- Welcome everyone to our April 22nd 2026 regularly scheduled council meeting May the clerk, please call
- the roll Here Smith Zulek here. Sorry yet daily Rallo here rough here
- Rosenberger here. Thank you. Thank you Now we will summarize the agenda so next we will do minutes of
- approval Then we will have reports starting with council members Then we will have a report from chief
- Decoff on flock then we will have reports from council committees and then we will have public comment and then
- Legislation for first readings we have none tonight, but we have quite a lot for second readings and
- resolution So buckle in everybody we have a resolution in support of County Council's counterparts Efforts
- to keep the county's criminal justice buildings within city limits and close proximity to social services
- We have a resolution of the Common Council of the city of Bloomington, Indiana approving certain matters
- in connection with the formation of a certain economic development area It's kind of vague
- We have an ordinance to amend the city of Bloomington zoning maps by rezoning a 6.3 acre property from
- residential urban lot are for and residential family are M within the transform redevelopment overlay
- to plan unit development and to approve a unit Excuse me to approve a district ordinance and a preliminary
- plan and the short version of that is hope well and
- Then we will have a resolution to initiate a proposal to amend title 20 of the Bloomington Municipal
- Code in order to improve sustainability and housing affordability. And finally, a resolution directing
- the Housing and Neighborhood Development Department to develop a framework for long-term housing
- affordability. After that, we will have additional public comment, general public comment for anything
- that is not on the agenda, and we will
- go over any council schedule comments and then we will adjourn so buckle up y'all cuz we are in for
- a long night I'm so glad you decided to join us do I have any motions for minutes for approval which
- we have none okay councilmember reports councilmember daily sorry a little flustered thank you um
- Just wanted to address I was at the RDC meeting on Monday evening where they voted to for a resolution
- to put the Bunger Robertson property up on for open up for bids for What is the word I'm looking for
- sorry, this is why I shouldn't request for RFPs. Thank you very much sorry and
- Despite several of us asking them not to as well as the CIB they voted to go ahead and open it up to
- RFP's so This does not necessarily preclude the land swap that the CIB has proposed for the South property
- on by Seminary Park But I was I was incredibly incredibly disappointed with that vote. I think
- Even though and it was acknowledged that it's probably not a financial even trade I don't I don't Think
- that it is a losing proposition I think it is actually a huge return on investment if we were to swap
- those properties I think the Bunger-Roberson property is is ideal for the host hotel for the convention
- center and we want this convention center it is in progress it is happening we want it to be a
- Successful as possible and having the hotel right there is going to add to that and then keeping that
- south property for the city For affordable housing right near Hopewell, which we're focusing on affordable
- housing for it's a huge Opportunity and I feel like it's just a win-win all around so I know that I
- am not the only council member that supports this land swap, but I really hope that the that the RDC
- will reconsider the this proposal from the CIB and
- Thank you. Thank you. Any other council reports. Councilmember Piedmont Smith. I have been in various
- conferences and meetings the last few weeks so I just wanted to report out on those on March 25th. I
- attended the first the first day of a two day program hosted by heading home.
- called housing problem solving with the National Alliance to End Homelessness. So they had guest speakers
- leading this. It was mainly for providers of services to unhoused people. And their approach is called
- housing problem solving, which is a conversation-based approach focused on identifying solutions to
- support people in resolving their own housing crisis
- as quickly as possible by any needs available to them. So it's a very person-centered, empowering people
- to think about solutions to their own problems. About 60 people participated, including people from
- the city of Bloomington and both of our large townships. Secondly, I want to report I went to a national
- conference, local progress conference in Seattle called Affordable Homes, Stable Communities.
- Various tools for community stabilization and development were discussed in order to keep affordable
- housing and develop affordable housing, including community development corporations. We visited El
- Centro de la Raza, which has a great history in Seattle as a community organization and providing housing,
- funding through local government bonds, CDBG funding, TIF funding.
- community use of vacant buildings, and various forms of social housing. There was a lot of discussion
- about how housing is a resource and a human right, and it should not be primarily an investment vehicle,
- so decommodification of housing. In our capitalist society, this is very difficult, but communities
- have gone the social housing route, and Seattle is a great example of that.
- and also preserving existing housing through rehabilitation and eviction protections just cause requirements
- for people to be evicted. Third, I went to the Heading Home Regional Housing Summit on April 14th here
- in Bloomington. We heard some local success stories about small developers creating and funding affordable
- housing. It was noted that scrappiness is one requirement for people trying to get
- affordable housing funded. We learned about Streets to Home Indy, which is a collaboration between the
- city of Indianapolis, philanthropic organizations, and faith communities to provide housing. Our keynote
- speaker was Vu Lee, who's the founder of Nonprofit AF. And just a quote from him here, he used a lot
- of humor in his talk, but also really pointedly looking at the systems that have failed people.
- And he said we need to stop acting like we are begging for money and recognize that we are partnering
- with foundations to fix problems that they are often complicit in creating. So really our systems are
- broken and the social service agencies need to be considered partners with funders and not just people
- begging and being subjected to all kinds of requirements. And at that
- summit we also heard about community land trusts in Bloomington the Avalon Land Trust that Hugh Farrell
- talked about and then the Summit Hill Community Development Corporation run by Ryan Still. I just my
- last comment is about Donald Trump and his Iran war so it's not related to housing or to local stuff
- but I just can't
- let this bullshit go on without saying something about it. So Trump's war in Iran has accomplished nothing
- except for death and economic havoc. There's no sign of a change in regime to benefit the freedom and
- self-determination of the Iranian people. The best outcome we could possibly hope for is that Iran agrees
- to intense limits and monitoring of their nuclear capabilities, an agreement the Obama administration
- achieved in 2015 and Trump pulled out of during his first term.
- So again, pointless actions by a blustering idiot. Finally, I will agree that I would like to see the
- land swap with the CIB be pursued. I think this could be a win-win situation for our community. So I
- hope that the RDC gives that serious consideration. I am disappointed at their vote on Monday.
- I think the idea is not dead. However, and and can be brought forward with other proposals. That's it
- Thank you other comments councilman Stasberg Thank you. I just want to report real quick from Plan Commission
- The last plan Commission meeting the body recommended several UDO changes And those all came from the
- planning department as part of their like annual updates there were several just kind of technical changes
- that just corrected language and things and and
- Clarified stuff and then there are a few more Substantial things and I assume that we'll be seeing actually
- I think we have to see that sometime before summer recess In terms of state guidelines of when it needs
- to come to us. So if anybody has any questions on that, you can let me know. Thanks Great. Thank you
- other council comments councilmember Rosenberger. Hi. Thank you I just wanted to chime in on the RDC
- meeting and the potential Hopefully still for a land swap
- I think it's awesome that the CIB that the county transferred the seminary apartment properties to the
- CIB. I think the tenants at seminary apartments really love where they live right next to the beeline
- and right next to Kroger. It's honestly I think one of the most walkable locations in the city is especially
- for folks who might not be able to afford cars. I think a land I'm hoping a land swap is still possible.
- I think for sure for me I
- Never thought of a land swap as being the whole Bunger Robertson property for the seminary apartments
- properties. Those are very different price points. I think seminary apartments has not yet been appraised,
- but it was bought for somewhere under three million, and then Bunger Robertson is somewhere between
- seven and eight million.
- Bunga Robertson is a huge block. It's almost an entire city block so that property can be subdivided
- our UDO allows for subdivisions and so we can they already see I'm hoping could look at subdividing
- that property so that it is an equitable swap for the seminary square apartments and then we could have
- a hotel right where it needs to be
- probably at that corner of college and third, and then we can keep, it's a 29 affordable units, naturally
- occurring affordable units at seminary apartments. So I think that would be really awesome and I do
- encourage the CIB and the RDC to keep talking and doing their very best.
- I also just want to say this is one of my favorite weeks of the year. It's a little five week. Love
- how people come into town. Love that there are just hundreds of students out there who have been training
- all year and four years for these two very special days in April. And as the spiritual and motivational
- coach of the Cutters, I would like to say God said, go Cutters. Everybody have a great and safe weekend.
- Thank you. Are there any other council comments? Councilmember Rallo Comes to mind that I'm I too am
- very supportive of this proposition to swap those properties because It seems to me the the outcome
- could be very very good for the community could get the CIB what they they would like in terms of a
- site for a hotel and
- It isn't a one-to-one in terms of market value of the land, but I think we should keep in mind that
- the administration was proposing to give the Bunger Robertson site away Totally so it seems that it
- could be feasible But I will wait and see and suspend judgment until we find out more about about that
- situation Thanks. Bye
- Great, thank you. Anybody else? OK, I will take a stab at it.
