speaker 3:So next saturday, this coming saturday, they'll be back at elstro plaza that's actually interesting point, like that's like that's a cool kind of break point of winter to spring or winter winter to summer winter to spring, celebrate trees, get a tree, plant a tree, and then next one's going to be out the park so if you've never been to the farmer's market.
Speaker 1:It is really neat. There's a lot of vendors there. They have handmade, you know, goodies or crafts. Um, there's plant stands there, lots of produce produce there. Um, I know when we went for coffee, coffee.
Speaker 3:They do have coffee.
Speaker 1:There's a good coffee roaster down there yeah, my four-year-old was going around to all of the little sweet stands and so he was like, can I have a chocolate chip cookie please? And then he went to the next one. He said I want the brownie with the icing. And I said, okay, that's enough sugary stuff. So we went to two and then we got him a little crocheted octopus. It was really neat. So, yeah, I'm excited too for the farmer's market to come back down to Jack Elstro Plaza, and the reason why is that is the start of Food Truck Wednesdays, so if you've never been, definitely check them out.
Speaker 2:They are also local vendors that get to come up there once a week and participate, and it's a great way to get a quick, a quick bite for lunch I'm excited for that yes, definitely yeah, one of the things that we mayors talked about this week all the legislative updates that came out of the state house and one of the cool things will benefit these food trucks is right now they have to get a license from every county health department, every county they go into. But state passed a law license. You can get a statewide license now.
Speaker 1:So if you have a food truck.
Speaker 2:You can get one license and go to any county in the state. You've been certified and you're verified, so you don't have to. So when you bounce from county county now you have to get a license in each place and inspect in each place. Now you can just get one inspection, yeah, by the state, and keep rolling what would you do as a food? Truck, I would have a rapid fire pizza type food truck okay maybe not that brand doesn't have.
Speaker 1:But yeah pizza of all the food trucks we have out here, really good food but nobody's doing a quick little pizza thing like personal thing not that yeah not that I like pizza or anything, so we've actually had this discussion before and I've always wanted to have a restaurant yeah and I wanted to call it around the world in 80 minutes. But then I was like maybe not Right, right, but here this is the reason why is, um, I wanted to have different little foods from different places around the world, and so, instead of around the world in 80 days like the book, um, you know, around the world in 80 minutes. I thought that would be a catchy restaurant name.
Speaker 2:And then if I had a food truck, it would just be called around the world in 80 minutes.
Speaker 1:I thought that would be a catchy restaurant name, and then if I had a food truck, it would just be called around the world and then I'd have, you know, maybe some egg rolls or lo mein noodles, and then maybe that would have to be a really big food truck, though, wouldn't it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you got. That. Is that what we decided.
Speaker 2:A school bus is your food truck Well, no, I mean food semi.
Speaker 1:I kind of thought too, if it was a food truck do like one day would be, you know, chinese, one day would be mexican and the next day, you know.
Speaker 2:Do something like middle eastern food yes, baseball season starts. Have hot dogs and apple pie.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like all american all american, yeah and call them theme days like all american day or, you know, chinese day. So, yeah, I think that would be fun to do. So, you know, if you ever wanted to be an entrepreneur, that's something great that you could start out doing it's a statewide license, you can go anywhere.
Speaker 2:So that starts next week Wednesday, right?
Speaker 1:I believe it is Wednesday, may through.
Speaker 2:September right Yep.
Speaker 1:But I also want to stress do not forget the other restaurants that are here in the Depot and on Main Street. So when it's not Wednesday, make sure that you head on down to those restaurants and support them as well, or if you show up late and the line's 40 minutes long.
Speaker 2:There's other restaurants downtown, there's other places to go and Depot to go. Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:So another thing that we have been working on here in the city is the comprehensive plan refresh, that is, the richmond rising comprehensive plan. We are just refreshing it, um mayor, and I have talked about this previously. You know this is very important for us to do in the city if we want to qualify for the okra grants, which you know can really help out the city and infrastructure.
Speaker 2:I know certain grants, you have to have a master plan or a comprehensive plan. That's no more than five years old and richmond rising's great. A lot of things changed since covid, but it's also five years old, so that's why we're doing a refresh. We we discovered and again talking to other mayors and trying to trying to benchmark best practices if you you update your master plan, comprehensive plan, every five years, it cuts a whole lot less than doing it from scratch every 10 or 15 years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Save a lot of time, money and energy.
Speaker 3:It's more efficient and more efficient.
Speaker 2:It's more relevant to keep it moving, keep it rolling, like I said, because right before COVID we had some ideas. Covid happened and people's habits have changed.
Speaker 3:So our comprehensive plan has to be tweaked just to match what's happening in the current environment, otherwise you'll become stagnant and irrelevant.
Speaker 1:I think it's a good practice to get into, so yeah, so definitely be on the lookout for some surveys for the comprehensive plan. I know that for the branding, we had almost 900 people participate in the survey which I know our population is just over 35,000, but to get almost 900 people to complete the survey for the branding is actually a shocker, because you're lucky to get maybe two or 300 responses on surveys.
