- Good evening seen as we have a quorum and it is 630. I'm gonna go ahead and call this
- Deliberation session of the Bloomington Common Council to order here on Wednesday, April 9th. Will
- the clerk please call the roll?
- Councilmember Flaherty here Ruff here Rallo here Piedmont Smith here Stossberg
- Daly is absent Zulek here
- Rosenberger here and Asari
- Thank you
- I've been trying to start out most meetings
- this year with some
- items of historical interest I
- Skipped that last week because we were trying really really hard to have a really fast meeting
- Which we accomplished very well
- So but today I am going to start off with
- This little tidbit related to black culture in Bloomington
- so in the early 1970s
- Dr. Herman C. Hudson oversaw several developments related to black culture on the IU campus
- including founding the black studies department
- Opening the black culture center and the afro-american arts institute and that includes the african-american
- dance company
- And I wanted to highlight that tonight because this weekend they are having their 50th anniversary
- Two-part performance on Friday and Saturday night at the bus car chumbly. So I just thought that
- that was something important to note
- Especially in this moment where it seems like there's a lot of pieces of culture that are trying to
- be canceled
- This is something this weekend that is going to continue to be highlighted. Hopefully for at least
- another 50 years
- So on to our agenda summation
- Since last week's meeting was very brief. We're gonna start with a period of councilmember reports
- tonight
- Then we are gonna have a council discussion related to budget priorities for 2026
- We're gonna have public comment related to budget priorities some notes on council schedule and
- then adjournment
- So we will start on
- My right with councilmember reports councilmember Flaherty
- Thank You councilmember rough
- Councilmember Rallo. Yes, just to announce that councilmember Ruff and I have our monthly
- constituent meeting this Saturday at 10 a.m. Which is April
- 12 I believe
- So you can find a link at the council website Bloomington dot ion dot gov slash council and
- You're welcome to join us
- Thank you
- Thank You councilmember Piedmont Smith
- Yes
- As many of you know, there was a large
- Demonstration here in Bloomington and many cities throughout the country on Saturday a hands-off
- rally
- to let the federal government and especially Donald Trump's administration know that
- We value
- Social justice we value integrity. We value the rights of
- people from all walks of life
- value diversity equity and inclusion
- And many other things that that were addressed during the rally
- And I just wanted to mention that and there was a good turnout and councilmember Zulek and I spoke
- and councilmember Asari as well
- and some of our colleagues from the county and state governments as well and
- It's just very important for us to keep speaking out about what's happening in our federal
- government because it is not normal and it is not acceptable
- For
- Myself, I do have a constituent meeting this Saturday is always the second Saturday of the month
- It'll be at 11 a.m.
- And since the farmers market has started back up
- in
- In front of City Hall, there will be an in-person component. So it'll be a hybrid meeting
- I will be in person in the McCloskey room of City Hall from 11 to 12
- 11 to 12, but you can also join via zoom and
- There will be a link
- As for councilmembers are all own rough. There's a link on the City Council web page to that zoom
- meeting
- Thank you
- Great. Thank you going down to the other end councilmember. Sorry no report. Thanks. That's member
- Rosenberger
- councilmember Zulek
- My my new newsletter will be releasing on Monday. So if you'd like to subscribe you can go to tiny
- URL
- calm
- Civic zoo. I hope to be interesting. Thanks
- Thank you
- and I have a small report I
- also want to
- Make sure to announce my constituent meeting well in advance. It is not this Saturday. It is next
- Saturday April 19th
- And it will be here right down the hall in the McCloskey room at 11 from 11 to 12
- And then also this Saturday in addition to a councilmember Piedmont Smith's constituent meeting
- There's actually the Indiana Democratic Party has organized a people's town hall here
- in City Hall from
- 10 to 1130 and there will be various
- Democratic officials there having that town hall. So that is the second thing that I wanted to
- share
- and then this transitions us into our discussion tonight, so
- We have a little community survey which is linked to a QR code that I believe our council attorney
- is going to get up
- on the screen
- That is a very simple survey
- Of what we are starting to talk about tonight, which is
- budget outcome areas and budget outcomes
- We are shifting to outcome based budgeting and so part of the idea with that is to prioritize our
- outcomes
- What kind of outcomes do we want so before we ever have any discussion about it?
- I want members of the public to take this little survey and take like three four minutes. It is
- literally
- Your top five
- Outcome areas without any other additional information right now in terms of what any of that means
- or
- What might fit into those areas and it's you can this is what this is what happens when you have a
- teacher in charge
- Of things is the teacher gives you a pretest. So this is like a pretest. I'm sorry, not really
- though
- So
- This is the moment where council pauses for just a second to give the public just a minute to do
- that survey while
- Council members can also think about that because we had a whole little budget worksheet that we
- were supposed to work on
- And hopefully we will be prepared for that conversation next
- Take this little survey that's probably okay, too, but we're gonna talk about it. So
- So
- I'm sorry what no
- That that would have been that would have been fun if I thought of that earlier
- I
- For for
- Just to review the process by which we're going to
- Manage this year's budget conversations for those of you who maybe were not
- We're not at the meeting last week tonight's discussion sort of starts off
- This process of prioritization of council and so we're going to have a conversation tonight
- Next week at the Fiscal Committee meeting the Fiscal Committee is charged with kind of synthesizing
- the conversation tonight and building a priority
- lists like like a
- priority, oh my gosh a
- Prioritized list of council budget priorities and
- Then we will come back as a full council on the 30th to
- Vote on that list from the Fiscal Committee
- Basically, it'll be a test to see if the Fiscal Committee managed to synthesize the conversation.
- Well
- So so this is just the beginning of the conversation and so at the Fiscal Committee meeting next
- week there will certainly be the
- results of this
- And I appreciate the the seven responses that have come in so far
- Eight responses that have come in so far fantastic
- That will be open
- I'll leave it open for a little while longer, but I really did want to kind of get like a pre look
- from people
- and I kind of do expect that things might might change after hearing discussion and after
- this whole process tonight, but I
- Think
- That we're gonna move on right now
- To our actual conversation. So in terms of council members and how we're gonna facilitate this
- today
- We're gonna start with that conversation of step one
- Choosing and defining outcome areas with everybody being able to kind of
- Talk about their top one or two or three and the reasons why they chose those those outcome areas
- I'm hoping that that takes I believe oh, I forgot to write my times down on my cheat sheet here
- I believe that that was 20 to 30 minutes set aside for that part
- And then we're gonna move on to part two, which is facilitating discussions of specific budget
- interest or items
- Okay, so specific things that council members go. Yes, I definitely want that in and then we're
- kind of gonna have a break slash community engagement activity
- so if you're in chambers, you'll notice that there's some big sheets of paper there over on the
- side and on those sheets of paper are the
- 12 items that were on that survey and that were in the packet as examples of outcome areas
- So our task for the community and council members to during that break is to think of a specific
- program activity
- Something that the city does that you personally just think is really really valuable or is really
- important
- It can be something really big or it can be you know, something really small
- Write it on a post-it note and then stick it under whichever particular area. It is that you think
- it fits under
- after that we're going to
- Council's gonna come back together and have the discussion of step to the broad goals and the kind
- of specific measurable outcomes that we think
- That we've thought of already
- then we'll have a period of general public comment around the budget items and
- That will essentially be our meeting. Okay
- Does anybody have any questions about what we're doing here tonight before we start?
- Great so who wants to start by telling me or us their
- Top one or two or three outcome areas
- Yeah, say the bullets you picked say why you picked them like order them if you can like I know
- like I personally kind of
- Have a number one and a number one a and one B and then a number two and a number three
- So, I don't know how everybody else did it. But yeah sharing those things and the wise
- Who wants to start or do I need to just like go down the list that?
- All right, go ahead councilmember Rosenberger
- What I put on the list on the QR code
- I'm just looking at the worksheet that I filled out
- And you're looking you're asking us about the number step one choose or define outcome areas. Yes.
- So my top three I think were
- affordable housing
- and homelessness transportation and mobility and public safety, I guess I would say
- I
- chose those in general because I
- think they are the areas where
- things are in crisis and
- I think they are the areas where we have the ability via our code and as councilmembers to make the
- most impact
- In terms like, you know the work we're legally allowed to do here
- Okay, I want to put a hat or put a
- I
- Think I want to ask you said those are the areas where you think council members can have the most
- impact and
- I'm not sure if right now I want to have that specific discussion, but maybe in a little bit
- I want to know what specific impact do you think council members can have in those areas?
- Who's next
- Councilmember Piedmont Smith
- So I had I was also thinking of what the most dire needs of our community are and
- So I had
- affordable housing homelessness
- Then I had Health and Human Services
- thinking mostly of mental health care and substance use disorder treatment and
- Then I had public safety which is of course those three are all tied together as well
- Now equity was one item in the list
- But I I have a hard time thinking of that as a separate thing
- I think that that should be interwoven with all the other goals
- Great who wants to go next
- Councilmember sorry, I
- Think to me one of the
- I think one of the one of the things that's maybe not
- Directly reflected often our budget is maybe the way I was I was thinking about it
- But I'm economic health and jobs is something that
- You know, I'd like to see us
- Prioritizing was probably I think has a lot of downstream
- Effects on a lot of other things affordable housing
- Probably, you know 1a or or 2
- And neighborhood livability and social health. That's why I said it's three
- I was just say sort of maybe to also maybe I don't know be provocative or open it up for a further
- conversation as well that
- the I
- Think there's some discussion about whether these I mean, I think these are interesting
- Suggestions of the categories and like, you know, maybe there's some overlap with some of them as
- well, you know
- And you know, obviously helped to help had had a hand in and making this list, right?
