- Call this order, this meeting to order of the Bloomington Commission on Sustainability and Resilience at 6 p.m.
- And we'll take the roll call. Tara Dunderdale. Here. Here. Justin Vassell, I'm here. Rebecca Payne.
- Here. Here. Christopher Miles. Here. And just a reminder, you'll have to turn on your video as well.
- I have to keep the video on? Just when you're responding or voting on something.
- Okay, thank you. So you're here. We got you. You can go back on video mute for now. Thank you. Um, Zach
- Ammerman? Here. Here. Councilmember Rowla? Here. Here. Quentin Gilley? Perfect. I'll circle back to
- him. Alex York? Here. Here. Marie Allerstad? Here. Here. Diana Ogrodowsky? Here. Here. And Ross Carlson? Here.
- And back to Quentin, Quentin Gilley. And I see your microphone. Okay, that sounds good. We got you.
- Virtual soon to be present. Got it, perfect. Okay, great.
- Well, everybody is here in one way or another, so that's great. OK, so we'll move to the approval of
- the agenda. Are there any additions, corrections anyone wants to make to the agenda? Do we want to just
- have a standing thing where we move the staff liaison report up, or we don't need to? We can do that
- each time if we want. Until we change the bylaws, it has to get structured this way initially, but we
- can always rearrange it here during the approval process. So we're welcome to. Did you have a report
- from today?
- Nothing super substantial. It'll take 30 seconds to say. Well, I'll leave it up to the group. We can
- just leave it where it is then, I guess. Yeah. OK. I'm OK with that. Sounds good. OK. So hearing no
- proposed changes, is there a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. Second. And a second. OK. Perfect.
- We'll go through a roll call vote since we have some virtual folks with us. So Tara? Yes. Yes. Justin,
- yes. Rebecca? Yes.
- Yes. Christopher? Yes. Yes. Zach? Yes. Yes. Councilmember Barallo? Yes. Yes. Quentin? Yes. Yes. Alex?
- Yes. Yes. Maria? Yes. Yes. Diana? Yes. Yes. And Ross? Yes. Yes. All right. The agenda is approved. So
- that brings us to the approval of the minutes for April 14th, 2026, which was our last regular meeting.
- Are there any corrections to those minutes? Okay, not hearing any, is there a motion to approve the
- minutes from April 14th? So moved. So moved in a second? Second. Perfect. All right, we'll go through
- the roll call vote to approve the minutes from April 14th. Tara? Yes. Yes, Justin, yes. Rebecca? Yes.
- Yes. Christopher. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
- All right, the minutes are approved as circulated. And like I mentioned in my email, we had some notes
- from our special session on the 28th, but they weren't properly formally minutes yet. So we'll approve
- those that are next meeting. Oh, no, you're good. You're good. That was mostly on me for just blindly
- sending it out. I have a list of students that spoke. If you need that, I can send that to you. Perfect.
- OK, so that brings us to public comment.
- Is there anyone in the public who would like to address the commission? We'll start here in the room
- and then we'll go to Zoom if there's anyone there. Yeah, please introduce yourself to the commission.
- Matthew Austin. So the comment I wanted to make is the resolution around glyphosate since I'm the author
- of it and I'm no longer the commission. With everything we learned, either my, I would pull it off because
- it doesn't,
- With everything we learned, it doesn't make sense. It makes more sense to focus on paraquat and the
- ball fields. So either postpone it indefinitely or just vote it down. I did send a resolution around
- glyphosate and paraquat, and I'm gonna send that to MCIRS and all the others that were here that presented.
- So that's one thing. And then two, Wonderlab has their,
- beginning summer blast off May 21st from three to eight. They're gonna have food trucks there and Garden
- Quest has a warm composting system there. They are also gonna start collecting, Wonder Lab is already
- starting Bokashi and they're gonna start teaching Bokashi. In September, we're gonna be doing a training
- around Bokashi food-based fermentation. Garden Quest just had one out at Will Detmer Community Gardens,
- had I think 11 or 12 households and nine of them adopted or at least started the TRY IT program
- around that food waste, and then there's a workshop on June 6th, July 12th, August 8th, I don't know
- when the September one is, and October 11th. So I'd encourage anybody that wants to be responsible fully
- for their food waste and to learn how to turn it into soil quickly to look on either Garden Quest website,
- gardenquest.org, or the Community Orchards website. That's typically where they're gonna be. So,
- thank you. Cool, nice. Thanks.
- It's strange to see you on the other side of the room, but glad that you're here. Thank you for the
- comment. Okay, moving to online. I don't see anyone online from the public, and there's nobody else
- here in the room, so that will conclude the public comment portion. Okay, so that brings us to commissioner
- reports. I didn't send around a chair's report. This time there's not a whole lot that's changed aside from
- the org chart, so we have a new commissioner with us today, and that's Rebecca Payne. And so in a moment,
- I'll ask her to just introduce herself and then say a few words. This is not technically her first meeting,
- because technically the April 28th special session was, so that was an interesting way to just dive
- right in. We don't usually meet in the big room, but that was exciting. But other than that, not a whole
- lot of changes.
- Yeah, I've got it on the agenda to chat a little bit about sort of like finding times to do like working
- group types, or not working group, but like working session type stuff, kind of like we used to do,
- trying to figure out what that might look like or whether there's a need for that or desire for that.
- So normally that kind of thing would go maybe in the chair's report, but it's got its own section there.
- So not a whole lot else to share at the moment. Does anyone have any questions for me? How many seats
- are open right now? Two? Three, I believe.
- Any other questions? Oh, I'm sorry. Let me allow Rebecca here to introduce herself as the commissioner.
- Sure. Hey, everyone. Yep, I'm Rebecca Payne. I'm a Hoosier, trying to. Grew up in Indianapolis. Skipped
- over to Colorado for two decades. Over there, I got my degree in urban and regional planning. And then
- in 2019, moved back to Bloomington to care for my aging parents.
- got a degree in public health. And so I have a huge interest in sort of the intersection of urban planning
- and public health, especially as it relates to community wellness and vitality. And so this commission
- is very appealing to me. I'm impressed with the work that I see that the initiatives and input that
- I see has been given over time. So when I saw that there was a spot open, I thought, Hey, I'm gonna
- see where it goes. So I'm really, really happy to be here and was very impressed with last month's special
- meeting with the IU students. It was a very hard-caliber delivery. Welcome. Thank you. All right. Well,
- that'll conclude it for my report, so I'll pass it over to Council Member Ralla for the council report.
- Okay. A couple things. One is
- the council unanimously approved the Hopewell development, Hopewell South, which is the 6.3 acres last
- week. And we had a number of reasonable conditions, some involving streetscape, wider sidewalks,
- tree plots, and so forth. The important thing about affordability is that of the 98 units, we required
- 35% for permanent affordability.
- 15% of those units are to be affordable for households earning at or below 90% of AMI, area of medium
- income, and then 20% must be affordable to households at or below 120% AMI. So the council worked hard
- to get to that point, and I think it was a worthwhile process. And some of us would have liked a higher
- percentage of affordability,
- I would have liked lower AMI. Maybe it's something to consider in further iterations of the remaining
- 17, 18 acres of Hopewell that will be coming further on. So that's one thing. Another is that tomorrow
- night is a deliberation session of the council and we'll be discussing snow on sidewalks and the removal
- and it's been a
- perpetual problem. And of course, for pedestrians, it's an obstacle after snowstorms that seems to be
- continual. And so we need to think of ways in which we can make sure enforcement occurs or help with
- people that have trouble with snow removal, et cetera. It's very important that the city remove snow
- on the sidewalks that it controls. So that's part of the discussion. So I invite you to come tomorrow for that.
- And then lastly, I've been mulling, actually actively working on an interest that I think you share,
- which is AI and artificial intelligence. Just briefly, the county put a moratorium, planning commission
- on the county put a moratorium on data centers.
- for a year, and that expires in July of this year. I would like to encourage our county colleagues to
- put a permanent moratorium on data centers, and this is happening around the country, and I think that
- there's, without going into detail about the reasons why, you can probably find those out online, but
- they use tremendous amounts of water for cooling because any sort of computational process produces
- a lot of heat.
- uses tremendous amounts of electricity, which drive up rates and so forth. And ironically, most of this
- is going toward development of generative AI, LLMs, and eventually AGI, which is artificial general
- intelligence, which is meant to replace people, which is a problem of its own. The second thing that
- I'm working on is a resolution for moratorium to, we can't enforce it, but it's rhetorical.
