All right, we'll call this meeting to order. It's 4.06 and this is meeting of the annual parking report
task force set up by the transportation commission to fulfill our ordinance mandate to produce an annual
report on the status of parking. Point of order, do we need to start reporting? It is reported. Oh,
okay, great.
And I see President, Commissioners Flaherty and Binder, along with myself, we are the three members
to whom the Transportation Commission delegated this task. We called it a task force so that A, it doesn't
have to be quite so formal as committees don't have to be, and B, we can invite people who are not part
of the commission to take part in it. And for the sake of an open discussion, there's no other item
on the agenda. I'm happy for us to use first names here as long as we're consistent with it.
So having said that, I just want to start by setting the frame. This is the most recent report that
the parking commission produced. This is the 2018 report. I want to talk about it to some extent. And
Iris Bull has sent a list for consideration that basically lists all the figures in this report. But
I can summarize the figures when it comes time to it. The goal here is to figure out what kind of report
we need to produce.
what it's going to take in terms of staff time, how long we should expect for it to take, and what should
be specifically in it, what kind of resources will those take to produce. So before I continue, I just
wanted to open up the floor to my fellow task force members. One of the things I'm hoping to do by the
next time we meet, not necessarily by the end of the meeting today, is to identify
specific people from each of the invited departments who have some bearing on this report to identify
a person who would represent them on the task force. So if, for example, I specifically asked for Megan
Blair from ITS because I know that she has expressed interest in taking data from Public Works and making
it visual.
But if there's somebody else from ITS who'd be more appropriate, I'm content for that department to
determine who that is. So having said that, first of all, Eobhan or Matt, do you have anything to add
to this so far? I've got a couple questions, but Matt, if you have anything, please go ahead. Yeah,
a few things as well. One, just noting that the section of code does call out.
specifics here, so there is guidance, it's not open-ended, it's about an annual analysis of parking
asset management, and specifies some of the data and metrics we're meant to be tracking to help inform
policy decisions. I think that also the prior reports from the parking commission are a great place
to start. I wasn't sure where to access though, I don't believe I received it via email, or maybe if
I did, I didn't, I missed that. And so I looked at the parking commission's old
It's not available on the reports there on board. Matt, I'll stop you there. If you just go
to the Transportation Commission's current page on the city website and scroll down about three quarters
of the way, there's a list of older reports there including the 2018 report. Iris did this several months
ago and everything now has been consolidated there. Yeah. And it goes back quite a ways too. There's
other reports listed and that should be helpful. Yeah. So, but just go ahead. That's all.
At the end of my email to Adam, I wrote the specific section 202-100-D7, we have to record all costs
and revenues for city-owned structured parking, surface parking, meter parking, neighborhood parking
zones, and other relevant city-owned parking. Is it up there? We have to document parking utilization
rates and longitudinal trends and conduct a contract for parking data analytics if necessary.
So those are, that's the mandate.
Yeah, to that point, I think we should probably identify whatever data sources we've got available because
I remember this being an issue that came up repeatedly in preparing the 2018 report and previous reports.
I think when we had to get revenue, it came from the city controller's office. But then when we had
to get parking utilization, that came from T2. Is that right? So, you know, just the two examples of
it's not like
We get someone from ITS and they can get us everything. I think we have to name and understand each
as a platform from which we're obtaining data just so that if there's like interval windows or something
that are involved or a certain staff member we have to be in contact with for that particular thing.
Or if any vendors have changed since 2018, those are just things to be aware of. So to that end, that's
why we've invited Public Works, the Controller, and the Clerk's Office. They all have.
basis of data that need to be synthesized. We've invited planning because they manage the transportation
plan, and we're trying to hue to that as well, that this report is meant to help us make decisions based
on the transportation plan. And of course, engineering supports the commission's work. And we also invited
ITS because they are one of the bodies that can help us synthesize some of that data.
So I think there was one more. Yeah, we also invited ESD, like planning, they, because parking in particular
is a measure of economic performance, not simply traffic safety, they too have a role in interpreting
this data for the sake of fulfilling our city plans. And so we look forward to their participation at
some point as well.
Does that answer your question? Yeah, I think so. OK. So now I'd like to open up the floor to talk about
what it would take to compile this data. There's a lot of data that Public Works has, but it's no less
significant the data that the controller has, because the report is supposed to also identify the financial
impact. One of the aspects of this report
and the report that proceeded in 2017 was we found out for the first time that with the advent of meters,
the parking system as a whole, meters, garages, lots, neighborhoods, zones, citations, was roughly break
even. Before meters, the city was spending money on the order of a couple million dollars a year because
the garages were not revenue neutral. Now, thanks to the meters,
We are at least as of 2018, we were roughly the same amount of money. It was an order of $100,000
to $200,000 difference either way. I don't know what those figures are because we haven't done a report
since 2018. So can we talk about sources of data? Why don't we start with the controller, OK?
