- To order this regular session of the Bloomington Common Council on September 17th 2025. Will the
- clerk please call the roll?
- Pete Mott Smith here
- Stasberg here daily here Zulek here Rosenberger here. I'm sorry here
- Thank you
- Great. Thank you
- Starting off the meeting tonight just a little bit of historical information
- I found it notable that on this day in 1787 the US Constitution was signed
- And before today, I probably had not actually read the Constitution since I was you know in some US
- history course as a teenager
- and
- I did that today and it was very interesting and related
- There's been you know conversation and news stories related to whether or not we're in a
- constitutional crisis, and I'm not gonna
- speculate on that
- but it was really interesting to read the Constitution as an adult and as a legislature a
- Legislator and it just hits a little bit different than it did as a teenager
- So if you haven't read it in terms of the duties and responsibilities
- Related to the different branches of government in a while. I would recommend that you revisit that
- Just because it is interesting
- and
- The next going on to our agenda summation
- before we do that, I actually
- believe
- That we need to
- amend the agenda tonight
- So I
- Guess that I need to make a motion
- to move
- agenda item 7a ordinance 2025 33
- To the last item under legislation for second readings and resolutions
- Thank you the reason for that needs to be related to the staff that would need to present that
- ordinance
- So we just need to move that down the agenda due to staff schedule
- Yep, so ordinance 2025 33 moving down to the end of the agenda. So we have a motion in a second to
- do that
- Will the clerk please call the roll on that motion?
- Councilmember Flaherty, yes, rough. Yes Rallo
- Can we do anything about the sound from councilmember Rallo because I'm having a hard time hearing
- him
- Piedmont Smith
- Yes
- Stasberg. Yes, Daly. Yes, Zulek. Yes, Rosenberger. Yes. Sorry. Yes
- Heard that thank you. Great. Thank you so much
- So now for our agenda summation first, we will have one set of minutes for approval from February
- 19th of this year
- That will be followed by reports
- starting by reports from council members and then the mayor and city offices where we will have a
- report from the Bloomington Housing
- Authority we will have any council committee reports, which I do not believe we have any tonight
- and then our first
- Period of reports from the public where members of the public can make a comment on items not on
- the agenda tonight
- We do not have any appointments to boards and commissions this evening
- We have four pieces of legislation for first reading
- We start with ordinance 2025 35 to amend title 9 of the Bloomington Municipal Code entitled water
- and then ordinance 2025 36
- an ordinance authorizing the acquisition construction and installation
- By the city of Bloomington of certain extensions and improvements to the city's water utility
- Then we'll have appropriation ordinance 2025 08 transferring funds from the general funds the fiber
- connectivity fund
- And then appropriation ordinance 2025 09
- to appropriate
- General fund expenditures not otherwise appropriated and then we will have legislation for second
- readings and resolutions. So per the
- Change that we just made we will start with ordinance 2025 34
- To establish a fund for the proceeds of the surety bond related to the fiber optics network
- Then we will have resolution 2025 16
- requesting the food and beverage tax advisory commission to make a recommendation for
- expenses from those revenues
- Then we will have resolution 2025 15 to establish expectations and procedures for councilmember liaisons
- to boards and commissions
- And then finally as our last item of legislation for this evening
- We will go back to ordinance 2025 33 to establish the fiber connectivity fund for digital
- opportunity in
- initiatives
- Then we will have an additional period of public comment if there are any other members of the
- public wishing to make a comment on
- Items not on the agenda any notes on council schedule, and then we will adjourn
- So if we could start with those minutes I
- Move that the minutes from February 9th be approved
- 19th
- 19th yes, February 19th. I'm typo. Sorry
- Thank you
- You have a motion and a second to approve the minutes from February 19th of this year
- And just as a note there was a slightly revised
- Version of those sent out this afternoon that was made a small grammatical adjustment. Just anybody
- have any questions about those minutes?
- Great will the clerk please call the roll on that
- Piedmont Smith, yes, Stossberg. Yes, Daly. Yes, Zulek. Yes
- Rosenberger, yes. Sorry. Yes clarity. Yes. Thank you. Great. Thank you
- All those were approved now. We're moving into reports from council members
- Let's go ahead and start
- to
- To my left with a council member Daly
- Yeah, thank you
- I just wanted to quickly put a shout out for anybody who might still be interested in applying for
- any boards and commissions
- There are still some openings
- We would love to have some more applications come in and also if you've applied
- Previously and did not get appointed to a board and Commission
- That not necessarily was, you know a personal thing
- We only have so many seats available and we have so many great applicants that we don't always have
- seats available for everyone
- So if you're still interested, please go back and reapply again because I know
- We would love to have some of our former interviewers
- Put in another application and possibly have another chance to get on a board and Commission
- So we hope to see you at some of our interviews. Thanks
- Thank you councilmember Zulek
- No report. Thank you. Thank you councilmember Rosenberger
- No report. Thank you councilmember. Sorry no report. Okay councilmember Piedmont Smith
- Yes, I do have a report and my request that staff put I have a little PowerPoint to go through
- This is about
- Requesting that the council
- Sign on to a letter to oppose
- The Environmental Protection Agency's reconsideration of the 2009 endangerment finding
- So I did reach out to some of you individually about this
- So if we go to the next slide what what is the endangerment finding
- so in
- 2009
- the Environmental Protection Agency made a formal determination that the concentration of
- six major greenhouse gases in the atmosphere such as carbon dioxide and methane endangers public
- health and welfare and
- That finding serves as a legal basis for the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the
- Clean Air Act
- Next slide, please
- So if the EPA repeals that finding
- That would have major impacts across the country including in Bloomington
- It would effectively remove the legal basis for many current regulations on climate pollution
- It would also pave the way for the rollback of federal standards for vehicle and industrial
- emissions
- Leading to increased emissions of those pollutants next slide
- so it is relevant to all communities including bloom Bloomington because ultimately a
- Reversal of this finding would increase air pollution threatening the health of our population
- it would increase the pace of climate change impacts such as severe storms flooding and heat and
- eventually
- Of course, it would increase the societal disruption due to climate change which will have impacts
- ranging from food distribution
- climate refugees
- Local financial burdens that we are unprepared to face
- So there's a letter that has been drafted by the public rights project
- that is going to be submitted as part of the
- comment period to the EPA as they
- Consider whether to
- repeal the endangerment finding and the letter says
- And these are direct quotes from the letter. These are actual subject headings if we could go to
- the next slide
- The endangerment finding is grounded in evidence and sound science including federal climate
- assessments and the letter has footnotes to actually
- point to those studies
- Local governments rely on the EPA regulation of greenhouse gases and the proposed rule
- Which is the repeal of the finding?
- The proposed rule fails to consider the significant harms to local communities
- So some examples extreme heat is now commonplace
- Transportation emissions and air pollution are worsening across the US
- flooding and major weather events are bringing grave consequences
- Local communities are bearing unprecedented infrastructure costs and
- The EPA's proposed rule will have disproportionate impacts on
- Low-income people and my communities of color
- So
- Next slide. What is the public rights project? Why are they why am I coming forward with this
- letter from them?
- Well, it's an organization. It's nonpartisan nonprofit
- National organization that provides litigation support legal representation and training to help
- local government officials protect their communities
- And this is their word use their tremendous power for good
- So I like that wording
- So what I'm asking this evening last slide, please is a vote on the letter which I have forwarded
- To council members and it will be part of the official public record
- Once we take a vote
- So a vote from you all to sign on to the letter the deadline is September 22nd
- So I'm sorry. There wasn't a lot of advance notice on this, but
- The deadline is before our next meeting. So
- That is my report and I would appreciate if somebody could make a motion to support the letter
- Motion so are so moved or do I need to give a full motion?
- Motion
- Okay motion that the council adopt the letter as written
- Second all right, we have a motion and the second to
- Sign on to the letter as it's written
- Are there any comments from council members?
- Councilmember Flaherty just a brief. Thank you to come over here not Smith for bringing this
- the endangerment finding and EPA's obligation to regulate
- greenhouse gas emissions as a pollutant that is causing harm in our communities including Bloomington
- is really important. So I appreciate
- This opportunity for Bloomington to weigh in along with other communities. Thank you
- Thank you. Are there other comments?
