Doors
Weekly update #285 7/6/2025 to 7/12/2025
During one meeting this week I couldn’t help but think of this quote from Helen Keller, "When one door closes, another one opens, but sometimes we wait too long looking at the closed door and never realize that another door has been opened." Before that though let me share some of my week serving as mayor of the best small town in America.
It wouldn’t be hard to fill this week’s update with items related to Seymour Parks and Recreation, but I will try to limit it to just a few. First stop is the Shields Park Pool for the Seymour Splash. This weekend, they had around 600 swimmers participate in various events for three days. That is almost double the numbers from 2024. Great work to everyone involved with Seymour Swimming for all their hard work. This week, I also received my monthly recap related to Disc Golf at Freeman Field in June. We made it into the top 100 most played courses in Indiana with 134 rounds played. Fifty-three different players tracked rounds on the Udisc app. Five players came from over 300 miles away to play our course. Fifteen players played Freeman for the first time with three of those being first time ever players. Players in June came from eight different states. While no one hit an ace (hole in one) this month, they did walk over 197 miles while enjoying the course located at Freeman Field Recreational Area. Thank you to all the players who logged a round, and thank you to all our parks staff for everything you do to keep our parks as nice as they are.
This week, the Planning and Zoning Department, along with Seymour Fire Department, had to condemn a multi-family residence. They worked with several area agencies to offer a list of resources to those displaced by the condemnation. This process takes time with months of work making sure everything is in order and giving the property owner a chance to remedy the problems before it gets to this phase. Thank you to everyone involved with the process.
It is the start of July when department heads submit their budget requests. This is also when contract negotiations pick up with police and fire unions as we plan for the new year and new budget. This week saw one of those negotiation meetings and next week will see another. This budget cycle has been interesting due to planning for projected impacts of Senate Enrolled Act 1 from the last legislative session. Annually, we have planned around a 3% increase due to inflation as we work on budgets, but even though inflation is still expected to be around 3%, we are trying to budget a 1.5% increase for the 2026 cycle to make up for reductions expected from SEA-1.
Back to those doors which came up during a meeting with 180 RCO Director Steve Sharer. When Steve was working on the recovery assessment report back in 2022, he used the phrase “no wrong door” as he was trying to keep an open mind while learning about what we had at the time. Many of us have seen the success stories related to those who have found recovery and how they start to find open doors that can help them towards a brighter future. Doors, though, can be tricky things as not all lead to the good. Sometimes, they need to stay closed. Others have a window so you can peek in and see if it is where you need to be headed. Others are more like a vault door, and you don’t know what lies on the other side until you have stepped through. Steve, thank you for the good conversation this week. If you are interested in learning more about the work 180 RCO is doing in the world of recovery both here in Jackson County and also in Jennings County, reach out to them on Facebook at 180 Recovery or give them a call at 812-519-5816. To wrap up this thought about doors I will leave you with the opening quote from Helen Keller, "When one door closes, another one opens, but sometimes we wait too long looking at the closed door, and never realize that another door has been opened."