Jeff McKim, City Controller. They're kind of going through the best financial sources that we have.
First of all, that I think everybody probably knows this, but maybe you don't, that there are four parking
garages in the city that are currently, that have debt service associated with them. And those four
parking garages, that debt service is all paid for through the consolidated TIF.
there's essentially 100% subsidy from the consolidated TIF. There's no operational revenue that covers
those at all. So that's the 4th Street Garage, Trades District Garage. Those two are paid directly from
the consolidated TIF. So that doesn't even enter any of the parking accounts. Those two, those bond
payments are associated with the, are made directly from the consolidated TIF. There's also the Mercury
Garage and the Walnut Street Garage leases.
that are made as well and that money is transferred from the consolidated TIF to the parking facilities
account and then paid from the parking facilities account. It's still dollar for dollar. It's still
100% subsidy. It's just the transfer actually shows up in the parking facilities account. One thing
that I can give you all is just the, and actually I have them in a spreadsheet that I put together here,
is just the amortization schedule for the four
So you can tell how much is paid each year and how long the what the maturity is on the on the four
debt services So that's one that's that's the debt service then there's also a Really great data source
that is actually available on the city website right now through the open finance portal and it's actually a
It's essentially, there are a couple of files, but there are two data sets that are essentially extracts
from our financial system. They're not at an individual transaction level. They're at the fund, department,
and revenue GL line level. But that data is actually updated automatically every night, so it's up to
date within a day. It's fully publicly available, and it's
It's just basically there's one that's called operating that is the expenses and the other is called
revenue, which is the revenue. And they are, you know, they're very clean in that you could just open
them right in Excel and then do pivot tables just without any modification at all. So I highly recommend,
and I highly recommend that you kind of become familiar with those data sets. And I am perfectly happy
to kind of at some point, if it's appropriate, do a tutorial on
what accounts and what lines I think that you'd be most interested in. But that's a way that you can
see all of the budget versus actuals for the two main parking funds. So there are two main parking funds.
There's parking facilities and parking meters. And so you can see all of the revenue that was budgeted
and all the revenue that's actually come in to date by GL line. And the same thing with expenditures
on those two accounts.
question Jeff thank you so much this is very helpful and I think probably going to result in a more
smooth process for developing future reports than maybe what we had to undertake in in previous years
just to clarify when you were talking about the open finance portal is that the same thing as the
City of Bloomington open data portal budget and finance category or is it a separate portal? I don't
know the names to all those portals. Are you looking at back end or front end too? Yeah, no I'm looking
at the... So if you go to this page which is City of Bloomington open finance and what I'm showing you
is actually buried. You have to scroll all the way down to the very bottom
and there's a link at the bottom right that just says view and download. Okay, so it's not the same
as the general city Bloomington open data portal. Right, it should be ultimately the same data set,
but these two data sets operating in revenue, they're just nice because they're automatic, they're there
for you, you don't have to ask, they're updated daily, and like I said, once you find the link,
you've got it, you bookmark the link, and they're
Like I said, they're so clean, you could just pin a table without any manipulation. Thank you, Joe.
Would you be so kind as to send us this link, this magic link that you speak of? Yes. And I'll make
sure that the commission has access to it, especially the task force, for whoever continues to serve
on your behalf. But this is exactly the kind of information we need. Does anyone want to say anything
else about financial data?
If there is something, if you need to drill down on any of that, so once you look at it, if you decide
you need to drill down, I can also provide more customized reports from the financial system. Then I
think the next level of drilling down comes from... Right, we're going to talk about that data as well.
So just to, this is a good opportunity to point out the structure of the prior reports
What we tried to do, chapter one just reported on the commission itself. Chapter two gave an overall
performance of the system. The first figure in each chapter was inventory and a map of the particular,
either the entire system or one of the three sub categories of parking. So in garages, for example,
the first chapter, the first figure was inventory. Second figure was overall financial performance of
that program of the parking system.
The third was breaking down the revenue by source. The fourth was, the next several were details of
how revenue was gained, how many permits were issued, for example, or revenue from lots in the case
of garages. The seventh item in each chapter was expenses, and then any figures after that would be
breakdowns of expenses. So it's those middle,
figures, the fourth, fifth, and sixth figures generally in every chapter that were, that came from two
sources, Public Works and the clerk. So Adam, I'd like to ask now, I know that Michelle Wall is talking
about new equipment, but I also know that they're thinking about, I mean, I think you're thinking about
T2, aren't you? Like there's a challenge to
how easy, relatively, it is to get data from them. Yeah, customizable reports. Anytime we're going to
need something customizable, it's going to come at a cost. Sometimes it's a couple hundred dollars for
something easy. Sometimes it's been more expensive. I think Michelle just got out of her interviews
and may have jumped on. Michelle, can you briefly just explain the cost structure of when we request
things from T2? One second, Michelle.