- Okay, I'll also echo some thanks and also point out that through our economic and sustainable
- Development department we have various grants and things like that different programs for Bloomington
- residents
- especially with regard to extreme heat and there's been various studies about like
- tree canopy and that kind of thing so it
- climate change does have this very like
- monetary local impact in terms of what we need to do in order to support our residents in
- In these in these times and in this climate change, so I also appreciate
- her bringing this forward
- So with that if the clerk could please call the roll on the support of that letter
- Councilmember Rallo
- Yes
- Piedmont Smith. Yes Stossberg. Yes Daly
- Yes, Zulek. Yes Rosenberger. Yes, but sorry
- Yes, clarity. Yes
- rough
- Great, thank you. Thank you
- And we're still doing reports from council members so councilmember Ruff
- Thank you councilmember Flaherty no report thanks and moving online councilmember Rallo
- Yes, briefly just my mic working
- Yes
- Okay. Thank you
- Briefly, I just wanted to address
- that political violence
- Has no place in our society
- I want to condemn what occurred last Wednesday with the assassination of Charlie Kirk
- We should hold ourselves
- To a standard of civil debate
- Debate of ideas debate of policy propositions, but we must condemn
- political violence
- Cannot be the means by which we settle political differences
- and
- To add to that neither should government
- Use political violence as an excuse to limit our free speech and expression
- Thank you, I also have a report I need to get back to it I
- Had a couple things that I wanted to mention
- One was at the Planned Commission meeting on September 8th. So it was last week. This is the first
- regular session since then
- The Planned Commission did forward language related to single-room occupancy
- Which was a resolution that council sent to them
- So what they did was they decided to change the residential rooming house used to single-room occupancy
- And then they have updated related definitions and standards
- so the Planned Commission voted 7-1 to forward this with a positive recommendation and
- So we will take it up at council
- I'm trying to think of the calendar off the top of my head probably after budget stuff in
- Late October early November
- Second a little update on the MPO the Metropolitan Planning Commission
- Last Friday, we voted on several changes to the transportation improvement plan or TIP and two of
- them that I wanted to point out
- Which I think that I've mentioned before but I can't remember for sure and I think it's worth
- repeating because I'm excited about it
- is construction of a sidewalk along the bypass between North Walnut and Kinzer and then also
- reconstruction of the pedestrian bridge that
- Goes over the bypass there by Arlington that pedestrian bridge apparently has inadequate clearance
- and so they are going to replace it
- and
- Both of those projects have the majority of that funding in 2029. So those are just two things that
- hopefully will
- improve some of the pedestrian infrastructure in that kind of northwest quadrant of
- Bloomington
- Third I want to point out that I scheduled a constituent meeting for this Sunday September 21st on
- zoom
- It is at 1 30 on zoom. Usually my constituent meetings are Saturday mornings in person
- But as I mentioned a few weeks ago cross-country season really changes my Saturday mornings in the
- fall
- So I will have that constituent meeting this coming Sunday on zoom and you can find that link on
- the calendar
- And lastly, I appreciate that councilmember Rallo pointed out that political violence has no place
- in society
- but I also want to point out that there was a school shooting last Wednesday as well and
- School shootings also have no place in society and it is
- Absurd to me that there is has been greater reaction over one person
- Than over hundreds of schoolchildren who have been shot over the last 25 years
- So, thank you
- Moving on to reports from the mayor and city offices with a report from the Bloomington Housing
- Authority
- You can come up and
- Introduce yourself for the record and go ahead
- Good
- Good evening. My name is Nathan Ferreira. I am the new ish executive director for the Bloomington
- Housing Authority
- Tonight I wanted to give you kind of a broad overview of what we're doing. There are some budget
- numbers like in years past, but
- I don't know if we're behind this year or or what but I don't have a full budget to
- Present her to share with you tonight
- So I'm gonna jump right in there. Feel free to stop me if you have questions or I can answer
- questions at the end
- As it says on our seal there we strengthen opportunity beginning but not ending with housing
- Essentially like other housing authorities were responsible for administering public funds using
- whatever resources we can
- To allow us to provide affordable housing in in the in the community
- And to foster self-sufficiency through creative partnerships
- Some
- Stats that might be interesting. So you've probably heard about the rad the rental
- assistance demonstration
- So in April we closed on our second second rad, which basically means we technically don't have
- public housing in Bloomington anymore
- We have switched through what is low-income housing tax credit deal. That's just available for
- housing authorities
- all of our units so that's Walnut Woods
- Reverend Butler and Crestmont are now part of these investor
- supported
- Housing authority properties so that changes a little bit about how we operate it means we're
- accountable to more than
- You all we have investors that we have to answer to on a very regular basis. I'm discovering
- so
- Housing authorities we are we were established federally
- We're chartered through the state of Indiana
- And we're accountable locally. So that's that's kind of how we operate
- locally what that means is our seven commissioners are appointed by the mayor and they
- Provide kind of broad guidance of how our organization operates not so much day-to-day not
- personnel decisions
- not even residential decisions, but
- more policy and
- Financing and
- So they guide us in that way
- 90% of our funding is federal
- The rest of our funding comes from tenant rents and from various grants
- so we are
- This year has been a roller coaster in terms of watching what's going to happen with the federal
- budget
- as you all probably
- Also realize it's looking like it'll probably be a continuing resolution at this point, which is
- probably our best-case scenario
- so our numbers that we're creating are based on kind of
- Maintaining the levels that we're at
- Section 8 we serve just over 1700 households
- There's several different kinds of vouchers mixed in there, which I'll touch on in a moment. That's
- about 3,400 individuals
- We have long long wait lists. So this is by no means
- meeting the need
- and
- Residents pay no more than 30% of their income toward housing
- the dependent on the project
- You it's your AMI and what you can qualify for depends on the project our rads
- Are all less than 50% area median income is is how they qualify for our units
- This is I would say all of our programs housing choice vouchers I'll get into a little more
- We are growing our resident services. We have found that it's really critical to add supportive
- services in-house
- We don't we're not really interested in becoming a social services agency, and I really don't think
- that's our role
- but our we can add some things to
- Tighten up the back end where sometimes families get evicted that if they had had some services
- intervene
- They probably wouldn't have been evicted. So those are family self-sufficiency, which is a savings
- program, which is designed
- To get people off of public assistance set some goals and actually move toward
- Leaving public assistance altogether. That's about 80 80 participants
- Normally, we actually have a position that we're trying to hire for at the moment in that program
- We have the Ross program, which is resident opportunities and self-sufficiency. This is our
- Partnering with any number of other organizations in the community to bring in services for our
- residents
- It's community events. It's we have a grocery shuttle because we're in a bit of a food desert
- Which has been super successful
- That's through the health department a grant through the health department
- landlord risk mitigation, which is
- an incentive program for landlords to work with us
- It's been a bit on pause, but it sounds like that funding is coming back. We've actually
- noticed a decrease in our utilization of vouchers and
- Meaning the number of people that have vouchers we usually hover around 70%
- We're down to about 68% this year and it seems pretty clear that it's tied to our landlord risk
- mitigation program
- Having their funding paused so that should be coming back in and then we can continue to increase
- that utilization
- And then eviction prevention. This is pretty limited, but for our most vulnerable families, we're
- trying to offer services again, so
- They are not evicted from our our program
- I'm gonna go into more depth with Summit Hill in a moment, but that is our nonprofit
- It is controlled by our commissioners. It's a separate board that has a couple additional board
- members in addition to the commissioners
- and I will
- Say more in a moment
- So housing choice vouchers we have 1721
- Project-based vouchers you can see the number there most recently
- we
- Middle way applied for some project-based vouchers and we were able to grant those and as they have
- more units get inspected
- We'll be able to add some more project-based vouchers there
- We have vash, so that's for veterans
- We have some single-room occupancy and before you get excited about that
- Given the other changes that are coming with the UDO. Hopefully you HUD has no interest in granting
- more SROs
- in terms of vouchers
- We've already checked but the project-based vouchers that we can grant are pretty flexible
- So it could be that we can use those in SRO developments
- We're looking into that now
- The emergency housing voucher program started with kovat relief and those are going away those
- phase out next year
- So we are working to get those remaining voucher or holders on to our housing choice voucher
- program
- So they don't they don't lose housing or housing assistance
- And then we have 12 currently in our hop
- Which is the homeowner program where you can actually convert a voucher to a mortgage payment
- And so we're using that through our community land trust
- But also in the community several participants have just used that to buy a house on the market
- We have over 18 million and HAP
- that passes through the housing authority and pays landlords and
- I had some numbers crunched because I wanted you to see how many of those are just local
- mom-and-pop landlords that have you know, probably less than five units that are working with us
- and
- Just if that HAP if the voucher
- Subsidy gets cut federally you can imagine the impact that's going to have on our local economy
- so it's really critical and we've been doing the advocacy that we can to
- Ensure that that does not happen
- But anybody listening, please call your senators
- and
- Those are our weights currently so our rad weights are by bedroom our housing choice voucher
- We just closed that waiting list in April so you can see it's quite high
- and so that's already
- Before we open the waiting list we go through and kind of cleaned it up and a lot of people have
- found housing and it climbed this
- To that number and basically about six weeks, so it was very quick
- Summit Hill Community Development Corporation, this is our nonprofit that was established in 2019
- You may have heard of core community flats
- It is underway. If you drive down Rogers, you will see the historic core building being redeveloped
- We are actually I'm I'm quite shocked. We're on target in terms of our timeline. So those 38 units
- should come on
- early summer next year
- That does include nine PSH. So permanent supportive housing units, which are the same kind of units
- in Crawford
- We are doing something a little differently in that. There's also project-based vouchers there. So
- it's
- It's kind of mixed between the PBVs and the permanent supportive housing units
- So we're hopeful about that
- Chandler Early Learning Center. This is named after the Reverend Dr.
- Chandler Marvin Chandler who is a local
- locally
- Born and mostly raised up on the hill
- civil rights leader and world-renowned musician
- So we will be dedicating the Early Learning Center in his honor
- that'll have 28 seats for infants and toddlers on the first floor and then
- Three two-bedroom affordable apartments on the second floor and then we have the Summit Hill
- Community Land Trust
- We still hear the question of why the city of Bloomington doesn't have a land trust and I just want
- to set the record straight
- There is a land trust. It's different than many land trusts. It did not start as a grassroots
- project
- It's a bit odd in that sense because it was started by the municipality
- But this is a trend there are more and more
- Municipalities that are giving land and funding to basically get a land trust started. So
- We've got nine homes right now over off of
- What's it called atlas on 17th north of there's where our property is we are on the search for new
- properties
- Potential projects we have funding partial funding for a four-plex pilot that will be part of our
- land trust
- The thinking here is that we can replicate this and maybe get pre-approved plans and some of the
- other new developments such as
- Hopewell or
- the larger development on the southwest side
- That we could have a model for plex to be able to go in there at a middle income range
- So a eighty to a hundred and twenty percent AMI
- We are getting pretty far down the road in partnership with mother Hubbard's cupboard
- to purchase the four and a half lots east of mother Hubbard's and partner with them on a
- On a development that would incorporate gardens and community space for their services and a
- cottage development as part of the land trust
- So we're excited about that. We're obviously trying to generate funds at this point, but that would
- be the next step for our land trust
- You've heard of transit oriented oriented development. There's also food oriented development. That's
- kind of the model that we're we're looking at
- Essential function bonds is something else. We're exploring housing authorities as a semi-governmental
- agency. We can actually issue bonds and
- Some housing authorities are beginning to do these projects for workforce housing. It's totally
- separate from HUD
- You're not under their thumb for any of that kind of development
- so you can actually set the income up to 120 percent and
- last Faircloth's a rad just really quickly Faircloth is the
- The Faircloth limit is how much every housing authority how many public housing units they are
- permitted
- The ones we have developed is are well below what we're permitted
- So there's another light tech deal that could be possible where you do the light tech with your
- Essentially creating more public housing that immediately converts to rad at closing
- So we're excited about that. That would be potentially 185 additional
- housing authority units, so we'll we will see that's probably years off, but
- So this is what our revenue is looking like for next year
- That HUD admin is basically what operates our our authority
- We have a number of ARPA grants that are being spent down, but will primarily be spent down in
- 2026
- One of those I'll just mention with a land trust. There's additional money
- To make the land trust homes affordable to buyers under 60% AMI
- So that's where some of that ARPA money is going from I think it originally was with heading home
- And then a number of other projects including the one with the health foundation and the grocery
- shuttle
- We have a number of miscellaneous grants and then we're also working with the digital legity equity
- program program
- I think it's called digital opportunity now
- and
- Hoping to grow that
- So I will wrap up here and answer any questions you have
- Common denominator for us about why we've been able to develop affordable housing. It's you know,
- it's partly funding and partnerships
- But really the land has been contributed in every case
- so I don't know I
- My request is that the city really consider how do you free up land for affordable housing
- development?