- a resolution to encourage our representatives at higher levels to adopt moratorium on AGI, artificial
- general intelligence, which would replace people in every cognitive domain. So anything a person can
- do cognitively, AGI would match or exceed the capability. And that's going to have a lot of effects
- on, obviously, employment,
- But it would likely lead to superintelligence. And there's a lot of warnings right now from AI experts
- that once we achieve superintelligence of AI, it's anyone's guess what would happen. Because we would
- be the second most intelligent species on the planet, in a sense, species, silicon-based species. But
- in any case, it could likely compete with us. We would probably lose control of it and some
- AI safety researchers warned that it could result in our extinction, simply because it would either
- out-compete us, or it would see us as an enemy, an adversary. So, although it sounds like sci-fi,
- I mean, this is a very real possibility, and the AI firms in Silicon Valley are racing toward AGI. It's
- an explicitly theirs, and of course,
- hundreds of billions of dollars are pouring in in investment capital to see that that happens. So maybe
- it's a discussion for a further day. I would like to bring that resolution in June. Maybe, I'm thinking
- of June 10th, so I don't know when our next meeting is. It's probably... June 9th. June 9th, so it's
- April 4th. So maybe a few minutes I could have at that meeting if you're interested.
- If it's to your liking, I could go through that resolution, maybe send it through email, like your comments
- on it. And I think that's it. That's all I've got to report right now. Thanks. Alex? Do we know if there
- have been any hyperscalers or anybody who have been interested in building a data center in Monroe County?
- I haven't seen any overtures to the fact that they're popping up
- Especially in Indianapolis area, and a number of counties here have been banning them. I think the mayor
- in Indianapolis has encouraged them. I don't know about the source of this, but I think Monrovia is
- totally getting scouted for.
- Yeah, it's everywhere. Kind of between Monrovia and Marginsville, I think. There's one in Washington
- and Indiana, too, that they were trying to build south of here. But none in Monroe County, though. Yet.
- It's only a matter of time. There's no better view surrounding that. No sense in working on it until
- the moratorium's over. You know, just as an aside, there's one in Louisiana that's the size of Manhattan.
- It's developed by Meadow.
- Yeah. I mean, the one that they're planning to do in Utah would use more power than the entire state
- of Utah. Yeah. By, like, a set bite, anyway. Yeah. By a large margin, it's not. Yeah. Yeah. It's totally
- reasonable. I have a different question. Is the deliberate obsession, does that include a public comment
- period? I can't agree. We have some thoughts on that. I have thought. I was, before things happened
- in my life, I had a resolution I was working on for this commission about snow on sidewalks. Oh, good.
- And I have some thoughts on some.
- ways I'd like to look at the data in the you report. Okay, so yeah, please come or zoom in or you know,
- but I will. Yeah, I wasn't aware that Monroe County had a moratorium on that. It's something that just
- didn't chat with people is something that we were sort of interested in looking at for a resolution
- is to try to get ahead of any prospective data centers coming here and say maybe City Council should
- pass something like that. But
- So that's good news. I didn't know that Monroe County had done that. And yeah, it would be good to encourage
- them to re-up it. Do you know how many, how long it was? You said it's expiring in July, but? Something
- about, I think the date is July 26th, unfortunately. So yeah, it's coming soon. Yeah. Exploration on
- that, but you know, some states like Michigan have banned the ability for counties to put in moratoria.
- You can deny book data centers, but only as a zoning base. You can't proactively put a moratorium on
- them, unfortunately. And by the way, something else, just quickly. In the big, beautiful bill, there
- was provision that would have prevented any state or local authorities from prohibiting data centers.
- And fortunately, that was carted out by the Senate with a vote of 99 to 1, which was bipartisan,
- a good sign. So anyway, we have sympathies in some quarters. OK. I had a question about the Hopewell
- stuff. Because I know one of the blockers for a period of time was this reasonable accommodations
- for, is that what it's called, reasonable? Conditioned. Conditioned, yeah, thank you. Where did things
- land on that? Because I know that there was some back and forth between what was allowed and what wasn't.
- How did that end up? Yeah, so that was a dispute between the administration and the council that took
- a couple meetings to resolve. It came at a bad time because we didn't have any council staff. Our attorney
- had resigned.
- We had to hire an outside council who affirmed that the council has that ability to have reasonable
- conditions apply to PUDs, although the corporate council still maintains that it's not within our purview.
- Just preposterous, I'm sorry. But as long as we've been in the council, we've been able to do that.
- And in fact, I can point to a number of PUDs are in town where reasonable conditions have improved the
- situation there.
- dramatically. So I won't get into it now, but it was very clear to me, and I'm glad that we still have
- that, because it would have been a terrible precedent had we said, okay, we're agreeable to no reasonable
- condition. And it was only an out there down vote. Anyway, so that's, okay, that's what was left.
- Thank you. Any other questions for Constable Rowland? All right. Thank you very much.
- Okay, so that brings us to agenda item six, discussions not the subject of resolution. So first up is
- the O'Neill Capstone presentation that we saw a couple weeks ago. I mostly just wanted to spend a little
- time giving people the opportunity to kind of chat and reflect on how that went. I think it'd probably
- be good to have a longer period of time for us to really brainstorm what we want to do with that information,
- especially after people have had more time to maybe digest the materials. But I thought maybe an initial
- conversation
- just to start getting the ideas flowing. And then our next agenda item, we'll talk about, you know,
- where we might have like these sorts of brainstorming sessions and things like this. So, I'll open it
- up the floor now. If anyone wants to, it's just gonna be an open discussion between commissioners. Yeah.
- I think, I mean, I thought it was like a fantastic session. I thought it was like a great partnership.
- I think there was like a lot of really good information. And I think that,
- it sounded like for, I can never turn off the teacher thing, like a good experience for the students.
- One thing that I like kind of floated to Alex is putting together some kind of like guide or tool for
- other commissions who might want to pursue similar partnerships. This one was driven largely by like
- personal connections, but I currently work in the department at IU that includes the
- community-engaged learning. And so I have some insights about what commissions need to commit to in
- order to make sure that they are not blowing up somebody's school work. So that's something that I would
- love to work on, some kind of tool to help other commissions. Because we have so many commissions, and
- we have this rich resource. And it is hard for us to do everything that we want to do or research everything
- that we want to research.
- I thought the quality was great. I thought they did a great job presenting what they presented. The
- information was dense and really well done. I don't really think they sufficiently answered the question
- I most wanted them to answer, which was how to set up an SEU in Bloomington. And I don't think it's
- illegal. Having looked at the law myself, I think it's difficult, but not illegal. And they presented
- it as though it was impossible. And I would have liked to have seen them go a little bit more in depth
- on ways we could get around it, even if it's hard. But I do think the quality was very high quality and very
- in depth, and I learned a lot from it, that they didn't really answer the question I wanted them to
- answer. Yeah. I do think that their alternative proposals were very interesting, and I think that,
- you know, Justin, you're talking about more time to digest and think about next steps and things. I
- do think that there are actionable items from what they proposed. I think that both
- to the point of the SEU is not impossible, just potentially very difficult. And my takeaway from their
- presentation was that a community solar system on existing property on Brownfield on something of that
- nature would be the best thing that the city could do. And that engagement with Duke Energy is kind
- of a very logical next step because
- lots of what Bloomington can do farther from that type of angle involves engagement with Duke Energy.
- And I don't know as a commissioner, like I'm happy to go to that engagement, but I don't really know
- where I start crossing the lines between that should be staff led or like only staff and stepping on
- toes or anything. But yeah, I do think that it is time to engage Duke, I think.
- you're right on not being the pathway to doing something. I think that's really the question I was asked.
- The only question I asked was, did you engage with Duke directly? And they said, no, it's something
- they think we would do. But I think that the answer to whether or not this could be something would
- be, it's all about building a relationship. If they have a need and we serve it, I think they help carve
- out whatever legalities it is to make it happen.
- Or they can stop it if we, you know, I think it's either way. Yeah, it would be good to know how much
- and what Duke might be supportive of because that certainly would shape what we should recommend happens.
- I don't think that with the current budget-constrained world that Bloomington is particularly looking
- to also take on fighting Duke energy in legal battles, so.
- If they thought that it was serious, then they'd probably talk to us. But yeah, I don't know how entertaining
- they'd be with just sort of floating the idea out of them. We'll try, but. Other thoughts? Riffs on
- those thoughts? Tara, to your point, my feedback from the SPIA representatives.
- that they greatly enjoyed the experience, and they would love to do more of it. So I think your idea
- of putting together that guidance is a good one. Yeah, I think so much of what we were able to do was
- really reliant on your institutional knowledge there, and so whatever we can document. And then there
- are some official channels that we can go through, whether it's through the engaged learning, but there's
- also a government affairs person at IU who can connect us.