Making you co-host. There we go. Michelle, are you there? Yeah. Hello. Were you able to hear what I
said, Michelle? Yeah. Michelle, are you there? Can you hear me? Yeah, I can hear you. There we go. Yeah,
it's $150 per hour for a customizer or for a poutine, too. OK. Yeah. OK. And I have to give them, like, at least
No one's currently in that position to run the reports. I have to give them at least like a two-week
and three-week notice. Yeah. OK, that can be done with, it's not like a year's notice. It's like a month
or two, right? Correct. OK. Ask Eric's question. Please. What's that? Oh, I just wanted to draw your
attention to Eric's question on the chat. We just get raw data from them. We'll get to that. OK. Let's
start with Nicole.
Are you looking for a regular pull and report? Are you looking for specific data? Because you don't
actually have to use a specialized data that you pay for. You can do a find a report and teach you that
you don't pay for. You just do it yourself. Yeah, there is. I mean, yes, any customizable cost money,
anything that's regularly. You can do your own customized report.
you don't have to pull one of the regular reports and you don't have to ask them to do it. We can manipulate
within T2 anything we require of their staff is where that additional cost comes in. Can you give an
example of what would be something that would be a customizable versus I guess not customizable or something
where we would need their staff to assist? Sure. Michelle, can you go ahead and answer that? Yeah, so
let's say, sorry, let's say that we need
see how many citations are avoided on a specific date or a specific area at a specific time. It's all
those things that are customizable. While we can do it, if there's more parameters built out
with requirements, that's not a finder report. That is something that I would have to get them to do
for us. And go ahead. You can do it. OK. Well, OK.
I get it that T2 is non-trivial to access and that people who, I mean there's a few people who know
how to do it and some of them are in City Hall. It's clear that the task force at least needs to understand
how that data can be accessed and at some point I think we're gonna want a tour of how staff like you,
Michelle, access T2.
I mean, we can schedule that for some time in the near future. It's no rush. But is that okay? Yes.
I'll just state, yes, it's okay. Okay. But as big a deal as T2 is, Michelle, I also want to ask you
about IPS. Now, I know that, I mean, I've known for a long time that you are eager to improve the equipment
that we use. And I know that IPS is the provider
of the data from the meters. Do you expect that getting data about meters is going to get easier once
we upgrade to new equipment? What is your opinion? Absolutely. How much easier will it get? Did you
watch what was in the packet sent to the Transportation Commission? Did I watch it? Yeah, there were
two videos.
that was uploaded to the packet of the last section from both of those vendors. And it's really... Oh,
yeah. I remember. I mean, I'm just talking from your perspective, just being able to... Do you have
a person who works for you, who you go to for generating any kind of report? Or do you just go straight
to IPS? Go ahead, Michelle. IPS or Park Mobile?
So you just, there's nobody on staff who kind of can navigate those portals. You just have to, you depend
on them to generate reports for you, is that right? Correct. But you think that with new equipment,
you'll be able to do some of that in-house? New parking technology, yeah. We can give access to whoever
needs it, including the transportation commission, Jeff, who needs it, the controller.
We just haven't. I mean, so the what technology we move to is still completely up in the air. So I just
want to be cautious here before we commit to, you know, who gets access to water, how we get access.
Like, there's a lot of decision points that need to be made on what we move to with parking technology,
but we will
Of course, our end goal is to make all data captures as easy as possible. I really do look forward,
myself, even to getting a tour on T2 of what we can do in-house versus out-of-house. I don't know all
of our software systems in the weeds like that. So just with the caveat that we haven't made those decisions
and don't know, but our goal is going to be to make data capture as easy as possible. OK. Well, and
I know that that's
you know, pending it's farther in the future than our objective here is now. But Eric online asks the
question that's relevant here. Can you simply request the raw complete data from T2? That is what the
commission, the parking commission did in the past. We would simply, there's somebody from the public
watching here. And that is what the parking commission did. They would, we would take,
all the parking transactions and synthesize them. And I can tell you from personal experience,
it was hard. But I think that in order for us to do this next report, until there's new equipment, we
have to do that again somehow. We have to download data and process it. And we have to figure out how
we're going to do that. So OK, we've talked about T2 and IPS. Can we talk about it? Before we move on,
I want to recognize that Matt has had his hand up. Oh, Matt, sorry. Please speak up.
Thank you. Thank you, Iris. We can keep going down this data path if we'd like. That's fine. What I
wanted to interject, though, to ask and kind of just frame is, at least the way my mind works, like,
it'd be helpful to kind of set out in broad strokes, like, the timeline process, what it is we're trying
to contemplate in roles.