- Because that is what makes it possible for us
- the land trust the rad housing we already owned it the early learning center is on a long-term
- lease so
- Pushing that however we can happy to be a part of that conversation, obviously
- Continuing to reduce barriers to missing middle housing. I was sorry to miss last week's meeting
- but
- We're definitely in support of anything. That's gonna reduce lot sizes allow us to split them
- There's a whole long list of things. We would love to see happen more plexus opportunity for
- Small apartment buildings all of those things are things we can develop
- So if if given the right tools, I would love to see incentives based on housing type
- Instead of tied to the buyer or renter income. I think that could free up
- Some some energy there to actually buy the kind or build the kind of housing that we want
- Partnerships are really key to our long-term success
- In my short time in this role
- The families that are really struggling in our services
- Are only successful if we have partner social service providers coming in
- So that extended case management that you've probably heard about is absolutely critical
- the whole homelessness
- conversation and press is absolutely critical, but it kind of
- sucks all the air out of the room and
- We need to also consider the families that are at risk of being evicted
- And focus some energy on keeping those folks house so they don't end up
- unhoused so
- Those are my I'm sure I have other things. I'm forgetting, but those are the things
- I really wanted to stress with you all and I appreciate you having me here tonight
- I am also happy to share more budget numbers as we
- Solidify that so happy to come back so any questions I can answer. Thank you questions comes member
- Sorry, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you director for area
- This was the first time and I don't know I might just be particularly uninformed that I had heard
- about the freezing of the
- Risk mitigation fund the landlord mitigation fund
- Could you tell us a bit more context who who froze it? What are we talking about when you say this?
- froze might have been the wrong word it
- It originally was ARPA and that we discovered that you cannot use ARPA in a rotating
- Account essentially so money coming coming in and going out ARPA cannot be used that way
- So we've been scrambling to find another source to cover that and it sounds like the city's gonna
- help do that
- We're just kind of waiting on
- That budget to get approved and can you help us understand the size the the size of that fund we
- requested
- 200,000
- 200,000 hand
- 200,000 was was how much we had allocated from ARPA funds that were sort of in a revolving
- No, we had already spent quite a bit of those ARPA funds. So 200,000 was closer to what was left.
- Okay. Yeah
- Thank you. I have another question, but it's on a different topic. So I'll come back in a second.
- Yeah
- Okay councilmember Piedmont Smith
- Yes, thank you very much for your presentation
- Your slide about budget said you get nine hundred thirty six thousand dollars in grants in city
- grants
- Is that can you tell me more about that? Yeah, they various grant programs
- It's it is
- predominantly ARPA
- So and these those funds are actually funds that are not associated with Early Learning Center or
- core
- so the
- fourplex pilot is for her is 250,000 the
- Eviction prevention that we got from ARPA is 60,000 the
- You're gonna test my memory here. Oh
- The
- CLT subsidy the land trust subsidy is another two hundred and fifty thousand
- And that's I think primarily what we're getting for the remaining ARPA and that was primarily from
- the heading homes
- funds and then we were all we had also applied for CDBG and were awarded but those funds haven't
- been released to us
- yet, so
- That's gonna pay for playgrounds at Walnut Woods
- I can get you a breakdown of specifics, but I don't I don't have it all in my head. So
- Okay. Thank you. Yeah
- councilmember Rallo
- Thanks for your presentation you mentioned involved city involvement in free
- Could be direct purchase maybe these might be one
- I'm sorry, I didn't I didn't catch all the all the question
- Can you repeat that again mentioned freeing up land having land for affordability for four thousand?
- Do you have ideas? I
- Know that right now to get land there has to be two appraisals and it has to be purchased
- That's my understanding of the process. I would love I don't know if there's a way to change that
- but
- Making it so land can be donated for affordable housing to projects. I think would would be great
- I don't know the full list of what land the city owns
- It could also be you know partnering to purchase land
- We will continue to request funds for for that purpose as well
- But yeah freeing up the land that's city-owned that may not be doing anything right now would be
- Our primarily what I was thinking of I see okay. Thanks for that clarification. That's interesting.
- Sure look into that great
- Thank you, there's 20 minutes reserved for this section of the agenda and we have gone through 20
- minutes at this point
- Are there further questions that?
- Can't wait
- Great, thank you so much. Mr. Ferrera. I appreciate the report. I might follow up with a couple of
- things
- Thanks for having me. Thank you
- All right, there were no council committee reports
- so then we move into our first period of
- Public comment so if you're a member of the public and would like to make a comment on an item not
- on the agenda
- You can go ahead and make your way to the podium
- You will have up to three minutes. If you're online, you can go ahead and raise your hand using the
- raise hand function
- Or you can send a chat message to the host
- And it looks like we have somebody
- here in chambers
- So please state your name for the record and then you'll have up to three minutes
- Okay, thanks everybody it's good to see you all I was here
- Last weekend three minutes really wasn't enough time
- It actually pertains to housing
- affordable housing our
- neighborhood a
- Very nice house beautiful little house on a wooded lot has been bought and now they tell me they're
- gonna tear it down
- Turn it into a fourplex
- Okay
- One thing I should say just to start with my dad was the head of urban renewal here in Bloomington
- They built literally hundreds of houses out there on the west side of the town and man
- We needed it. I mean people were living in in houses with the
- wooden floors
- or wood floors with dirt floors, so I'm not opposed to
- to
- Housing for poor people what I am opposed to deeply is this idea that you can just
- Come into a neighborhood and say hey
- You know we've decided this and it's for you know
- The greater good and so forth and the neighborhood has no say in it. I think that's wrong
- Okay, I've written this down. I don't know if you all got it. I don't think you did
- I'd like to form a request that a vote be taken by the council for an amendment to the
- Udo code that would allow for a vote by all residents living within a neighborhood
- Associated to have the final say about whether or not a four-plex goes on okay
- Running out of time
- May I ask you?
- With a show of hands who is not in favor of a measure
- To give members of neighborhood not just formal members of the neighborhood
- Associated to side by a vote whether a four-plex you do yo should be built in their
- Neighborhood could I have a show of hands the people who are not in favor of that?
- We don't usually have a back-and-forth with members of the public right now
- We don't usually have a back-and-forth with members of the public. I can't ask that or you can ask
- it
- We're just not necessarily going to answer it
- I
- Can't ask by a show of hands
- Well anyway, I I think yeah, I don't know read what I read what I had to say
- I think there should be an amendment to this Udo thing that allows for the neighborhood to decide
- neighborhood to decide
- Whether this thing is gonna
- progress
- Okay
- Zero
- Yeah, your time. I don't know. Could you pass that down?
- Yes, it was passed down
- Um, okay. Thanks everybody in the future. I don't mean that I think you guys
- Mr. Linmeyer in the future in the future if you have something to hand to council members if you
- could give it to council staff
- When you come in instead of approaching the podium, that would be great
- I couldn't hear a word you said
- In in the future if you have something to give to council members at a meeting if you could give it
- to council staff
- Instead of coming up to the podium. That would be great
- Um, I think we have another person here in chambers for public comment
- Go ahead and state your name for the record and then you'll have up to three minutes
- Um
- My name is sarah owen
- I am the community engagement coordinator for the exodus refugee immigration office here in
- bloomington
- Exodus is dedicated to the protection of human rights by serving the resettlement needs of refugees
- and other displaced people fleeing persecution
- Injustice and war by welcoming them to indiana
- First and foremost, we'd like to extend our thanks to councilwoman zulik our district
- representative for taking the time to come and tour
- Our new office space some weeks back and for sitting down to learn more about exodus's work
- We would also like to recognize the bloomington police department for their support in recent
- months
- We have utilized bpd this year for several crisis situations
- All situations were handled professionally and with care ensuring no further escalation of the
- situation
- In one instance in particular officers went above and beyond to ensure care of our clients
- So we appreciate their efforts and their approach to our clients in these situations
- Today exodus wanted to take the opportunity to speak to the city council about what we believe is
- an essential need for city operations
- And that it and that is to work into its budget the cost of a contracted language line or language
- interpretation service
- This would be a major step in ensuring equitable access to city resources for all bloomington
- residents
- Naturally the highest priority for a contracted interpretation service would be to serve as a
- resource for our first responders
- In times of crisis intervention people need to be able to make need to be able to understand all
- essential information
- Whether it's making decisions, excuse me decisions about urgent medical care or fully understanding
- their rights if they are being questioned or detained
- In reference to the thank you that was extended to bpd a moment ago
- I would be remiss if I did not note that exodus has on more than one occasion
- Been the conduit to ensure that interpretation was provided in instances of police intervention
- Had we not had our own contracted language line available to call who's to say how much frustration
- and confusion and even fear
- May have been factors in those situations
- It's worth noting that of the nearly 500 people that we have welcomed to bloomington our clients
- alone represent over 20 different languages
- And the necessity of a contracted interpretation service does not end with the need for emergency
- situations
- If our immigrant neighbors need to be connected to more resources through cfrd
- Or if they need to report a negligent landlord to hand
- Or if they even wish to register their child for bloomington youth basketball through the parks
- department
- We believe that exodus clients and any other non-english speaker who calls bloomington their home
- Should have the right to easily access any and all city services
- If the city were to prioritize the cost of such a contract and have a language line that was
- readily available to all of its department
- That investment comes with a promise that exodus refugee will personally provide training free of
- charge to all city departments
- So that city personnel are knowledgeable in how to properly use a phone interpretation service.
- Thank you
- You
- Thank you, um, I don't see anybody else here in chambers right now for public comment has anybody
- raised a hand on zoom
- No, okay
- Seeing none. We'll uh move on from the public comment period. Uh, there are no appointments to
- boards and commissions
- So we're on to legislation for first readings and I am without my uh parliamentarian right now
- So does somebody want to make the motions?
- I moved it. Thank you. I move that ordinance 2025 - 35
- Be read by title and synopsis be introduced and read by title and synopsis only by the clerk
- second second. Thank you. It's been moved and seconded to introduce and read ordinance 2025 35.
- We need to do a roll call vote on everything tonight because we do have a member online.
- So will the clerk please call the roll on the motion to introduce.
- Piedmont Smith. Yes. Stasberg. Yes. Daly. No. Zulek. Yes. Rosenberger. Yes. Asari. Yes.
- Laherty. Yes. Ruff. Yes. Rallo. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Will the clerk please read.
- Ordinance 2025-35 to amend Title IX of the Bloomington Municipal Code entitled Water
- Rate Adjustment. The synopsis is as follows. This ordinance amends the rates and charges
- in Title IX of the Bloomington Municipal Code entitled Water to reflect increased costs of
- supplying water and services to customers and to make debt service payments on bond
- financing for required capital improvements. I move that. Thank you. Go ahead. I wasn't sure
- if she was done. Yeah. Do the next one. I move that ordinance 2025-36 be read by title and
- synopsis only by the clerk. Second. So moved and seconded to introduce 20 ordinance 2025-36.
- Will the clerk please call the roll on that motion?
- Councilmember Stossberg? Yes. Daley? Yes. Zuley? Yes. Rosenberger? Yes. Osari? Yes. Flaherty? Yes.
- Ruff? Rallo? Yes. Piedmont-Smith? Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Will the clerk please read?
