By DAVID A. MANN
If your road is cracked, busted or full of potholes, let the city of Jeffersonville know about it.
“Everybody who has a street that needs to be looked at, let us know an we’ll go look at it,” Mayor Tom Galligan said during a Monday night meeting of the Jeffersonville City Council.
The mayor said the roads across the city need addressed because of the amount of salt that’s been poured on snowy roads this winter.
“The cracks are getting a little wider,” the mayor said. “Bear with us, because there’s a lot of them.”
Galligan said the city is trying to catalog the problems that need to be addressed during the upcoming paving season. Residents are often more familiar with the condition of a nearby road than anyone at city hall, he said.
Once residents report problems, the city will assign a letter grade to each street. The lowest-grade streets will be addressed first, Galligan said.
“When we run out of money is when we’ll stop,” he said.
Those with road problems can call the Jeffersonville Street Department at 812-285-6455 or their council representative. Contact information for council members can be found at www.cityofjeff.net, under the “city council” tab.
In other business
• The council got sales pitches from a couple of companies during its special session.
Ray Bollhauer, of American Legal Publishing, told council members about a service wherein his company would research and codify city ordinances. It would organize all the local laws, put them into a code book, check for duplicates or inconsistencies and conflicts and other such services.
It also would provide the city a Web site, linked to www.cityofjeff.net, where local ordinances would be searchable. Bollhauer did not provide a price at the request of council President Nathan Samuel, who said other companies were interested in the job, as well.
Sandy Haenisch, of Greenville-based Curb Appeal, asked the council to consider outsourcing its street cleaning. The company would use street sweepers or a vacuum truck to clean curbs and streets in either the downtown area or all across the city — whichever the city would choose.
Haenisch said the service could save the city money in equipment, insurance and manpower costs
“We’re looking at taking the burden of street cleaning away from Jeffersonville,” she said.
“I thought it was worthy of looking at,” said Councilman Ron Grooms, who invited Haenisch to speak. “I could see where there’d be some tremendous benefits to doing this. It would free up a lot of current manpower hours.”
After being asked, Haenisch noted that the company is a startup and has no contracts with other area municipalities.
“We started this business based on the needs we saw in Indiana,” she said.
No decision was made on either proposal.
• Mayor Galligan, responding to a question, said the city is negotiating a deal wherein it would mow lawns at Jeffersonville schools in exchange for use of their athletic facilities during the summer.
“We’ll be able to hold functions,” he said. “It’s a way to help them and a way to help us.”
The deal has not been finalized.
• Engineer Peggy Duffy updated the council on the proposed downtown canal. Galligan is pitching the canal both as a means of draining rainwater from frequently flooding parts of downtown and as an impetus for economic development. Duffy said a feasibility study is complete, multiple funding sources are being pursued and the project has gotten interest from officials in Indianapolis and Washington, D.C.
She also noted that a public-information meeting on the proposal will be held 6 p.m. March 22 at the Ken Ellis Center, 1425 Pennsylvania Avenue.
• The council approved a tax abatement to Heartland Payment Systems on $82 million in real property and $4 million in personal property. The abatements will be applied retroactively on improvements made at the business — which is located at the North Port Business Center — during the last three years
• The city approved a $19,000 loan to Glenn Muncy for roof repairs at his building at 228 Spring St. The loan will come out of the city’s revolving loan fund, which provides loans to those interested in starting a business in the downtown area. Muncy is trying to open a microbrewery and pizzeria called House of Brews. He expects to open the business in about 90 days, he said Monday.
He’s expected to come back in front of the council for more loans — for up to $70,000 — for more renovations and supplies, after he gets the roof repairs completed. Muncy formerly owned Tubby’s Pizza at the same location, until it caught fire about five years ago. There’s a new Tubby’s Pizza at Quartermaster Station, under different ownership.
The money revolving loan recipients receive does not come from tax dollars. The revolving loan program started with a $600,000 grant that the city received in the late 1990s, under then Redevelopment Director Phil McCauley. It was started as a way for the city to provide seed money for individuals interested in doing business in downtown Jeffersonville.
A lien or a lawsuit would be the avenue the city could have to take in order to get its money back if a recipient defaults. Before going to the city council, each loan is approved by a committee made up of three bankers.