- but I but I think it's an interesting question of
- Even like what we might define as our buckets
- I think there's a really good start there, but I think there's some overlap. I think as councilmember
- Piedmont Smith
- Mentioned as well
- Yeah, those those probably mine. I think sort of my my one one star is economic health and jobs
- Affordable housing and then neighborhood livability and social health which to me sort of involves
- transportation and public safety and things like that as well
- Great thank you
- I'll just say my number one priority is affordable housing and I think that a lot of
- these categories tie into each other and sometimes if
- taking care of one
- Some of the other things will be taken care of as well
- For example public safety. We know that when people have the resources that they need crime goes
- down
- stuff like that, and so I think everything is pretty intertwined, but
- Making sure that everyone has an affordable place to live and then I would say to
- a and to be our transportation mobility and
- Neighborhood livability and social health. I think they all tie in together as to what like a
- healthy successful
- life
- Looks like
- Thank you who's next down here at the other end
- Councilor Barallo sure I I picked five actually
- And then prioritize them, but I couldn't I could winnow it down to three that would where I could
- apply specific budget
- Well, and some are more related to policy directions than actual expenditures, but public safety
- housing
- economic development
- equity health and human services sort of together on that one and
- Environment sustainability
- Great thank you next
- Comes member Flaherty
- Like my colleagues I would say, you know, a lot of these topics are intersectional
- So it feels a bit arbitrary to prioritize them. I think they're all important but
- In naming a few I think I would focus on
- Where we're struggling the most and have the most need for making change from where we are now
- Number one for me would be transportation and mobility
- Specifically, we've adopted a goal of zero deaths and serious injuries in our streets
- We have had hundreds and hundreds of serious injuries in our streets and quite a few deaths in the
- last five years
- I would also call that the biggest public safety problem we have
- So pretty similar
- Affordable housing and homelessness and then equity and would just again
- Yeah echo that those are those are like
- Transportation equities about how we improve safety for marginalized users of our roadways things
- like that
- Changes to our zoning code and how we increase housing supply more diverse housing types housing
- affordability, etc. That's a housing equity issue
- Etc, but I think equity for me is and I guess if I have to name the three it's transportation
- mobility
- affordable housing and homelessness and equity
- and then last note is just that
- Again sustainability and action on climate implement our climate action plan is deeply intersectional
- with those as well. Thank you
- Councilmember sorry, what's your question? Yeah, I'm just reflecting as well. I think I agree with
- councilmember Flaherty
- and
- Thought and in terms of thought experiment one thing that I'm thinking a lot about is I
- Think we might all prioritize
- You know affordable housing as an example, but we don't see that often reflected in our budget per
- se and I think you know
- Maybe the the levers that we have for that are perhaps more policy-based or less
- Let's budgetary but but I'm interested in sort of thinking thinking through that too
- which is like, you know, what where are the things that we can have I think to the to the question
- of like
- what are our prior I like the like what are the
- The the word that you used our big pain points our emergency areas, right but it's like
- What what can we do in those spaces with with money and so I maybe was thinking about this too from
- the perspective of
- You know, which of these areas can the city make big moves in putting influxes of cash into?
- Yeah, that's an interesting thing to differentiate
- Councilmember rough do you want to go or do you want me to go?
- You know, I agree with everybody's very hard to rank these I didn't really have a success doing it
- and they are so
- inner
- You know, they're also interconnected. I'm at like councilman Flaherty's comment and councilmember
- sorry
- I think also suggested look, you know, we're looking at the ones the areas where
- We've come up shortest and in other words if they're all relatively equally important
- but some we may be doing better than other areas, which is
- Where we would want to start to maybe focus on where we can make the biggest difference. I think as
- customer 30
- suggested but to me
- And I don't know if anyone's mentioned this yet, but this this idea the high-performing government,
- right?
- That's the delivery of government services and that's what really is fundamentally about
- so I
- You know a lot of this falls under to me this idea of a high-performing
- government, that's what that's what people look to us for and
- That's what?
- You know business looks to have secure
- Something that can rely on a high-performing government to make investment in the community
- And so looking at areas where maybe we're not as high-performing
- Whether it's things like street maintenance of the streets, you know, I'm interested in
- Possibly the idea of bringing back the leaf pickup program for example
- Sort of basic some basic services. Anyway, that that was my only real comment. So thank you for
- giving me an opportunity
- Thanks, I would like to put a pin in the leaf pickup thing too because that should be under a
- specific budget item
- Interest in the part two of the discussion. So I want to make sure that that gets put under there
- I'll go ahead and share mine if I can find them
- So I also thought that they were really
- Intersectional of course and I
- kind of put my number one as neighborhood livability and social health kind of feeling like if
- people are
- doing well and
- There's livability and general social health then
- That will start a ripple effect through lots of other things and so kind of like a 1 1a and a 1b
- under that is
- affordable housing and public safety because if we really want people if we want neighborhoods to
- be livable and we want people to be
- socially mentally healthy then
- They need to have a place to live and they need to feel safe in that place
- And that encompasses I think both things like fire and police response, but also of councilmember Flaherty
- you mentioned the I think it was you
- transportation related or maybe it was councilmember Rosenberger I
- Can't remember who mentioned it first now
- Just in terms of safety and security. It's not all about policing or fire protection. It's also
- about
- Feeling safe to like go for a walk that you're not gonna get hit by a car or you know
- Drive a car and you're not gonna get into an accident because people are driving well, so and the
- roads are designed nicely. Um, and
- so then
- if that was my number one with those two little caveats then
- my number two was transportation and mobility partly because of how that ties into public safety
- and
- Livability in terms of being able to get to where you need to go
- and then number three was economic health and jobs kind of
- For what councilmember Asari said in terms of that trickle-down effect of like if people have jobs
- Then they're more likely to be able to you know, go to the doctor and access other pieces
- of the community and have stable housing and that kind of thing
- So I
- Think right now just to help out the Fiscal Committee
- What did people here were were areas that we had in common if we had to do a top three
- for all of council what did council members here that
- That we all had in common I'm gonna make you guys think so the Fiscal Committee has some help next
- week
- Housing
- Does everybody agree with that
- Yes, does anybody not agree with that
- I don't think that I necessarily said to rank but just try to do like three that that everybody
- kind of agreed with
- I neglected to mention one that I added myself. Can I just throw this out? Yeah basic
- infrastructure. That is
- Road paving stormwater sidewalks thinks that it's up to us to deliver to the to the public
- But I know I'm fine with housing being as one of the top priorities
- We can talk about what type of housing later
- Yeah, I also I want to put a pin in the basic infrastructure too
- Because I kind of thought of that under specific budget things in terms of
- Maintenance, so let's make sure that that gets brought up again, too. So generally speaking though
- We agree that housing should go
- Maybe on the list. I
- do want to ask though
- what we think in terms of
- What was mentioned already that difference between like
- Investing dollars
- versus like legislated legislation and
- If we could talk about that in context of housing maybe for just a minute in terms of like
- and I also think maybe it's helpful to
- To councilman Flaherty's point that I mean at the moment. This is like we said, I mean, it's a
- little arbitrary
- prioritizing them per se I mean as
- And councilman Rosenberger was just saying some good things. You should say them feel welcome to
- but the
- you know, maybe we want to cycle back to the question of
- Ranking and prioritization as we talked through about specific things. We want to see in the budget
- pertinent to this
- Because I mean to your point it's like if there are things we can fund for to improve affordable
- housing
- And that is our priority already in the general sense. It's there's like there's a conversation of
- like what our general priorities
- Comprehensive plans and things like that. But then there's also the question of like what's our
- priority for this budget specifically?
- Comes Barbara Rosenberger, did you want to share something?
- I was just there was a question on this end that about
- How could we fund afford like what could we fund in terms of affordable housing and housing affordability?
- So I just like shot out some ideas, but I don't know that it's time, you know
- Like one example was just
- Like incentivizing like some kind of program like down payment assistance
- but for small developers who are maybe wanting to build like 10 unit apartment buildings or
- you know a 10 unit apartment building that is affordable and so like
- incentivizing
- The types of housing we want to see that we're not seeing because it's not financially feasible
- basically right now
- Of course, the other part would be opening that up in the UDO so that people can build them as well
- You
- Talked you have something down. Yeah, I mean I mean for I mean for that matter though
- I think what's pertinent to a lot of recent conversation that we've had it's that you know at the
- end of
- At the end of last budget session when planning was here the conversation
- Directly was are we going to what what what are we doing in this budget to move towards a form-based
- UDO?
- And they said well, we'll put that in next year's budget
- As as as an example of another thing we can find there should be prioritized if if that's the
- direction we're trying to take
- Other thoughts on housing as something that we had in common
- Councilmember all oh
- Yes, I think
- Housing generally or an agreement type of housing. I think maybe we differ. I don't know
- But that's something we need to discuss some of its policy related
- I've wondered for a long time a lot of this
- owner occupied potential single-family homes
- Are now occupied by Airbnb something to the order of 900. I know West Lafayette has
- Code that prohibits or caps it at least I don't know if that's possible still
- I
- think
- You know, we're apartment rich community, but we're a owner occupied poor community
- so the type of housing really does matter and
- I'm interested in all types that could be owner occupied and I'm certainly versed to
- Policy that would remove
- Affordable
- Single-family or owner occupied homes from the market. So these there's more to say
- I mean in terms of investment
- I would be interested in bonding for a land bank in order to
- Provide space that we could dictate the type of housing that we need for the community things like
- that
- It's been discussed before Councilman Flaherty's mentioned it. So I think there are points of
- agreement. There are points of difference
- But I think I've said enough so
- As a follow-up to that, how does that relate to the summit land trust or are you kind of talking
- about types of things?
- Like the summit land trust as being something
- That you would be interested in
- You said that you were interested in bonding for a land bank
- And my follow-up question to that was like how is that like or different from the summit land trust?