- Ordinance 2025-36, an ordinance authorizing the acquisition, construction, and installation
- by the City of Bloomington, Indiana, of certain extensions and improvements to the city's Waterworks
- utility, the issuance and sale of revenue bonds to provide funds for the payment of the cost thereof,
- and the collection, segregation, and distribution of the revenues of such Waterworks utility and
- other related matters. The synopsis is as follows. This ordinance authorizes the City of Bloomington
- to issue one or more series of its Waterworks revenue bonds in the aggregate principal amount
- not to exceed 71 million dollars, a portion of which are anticipated to be issued in 2026
- and the remainder in 2028. The bonds will be issued to finance all or a portion of the
- cost of design, engineering, acquisition, construction, equipping, and improvement
- of capital projects related to the Monroe Water Treatment Plant, the Waterworks Distribution
- System, and WaterMain, and a new service center and maintenance buildings and pay costs of the
- issuance of the bonds. Thank you. I move that Appropriation Ordinance 2025-08 be introduced
- and read by the Clerk by title and synopsis only. Second. Thank you. It's been moved and
- seconded to introduce Appropriation Ordinance 2025-08. Will the Clerk please call the roll
- on that motion? Yes. Council Member Dailey? Yes. Zulek? Yes. Rosenberger? Yes. Asari? Yes.
- Flaherty? Yes. Ruff? Yes. Rallo? Yes. Piedmont-Smith? Yes. Stasberg? Yes. Thank you.
- Thank you. That motion passes. Will the Clerk please read?
- Appropriation Ordinance 2025-08. To transfer funds from the General Fund to the Fiber Connectivity
- Fund and especially appropriate funds not otherwise budgeted. The synopsis is as follows.
- Appropriation Ordinance 2025-08 transfers funding from the General Fund to the Fiber Connectivity
- Fund and appropriates that funding for the ITS Department per the City's Master Development
- Agreement with Meridium / Hoosier Network / I'm not sure if this is a typo or not M Street Fiber
- or Fiber. Sorry. Thank you. I don't believe that is a typo. I think we looked that up.
- Thank you. Moving on to the next. I move that Appropriation Ordinance 2025-09 be introduced
- and read by the Clerk by title and synopsis only. Second. It's been moved and seconded to
- to introduce appropriation ordinance 2025-09.
- Will the clerk please call the roll on that motion?
- Council Member Zulek?
- Yes.
- Rosenberger?
- Yes.
- Asari?
- Yes.
- Flaherty?
- Yes.
- Ruff?
- Yes.
- Rallo?
- Yes.
- Piedmont-Smith?
- Yes.
- Sasseberg?
- Yes.
- Daly?
- Yes.
- Thank you.
- Thank you, that motion passes.
- Will the clerk please read?
- Appropriation ordinance 2025-09
- to specially appropriate from the general fund expenditures
- not otherwise appropriated.
- The synopsis is as follows.
- Appropriation ordinance 2025-09
- additionally appropriates funding from the general fund
- for expenses in the ITS department,
- for expenses in the engineering department
- that have been reimbursed by Indiana University,
- and to approve a transfer between categories
- in the clerk's office budget.
- Thank you.
- Those four ordinances will be heard for second reading
- at our next regular session meeting,
- and I really wanted to put a note on this.
- That is on Tuesday, September 30th.
- Tuesday, September 30th,
- because the Wednesday of that week is Yom Kippur,
- so we are not meeting on that day.
- And the second reading for those
- will count as required public hearing
- on those pieces of legislation that require that.
- So moving on to our second readings and resolutions.
- And as a reminder, we voted to amend the agenda earlier
- this evening to change the order of these.
- I move that ordinance 2025-34 be introduced
- and read by the clerk by title and synopsis only.
- Second.
- It's been moved and seconded
- to introduce ordinance 2025-34.
- Will the clerk please call the roll on that motion?
- just one moment please. Ornans 2025 oh my sorry let's have it. Rosenberger? Yes. Asari? Yes.
- Flaherty? Yes. Ruff? Rallo? Yes. Piedmont-Smith? Yes. Stasberg? Yes. Daly? Yes. Zulek? Yes. Thank
- you.
- Thank you that motion passes will the clerk please read. Ordinance 2025-34 to
- establish a fund for the proceeds of the surety bonds secured for work on
- fiber optics network for the city of Bloomington Monroe County Indiana. The
- synopsis is as follows. This ordinance establishes a dedicated non-referring
- fund to hold the 1 million dollars received in the surety bond payment on
- bond number 1160465 was called due to failure by Meridian
- infrastructure North America corporation subcontractor AEG to properly install
- fiber within the city limits. Damages were incurred by the city and certain
- notice of violations were issued by the city of Bloomington engineering
- department against AEG who was working on Meridian's behalf for violations of
- title 12 the Bloomington Municipal Code regarding work performed in the right of
- way. Appropriations of the funds will be requested by the city of Bloomington
- controller to the City Council at a later date. Thank you. I move ordinance
- 2025 - 34 be adopted. Great that looks like we have the controller here to
- present if you could oh okay maybe we have the city attorney here to present
- whoever yep okay if you could make sure to introduce yourself for the record we
- just barely started 2025 - 34. Thank you I'm Margie Rice Corporation Council for
- the city of Bloomington and I am out of breath but I will tell you I avoided
- falling down the stairs which is great. I am here to ask for a fund to be created
- and this is really a kind of small housekeeping matter related to a much
- larger issue. I'm going to explain the larger issue just briefly to give
- context for why I'm asking for this fund. So in 2021 the city entered into a
- letter of intent with Meridian to do kind of a public-private partnership to
- install fiber in the city of Bloomington and a master development agreement was
- signed in June of 22. TIFF was created it's called a spider TIFF was created in
- June of 22 and everything sort of proceeded from there and fiber was
- starting to be installed throughout the city of Bloomington. Earlier this year
- around February we started hearing some noise that there were some problems with
- a subcontractor that Meridian had hired which was AEG or true line that had some
- different names. So we did some due diligence ended up the legal department
- in late March filed a notice with the insurance company that held the bond for
- a AEG true line. So when people do work in the right-of-way they're often
- required to get a bond an insurance policy essentially to protect the city
- from any damage done in the right-of-way. And so we filed a written notice with
- the insurance company it was Sampo International doing business as Lexan
- insurance company and it was we had a million dollar bond and so long story
- short we submitted information to them in late March and we received a check for a
- million dollars on July 8th was given to the controller's office she's held it it
- could just probably be deposited into the general fund however we would like a
- separate fund to be created to hold this million dollars so that and then we will
- be back to the council to ask for appropriations of that million dollars so
- tonight I'm not asking for appropriation we're just asking to create the fund
- that million dollars will be deposited in there and when we're ready to come
- back and ask for appropriations we'll come back it's really too early to tell
- how that money is going to be spent we have fines related to AEG's work in the
- right-of-way there are actual repairs being done in the right-of-way but
- Meridium who we have the agreement with remember the city never had an agreement
- with AEG we had an agreement with Meridium they've been a great partner so
- far they have been very responsive they have we've gotten another contractor out
- there doing work in the right-of-way they are also bonded and repairs are
- being made I'm sure there are still issues that need to be remedied but it's
- too early to tell right now where we're gonna need that million dollars so we're
- not asking for an appropriation this is just a fun creation I can tell you that
- this has been a true collaborative effort on many city departments so while
- we are the ones who you know started the legal action to get the bond payment
- there's been a ton of work done by engineering and public works ITS
- controller the mayor's office has been involved just a lot of different
- agencies or departments within the city have had to be responsive to getting the
- information to the insurance company and getting the information to you to the
- new contractor to start doing the repairs so tonight it's really just a
- very simple housekeeping please create the fund so we can put the million
- dollars in it but we'll have an opportunity to talk more about details
- as we get farther along and when we're asking for appropriations happy to
- answer any questions I'm here Jessica's here for the controller for financial
- questions I think Rick Dietz is Rick Dietz Rick Dietz is online we also have
- Andrew from engineering so happy to answer any questions thank you are there
- questions from council members council members sorry thank you so much council
- rice the within I think section 2 it says that that the the allowable funds the
- fund can be used for any loss costs damage caused by AG's work blah blah and
- the ends by saying or any other lawful purpose yeah so explain to us both why
- that language is necessary and and whether you know does that open up the
- fund to be you know what what is captured by any other lawful purpose
- within this fund excellent question and I don't really know what the gamut of
- uses could be but I sure didn't want to limit us and so I didn't say any other
- purpose but we said any other lawful purpose yeah I don't think there are
- again we were when we count when Andrew's office sort of looked at fines there
- were could if you calculated per day there could be millions of dollars to
- find there might actually have to be you know repairs in the rights away it may
- be that we want to use this fund for something else sort of IT related I just
- wanted to leave it as general as possible and we may have to have
- conversations at some point you know with for example state Board of Accounts
- about how could we use this and so I just put that catch-all in there to to
- save us in case some creative idea comes up and we want to be able to use it that
- way but the prime the primary goal is the mitigation of current expenses
- incurred yeah for residents and right-of-way issues right if that no we
- won't be using this money for payment to private individuals this will be for
- city use and we do expect the contractor that Meridian has working with now the
- second contractor to do the repairs in the right-of-way so but will be outside
- of the funding yeah we're hopeful that we won't have to use a lot of this
- because they'll they'll make it all good great yeah because that was the
- question about whether this is right-sized you know if we had actually
- meeting the king fantastic thank you yeah thank you council member Rallo well
- actually my colleague just asked the questions that I was asking but I was
- wondering about the I don't it is I'm gonna say again it's too early to tell
- whether it's gonna be but you adequate or not I can tell you though that your
- question made me think of another department I didn't mention that's been
- affected which is utilities and so and they've also been very helpful but as
- time goes on and as things you know freeze and thaw and we see damages you
- know that we don't see right now but we might see in another you know six months
- to a year we're just we are we're kind of slow rolling it a little bit on this
- because we do want to see how much the contractor gets done what other damages
- show up and and you know we're we felt very good that we in fairly quick order
- got a million dollars back got the whole bond recovered but it was really
- because of the record-keeping I think of many of the other departments that that
- helped us recover the million dollar bond which was the full amount thank you
- are there other questions a council attorney liner do you have a comment Rick
- Dietz has raised his hand online okay mr. Dietz do you have something to add to
- one of the questions that was already asked only I suppose to echo Margie's
- statement but also to amplify that by saying any any new you know discoveries
- of issues will be forwarded to M Street fiber meridian to fix. Even if there are issues that have
- occurred in the past, we anticipate that there will be issues that we discover that need to be
- addressed over time.
- And so, you know, our understanding and our expectations that they will address those issues, and
- as such, the, you know, the funds shouldn't have to be used for the purposes to which they are
- already pledged to to address.
- Okay, thank you. Are there other first round questions.
- Okay, I'm going to go ahead and take one Councilmember sorry before we go to you for second round,
- and it actually has to do with the same section to so thank you.
- Attorney rice for mentioning that that this fund will not go to residents who might have had
- personal property damage but if there are residents who did have personal property damage and they
- have not been able to get any kind of response.