- There are also other schools here. There's Ivy Tech, and there's also high schools and other ways to
- engage with. There are other schools within IU. I think that SPIA probably aligns the best for city
- commission work in general. I mean, we have an arts commission. We have commissions on aging. Depending
- on what commissions want to do, there's all kinds of opportunities there.
- the where do I start, and then making sure that the commission knows what they're signing on for in
- terms of committing to supporting the students through the entirety of the project is important for
- them to reflect on if they have capacity for that. Yeah, I like the idea of having a resource so we
- can send other commissions and say, hey, here's the blueprint we followed.
- This is a great experience for us and everyone involved. I think that would be really helpful. Yeah,
- I think if we do feel like a near-term step would be engaging with Duke, we'd probably want to lay out
- what exactly that might look like, what we'd want to get out of it, and then of course work with staff
- to figure out what's the appropriate way to actually go about doing that. But yeah, I know the report
- had a handful of recommendations.
- Maybe there's some others that we can take up as well. We do have the full report available, which I'm
- just realizing now hasn't been circulated to everybody yet. So we'll get that out, and then that can
- get attached as a packet for maybe the 28th meeting that we had at the 28th. And there's also some other
- supplementary materials there. There were some spreadsheets and stuff that they... They gave us digital
- files for basically all of the tools they used.
- For example, we should be able to go in and change some of the assumptions on the environmental
- characteristics of a community solar program, assuming that you are using a brownfield instead of converting
- existing productive natural land for a community solar program and see how that changes the emissions
- and things. So we have a rich repository of
- the resources that they use in case anybody wants to delve deeper into their analysis or take their
- analysis and look at it from a different angle or anything. So Justin has all of that. Yeah, you sent
- me the zip file there. They also gave us two flash drives with all of that on it. So if anybody's like,
- I want that, I'm sure you could just probably have a flash drive to play with. I think it all needs
- to go on onboard anyway, so it'll be all
- I don't know what the best way to do that is for nested directories and Excel files and stuff, but maybe
- just a zip file. But I'll send it all to you, and eventually you'll get up there. The rulemaking got
- pushed back a year for the compliance, so there's a little time to make it accessible. Did it? Oh, yeah,
- yeah. Well, I can say it in another thing, but if it's helpful.
- Okay, yeah. Okay, awesome. I read the whole Federal Register announcement. That's good reading. I have
- some insights or thoughts. Okay, awesome. Yeah, we'll circle back on that, but that's good news. That
- makes things a little bit easier. Okay, awesome. Yeah, anything else about the capstone? Additional
- thoughts? Secondary thoughts?
- All right, well, why don't we chat a little bit about the potential need for additional commission time.
- You know, last regular meeting was pretty jam-packed. And the good thing is we're getting lots of stuff
- done. We've got lots of resolutions coming down the pipeline. The bad news is we only have so much time
- to meet and to actually discuss those resolutions and pass them. And so it seems like there's a need
- for more time to get together and work on these things, whether that is sort of
- The working sessions like we used to do, which is very unstructured, kind of brainstorming, we just
- pick a thing to work on or we just ad hoc it in the moment and just throw ideas around or maybe like
- work on the wording of a particular resolution together or something more structured where maybe sometimes
- we're doing two business meetings in a month instead of one when things are busy or something like that.
- Of course, those sorts of things depend on everybody's availability and what they have going on in their
- life. So I wanted to open up for discussion, spend some time brainstorming whether we want to add more
- time for us to get together and chat about these things or not, if we just want to try to be more efficient
- with the time that we have. And then we can chat a little bit too about what that might look like in
- terms of staff availability, working around those constraints to find some networks for everybody.
- Yeah. Go ahead. OK. Just to start off, from the perspective of staff, our encouragement is we definitely
- want to support working groups through staff time, that we're there to support, make it happen
- and everything. But just want to make sure that whatever kind of time we're setting has a deliberate
- purpose. If there's a working group focusing on a specific topic or a specific type of task, I think
- that would be most helpful. Just so we know, going into saying,
- yes, let's dedicate this extra time and convene everybody or a portion of everybody that we kind of
- know what that time is for going into it. I think just to help us keep structured. And yeah, and then
- there's also options to individually work on things, which you have been doing. Two people can get together
- to work on something that's perfectly okay and just kind of have a plan for,
- set aside when we're coming back to the commission with ideas on what we want to work on. And I'm still
- in support, super in support of having some time to prioritize what we want to work on as a commission
- as well. We haven't really done the strategy session yet. I still think that will be really valuable
- because, yeah, there only is so much time that we have in these meetings, and we recognize that. And
- so to make the most of it, I think
- strategic meeting would still be great, and I would support that, too. So anyway, that's just from my
- perspective. Yeah. Thanks. This might not be popular. Maybe it isn't. I don't know. But I would like
- to see us move to two meetings a month. Maybe we could do, like, every other month, one's an extra actual
- business meeting, and the next month it's a working meeting, or something like that. I don't know. I
- think we've got an ambitious agenda of stuff, and that is good. We should be doing that. And we just
- don't have time to do it in an hour and a half a month.
- right now. We need more time to work. I don't know exactly what that looks like. I would move to two
- meetings a month, whether that means, again, two business meetings a month, and the next month we do
- a business meeting and a working meeting, or I don't know exactly what that looks like, but I think
- we need more time. I wonder if it's worth, whatever we kind of talk about it, finding out can we get
- a quorum if we move to more meetings a month, regardless, because
- I think I'm amenable to Tim, too. I think there's so much that I want to do. But it's hard when we haven't
- had this issue as much. But I think the first six months I was on the commission, we had four meetings
- canceled or something for quorum. So making sure that that is something that everybody can commit to
- before we put the time on people's calendars. And one other thing that I mentioned this to Justin is
- you know, we definitely get, in terms of using our time efficiently, we are somewhat bogged down in
- that Robert's Rules of Order is like way too much rules for an organization like this, but we are bound
- by statutes to use Robert's Rules of Orders. So we would have to make a resolution through Robert's
- Rules of Order to the processes
- There's like a, we would have to get counsel to change the law. The Committee on Counsel Processes is
- the one I think you're talking about. Yeah, it's something we... Yeah, to adopt something like Rosenberg's
- Rules of Order or something like a little bit more flexible for us, which also could be a benefit if
- that's something that they're amenable to. There's also some
- room in Robert's order for us to just suspend the rules at the beginning of our meetings as like a point
- of practice, which could also be a way of freeing up some of the like this is
- 13 people at a conference. We can't just suspend them all, but we can suspend them all. We can't, because
- there's some things that we have to do the voice vote if there's people online. There's certain things
- that we have to do for open door, but I think there's a lot that we could suspend to, which we kind
- of unofficially do in a lot of ways anyway. I think most commissions do. They could use the time better,
- regardless of how often we're meeting.
- I'm not opposed to changing. I don't really mind, to be honest with you. I just wanted to get a sense.
- You've mentioned agenda. You've mentioned strategic work group. What is in the pipeline? How much discussion?
- How many topics?
- Yeah, at the moment, I know there's a few resolutions that are in development that people are working
- on. We had, you know, at our last business meeting, we had like four of them on the agenda or something,
- I think, and it's, I've got four coming that aren't on it. So can you just bring, sorry for the basic question.
- If I have an idea I'm really passionate about, can I just bring the resolution forward? Yes. Okay, so
- it's unbridled. That's where I kind of think, you know, that strategic planning meeting would be really
- helpful because we do only have so much time to work with within our set meetings. I don't think most
- city staff are going to support doubling meetings that we have every month, and it isn't the bylaws
- one meeting per month, but that
- You know, we have a strategic meaning to like upfront, say, as a commission collectively, you know,
- vote on a rank or, you know, something like that, like weigh what issues matter to you the most and
- sort of set out to then, you know, individual commissioners maybe take it and work on those types of
- things. You know, I think, you know, Zach, you've done some amazing work. You know, Matt really opened
- up a great conversation that I think everyone learned a lot, but there was maybe some earlier steps
- in the process of like, does the commission kind of as a whole want to
- spend a lot of time on this subject matter? Or are there any questions that maybe should be addressed
- before the resolution comes up? But that's all just kind of my opinion and perspective that I think
- would be helpful for staff time to even be maybe more aware of what resolutions are coming up even before
- they get presented at the initial meeting. Because we have things we need to review and look into and
- recommend you all to talk to important other connected groups as well. So yeah, that's just my perspective.
- Thank you.
- I just want to second that the idea of doing like a strategy meeting, you know, we'll know what we're
- talking about, you know, six, eight weeks ahead, you know, we're going to be talking about these cat.