You know, my intent generally, I guess, as a council member, I just drafted the section on this parking
report. And as a past parking commission member like yourselves, I don't anticipate the transportation
commission or a committee or task force of that commission to replicate the parking commission's process
of data acquisition, processing, to kind of look all of those things that proved frankly just untenable
for a volunteer group. And, you know, data tools might improve the ability to do that, but kind of what I
vision, I guess, is aligning on a template for an annual report that looks a lot like the 2018 report.
I think it's a really terrific starting point in terms of what's being analyzed. It's aligned
with Bloomington Municipal Codes prescription to the Transportation Commission. And if we can align
on that report, then it becomes the job of staff and or contractors to produce the data on an annual
basis, you know, that that
report template that we all align on, and maybe advise the commission on how to interpret that data.
But ultimately, it would be the commission's job then to analyze, interpret, and produce the final report
with any policy or recommendation. So it's more of a analysis and policy guidance role for the commission
rather than the data analytics piece of it. But as we set that up, this is the job of the task force,
essentially, in my mind, is over the next, say, five, six months figuring out
Like, what are all the questions? What can our data systems manage and do and produce in a, again, clear
template report? And then once we set that up, it's just kind of, you know, we run it on an annual cycle.
Maybe we want to produce this first annual report by something like March of 2027 for the calendar year
2026, so complete data for 2026. That'd be the first year the commission's been fully in operation.
That would also have the benefit of, you know, being able to get policy guidance
in time to make changes for, I know the neighborhood permits kind of operate on a summer permitting
cycle, so that's kind of the time scale that might be true for some of the other permits as well. So
I just wanted to like zoom out and ask if it's helpful for us to have that conversation about anticipated
timelines, roles, and process that might then inform what we need to answer on the data upfront and
other related questions.
So please don't forget to ignore me and proceed. No, no, no. No, I just, I was really, I wanted to react
to something that you said, because I think I heard a contradiction in the language that's being used
around producing a report. And I guess, can you clarify what you mean by that? Like there's the production
of a template, and then mechanically, either the commissioners are
writing a report with that template or staff are writing a report and then bringing it to the commission.
I just want to understand the mechanics a little bit better. I want to say that I believe that
the commissioners won't have enough time by themselves to generate the data, but if they have access
to the data that's digestible, they can write summaries of it to say, here's what we see. And that is
the commission's role to interpret
And writing that interpretation should not be particularly difficult. It was always about getting all
this data wrestled. I mean, the chart that is the best example of it is 4.6. This broke down revenue
by block face. And I think it's one of the crucial tables for determining how the parking system is
operating.
It doesn't make sense to be charging a dollar an hour across the board when there are clearly blocks
that aren't used at all and clearly blocks that are being used much more heavily than a dollar an hour
would merit. And certainly other cities don't charge the same amount across the city. They charge different
rates. But that kind of data is crunching a million and a half or two million transactions to find out
where people parked. And that takes a lot of work.
I can't do by myself anymore. So that was my thought. But I welcome other interpretations. If, Matt,
you think that we should be doing it differently, or Aobahn, or anybody else? I guess, again, I'm going
into a conversation around setting the broad contours of what the responsibility of the tax force is,
what the responsibilities of the commission are, what we expect staff would be able to do to support
that. Code, Tyrus's question, code says produce or oversee an annual analysis of parking asset management.
So I think there's some flexibility there. Yeah.
When I say template, I mostly meant the data fields that we want produced, that I don't anticipate
commissioners analyzing the data systems to produce, but rather against staff or contractors to produce
those data fields. I think there's an open question about the text of the report, the analysis piece.
I think staff's opinions and guidance would be very welcome, but it's not ultimately the staff that's
charged with
ultimately, or you know, production or oversight of the report. So I think it would be advisory to the
commission if staff wanted to also interpret the data, you know, by way of how we sequence that production.
I think I'd be happy to, you know, to kind of draft a plan, I guess, or like a process, you know, one
pager to describe this. I mean, instead we're just kind of talking through it, but I guess that's my
vision. I think there's a little,
wiggle room on the writing of the report and exactly how they get sequenced and finalized. So I would
like to just propose to everyone who has an interest in this report to look at the 2018 report and to
look specifically at the figures. I told you how they broke down. There's a pattern to them. Again,
Chapter two is the overall performance of parking.
Chapter three is garages, four is meters, five is neighborhood zones. And in each chapter, it's the
same thing. We do the inventory. We do an overall performance. We do revenues. We do expenses. And in
between revenues and expenses, we do system performance, like how much are people actually using things.
One way to measure that has been money because we've charged a dollar an hour, at least on the meters.