- Thus far, what should they do. I might look to Andrew for this, this is probably his Bailey wick
- however I know that his office is keeping a list of all the issues.
- And so I don't know if you want to address that.
- Thank you if you could introduce yourself for the record to that'd be great sure Andrew Seabor city
- engineer with the engineering department.
- If a resident has experienced issues as a result of this project.
- They have a number of options that they can do.
- Ultimately, the best tool I would encourage people to use is the report and to submit something
- through the report system that will flag things for staff.
- They can also send an email or call the engineering department with an inquiry we get a lot of
- calls on this project.
- Ultimately, what we will do on our end is put them in contact with the owners of this project on
- street fiber, and we're just more of a facilitator. In this case, and generally the street fiber
- and their partners have been responsive, especially at least in our interactions with them and
- making that connection happen.
- Great. Thank you.
- Council members are second round.
- That would be a question for for all of us. I don't know, but thinking in a broader sense about
- what we've learned through this process are we making any adjustments to our procurement practices,
- particularly in large sort of infrastructure projects.
- That is also an Android probably a rich question I could say from a legal perspective, it's very
- difficult when you're dealing with a main person and then they have a subcontractor and then there
- are subs underneath there.
- So, and again, not to get too too much into the weeds but you know there's legal activity going on
- in Miami Dade Florida related to a EG true line and the, and they have an assignment, and it's, it's,
- you know it's listed I was looking at one of the pleadings it was in the complex litigation sort of
- division
- of, of this court and so it's very hard when you're dealing with a, you know, a company and again
- Meridians counsel that I deal with is in New York he's been great he's very responsive.
- But there are moving pieces related to this kind of big project in Delaware companies litigation
- going on in Florida.
- It's very hard to know who your partners are doing business with.
- And when we write these contracts and we allow them the freedom that they need to pick the
- contractors there are going to be some inherent risks with it.
- Having said that the bond is always we always do require bond and again, it's been helpful in this
- regard and we got it back.
- I don't know whether Rick who has dealt since 20 probably before 21 has dealt with Meridians he
- might have something to say, I don't know what Andrew thinks about it.
- Hi there scan Andrew seabor city engineering.
- I think there's a few things I want to highlight and then I also want to make sure I'm answering
- your question but this this project I think from from an engineering department perspective has
- received a lot of.
- There's a lot of confusion like this is a city wide fiber projects the word cities in there, the
- city is supportive of this project the city has a master agreement.
- There's a lot of things, but when it comes to the actual construction and the work happening. Think
- of it like any other utility. Think of it like a Duke project a veteran project a Smithville
- project.
- We are not involved in the selection of the contractors.
- If Smithville wants to fire higher contract X and then contract excerpt we can't say yes or no to
- them that is their choice. It is our role to permit their work and make sure that what they're
- doing follows all the city's conditions so.
- So just a little clarifying there.
- But that being said on the permitting side there are some things that we are that we're going to be
- changing how it has happened in the past.
- One is where we're expecting higher bonds just to further protect the city.
- We're also going to be limiting the number of active permit areas at any given time so we want this
- project to happen we want it to happen quickly but we also want to make sure things get closed up
- before we start the next one so finding that right balance.
- We might be mixing missing a couple others but welcome director needs to add to it.
- Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Andrew. There were a couple of other things that we discussed and I believe
- we shared some of this already in response to some of the budget questions that came in.
- But another thing that we had talked about and this is under consideration by Andrew and his team
- in terms of permitting is having m street fiber.
- The, you know, a party to the permits that are filed by it's some kind of contractors, and then
- there's been some discussions about increasing, increasing the size of the, you know, the bond
- requirement for the work that's to be done so it's, you know, something in excess of the million.
- Which is has been the standard for these, these types of projects in the past. So there's a number
- of tools that that Andrew and his team and we all are exploring so that we have greater
- accountability and if things go wrong or greater ability to recover.
- Thank you. Are there other questions.
- Okay, yeah, I have one last one to actually, and it's kind of related to what I asked before in
- terms of residents and it might sound kind of weird and I'm not sure quite who it's a question for.
- But it's that idea of like, how do we know if something that we're seeing is actually a problem
- that a resident should report or we should report and the example that I'll give is that in my
- particular neighborhood.
- They had to go through like twice and actually install things so we have like little round circles
- in our neighborhood and then we have the big boxes, and a whole bunch of the little round circles
- are gone so then there's just a hole.
- And I don't really know what's in the hole but you know like water could get in the hole and it's
- kind of all over the place because they installed these in our ditches and our ditches flood all
- the time.
- Like, is that like what rises to the level of a problem and how do we know that because we don't I
- don't want like you getting called for like all kinds of things but I also don't want there to be
- serious things that are actually problems.
- I'm, my answer would be if in doubt have them completed you report, and it'll get to the right
- department and then they can go out and determine if it's related to this and if it needs to go on
- the list.
- I would rather have over reporting at this point, then under reporting, especially since we have a
- viable contractor out there doing work.
- Do you have anything to add.
- I think I would just echo what Margie just reported.
- Don't hesitate I'd rather have it, it's a little extra work for us, but hopefully it's already on
- our list and if it's not, we're literally walking every street they're working to make sure things
- are repaired.
- So it's a very time intensive effort but any help like that that does does help us.
- Okay, great. Thank you.
- Councilmember sorry last one very last question and this sort of follow up to something you were
- saying, as relates to the sort of information that has existed in the public realm about this
- project.
- We've adopted as one of our, you know, outside of constructing joy we've also said that that
- transparency was something that we care about so how what are we doing, sort of moving forward to
- inform.
- Because I've seen for example they're started to go back I've like seen the crews now working on
- certain places, but people often ask me about like what's the status of this and so is there some
- place some some centralized place that people can go to get updated information
- on where we're at on this project where you know where things are sort of expected to go forward
- what our benchmarks those those type of questions.
- Yeah, I'll, I'll punt to director he's probably is the best answer. My team's working with us.
- Thank you.
- Thanks. So, one place to go is
- the primary ISP who is gigabit now they have information about the progress of network or progress
- of the availability of their services.
- Also in street in street fiber, and then we have information on our website on the slash fiber page
- that's a little bit out of date that we anticipate updating that soon in the next few weeks when we
- learn more about
- the restart of the construction phase, which we're which we're looking forward forward to in the
- coming coming weeks.
- To your earlier point, Councilor Morris sorry about activity that's visible now, the activity that
- is going on now is your restoration of in completed, you know, and I'd say restoration and and
- fixes of construction work that that needs to get back to 100% from
- where he left it. There is not currently new construction happening, although it's possible that
- some amount of that will begin as it goes through the permitting process in the coming weeks, but
- that will also be a, you know, an open and public process.
- And I'm fairly certain that the city, you know, will also be making information available when when
- the, the construction phases is restarted in earnest.
- So, it should not be a surprise to anybody when that happens.
- Thank you. Great. Thank you. Let's go ahead and move to public comments now on ordinance 2025 34.
- So if there are any members of the public who would like to comment about this ordinance if you're
- in chambers you can make your way to the podium if
- you're online you can go ahead and raise your hand.
- It sounds like maybe we have somebody online. We do. Wonderful. When you're unmuted you can go
- ahead and start you'll have up to three minutes and please make sure to introduce yourself for the
- record.
- Yes, Kevin Keough.
- I'm just reading up on this with open source information and it seems like there was $8 million
- fine, which you're not going to collect. Obviously, they went bankrupt. My question basically is,
- is there an estimate about what is the exposure to the city for all these damages
- and things that this subcontractor failed to do? And then, I just want to make sure we get some
- type of assurance, but the main contractor will have to pay for all that.
- So I'm just unclear about who's really liable. Is the main contractor who had the subcontractor, is
- he ultimately liable for all the damages caused by the subcontractor? And also, would he be open,
- this main subcontractor, to the fines that were assessed against their subcontractor?
- So I was confused by that, and it'd be nice to have some clarification, but I'll just, that's it.
- Thank you so much.
- Thank you. Do we have any other comments online?
- No. Okay, thank you. I don't see anybody moving forward in chambers. So we'll move back to Council
- for further questions or final comments on Ordinance 2025-34.
- Councilmember Piedmont-Smith.
- It's a follow up question, if I may.
- So the million dollars will not be used to actually fix the mistakes, so what will it be used for?
- Will it compensate for all the staff time?
- And I may ask Jessica to come up here in a minute.
- You know, when, as the former, as the public comment was just made, there could have been assessed
- up to, you know, over $7 million in fine.
- That money could go into the fund where we just collect fine money and be used sort of generally to
- reimburse the city.
- We have spent a lot of staff, I don't think it's going to go to the ITS department and to the legal
- department to sort of reimburse them for staff time.
- But, and I do want to say though, in response, I think the problems will be fixed.
- I mean, I think the problems in the right of way are going to be fixed by the current contractor,
- subcontractor.
- So those will be fixed, and this money hopefully will not have to be used for that.
- What creative uses or ideas come out if we don't have to use it for right of way.
- I'm going to leave that to the departments I've been saying all along.
- We've got to get farther along we got to see where we land, I fully expect meridian to make the
- city whole, we will end up where we need to be at the end of this with the fiber installed and
- working.
- But I think that we, again it's too early to say right now how this million dollars going to be
- used. I think we wait get the project done and see where we stand.
- I don't know if Jessica do you have anything to add to that.
- Okay, she's she agrees. Hopefully that answers it. Thank you.
- I'm really sorry but I don't think that answered the question. So we don't know what the money will
- be used for is that yeah no it's too early to tell.
- Yeah, it's it's yeah it's way too early to tell exactly how we're going to use this million dollars.
- And that's really your question right is how's the money. I don't know at this point we will come
- back at some later point and ask for appropriations, but I'd be completely making something up if I
- were to give you something definite now.
- Okay, thank you.
- Thank you for not making something up.
- Thank you, any other comments
- or last questions from council members?
- Great, then I think that we're ready
- to call the roll on ordinance 2025-34.
- This member is sorry?
- Yes.
- Flaherty?
- Yes.
- Ruff?
- Yes.
- Rallo?
- Yes.
- Piedmont-Smith?
- Yes.
- Stosberg?
- Yes.
- Daly?
- Yes.
- Zulek?
- Yes.
- Rosenberger?
- Yes.
- Thank you.
- Thank you, and that passes unanimously.
- On to the next.
- I move that resolution 2025-16 be introduced
- and read by the clerk by title and synopsis only.
- Second.
- It's been moved and seconded
- to introduce ordinance or resolution 2025-16.
- Will the clerk please call the roll on that motion?
- Council member Flaherty?
- Yes.
- Ruff?
- Yes.
- Piedmont-Smith?
- Yes.
- Sosberg?
- Yes.
- Daly?
- Yes.
- Zulek?
- Yes.
- Rosenberger?
- Yes.
- Osari?