Speaker 3:It's really good engagement. It really is.
Speaker 1:So we'll actually have some surveys for the comprehensive plan refresh kind of. You know, this is the community, what do you want? And we're going to have some workshops that the public can come in. Now we don't have those dates locked down, but as soon as we do I will be putting that out there on social media. We'll talk a little bit more on the podcast of when those dates are, so the public can show up and tell us what do they want for our town it's their city too, and even branding.
Speaker 2:There's another survey coming right there is, we have another phase coming another phase on the branding survey.
Speaker 1:We are waiting for that. That is the uh, the concept survey. So I I'm not quite sure if they're to have like some samples of what the logo and tagline and everything's going to be. I'm kind of hoping they do so we can get your guys' input and see you know, what do you want for Richmond's branding?
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, this is everybody's city, richmond's city.
Speaker 1:Another thing that we are super excited about in the city of Richmond is Chick-fil-A.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you listen to, or watch the mayor's State of the City address a couple months ago. One of the highlights that got a whole round of applause in that packed council chambers was finally seeing the picture of what our Chick-fil-A will look like. So back in February the demolition permit of the old Steak and Shake was awarded and then in March the building permit for the new Chick-fil-A was awarded. So soon you'll see some activity. And it took a year because there was some real estate that had to be transacted and that was the biggest delay was getting some extra land purchased to make a double drive-thru and get all that design work done. So it's going to be in my mind it's going to be like a McDonald's. There's going to be a day when the old building's down and they're moving dirt for a week or two and then a crew's going to show up and the next time you drive by it's done, it's done yeah.
Speaker 2:It's going to be just like that. They're going to bring in a crew, it's going to go really quick and we're super excited about that. Not that we're not excited about other businesses in town, but being close to the interstate. Drawing more people off the interstate is an opportunity for them to see other things that richmond has to offer. Some of our local grown restaurants are on that side downtown the depot district. So the more people we get to come off one of our any one of our four interchanges off the interstate for any reason is a chance to get them to see other things happening in the city.
Speaker 3:It makes it more likely for people to go explore the actual town for a little while.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, yeah, especially if they just want to take a break from driving on the interstate. I know my eyes get tired when I'm driving for hours and hours on the interstate.
Speaker 3:It's fun to just explore a new area, right.
Speaker 1:It is Get tired.
Speaker 3:Pull over. Check out Richmond.
Speaker 1:Stop and get some fudge, some nuts, some super premium ice cream and glenn miller park's not that far so they can go and take a stroll. We have a natural spring there. I don't know if you've visited it, yeah it's pretty cool um, when I was growing up, my grandma would go there every week and fill up jugs of spring water and take them home for us. It's awesome good deal okay.
Speaker 1:So, matthew, um, I want to talk to you a little bit about your position and what's going on. I know you know you guys have been really focusing hard on code enforcement.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:So maybe let the public know what is code enforcement. What have you guys been working on?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I mean code enforcement. We have kind of like two teams within that. You've got your inspectors and then you've got a maintenance crew and the inspector's job is to go out and ensure that our city and the people within it are following our code and ordinances and rules and regulations. The crew is more focused on physically cleaning up spaces and making sure that things are looking good. Going down alleyways, they're participating in mowing and all sorts of things like that. And some fun numbers for that is our maintenance crew. In just quarter one. So January, february, march they sealed and secured 15 properties. They removed 27.14 tons of trash and debris from our city.
Speaker 1:So that's alleyways, yards, whatever streets.
Speaker 3:So 27 tons.
Speaker 1:This is's three guys they're doing some hard work out there it's, it's amazing, yeah, and let's just say that one ton is 2 000 pounds yeah that's insane 27 tons yeah yeah, it's pretty nuts.
Speaker 3:Um, so they're they're really doing a great job out there. They also removed over 150 shopping carts. Wow, um, the the ones that are in good shape. They go and return to the local businesses that they were taken from originally, so they do a good job there.
Speaker 2:And 315 tires have been removed from areas in the city and you know the problem with tires off the rims sitting in a yard or an alley or in a back street. That's breeding ground for mosquitoes.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, so a little bit of water in there stagnant water.
Speaker 2:Next thing, you know, you have a mosquito problem and then we have our nice brown bats that will come and eat the mosquitoes, and possums that will try to eat them too.
Speaker 3:So thank code enforcement for getting rid of your mosquitoes.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:Now you know there is a correct way to dispose of tires, but I know um the taking the landfill.
Speaker 1:There's a small fee because we we pay a fee to get them recycled, but in the landfill they had a time, uh, where you could bring them in for free, but there was a limit.
Speaker 2:I believe it was just eight tires yes, that happens at least once a year. There there's a free tire drop-off, so that should happen again.