- These are the categories. These are general topics. We know what's coming down the road. Um, I think
- that will go a long way to sort of planning out the year and the, the, we gain a lot of the time that
- we might get from having like a second meeting, you know, we might go to, to,
- forgo that just by the strategy meeting. If we were able to get that, I think. Is the primary concern
- that we're going to have too many resolutions to get through in our meetings currently? For clarification.
- I think at least that's kind of the- Upcoming, yeah. That's the bottleneck that we've hit recently.
- And I think if we had working groups, too, we'd just foster more collaboration. We talked about having
- a retreat or something. And currently, we don't have any
- non-meeting working groups happening. So I think it is prohibitive to more collaboration and getting,
- as Julie said, some of these earlier questions taken care of before we get into a meeting time where
- time is limited and we're asking more background questions that probably could get solved in a working
- group. Christopher has his hand up. Oh, thank you. Yeah, Christopher, go ahead.
- Hey, so in terms of spending more time working as a commission, in terms of whether we're doing planning
- meetings or multiple meetings a month, the question I would want to understand or answer that I think
- would resolve those further questions for me would be basically the nature of the purpose of the commission.
- If it's a sort of engine for resolutions, you know, I think that's... If we were going to do some genuine
- strategizing in terms of what it is that the commission is set up to do and how it can most efficaciously
- accomplish those goals, that would be of interest to me and worth time. But I think in terms of
- just kind of generating resolutions, I feel less inclined in terms of efficacy, I guess, or sort of
- in an advisory capacity. I'm not convinced that that's the most efficacious use of time. So I guess
- what I'm saying is, yes, I would support sort of more time or more planning
- It was along the lines of genuinely strategic planning in a kind of systematic or institutional sense.
- Not just a matter of sort of organizing a busy docket, which it very much is, and I appreciate that.
- That's what I wanted to share. Thank you. Yes, good points. Yeah, Tara. I will share that we tried to
- do a planning meeting, and my impression of the interactions with the city was that the city was not
- in good faith willing to support that.
- We had, we got, Justin and I got communication from city legal that like we cannot, we have to consider,
- like we can't plan a meeting and then say like the staff, like here's when our meeting is, please staff
- it. But, or sorry, city legal, the city attorney said yes, you can do that. Like you schedule a meeting,
- it's my responsibility to make sure it's that the city clerk and the deputy mayor said no, that's not
- their reading of it.
- The impression that I got in those interactions is that we do not actually have the flexibility to do
- more than we're currently doing, and that we can talk about it, but I don't know that the city will
- support it. I think the goal is that the staff and the commission are aligned in that, yes, we both
- agree that we are able to
- commit the time to specific meetings. And the amount of time, I think the initial idea of the strategic
- retreat was kind of an all day thing, which was a bit much on staff, the staff. And so we came up with
- kind of some ideas. And I think, you know, Sean and I contributed what times it would be available for
- like a couple of two hour sessions, which was a lot more reasonable. But yeah, really the goal is just
- collaborating and communicating as opposed to something like
- we call this meeting staff, now you have to show up. We just want to have time. Which is what the city
- attorney told us that we could do. But that was contradicted by communication from other administration
- officials. And it definitely goes back to my point that I would just ask that any additional working
- group meetings or meetings outside of the scope of the normal meeting has a focus, has a task, like
- what is the purpose of it rather than just kind of free for all.
- Yeah, right. In addition to being respectful of staff's time, I think that's just generally good for
- productivity, right? Coming in with an idea and a purpose, yeah. Do we know if there's any update on
- the onboarding or guidance documents that the city clerk told us that they were working on and the city
- attorney? Because I think a big part of the limitation to working offline and working groups is like,
- when I first came in,
- I was told that if we cannot work, like when I was doing the working group for the report, I was told
- that any time that we worked together, we had to do it in a public place, noticed with a virtual option.
- And there were only three of us. But because it was a quorum of that committee, sorry, if any two of
- us were together. And so it became impossible
- for us to do that. And so clear guidance of like, when are we invited? Because now I'm hearing like,
- yeah, two of you can go sit and work. And that's not the guidance that I've gotten before. So knowing
- the parameters of our out of business meeting time would be really helpful. I think I've gotten like
- 10 different answers in two years. There isn't a clear answer is the problem. In May, all staff are
- being trained for
- as liaisons, and then in June, like you all will be hearing about being invited to receive training,
- and they will have new training available and developed for new commissioners as well. So yes, that
- is actually coming. Yeah. And I think for that experience, the lesson that we learned there is that
- if two commissioners randomly just get together and they say, hey, we both share this interest, let's
- work on something, that's generally fine, unless
- They both happen to sit on a particular subcommittee or an established working group that's an official
- sub body of this body, and they constitute a quorum. Because then the open door law rules apply to any
- subcommittee that gets officially. Because it's a quorum of that subcommittee? Exactly. And how do the
- subcommittees? Or of a working group. We usually, I guess we would vote. In that case, we voted to establish
- a specific ad hoc committee for that purpose. Or environmental.
- just eliminated all of this. Yeah, because the city wasn't working with them on letting them meet. The
- city is not a good faith ally on this, I'm sorry. The administration wasn't releasing her. That's been
- my experience. I've gotten a lot of different answers and not a lot of answers to the actual questions
- that I asked, but a lot of other words. Yeah, it has been confusing at times. I think in terms of
- having a strategy meeting session, which originally started out as this idea of a retreat, just that
- if we're really gonna think hard about what we wanna do over the next year, not just in terms of what
- topics do we wanna focus on, but also some of the questions that have been brought up here that Chris
- brought up. What's the best use of our time? Is it just doing resolutions? Is it other types of work?
- How should we organize ourselves internally? Talk about rewriting the bylaws and stuff,
- how we can suspend rules when we need to, and that sort of thing. Those are all things that take a while
- to kind of get through and brainstorm. So that's where the idea of a retreat came from originally.
- It's like, let's all just hang out for a day and kind of get it done. I think we can still achieve a
- lot of those goals by having maybe a couple shorter sort of strategy sessions that aren't business meetings
- like this, but do have a set agenda, do have a list of topics.
- where we're going through and discussing this stuff. And it's sounding to me like the question of do
- we need more meetings or not is maybe better answered after we've had a chance to have those strategy
- sessions and really think about, okay, what is this commission doing? What direction is it going? Can
- we just be more efficient and then we don't need the extra meetings or is this something that we truly need?
- need at least one more one extra meeting to determine if there are more extra meetings. One or two extra
- focused meetings. I just think that just reflecting on the conversation if if the commission desires
- more meetings in the enabling language of the commission in the municipal code which is
- 2.02.120, if anybody cares. It's section F, meetings. The commission shall meet one time each month,
- every month of the year, unless it decides to cancel the meeting. So, you know, if you want to change
- code, that would require, you know, to have additional meetings, that would require council action,
- but we would want to obviously coordinate with the administration because this is, you know, requires
- administration resources to have those units. So we wanted to talk to the mayor and work out something.
- But if that's what you, I mean, I'm curious to know if that's what you're proposing. I think it's talking
- about like special, like calling special sessions. Just special sessions. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And then code
- does give us that. Yes. Option. So yeah, the chair or the commission itself can say sorry to me.
- Yeah, I was just going to say, I guess we, you know, in that reading, where it says shall meet once
- each month, that probably says we can't just schedule two business meetings on a regular basis, the
- exception being if something was a special meeting, you know, then that would be permissible, I think.
- But of course, we wouldn't want to regularly be calling special meetings as an order. So if we decided
- we truly wanted more meetings, then I think we would have to advocate potentially for some sort of change to the,
- code to accommodate that. So maybe that's not a direction we end up going. Maybe it's a work smarter,
- not harder kind of situation. Other thoughts? Do we have a timeline for when we want to do the strategic planning?
- Yeah, I wanted to do it a couple of months ago. I mean, mostly I've been the bottleneck because it's
- really just trying to coordinate with staff to figure out exactly, you know, like what durations and
- what dates would work. And they sent me back some dates that would work for them. And I think all those
- dates have passed now. So we have to kind of restart them. And if we are getting concrete guidance and
- training. I was going to say, I wonder if that's not a good time to just go ahead and plan around after
- we all get trained. Yeah, I guess I'm saying, like, I would want to see what
- the concrete guidance we're getting from the city is because then we have it in writing in a place that
- everybody's seen. That's why I was asking. Yeah, before doing any extra. Because I don't want us to
- mess a lot of time into something that then we get trained in the city legal set. Actually, that's not
- what happened. That's a good point. And you said June was the time that commissions would probably get
- that sort of training? So we'd be looking at a July potential strategic planning? I guess so.
