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The Rushville Republican Online Edition
Wednesday, January 15, 2003, 5:22:53 PM

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Mayor delivers 'State of the City'

Republican Staff Report


Rushville Mayor Bob Bridges delivered his fourth annual "State of the City" address before members of the Rushville Rotary Club Tuesday afternoon.

Following is a slightly edited version of the mayor's address:

The year 2002 has been a complex year with many of the issues that started in 2001 continuing into 2002.

Funding for the Northeast Stormwater Revitalization Project has been approved by the Department of Commerce, and $458,532 has been allocated by the State of Indiana to complete the project. This will bring relief to the residents in that area who have experienced standing water due to rainfall.

The southside annexation project is still moving forward. The preliminary engineering report is nearly completed, and we have sought funding from outside sources which include USDA Rural Development to assist in funding the project.

We have seen a factory close this past year. Hoffco-Comet, a manufacturer of transmissions for Maytag washers, was forced to close. This closing was not a fault of our community but because the parent company, Maytag, moved its operation to Mexico, taking their subsidiaries with them.

We have seen an existing company, Copeland Corporation, move operations in other states and Mexico back to Rushville. This has created new jobs, and they are currently occupying a totally renovated building, formerly known as the Ameitech building. It is now used as a warehouse for the Copeland Corporation.

We have seen Fujitsu Ten redesign their facility, spending over $1 million to enhance their current product lines. This plan should rekindle new manufacturing processes and return jobs that were initially lost because of the foreign labor market.

As I reported last year, the City of Rushville had begun focusing on the necessity of economic growth. We have visited with industry and business, educating ourselves on their operation and asking them to identify problems they see, and how we can focus on and work toward solving these problems.

The Department of Commerce has divided the state into economic development districts. Since the reorganization, our economic development director, Julie Hogsett, and I have met with the regional director, Vicki Kellerman, and members of her staff. She has promised renewed interest in this area of the state.

We have also met with INvision Southeast. They have offered to assist Rush County in marketing our business and industrial sites.

The Heart of Rushville, an Indiana Main Street organization, was selected by the Department of Commerce to host "Main Street 101" in February 2003. This is a program only offered in eight cities each year and focuses on informing local business people marketing strategies to revitalize and spur interest in their business.

Our county economic development group began meeting to formulate a strategy to identify existing problems that we hope will counteract the effects of current trends facing many communities. We enlisted members of local industry and the staff of Administrative Resources administration to assist us in this effort. From our meetings, coupled with surveys from industry and business leaders, we have developed goals and objectives along with strategies to accomplish them.

We identified housing as the number one goal for the community. The City of Rushville applied for and received a grant from the Indiana Housing Finance Authority to perform a "housing needs assessment." The city council has approved the final draft used extensively in setting this as a priority for the community.

Our first objective is to encourage the development of high-end housing. Working with building developers to market Rush County to housing developers can accomplish this goal.

Our second objective is to increase home ownership. We feel to accomplish this goal we must develop a down payment assistance and home ownership-counseling program for Rush County.

Our third objective is to revitalize our historic homes. We have seen in the past historic homes converted in to multifamily dwellings. We recognize our community is deficient in multifamily housing but feel using historic homes and neighborhoods to develop this type of housing is not a good solution to our problem. We feel that encouraging construction of new multifamily residences is a more practical answer.

We have also recognized the need for and have awarded a contract to develop our own comprehensive plan for zoning and planning. This is not the formation of another layer of government - it is a tool to make the City of Rushville more responsible. This will allow us to direct growth, which most people feel must happen, in a more conscientious manner than in the past.

Our second goal is workforce development. The first objective is to be competitive in our wages with other communities surrounding us. We must solicit our business and industry leaders to accomplish the objective.

Our second objective is to make available higher-paying jobs in our community. We feel that to accomplish the objective the human resource director's roundtable should be revisited.

Our third and fourth objectives involve skills training and on-site training for industry. These objectives relate to the next goal - education.

Three objectives identified are to increase the education levels in our community, increase vocational education and alternative education, and develop a distance learning facility to increase post-secondary educational opportunities for the community. We are aggressively working to accomplish these goals. To be a progressive and economically viable community, we must have the availability to offer these programs.

We have made contact with Ivy Tech State College. With the urging of board member and City Councilman Bill Goins, they have made a visit to the Rushville facility. I was informed that money will be in the 2003 state budget to assist us in our endeavor. Our task will now be urging all - and I must emphasize all - legislators to keep the money in the budget.

A returning member to our community, Avy Leissring, the new executive director for the Rush County Community Foundation, has brought with her a new vision as well as a different prospective and expertise in distance learning. She has offered to guide us in seeking funds to assist us in reaching our educational needs and goals.

Our fourth goal is infrastructure. Our main objective to attain this goal is to bring fiber optics to our community. We have begun this process by forming a Fiber Optics Board. This is a public/private partnership bringing both parties to the table to bring the "interstate of the 21st century" to Rush County.

Our fifth goal is business and industry development. To accomplish this, we feel that business and industry must be encouraged to diversify. We feel that we must seek and encourage business and industry that complement existing business and industry to locate in Rush County.

We feel another feat that must be focused on is the revitalization of Brownfield and unused industrial sites. We know these are aggressive goals, but we also feel that if we are to be competitive in economic development, we must aspire to attain these goals.

We have discovered the need to challenge and develop new leaders in our community. Research indicates new leaders search out challenging opportunities to change the status quo, grow, innovate and improve a community. Lucinda Comer, with our local ECDC, has agreed to select and chair a committee to initiate a "Rush County Leadership Academy." We plan to move forward and make this a program a reality in 2003.

In conclusion, we must remember that life is not merely the state of things as they are, but the vision of what they might be. Different people, different times produce different visions. In today's society, we need more of this vision.

In the past, we have heard people say, "Why Rushville?" Let's look to the future and say, "Why not Rushville?"