Speaker 1:yes, so let's say that there is some issues with properties and somebody needs to report it for safety reasons. How would they go about doing that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so if you're seeing something out there that needs to be cleaned up or reported for our inspectors to go check out, you're going to want to either contact our Department of Code Enforcement, so you can call 765-983-7490, or you can go onto the website is the ideal way of doing this and you go to our page and I think we'll have it up on screen here and the request for action is a way to put in where that problem is, what's going on there, and submit it to us so we can actually go take care of it.
Speaker 1:And they can do this anonymously, correct, yeah?
Speaker 2:So that's a nice option and I'll just add if you drive around right now, you'll see a lot of yards that need mowing. We've had so much rain off and on. Oh yeah, people have struggled to mow their yard, so we're not. If it's really bad, we're going to tackle those, but if it's just, you have a nice house, a nice neighborhood you haven't mowed your yard yet.
Speaker 3:We're being patient yeah, yeah, you know, we give you, we, we give you a warning right, so your grass is getting out of control.
Speaker 2:We're gonna hey, you need to get this cut up and you have those 10 days and the month of may is here, so if you haven't mowed your yard yet, this weekend's a good time to mow it, before we get out and really start enforcing it. We've been trying to be patient, lenient, because I know you know if you're working five days a week, a lot of hours yeah, it's tough. Every time you have a chance to mow it rains and next thing you know it's six inches tall. We're patient in the springtime, but soon we'll start really cracking down.
Speaker 3:Yeah exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Another thing I wanted to kind of talk about quickly is Roseview Transit and just remind the community that we do have this service. Can you just give a brief update of what is Roseview Transit and what's going on with it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, Roseview Transit is the city's bus and transit network. Basically it runs north to south, east to west and the main hub for that would be in the center of town. Here at the garage is where those buses are coming to pick you up, and there's stops along every way and we're looking to overhaul our transit system with our master plan coming up later this year.
Speaker 1:So keep an eye out. Yes, stay tuned for that.
Speaker 3:Another refresh, another refresh, yes.
Speaker 1:But it's something that I think we should do. Roseview, you know it was named after the rose city. We're no longer the rose city, so it is time for a refresh on our transit system, and there'll be a lot of the brand will change, but you're gonna look at everything, exactly like you said.
Speaker 3:You know, staying relevant you know, every couple of years is really important, I think. Think looking at our routes, servicing everybody and doing what we need to do, and you know we're coming up with some good options. So that'll be later this year.
Speaker 1:Yes, so another thing you're working on, too, is the airport terminal. There is an airport master plan. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so well, we're replacing the airport terminal, right. So there's a. You know the airport is a great amenity to the city, you know, makes us unique. You know there's a, there's an option for these. You're you're bringing an industry, right, yeah. So then you have these executives that are making decisions on whether they want to be here, they're flying into that airport. I think that's really unique and really cool, you know, because you can get to Richmond on a plane instead of, you know, having to drive an hour away going into Indianapolis or Dayton. So that's great that we have this in general. But right now we have submitted the grant application for the design for the new terminal and our airport manager down there, rodney he's he's been fantastic working on this project, um, and then we just selected our architect, um, so we're really cruising on this and the next step is just funding for construction and we have identified a grant that, um, if all goes well, it would pay for 95% of the project.
Speaker 3:Wow, so I mean we really have a great opportunity to get this done, and get it done in a pretty timely manner, and we would have a beautiful new airport that people can, you know, fly into and check out. And then, just you know, we're looking at other things that we can do throughout the year down there. That would be fun for the citizens.
Speaker 2:Last summer I just happened to be there to meet rodney and talk about some stuff and a corporate plane stopped because of their time and they were. They were heading across country and going to chicago, so they stopped there for their time and somebody brought them lunch and they had to take a break. And I got to see a new 40 million dollar commercial jet and they invited us in and that was pretty neat, but I guess that's a regular occurrence. We're a really nice airport. We're really open and it's easy for planes to get in and out.
Speaker 3:We have really good fuel prices, so yep, yeah, because we have a self-fueling station so you can. That we're just implementing now. We just got it that should be up and running in the next few weeks so you can fly in and you know you could refuel your plane right there, right on off the tarmac, which is pretty cool.
Speaker 1:And that brings in revenue for the city as well, when they're fueling their planes and jets there.
Speaker 3:Well it allows the airport to be self-sufficient, so we're not using taxpayer dollars to run the airport.
Speaker 2:It's self-sufficient. The class from IU East were like well, we should look at the airport and I said what are you going to look at? They don't use general revenue. They're totally. They exist on all their salary, their maintenance, their upkeep. Everything is from hangar rentals, fuel cells and farm ground rent. They're fully self-supporting. It's a great asset.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's wonderful to have it here.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, guys, I think that's time for our podcast. I know that I'm having so much fun I know, so I just want to thank you guys for joining me. There was a lot of good information that the public is going to get from this podcast, so thank you thanks for having us to be here, yeah that was inside richmond, the city's pulse, keeping you updated and informed. Join us next time.