- Second, what a lot of my colleagues said about their support for a land swap to construct a convention
- center hotel. I think we have the opportunity to do something really brave in our community and continue
- moving this project along while simultaneously saving housing and one of our beloved nonprofits, My
- Sister's Closet. I also just want to report out from a conversation that I had at the Capital Improvement
- Board meeting this
- Wednesday which is that some of the the hesitancy that I've heard at least on this project is that people
- believe this is a building that won't be used well I'm happy to report back that in a lot of our downtown
- Bloomington board meetings on which I sit as a member as a representative from council eight groups
- have already booked out into 2027 in
- January of which the new convention center will be ready. And so a lot of these people that are booking
- the space are booking at sight unseen and before it's even ready. So I think when people think about
- whether or not this building is going to be useful, if we already have people booking this place sight
- unseen, imagine how excited people will be when they see the beautiful building that has been built.
- I know that
- The Arts Commission has done a lot of really great work on our 1% to the public arts. And I've seen
- some of the designs. And nothing's been decided on, but everything looks very cool. So I'll just say
- thank you to the Arts Commission. And thank you to the CIB, who's volunteered years of their time at
- this point to this community project. And they've all been very, very lovely to work with. So thank you. OK.
- Anything else for the good of the order before we move on? In that case, let's move on to reports from
- the Office of the Mayor, City Clerk, City Offices, and City of Boards and Commission, which is our flock
- report from Chief DeKoff. Please take the stand and do we have a presentation? Okay, no presentation.
- Please state your name for the record and begin when you're ready. Thank you.
- Good evening council. My name is Mike Decoff. I am the police chief for the city of Bloomington. I'm
- here tonight to report on a memo that you received last week regarding flock public safety and its Use
- within the Bloomington Police Department So first I want to start with license plate reader technology
- has become a very effective and non intrusive tool available to modern law enforcement many departments
- across the country and
- have solved crimes who otherwise have gone unsolved thanks to this technology. The Bloomington Police
- Department has taken deliberate steps to implement FLOC responsibly with strong policy, strict access
- controls, and regular audits. Today I wanna walk you through what we have, how we use it, and how we
- protect civil liberties in the process. So the equipment that the Bloomington Police Department has
- is we have 11 permanently mounted LPR cameras,
- Those are license plate reader cameras. They're placed on major red ways into and out of the city and
- at key intersections They capture still photos of license plates on public roads only We have
- four permanently mounted video cameras in the downtown area. They replaced some cameras Roughly a year
- ago that had been there for many years that had worn out they are not monitored in real time, but they
- record so that if there's an incident and we need to go back and see what happened, we're able to pull
- up that video. A recent example is the IU National Championship celebration where we had approximately
- 5,000 people converge on Kirkwood and they helped us monitor the event and keep it safe. We also have
- four mobile trailers that have video. Some of them have LPR technology and some of them have gunshot
- detection technology. They are not permanent, they are deployed
- When problems arise at different places around the city Those were purchased by the hand department
- after apartment complex complaints that involve vandalism theft drug dealing and weapons calls We've
- also used those in the downtown area in parking lots at nights and on weekends due to increased disturbances
- that we have had in those areas and after several calls involving weapons
- What LPR does and doesn't do. What LPR captures is a still photo of the rear of a vehicle and its license
- plate as it travels on a public road. The photo and a time stamp and that's it, nothing more. LPR does
- not collect vehicle registration, name, address. It's not linked. It doesn't do facial recognition.
- It doesn't contain video footage. It doesn't collect demographic information or personal identifiers.
- Or does it assign risk scores or crime predictions? This tool simply supports investigations and it
- does not forecast behavior. On the privacy side, cameras are pointed only at public roadways. The same
- observation that any officer or citizen could make that stands on a street.
- There's no software that is used to create patterns or associations between individuals' activities,
- and they're not placed near sensitive locations such as reproductive health facilities, churches, mosques,
- or temples. Talk a little bit about the access, audits, and data protection. So access is limited to
- sworn officers and data analysts within the Bloomington Police Department. All users must complete in-house
- training on policy and usage before gaining access to the system.
- Every search requires an active case or an event number and a stated reason why the search was made.
- You cannot search just because. The system also employs a drop-down menu with pre-programmed reasons
- for searches such as theft, weapons, different types of crimes that might occur. The system logs who
- searched when the event number and why.
- System audits are conducted every 60 days to ensure compliance. Data retention is currently set at 30
- days, then permanently deleted unless entered as evidence in a criminal case. Policy violations are
- subject to discipline up to and including termination. BPD does not participate in the national FLOC
- network. Data is shared only with other Indiana law enforcement agencies. FLOC does not sell BPD data.
- BPD owns 100% of the data collected.
- I just want to highlight a couple of cases where we've had successes with the FLOC LPR technology. Within
- the last year, there was a kidnapping where the subject vehicle was followed to the Kentucky state line
- using the FLOC network. The victim, fortunately, was recovered safely after a pursuit and a crash of
- that vehicle at the state line.
- The technology was used to assist the Owen County Sheriff's Office in a homicide that they investigated.
- The vehicle was located, later confirmed driven by the suspect, leading to an arrest. There was a sexual
- assault case that was used where the suspect's vehicle was identified. A timeline was set up. We finally
- found the vehicle, interviewed the owner of that vehicle, which they confessed to the crime and they
- were later charged with rape.
- Another homicide where there was a vague description of a vehicle. The data was analyzed over several
- days and we were able to identify a suspect and make an arrest on a murder charge. Within the last couple
- of months, there was a homicide in Westfield, Indiana. That vehicle was recovered in Bloomington and
- helped them process that crime. And the most recent
- The flock success story was just last night. There was a woman who was beaten in the head with a hammer
- and stabbed. The suspect left. We were able to get flock information on that suspect vehicle and we
- made an arrest this morning and charged that person with attempted homicide. Little bit about contracts.
- The 11 LPR cameras and operating system
- was signed in February of 2024 for $40,650. There's an annual renewal of $36,500. That renewal was not
- signed this year, and that contract has been canceled. There are four downtown video cameras that was
- signed in September of 2024. The initial amount was $15,000 a year, and then subsequent years were $12,000 a year.
- And the four mobile trailers, there's a current agreement that was signed in October of 2025. And those
- are roughly, I believe, 90,000 a year for two trailers each. All agreements were sole-sourced, approved
- at the department level without border commission approval. The total program cost to date is $236,829.68.
- In closing, I would like to say that
- Flock is a powerful investigative tool. When it's used responsibly, it contributes to solving serious
- crimes in our community. We have built in meaningful safeguards, we have strong policies, strong training,
- strong audits, and we also restrict sharing. I will welcome any questions. As I stated earlier, the
- Flock contracts were not renewed, and so the LPR
- Contract actually ends at the end of this weekend I'll take any questions you might have. Thank you
- questions Councilmember Piedmont Smith Yes, thank you for the report Which contract was not renewed
- because it seems like there are at least four different contracts here listed the license plate reader
- contract expired and so that one has not been renewed and we are still
- Working through the process of ending the other contracts, but the LPR system just ended so that that
- will go away This weekend the other contracts we still have to terminate and that is a legal process
- that I am NOT going to comment on I will let the attorneys talk about that Is it can anyone give an
- estimate of when those can be Terminated and is there a possibility of just?
- covering those cameras While we wait for the termination to take place Well, those are video cameras
- that have been up for many years If that is the direction that we want to do and just do away with the
- downtown video cameras But we are looking at replacing the flock cameras with other brands so that it's
- not tied to the flock network
- Thank you, Council Member Asari. Thank you so much, Chief DeKoff, and hi colleagues. I just had a question,
- have a couple of questions, but because we're thinking about this in the broader sense, not just in
- reaction to flux specifically.
- But I'm interested on this, on the process of procurement. And particularly, you mentioned both in the
- report and just now said again that I think the word was sole, this was a sole source purchase. And
- could you explain a little bit
- about why that's the type of purchase that doesn't need to come for board approval. And then the follow-up
- question is what was the sort of formal justification, if you will, for sole source designation?
- I'm Margie rice and the corporation council. I can address that question so Hello, so the issue of sole
- source contracts is always brought to legal and the controller and it's generally when there's a unique
- provider or a unique product you want that either has features or Capabilities that somebody else doesn't
- provide so if an apartment wants to sole source something that
- It does have to be verified by the controller Obviously legal talks about it as part of the contract
- and so this I wasn't Necessarily involved in the departmental conversations about the options that they
- were looking at but I know that this one did pass the test with a controller and
- And what's the test when we talk about the test with the controller? What is that test? Generally, if
- there are specific features that other vendors don't have, that there's something unique about this
- product. And so that would have been a conversation between the department and the controller. And the
- controller would have to essentially say, yeah, I agree with you, that this is a unique product, a unique
- vendor, and there's nothing else out there. You can't send it out to bid and get 12 different options.