- Yes.
- Thank you.
- Thank you, will the clerk please read?
- (murmuring)
- Okay, resolution 2025-16 requesting the food
- and beverage tax advisory commission to make a recommendation
- for expenditure of food and beverage tax revenues.
- The synopsis is as follows.
- This resolution is a request from the common council
- for the food and beverage tax advisory commission
- to recommend expenditures of food and beverage tax revenue
- toward a 2026 budget for the capital improvement board.
- Thank you.
- I move resolution 2025-16 be adopted.
- Second.
- Wonderful, looks like somebody's already moved
- to the podium to present.
- Are we gonna do a switcheroo again, or, I'm just kidding.
- Please introduce yourself for the record.
- Thank you very much, council.
- I'm Jeff McKim.
- I'm the treasurer for the capital improvement board.
- Oh, I have with me John Wyckart,
- the president of the capital improvement board,
- and Jeff Underwood, our comptroller.
- So you will remember that the capital improvement board
- presented our 2026 budget request to you a few weeks ago
- during your budget work sessions.
- Because the CIB budget is funded
- by the food and beverage tax,
- statute requires an additional procedure
- specific to that fund source.
- Statute requires the common council
- as legislative body of the city
- to request the advisory commission's recommendations
- concerning the expenditure
- of any food and beverage tax funds.
- The resolution in front of you
- would make such a request for a recommendation
- from the food and beverage tax advisory commission,
- otherwise known as FABTAC.
- After FABTAC meets and makes a recommendation,
- approval of the CIB's 2026 budget
- will come back to council
- in the 2026 Civil City Budget Appropriations Ordinance,
- which is one of the three appropriations ordinances
- the council will consider
- during your budget adoption process.
- So thank you very much,
- and we are here to answer any questions you might have.
- Great, thank you.
- Do council members have any questions?
- (gavel bangs)
- Great, seeing none.
- We'll go ahead and go to public comment.
- If there are any members of the public
- who would like to comment on resolution 2025-16.
- If you're in chambers, you can make your way to the podium.
- If you're online, you can go ahead and raise your hand
- using the reactions tab.
- I don't see anybody moving in chambers.
- Is there anybody who's raised their hand online?
- Okay then, coming back to council,
- are there any comments or questions
- that have come up since I last asked?
- Seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll
- on resolution 2025-16?
- Will you give me just a moment council member Stasberg?
- Okay. - Thank you.
- You know what?
- I'm going to have to do this a little bit on the fly,
- so forgive me if I get the order incorrect,
- but I believe we'll start with council member Ruff.
- Yes.
- Piedmont-Smith?
- Yes.
- Stasberg? - Yes.
- Daly? - Yes.
- Zulek? - Yes.
- Rosenberger?
- No.
- Asari? - Yes.
- Mflaherty? - Yes.
- Thank you.
- Rallo?
- Oh, I'm so sorry council member Rallo.
- Yes.
- Thank you.
- Thank you, that passes eight one.
- And moving on to the next.
- I move that resolution 2025-15 be introduced
- and read by the clerk by title and synopsis only.
- Second.
- It's been moved and seconded
- to introduce resolution 2025-15.
- And will the clerk please call the roll on that motion.
- Council member Ruff?
- Yes.
- Rallo?
- Yes.
- Piedmont-Smith?
- Yes.
- Stasberg?
- Yes.
- Daly?
- Yes.
- Zulek?
- Yes.
- Rosenberger?
- Yes.
- Asari?
- Yes.
- Mflaherty?
- Yes.
- And Ruff?
- Or did I already call you?
- Yeah.
- I'm just gonna keep on calling
- until I can get this working again.
- Thank you so much.
- Are you able to read?
- Is that working?
- Yeah, we'll figure that part out.
- Okay, thank you.
- Resolution 2025-15 to establish expectations
- and procedures for council member liaison,
- yeah, liaisons to boards and commissions.
- The synopsis is as follows.
- This resolution sponsored by council member Zulek
- establishes expectations and processes
- for council members serving as liaisons
- to city boards and commissions.
- Thank you.
- I move that resolution 2025-15 be adopted.
- Second.
- Thank you.
- Council member Zulek.
- Hello everyone.
- This is actually just a formalization into code
- of something that we already passed as a full council
- in terms of expectations for liaisons
- to different boards and commissions.
- In short, the chair of the interview committees
- will appoint each of their interview committee members
- to be a liaison to two to three boards and commissions
- so that we can keep more of an eye on what they're doing
- and so that their work can be celebrated
- and spoken about at council meetings.
- So it's in line with a proposal that we've already passed
- and I'm happy to answer any questions
- but nothing has changed since then.
- Thank you for your consideration.
- Thank you.
- Are there questions from council members about this?
- And just for clarity, we didn't actually pass it
- before we kind of agreed to the intent and concept, yeah.
- Council member, sorry, did I see your hand?
- Okay, so question for all of us, I guess,
- or for what happens if, so within the committee,
- so I'm on a committee with council member Stossberg,
- council member Rosenberger, what happens if I go,
- nah, I don't wanna be on that committee.
- No, like what, or vice versa, you know, if,
- the question is, how do we ensure
- that people actually get assigned, and how do we,
- because, I mean, and what's actually our mechanism here
- for following up on such a thing, right?
- So imagine, let's put it here, that if council member
- Stossberg and council member Rosenberger decide
- that I should be the representative 'cause we do the committee
- that hires for black males as an example,
- and I go, I don't wanna do that, what happens?
- I would imagine it's a pretty similar process
- for appointments to boards and commissions
- that we do for the entire council,
- where the council president works with
- all of the different council members
- to identify the areas of interest.
- It's not a huge commitment, it's primarily
- just being the point person for the different staff liaisons
- and attending one meeting per calendar year.
- How does that three bit, yeah?
- 'Cause there's three in the--
- Right, per board or commission.
- So it's just one meeting for each liaison assignment.
- The three times is checking in with them
- at least three times a year.
- But then like, I'm just curious if we need
- some type of mechanism within this
- to actually make sure that something happens, right?
- Because, and then similarly we have a report,
- is that report supposed to be a written report?
- Is it an oral report during report time?
- Like, what's our, otherwise, like it's,
- we all get the intention, right?
- I mean, we voted for the intention of this,
- but how do we achieve the outcome
- that we're looking for is the question.
- And whether we have that mechanism in the current,
- or in the current resolution, or whether we need it.
- I mean, we could just agree ourselves
- that this is how we wanna do it, but.
- I think over-regulating is what gets us into trouble here.
- So I was imagining that each council member
- would kind of come up with their own strategy
- of being a liaison to the boards and commissions
- if they wanna give an oral report.
- They can, verbal, written.
- Are there other questions, or perhaps comments,
- or responses to council member Asari's question?
- Because in a lot of ways,
- this whole resolution is about all of us.
- I'll follow up, 'cause I don't see any hands.
- That I had kind of a similar question
- of what happens if a council member
- doesn't fulfill these responsibilities?
- What happens if they don't check in
- at least three times a year?
- What happens if they don't go to a meeting a year?
- Like, what is, how much public shaming do we get to do?
- I'm kidding about the public shaming, but like,
- and I don't think that the sponsor of this
- necessarily has to answer all of these questions,
- 'cause it really is, like, in a lot of ways,
- our job is all about personal accountability, but.
- Right, yeah.
- May I?
- Sure. - Council member Daly.
- I think it would just be very similar
- to our regular committee assignments.
- You know, we'll know if somebody's not keeping up,
- and what happens then?
- I don't know the answer to that, but.
- But some people do.
- (laughing)
- No, but I just see this as a way of us having
- a better understanding of what's happening,
- not trying to have control over anything,
- but just feeling more connected to what's going on
- in our city, and the boards and commissions
- that we help appoint people to,
- and making them feel like they're heard,
- and their work is being acknowledged.
- Other questions or comments about that?
- Council Member Piedmont-Smith.
- Well, just to back up what Council Member Zulik said,
- we were envisioning when we were talking about this
- in the Committee on Council Processes,
- we were envisioning that people,
- like all three people on the interview committee
- would write down what they're most interested in
- as far as serving as liaison.
- And then the chair would just try to put that together
- and make fair assignments,
- and then the committee would vote on it.
- So it seems very unlikely that somebody would,
- unless they're not interested in anything,
- that it seems unlikely they would have something
- that they have no interest in, so.
- I would agree.
- I also wanna point out that this resolution
- is supposed to start in January of next year,
- and each year the president has an opportunity
- to change interview committees.
- And so that's the other thing that I wanna point out
- for whoever is president next year
- in terms of checking in with people that,
- prior to now, the interview committees
- just interviewed people,
- and so it maybe didn't necessarily matter
- which interview team you were on,
- but now since we actually have these,
- assuming this passes, a larger responsibility for each one,
- there might be interview committees
- that might be more or less desirable
- for different members based on their interests.
- So that is just an additional thing
- to take into consideration next year.
- Are there other questions or comments?
- Council Member Asari.
- I wonder if we should consider,
- maybe this is, it's not something we need to consider now,
- but just as we think through this moving forward
- is whether such a mechanism might,
- replace is too strong a word,
- but whether we can then streamline
- some of the appointment procedures,
- because at the end of the day,
- all of our appointments get made by the whole council.
- So whether in essence you remove the three-body person,
- people who have to do the interviewing and all that,
- and we actually just, it's like the liaison
- is the person who brings that to the larger group.
- So 'cause we are sort of proliferating
- our meetings here with this,
- which is fine, I mean, it does give some structure,
- I think, to something that we've all wanted to do,
- which is be more involved in some of these committees.
- But then, and so that's one thought.
- Then the second thought for me is the overlapping of,
- we just made those Title 15 changes,
- sort of being clearer about the reports
- that we want from the committees themselves,
- and so thinking a little bit about
- how do we make sure that council member reports
- are complimentary or supportive
- or happening in cadences that make sense
- so that we're not just sort of duplicating things
- that we're just gonna hear anyways
- from the committees themselves.
- So I do think we should give some thought,
- again, I get the sort of informal nature of this,
- but we should give some thought
- to how are we going to usefully report back to one another
- so it's not just like I went to said committee,
- you know, and you know, what is the useful information
- that we're reporting to each other
- sort of ahead of things, right?
- Okay, maybe that's the kind of thing
- that should go into some kind of
- like administrative manual sort of thing,
- which I think Committee on Council Processes
- is also working on that too.
- Are you working on that kind of thing?
- Clerk Bolden, did you have something to add to this?
- Not quite directly, but I did want to point out
- that Deputy Clerk Crossley is online
- if you have any questions for her as well
- related to council committees and that sort of thing.
- Okay, thank you.
- Are there other questions?
- I actually have another one that relates
- to section four, number four,
- which says informing assigned boards
- or commission chairs and staff liaisons
- of any relevant legislation being developed
- or discussed by the council and soliciting feedback
- from the boards or commissions on said legislation.