- I feel like that being strategic is that's how we get something done that's, you know, more effective
- or, you know, that's going to make it make a difference sort of to Chris's point we could run through
- a bunch of
- different things, or we could focus on one or two things for the year. That's what I was going to say.
- I think we need big focus areas, if that's the concern with the resolutions, which I feel like is similar
- to what Christopher was kind of talking about. Yeah, and I'm thinking, too, like on a strategy session,
- we can each get some homework, maybe. Let's see what the other commissions are trying to get done. Maybe
- there's a way to look at that and say, OK, we could position ourselves to focus on these things. It's
- going to align with these other groups, and we might actually get something bigger across the finish line.
- Absolutely. Okay, so I think going forward we'll stand by for the moment and once we get some training
- on the books and get that done then we'll start planning around a strategy session as soon as we can
- after that. And then we can chat then about if we actually have a need for more meetings or not. Awesome.
- Well thank you everybody.
- before that for the input. That brings us on to resolutions for first reading. So we're pretty much
- exactly on time right now, which is pretty great. So generally, we don't really discuss resolutions
- at their first reading. We save that for the second reading. And so we usually just introduce them at
- the first reading, and then we vote on it.
- For those that aren't aware, we do have to have two readings for any resolution that we pass. That's
- in our bylaws. And there is a way to sort of get around that in special cases if you need to really
- get it done in one. That's not the case today. So we've got a resolution here authored by Zach about
- concerning anticoagulant rodenticides and adhesive-based animal traps and their impact
- on the biodiversity crisis. So I would entertain a motion to pass this for a second reading at our next
- meeting. Resolution 2026-05. Perfect. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion on that? Or questions
- about the process would be appropriate too.
- Yeah, and Zach did send around a memo to folks. I was going to say, does Zach want to say a couple words?
- Yeah, do you have a couple words? I mean, just briefly, it would basically recommend that the city ban
- stop the use of anticoagulant-renderedicides on city property or with city contractors. If you're unaware
- of these, there's a whole memo that I wrote on here about the damage. They basically ricochet throughout
- the entire ecosystem, hitting wildlife all over the place. They're horrible.
- The city's somewhat limited by what we can do. So I try to suggest strategies of ways to get around
- it. And then there's also a recommendation to ban outright ban glue traps, which I do think we'd be
- able to do, which are also horribly inhumane and barbaric and awful. So look into it. I've always recommended
- reading around there. We're at a three page memo. So four page memo. Thank you. Yeah. All right. Any
- other questions about the process or anything before we move on to a vote?
- All right, then we'll call the roll. This is to advance resolution 2026-05 to a second reading. Okay,
- Tara? Yes. Yes. Justin? Yes. Rebecca? Yes. Yes. Christopher? Yes. Yes. Zach? Yes. Yes. Councilmember
- Rollin? Yes. Yes. Quintin? Yes. Yes. Alex? Yes. Yes.
- Yes. Diana? Yes. Yes. And Ross? Yes. Yes. OK. It is unanimous. We will see this as a second reading
- in our next business meeting. Thank you, Zach. All right. That brings us to resolutions for second reading.
- So first up on the list is resolution 2026-03, concerning the pedestrianization of Kirkwood Avenue and
- sustainable transportation. And Zach is the author and presenter of that as well. So do you want to
- give an intro to what this is? And then we can. Yeah.
- So as many of you are probably aware, the mayor decided to stop the pedestrian program at Kirkwood Avenue
- this summer. I think it was a huge mistake. Basically, this would suggest or recommend to the mayor
- and the city council a couple of different things. The whereas clauses all go through the background
- on that. And then we have some findings, but the recommendations really meat of it. And the recommendations
- go that, number one, they should at a minimum reverse the decision to not pedestrianize Kirkwood this
- summer and go back to pedestrianizing at least during the seasonally.
- Strongly consider more long term, a permanent year round closure of Kirkwood Avenue, at least from the
- sample gates to Kirkwood. Study existing streets that are really successful in analog cities and other
- other parts of the country. Prioritize investment in permanent street skate improvements rather than
- just doing ad hoc things every season.
- move administration of the pedestrian program from the Department of Economic and Sustainable Development
- to planning and transportation, which is better equipped to handle this sort of thing. I also don't
- think, I think it was a mistake to frame it as an economic development issue, which it has been from
- the start. I think that was a mistake. It's not an economic development issue. It's a public space and
- pedestrian and sustainable transportation issue. So the planning and transportation are better equipped
- to handle it.
- And that's the next one. And then after that, finally, repeal a specific section of the ordinance which
- created the streetscape program, which allowed the city engineer to unilaterally just get rid of the
- program and either just completely repeal it or replace it with something requiring the council to weigh
- in before it's gotten rid of. And then also just the mayor repeatedly has framed the Kirkwood program
- as one in terms of like parking revenue lost versus the fees that they gained from allowing restaurants
- to park to be on the street.
- And we're talking, I think I put it in here some ways, 0.0004% of the city's budget that we're talking
- about. It's not a big revenue loss. Like, why are we framing it? That's a silly thing. Stop doing that.
- And then finally, a statement of values, which I think sums up the entire thing. The commission affirms
- that sustainable cities prioritize people over automobiles, especially in the most central public spaces,
- and that Bloomington's identity as a walkable, bikeable community should be reflected in the design
- of its most prominent and iconic pedestrian quarter. So that's in a nutshell.
- Thank you. So before we discuss, do I have a motion to approve this? Second. Okay, perfect. That brings
- us to discussion, debate. Just FYI, Zach, I understand my colleagues in the council are coming to you.
- Do you know that they are going to be considering an ordinance to close Kirkway? Yes. And I think it's
- Councilmember Rosenbarger and Councilmember Daley were co-sponsoring it. So this again goes to a very
- core question, which is who has the authority to do this? And in my previous experience, it always came
- to the council to adopt a policy regarding permanent alterations of roadways.
- That has been in dispute, and the administration maintains that it's up to the city engineer. And we
- now have an interim council attorney who's working on that. So I don't have anything to report in terms
- of, you know, where that falls right now. But that's going to be a core, you know, part of this discussion.
- And that's going to be on May 20th. I understand it.
- So it's coming next next week. Yeah, actually. So this is very timely and I was planning. If this gets
- approved, I was planning to ask to. I think we have to ask the Council actually have to vote to authorize
- me to go to the Council meeting and speak on behalf of the Commission. But obviously that's contingent
- on a passing. We'll discuss earlier. Procedural question. There's a draft. There's an amendment for
- this that's also on offer. Are we right now? We're discussing the
- The resolution, yeah, right now we're discussing the resolution without any amendments proposed. But
- at any time, a commissioner could move to make an amendment. So that could happen right up front or
- after some discussion. It's mostly up to you. I think we can generally discuss it, and then we'll move
- to an end, and then we can discuss it down at the package. Yeah, I just wanted to make sure I knew the
- order that we were doing. Yeah. I love this. I'm highly supportive of it. I was thinking of.
- something like this, and then you did it, and I went, great, I don't have to. Yeah, I do have a potential
- in myself just to strengthen one of the whereas clauses for one of the lenses that I really viewed this
- through. But yeah, I have been to multiple, I haven't been to the North Carolina City, but yeah.
- I can't remember what that was. I've been to that one, but I've been to the other locations, and they
- have fabulous boulevards that are core to their city that is just such an amazing place to be. And I
- feel like this would only be beneficial in that way. I raised a question in the last business meeting
- about this, and it's partially addressed in the amendment that was shared in the packet about accessibility
- concerns, especially for people that are
- trying to access public spaces like the library in there. And I think that I like the amendment that's
- in the packet in sort of affirming the accessibility. Pedestrianization is at its core about accessibility.
- I think anecdotally and observationally what I've seen, what creates a lot of the accessibility barriers
- is like a lack of enforcement of the accessibility of the existing space. And I think that that's not
- limited to
- if Kirkwood is pedestrianized or not, I think that businesses right now block the sidewalk and it's
- not accessible. So I think there's a question of enforcement from the city and seeing a commitment from
- wanting to see maybe language in here or an amendment encouraging better, more consistent enforcement
- and proactive enforcement of accessibility.
- for these spaces to make sure that they are actually available to everyone. And I think knowing that
- the council is also talking about snow removal and stuff, that's maybe something that's on their minds
- already. So that's our concern. That's like my chief concern with proposing it. But I think if we can
- talk about that language, I would love to see it. And then when we bring that up, which we can now if
- you want, I'm happy to incorporate whatever language you want.
- I don't think that's the words. So that May 20th meeting you referenced, is that when council's considering
- this ordinance, this proposed ordinance, or just discussing the topic? That's a good question. I haven't
- seen it, so it hasn't had a first reading yet. Now we could discuss it, because we've changed our rules
- to hear it on that night.
