Mayor presents Jasper 2024 State of the City

During Wednesday’s regular council meeting, Jasper Mayor Dean Vonderheide gave the annual State of the City presentation required by Indiana law.

Vonderheide ran through the status of the city’s departments listing accomplishments and ended with a look towards 2024 projects.

Here are some highlights of the mayor’s presentation. (Please peruse the attached presentation for more details on the mayor’s talk.)

There are healthy, unencumbered balances in the city’s general fund, economic development fund, rainy day fund, and park and rec fund. See the presentation for those balances.

The Heart of Jasper is a catalyst for growth in the downtown district. “When you combine them with the projects ROJAC has contributed to the city over the years, it has redefined our downtown,” Mayor Vonderheide commented.

Among the nonprofit’s accomplishments, Mayor Vonderheide reported 10 new businesses have launched, and 11 businesses have relocated to the Heart of Jasper District.

Along with $59,000 in seed money from the city’s EDIT fund, $177,000 in private funding has been invested in facade improvements in the downtown area.

Jasper is the only municipality in the state that is Indiana Safety and Health Achievement Recognition Program (INSHARP) certified. With 375 city employees, “We’ve gone 15 months now without a lost time injury. That doesn’t happen without a lot of effort,” said Mayor Vonderheide.

He also mentioned that though the average age of city employees is coming down, several retirements are still on the horizon for longtime employees.

Jasper is one of the first cities in the state to sign up to meet cyber-ready standards through the Indiana Office of Technology to protect personal data.

The city established an endowment to maintain the four gathering spaces on the inner corners of the Courthouse Square and the permeable pavers and fund programming for activating the downtown area. “It’s one thing to have something beautiful…it’s another thing to keep it beautiful,” Vonderheide said.

Jasper was awarded the Uplands Quality of Place Attraction award in 2023.

In the planning department, Vonderheide stated they issued 327 permits in 2023 compared to 322 in 2022. Among those were 23 mobile food vendor permits, 162 building permits, 33 single-family homes and 66 duplex/multi-family units that resulted in about $35,946,063 in investments.

Established the designated outdoor refreshment area (DORA) encompassing the downtown area.

Utilities Office collected about $44 million, with only about $14,000 written off as bad debt. Vonderheide said the bad debt write-off was slightly higher than in previous years because of one incident. “One customer passed away,” he said. “It was about a $9,000 impact. Other than that, we would have been in pretty good shape compared to last year.”

The mayor reported that the city experienced 2.3 inches less rain than in 2022. With that lower rainfall, in addition to efforts to address leakage and infiltration issues in the wastewater system, they treated 80 million gallons less water than they had in 2022.

From the water department, they treated 53 million gallons more water in 2023. “Our water usage went up considerably,” Vonderheide said.

The city is working on creating a backup water supply line through the Patoka Regional Sewer and Water District with a connection on the city’s north side.

Regarding the police department, the theme of shifting demographics continued with the mayor mentioning that the force was younger with the retirement of senior officers and the hiring of new officers. “We’ve got a young force, eager to grow and develop within the police department,” Vonderheide said.

He added that hiring two part-time dispatchers had provided some relief for the night shift. “It is also a good step to come into the force,” the mayor said. Several current officers first joined the department as dispatchers.

While discussing the fire department, Mayor Vonderheide mentioned that he expected the volunteer force to transition to a full-time fire department. “I’m not seeing that for 10 years, maybe, but eventually, it’s going to happen,” he added.

In the Parks and Recreation Department, Vonderheide had several highlights.

Buffalo Trace had more than 25,000 rounds played. He expects that those numbers will continue to increase with the addition of the Whitey Schroeder Driving Range, which is set to open this year.

The new Ruxer Disc Golf Course opened in August and has had 1,162 rounds registered in the online application. “There’s a lot of people that don’t use the app, but they go out and use the facility,” Vonderheide said. “Good use of an area we struggled with for a number of years.”

The Arts Department has seen an increase in participation and activities. “About 3,000 more than in previous years,” Vonderheide said.

Vonderheide shared that the street department employees are regularly praised for what they do to keep the city clean. “We have guys that stop and help residents bring their trash out or lift something they see residents struggling with,” he said. “There is no shortage of people calling in saying, “We really appreciate what the street department has done for us.'”

He outlined some of the projects the Mayor’s Youth Council has completed. In 2024, the group plans on adding communication board to help communicate with nonverbal individuals in English and Spanish. “This is a recommended project by the Park Department to us,” Vonderheide said.

Projects coming in 2024 include the second phase of the Downtown Revitalization and Infrastructure Project; working with the county on the regional sewer district to expand services to Jasper’s north side as well as Haysville and Portersville; the multi-use trail extension from Mill Street to St. Charles; the new Outdoor Aquatics Center; Buehler Park improvements will continue with a parking lot, shelter house and bathrooms added; continue the Dewey Street curb, stormwater, infrastructure replacement; replace the deck at the City Mill, and replace the decking on the Riverwalk bridges depending on budgeting.

He added that there are also several housing projects being planned, and this could lead to some annexations.

They also plan on beginning the extension of 15th Street to connect with State Road 56. The city and county have an interlocal agreement in place to create a bridge crossing for Crooked Creek for the road. The extension isn’t expected to be completed until 2025. Vonderheide stated funding was in place for the project.