Four years ago, I threw my hat into the Franklin mayor’s race as an Independent candidate who believed that Franklin was a great community with even more tremendous potential waiting to be unlocked. While I was certainly the underdog, the voters gave me a chance to lead this community as Mayor.
During that election we laid out a platform of seven promises that I believed gave an outline of things Franklin needed to do to move the community forward. After four years of being in office, I’d like to review that platform with you.
1. I pledged to support property tax reform. While I feel the new property tax cap is a tremendous improvement, it is still unfair and a burden to our small business partners. The cap placed a real ceiling on local spending, and many in government have cried out for more funding.
As Mayor I am here to state that the City of Franklin is in good financial shape for years to come. My statement was and is that the way for government to increase it services is to increase the assessed value of the community and create more jobs. Even with property tax caps and a bad economy the City of Franklin is in a strong financial position. In my first three years as Mayor and with strong oversight of department spending we cut $4.7 million from our budgets. Almost $3 million is in the rainy day fund and in the general fund allowing us to maintain full service to our community in all departments, and fund the flood area buyout allowing Franklin to get things done early while waiting for the FEMA process to run its course.
2. I will support a tough drug policy. During the first two years of my administration we made great progress with both enforcement with hundreds of arrests and a fantastic education program in the schools. Unfourtanely mistakes were made. But changes were made and the program is now in progress again. I still support a solid effort on drugs and believe current department leadership has made great progress to move the entire department forward.
3. Review of City Assets and Fire Department review. As noted above, the City is on very solid financial ground. One money saving move was a total review of the operation of the Fire Department. A committee of Fire Department personnel, Council members and citizens did a complete review of operations. The committee recommended locations and design for the two new stations, distribution of personnel, ambulance service and changes in the Franklin Township contract service.
NSK donated the land for Station #23 and a new truck was paid for out of savings. Best Buy released $1.7 million in funds under their control in a special TIF account for construction and we dedicated the new Station #22 in the spring of this year. We are forever grateful to these corporate partners for assisting us with these stations.
Finally, by privatizing the ambulance transport service, the overtime in the fire department has gone to the lowest it has been in ten years.
4. Responsible development. With the down turn of the economy and the banking crisis almost all residential development came to a stop. But in Franklin, we redoubled our efforts to help commercial development bring jobs to our community. We resolved issues to keep projects moving and are taking this time to work on updates to the zoning ordinances and master plan. We have also instituted the first review board to enforce the ordinance on run-down housing and unkept properties.
5. Support downtown revitalization, sidewalk upgrades and tree maintenance. Shortly after becoming Mayor we discovered that we could expand the TIF areas with the use of an economic TIF to allow the use of funds to improve downtown by upgrading sidewalks, sewers, landscaping. This change has and will allow Franklin to carry out successful projects that benefit the infrastructure of our community as a whole, including upgrades of the main corridors into downtown with.
On the sidewalks we moved $75,000 per year into the sidewalk fund and the street department has repaired and installed over 8,000 feet of sidewalk during my first term, with big plans for the next few years.
Many years ago, Franklin was one of the very first tree cities in the U.S.A. We lost that designation several years ago. When I became mayor, we attempted to start a new tree board, and attempted to begin a new maintenance program. I will admit that we made a few mistakes in how some of the trees were trimmed. However, almost 3 years later we have a fully functioning tree board , two arborists on staff and have planted 100’s of new trees. Most importantly, we have received our Tree City U.S. A. designation back.
6. I will use my office and ability to attract good jobs to Franklin. During the flood of 2008, as Mayor I was not only working to get the city moving to recovery. At that terrible time, we were in a very critical stage to attract Cooper Tire to Franklin. Cooper tire represented a chance to bring a “green” 800,000 Sq. Ft. industry with good jobs to the city. Despite the stress of the flood, we all kept on track and landed the company. We also worked with Ivy Tech to add onto their facility to get more training and college courses in the city. Working with the Johnson County Development Corporation, IEDC and others we have seen an estimated $126 million in new investments, and an estimated 645 new jobs. Of course during an overall economic downturn it will be very important to continue working to attract and maintain jobs. Backfilling the Best Buy facility will be a priority which we are already working on, and look forward to a few more good announcements this year.
7. Promoting a cooperative relationship between the colleges and schools. I meet monthly with the school superintendent, Franklin College president, and the CEO of Johnson Memorial Hospital. These meetings have allowed us to work together on many issues from the flood recovery, joint activities and an initiative called “Get Healthy Franklin” that is now in its second year and is helping connect citizens with programs to help them live healthier lifestyles.
All these things being said, there were many things that I did not have a platform for, namely recovering from the flood of 2008. While no one could have expected such an event, I believe my administration responded with speed and skill. Franklin is now in the final phases of recovery, while several other cities and counties are still struggling. Also, as Mayor I reached out and accepted a grant from the Department of Workforce Development that allowed us to hire unemployed workers and dismantle the homes in a manner that kept over 70% of the debris out of landfills and saved the community money on demolition. These recovered materials are sold at public auctions, with the proceeds going to four local non-profit groups.
I know the flood was difficult, but we are almost out of that situation. My faith teaches me that out of tragedy can come great things. Nothing I have seen in Franklin has ever made me prouder of this entire city and the citizens who live here than the way we handled that event.
Due to the flood we relocated and consolidated city offices into a new City Hall, consolidated our Street and Police Department into a great building with terrific access to US 31, and worked with the County to swap land that is valuable for downtown revitalization efforts.
We also are expanding our trails, investing funding into downtown projects and continuing to attract jobs and development to Franklin.
It has certainly been a very, very busy four years, but being mayor of Franklin during them has been the honor of a lifetime. Together, you and I have been confronted with natural disasters, economic hardships and simply the ups and downs of life. But we have worked hard to make Franklin one of the greatest places to live, work and play in Indiana. And we know that there is still much work that needs to be done.
I look forward to the upcoming campaign season, to honest and lively discussions about what direction Franklin should now take. I believe that my record will show that we have accomplished a great deal of good for this community, and that it is better off today than it was four years ago.
As we move forward through 2011 into whatever next year brings, I promise you that I will continue to work hard, keep listening to the community, and always remember that I work for the residents of Franklin, and that they have given me their trust.