That's not been true with the garages. Michelle can speak to that if she'd like.
we need to start tracking usage, not simply revenue. We can't use revenue as a substitute for usage
beyond that. So, you know, like having said that, I'm going to be asking people eventually, are there
any figures in the 2018 report that you wouldn't reproduce in a future report? Are there any figures
that you'd add? Okay. I don't think we need to do more than what's here.
But what's here was substantial enough that it couldn't be done by volunteer commissioners alone. And
I wanted to ask the clerk's office, because they also sit on a body of data, before we go any further,
if they had anything to add to the collection of data for this report. Did you have anything you wanted
to say about citations, for example? No. Okay. Susan?
Is it easy enough to get citation data and compile it? I mean, you have access to all the data you need.
We compile it on a monthly basis anyway. OK. All right. So Matt's point, I think, about trying to define
a process. I think we're starting to coalesce a process here, which is what you just outlined, Steve.
I think using the 2018 report as a basis, determining what, if anything, in that report
would be something that, for example, we don't have data sources for or would maybe just consume an
inordinate amount of staff time to prepare. And then if we can sort of just delineate that and then
decide, OK, that's not going to go in future reports because the ROI isn't really there. In my mind,
that's kind of the core of what this process would need to be, I think.
Although, Matt, I would be curious to hear if there's anything else in your mind when you're talking
about defining this process. You also earlier mentioned a kind of hypothetical timeline that would be
spring of next year trying to pull together a report for calendar 2026. I don't want to skip past that,
I guess, because I think that's an important thing for
probably most of the people in this room be at least roughly on the same page about. Well, before we
get to deadline, let me first just ask any department that's here, is there anything that we've talked
about so far that sounds like a too heavy a lift as far as data gathering goes? None of us. Okay. I
believe that staff just need to be told what data to gather. Okay.
I think it may come down to, Adam, what you were saying about identifying the, what's the term, like
the specific report that we need to generate a certain table. The one I'm most concerned about is the
report, the table you point to because everything I know about the data we try to do for block face
usage is going with the way park mobile zones work where the block face itself
is not as easily calculable maybe now as it was then. Why would you say that is? Because you can change
where you park in the zone for ParkMobile. So you might park in front of Uptown for your lunch and then
you might head within that zone to, I don't exactly know how big the zones are, but you can head somewhere
else in the zone. So it's not going to show you a perfect block face data point on the block in front
of Uptown necessarily. When you integrate ParkMobile's data with
Do we have any data at all about that user tendency to move? Do we have any ways of knowing whether
that happens a lot or not? We can look into that. That would be an interesting question that we want
to find out. I don't think so. If you think about the way ParkMobile works, you put your time in.
And then if you move, you're not telling them you move. And I don't think they're going to have geocaching
of locations or things like that. That's right. The only way for them to be able to calculate that would
be to track the GPS location of cars and be able to say, yes, we have a database of cars and where they
were at specific points in time.
I'll clearly state I'm not asking for that. Which is not, I think, what anyone is expecting is happening
with the service. May I? Yes, please. No, because we've always enforced based on zone with park mobile
instead of by space. Other communities actually do park mobile by space, which ultimately that's what
you guys want to look at. You could do it and change it, but then you'll have to also pay the
mark every single space in the city. So you're asking for something else. There's also another problem
with this data set and that's that there's no way to track when construction or spaces are closed due
to special events. Other things that will bias the data because the the assumption operating assumption
is that all spots are open all of the time. There are lots of routine situations that affect whether
or not any spot is actually open.
That is actually not true. It's just exorbitant. It's an expensive task to do, but I've been able to
do it because I've had access to raw data. You can see when a block, there's no action whatsoever. You
can conclude that the block was closed. It's just very difficult to do. Perhaps a block, but then to
do an individual space, which is sometimes what is required from, for example, construction right of
way permit.
The only way you could cross-reference that data would probably be to go to a Board of Public Works
packet. Staff are not individually tracking a spot. Each spot doesn't have a unique ID that is being
tracked in a system. This has been closed for construction. Again, as Nicole has said, it is possible
that if we change the way we do it, we're not proposing any such change yet. I will also point out that
when this report was made,
If you look at figure 4.3 when you get a chance, you'll see the breakdown of usage of the meters. It
was roughly one sixth app, one third coin and one half card. Those figures have flipped now. Literally
one half of parking meter transactions are being done by the app and only one sixth by coin. So with
as little park mobile data as there was at this time, it was reasonable enough
to just go with the first space where somebody paid for ParkMobile and to assume they stayed there the
whole time. We were looking for general figures, not the, I mean, even though there's great detail in
here, we're looking for trends over time. I mean, if we were to unify ParkMobile with IPS data, no matter
how imperfect, as long as we do it consistently from year to year, we can see trends. That doesn't mean
that we're not missing
a performance issue in a certain block because people pay there and they move and park somewhere else,
but it's close enough. There's some horseshoes joke in there somewhere. So it's still, I think, worth
our trouble to do some kind of depth into this and to combine the two even though we know it's not perfect
and we can move. Sorry, my mistake was thinking we were talking about what was available, not what we
want to be available.