- And I'm kind of concerned that there might be
- a timing issue of that.
- First of all, who defines relevant
- and what might be relevant or what might not be,
- but especially in terms of say a resolution
- that might relate to a board or commission.
- If that packet gets released on a Friday
- for a discussion the next Wednesday,
- I mean the chances that there's going to be a meeting
- of that board and commission within that time
- that then they would be able to discuss it is like low.
- So I don't quite know how to actually do that.
- So that was intended to be a little less formal
- than full meetings and mostly reaching out to the chair
- and the staff liaison who might be able to offer
- some insight on behalf of those commissions.
- I guess that makes me a little uncomfortable
- to then rely on essentially one member of the commission
- and then the staff member to give potentially an opinion
- on legislation as opposed to the whole commission.
- Okay.
- I mean, I don't know if,
- I just don't know how possible that is all the time
- to get meaningful feedback from the board or commission.
- Does anybody else have any thoughts on that at all?
- Council Member Piedmont-Smith.
- I mean, to me it's understood that the term,
- the phrase if feasible is understood in my reading of it,
- but I know it's not always gonna be feasible.
- But sometimes we hear about,
- what we ourselves are working on,
- or we hear about a colleague working on something
- way before it comes as legislation, so.
- Council Member, sorry.
- And just like logistically too,
- because again, if we're leaning
- into the more sort of informal thing,
- are these assignments something we have to do
- in a formal open door meeting?
- Or for example, can I write my two committee members
- and say, I'd like to be liaison for these three things?
- Do those assignments have to be done officially
- in an open meeting, or can we just sort of informally say,
- I'm going to go to the status of black males commission?
- Like I said, it would be pretty similar
- to the original boards and commission appointments
- for council members.
- But yeah, but are we appoint,
- because the legislation, the resolution says
- we appoint internally to the group,
- but then we're likening it to the president
- making the appointment.
- So do those appointments have to be official,
- or is it enough that I just sort of say,
- I'll cover that commission?
- Would our attorney like to answer that?
- My suspicion would be that they have to be made
- in a public meeting.
- Which means we all, yeah, so I mean, yeah, so.
- Attorney Lainer, would you like to clarify the ODL
- in terms of whether those appointments
- need to be made publicly or not?
- Are you talking about the appointments
- within the interview committee
- to a particular board and commission?
- Correct.
- I think that would be done in the committee meeting.
- Right.
- I would imagine it would be
- in the first committee meeting of the year
- with just ironing out all the details.
- Are there other questions?
- All right, let's go ahead and move to public comment
- on resolution 2025-15, if there's any members of the public
- who would like to comment on this resolution.
- I don't see anybody in chambers.
- Is there anybody online who has raised a hand?
- Okay, returning back to council then
- for any final comments or questions.
- Are there any final comments?
- Council Member Rosenberger?
- I just have something to say in general
- about our commission, our committees,
- interview committees, that I think is incredibly hard
- to have three people, so if two people ever talk,
- it's in violation of open door law,
- and I would like to potentially, not tonight,
- but consider, I think this is great,
- I'm happy to support it,
- but consider having larger committees
- so that two of us can talk sometimes,
- just about coordination of who's gonna be where, or, yeah.
- Interesting, okay, thank you.
- Are there other comments?
- I'll go ahead and go, I am happy to support this,
- but I am still nervous about that section four, number four,
- because there's not an if feasible in there,
- and I appreciate that it's implied,
- and of course, like, what happens
- if we don't fulfill these responsibilities,
- like, there's not really a mechanism of consequence
- for not doing our jobs, at least not, you know,
- for our term, pretty much.
- But I will make every effort to do this.
- So if there are no other comments,
- if the clerk could please call the roll
- on resolution 2025-15.
- Council Member Piedmont-Smith?
- Yes.
- Stasberg?
- Yes.
- Daly?
- Yes.
- Zulek?
- Yes.
- Sombarger?
- Yes.
- Asari?
- Yes.
- Flaherty?
- Yes.
- Ruff?
- Yes.
- Rallo?
- Yes.
- Thank you.
- Great, thank you.
- So that passes unanimously.
- So now we're going to move back to the ordinance
- that we changed the order of earlier.
- I move that ordinance 2025-33 be introduced
- and read by the clerk by title and synopsis only.
- Second.
- It's been moved and seconded
- to introduce ordinance 2025-33.
- Will the clerk please call the roll on that motion?
- Yes.
- Stossberg?
- Yes.
- Naly?
- Yes.
- Zulek?
- Yes.
- Rosenberger?
- Yes.
- Asari?
- Yes.
- Flaherty?
- Yes.
- Ruff?
- Yes.
- Rallo?
- Yes.
- Piedmont-Smith?
- Yes.
- Great, thank you.
- Will the clerk please read?
- Ordinance 2025-33 to establish the Fiber Connectivity Fund
- for Digital Opportunity Initiatives.
- The synopsis is as follows.
- Ordinance 2025-33 establishes the Fiber Connectivity Fund
- to support broadband access for income qualifying residents,
- ensuring affordable high-speed internet
- and promoting digital opportunity
- while also securing annual infrastructure contributions
- from the developer.
- Thank you.
- I move that Ordinance 2025-33 be adopted.
- Second.
- Thank you.
- It looks like the controller is at the podium.
- He's gonna stay there today.
- If you could go ahead and introduce yourself for the record
- and tell us what this is all about.
- Good evening, Council.
- Controller McClellan, ITS Director Rick Dietz
- and I will be presenting this request to you tonight.
- This also has to do with the high-speed fiber
- that is being installed in Bloomington
- that was based off of a 2022 agreement with Meridium.
- And we keep saying Meridium now called M Street Fiber.
- There's a lot of names in this.
- So I'm just gonna switch to M Street Fiber.
- That is the company, that is the main overall company
- that we are working with now.
- So M Street Fiber and the city agreed to support access
- to the high-speed internet for low income
- and affordable housing units in Bloomington back in 2022.
- There is an agreement that the city will fund,
- will put a million dollars in a fund
- to support low income eligible houses
- just to connect to the high-speed fiber
- and that the M Street Fiber will match or exceed that amount
- if the total cost is over $700.
- So there's some details in this ordinance
- that create the fund that really lay out
- why the fund is being created,
- what the fund can be used for,
- how the city will use the proceeds
- to fulfill this promise that we made in the agreement
- and how the city has to use those funds
- after that agreement expires.
- And there is an expiration to the agreement.
- Rick Dietz can answer more questions about that.
- So really this is just creating the fund
- and explaining how it can be used
- and then we're gonna come back on September 30th
- and ask for an appropriation of $250,000
- into this fund from the general fund.
- And we decided to fund this fund over four years
- with $250,000 to kind of spread out
- that promise of a million dollars
- so that we don't have a big hit to the general fund
- and it spreads it out over four years.
- We don't have to use the general fund.
- We can use any fund that can be spent
- on any lawful purpose of the city.
- We just chose the general fund
- because it is our largest operating fund.
- But we can discuss that now
- or we can discuss the funding later
- when we come back for the additional appropriation.
- But Rick Dietz is online and he absolutely knows the most
- about this project more than anybody else
- in the entire city.
- With Andrew Syborg, the engineering director,
- a close second.
- So he is online to answer probably
- all of your other questions.
- (laughs)
- Mr. Dietz, do you have anything to add right now?
- No, I think that was a really good summary
- and I can't think of anything more
- that needs to be added at this point.
- Okay, thank you.
- Then I think it goes to council members for any questions
- related to this establishment.
- Do we have any questions?
- Council member, sorry.
- Just a really quick one probably for director Dietz.
- The eligibility criteria, is that set by the city
- or set by Gigabit now for the low income?
- Yeah, that eligibility criteria was defined
- in our master development agreement
- and it's a pretty lengthy list of existing
- low income qualifying programs
- from the federal government and from the state.
- So instead of creating an elaborate criteria,
- we simply say that if a household is receiving
- supplemental nutrition assistance programs SNAP
- or HUD housing vouchers, the Indiana Department of Education
- free and reduced lunches, any of those suffice
- for eligibility for this.
- That program is ultimately administered by a Gigabit now,
- but those were the criteria that we originally defined
- with Meridian in our original agreement with them.
- And that was, thank you for saying that
- 'cause that was the part that I was a little unclear about.
- How does, so a city administered fund,
- but then it's administered by Gigabit now,
- like how does that exactly work?
- Like that an external party is assessing criteria,
- but then we're funding it, like how does that mechanism work?
- Yeah, so there's two separate things here.
- The eligibility for the program is one thing,
- and again, that's been defined in our original agreement.
- The fund that we're looking to establish here,
- which we're calling the Fiber Connectivity Fund,
- and the purpose of that is to provide city support
- for connecting low income households that are eligible
- for this program for the eligibility criteria
- to the Meridium M Street Fiber Network.
- And so we're providing, and this is where
- Controller mentioned the kind of the split
- and the allocation, if that cost to connect a unit,
- the residents is $700 or less, then the city
- is providing $350 or less, half of that cost
- out of this fund that we're establishing.
- If it's higher than that, then the city's obligation
- only extends to $350, and the remainder of the cost
- to connect that residence or housing unit
- to the network is borne by M Street Fiber.
- Okay, fantastic, you answered my follow-ups as well,
- so thank you.
- Are there other questions?
- Okay, I have kind of a clarification question.
- So in one of the whereas clauses,
- it specifies establishing a non-reverting fund,
- and then in the actual section of establishment,
- I don't see that it says that it's a non-reverting fund
- that we're establishing.
- Is that?
- It is a non-reverting fund.
- Okay.
- Is saying it in the whereas clause enough?
- Or did I just miss it in one of the sections?
- Let's see here.
- You probably didn't, you're probably correct.
- Let's see, reporting and accountability.
- Okay.
- I mean, it is a non-reverting fund,
- and the agreement states that it will be a non,
- the 2022 agreement states
- that it would be a non-reverting fund.
- And I think that when we refer back to this ordinance
- that created the fund, I mean, I agree with you.
- It should have been in a section,
- but having it in the whereas is at least,
- I feel like it's not a fatal flaw.
- At least it is mentioned in the whereas
- as in any reasonable reader reading this
- would see that it says it's going to be a non-reverting fund
- as just in a whereas instead of in a section.
- That would be my interpretation of this.
- If I go back into the ordinances and look up a fund
- to try to figure out what is this fund created for,
- I look at the whole document
- for any information I can get from that
- and use that as the law.
- So I mean, from a legal perspective,
- if anybody challenged it, I don't know,
- but I don't see it as a fatal flaw
- for our city being able to do business
- in relying on this document that created the fund.
- Okay, I'm sorry, I didn't point that out earlier,
- I asked that earlier.
- Council Attorney Liener, do you agree
- that having it in the whereas clause
- is suitable in terms of mutual understanding,
- not just now, but in the future?
