Frankfort mayor pushes to expand city westward

FRANKFORT, Ind. (WLFI) - One of Mayor Chris McBarnes' goals for the next 200 days is to expand the city to attract new business.

Interstate 65 means jobs for Chris McBarnes.

“Frankfort is open for business in a manner that has never been seen before,” McBarnes said.

The young mayor of Frankfort outlined the goal to expand the city to I-65 Wednesday morning. McBarnes hopes through this expansion, more businesses will be attracted to the area.

“Within about a 15- to 18-hour drive, give or take a couple hours, you can reach close to 80 percent of the population of the United States of America,” McBarnes said. “Location is something we simply must capitalize on.”

McBarnes says the push toward I-65 will allow the city taxes to actually go down as the value of the city goes up.

“Assessed value and tax rates do have inverse relationships,” McBarnes said. “So, the bigger we increase our assessed value, which will occur if we push to I-65, push westward strategically, it will lower the tax rate overall for the city of Frankfort.”

McBarnes says the expansion's economic impact will not help just Frankfort, but the surrounding communities for years to come.

“Pushing westward in a responsible manner, in a strategic manner, hand-in-hand with our city council and our Utility Service Board, will provide great economic development opportunities for the growing of industries here in our city and our region,” he said.

McBarnes asks in the next 200 days for the people of Frankfort look to find ways they can get involved.

“It takes more than Mayor Chris McBarnes to make this community a better place,” he said. “It takes more than my five department heads. It takes a volunteer army of 16,500.”

McBarnes also mentioned the Ivy Tech project in his address this morning.

He says the assessed $4.1 million cost for the project is not realistic.

He also says the cost is likely to be much lower with many contractors competing for the job.