I'm talking about what is available. For this report, we're not gonna have the luxury any more than
we did in 2018. I still think it's worth combining the two data sets so we can see, I mean, it's still
gonna give us a good heat map. I completely agree that you can make that reasonable simplification that
where somebody establishes their mobile session is where they're parking. You're right, it's not perfect.
It's good enough. It's good enough. It's good enough, yeah. Again, we're looking for trends.
We're looking to make it clear that this neighborhood is being over-parked. We can do something about
it. And that's ultimately the goal. Matt. This is interesting and helpful. Also feels to me like very
weedy about a particular data point type of issue that, yes, warrants some caveats and interpretation.
And that's the job for the board.
You know, can I bring back the process? Of course. And again, we're charged with producing an annual
report. Prior reports have been on the calendar year time cycle. If we'd like to replicate that, our
first calendar year operation as a commission is this year. We could produce the report by sometime
early in 2027. I think doing it say by the end of Q1 makes it actionable for some of the policy decisions
that can follow from it. Yes.
And it seems to me, so, like, A, like, if people agree, like, can we, like, broadly have a line there
on that coming out of this meeting, for instance? And then what would be the next steps? I would think
maybe this task force, like the members from the commission, need to align on, like, specifically what,
maybe even producing a template, you know, from the 2018 report of, like, these figures, these, yeah,
these figures are what we'd like to see produced and what we in them and then stock, you know, can assess
what's feasible or what's not.
few instances in which there are limitations and then we can work through those issues and settle you
know over the next couple of months not exactly what it is that will be produced by staff on the data
front as well as you know with regard to any advisory interpretive type things and then you know again
a timeline for the commission itself whether it's through this task force initially or the commission
as a whole to actually write and finalize the report so
I'm trying to define the timelines and get alignment if we can, again, and roles and next steps, just
because I know our time is limited and I want to make sure that we're identifying the right path forward
that can get this to meet our requirements. Okay. Yeah, I appreciate that. And I want to just say that
my first goal was to find out if there were any red flags from departments about data that they considered to be
too difficult to acquire or that would take an inordinate amount of time. We may not know that today,
particularly public works. I know you have the majority of the data that we're concerned about.
And so, you know, before we even agree to a March deadline, which we're not really in a position to
do today, that's not the goal here, is to have everyone who is thinking about this to look at that report,
to look at specifically those figures and to see if there's any red flags and let us know at some point
in the next
Month or so? Two months? That's what we've been working on. Oh, that's great. That's the approach we're
taking is just reviewing the data points in there, what data points we currently have that aren't in
there, and thinking about it that way. And we're going to want to work with you to figure out how to
formulate the reports so that we can set them up once and then generate them. The setup here is going
to be the hardest thing. We should be able to do the same thing year after year with much less effort
than the first year.
So again, I'm going to be asking anybody who might have data to contribute to this report to let us
know if they, at some point in the next month, if they see any red flags. I'm encouraged to hear that
I think the answer is probably no. I just wanted to make sure that departments knew that that was my
first question, even though I also hear Matt's concern that
You know, we need to pick a deadline date. I do think the end of March is reasonable, but I don't want
to commit anybody to it yet until we fully understand the tasks. Are there any other general thoughts
that people have about getting this done? Has anybody seen this enough to know that there's anything
that we should be concerned about reproducing? Not yet.
I'm still a little unclear on what the, like, I hate to bring it back to the particulars, Matt, because
I really appreciate the bigger picture here, but just the mechanics of compiling data. If there are
expectations about what this looks like, because it's still not clear to me if the expectation is that
commissioners will be writing things
or if staff will be writing things and commissioners will be responding and reacting to the things.
Again, I would say that the hard part was the data compilation. The hard part was never the writing.
It was, did we know that this data was accurate enough to act on? And I know that I spent the vast majority
of my time compiling data and not writing.
I couldn't write some things when I was contributing to the 2017 report, for example, because I didn't
know what the answers were. I couldn't know whether the data I had was complete or whether it was fully
accurate. Again, I was working in a silo when I was doing data in 2017. The 2018 report, there were
more of us working on it, but it was still a big lift.