- Where is it in the whereas clause?
- It is in the third whereas clause.
- i think it's an open question i mean i i think that one could make all the arguments that the
- controller just stated
- so do you think that it should be amended to specify i think it would be better if it was stated
- is that an amendment that y'all could do on the fly right now
- i'm sorry is that an amendment that you could do
- right now quickly to add in
- non-reverting somewhere in section one
- yes that we'd have to prepare it it has to be in writing the amendment must be riding and is that
- something that you can do in like 10 or 15 minutes because i have a couple other questions too so
- yeah yeah we can work on that thank you
- are there other questions from council members before i to my other ones
- okay this one might be a question for mr deets um in oh where am i in section two it says
- that the its department and relevant city departments shall develop policies and
- procedures to ensure effective implementation of the of the digital opportunities initiatives
- i was just wondering which departments needed to do that and if those procedures and policies
- were already like in place or if those like need to be worked on now
- um you know as far as policies in place to utilize these funds the the they they are for the sole
- purpose of supporting uh the connection of low income units to the network until
- until we reach the end of the exclusive period for the isp which is five years with
- two possible one-year extensions so between five and seven years at that point the
- at that point the use of the funds is also governed by the agreement and it states that
- they need to be used for uh you know for digital opportunity initiatives and those would all be
- you know once we reach that point those would all be budgeted as part of our normal
- our normal you know process with council approval during during the year also with regard to
- policy that we have a digital opportunity strategic plan that was developed in 2020
- and we're in the process of you know revising that towards the tail end of of this year
- and perhaps early early next and those will essentially be uh you know governing document
- documents with regard guards to our activities in that area okay so i'm not sure if that quiet
- answers your question i'm not sure i think i think the short answer is that um not right now not
- until the end of the original isp period and then there might be more work but by then it'll just
- get budgeted in yeah that's that's correct we would need to um and already are planning to
- appropriate through the council for the use of these uh funds both for the uh you know the current
- use you know and then you know in the future we would be requesting council authorization to use
- the fund for those other purposes okay thank you um i have another question does anybody else have
- any questions great and and this is giving staff plenty of time to uh to do this um in your memo
- um it talks about the city already having received invoices that need to be paid using this fund
- and i
- was just wondering um what those invoices currently total um my my recollection for those um and i'm
- sorry i don't have the right of hand is around 40 40 000 uh but the that predates the recent uh
- the recent connections at uh bloomington housing authority complexes uh you know which have have
- come online and in fact uh walnut woods is is lit now and and probably in the next couple of weeks
- we'll be able to accept uh uh customers coming on to the network so we anticipate
- more than that amount by the end of the year
- great thank you
- does staff have an amendment written for us yet
- should we recess for five minutes let's go ahead and recess until um well it's 8 33
- right now so let's just do 8 38 and uh that'll give uh staff a little bit more time
- i'm gonna need to call us back to order here uh so we have been working on an amendment
- and so we are working on getting that amendment up on the screen that adds
- um non-reverting to the fiber connectivity fund um i actually have it in front of me right now so i
- i'm gonna pass the gavel over to councilmember piedmont smith because
- i'm technically sponsored to this
- all right um for the benefit of colleagues let's wait to get this on the screen and the public
- here we go all motion
- okay councilmember stossberg i would like to move amendment one to resolution 20 25 33
- second okay there's a motion and a second for amendment one to ordinance 20 25 33 go ahead
- councilmember stossberg uh this just adds uh non-reverting into section one so section one
- now reads there is hereby created a non-reverbing non-reverting fiber connectivity fund um just to
- make sure that there is clarity mostly in the future for anybody who might see this in five
- seven or more years when um maybe it's not the same council members up there and up here and
- maybe not the same staff in city hall uh to make it clear that this the money in this fund stays
- in this fund to be used only for these purposes all right thank you very much is there any are
- there any questions about the amendment is there anybody in the public who would like to speak to
- the amendment if there's anybody online who wants to speak to this amendment no okay all right back
- to council any comments on the amendment i cannot see council member rollo at this point but
- if i don't hear anything i don't see a hand raised so let's go ahead and go to a vote
- on amendment one to ordinance 2025-33 council member dailey yes zulek yes rosenberger yes
- vasari yes clarity yes ruff yes rollo yes pete bunt smith yes stossberg yes thank you all right
- that
- amendment is adopted nine zero i'll pass it back to president stossberg thank you um sorry i didn't
- think of that earlier so were there any last questions about resolution or sorry ordinance
- 2025-33 as amended great let's go to public comment on that then is there any public comment
- related to ordinance 2025-33 as amended i don't see anybody in chambers is there somebody online
- yes there is a wonderful um if the online commenter when they get unmuted if you could state your
- name
- for the record and then you'll have up to three minutes as kevin keel uh looking at the master
- agreement i'm just reading again it's open source information about the contractor the main
- contractor
- has three years to uh substantially complete the uh the build out and i i understand is that is the
- uh definition of that is 85 percent of the premises need to be ready to go by october
- of 2025 and seeing that it's september 17th now i just you know for we're going to put a
- million dollars in this but how is how is the project actually progressing is it
- does the master agreement need also to be amended or somehow changed to show that they they're
- am i wrong they're not in compliance with the master agreement uh it's just confusing to me
- this but there's this this and i didn't expect this that's what i'm just listening in and i started
- reading up to it because i was so confused just it seems to be some more issues that aren't even
- being discussed and i find that troubling it's and it seems we've already had a situation earlier
- where we're trying to figure out where to put a million dollars from a surity bond but i'm saying
- they went bust in all that exposure there so anyway i just wanted to to uh add that to the
- the mix just i'm just you know as a member of the public just so confused about what is going on
- with this project is there been some type of you know assessment of where we stand here how is this
- you know i don't know the quality of the project how is it you know are the citizens getting good
- value with this i guess is the bottom quality you know the bottom line question it just seems
- you know it just i just i don't feel comfortable after reading some of this and hearing what
- the discussion tonight thank you again for the opportunity to comment thank you are there other
- members of the public online with a hand raised no okay thank you um let's go ahead and revert
- to council for any um final comments on um ordinance 20 25 33 as amended
- council member rollo
- uh well just to raise the question i guess of compliance and and uh timing
- to director deets or to miss rice director deets do you uh is director deets still there
- there he is yes um you know as far as timing uh the the construction is pretty much halfway halfway
- done no one anticipated the uh uh the dissolution of uh you know of aeg in the in the middle of the
- project but we anticipate being able to get back up to speed in the coming coming weeks and months
- uh i'm not sure that that answers your your your question or your your statements
- well is this so the schedule of compliance to 85 percent or 80 percent completion is that
- feasible in the near term um it is it's probably not as um originally uh originally discussed but
- then we've had a year uh you know a year pause in construction because of the sorry there was a
- comment uh sorry i'm hearing something come through so we're on a new timetable in other words
- and yeah likely we will yeah we will need to adjust our our timetable because of because of this
- okay can you say this evening what that timetable is in terms of anticipated completion
- um i can tell you we anticipate um renewing the construction phase
- in the next couple of weeks you know at least in part and then at least i would see it you know
- we're probably um you know at the at the tail end of of next year uh for completion
- you know given that we're about halfway uh or a little over halfway through
- through okay thank you okay thank you are there other could i ask one more to follow up if it's
- sure maybe someone else will but sure mr kiyo talked about satisfaction any any comments on that
- mr deets as far as yeah customers who have signed up and are using the service uh you know they
- they
- seem very happy with it um i i don't have a scientific uh survey of that yet and although
- we are anticipating doing uh doing a survey as part of our digital equity strategic plan which will
- ask about um ask about that um what i can tell you anecdotally uh you know from just the like
- two most recent conversations over the course of the last in probably three weeks people are happy
- with the service um you know again that's you know i think they're happy just with the service
- period but they're also happy with the service in comparison to their experience with prior
- providers
- thank you thank you are there other comments from council members um i'll just say uh just as a
- matter of information for the public if you go to bloomington.in.gov/fiber um that is the
- information
- about the fiber initiative and that there is a construction progress map on there and so i
- assume as construction resumes uh that all will be kept up to date um so with that correct great
- thank you um so with that if the clerk could please call the roll on ordinance 2025-33 as amended
- council member Zulek yes
- Rosenberger yes Asari yes Flaherty yes Ruff yes Rallo
- yes Piedmont-Smith yes Stasberg yes Daley yes thank you thank you that passes unanimously and
- brings us to the end of our legislation for this evening we do have a period of additional public
- comment next if any members of the public would like to comment on items not on the agenda uh who
- did not comment during our first general period of public comment i don't see anybody in chambers
- is
- there anybody online with a hand raised we do have someone online i'll unmute them wonderful thank
- you
- when you're unmuted you can go ahead and state your name for the record and then you'll have up to
- three minutes and good evening uh council this is Christopher MG from the greater Bloomington
- chamber
- of commerce sorry i'm not there in person tonight uh we always can be in this community a little
- bit
- of a clinic senate a jaded tourist but i just wanted to bring up that uh we have some momentum
- across uh some major projects in the city uh the recent stadium district uh that's going to be
- before you soon i think it's going to create some real new uh opportunities on the north side with
- restaurants entertainment in the iconic iu athletic area and by using the the river district tool
- that
- the state has provided us it's going to allow some flexibility with liquor permitting i think it's
- going to be a big advantage tracking new businesses some high traffic corridor that we're already
- sitting with of course our great iu football team and then the hokwell neighborhood the redevelopment
- there that's shifting the approach to make it easier for local builders and small developers
- to participate i think this is exciting uh housing as we know is a major issue as we saw uh last
- week
- in a very effective deliberation meeting and the trades district continues to advance as kind of an
- innovation hub for entrepreneurs i think john fernandez's steady hand has really made this a
- anchor for high tech and creative industries and with iu as a partner i think uh and the boutique
- hotel coming in next year i think this is place is going to take off for young professionals and
- then
- of course the convention center where uh last week the chamber had its 110th uh oversold annual
- meeting is set nicely for expansion um thanks to the capital improvement board so this is going
- to be huge and boosting tourism strengthening downtown so i think together with these four
- projects um we're showing how building how bloomington is becoming stronger building for
- the future writing that next chapter of economic development that kind of pushes back against
- sometimes the narrative of that we've seen in social media other places so i just want to give
- some shout outs to everybody working hard to make this a more livable city and i thank you for your
- time no okay thank you very much um coming back to council then for any notes on council's schedule
- um i don't have that written down today so i'm gonna have to get my calendar up uh next week
- we have our special session um on the 24th our special budget session um and we will have a
- committee of the whole to discuss the final budget ordinance our next regular session as i said
- earlier
- is on tuesday tuesday is different september 30th also at 6 30 in these chambers does anybody else
- have any notes on council schedule seeing none we are adjourned thank you
- (orchestral music)
- (upbeat music)