- So, but I'm not sure if that's the intent of the sponsors at this point. I assume that, you know, you
- mentioned the fiscal impact of parking meter revenue. Probably the administration is probably going
- to say that there's a fiscal impact regarding, you know, staffing and so forth. For sure. I don't have
- a total picture of that yet. So I assume it's going to take a couple of meetings.
- Does the city's measurement of the revenue from parking count the cost to enforce parking? I don't think
- so. What they used was the $80,000 loss from the actual meter revenue. Because I know there are many
- examples and I think Bloomington is probably among them where the cost to enforce meters
- exceeds the revenue generated. Wouldn't surprise me because it's very cheap to park and load. Yeah.
- I don't have an answer for that. That's a good question. And would that be before the concessionaires?
- I'm not sure. Just like, are those not park mobile? I guess I don't know. Oh, I don't know.
- Physical leaders. Yeah, they're both. They're both.
- They're like Park Mobile. Park Mobile probably skips off of the $10,000. All I know is they had a total
- that was $80,000 lost versus, I think, $17,000 in gains from the public space access. But that's literally
- the difference. I measured it. It's 0.0004% of the city budget. We're talking pennies. That's not a
- reason to cancel the entire program. It's silly. Nonsense. They were just grasping at reasons to cancel
- it because they wanted to cancel it. Anyway.
- Well, I think to your point, too, it's not an issue of money to you so much as it is an issue of priority.
- Yeah. Well, should we move to amend, I guess? I move to amend. Perfect. There's a motion. Second. There's
- a motion to amend and to amend as you provided, right? Yes. The amendment form. Yes. I think we could
- pull that one up if that's possible.
- What do you think? Should we look at the form, Zach, or the text itself? It's both, they're identical
- so far. Maybe that's the form here is easier to see. Sorry, I'm taking notes at the same time. Minutes
- at the same time. May I remember who to amend? Who? Did you? Second? Yes, me. Sorry. Sorry. Not used
- to being secretary. Sorry. Thank you. No problem. OK. So should I explain?
- Yes, please. Okay, yeah, so basically, most of the, several of these are just adding in footnotes that
- got dropped inadvertently, so that's not really important. The main substantive one is one adding in
- this line here at line 33. Sorry, there's no line numbers on this version of the draft. Oh, okay. Well,
- it's there. I guess... If you just look at the... It's under when configured for auto-mobile traffic,
- the next one after that.
- at the bottom of page one. Just saying that accessible street design is a core component of exclusive
- public space, and that pedestrianized streets, when you do it correctly, are accessible streets, essentially,
- is what it comes down to. And that when you're actually expanding the pedestrian realm dramatically,
- and not just reserving, literally, at most you can get maybe one fourth of the space on the street for
- people versus cars on a regular configured street. This one, it's 100% for people,
- that includes people with accessibility issues, that includes people with mobility issues. In the memo
- I attached to this, it goes into my rationale behind it, they've done intense studies on accessibility
- and pedestrian streets and they find that any, the vast majority, not the vast majority, the biggest
- issues on pedestrianized streets for accessibility tend to be in places where they're having to, and
- coming into conflict with cars. So on cross streets where they're not pedestrianized, that's where the biggest,
- issues with accessibility are, and it's the cars themselves that often promote the accessibility issues.
- There are other ones that are completely solvable, which are, the federal government has guidelines
- on how to deal with these that are things like, hold on, what do they say? Detectable curb edges for
- people that have vision issues, being able to figure out where the curb is, wayfinding for people that
- have braille and things like that. Truncated domes. I'm sorry? Truncated domes.
- What is it? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So like on maps and things, having things coming out so you can feel
- where things are on a map, for example. What's another one? Oh, like having a texture of some sort on
- the side of the road if the road is at the same level as the pedestrian area so that people can feel
- when they're about to enter a place with cars and things like that. So these are all, there's federal
- guidelines for all of this. There's solvable issues. And most of the conflicts that actually happen
- come where cars are in play.
- So it's just emphasizing that pedestrian streets really are accessible streets by design. It
- is an accessibility thing. Yeah. I would go as far as saying that a pedestrian street will
- drive accessibility by getting rid of the cars. Everything's going to start falling in place
- for accessibility. For sure. And I also mentioned that a lot of people that have mobility issues don't
- have cars. Disproportionately, people that are involuntary, car-free households are households that
- have a high percentage of disabilities or accessibility issues of some sort.
- It should be the center of civic life in Birmingham. Anyway, yes, so that's my spiel on the accessibility.
- And then I also added something on the very one other substantive change, relatively minor, just adding
- to the end of the study, these other streets and other cities example, just studying what they did on
- accessibility that worked. Just adding that.
- Safety is another huge one. When you have a place where there's a lot of pedestrians, you got vehicles.
- I mean, I've looked at reports showing that walking around Bloomington is not as safe today as it was
- 23 years ago. Even with all the new safety improvements, it's still not as good. So I think I support
- everything you're saying on that. Okay, wonderful. Any other discussion and debate about the submit?
- Did you have any? No, I'm looking at the language. I feel like it's covered and I feel like I can't,
- I don't know that I could write the words to make the city follow their own laws. Yeah. Well, I read
- it and I thought it was really excellent. So I appreciate the care that you took with it. Thanks. As
- a former alternative modes transportation planner, I think you hit all the high marks for a compelling
- What do we call these? Resolution. Resolution. I had a brain blip. So yeah, I was really excited to
- see this personally and professionally. Cool. I think it's in the, it's Sample Gates to Walnut. Oh,
- it's Sample Gates to the Courthouse Square. Yeah, yeah, Walnut, yeah. And I think there's been like
- a break or two
- I'm wearing there traditionally the way it's been the last couple of years. All the cross streets have
- still been open historically. Yes. Yeah. Which that's, I think, a different resolution. But I hate that.
- It's worse. Let's get it pedestrianized first. Let's have a real pedestrian. All right. So on the question
- of the amendment, is there any other discussion on that or should we move on to a vote? OK.
- Hearing none, we'll move on to a roll call vote. And this is to approve the amendment that Zach just
- lay down here to resolution. So there's already been a motion in a second. All right, Tara? Yes. Yes.
- Justin? Yes. Rebecca? Yes. Yes. Christopher? Yes. Yes. Zach? Yes. Yes. Councilor Morales? Yes. Yes.
- Quentin? Yes. Yes. Alex? Yes.
- Yes. Maria? Yes. Yes. Dana? Yes. Yes. And Ross? Yes. Yes. OK. The amendment passes unanimously. So that
- brings us back to our discussion on the full resolution as amended. Are there any further discussions
- on that resolution or additional amendments that anyone would like to make? I have one additional amendment
- and maybe a second one. Anyway, let's start with my first additional amendment.
- What would it be? One of the things about the pedestrianization and everything that the oscillation
- that drives me crazy is
- of lines 50 through 52, the statement is, whereas the current uncertainty regarding Kirkwood status
- oscillating between pedestrian and automobile setups prevents businesses and the city from making long-term
- investments in streetscape improvements. And I think this is very true, but for me, this is one of my
- core complaints, that the city doesn't see this great additional revenue generation from this
- because we can't do the right things with it. So I would just strengthen that and build it out a little
- bit more. Do you have language? The city themselves understands the value of this because they're shutting
- it down one night every month for families and children to enjoy. We're planning to do a
- study in the corridor, or it starts with a study, right, but a study to see, to model that future solution
- as discussed here. So, I can send this language to somebody if he's told to put it up on the screen
- instead of just reading it, but whereas the seasonal oscillation between pedestrian and vehicular traffic
- creates a structural barrier to realizing the full potential of the corridor,
- stifling investments in features such as, but not limited to, fixed public art permanent commercial
- kiosks, which could easily raise the tax base to fully replace lost parking revenue, expanded outdoor
- dining structures, and resilient environmental features like bioswales, rain gardens, or general permeable
- landscapes, which could be especially beneficial given Kirkwood's history of flooding. Yes. Seconded.
- Semicolon and, right? Semicolon and.
- Yes. Move to amend. Is he moving to amend? I move to add that. I move to replace the previous mentioned
- three lines, lines 50 through 52 of that whereas clause with my amended whereas clause. And if we approve
- this, that is a pretty substantial change. You will send me that identical text. Yes, I have it in an
- email. Perfect. Saved.
- Perfect. Okay. I support that. That's fantastic. Okay. So there was a second, was that? Yes. Perfect.
- So there is a motion, a second. Is there any discussion about that amendment? I love it. Thumbs up.
- Yeah, I like it too. So, all right. If there is no discussion, we'll move on to a vote for that. Okay.
