Published: July 08, 2008 10:06 am            

TIF funds will get work started on Jeffersonville side of Veterans Parkway

With worries that construction season may slip away before bonds are sold, the Jeffersonville City Council approved a motion that will allow tax-increment-financing district, or TIF, dollars to be used in order to start construction on Veterans Parkway.

The Veterans Parkway project seeks to widen the road, install signals and lighting and construct a crossroad near the proposed Jeffersonville Town Center shopping development. The town center has been long discussed, but growth there has been sluggish. City officials are hoping that the improvements will help spur investors’ interests.

In late May, the city’s Redevelopment Commission approved the sale of $2.5 million in bonds in order to pay for Veterans Parkway and another project on Thompson Lane.

However, Redevelopment Director Gayle Robinson warned Monday bond sale response from banks has been slower than expected and construction season is beginning to wane.

There is $750,000 in TIF money available that could be used in order to get the project started while the bond sale is going through. Robinson said it’s not a matter of “if,” but “when” the sale goes through. He believes it will happen within at least the next three weeks.

The council approved the use of TIF money with a unanimous vote.

In other business

• Council President Ed Zastawny brought forth a proposal, which he believes will save the city on vehicle costs.

Under the proposal, vehicles would be required to be purchased at or below state bid prices, all cars purchased would have to get at least 24 mpg and trucks would have to get at least 16 mpg. Additionally, police take-home cars would be limited to those officers who live in the city.

“I’m doing this with the idea that we can talk about it today — flush it out, see what works and what doesn’t — and then maybe come up with an ordinance at the next council meeting,” he said.

Councilwoman Connie Sellers noted that she disagreed with the idea of limiting take-home cars to those who live in the city. If the city did that, officers would have to come into the station to get their vehicles before hitting the streets. Right now, they can get right to work after leaving home, she said.

Mayor Tom Galligan noted that if vehicles were left at the station, they would have to be secured so that gas wouldn’t be stolen out of them as they sat in the parking lot during the night.

• A gas-saving proposal brought fourth by Councilman Nathan Samuel — which would have firefighters using a pickup truck for emergency medical first-responder runs, rather than a large fire truck — was discussed, but declined. Fire Department officials said the proposal was unsound because the pickup would be based out of one station, which could be farther away from the medical emergency than other stations it might pass along the way to the scene.

Instead, fire officials will try to limit the number of runs being made to only essential medical emergencies.

• The council gave final approval to a proposal to add 21 new sewer plant jobs to the city’s salary ordinance. An effort to delay that vote, championed by Councilman Ron Grooms, was defeated.

Last week, Grooms said he wanted to table the vote because he had yet to see job descriptions for the new positions. Additionally, he said Monday, a sewer board member had expressed concern about the positions and he wanted to give the board more time.

Grooms motion to postpone the vote was defeated by 5-2, with he and Councilwoman Barbara Wilson voting to table the issue. A second motion was then made to approve the positions, which passed 6-1. Grooms was the lone dissenter on the second vote.

The new positions will take some operations out of the hands of private contractor EMC, which administers the sewer plant. That’s being done as the city is in negotiations with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to clean up the amount of sewage going into the Ohio River, because of combined stormwater and sanitary sewer overflows.

• Another amendment to the salary ordinance, which created a $41,500 assistant planning director position, was approved on all three readings. The council suspended normal parliamentary procedure in order to give it final approval because the person had already been hired and needed to be paid soon.

• An ordinance to create a $1,000 fee for groups closing the Clark Memorial Bridge was given final approval. The Jeffersonville Police Department will assess the fee to groups that close the bridge for charity and other events. Louisville Metro Police has a similar charge.

• An ordinance creating a $25 fee for copies of police traffic accident photos was given final approval. The police already take photos at vehicle accident sites. Councilman Samuel, who introduced the ordinance, said attorneys and insurance companies likely would be interested in the photos.

• An ordinance that prohibits basketball goals from being set up on city streets or in the public right-of-way was approved with a 6-1 vote on its first reading. Councilwoman Sellers introduced the ordinance, saying she’s heard from numerous residents about the issue.

Her ordinance creates a mechanism with which the city can remove problem basketball goals from streets, something the city’s current ordinance does not.

Councilman Keith Fetz dissented, saying the ordinance goes too far and that he favored the current ordinance, which leaves the police to decide which goals are a problem and which are not.

        

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