- that meets the qualifications. So it means that we're buying a thing for one of the specific features
- that it has that we're saying none of the others, we probably consider other vendors for LPRs, we say
- none of them have this particular set or this particular feature. And this is a governance question,
- I'm not interested, I'm not, what do you call it,
- This is this isn't like to point fingers or anything. I'm just curious then does that get recorded like
- what the purpose, you know, what was the the justification for This sole purpose purchase You know,
- I I know that there is documentation in the controller's office about the the justification that's not
- in my department So I'm not sure what that looks like for every single
- contract, Julie Martintale in the controller's office is generally the person who looks at those and
- reviews them, and we could certainly get you information about what that looked like for this one. Yeah,
- and again, I'm more interested in the process if it's the controller who alone says, okay, yeah, I agree
- with your assessment that this is a unique feature, therefore approved for purchase versus just trying
- to think about when we should trigger
- broader governance oversight and from from other bodies and when we when we look at these type
- of Technologies that makes sense. We definitely want to pass the sniff test and are not just soul sourcing
- everything because somebody likes a particular vendor Right. Excellent. I have some other questions,
- but I'll let my colleagues go other first round councilmember Rallo Yeah, I happened I support the canceling
- of the flock
- contract It seems that there are numerous cases of abuse and misuse and privacy violations by flock
- But apart from that you you obviously find it your department finds it a Useful tool there's no doubt
- that it could be used in such a way My fear is that you know, where does it where does it stop? Do we
- have these sort of
- creeping network of surveillance that that Eventually is dispersed throughout the entire community that
- is used You know, yes with restrictions those could go away in time, of course Is that the direction
- that law enforcement is heading generally speaking not just the Bloomington Police Department, but is
- that a Desired outcome. I don't think so. I understand your concerns. I
- But at the time we were looking at this technology, it was not this council, it was the previous council,
- encouraged me to look to technology to solve some of our staffing problems. So that's what we did.
- And so, you know, I have concerns about some of this, that's why we tried to build in as many safeguards
- as we can. You know, I'm not concerned about
- our agency, but I understand the concerns about other agencies and how they use the data. And so I'm
- just saying that it is a useful tool to help us solve violent crimes. And so if we don't have it, we'll
- just resort back to the way we used to do things, and it will probably take us longer. There will probably
- be some that we won't solve,
- will do everything in our power to resolve cases that we're working on with the means that we have.
- I don't dispute that it's a useful tool. I think that, you know, I understand. It's just the trade-off
- in terms of surveillance, privacy, and so forth that I think is our concern. And I think it's a proven concern.
- I think that we've seen the misuse around the country. And so it's alarming to me that it's been utilized
- in ways that is above and beyond what you describe. But I look forward to talking to you. Sure, no,
- like I said, I understand your concerns. I think we live in a world where technology is taking over.
- I would bet that probably every person in this room has a cell phone. And the information that that
- cell phone captures
- is way more than a flat camera. That being said, we don't have access to everyone's cell phones. So
- in a broader technology conversation, you're right. I mean, there are more and more cameras prevalent.
- Indiana University probably has the largest supply of video cameras in the county.
- Other places use LPR technology. But again, I understand that there are concerns about privacy and things
- like that. We tried to use it very responsibly in a time when we were really understaffed. Our numbers
- are coming back up. So that was an option that we had that we took advantage of.
- Thank you You mentioned consideration of other services That would do some of these things. Can you
- talk a little bit about how you're Assessing those other services that might kind of replace flock And
- what you might be doing? So we haven't done anything yet. That is a conversation that I
- Plan to have with the mayor's office and see what direction that she wants us to go and looking at other
- technology options To see how we can use those to assist us when we do our jobs Others questions
- Councilmember, sorry
- Thank you so much, and again, thank you to Dukov and Margie. Didn't get a chance to say thank you before
- you sat down. My next sort of queries were about sort of questions of effectiveness, particularly, because
- I appreciate the cases that you highlighted, but I guess I'm curious about
- how many cases, for example, in the last year, relied materially on flock data versus cases where it
- was incidental, or maybe like a different way of asking that is thinking about what percentage of total
- investigations involve LPR queries. So what I'm interested in is both whether you view
- And I think I know the answer to this question, but you view LPR data as critical, i.e. we would not
- have solved this thing were it not for LPR data. It's sort of question one. But then my follow-up is
- that, are we now just routinely using LPR data in all investigations? And so when do you decide we're going to
- to query the system for LPR for license plates in the course of investigation? So sort of three questions.
- I'm sorry. I think most agencies use LPR data when they have no leads to follow up on. So some of those
- cases that I mentioned where we had some successes in making arrests, those were cases where we had
- no leads to follow up on.
- Or we might have had something very, very vague or something like that where someone started querying
- the system. And I just want to highlight there was a report that last year it said I think we used it
- 9,000 times. You have to keep in mind that every, we could have one query, the same query that's asked
- 25 times of the system, and it tracks each one. So it wasn't 9,000 separate cases that we used Flock
- for, it was just 9,000 times it was queried for information. So it might have only been 500 cases, I
- don't know. That type of information we hadn't kept, so your question about how many times it's been six,
- I can't tell you that because that's not something that we tracked. I just know the serious violent
- crimes that we've solved with it. And then is there some type of a process that the detectives would
- go through to sort of trigger the use of any of this data? Or is it,
- You know can they just in the courts of any investigation use it right dude is there is there some type
- of thing that says okay now Now I do it and I need to go through some protocol of reporting that I'm
- about to do it Or is it just a tool that's available to them like any other tool It's a tool that's
- available like any other tool if there I mean I can't imagine they would query it if they do you know
- they had a suspect already and they had a lot of information that's not something that they would do and
- but it's used mostly when there aren't suspects or there isn't information that's readily available
- right now that's gonna help us solve a violent crime. Okay, thank you so much, Chief. I have one more
- set of questions, but I'll wait for Madam Chair to call.
- Yes, absolutely what we've reached our report time, but I think this is a conversation that everyone
- wants to have including our audience So if it is alright with everyone up here, I will extend the Report
- time for another 20 minutes and we will reevaluate there Great and for the good of the order that would
- be 727 so keep an eye on the clock other questions Councilmember Piedmont Smith
- Yes, so the outside sharing of data from our flock cameras has been curtailed as of, what, April 15th?
- Is that right? That was? Yes. I think that was the day, yeah. That day was the memo. It was last week.
- But isn't it true that flock safety still has access to that data?
- It's been turned off. We control that at the department level, and so we've turned all that off so they
- don't have access to that. So the data that's collected by the ALPRs in the last week, isn't that data
- stored by Flock Safety? I mean, isn't it part of the contract that they obtain that data
- and make it available to BPD? The information that I have received is they do not have any more, the
- data has been turned off, the stream has been turned off. And so nobody can access our data. Only we
- can access it, nobody else can, so it's not being shared with anybody else. So when you access the data,
- where do you access it from? We access it from Flock.
- Okay, so it's data on the cloud. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It's data on the cloud like in an internet server.
- Yes. Okay. And there have been problems with flock safety securing that data in the past. Yeah, that's
- what people are saying. Okay. And then I just wanted to follow up on something I had mentioned in my
- previous question. And especially since the
- The end of contract only affects the ALPRs and not the other cameras. Can we physically turn off and
- ensure they are off the other cameras whose contract has not expired yet? Yes, we can. And does Flock
- have any power to go in and turn the back on? Because this has happened in other communities where like
- Evansville, Illinois said,
- We want you to turn the cameras off and that would be turned back on by flock If we decide to turn them
- off, it would be hard for them to turn them on if we disconnect the power Okay, and that is that your
- plan for the other cameras whose contract has not ended That is a conversation that the mayor and I
- are going to have we've not had that conversation yet, but but yes She does not want us to continue
- having any flock products. So that is that will happen
- Okay. Can that happen before the contracts are actually terminated? It will happen before the con. Yeah,
- we have to figure out the legal part of the contracts and how that's going to play out. But we can turn
- those off, you know, when we want. Okay. I would love to get a commitment from the mayor to turning
- them off as soon as possible. Thank you. Other questions?