Did that answer your question? No. Yeah, I want to try to make sure we address your question, because
I think I understand what you're asking here, which is who is ultimately responsible for maybe, if not
the final stage of the report, but each stage of the preparation of it. And then also, I suppose, who
is putting their name on the report at the very end, so to speak, or literally
Is it the commission signing off on it or is it staff? In other words, is it a staff report done with
the help of the commission or is it a commission report done with the help of staff? I think that's
kind of an important distinction. I think one probably commits more time on the part of the commissioners
to shepherd the process along, make lots of individual requests of staff and other relevant parties
Whereas maybe the other is someone on staff kind of needs to be that role, that shepherd, and keep the
process moving along. Is that sort of the essence of your question? Yes. Yeah. And I know at this stage
perhaps it's a little bit of an arbitrary answer to the question, whatever that might be.
I agree, it's I think an important one for everyone to be on the same page about because I don't want
to leave that open too long, that question of sort of who is the person shepherding the process. I mean,
I think currently as we speak, it's the task force doing so, but that isn't to say that staff isn't
going to, yeah, go ahead. I think the short answer would be let us take a look at any other non-statutory
commission that reports to the council.
Uh, who writes those reports? Okay. Well, in that case, Matt, I would address you here as member of
the council, um, from reports you've seen from, you know, different entities like this, maybe it's another
commission or maybe it's a city department. Um, what do you feel like is most useful for the council
and what kind of has set the precedent for what, you know, we might follow for this commission report?
Good question. I mean, I think, actually, Deputy Clerk Crossley probably has some good insight on that
as well, as helping oversee for the commission. My general sense is that the commissions that are reporting
to us, they have staff liaisons who are their support, but they are delivering those products and creating
them themselves. And so the thing I feel is important is that the commission is ultimately the one driving
the policy piece of it and recommendations. That's the role of the commission. It's their advisory in nature.
They're made up of appointments from different bodies of our local government. And it's not simply meant
to be a place for public to participate in something staff is ultimately responsible for. That's something
different. And so I think that we're talking about where the handoff point is, essentially. I think
we should document this in a proposed process for discussion in our next meeting. I'm happy to take
the lead on that if one of us as the task force member would like to.
just spitball it. I think, again, once we establish a template in terms of the data fields that need
to be produced, that's the staff job, I think, we've established. Maybe we would also like a memorandum
or a few memoranda from the relevant staff members about their interpretation of the data, what trends
they see, what they think is important about it, what the implications are. And then it would be the
commission's job to actually finalize and write the report
bringing its own insights and analysis, but also taking as advisory staff's input and analysis. Now,
I mean, the final writing and narrative form of the report would be a responsibility of the commission
and maybe a particular commissioner is designated to draft. And then there's, you know, some discussion
amendments, et cetera. So like that's a version of this. I think that could work pretty well. This is
my feeling as well. I think that I don't want to obligate staff to feel like they have to interpret data.
But I also don't want to, if staff wants to have input in the interpretation data, we welcome it. But
I do feel it's the obligation of the commission to interpret the data, to think about policy. In fact,
the last item under 202-100-D7 is recommending changes to the parking system necessary to advance the
goals of the comprehensive plan and other applicable city plans. What we can't do
What we've proven, we just don't have the capacity to do as commissioners is compile that data. And
whether we get help from existing city staff or we have to ask for contractors to do it, that's beyond
the scope of our ability. And then another question is going to be, how much will that cost? We are
authorized to have a budget to get data, but we haven't asked for it yet. We don't want to have to ask
for it if we don't need it.
But there is a cost to generating that data. And it's simply one that volunteer commissioners can't
bear. So I think that for sure it's that we need staff help to generate the data. We welcome
staff interpretation of the data, but we don't want to obligate staff to do that interpretation if they
don't feel like they have anything to say or they don't want to have to do that work.
It is our job to interpret that data. I do think there are some departments, again, planning and ESD,
that ought to be interested in interpreting the data since they're keepers of plans. But I don't begrudge
any department interpreting the data. So I don't know if the answers from both of us are sufficient to
answer your question. I believe my question was answered by Matt's commitment to propose a workflow
for whatever next task force meeting, whenever that will happen. OK. I didn't even propose to set a
second meeting for the task force. I just needed us to start the conversation. And I want to be able
to report to the Transportation Commission.
Does do the commission members want to meet again for any reason before the next regular hearing of
the Transportation Commission? I would just say that I think it is important for the task force to meet
again, but I don't think it has to be before the next commission meeting. As a point of order, I don't
know that we could simply because as a task force staff have been advised by the first office to limit
task force meetings to an hour a month.
thereabouts. By the clerk's office? By Jennifer Crossley? Yes. That's news to me. That's totally fine
with me. I just want to make sure you weren't eager to go any further than that this zoom. That's fine.
No. Okay. I don't again feel we need to discuss that now. We can talk about it. I mean, if you two would like to
set up a regular time, I feel like we need to consult with anybody else who might need to be at any
future meeting to find a more congenial regular time to meet. And just as a reminder, it would be official
business, so just make sure that we're given the opportunity to notice meetings appropriately. OK. Yeah.