- and so is it really that you're like interested in
- in
- Providing more support to that land trust movement. Yes, I think that would be one one way to go
- I don't know exactly what types of control that we actually have. I think I need to
- Review that but the point is is that
- the market doesn't seem to be delivering the the type of housing that is in demand and the housing
- study of
- 2019
- Indicated that that's what people wanted was to purchase and build equity in homes rather than rent
- because people are trapped in a rent trap and
- Then there's much more to say about
- rental housing in this community, too
- Whether or not these large structures are even fully occupied I understand that they're not
- Anyhow, so sorry to Terry on that
- But I do think I mean, I'm sorry go for it like
- It's it's this tension here. I think that's getting at the the main point
- I mean if the if the core question is what is it that we want to see reflected in this budget?
- In terms of areas that we'd really like to see funded
- I
- Feel like a lot of yeah
- I mean the most most a lot of those things are in the policy realm, right and so
- How do we hone out like how do we tease out the things that we actually want to get funded in each
- of these areas?
- So anybody else have anything that they want to add about housing as an area of commonality councilmember
- Piedmont Smith
- Well, I just don't want to leave out the other part of that which is homelessness
- housing and homelessness, I
- mean, I guess
- there's there's been a long long-standing tension between
- Addressing homeless people helping people who are unhoused now and using funds for that
- versus building solutions so that eventually we'll have
- Hardly any unhoused people at all
- And I think both are important I mean I
- But I I don't want to lose sight of you know, we need to make sure nobody dies homeless on our
- streets
- I
- Do think it might be worth splitting those two just because they do require two very different
- things and
- Funding for one looks very different than funding for the other even if they are intertwined
- Well as a follow-up on that I
- Mean we have it as affordable housing and homelessness and even if we split those then it's
- affordable housing
- Which is maybe different from just housing
- So is it that we have housing in common or that we have affordable housing in common
- Well, right
- You
- Well that that may come out in further
- Talking about what?
- Councilmember Osari said as far as where do we actually want to spend money in 2026?
- So that might be teased out a little more when we get to that level
- Members Oh, I'll just point out that in different
- community engagement events with
- Different
- organizations who work with who work closely with the unhoused a lot of what we've talked about is
- that
- four to eight hundred dollar a month gap that's really missing in the zero to four hundred as
- well and
- There are units available that are just going for way higher than then
- Really the majority of people in Bloomington can afford and so I would say it's not a housing
- problem
- It is an affordable housing problem
- Other thoughts on the housing that we had in common
- All right, what else did anybody hear that there was also I think transportation came up in almost
- all of our
- And what do we call it transportation and mobility?
- All right, does everybody agree or does anybody disagree about putting transportation and mobility
- as a priority
- Can I have a question I ask a question so are we ranking all of those
- Are they all going to be prioritized to some degree or are we just choosing a subset? How is this?
- I think right now. This is kind of a thought exercise
- And I would actually suggest on that point like maybe we should move on and cycle back to the
- question of you know with
- because I think when we talk about specifics as
- Councilmember Piedmont Smith said I think it will help it will help tease out it'll answer for
- itself this question. I
- Agree, I think we may have different things in mind regarding these topics and
- By informing each other one might rise above another or fall relative to each other
- So maybe we should proceed in that way
- So we want to move on to the next stage in my
- Facilitation which is discussion of specific budget items
- Because that does I mean it it could play in
- We've already kind of been talking about that a little bit
- Well, if we do that, why don't we
- Stick with the transportation and mobility the council members already cited that we have in common
- and
- Does anybody have any specific budget items that they were interested in related to transportation
- and mobility?
- Downtown circulator. I would like to see us fund a downtown circulator
- Okay
- All right, so we have a downtown circulator on the
- On the list of things that people want to fund
- Related to transportation. Are there other things related to transportation?
- I'll say this and I mean I know that I mean that's open up to this conversation. We have a
- transportation plan. So, you know
- Let's how about how about transportation plan be in the budget?
- Did anybody
- Does anybody want to cite specific pieces of the transportation plan that they want to councilmember
- Flaherty? Yeah a
- Number of these areas we're not starting from whole cloth. We do have plans policies
- goals in place already
- The transportation plan and the safety action plan under safe streets for all both should be
- guiding transportation decision-making
- In implementation we had a high priority network that we have not finished building out the
- timeline for which ends this year
- So we did relatively well, maybe 70 80 percent but failed to fully implement the priority network
- Established in the transportation plan so continuing to fund that and or updating that and funding
- an update that might be
- More informed by the safe streets for all safety action plan would be one approach
- we've also chronically underfunded sidewalks for I don't know decades and
- Pushed for more funding secured a very small amount of increased funding this year in the council
- sidewalk budget
- Sidewalk committee budget of 500k that's still almost nothing relative to the needs and relative to
- what our stated values and goals are
- So I think we need to see considerable increases in funding across it. I think of it in multiple
- buckets
- This is kind of evolved over time. I think of sidewalks
- I think of multi-use paths which serve both pedestrians and wheeled mobility users
- I think of protected bicycle infrastructure and increasingly I've been thinking about intersection
- treatments as well. So shorter crossing distances
- Accessibility curb ramps. Those are kind of distinct from any of those other buckets
- So again multi-use path protective bicycle infrastructure sidewalks and intersections and we really
- need
- Annual capital funding for these things. I mean we had a discussion last year about
- You know
- bonding for capital expenditures, which is which is all well and good, but when it's a recurring
- need and it's it's needed annually
- More or less in perpetuity or at least for decades before we're gonna, you know dig ourselves out
- of the hole
- Or possibly achieve our vision zero goals
- I think the general budget is a perfectly appropriate place for for this type of capital
- expenditure
- That's going to be recurring it would allow a level of planning and implementation that we simply
- haven't been able to achieve
- I
- Mean, we'll see what's possible. I think eight million dollars is a figure that is reasonable
- relative to the ambition and goals
- We have again to eliminate deaths on our streets
- and
- You know relative to the progress we've been able to make so far
- I tried to get into the numbers a little bit last year with the city engineer and actually assess
- the capital outlay
- Remaining to implement some of these things on the timelines
- We said we were going to and then estimating what the local match would need to be
- Assuming we're gonna be leveraging MPO dollars and everything else that we do to the maximum, you
- know ability to
- The maximum we can max we can
- So I don't know those are those are some of the things informing my thinking on it
- The different categories of things we need to be investing in for a complete streets approach,
- which is what our city policy is
- and to
- Essentially make progress on our vision zero goal
- Like that is going to require a pretty radical shift in how we think about and fund infrastructure
- if we're serious about it
- Second
- Can I ask you a follow-up on that real quick you threw out that eight million dollar number
- Is that what you think probably needs to be spent like per year right now on that kind of
- infrastructure?
- like generally speaking in an ongoing way or until we catch up or
- Was that just kind of a no, I think I mentioned four buckets
- You could think of that as maybe approximately two million two million in each bucket
- That would maybe equate to something like 60/40 in favor of
- Pedestrians over wheeled mobility users in terms of like who's the primary beneficiary in each of
- those different buckets
- Two million would be four times the the council sidewalk budget right now for sidewalks
- specifically for instance
- It would allow us to actually start addressing things like the South Walnut Street Pike
- Missing sidewalk where a pedestrian was killed a couple years ago
- Lots of other sidewalk gaps like that in the community that we are not making progress on
- And so we need to plan to coordinate the action
- But yes, I think that's like a reasonable like achievable level. We could certainly spend more
- There's plenty more to you know to be done
- But I think if you sustain that level of investment over a couple of decades
- We would see real transformative change
- That's my brother I
- Think councilmember Rosenberger had her
- I was just gonna get a little more nitty-gritty and just how the climate action plan is and you can
- just it's really I mean
- I think it's quite fun and exciting to read our goals because when we look at the transportation
- part of the climate action plan
- Just like it's you know
- Increased transit utilization by ten percent over 2018 by 2030
- increased shared mobility like carpooling by three percent of work commutes
- Encouraged density and increased housing options and affordability with the goal of increasing
- gross density by three percent of 2018 values
- That one isn't about cars. It's about housing
- obviously
- But I'm just saying like so we have all these right we have these goals that it's great that we don't
- like reinvent any wheels
- unintended because
- Reduce reduce single occupancy automobile used by eight percent of 2018 values, right?
- So all these climate action plan goals are also just so
- intertwined with our transportation
- Outcome in itself, you know and safe streets for all
- I also to some degree want to put a pin in that too
- Or just note that that also relates to like the step three of specific outcomes of measurable
- results
- Because all of those things are also measurable results that you know, we want to see that come out
- of those plans
- And now the climate action plan is kind of full of those
- Yeah, I wanted to mention that and these are interconnected as we said
- but when I was thinking of an ask this year for basic infrastructure and
- Mayor Thompson, I think alluded to it during the state of the city
- It was to pave neglected streets
- I
- Mean it doesn't do a bicyclist any good to hit a pothole. In fact, they're probably gonna be far
- more damaged than a
- car hitting a pothole. Well that might break you break an axle
- I'm aware. I've been around long enough to know that
- I've asked many many times public works
- What is the street paving schedule and I've been variably told that it's a 12-day paving schedule
- And I've been variably told that it's a 20-year cycle
- however, I know I've been here long enough to know that there are streets that haven't been paved
- in 40 years and
- They're crumbling and yet, you know, I hate to beat this horse
- But if a greenway goes in where there's crumbling
- Street I I think that that sends the wrong signal
- Especially one that's not necessary
- to the public and that is that
- Our priorities are scrambled. So that's this is one of my top I think
- Requests this year of the mayor of the administration is
- The maintenance of our streets and can we get on it? Can we can we repair the the ones that are
- most affected and
- Crumbling and then can we get on a 20-year cycle?
- Is that conceivable in and have some dedicated fund for that purpose?
- So it doesn't get neglected in the future
- Thank you councilmember Piedmont Smith, I saw your hand up earlier does she wanna
- Okay
- Go for it comment councilmember Ruff I
- Wanted I appreciate that councilmember Flaherty's, you know
- obviously spent some time on the numbers and
- Coming up come out with some estimates of what?