- Council Member Asari, did you have more questions? Yes, thank you. Just one last set and again thank
- you all for your patience. A little bit interested in if we were to think about
- transparency and public reporting, both, I guess, in terms of procurement, but certainly in terms of
- use. I'm interested if the chief has any thoughts on what that might look like. So as we think about
- any use in maybe a more expensive way, what would your opinion be on how
- that type of public reporting and sort of transparency guidelines would work, should work. Yeah, so
- I think we can research to see what other departments do. I'm sure there are other departments that
- have public transparency portals. We can look at that. The only thing that I would want to look at more
- closely is how we report data and we don't compromise
- any of our criminal investigations that we're doing. And I'm sure there's a way to do that. I'm sure
- we would not be the first agency to do a public transparency portal on data. So we would just look around
- and see what everybody else is doing and figure out a good system that works for us. And then just to
- bring the full loop, in terms of
- In terms of officer use or detective use, and I know you said a baseline that's clearly reported. I
- think you said that searches have to be tied to an event. I think you said that it's audited every 60
- days. What are you looking for in the 60-day audits? Who conducts those audits? Are they internal, independent?
- What sort of percentage of searches are reviewed when we do those audits? And then also, are you tracking,
- because you talked about how improper use can result in anything up to firing, but how are you tracking
- improper use?
- Find out when sort of some type of unusual query behavior occurs or anything like that and have you
- had to insert a last question. I know it's a barrel question. I'm sorry, but have you had to take any
- disciplinary actions around around flock use so far? We have not had to take any disciplinary action.
- There have been some training issues that were addressed with officers. So when we do an audit it we
- basically get a report of every query that was done.
- to the system with who did it, the dates, times, reasons. A lot of that information is, well, it's all
- reviewed by one supervisor that writes a report that goes to his supervisor that is reviewed. And then,
- again, any problems that are identified
- So far, there have just been some minor training ones about filling out the reports the right way. And
- even with those, there's only a couple usually with each audit that we find. And does that include external
- queries? So even though you all say you have control over it, if somebody else has queried the data,
- does that somehow get logged
- Yeah, so if another agency queries it, we get that information and then we review the circumstances
- of their inquiry and how they used it and if they followed the same protocols that we have in place
- for our officers. And in the case that you have that sharing turned on,
- does that querying happen automatically and it just gets logged or is there a you all decide whether
- or not to share it type of stage that happens in between? So both. It depends on what type of query
- it is. For instance, if we enter a like a amber alert or a silver alert or something like that where
- we put in quite a bit of information and
- someone would run, a plate would hit, and another agency would get notification, they would get more
- information because we've already entered it into the National Crime Information Center database, which
- is a national computer that tracks missing persons, all kinds of things related to the criminal justice
- system. And so those types of queries, because it's something
- a safety issue usually, they would get more information and that we would still get that information.
- But if it's somebody that is inquiring about a specific vehicle, maybe being, if it's another agency
- that's investigating something and that vehicle hits in Bloomington, then they would get a notification
- that it hit in Bloomington and then they would reach out to us. And does that happen even with that
- sharing feature turned off?
- It doesn't happen with the sharing feature turned off. No outside agency gets any hits from anything
- captured on a Bloomington LPR camera. Okay. And my final question, I promise I will sit down and not
- speak again. So the county has ALPRs as well.
- what's the process of sharing, not sharing, et cetera, with the sheriff's department, with
- Indiana University, et cetera. We have turned off all sharing, so they receive no information from our
- cameras. OK. Thank you so much. Thank you for your patience. Thank you. Any other questions? OK.
- Thank you, Chief Deakoff.
- And then am I correct in assuming that there are people in the audience tonight who would like to speak
- on a flock issue? Okay. At this point in time, I'm happy to entertain a motion to suspend the rules
- and allow public comment for the flock report. Second. Okay, there's been a movement and a second. Will
- the clerk please call the roll to suspend the rules to allow public comment for the flock report? Is
- this debatable?
- Is it a debatable motion? Can I? Point of information. I don't believe that it is. Oh, okay. Councillor
- Allen. Okay. Apologies. It is not a debatable motion. That's okay. I just had a counter proposal. Okay.
- Well, I think we have a motion on the table to suspend the rules and allow public comment.
- For this moment in time and not there would be another period of general public comment. This would
- just be for Council or excuse me comment on this report Sure How long would that period of public comment
- be if we had the public comment right now as opposed to rolling public comment over into the public
- comment period I believe councilmember Rallo made the motion. I
- That's efficient. Okay, and maybe why don't we just roll it into normal public comment? Well Well, we
- could do either but why don't we do 20 minutes limiting? I don't know three minutes per speaker like
- that. Okay, and do you carry your second councilmember daily? Great in that case, will the clerk please
- call the roll and
- Stasberg. Yes, he months Smith Suleik. Yes, sorry Yes, daily. Yes Rallo. Yes Ruff Rosenberger Thank
- you that passes nine
- so if anyone who's interested in speaking on this flock report could gather at the microphone and Write
- your name and when you get up to the mic, please state your name and then you'll each have three minutes
- to speak It is currently 722 we will continue with public comment until 742 And can we get the timer
- on the thank you, okay great, thank you I
- Speaker number one, if you could state your name if you'd like. You have three minutes. Hello. Hey,
- I'm Sam Dixon, a local worker here. I've been here in Bloomington for the past eight years. Firstly,
- just thanks to the council for passing resolution 2026-04. I think that was an important moment that
- brought us to today, having transparency for the community, transparency to the public about the use
- of technologies like Flock.
- kind of a big deal to have this after years of having struggles with FOIA requests for data on the system.
- So I appreciate that action. I was at first pretty confused by the mayor's announcement about
- the cancellation, but I'm happy that a lot of the questions I had about that were kind of worked out
- in the question process just now here. One of those was,
- when are we actually gonna have the cameras taken down? That is kinda my most principle concern because
- if the contracts are expired or expiring and if we're making a commitment to move away from this technology,
- what stops us from putting a black bag over it or just taking it down and putting it in a shed tomorrow?
- And then, just to keep it brief, my follow-up to that would be in looking for
- potential replacement vendors, potential technologies that do a similar thing but with less flagrant
- risks. My suggestion to everyone, the police, the mayor, the council, would be just not to have a mass
- surveillance system at all. So we don't need more cameras. We don't need to be watched at all times.
- We don't need a continual expansion of the police state and the surveillance state. That doesn't help anybody.
- And so I would ask that you consider that option and not consider it absolutely necessary that police
- should be surveilling everybody at all times. So thank you.
- Thank you. And then also if you're on Zoom, please raise your hand and we will get you. And there's
- one speaker on Zoom? Okay, great. Speaker on Zoom, we will get to you after this next speaker in chambers.
- You can go ahead and state your name and you'll have three minutes. Hi, my name is Chris Doran. I'm
- a Bloomington resident. I would encourage, first of all, I'd like to thank the council and on behalf
- of many of us who are working on this issue for
- The resolution, clearly it seems there's good news from what the Chief DeKoff said, that essentially
- the contracts are going to be canceled. I think I speak for many in this room, including some members
- of council who do not trust the mayor on this issue. I don't understand if the contracts are gonna be
- canceled, why it took from March 5th until now, but anyway, it still seems to be good news.
- The police chief also, I've skipped over a few things. Mainly, the biggest issue is that Flock has control
- of this data. He clearly was a little bit confused as to whether they did, whether they have control
- during this time. We know that other municipalities have canceled contracts. Flock has ignored it. Flock,
- they've taken down the cameras. Flock has put the cameras back up. They claim it's private property.
- So clearly,
- this corporation has way too much power. And also, goodness gracious, the bullshit of both the mayor
- and the police chief and not recognizing SV-57, the state of Indiana passed a law saying that he,
- the mayor, everyone in this room has to cooperate with federal law enforcement regarding immigration.
- So these ludicrous statements in the mayor's report and in the chief,
- Police Chief Deakoff's report essentially saying the information won't be shared that's only in Bloomington,
- etc. That clearly is not true.
- They don't have control of that. And so I speak of, I want to support my colleague Sam who just spoke
- that essentially we don't want mass surveillance. This has been going on for a while. The resolution
- was pretty clear about if there can't be acceptable alternatives. The concern is that the mayor and
- the police department are just going to find another license plate reader, which is very concerning.
- And yes, there are, you know, that's great. I would really encourage the council
- to do a, I don't know if you have to do a Freedom of Information report, but I would bet about half
- those reports that the mayor cited are bullshit, right? That the ALPR might have helped, but essentially
- it wasn't the key deciding factor. And so if we're gonna have mass surveillance, why don't we have it
- everywhere? Why don't we have it in all our homes? Why don't we have it on ourselves? And the statement
- that our cell phones have as much
- can have more information than our cell phones are not connected to a national database that can be
- accessed by ICE. So this is one of the primary things I would encourage the governance that is going
- to happen relative to this. No mass surveillance, no ALPR, license plate readers, and certainly none
- that can be shared with the state of Indiana who we don't trust or the federal government we don't trust.
- Thank you. Thank you.