Is there anything else anybody would like to contribute just as a general comment on this effort? I
just want to know, should I email
you Steve or Iris or the link in the immunization schedules and that sort of thing. So you as a general
policy always go to CC the Transportation Commission email on communications with Steve or
other commissioners on the task force. It's just transportation.commission at bloomington.in.gov and
that goes to me and all the other staff liaisons for commission. So yeah I mean that at least makes
sure that it's
received by the commission and we can go from there. So yeah, any those links will be very useful and
any data that departments that happen to have that they want to just submit early because they know
where it is, we'd like that. I'm going to want to meet with individual departments to ask about,
you know, how hard any given data request might be.
And once again, I'm going to ask everyone, please review this report, look at each figure, and tell
me if there's anything that's a red flag, that's something that you think we can't do, don't need, or
maybe there's something missing. We need to add some data, okay? Because I think this is as decent a
template as there is, at least the figures in this. But I, for one, am open to any kind of
rethinking of this template. In other words, if somebody wants to propose a different template, now
would be a good time. Any thoughts from planning? We don't keep any data that will be helpful to this,
so maybe my concern isn't warranted.
Before our next meeting, would it be helpful to just have all the data in the 2018 that we could replicate?
And if we can't, then we can have that conversation. I'm worried about this meeting was a lot of people
in high-value positions kind of just sitting around. And I don't want to do that again. I would much
prefer that we came with something that the body could look at and be like, yep, this looks good. And
then that'll answer the question that you're saying, which is,
What are we missing and providing? So I think that's a question. Sorry. But I had hoped to involve the
people who were most closest to the data to be part of this task force that didn't mean to require department
heads. And I'm grateful for their presence. I share your concern. Can each department identify somebody
who could be their liaison or basically be a member of this task force so that we can ask them for data?
I guess I'm just, it's an ask for data. That seems like a thing that can happen offline if it's a request
to attend a meeting, just encourage like advanced planning, getting a large group like that was the
urgency of getting this made it hard to get key people involved at the last minute. So those are maybe
two separate requests. No future meetings require this high level. This is our first time talking about
it at all.
And so we are grateful for your presence. It was not unnecessary. Future meetings are going to be much
more in the weeds. So we just need points of contact. We don't want to be disturbing department heads.
We want to be talking. I mean, again, Rick Dietz could have been here, but Megan Blair was the person
who would process the data. So if we can get help in identifying contacts who we can ask questions that
the task force can ask questions of, it would be helpful.
It might be helpful in future meetings to have those list of questions in advance of the meeting to
make sure the right people are there. Because with this meeting, we had no idea what was even going
to be discussed. So that would be helpful. Understood. And again, there will be no future meeting like
that. There will be agendas for future meetings. We just needed to talk about what we're going to do.
Just to clarify, for future task force meetings, because we don't really have a procedure for this,
is the expectation that each individual task force member
has equal authority over setting the agenda and preparing documents and just what the mechanics of scheduling
are just a little challenging. Well, I'd hope that each department could name somebody who would join
the task force if departments would prefer not to do that and just wait for the three commission members
to ask for that. Just to clarify, staff cannot volunteer to participate on the task force. The task
force exists for the benefit of the commission. This is your show.
So to the extent that staff come here, it is because you have requested them to be there. It has nothing
to do with their intense wants or desires. I appreciate your desires, thank you. And Steve, I think
just to add on to that a little bit. So I think really the gist here is that the task force is the three
of us. So no one else is a member of the task force. They may be attending a meeting here or there or
responding to the press for data, but I believe
What Irish is trying to get across is that Matt, you and I are the task force and I think the agenda,
the scheduling, that sort of thing, that's largely up to us. All I wanted to know was who specifically
to invite from each department that's relevant.
So if each department wants to volunteer somebody who will be here when we need them, we don't need
them all the time. There won't be volunteers. And I guess who is the chair of this task force to facilitate
that? You have helped, but I guess just that's a maybe direct question is, who is in charge of this
task force? That has not been established. We didn't name a chair. I've been the default chair.
As the chair of the commission as a whole, I'm happy to, we need to wrap it up. I'm happy to continue
acting unless Matt or Ayobhan would prefer to be chair. I certainly don't object. Matt, do you care?
Can I chair it? You want to chair it? Do you want to? Matt wants to chair it. I have to step out, but
than Mr. Chair and Mr. Chair. If you just email the clerk at bloomington.in.gov, we will try and send
somebody or any information that's appropriate. I'll follow up with email after consulting with the
chair about how to proceed. Thank you all for being here. That's all we have. Is there any last comments?
None? We will let you know what our next meeting is. Thank you for attending. We appreciate your coming
on such short notice.