- Could oh the numbers of what the cost would be to
- increase
- progress in
- the areas of transportation that
- That he was talking about my question is for councilmember Flaherty because I'm interested in
- Might be a relative to the cost of the actual capital investment. It might not be
- As significant, but do you envision?
- additional staffing in planning transportation and engineering would be
- necessary to
- Maintain sort of a have a year after year
- increase in
- dedicated
- Investment and
- progress in construction and
- development of the of the transportation that you see would it would probably require
- additional
- folks
- Madam president
- Good question. I met with city engineering agency board this morning for a good period of time
- talking about this and some other things
- And we talked about that specific question. I think it's possible. Yes
- I think cities that have taken their vision zero goal seriously tend to have vision zero positions
- I a good friend of mine is the lead vision zero engineer for the city of Chicago
- Formally city Seattle before that smaller communities also have these positions though
- And so yeah, maybe something like that in the planning department ultimately would be needed and
- then not on the engineering side
- There are constraints that we run into relative to the ability to manage projects. Some of that can
- be managed by
- Contracting out the projects, but they're still require a level of oversight and project management
- that I think can be a factor
- I
- Know they're trying to hire right now another traffic engineer position that should help with some
- of that
- And I've had some other restructuring in the department to help
- Reformulate positions and have them better suited to do that type of management. So I think some of
- that's already in motion. I think
- Also, yes, it's possible. This would warrant a position or two
- Additionally possibly one in each department
- If we're able to make those kind of commitments
- You
- Thank you other
- Specific funding proposals related to transportation before we move on to like other specific
- funding things
- Okay
- Other specific funding things like at all like wait
- I asked somebody to put a pin in something earlier and I don't remember what it was
- Was it was it maybe it was councilmember Rallo with the maintenance and that already got in here
- Yeah, you did
- We already talked about yours a little bit, yeah
- Other specific councilmember Piedmont Smith
- Yeah, I mean we've talked about housing as an overall issue that we all agree is important in one
- way or another
- So I had
- I
- had an idea more specific idea for for that topic and that is
- To fund a housing summit to discuss strategies with builders and funders of affordable housing
- So that would be the cost of the event the staff time the follow-up possibly
- Consultant to
- Either run such a summit or follow up with some kind of action plan
- But I think that's long overdue. I mean we've had housing studies, but have we ever actually
- invited people who build housing to these things?
- Who fund affordable housing?
- I think that would be a great first step
- I also think that we should maybe look into funding a potential change to the UDO. I've heard that
- there are some hesitancies in
- terms of
- Pursuing different UDO changes because it's so expensive and I think if we went into the next year
- knowing that like this is a priority
- For us that maybe some of those hesitancies would
- Be alleviated
- Yeah, I would like to concur with that I said it since last year
- But also I mean it has played into decisions that we've made in the last several weeks even that
- that the
- Potential of that happening. So I would be like absolutely. I would very much want to see that in
- the in the budget
- What kind of funding do you think is needed for UDO changes?
- I mean last year last year, I think if somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I think director Hiddle
- said
- something to the extent of
- $300,000
- To do what exactly I think to get consultants to actually start the the process instead of you know
- instead of this like
- changing around the edges, but actually
- Starting okay, so it's like the full sort of yeah proposal. Okay, I
- Don't think that sort of ends in one year, but it to start that process. I think that
- Okay, um, I want to thank the
- Community member who just texted me and reminded me that leaf pickup was what a pin got put in
- earlier from councilmember ruff
- Councilmember Piedmont Smith
- Yeah, I mean I think that
- The idea of overhauling the UDO
- Has some merit I
- Think for the benefit of the public it and maybe for for colleagues as well
- I would like to hear what you mean by that and why that's going to be helpful
- I can happily I mean, I mean the in short I think that we we need a form-based UDO
- rather than a Euclidean one, so I would be
- Writing a form-based UDO
- Okay, sure for the benefit of the public so Euclidean UDO starts with the you know, there's three
- elements to planning right land use
- Management and and then form form-based UDO starts with form then does management then does land
- use
- it's and you know to the question of why it's
- perhaps I mean one it's I mean, it's the direction that that
- cities are moving in but I think the
- the main reason why to say succinctly is that it allows us to
- To deal with I think the sort of snake of
- Bloomington development, which is things like permitting the feedback that we've got from a lot of
- developers
- I'm into the point of wanting to do a summit
- Is that is that even though is it basically that our rules are quite complex here?
- It's difficult to do business here
- So it makes it a lot easier for developers makes it a lot easier for people wanting to be in the
- community
- but it also then allows us the
- capabilities of having the provisions to
- Keep certain characteristics that people might want while also allowing more housing to be built
- If I may just follow up I think that that would go well with a housing summit where we would have a
- housing summit first
- and we would invite input from
- people who build housing and
- people in the community who have
- concerns as well as expertise in this area and
- that
- May well lead us to
- Some concrete things we would want to see in a UDO revision. I totally agree would agree. Yeah
- As a follow-up
- Councilmember, sorry if you spoken with our planning department one-on-one about that concept
- Yes, and and also publicly in these meetings. Yes
- All right other specific
- Budget lines comes member Flaherty. Thank you
- Yeah, I want to develop on the same thread I'd written in my list of specific proposals here 200 to
- 400,000
- For contract work to create a plan to change the Unified Development Ordinance in line with the
- existing city policies
- Seeking to increase housing supply diversity of housing types and housing affordability both subsidized
- and market rate
- I think that could be a form-based code change
- I think getting clarity on that point and the buy-in from the administration is critical
- because my recollection is that
- I've been advocating a reform-based code for at least eight years
- I think it was the approach we should have taken in 2019 when we updated the UDO
- We did not we have kind of a hybrid. We have some form-based elements, but it's still highly
- segregated by
- uses
- My understanding from director Hittle when he spoke on this last year was that
- It felt early or premature relative to the age of the UDO and when that was done to make a
- large switch to a form-based code
- And that that might be like five plus years out yet
- That's a really important thing to nail down with specificity specifically from the mayor
- and
- in writing if possible because there's been a lot of wiggle room and like kind of like
- Shifting on what I've heard from the administration over time on some of these things
- um
- Various changes we've looked at worked with staff staff on that staff understands is good policy
- experts
- Understand our good policy that they fully supported are things like adjusting lot size minimums to
- accord with
- existing form of neighborhoods
- existing adjusting setbacks to align with existing form of neighborhoods to have that control over
- the type of building that
- Style of development what it looks like
- But at the same time to enable more modest housing to be built specifically in that case
- It would probably enable a lot of single-family owner occupied housing
- But those are form-based changes that we can make and make progress on
- In interim steps forward in the absence of a full-on commitment to an overhaul of the UDO
- starting next year and like
- Repeatedly my understanding from staff was that we are not ready for that overhaul now
- We're hearing something different. And so I think getting clarity on that's really quite critical
- as we talk about what budget expenditures could look like
- I mean so so in the question and answers for for the budget
- I wrote I'm intrigued by the possibility of moving towards a form-based code in the future
- Could you elaborate on the timeline the potential cost associated with this shift how this
- transition improve the housing development outcomes?
- And the answer was a transition to a true post Euclidean form-based code would require a full overhaul
- of the UDO
- That would involve a relatively specialized ordinance rewrite and they said 300 to 500 K
- And a timeline of approximately 12 to 24 months. I mean, so this is in writing
- Right, but but I agree, but but I agree
- I mean to the point I very much agree with what councilmember Flaherty is saying that that as as
- Pertains to the budget and then and then the follow-on policy that that we may want to pursue or
- not pursue
- I think that that
- Just echoing that comment that I think the the conversation has to be had and this is the time
- where we get to have this
- Is is that actually a commitment and that's why we put money towards it, right?
- So so that's the point that I'm making is that I mean if we're gonna put money towards it so that
- it happens
- Is the way that I would view that?
- Actually ask a clarifying question from what yeah, sorry just quoted the 12 to 24 month timeline
- that all makes sense
- But did you did it say a starting time like when we would implement that or was that not part and
- if you recall?
- When during during the meeting that was one of I mean you have no reason to recall this, right?
- I mean we asked quadrillion questions over, you know two weeks
- But I asked I asked during the meeting to director Hiddle that question specifically and and the
- answer was
- That we expect to put this in the budget for next year. So
- So, I mean they're different, but yeah getting clarity on this point would be helpful. Thank you
- I've had a more recent conversation with him about that and I think the five-year timeline at least
- is
- includes things like
- I
- think the one to two year timeline is literally like writing it as opposed to
- all of the public input and all of the community understanding and greater education about what
- form-based code is and how it's different from
- what we have now and
- That I think the actual writing of it is probably the easy part and the hard part is all of that
- other stuff
- That is a little bit grayer
- And would probably cost more in time than it would in money exactly
- But that's why I asked earlier if you had talked to him about that directly recently because I've
- talked to him about that within the last
- Yeah
- But I do think I do think as as pertains to the budget, right?
- I mean the and and you know this tension that we're walking between
- Policy changes and other priorities that we might have versus budgetary priorities
- I think that councilmember Flaherty's question is the guiding question and I think that the answer
- to that determines
- All of the answers to some of these other things that we're discussing
- All right councilmember as murder
- Thanks, I too would love to see a form-based code the idea of having a restaurant that looks like a
- house next door to my house
- Is a dream I would say
- So I don't have to cook things all the time and it smells good all the time in my backyard
- So that's very exciting
- From recent conversations. I also have had with director Hiddle. I
- Was told kind of like a four to five to ten year timeline, which ten seems not not right
- but four to five and then also that
- in that in those five years that also like making updates to our current UDO our
- Steps in the direction of a form-based code too. So as we allow more
- options in our zones that is getting people more ready for an entire form-based code because
- I
- Think most people out there don't know what a form-based code is, which is you know, why why should
- anyone and I?
- Think there will be of course like some major pushback about the ideas of like what could go in
- your neighborhood
- If it looks like what is next door to it will be startling to some people
- But so just a note to still encourage and say what I said in the beginning
- To some of you that I want both and I want a form-based code and I want to make
- Immediate changes to our UDO to help our housing supply problem
- Could I say another specific thing may be moving on to more things on the list?