- Apologies, we are going to go to our Zoom commenter now. You will be unmuted or asked to unmute, and
- then you'll have three minutes. Thank you. This is Kevin Keough. Talking about this, the first impression
- I had is you would think the police department would have some technical expertise, especially for cyber
- crimes. And I don't know exactly how their staff there, but you would think they would have some capacity there.
- But talking about some of the best practices, one that really gets to me is the 60-day audits. To me,
- that's a post-mortem. I would much rather hear that you have an intrusion detection system or intrusion
- prevention system that was used. I would also hope there would be automated alerts. You're logging all
- this, there's tools out there you can use to give alerts. It would be much better.
- But the key is the technology is going to continue to progress. There are going to be good tools to
- use, but with that comes the responsibility to use them correctly and use best practices. So I think
- it'd be a great investment to have the personnel, the resources that are highly skilled in this area
- that could promote the security and the privacy issues and would
- be a great source for training within the department and also the entire community and the workforce
- with the city. So I think there's a lot going on here. Technology, yes, is going to continue. It's going
- to continue to creep into everything we do. But we need to do the best we can to secure what we can
- and do it at a high level. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker in chambers, if you could state
- your name for the record, you'll have three minutes. Yes.
- I'm Bryce green. I am a Bloomington resident and have been for around 10 years I'd like to echo basically
- everything everyone was saying up here about being against not just flock this company and its ills
- But also it's the concept of mass surveillance in general. We don't need to be watched all the time
- We don't need the technology that is watching people all the time and even if we did all you know believe
- in the inherent goodness of the Bloomington Police Department like like people have said
- Other agencies will have access to this regardless of whether or not you flick a setting on a given
- piece of software. And I'd also like to point out a couple things that I think are pretty alarming that
- other people have mentioned before is that the police chief doesn't seem to understand how the internet works.
- or how data works in that when you give your data to a company to store so you can access it from a
- portal that's on your computer, it means that the data is stored on someone else's computer. And that
- someone else might not be as noble and gallant as the Bloomington Chief of Police. And so we can't trust
- it. It's as simple as that.
- And so I really wanna encourage the council to not only move forward with getting rid of flock as much
- as possible, you all seem to be on board with that, but also to explore new ways or ordinances or decrees
- that prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future. Because like Homie said, this technology
- will progress. There's always gonna be a tool that is very useful to police people.
- Like and it's gonna be sold and it's gonna be sold as you know a new way to prevent people from being
- violently attacked that will always be the justification the question is whether or not Bloomington
- should contribute to a generalized police state or should it be You know look at either look at other
- models or lead by example one of these municipalities that is actively fighting against it, you know,
- I don't invoke a
- you know, Americanism a lot, but it seems to me a very American idea to be against the constant surveillance
- of individuals. All right, I'll give the rest of my time back. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker in
- chambers, please, if you could state your name. And you'll have three minutes. Hi, I'm Rebecca Stoops.
- Lived in Bloomington my whole life.
- Thank you for ending the Flock contract. That's really wonderful to hear. I hate being spied on. I don't
- like the idea of being tracked every time I'm driving down Walnut Street. I'm frustrated to hear that
- they're going to investigate partnering with a new company. Being in local government, you might not
- be familiar with the corporate world nowadays. Things are changing fast.
- Nowadays, companies break contracts and break laws as part of doing business. They build it into their
- business model. It seems like it shouldn't happen. It does. It happens all the time. You shouldn't trust
- private companies, third parties, with information as precious as where Bloomingtonians are going every
- day. I want to remind you that
- The surveillance data is designed to be sold and given away. Whether we tell them not to, they're very
- likely doing it. We live under an unhinged dictator who, on a whim, could mandate the city to give all
- of our location data, or mandate whatever company we partner with, or mandate their third party data
- storage partner.
- It's extremely messy. Once the data is out there, it's out. We're just giving it to them on a silver
- platter. So please just cut it off. Stop spying. Stop building mass surveillance. Yeah, I think we can
- get somewhere better with this. And thank you for listening to us. Thank you. Do we have any other comments on Zoom?
- Next speaker in chambers. You'll have three minutes if you could state your name. That'd be great Hi,
- my name is Maria bull I've moved here for school and I'm staying for the summer and stuff like that
- I just wanted to comment on the police chief's comment about our cell phones being giving the same amount
- of data that flock uses or less or more than it I can like
- There's a difference between a flock camera and my phone. I can turn my phone off. I can opt out of
- this. Whereas with flock cameras, they're seeing you all the time and you can't really be like, hey,
- I'm gonna turn this off and not be available to it. And then I wanted to comment on something that I
- felt the other day before I was really getting into this and learning more about what the city of Bloomington
- is doing with flock. But I saw a flock camera the other day and I was driving back from Indianapolis
- and I was like,
- Like a shiver of fear ran down my spine of like, unsettlement. I think an important part of this is
- the psychological element of being watched all the time. You're fearful. You're like, what am I going
- to do? Like, what are they seeing? You know, are they seeing my private conversations? That sort of
- thing. There's just kind of an element of fear that I think is present that I think needs to be considered
- and not inflicted upon the residents of Bloomington. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker in chambers, please.
- state your name, and you'll have three minutes. Hi, my name is Kevin Ratcliffe. I was born in Bloomington,
- lived here most of my life. I came to address the mayor and the police chief, and oh, well, it seems
- they're gone. So I will yield my time to the gentleman behind me. OK, thank you.
- Next speaker in chambers if you could state your name for the record, that'd be lovely and then you'll
- have three minutes Hello, my name is seaforth breeze I've been a Bloomington resident for over ten years
- somewhere in that range And yeah, I've come before the council before to speak on this issue as I'm
- sure y'all remember I have a thought camera that's looking directly down onto my porch and
- It does impact me on a daily basis in terms of exactly the point that one of the last speakers brought
- up, which is just the psychological effect of always living with that. I mean, the exit to go to work
- or even to leave the neighborhood that I live in is there as well. So I am always under surveillance
- the moment I leave my house to the moment I get back to my house. I also wanted to speak though and stood up
- on the point of the fact that this technology or this technique or this process being sort of like perceived
- as uniquely valuable and therefore having to be implemented, right? Which is always brought up in questions
- of security and of sort of policing this notion that you have this tool and there's this temptation
- to use it, right?
- When I was younger, I remember reading some of the Senate reports on enhanced interrogation techniques,
- torture, that the United States did. And it was one of the things that was hammered so many times in
- that report is the fact that the reason why folks felt it was necessary or the logic behind it was this
- idea that it could provide something that couldn't be got any other way. And at the end of the day,
- there were exactly two cases out of hundreds in which they got
- unique, actionable information, and of those two cases, there was other intelligence that they had received
- that got them there at the same time, effectively. So, whenever we have questions about implementing,
- you know, sweeping security, sort of like surveillance, or of, you know, sort of like, I mean,
- it's just, it's there, that temptation.
- But we always have to remember that that temptation is not something that we can act upon because it
- just puts us into situations like we are in right now with protesters having pressure applied upon them
- and asylum seekers who are hiding right now in many states across the United States. And finally, on
- the point of
- the police chief saying that, oh, you know, I don't think we would move towards that direction of,
- you know, expanding it to, you know, more streets or, you know, more invasive into more, you know, sort
- of like public spaces. That is just not how it works. We've already made that choice to implement it
- once, so that logic is obviously, you know, not holding so much water there. And then I think about
- my current job where people talk about putting it in the buildings, not for the LOPs, but just cameras.
- Thank you very much. That's your time Next speaker in chambers. You'll have three minutes if you could
- state your name, that'd be awesome Hi, Seth much Laura Bloomington residents. Thank you all very much
- for your questions Particularly councilmember Piedmont Smith. I appreciate you really holding the chief
- to task on how
- cloud storage works. I'm gonna keep this really brief, because then we have a long night. I know that
- all of you have received a report about the office, the legal department withholding information through
- the public records request. If anybody has not read this report, it is on Bloom Docs, big ups to Dave
- Askins. And the county, the city legal department lied to members of the public and withheld these contracts
- saying they
- blatantly did not exist in some cases for up to 15 months across multiple public record requests. And
- so I would like to ask the council to please begin a formal investigation of the legal department,
- particularly their public records request process, because they have been lying to the public.
- Thank you. Next speaker. If you could state your name for the record, that would be awesome. You'll
- have three minutes. Thank you.
- Name is miles and I think that we've made just a small step in the right direction with cutting the
- contract with a brand name of surveillance camera like flock safety and Maybe more important step would
- be banning the a ALPR technology altogether The same
- Circumstance happened in Denver, for example where the mayor was pressured to change from flock safety
- to a different company called axon and I think it's very telling that the mayor and the chief of police
- You know value their privacy they can leave not confront their constituents But but they couldn't care
- less about their constituents privacy when ALPR cameras are spying on us every day and
- So thank you. Thank you. And that. Go ahead. Take your name for the record please. Yes. My name is Haley
- to Bloomington resident and I'll be just one more voice saying the things that have already been said.