- Tara. Yes. Yes. Justin. Yes. Rebecca. Yes. Yes. Christopher. Yes.
- yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
- yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
- But Quentin, I know you and I have talked about your desire to have IU follow suit in some places and
- do a little bit more road closures and things. Okay, I'm with you there. I wrote another, whereas successful
- inflammation
- That. Whereas successful implementation of such a change in our community could prove as a model for
- Indiana University to take similar action in some of their core roadways where there is significant
- pedestrian slash motor vehicle interface. Yes. Semicolon and. Second. Where would that go? I have no
- idea. To the end. Before the last whereas clause so that we don't have to amend that one to be semicolon
- and. What?
- Can I ask a question on this? Absolutely. What is the appetite for having some sort of imagining there
- was a like what we have the bus network right now, right? If there was a way to have something. Dedicated
- for transportation to kind of move people, right? So I'm thinking like you have a football game. Like
- you know they have. Maybe people want to park downtown and
- and enjoy and spend some money after the game, dinner, whatever. If there was like a, you know, big
- closed roads all the time with those, if you had a road that you could put people on like the things
- they got at the state fair, those trackless trolleys. And if you could have a way, because those kind
- of move in and out with people pretty well, have something like that, that could go up and down Kirkwood,
- I think then you could move a lot of people
- for events, and you tried out at events, but something like that, just if there was a space to have
- some kind of transportation, pedestrian-centered transportation in that area. I mean, I don't think
- this precludes that, like an ad hoc sort of, this is more for private vehicles, so I don't think this
- would prevent that from happening. I think this kind of closure encourages that kind of creative approach to moving
- large amounts of people around the city, both day to day and for big events. Yeah. I only ask because
- I feel like if there was a way to have that language in there in some way, it might get people a little
- bit more excited about it saying, hey, there's going to be, there might be some new way to bring a lot
- more customers downtown that might not face the traffic otherwise. That might have to be a separate
- amendment if we decide to add that language.
- So Alex, you made a motion. I make a motion to adopt the whereas statement that I read about serving
- as a model to IU. And that would be the second to last. As a quick, before I say that, should it say
- Indiana University or Indiana University Bloomington? Indiana University Bloomington. Indiana University
- Bloomington. And if there was a way to say that working to serve as a model and align with IU, I think
- that would come off a little bit better, because IU's doing their own transportation
- Model four and a line with? Okay, I might have to reread this one. Does that make sense? Because you're
- thinking about a certain corridor, right? Is there any value in saying that?
- I don't think it's just 10th Street. I think there's 10th, a bit of Phi, Eagleson, 7th, 3rd. I think
- it could be pretty bad, too. And they have pedestrianized a big chunk of 7th. Yeah. And it's nice. Which
- I was going to say, I think it's a work of art. I took my bike here, through that. The bike lane is
- closed right now. I feel like if we just leave it out, don't specify it. Yeah. Pedestrianized bikes.
- Should I propose we make this and then we just motion that we do this and then I get seconded and then
- we would discuss the exact language and then we vote? God, I hate these rules. We already moved and
- seconded, so we're discussing. Who seconded that, by the way? Okay. What's the current language that
- you have right now?
- Whereas, successful implementation of such a change in our community could prove as a model for and
- align with Indiana University Bloomington to take similar action in some of their core roadways for
- their significant pedestrian-motor vehicle interface. Seven colon and. I think that's great.
- I like that. It still keeps the attention on Kirkwood, but also says that this should be after line
- 76. Yes. And I know- This would be the second to last winner's
- Yeah, and the align with is good, also front end to your point. I know talking to the city that like
- Kirkwood in Indiana is a place of like, I think that's the place where the most pedestrians get hit.
- Which I understand why it's very chaotic. But you know, that is a place that would probably be a city
- university alignment to discuss what to do with that corridor. Exactly. It's also a very iconic spot,
- so changing anything
- Oh, yes. Yes. Is this state highway there? Because that'll complicate it. No. No, it's not. Thankfully.
- OK. Ten days farther. Ten days state highway. There are lots of terrible, terrible intersections of
- robots in this town that are state highway. And yes, that gets internalized. I have a map somewhere,
- but most of the streets going through the university are our city streets. They're not the university.
- Any other questions or discussions about the proposed amendment? No. Well, back in the day,
- Kirkwood used to be open in the east of Sample Gaze. I don't know if anybody had that. I'm old enough
- to remember that. If you watch Breaking Away, you can see the cars driving. And then the 7th Street
- was closed by the university, you know, at the auditorium to Eagleton as well. So there is a precedent
- for having a pedestrian. Grow it. Keep growing it. All right. Are we ready to move on to the vote on
- the amendment? Yes. OK.
- This is the vote to amend as Alex had read, and this will be the penultimate whereas clause. That's
- my word of the day. Tara? Yes. Yes. Justin? Yes. Rebecca? Yes. Yes. Christopher? Yes. Yes. Zach? Yes.
- Yes. Council Member Rowler? Yes. Yes. Quentin? Yes. Yes. Alex? Yes. Yes. Maria? Yes. Yes.
- Diana? Yes. Yes. And Ross? Yes. Yes. All right, amendment is approved unanimously. Okay, so that brings
- us back to our main discussion on the full resolution. Are there any further discussion or amendments?
- Go team. What's that? He said go team. Good job. Well, I have one more comment. Sure. I'm not sure if
- it warrants an amendment because I think it's already very strong, but just something that it made me think of.
- is that the public works recently designated Kirkwood as one of only three festival footprints in the
- city. And I mean, and the other ones, the trades district, and then also the square, which basically
- is Kirkwood as well. So it could, I don't know if it's worth adding that as a whereas to strengthen
- the argument that like, you know, if you're gonna say this space is specifically dedicated for
- pedestrian activities of 1,000 people or more. Doesn't it make sense to permanently make it accessible?
- You said it was Public Works Commission who did that? Public Works. That's a great idea. I would want
- his opinion on that. I think it's a great idea. Other bodies have referred to this as their opinion
- is adjacent to this, and it's great.
- proposed language for that. So we could just say somewhere, whereas the Public Works Commission has
- recently declared Kirkwood one of three official festival corridors for pedestrian activity? Festival
- footprints. Festival footprints? For events anticipating 1,000 or more attendees. Okay. So let me write
- that. So. It follows to. So whereas.
- The Board of Public Works, that's the name, right? Can I interrupt you? The Queen of Borders is 724.
- Yeah, yeah, okay. We were doing so good there. Would you have an extra 15 minutes if we needed it? Okay,
- thanks. Okay, so whereas the Board of Public Works has recently designated Kirkwood Avenue as an official
- festival footprint corridor? Yes.
- And that means a place that is zoned to have a festival? Is that what that means? If there is basically
- a public festival that's anticipated to have 1,000 or more attendees, it can only be held in one of
- these. In one of those three places up there? Yeah. So the 4th Street Arts Festival will have to move
- because it's no longer one of those. So I've got the link. The 4th Street Arts Festival gets to be at
- this year on 4th Street and then it'll be.
- I'm trying like a designation person. It's a designation person. So a language. Whereas the Board of
- Public Works has recently designated Kirkwood Avenue as an official festival footprint corridor for
- public events of 1,000 or more attendees. Where do we want to put it? After yours? I was going to say
- shouldn't we say like just something more like showing the
- community importance that this is a place to gather, yeah, further strengthening. The reason for the
- policy was stated as public safety. Further illustrating the importance of the corridor for pedestrian
- safety and celebration. Safety and celebration. How about celebration of community?
- I moved to amend it to do what I just said. Where do we want to put it? Oh. Let's do right after the
- one he just added. Okay. So this would then become the... Penalty. Penalty. Who seconded? I seconded
- it. Okay. First secretary. And any discussion before we move to a vote?
- Could you give us one more full reading of? Yeah. So whereas the Board of Public Works has recently
- designated Kirkwood Avenue as an official festival footprint corridor for public events of 1,000 or
- more attendees, further illustrating the importance of the corridor for pedestrian safety and celebration
- of community. Semicolon and. Perfect. All right. Fast talking comes in hand. We'll move on to a vote
- then for the amendment. Tara. Yes. Yes. Justin. Yes. Rebecca. Yes. Yes. Chris. Christopher. Sorry. Yes.
- Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
- Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
- So there's a motion to extend to 745. Is there a second? There's a second. All right. Then we'll vote
- on that. Tara? Yes. Yes. Justin? Yes. Rebecca? Yes. Yes. Christopher? Yes. Yes. Zach? Yes. Yes. Councilmember
- Borella? Yes. Yes. Quentin? Yes. Yes. Alex? Yes. Yes. Maria? Yes. Yes. Diana? Yes.