- Hang on to that just a second though because comes from repeat month Smith
- Did you have a specific budget thing or did you want to add something on to the UDO conversation? I
- Had another budget thing relating to housing. Okay, great then
- Councilmember Piedmont Smith, why don't you go with that and then we'll come back to you well
- We have to recognize that the federal landscape and support for affordable housing from the federal
- government is very different this year as it
- Than it was in the past and we have some very important
- Programs that are already funded by HUD that the city runs
- like homeowner repair programs
- Individual rental assistance down payment assistance. These are all going to face cuts from the
- federal government
- And I think we need to spend some local money to keep these programs going
- Because they keep people in their in their current affordable housing
- So I'd like to see money
- Go towards that
- Great. Thank you
- Councilmember sorry, what was your on the on the train of housing?
- The question of permitting in this last year's budget we put money towards updated software
- That could then and then we did that interlocal agreement all those good things with the county
- I'd like to see us fund and I'll just for the sake of calling it something like a
- Permitting concierge service or something like that or piloting something like that
- Also funding updates to web presence web tools web-based tools
- to facilitate
- the permitting process I think both for building for
- business creation
- You know for art installation you name it
- Okay
- Other specific budget things before we move on to our activity of what currently councilor Flaherty
- I
- Had two other things so four things total one was
- Just voicing support for
- Appropriate funding for the council office to function. Well, yep, you know
- I think we're working through
- Some potential reclassification of positions to allow us to competitively attract and retain staff,
- which has been a challenge
- as well as
- Potentially the need for outside council, you know on retainer for some issues
- We have unique questions unique needs as the city's legislative and fiscal body
- Sometimes there are interpretations from the corporation council that are very favorable to the
- opinion of the mayor
- But might be counter to the council's interests. We have a different
- Set of interests and a different need to explore some of those things
- Additionally, I think that type of funding need can extend into
- Other types of contracted support beyond legal
- potentially
- You know, I think fiscal
- Expertise has been mentioned previously again for for kind of consulting services or advisory
- services to the council as well as
- Even like public engagement support if we're going if we are going to try to lead
- processes where the mayor
- Doesn't want to or is choosing not to but it's a priority to the council if we want to do that
- Well, it we frankly can't do that with with the staffing we have and the expectations for council
- members without it being
- Simply unsustainable. So I think I
- Wrote 200k. I don't know what that actually looks like. Maybe that's a high peg for like what would
- be needed
- But I think it is important to evolve our budget to reflect that so that's one
- I can say the second thing or I can go for it. Go for the second thing. The second thing was
- Again, I put this at 200 to 400 K. Maybe it's high
- But to integrate and operationalize equity in the whole of city government
- Including with deep community collaboration, especially equity and justice focused organizations
- and groups and with council involvement
- Last year, we talked about the possibility of staffing for this. I've you know, and we've kind of
- discussed it in two places
- That was the budget
- Conversations in which the administration said well, no, we need to take stock. We're not gonna
- hire anybody. We want to take stock
- We agree. This is important. We're gonna look internally create a plan create a team, etc
- So that was the commitment at
- August of last year and then also the council's process committee looked at this
- I kind of led a survey review of leading cities and what they're doing as well as leading entities
- like the government alliance and racial equity
- and kind of there's a range of options from
- You know framework development and tool development to use in the legislative and policy
- development process budgeting, etc to
- staffing and resourcing to training
- You know that we commit to on an ongoing basis. So there's a variety of options
- Out there, but it was clear in that survey because I also looked at our city policies and plans
- That it's very scattershot. There's no unifying framework or holistic vision or even definitions of
- what types of equity or justice
- We're talking about it kind of barely appears in the in the comprehensive plan
- so I think if we're serious about those values and
- I think most of us are it takes again probably contracted support. We don't have
- To the extent that we do have staff expertise in house
- It's not their primary job that you know, they're running departments or doing other things and
- engage with the community
- So if we're serious about actually taking a whole of government approach to equity and policy
- Development community engagement, etc. I do think that will take a plan and dedicated support
- And that was my ballpark of what it could look like
- So that's my other item. Thank you
- Thank you
- Before we we're gonna move on to the activity now, but I realized that I haven't said mine
- Though it relates to some other things totally agree with councilmember Piedmont Smith about those
- direct grants and assistant programs that support residents
- I think they're really important and that we should figure out a way to fund those and if they're
- not going to be federally funded then
- Then we should see if we can do that somehow in-house
- and then I also agree with
- Councilmember Rallo about
- The maintenance stuff and I kind of have this question that that I need to ask our controller
- like how much money do we actually spend right now on annual maintenance and
- Kind of like just to like keep things going at this like basic level of infrastructure
- funding and
- then I
- Also think that we need to invest in a crosswalk plan
- because
- And I've talked with us in planning before they're not all maintained
- There's not actually a plan for like how often they get repainted and there's so many crosswalks
- all over town that you just can barely
- even see anymore and
- I've actually had constituents reach out about different locations that don't have crosswalks at
- all that maybe need them
- Because there is this implied thing like every corner in theory as a pedestrian you have the right
- to cross
- But I mean cars barely stop for crosswalks as it is. They're not gonna stop at corners that don't
- even have them
- And
- This to some degree leads us
- into
- This activity. So once again, I and I want council members to do it too if they want to
- Okay, there are post-it notes over on the council table
- If somebody over there could hold up a pack of post-it notes and there's some pens so if you are in
- chambers right now
- You get to get up and move around and I want you to think about
- programs activities
- Etc things that the city currently does right currently funds that matter to you personally
- That you utilize personally that that makes a big difference in your life or something that you
- have
- Utilize an example. I'll give is we are giving like rebates essentially right now
- For electric bicycles for residents and at the state of the city
- There was actually a recipient of one of those who stood up and was like this has changed my life
- So sometimes those little things change people's lives
- So I want you to write that program or that activity or whatever it is, you know, it could be a
- park program
- You could go coach basketball at Twin Lakes
- and
- You know that matters to you a lot and your family a lot
- so I want you to write that down on a post-it note and I want you to put it under the
- budget
- Outcome area as
- You know those those 12 areas that were defined earlier
- Okay
- now if you're on zoom right now and you also want to participate in this I
- Would like you to if you can type a chat message to the host
- Saying what your activity is and then in parentheses is what?
- What outcome area it belongs in so we're just gonna take maybe 10
- 15 minutes move around the room a little bit and think of some of those very specific things that
- the city currently does
- That really matters to you
- And so if you're on zoom and you chat those things those will all end up getting
- Recorded and for the person who earlier mentioned is there gonna be a record of this?
- This is also something that will end up at the fiscal committee meeting next week
- So thank you for that little break and move around and little bit of conversation and
- one of the things that I was thinking about as I was watching people in chambers put up post-it
- notes as I was reflecting on
- The places that didn't have any and reflecting on some
- Because the activity was supposed to be to think about things that the city already does
- that you like and that you support and that you really want to keep or increase funding to and one
- of the things that we
- Talked about earlier was that idea of?
- identifying places where
- That we think are important, but we are lacking in so that's that's kind of an interesting way to
- use this too
- It's not only to go like oh look at all the things that people love and the areas that we're doing
- well in but also
- What are some places that maybe we identified as important that don't?
- Don't have as much in them and how can we do better at that? So it's kind of a two-pronged activity
- So the last piece of our conversation tonight
- Before we go to public comment and so I want to go to public comment no later than 815
- is talking about some of those big broad goals of vision or policy direction and then also some of
- those specific
- Outcomes and I am gonna note again that one of those specific outcomes
- that councilmember Rosenberger already kind of said was she was
- reading some very specific measurable outcomes from the
- from the climate action plan, and so I just want to note that that
- That
- We talked about that and
- Those are that needs to be a piece of what gets identified in terms of some of those specific
- outcomes from our
- specific plans, so
- Broad goals vision or policy direction
- Specific outcomes measurable results. I think whoever wants to speak to either or both of those
- things
- Councilmember Rallo
- I'll just drill down on a couple specific budget items and
- So one is public safety related and this is
- To provide adequate fire response to the southwest quadrant of Bloomington
- Since the 2002 growth policies plan
- we were to
- Build a fire station in that location
- We were
- Assured that we would have land from the summit development. So we have the land to do it
- But we will probably need to bond for that
- Fire station, but I think it's a high priority because the population has been growing
- Steadily and now it's going to explode in that area and
- already
- my understanding is that
- The fire department has difficulty
- Getting there with a response time that they would like
- And I should say to that part
- Extending into the county
- so
- So I think that's a that's a high priority for me
- Another is
- Yeah, so is that under broad goals then in terms of no, that's a specific budget item
- Or it's a specific budget. It's not going to be in the budget per se, but it should be
- Probably a bond that would be
- You know presented by the administration that we would okay. So you were adding something on to
- what we talked about earlier
- Yeah instead of yeah, I've covered the broad goals
- So I thought it would just hit a couple of the specific budget items. Can I mention another?