- But I just really appreciate
- everyone sitting up here for their work and their tough questions, because as one of my colleagues alluded
- to, it's been really hard to get answers about this stuff, which feels like a huge problem. So I celebrate
- the chief's commitment to disabling all flock cameras. We will be holding them to it. But speaking more
- generally about governance going forward, I think I stand with everyone here who says that
- We want to limit mass surveillance wherever possible and not just replacing flock with another private
- company that may have all of the same foibles. And at a bare minimum, if this level of data is going
- to be collected on us, the public should have the ability to weigh in on whether
- these tools are valuable to us. You know, there's pros and cons here, like we've all talked about, and
- we have a right to the full accounting of pros and cons. That means we should have had access to these
- contracts from the beginning. We should, you know, as the chief talks about how helpful these tools
- have been to them, I would like to see that justified in clearance, right? So I think that, you know,
- There should be data about how these tools are being used that the public should have a right to see.
- And yeah, there should be a real conversation that we have a place in. And yeah, so just can't say it
- enough. Transparency, super important here. And no more mass surveillance. Please and thank you. Thank
- you very much.
- Just I'll say thank you to all of our public commenters I know that this is a scary and difficult subject
- for many of us and it is very very brave to get up in front of city and Government and say your piece
- and so thank you very much I promise that this is not going to be the last time that council discusses
- this issue moving on to council committees, it seems we have a committee report on from the committee
- on council processes and
- Councilmember Piedmont Smith take it away Yeah, this is brief So in the packet for today, there is a
- document called procedures with discussion of ordinances at first reading So that is following through
- on a vote that was taken in February by this council to allow discussion of legislation during first
- reading and it normally When we have an ordinance at first reading
- It is literally just read into the record, and there's no discussion, no questions, no presentation,
- nothing. So now, going forward, we're going to have the ordinance read into the record, and then have
- a presentation of the ordinance, have council member questions on the ordinance, have public comment
- on the ordinance, and limited to 30 minutes. And then it'll be moved to a second reading, where there'll
- be follow-up questions, not a whole repeat.
- of what was at first reading, but follow-up questions, final public comment, and final vote,
- in most cases, unless we move to third reading, which we can't. Anyway, it's not, you won't see that
- in action tonight because we don't have any ordinances for first reading, but I just want to make sure
- the public understands that this system is changing, so when we have an ordinance for first reading
- from now on,
- There will be a presentation and discussion of it. That's all. Great. Thank you so much. Now we will
- be moving on to general comments from the public about anything that is not on the agenda. If you would
- like to speak, please come up to the podium, sign in, and state your name for the public. You'll have
- three minutes. If you're on Zoom and you'd like to speak, please raise your hand and we will come get
- you. First commenter in chambers, please.
- Hello, God bless America. Cool, okay. You know, if you leave here and you drive down Walnut Street,
- say you're leaving here to take a virtual tour, go down Walnut Street to 1900 Block, you guys know where
- the Herald Times is?
- What is that in the road? That thing is about 15 feet wide and that thing has been like that for years
- That is a that is a contractor to commit a bloomington. I know their name, but i'm not going to drag
- them through the mud right now but you know You hit that thing it's it's bad You know, it's like you
- you call the mayor's office sometimes to the client. Well, does anybody else complain? No, you know
- But anyway, i'm gonna go off the rails you that for instance
- if you go here to Third Street by the car wash, there's a problem over there, and there's a thing in
- the road. And I asked the mayor, I said, this thing is horrendous. Has anybody called? Not a single
- person. Why? Why don't people call when there's a problem with the road, right? I'm retired, I got lots
- of time. I drive Bloomington Roads a lot. But you know, back down there, they should have to come in,
- the developer,
- But our contractor, you know not have to come in and fix that That's something that the street department
- shouldn't have to do but they do fabulous Street Department does fabulous work. They got some great
- workers Danny Bittner Joe Van Diemen or Ron Arthur All kinds of great guys there but you know Why should
- they have to go back and fix that if you if you drive down through there and you hit that I guarantee
- you're gonna say I think I know what he's talking about
- And that thing's been like that. I'm not gonna call street department. That guy, them people should
- have to come and fix that. That thing's horrendous. And when people run over stuff like that in the
- road, it's a utility cut is what it is. They come in, cobbled it in, threw some cold mix on it, and left it.
- That's unacceptable and they should have to be putting signs out by the road when they're doing them
- work that jobs of their name of who they are that's doing that stuff and That's like over on 3rd Street
- by the car wash They left a thing in the road about three feet wide about five feet long For a month
- called him there. No one's called that in. Well, okay. I called street They come right up there and
- fixed that man They was right on that
- Thank you very much, that's your time. Don't forget your drink. Yes, okay, if the next speaker would
- like to approach the podium, and you'll have three minutes, if you could state your name, that'd be
- great. Hello, Bryce again. Talking this time about what you guys were talking about at the top of this
- meeting, which is the land swap that's going on right now, or that we're trying to get going right now.
- I'm sure you all know the details but one of the issues that came up at the RDC meeting this Monday
- was the the City Council's letter of I believe May 24 requesting that the the property
- I always call it across the street from Atlas, but the North property, property north of Convention
- Center, that that property not be sold for less than its value, than the price that they paid for it.
- Some of the RDC members were concerned that the land swap would go against that, but based on what I've
- heard today, at least a number of you are in favor of that land swap, while also being a signatory to
- that letter asking for
- That the money to be recouped and so You know, I'm asking that if not in this setting here that your
- position on the land swap specifically Be made clear. I mean if you want to put it in writing and like
- a little resolution that would also be cool Is it like no? Well, we didn't want to impede any affordable
- housing development, please Transfer the land. I think that would go a long way because and
- This is also a time-sensitive thing. The leases for those tenants ends in July. And bureaucracy
- is bureaucracy. It'll take a lot to get things settled, to get things through. The best hope for the
- tenants to stay there is for the CIB, the board that currently owns that south property, to extend the leases.
- Now, the only reason that they would do that, and they don't wanna be landlords, the only reason that
- they would do that is if there was some sort of guarantee from the RDC that that property would then,
- the RDC wouldn't, that they would do something with it. And the tenants and other organizers are putting
- together a proposal, and there'll be emails going to all of you,
- soon about presentation of that proposal and an event that'll try and enroll you in the community in
- ensuring that that Seminary Point property remains affordable. Yeah, so I think that the more you can
- say today in favor of that and saying that you are willing to
- offloaded from the RDC's hands onto a either a nonprofit entity or a community land trust or a Cooperative
- or what have you that would give the RDC? Good reason to go ahead with this transfer and would also
- give the CIB good reason to extend the leases all those things are necessary for You know these people
- to stay in affordable housing housing. Thank you. Thank you the next
- Is there any speaker on zoom? Okay, great. We'll take the next person in chambers and then we'll go
- to the speaker on zoom You'll have three minutes if you could state your name for the record,
- that'd be great. Thank you. This is c4th again I'd like to extend appreciation for many of the council
- members who Expressed a desire to keep the jail in or as close to the Bloomington City limits as possible
- rather than to North Park
- If I'm remembering correctly, there was a statement recently. I hate to interrupt you. This is on the
- agenda, so you will have the opportunity to speak about this later. Absolutely. Thank you very much.
- Sorry. I had another thing I was going to mention, but now I can't remember it. Thank you. Next speaker.
- Oh, I'm sorry. On Zoom. If you could unmute yourself, you'll have three minutes.
- Hi, my name is Sam, I live in Bloomington and have worked in the field of cybersecurity for about eight
- years now. There's a lot of good discussion we had around data and trust. And I want to just make a
- few points, give a few examples to make that a little bit more clear. When you're trusting a third party
- that has control over the computers in which the data is stored.
- You have to trust, at the end of the day, you have to trust them to guard that data properly. And there
- are a number of ways that that can fail. The simplest is they break the law. They decide to show the
- data that they said they weren't going to. Or there could be an insider that has access to the system,
- either digitally or physically, that can get access to that data. It can be completely
- Incidentally, there's a security vulnerability, and there are plenty of vendors with a bad record of
- really simple vulnerabilities, some of which were mentioned today. Or they could be compelled either
- by a rule order or by law or by a national security letter to give over that data. And so when we're
- thinking about where we're storing data, I think that
- Having the physical control of that is very important. And it kind of just got me thinking, what other
- places are we, there are lots of sensitive data that we should be considering that in, not just the
- FLOC and LPR that was mentioned earlier. And since I think it's a comment on that when I had my handrails,
- I'll just say I'm in favor of no more mass surveillance. Thank you.