- Yes, and Ross. Yes. Yes. All right. We are extended to 745. Thank you, everybody, for staying a little
- bit later. OK, so we are back on the main resolution as amended. Is there any further discussion or
- amendments? So I was thinking of no. At least we have the amendment on.
- Is everyone ready to move on to a vote? Yes. Okay. All right. So this is to a vote to pass resolution
- 2026, 2026-03 as amended. Tara? Yes. Yes. Justin? Yes. Rebecca? Yes. Yes. Christopher? Yes. Yes. Zach?
- Yes. Yes. Councilmember Rowland? Yes. Yes. Quintin? Yes. Yes. Alex? Yes.
- Yes, Maria? Yes. Yes, Diana? Yes. Yes, and Ross? Yes. Yes. All right, the resolution passes as amended.
- Thank you very much. Congratulations. Thank you. Very well done. Thank you. Is this, I would like to,
- I don't know how this works, but I think we have to vote for me, to authorize me to go speak in front
- of the council, just to read the resolution, basically. Oh, yeah, that's a good point, yeah. So basically,
- Zach wants to attend this May 20th meeting, and
- speak as a member of the public, but also sort of speak on behalf of the commission as it relates to
- this resolution. So basically staying within the lanes of what this resolution says. So I think it'd
- be good if he's going to say that he's presenting this in sort of an informal way, I guess, to the council
- on behalf of the commission, that we would have to vote to allow him to do that.
- Yeah, I guess. A second. Perfect. There's a second. Great. Is there a discussion or questions about
- what this entails? OK, perfect. We'll go through a vote then. Tara? Yes. Yes. Justin? Yes. Rebecca?
- Yes. Yes. Christopher? Sorry, there's a lag. Yes. No worries. We got yes. Zach? Yes.
- Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
- Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
- in an email. That's perfect, yeah. Anyone who did amended text, please send it to me, otherwise I'll
- have to go back to the recording and transcribe it all. Okay, that brings us to resolution 2026-04,
- against the use of glyphosate in Bloomington's public spaces and environmental practices. Matt mentioned
- during public comment that he would be fine if this didn't move forward based on the conversations that
- we had last meeting and all that discussion. So I just want to note as a process, if we want to do that,
- we could postpone indefinitely, which basically kills it. It doesn't mean we can never reconsider it.
- If someone wanted to bring it back sometime, they could, but it would kill it indefinitely. But in order
- to do that, we have to have someone make a motion and a second, and then we can make a motion to postpone.
- Does that make sense? You have to approve it first. Yeah, vote to approve it, and then vote to postpone.
- Of course, we also don't have to vote to postpone, but that's just an option. I want to make sure everyone
- knows how that works.
- So is there a motion to? I motion to consider resolution 2026-04. Perfect. Is there a second? All right,
- there's a second. Are there any discussions or further motions? I move to postpone it, definitely.
- I second. Did you want to discuss? I was just going to say one thing quick. That no matter what happens
- with this, I do want to state that even after hearing from our experts last
- month that I do have concerns about the use of glyphosate. I have concerns about the city use of some
- of the other herbicides and fungicides that were provided in some of the emails that were lists of what
- they do use. So I just would like to reiterate that no matter what happens today with this, I do think
- there is merit. I also think there are merited
- uses of glyphosate from the city, but it would take more than I think what was written in this to make
- any full decision. Yeah, and I think that what came out of this process was like it's very clear that
- the city, while the parks department does a reasonable job of being transparent about their
- use of pesticides, that that is not necessarily true of all city departments that are
- using pesticides and or, you know, departments might contract with groups that are using it and there's
- potential for our commission to take up that issue and push for more transparency, more communication
- from the city when they are using these tools. Yeah, I think we had a great discussion too. Yeah, and
- I actually, I want to say I went into it thinking I was likely going to be opposed to it.
- And I might be the only person to move this way. Actually, the more research I did, especially because
- France has a similar thing, anyway, I actually came out a little bit more in favor of it than I thought.
- I think it needs to be amended and changed. In its current form, I probably couldn't have voted for
- it, but I think there's a version of it that I could have supported. Anyway. So, procedurally,
- where are we? We're considering adoption. Okay, yeah, okay. And you did technically make,
- I guess we're kind of in the discussion for that motion, right? The motion to amend it. Yeah, I guess
- we technically are. Okay. So was it seconded? It was. Yeah, but I'm happy to pause for a moment. Well,
- this discussion is valid for either.
- I think, unless to postpone indefinitely is not debatable, but as the chair will say, I don't remember
- right now, so it's okay. Any other further discussion before we move to a vote to postpone indefinitely?
- Okay, then we'll take the vote to postpone indefinitely resolution 2026-03. Tara? Yes. Yes. Justin? Yes.
- Rebecca. Yes. Yes. Christopher. Yes. Yes. Zach. Yes. Yes. Dave. Yes. Quentin. Yes. Yes. Alex. Yes, but
- I think that you said to... You said 03 at 04. Oh, you're right. I apologize.
- That's OK. Was anyone confused about what they were voting for? No. Has anyone changed their vote so
- far? Just wanted to clarify for public. I was going to say something to you. I was talking about resolution
- 2026-04. Thank you for that. And yes. Yes. OK. Maria? Yes. Yes. Diana? Yes. Postponed. Yes. And Ross?
- Yes. Yes. All right. The resolution is postponed indefinitely. So that brings us to the staff liaison
- report. Julie?
- Yeah, well, we kind of touched on what I was going to bring up, and that there is training for staff
- liaisons and training for commissioners expected, you know, some of these are to help coordinate processes,
- bring processes in alignment with the accessibility laws, which, yes, while our compliance date has
- been postponed a year, the city's goal is still to follow the compliance rules.
- Yeah, I'll just be in probably more contact with more updates to how we should align our documents with
- that and just anything that comes out of the trainings that we can all discuss more to understand maybe
- on the same page about any new guidance or things that you've learned from the trainings. That's pretty
- much an option that we can discuss in future meetings, just how it affects this commission. So yeah.
- Perfect. Cool.
- Any questions for Julie? All right. We've got a couple minutes left. That brings us to member announcements.
- Any member announcements? There is a pedestrianization of Kirkwood tomorrow night in front of the library.
- It's like a block party thing that is encouraging people to go to local businesses and get dinner and
- sit in the park.
- there will be a free Zumba class because I know the person who's teaching it. So you know lots of stuff
- yeah and an opportunity to talk to people about wouldn't it be great if this was all the time as private
- citizens. I know housing is a listed priority of the Commission so I just wanted to share that who's
- your action is hosting several events they're sort of open to the community to discuss housing practices
- locally and so if you
- me to send that information out to anyone if anyone's interested in any of those community conversations.
- They do some advocacy around housing. There is a similar event outside of Friendly Beasts on Friday
- related to housing in Seminary Square. I'm sorry, what's the apartment there? Seminary Point.
- Seminary Point, yeah. The housing that's slated
- For a potential demolition, people are throwing a block party. There's going to be music and things
- like that there. It's relevant to the sort of civic firmament of the moment, I guess. So I thought I'd
- bring it up in a similar sense. It's connected to salient issues of the moment, I guess is what I would
- say, without trying to endorse any particular perspective.
- Just to say, I appreciate the memo, Zach, that you included in the packet about flock size chickens.
- The delay has really been just a consequence of lack of council staff. So we've had to do things that
- were prioritized. And so I intend to keep going on that probably later in the summer. It'll probably
- happen. And I need to talk to Animal Care and Control about it.
- whether it requires additional staff or if there's any consequences that would affect the recommendations.
- Anecdotally, when I had my, this is me as a private citizen telling you this, I guess, well, I don't
- remember enough, but I had my chicken coop inspected by animal control and the inspector said, you know,
- the city's thinking about increasing the flock size. And he said, and I love that idea.
- I mean, you should still have that conversation, but the animal care and control is aware of this as
- an option. Yeah, just want to make sure that they're at peace with it, because the onus is on them for
- enforcement. It's good to know, though, that there is at least one enforcement officer. And it's better
- for the animals, for the sake of keeping them warmer. Yeah, well, that's true. The last thing is the
- final considerations for
- the Jack Hawkins social service funding. We're awarding a total of half a million dollars.
- It's May 26th. This is for the committee, the council committee at 6 p.m. And so we'll make our final
- considerations then. We have nearly $700,000 in requests. So it's always difficult to have that process.
- not giving people fully what they asked for in many cases. But in any case, I think we're willing to
- be funding nearly all of them. So cool. And to some degree. Thank you. Any other recommendations?
- All right. New business. There's no new business. So that brings us to adjournment. So we'll adjourn
- at 741. Thanks, everybody.