- Maybe two I
- Don't have to cover everything. Well, we
- We had already talked about those and and you hadn't said it at the time, but go ahead
- Yes, you just said specifics
- No, I said broad goals and then and then measurable outcomes like the specific measurable results
- All right. So but the broad goal is public safety
- the
- specific
- Request is for a bond for a southwest fire station along tap road somewhere there in that area
- Obviously the specific outcome it would be
- To to to ensure
- Response time
- Needed for that area and also anticipating another ten or twelve thousand people living in that
- area with the summit development
- I
- Regarding I kind of mashed these together the equity and health and human services
- as a broad goal
- in
- particularly as councilmember Piedmont Smith
- Described which is that we need to prepare for not only potentially economic dislocation of people
- But the lack of federal funding
- Which has already been cut year by year CDBG block grants have been falling year by year
- I put it on the remember I presented that a year or so ago
- so
- Understanding that that is coming. I think that we need to double Jack Hopkins
- Spending
- We're spending half a million now
- We should spend a million and that would just put us where we used to be about 20 years ago
- Frankly with federal and local social service spending
- And obviously the you know this
- so that outcome would be it reestablishes social service spending from the past and
- Then I'll just mention one last one
- Since it we haven't talked about it. Well, we talked a little bit about sustainability and climate
- change and so forth, but
- specific to Bloomington
- And this is an ever-growing problem
- Reducing invasive plants
- We have a code
- It's supposed to be followed
- The developers many of them some do many of them don't
- Maybe they put in something that's a native. They maybe it fails. They put in fountain grass and
- then it spreads everywhere
- So those are propagules. It spreads from into the county into the environment
- The only way that's going to be addressed is a specific budget item, which is to have higher one FTE
- in planning
- for non-native enforcement and education and
- Obviously the outcome would be
- That we would at least mitigate if not diminish
- The invasive
- I'll quit there
- Talk about many more things, but I
- Do want to say to all councilmembers if there's something that like you don't quite get to tonight
- because there's only so much time
- That we have this evening like please email that to myself and councilmember Piedmont Smith as a
- chair of the fiscal
- Committee so that then we can incorporate those comments next week councilmember Rosenberger
- This is gonna be anything right?
- Anything so I mean it's hard because again we have four
- Big plans with tons of goals and metrics for measurement in them
- I mean talking about climate action plan again. It's just really what I have on top right now. I
- Guess I'm thinking too about what we've talked about in the budget before so
- The this is the goal of increasing organics diversion by 40% of 2018
- Values in our waste okay waste reduction. We don't even have a composting option for residents
- anymore
- We've never had it publicly a public service and now we don't have a private service, which I call
- it a very embarrassing thing
- There are all these like sub plans like things to do food scraps bag pilot
- Certification for businesses to go zero waste so some budget thoughts would be to stop subsidizing
- our trash pickup
- Because we do that. I think it's about a million a year and use this money to start composting
- Also look at a pay-as-you-throw program which helps people think more about what they're putting
- into their trash cans and whether or not they want
- to like consume less or put their can out less, right and
- That might mean upgrading our system
- I have no idea to keep track of each pickup because right now we do
- I don't know that we do that, but I think all of our bins do have scan tags on them
- That's a little thing
- Thank you others broad goals specific outcomes measurable results
- Councilmember councilmember, sorry
- One one thing that I'd love to see is and this sort of falls in a lot of categories is some some at
- least pilots around
- Food security
- So so I'll go through it with with that framework. I mean thinking
- About neighborhood livability and social health. I'd like to see some type of funding
- initiatives around community gardens mobile markets, perhaps meal delivery pantry partnerships
- type of things with specific outcomes for example of
- Increasing the number of households with access to fresh produce within walking distance by 25
- percent
- That's an example
- Or reducing in food and security rates. I don't know if we actually are measuring that but
- In targeted neighborhoods like Crescent as an example by 15 percent or something like that
- I think similarly under
- I'll skip that one under like economic health
- You know thinking about like food business microgrants is something I'd be interested in piloting
- and
- Looking for example to increase the number of food based small businesses launched or expanded
- next year by
- X-percent, I think there's you know zero so increase would be maybe easier to measure
- Or in increased gross sales at local farmers market at the farmers market by 25 percent something
- like that
- And I have others in other categories, but you know just I know we're short on time
- Members do look I think it would be worth looking into how we could invest in how the city communicates
- With the rest of the community
- There are quite a lot of really great programs at the city that when I go out and I talk to my
- constituents
- Like they don't know about and there's only so much that services that aren't being utilized can do
- for our community
- so I think
- It would be worth putting real money behind that so that
- People could take advantage of the programs that we do currently have and then the programs that we've
- talked about
- pursuing
- Thank you
- Councilmember Flaherty sure
- I had a little bit of hard time grappling with with some aspects of this. I think I
- Support the idea of outcomes based budgeting and holding ourselves accountable to outcomes. I think
- it's been mentioned. I mean
- We do have a variety of city plans that were developed with input of hundreds of residents informed
- by expertise
- You know that set goals and outcomes
- I think sometimes those aren't always the best goals like our comprehensive plan doesn't really
- have like smart goals for instances of frameworks and
- Everything's not always like the most measurable. I think there's some improvement that could
- happen there. I'm a little wary of us like introducing
- new outcomes or new metrics
- Maybe if it's in the area where we don't have plans in place already, but it feels like
- I'm not sure
- Council members just sort of like throwing out their own ideas here. It's like I don't know there's
- limits to that and also like in a
- We're sort of broadly talking about a theory of change of some kind
- Another way to think about that
- It's like a logic model that traces inputs to outcomes and impact and there's steps in between you
- go from inputs
- Which is the resourcing to activities and outputs that come before outcomes and and it
- So I'm very familiar with those frameworks and like we're sort of missing the middle pieces here,
- which is basically policy policy development implementation
- Some level of outputs that might have indicators of their own that lead to outcomes. So like
- increased
- miles of sidewalk for instance might lead to other outcomes like increased, you know
- pedestrian mode share
- Additionally, the other thing I'm worried about is like the time scales of some of these things
- relative to like an annual budgeting cycle
- and so I
- Think we didn't do a great job necessarily in our comp plan of like tracking the most useful
- Indicators and in particular lead indicators not lag indicators
- So often we're measuring things on a lag that does that is too late to be actionable and kind of
- just like
- It's like did this happen or not?
- But what we really want to lead is sorry what we really want to measure. I think are the outputs
- and things that we produce
- That will that based on evidence from other places will lead to the outcomes that we're looking for
- and
- so I
- Don't know
- And then and if so, I think like that's like that's the framework
- I'm kind of bringing to this and it feels like we're I know we're just iterating on a process and
- kind of like
- learning our way forward through doing
- But those are two things that kind of concerned me about I guess like how we're approaching this is
- one like if it's too divorced from
- Existing city policy, which certainly had a lot more public input and buy in across branches of
- government here
- then then like what we're starting with this process and then second is kind of like
- Some of the some of the pieces that might be missing from the framework
- So that's not you know, those aren't suggested that I mean zero deaths in our streets or one that I
- mentioned earlier, right?
- Like we could talk about like increase in housing starts for certain types of housing
- You know that we'd like to see that our plans except so like there's there's progress to be made on
- this
- But I don't know this feels a little divorced for me from like existing policy and plans
- Sorry, I realize that's like not helpful it's just a reflection
- I think everything everything you just said is so helpful. And I think the very I mean
- That is I wish you know
- I kind of wish we had got to that point earlier in the conversation, right?
- Like I think that that's in my mind was the was the appropriate outcome of this conversation. It's
- that
- You know, I think the the real like let's talk about the outcomes
- We want with try to change this our budget process is to directly tie our
- Our spending and our policy that follows two things that we've already got a lot of public input to
- and and I think
- So I wholeheartedly I think second what councilmember Flaherty said, I think that
- Yeah, I think I think you hit the nail on the head with that. I agree
- Yeah, I would also say probably that a lot of the thing probably not all of the things we've talked
- about tonight
- but a lot of them
- Were really familiar sounding to me from things that I've read in the comp plan when I read it and
- just going like oh, yeah
- Like we said we wanted to do this thing. How much money is being invested in it right now?
- How much could we invest in it? And with some things I feel like even if we do invest
- Money in it like that's not necessarily the solution that it needs like it doesn't necessarily need
- money right now
- I need something different and so I think teasing those things apart could be useful generally
- speaking
- I'm not sure who I should go to right now because I had three people express interest in speaking
- so councilmember Ruff
- quick
- Your mics off the the high-performing government broad goal, you know
- so paying our city employees a commensurate
- On par with other Midwestern peer cities. I just don't see how we can deliver a high-performing
- government
- If we aren't paying to get hyper to keep high-performing
- Employees and you know the side benefit of that is we hope it would have a slight
- upward pressure on general wages in the city the better we pay a
- Fairly large employer like planning. So that's that's important to me. And then the last thing I'll
- say real quick is
- Be interesting to do this exercise
- Coming from the other perspective like everything we've talked about is going to require some
- investment
- It's there's the wish kind of a wish list. Well, we're gonna need to raise taxes or
- Cut reduce our investment in some other things. So we kind of interesting to have this kind of
- discussion about where do we think?
- We would invest less or we would put less into anyway, that's all. Thank you
- We have about two minutes before I want to go public comment councilmember Piedmont Smith
- This is the last five minutes have been extremely interesting
- what I
- wanted to mention
- From my list is something that we don't really have a community plan on and maybe we should I don't
- know
- I think it it is something that kind of you know follows from other
- Community values that have been stated but that's on the in the realm of public safety
- And so I had two desired outcomes related to that
- One was the increase the capacity of stride mobile community responder program to handle all nonviolent
- mental health emergency calls through central
- dispatch by the end of
- 2027 and
- then
- Following that decouple central dispatch from the BPD and trained dispatchers to send non-police
- Community responder units to address mental health emergencies as appropriate by the end of 2028
- Great councilmember Rosenberger, did you have one last thing to say before we go to public comment?