- Thank you very much. Next speaker in chambers. Hello. My name is Zach Mueller. I've lived in Bloomington
- for 20 years now, I think. I'm here to ask the council and the city's government to help me use the
- property that I've recently purchased less freely.
- My beloved and I recently purchased the house. It's on the northeast corner of the intersection
- of Morningside Drive and Smith Road. This is the intersection where, six months ago, a child was struck
- while on their bicycle, and I had to have their jaw wired shut while they were riding their bike because
- a distracted driver didn't think that stopping was something they had to do. I came here to
- the Transportation Committee meeting almost a month ago,
- And I got to hear a lot of young people who got up and were doing the scary thing of talking to people
- behind the dais there about their experience with
- being Girl Scouts and having to go visit a friend in the hospital and how scary it was for them. And
- I heard a lot of input from members of the city's workforce and our colleagues who've given their time
- to the Transportation Committee talking about how we need to do something, and maybe we could roll that
- intersection and gathering some data into a report that's already been done, I think, on South College
- Mall Road. And that's great. I love data.
- But I also know that it's been six months and there's a child that is still dealing with the trauma
- of being struck on their bike. And there's also plenty of things that I'm sure can be done if our city
- government wants to act in an agile way to, even while we gather that data, make life a little bit safer.
- And I agree with Councilperson Rosenberger. It's little five. We want people to be doing bicycle stuff,
- but we really want our whole community to be safe,
- Here while they're on their bikes or pedestrians, you know not and not just on campus going to and from
- Armstrong Stadium And that's one thing that like I believe that even though I don't ride my bike very
- much Somebody should be able to and like I sat here and I don't love mass surveillance But I have I
- have a camera that looks down so I can figure out where people are not stealing my packages that like
- looks at my driveway and I can't see
- I can't see the license plates, but I can see when people roll through a stop on my camera if I pull
- it up. And I only have a half a minute left. But I sat here, and I counted six people at 6.30 on a Monday
- that decided to roll through a stop sign. And so please help me use my property less safely, even if
- it's putting in traffic stuff that only means I can only back out of my driveway one way. Please, please help.
- Like there are Girl Scouts being struck on bicycles. Come on. Thank you very much. Next speaker, if
- you would approach the podium, you'll have three minutes. Go ahead. Thank you. I'd like to thank you
- for letting me have another chance at coming up. I wanted to express support for the land swap.
- come to meetings here about sort of zoning and about Hopewell, about the prospect of affordable and
- attainable housing in this community, and the fact that, you know, I have coworkers who have been pushed
- out of Bloomington and now live in other communities, not in Monroe County, further afield, because
- it's just more affordable for them, which takes away their tax money, takes away the, you know, money
- they could have spent at local businesses, things like that.
- And so I think that providing and, you know, more important than even the short term, but just maintaining
- our stock of super affordable housing is just essential, right? Like, it's a great location. If it's
- possible for us to make that swap happen, I can only see, you know, upsides, and it feels like the sore
- thing that could also, you know,
- be a good feather in the cap for Mayor Thompson in terms of she's under a lot of fire right now. And
- I don't know if she's here in the upper gallery or behind me, but if she's looking for a good opportunity
- to win some points, maybe she could put her weight behind that as well. But yeah.
- I'm glad to hear that there seems to be support among the council for maintaining the Summit or Seminary
- Point housing. I'm really glad to hear that, Isabel, that you've been going to all these different meetings
- and sort of like conferences to get information on different ways that we could approach and tackle
- this. But one of the things that came up in the Monroe
- county council meeting that I went to recently was somebody brought up the fact that our super affordable
- category is super pinched in Bloomington. And you can feel it, right? The way in which Hopewell is going
- to provide a lot of good potential housing stock, which will be more affordable, but for any of the
- folks living at Seminary Point or folks like them who are currently priced out of the community,
- We are desperately missing that stock, so I hope that we can preserve it. I thank y'all for everything
- you're doing to try and make that happen, and I surrender my time. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next
- speaker in chambers. You'll have three minutes. Please state your name for the record. Thank you, Madam
- President. This is Christopher Emge from the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce. I want to thank
- everybody who went to Let Connect last night at the Waldron Center. I want to thank Constellation Stage
- and Screen for hosting us.
- Fabulous venue fabulous event. I want to quickly invite you and the public here on an exciting event
- We're here to launch the chamber Wednesday, May 6 from 530 to 730 at the International Art Project Foundation
- will be kicking off Bloomington Rainbow Leadership Network an initiative of the chamber focused on
- Connecting lgbtq AI professionals business owner and allies across Monroe County You know as chambers
- been with us in the community for over 110 years we take the responsibility to evolve with the needs
- of our workforce in our business community seriously and this Effort reflects that the strengthening
- of connections expanding economic opportunity away. That's welcoming and inclusive and
- We'll hear some brief remarks. Time to connect, of course. Food, drink, as only the Chamber can bring
- you. We'll be glad to see members of this body and the public there before your regular session on Wednesday
- the 6th. The other thing I wanted to offer in my final time is the equity issue on homeownership that
- was brought up, and I've had multiple conversations with residents here in the community and the business
- community as well.
- I'm hearing consistent feedback that that conversation's been a little, I think the word is incomplete,
- sort of framed the difference between purchase price and the sale price. The lived reality is much broader
- than that. Real ownership costs, some risks, property taxes that rise with value, increasingly volatile
- insurance costs, ongoing maintenance and upkeep, major capital investments root HVAC plumbing. So when
- you factor those in, the picture changes.
- Say you buy a house in Sunnyslope neighborhood for 118 in 2012. This may or may not be my residence.
- And let's say next month, I sell that property for $240,000. On paper, you're going, wow, that's double?
- But after you do the inflation, the interest I paid, the maintenance, the selling costs, the realtor
- fees, all of that, it's a little bit more modest. Those major upgrades and all those things shrink that
- Investments significantly my real return investment over that Over that time is 12 to 15 percent. So
- that's 14 years. That's about 1% a year. That's that's a good investment I don't want to diminish
- homeownership. It's been great But you know, we continue to have these discussions around equity and
- affordability We need to encourage more complex view of home ownership where we haven't really had that
- so because our goals long-term financial success of our residents the full cost structure matters just
- not the entry
- Thank you for your time tonight. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. And we have one more member, public
- comment. Please approach the podium, state your name, and you'll have three minutes. Hi. Joshua Stockton.
- One thing I noticed this past week, I like to visit the Monroe County Public Library.
- But I've been accessing the Indiana Room, which is an amazing resource for government documents, state,
- federal, and local. One thing I noticed this week is that there is no UDO document in that building.
- There's everything else. There's the CBU reports. There's hand department, planning and transportation.
- But there's no UDO. So there's no physical way to actually access it unless you go online.
- However, I did ask the librarian there why, and essentially the answer I received was that it changes
- so often that we can't keep track, and what's available online is not necessarily up to date in real
- time, and so coordinating that and then accessing it
- Has been made impossible if you don't have a computer I guess you can do that at the library But for
- some people I would like to sit down and just be able to read it and look through it So I guess my question
- is is is there in a way that we can coordinate that? With the Monroe County Public Library to get that
- in there because that is a very important document Thank you
- Thank you very much. That was enlightening. And if there is nobody else who is interested in public
- comment, speak now or forever hold your peace until general public comment at the end of this meeting.
- Is there anybody on Zoom? Great. In that case, that concludes reports for the evening. And now we'll
- move on to appointments to boards and commissions. Councilmember Piedmont-Smith.
- committee see I Would like to move appointment of Raynard cross to seat c2 of the Historic Preservation
- Commission and appointment of Rebecca pain to seat c3 of the Commission on sustainability and resilience
- Okay, great there's been a motion and a second will the clerk please call the roll or any questions
- or comments first my apologies I
- Great. Will the clerk please call the roll? Piedmont Smith. Yes Zulek. Yes Sorry, sorry, yes Daily Rallo Ruff. Yes
- Rosenberger not in the room Flaherty Great, thank you with the vote of 8-0 that passes and now we are
- moving on to legislation for second reading and Resolutions and I will be passing the gavel to councilmember
- Rallo because councilmember Daly and I are Co sponsoring this resolution. I Move that resolution 2026-07
- be read by title and synopsis only
- second All in favor we have the I guess we need to call roll Will the clerk please call the roll on
- the introduction of resolution 20 26 07 Yes, just for clarification who made the motion and second.