- Okay
- Councilmember Allah
- Very briefly
- great discussion I
- When I was looking through priorities when I was looking at specific budget items, I was keeping in
- mind
- where's the money coming from and
- I'm very very reticent to increase the Edie lit in very uncertain times for people
- Because unfortunately, it's a regressive tax
- It seems to be the only thing available to us
- So
- I'm looking at
- very I
- Guess I was prioritizing in terms of maintenance
- public safety
- common good items that
- Really need attention as priorities. I mean certainly there's a lot of things that could be funded
- So anyway, that's something that we need to maybe curb our enthusiasm about some of these items
- Thank you
- With that let's go ahead and go to a period of public comment on
- Budget 2026 on how the city spends money on whatever people out there want to talk about in terms
- of budget
- So if you are in council chambers, you can make your way to the podium
- You can sign in state your name for the record and then you'll have three minutes
- If you're online you can raise your hand using the raise hand function
- or you can send a chat message to the host and we do have somebody here in chambers who would like
- to speak so
- When you're ready
- You can go ahead and state your name
- These things start a little earlier than I remember
- From everything that you guys have talked about tonight it sounds like
- Government performance and how you deliver services is the thing that matters most to you from the
- simple service of maintaining roadways to
- Really just anything
- housing is important and I feel like that's a separate issue entirely from people who are unhoused
- and
- You guys will touch on that later
- I imagine and hopefully I can be a little more engaged and I've been over the last 10 years
- going forward as the city transitions to a
- new age
- Whatever it should be called here
- Something that I have personally been affected by recently is something not many of you may be able
- to elaborate on
- As I drive uber part-time
- The city recently decided that it should seasonally have a permanent closure of the Kirkwood and
- corridors
- I think that's a fascinating idea and it has its place here
- However between the downtown and places
- of the university
- There's an issue with getting around to pick up
- The majority of the users are students, but I myself am also a user of uber on the weekends as it's
- a lot
- Wiser to not drink and drive
- But in my thinking
- Having been asked to not stop and wait for a rider at the back end of the spia building
- And having to navigate now the downtown
- Why could we not utilize some of the spaces with like bike lanes?
- bus stops to have an
- uber and Lyft
- Shared space so users can kind of have a common ground to come to you
- I think also as they utilize the lime scooters. I don't know if that's even what they are anymore
- around here
- I'd like to do those myself downtown
- Just don't let me do it in Nashville, Tennessee
- I
- Think as those things continue to gain popularity and frequent use both from residents and from
- students alike
- Especially the lower-income who may not
- May not get to use them every day
- Just putting those pieces together and
- In a safe spot. I know we lost someone a couple years ago using a scooter
- and again the the main street of town being Walnut Street is heavily trafficked over the weekends
- with uber and Lyft drivers alike and
- Sometimes it's hard for drivers who are just trying to get through to get by and it makes it very
- unsafe
- So maybe having like I don't know ten cars length of distance for drivers to be able to stop
- I pay insurance to be an uber driver to drive people around so they get to where they need to go
- safely and
- I kind of expect the same for my driver. So thank you
- Thank you for your comment are there other people in chambers who would wish to make a comment
- Go ahead and state your name for the record and you'll have three minutes
- Good evening, madam president. I'm gonna write my name and say good evening at the same time
- It's Christopher energy from the greater limited chamber of commerce
- I'm gonna get out of my main soapbox. I have been which is sort of personnel costs, but to reader
- it was
- Councilmember Rallo said that you know money is tight
- we're heading through what looks to be could be a recession coming in with decreased revenue and
- Decreased means of getting revenue with SP one and some other items that the state has before us
- I want to sort of piggyback on a couple things that were said. I think councilmember Rosenberger
- had the
- statement early which is where does council make the biggest difference and
- One of the things she says which I think was kind of a good one, which was housing
- Well housing and sort of the unhoused are huge issues. Those are big lifts and what council can do
- I think is to a varying degree is
- is limited but having sort of
- council actions that spur
- Economic development that spur investment from the from the private sector with its developers
- That's something important to look at and I think councilmember Flaherty mentioned quite a bit on
- what I
- Think was a good agreement with everyone and what does the city do?
- Well what it can do which is the mobility and transportation aspect
- I think that investment in sidewalks and some other areas within
- potholes and road maintenance is just the basic
- essential services of government
- We've talked about outcome based budgeting and I look back. I think that was I don't it was that
- 2021 with the the lit increase that was 19 million dollars
- What have what is the outcomes on that particular?
- Tax increasing sort of look at specifically that we had them in buckets and different things within
- the buckets and buckets within buckets
- So I think that would be a good place to sort of look at from you know, from point a to point B
- beginning and some of that and
- One thing that's come up a lot. We I did a parks
- focus group last week. Thank you
- Tim Street for that for putting that on and and one thing that from the group of business leaders
- We came up with which is a sort of overriding issue is asset management as parks has grown the need
- for upkeep on that is great
- What are we looking at on that and we have a lot of great wonderful, you know
- Banneker Center and all of these parks I sort of went on my high horse on turf fields at Winslow
- Field which are
- Get flooding just by looking at the forecast
- So we have a lot of work to do within that and that's not going into the Buzzkirk Theatre
- The Waldron Center all these wonderful city assets that just need upkeep. We're only as good as
- that
- Those things quickly deteriorate with deferred maintenance only causes, you know a ripple effect as
- far as that goes
- Housing summit really like that idea and my time all of a sudden is up. But thank you for your time
- Do we have anybody on zoom who would wish to make a comment?
- Okay, thank you, is there anybody else in chambers who would wish to make a comment
- Come on up, please sign in state your name for the record and you'll have three minutes
- My name is Gerard glom I teach economics at the University
- But I'm speaking on my own behalf when I go to social functions when people ask me what to do
- I say I'm an economist their response is supply and demand and then there's dead silence
- Evidently people think economics is very very boring
- Ever since January 20 economics has gone up in the excitement scale through the roof
- immigration cuts the Medicaid
- cuts the research
- misinformation about vaccines
- Communicable diseases all of those are exciting economic issues. The problem is there's a lot of
- misinformation bad information
- Silly formulas that are used to fund policy to justify policy
- So I guess my comments come under the hitting
- Performing government because I'm going to make something available to all of you for free
- You're all invited to Saturday afternoon 2 o'clock to come to the downtown library
- Professor Michael Hicks from Ball State will give a presentation on how terrorists influence jobs
- for Hoosiers
- I imagine you're part of Indiana
- Terrorists will have a big impact on this community. So all of you your staff to write a community
- is invited to learn about
- How tariffs might excellent influence the quality of our lives here in Bloomington, Monroe County
- in the rest of this state
- So again 2 o'clock
- downtown library auditorium
- Professor Michael Hicks from all state. I hope you can all be there
- Yeah, that was this Saturday
- Thank you for that comment next in chambers
- Please sign in state your name for the record and you have three minutes
- Steve Olin as a member of the
- Late lamented Parking Commission. One of the things that we had to do was
- try to identify
- Costs of parking across departments because even though there is now a parking services division
- there is the
- parking costs and revenues cut across multiple departments and so we asked for transaction level
- registers of
- Departmental budgets and there's an awful lot to learn in
- Doing so and I have to admit that as a council member doing regular business
- It never occurred to me that it was worth my time to look at literal
- every transaction in a department's
- Annual budget but it turned out that you can learn an awful lot from doing it
- So the first thing I'd like to encourage you all since we are talking about
- budgets here tonight is that you
- take adopt an apartment and ask the controller for every transaction they conducted in the last
- year and
- Just explore it with Excel
- You're going to learn a lot, but I would go further and say that I don't think that's enough
- I think that it's time that council think about
- literally auditing departments
- Part of the issue is that no matter what the esteem you hold a department head in or the the people
- of a department in
- They may be unaware that they could be doing things more efficiently
- You may be unaware that there is a department or a division that is wasting money
- But you have no way to know it except through the administration. And so I would suggest that you
- Seek to start putting money into you the council budget specifically to hire an outside auditor
- to work on behalf of the council to do an independent audit of
- departments over a period of time
- maybe not all at once, but
- You know like no matter what you're going to learn an awful lot from the audit
- An audit is not necessarily an effort to punish. It's a way to verify to understand to
- you
- Know to really dig into
- the details of a given
- department or division
- But I've heard enough just tonight in the various
- Areas that the council is concerned about that. I think that it's time that you think about
- Adding money for an independent auditor to work on behalf of council to analyze how the city is
- doing. Thank you
- Thank you, do we have anybody online who's raised their hand at this point
- Okay, looks like we have another comment or in chambers. Go ahead and sign in state your name for
- the record
- And then you'll have up to three minutes
- Hi, I'm Greg Alexander
- As you've heard me say we are missing sidewalks around the edge of the city pretty consistently you
- get about
- Quarter mile from the courthouse you start noticing little gaps and then you get a half mile
- You notice big gaps in a mile and the network becomes just a few choices
- That's not a coincidence providing basic city services to a low density population is not
- financially plausible
- They are in a city. They deserve basic city services, but aren't enough people living there to pay
- taxes to support things like sidewalks
- So, you know
- You get it from the other side too when you pay city staff you have to pay them a competitive wage
- But really you have to pay them enough to live here
- They have to be able to pay rent. They have to be able to pay a mortgage
- They have to imagine that they could stay and actually buy a house
- Housing is everything you do our wages are inflated because there isn't housing our tax burden is
- inflated because there isn't housing
- We need housing and then we can solve these financial problems
- But the life and death of cities is housing and without enough housing to sustain the tax burden
- that we have
- We're only going to be able to overtax people and under deliver. Thank you
- Thank you, is there anybody else in chambers who would like to make a comment about the budget
- money finances economics
- Did anybody end up raising their hand on zoom
- Great. Thank you. Welcome back to council then for just if anybody has any last comments on this
- that they want to add in
- for consideration at this point
- Councilmember Piedmont Smith
- I'm trying to wrap my head around
- how
- this discussion is
- Really outcome based budgeting
- So, I mean we all kind of set our ideas and our priorities and all that so
- Just kind of thinking out loud I heard a lot of
- Colleagues say we need to look at the city plans
- That already outline our goals and the outcomes we want to see so maybe that's one way
- to focus on outcomes, but other than that I've
- heard
- it as chair of the fiscal committee, I'm
- Envisioning it to be very difficult
- To pull from these diverse ideas up here
- Certain outcome priorities, so I just wanted to state that and see what people think
- Any responses to that
- Well, maybe it would be helpful to talk about what the rest of the process is I mean because this
- this is very
- early on and
- Earlier than we started last year as well. So what what is ahead in terms of?
- communication around
- Budget plans what happens next?
- Is the fiscal committee
- Gets together a week from now. I believe next Wednesday and has a discussion about trying to
- Prioritize the priorities so last year if you recall we had the budget advance meeting and we had
- these ideas thrown out
- and then we had a
- List of budget priorities that was given to the administration, but that list was not a prioritized
- list that list was was
- we can call it a randomized list and so this year there was I think most people most council
- members thought like well
- we should it would be more helpful to have a prioritized list of priorities so that then the
- Administration has greater understanding of what our priorities actually are and I personally kind
- of identified that as really
- Highly challenging from the beginning because we are as a body
- I think really diverse in a lot of ways in terms of how we
- of what our priorities are in terms of of
- Of how we should invest our money, so I guess I kind of as another member of the fiscal committee
- I kind of share that sentiment
- That like how does the fiscal committee even start trying to prioritize what are really different?
- Different inputs from
- all nine council members
- So but that's that's in theory what what we're trying to do is we're trying to have a little bit
- more
- If so
- So the the next meeting is of the fiscal committee and the goal of that meeting is for the fiscal
- committee to put together
- a sort of draft document of how we understand priorities to be what happens with that document my
- Let me ask three more questions. So then so then you can just answer at length, which is I think
- the point is that
- I think to
- Councilmember Piedmont Smith's point is that you know
- What other inputs do we need in order to move that process ahead? I think is the is the sort of
- guiding question here
- Yeah, I mean what happens to that like
- Prioritization list as it comes back to council at a special meeting on April 30th
- April 30th
- We have another deliberation session then and then it's a it's categorized as a special session
- Because we would have to actually vote on the list of priorities
- That's just for us and then after we have that kind of established
- Prioritization list then our next deliberative session in May is with the administration because in
- the meantime while we're trying to develop our priorities
- The administration is also developing their priorities. So then on the 14th of May it can be like,
- hey, these are council priorities
- These are mayor priorities. Where do they overlap? Where do they not overlap? How can we?
- Make all the things happen that people want to make happen
- So then so then the question I think to councilmember Puma Smith's point, I mean what what what
- input would be useful to you as the chair?
- To help move that process forward
- Because we can do that, you know, we can do that asynchronously
- We started talking about
- Points of agreement and we just talked about housing and then we talked about transportation. Well,
- we started to talk about transportation and mobility
- but there were a lot of other things mentioned, so I guess the I
- Don't know I don't even know
- Because like if I had to now, you know work with my three colleagues on the committee to prioritize
- I wouldn't know where to start
- Because I also know that there are probably things that colleagues didn't even mention because we
- didn't get to them, right? So
- So here's my plan on where to start
- and so my thought on where to start us is to
- consolidate
- notes and information basically and there are a couple of
- very nice volunteers in the audience today who helped take notes with this and so to receive those
- notes and and try to
- Put together what all the council members
- said into the different outcome areas and so my intention is to kind of do a bunch of preparation
- in
- terms of consolidation of what I heard tonight in preparation for the Fiscal Committee next week so
- that then the
- Information is already
- Consolidated even if the thoughts are really different and so that might help the Fiscal Committee
- next week
- That's my hope
- And to similarly take the survey data
- The community survey data just to be like what is it that people think is important?
- My colleagues to send
- Myself and councilmember Stossberg
- Your completed worksheets for tonight if you completed them
- And if you didn't complete them, I
- recommend you do or
- Do some substitute so that we have something from you because I know that we didn't all get to
- everything on the our list
- That would be helpful
- I wrote some things on my worksheet that were like
- See comprehensive plan or see climate action plan. I mean
- do you want me to like draw like
- specific outcomes from there that I plug into the worksheet or like I
- Mean, those are big plans obviously so it is
- In my opinion, I think that
- If
- I'm assuming that there's something say specific in the climate action plan or in the comp plan
- That you're looking at, you know a certain part of it and you're going we need to implement this
- part of it
- Is that a correct assumption?
- I
- Don't know I think
- Not exactly like I didn't that's not where I started
- So thinking about the inputs to go back to the transportation example and the different types of I
- mean
- It was guided by the transportation plan some of the infrastructure that we've said we want to
- build out
- It was guided by the safety action plan and some of the goals we've set for ourselves
- And the changes that will necessitate and the development of a sidewalk plan. So all those things
- are kind of happening and informing
- the input the requested input
- but as far as the outcomes I
- Think there's probably a bunch scattered across several plans that I could like pull in that sort
- of all support that
- Like it's not just one
- Like not just one plan not just one plan and not just one outcome. Yeah
- I don't know. Maybe I just need to go through the exercise to see what the limitations are like it's
- more granularity
- I think that right now we need to just do our best
- Yeah, and recognize that that what we're trying to do as a body and as a city is a transition to
- Outcome based budgeting and that it's it involves kind of a whole
- different mindset and a whole different like
- Formatting almost in terms of what we've seen before so it and and my understanding is that this is
- Kind of a I mean what councilmember sorry, this was your original like brainchild in some ways
- So what like two to three years? I think is what was kind of cited right originally in that
- Resolution in terms of a transition, so we're like
- This is really the first year that we've really tried to do this in a serious way
- So I guess my answer is do the best you can
- Okay, is that a good enough answer? Yes, it comes over Piedmont Smith. Is that a good enough answer
- for your needs as chair?
- Yes, it would be wonderful if you could pull those
- Items outcomes from the plans, but I understand that we all have time limitations
- Berallo well, it seems like this is going to be I
- Mean we're focused on this budget this year, and I think that this discussion has
- refined my thinking about
- Being very specific and for brevity having short
- Priorities not not having extensive priorities because there's going to be a lot to wade through
- and I think that you know
- we ought to prioritize things and then think about specifics and
- That would help the process. It seems to me sort through rather than having tomes to
- To try to read through and evaluate
- So anyway, that's just my suggestion keep it brief
- Maybe just two two two general thoughts
- I mean the though the one is for us not to get super and I think this is to council member Flaherty's
- earlier point
- It's for us not to get super caught up in you know, or disconnected
- I mean, it's very easy to just throw out numbers and metrics and then just you know start from
- there and move backwards
- That's not really the goal. I think that
- One thing that we've that we've sort of found here is that nobody had any critiques outside of the
- housing and homelessness separation
- Of any of the proposed categories
- I think these are almost directly reflective of like what other cities like Fort Collins have done
- with them
- I mean that might be an area where if you if you have a strong feeling we're actually like no
- I don't think you know
- I mean equity or something is not something that needs to be a separate area and in the budget but
- rather we want that
- You know throughout I think that's input that we probably still need
- But but I think one thing that's that's useful
- you know the core of
- implementing outcome-based budgeting like
- Is is is often what people call like offers or the sort of sales element of it that people come and
- they ask for things
- And then you and the council the legislative body the budgetary body. I'm sorry it makes offers of
- those things
- and importantly
- What we're really talking about there's I mean the vast majority of our budget is what you might
- think of as just a continuing offer
- and so I don't know if we need to
- Spend a lot of time thinking about the things that we already do that needs to just continue
- happening, right?
- I mean paying the lights at bills as you will and so it's that it's that space outside those what
- people would call
- Enhancement offers the you know the things that we want to see happen in that flexible space of our
- budget
- which is I think the
- you know in terms of limiting we don't need a
- What we don't need from everybody at this moment is not, you know, every single outcome you'd like
- to see in the budget
- but things you'd like to
- See either enhanced included that have not been included
- Increased so the type of conversation that
- Comes morello brought up, you know this, you know, we're doing well with with Jack Hopkins. We want
- to increase that
- that's that I think the sort of minds the the space that we need to be in and then have some like
- theory of change that
- That as councilman Fleury was saying like, you know, the reason why we think this should happen is
- yeah
- And so that helps us then in that final conversation of the okay
- Where is this money coming from if we think that it's that it's you know, our argument is by
- funding Jack Hopkins
- We will achieve
- Said outcome what other things are trying to do that right now and and when we put those in
- contrast
- Which of these is more worth the money in this context for this year
- So I think that sort of limits what we're talking about here. It's not you know, the whole the
- entirety of everything
- we're just talking about those sort of enhancements and
- Increases if you will
- Does anybody else have any other things to add
- Okay
- Thank you all for this conversation. Thank you to the public who've involved themselves in various
- ways
- I want to take a couple notes on council schedule
- First of all has has already been mentioned the fiscal committee will meet next week April 16th
- At 2 in the afternoon to kind of synthesize this discussion
- So if this was interesting to you that might be a meeting that you want to tune into
- It will be in person and online. It'll be a hybrid meeting
- So there will be a zoom link and I think right now it's scheduled to be in Allison
- But that might change to McCloskey not totally sure but you can that'll be updated on the calendar
- if it changes
- And then we'll have another special session on April 30th
- About budget again, and hopefully there'll be this prioritized list
- Other things going on that I wanted to be sure to mention tomorrow night
- The Parks Department is having a master planning work session at 6 o'clock in Allison conference
- room. So there was a couple messages
- references to parks programs
- And I know that I will be at that and I believe one or two other council members will as well
- So that'll be interesting and then I also wanted to highlight on
- April 23rd the Hopewell Commons grand opening is happening starting at 330 in the afternoon and
- lasting I think until about 6 so
- Those are things that you could put on your schedule
- Our next regular session will be next week on April 16th
- Are there other notes to add to the schedule councilmember Piedmont Smith?
- Processes is meeting on Monday April 14th 12 15 to 145 in the Allison conference room
- Thank you very much. Any other committee meetings to announce today
- The fiscal task force is meeting next Wednesday on on April 16th at what time
- At 9 a.m. And so the difference with the budget task force
- Oh 8 a.m. Sorry the budget task force versus the fiscal committee
- They do slightly different things related to this transition to outcome based budgeting
- So if you want more details on that just email me and I'll clue you and thank you if there's
- nothing else
- We are adjourned
- (orchestral music)