- I wasn't thank you very much Councilmember Piedmont Smith. Yes, so like yes, sorry. I
- Daily yes, Rallo. Yes rough. Yes clarity Yes, Stossburg, yes, thank you Okay, I can get started do we
- need it to be Yes, I'm so sorry Will the clerk please? Please please read
- Resolution twenty twenty six dash zero seven a resolution in support of County Council counterparts
- efforts to keep the county's criminal justice buildings within city limits and close proximity to social
- services The synopsis is as follows this resolution twenty twenty six
- 07 authored by council members Sydney Zulek and Courtney daily Supports the Monroe County Council's
- decision not to fund acquisition of the North Park site for a new criminal justice center and reaffirms
- the Bloomington Common Council's position that such facility should remain within city limits and near
- social services This resolution expresses concern about access impacts on low-income residents if relocated
- outside of the
- The city and commits to working with county officials to support an expedited permitting process for
- a justice center located within city limits Thank you, I move that 20 2607 be adopted second, okay.
- Thank you Point of order, please I think the The synopsis that
- The clerk read was actually the old synopsis and not the revised Slightly ever so slightly revised synopsis
- that went with the slightly revised text. Is that possible? It is and if you'll give me just a moment,
- I'll pull it up. I'm sorry You don't have to read it again. I think it just said it added me as a co-sponsor
- and it said expedited permitting and zoning for the parcel Thank you for that and my apologies
- Councilmember Zulek great. Thank you. So just very quickly this is in response to the county who will
- be building or Potentially renovating but it is looking like they are going down the path of building
- a new jail so for those of you who may not know the County has been under a settlement agreement with
- the ACLU protect
- pertaining to unconstitutional conditions in the jail since 2009 and Just recently the Monroe County
- council members failed a resolution to fund the purchase of a property outside of city limits a property
- called North Park a property which does not have access to public transportation or close proximity
- to many social services and so
- I believe those are some of the reasons that County Council decided to fail this property and this Resolution
- I'm it's very short So I'm just going to read that the first the two sections be it resolved by the
- Common Council of the city of Bloomington Monroe County, Indiana That section one the Common Council
- stands with its County Council colleagues and their decision not to fund the purchase of the property
- at North Park section 2 the Common Council will work with the County Council
- Council and the county commissioners to support an expedited zoning and permitting process
- for the construction of a new jail within city limits and close proximity to social services. Sorry.
- I think I'm reading the wrong one too. Okay. Fabulous. Never mind. I was right. And that is what I have.
- I think that
- When we talk about the criminal justice system, it is already so inaccessible to so many people and
- I think it would be a real shame if the county were to build a property or excuse me build a jail that
- Further took away access from people who need it. Thank you councilmember daily any other thoughts Thank
- you very much. I just wanted to expand on that a little bit more to explain
- Thinking and our feelings on this You know, I've heard it argued that at this point because of the lawsuit
- We have no choice but to accept the North Park location because we've run out of time And you know the
- lawsuit I'm sorry, but frankly that's that's absurd. I don't think we need to settle Not not only we'll
- doing that put us need my glasses put us right back in a predicament where we're unhappy with the results
- and buyers remorse will set in and
- And when residents can't get out to visit their family members in the jail, for example, because they
- don't have transportation, or when it's difficult to connect our inmates with the services they need
- because they're just too far away. And I am aware that one of the terrible difficulties with our current
- jail is the overcrowding there. I agree that we need adequate space. But this planned expansion is not
- a realistic need for our current incarceration needs.
- I'm deeply uncomfortable with creating vastly more space than we currently need because, hey, that's
- gotta be filled one way or another, so it will. I would much rather see us invest in preventative services
- to keep our residents out of jail in the first place. Mental health support, addiction recovery programs,
- even financial classes would be a much better use of these funds, especially when we are facing perilous
- and unstable fiscal times ahead for the city
- and the county. I think we need to be wise and make some wise choices with our spending here and preventative
- is the best way. I would much prefer to see the county and the city work together to establish a new
- location by revisiting the Thompson site or the Fullerton sites with expedited permitting in process.
- If we work together we can create a right size jail that will serve the needs best for our community.
- And I believe that the North Park location will not do that. Thank you.
- I forgot I would like to say if if I'm asked personally I would be completely in favor of the Thompson
- property out of the many prop out of the Several choices that we have in the county has in front of
- them but I also encourage us to think outside of the box because it's entirely possible that the
- Solution that is the best for our community has not been even been discussed yet the other the other
- point that I want to make is When we look toward the future of criminal justice in our community our
- goal should never be to maximize space The space will be filled if it is created How will we invest
- in resources that reduce crimes instead of building bigger spaces to confine those that commit them?
- that is how I ask all of us to move to a
- As we move forward and I am and look forward to any discussion that we might have as a body. Thank you
- Thank you councilmember Piedmont Smith do you have anything to add I Appreciate my colleagues for bringing
- this forward. I kind of jumped on as a co-sponsor recently, but I wanted to just draw a through line
- here to our letter from October 22nd 2025 and
- that that unanimously was approved by council members that that asked county officials to not continue
- with the purchase of the North Park site for a new jail and criminal justice center. So this is kind
- of reiterating that in a more formal way as a resolution. And I agree with my colleagues that
- This site is inappropriate for many reasons. One is the size that has been proposed of the jail to be
- put on this site. If there are vacant beds, you know ICE is gonna come and knock on our door and say,
- we've got some people to store. And I also agree with my two co-sponsors that this is not the best use
- of taxpayer money. There is a property that is already
- belongs to the county that was purchased for a juvenile justice center and that's the Thompson site
- and even if it would require some Change in utility lines. I think it would still come to less money
- than What it would cost at North Park And that is in my council district so I speak as somebody who
- would have that pretty near my house I think that and nobody
- Everybody thinks that a jail is not a good neighbor, but we have a jail a block away from here, and
- people pass it every day and don't even realize it. And finally, I want to underline a point that was
- already made, but bears repeating that we need to invest in prevention. And this $11.375 million purchase
- of North Park is money that
- that not available for prevention and that's just A misuse of public funds. Thank you Thank you. We'll
- now go to questions from council for to for the sponsors guess Thank you, can you just clarify for me
- the differences between the resolution that we've
- officially introduced that was in the addendum versus the one that was in the packet was it just the
- Councilmember Piedmont Smith mentioned in the introduction that the Synopsis was changed at her as a
- co-sponsor and then the expedited zoning was mentioned in section 2. Were there any other changes? Yes
- There were some changes to clarify that The the first whereas clause that the county government has
- been under a settlement agreement I think the previous one just said there had been a threat of legal
- action since 2009 But there's actually been the settlement agreement Try to remember now The the price
- tag was mistakenly left off of the
- Forth whereas clause so we put that in there. Oh, thank you Right and no guarantee we changed the wording
- about the transportation Not being accessible at North Park. So I mean maybe in the future there'll
- be public transportation Maybe the county will make some other arrangement, but there's no guarantee
- of trust public transportation access out there And then just to clarify that
- Either a jail or Justice Center at North Park one or both Would disproportionately impact low-income
- residents Impact low-income presidents and then adding zoning as well as permitting as the things that
- we would seek to expedite for an in-town option Okay, thank you Okay further questions from council
- the sponsors Okay, seeing none we'll go to the public if the public would like to Have a comment on
- resolution 20 26 07, please step up to the microphone Please state your name there. There probably is
- a sign-up sheet I believe there if you would be so kind as to do that and do you have something to
- Thank you and you have three minutes Good evening, my name is Seth muchler Bloomington resident grateful
- to the come council for this resolution some of which I've actually Pre-written has already been addressed
- by council members, which I'm very appreciative and
- As you work with the county, I would ask you to consider being open to renovation of the existing facility.
- I know many elected officials have said this is not an option, but please allow me to explain why I
- and many others feel it's worth considering. The main arguments I've heard against renovation are prohibitive
- cost, inability to increase bed count within the existing building, and a lack of programming space
- within the existing facility.
- Looking at cost first, let me remind you that the new construction cost we were given was the $225 million
- cost of the original North Park facility. I've given you two renovation estimates from jail experts.
- The first is from RQAW. They estimated renovation at $62 million with the estimated cost
- of relocating inmates and services during the two-year renovation at about $16 million, so a total of
- about $80 million. That same report stated that the construction of just a jail and sheriff's office
- would be nearly $100 million, not including land purchase, which I know what we're talking about tonight,
- or construction of courts, as is the current plan if at North Park. Renovation is just simply cheaper
- than new construction. And the other estimate is from the Kinray study, which admittedly is from 2019,
- but estimates renovation at a staggeringly low range between 22 and $56 million. So looking to bed count,
- our current facility has 294 beds. The claim is right that we need the much larger facility with upwards
- of 500 beds or more. So since 2020, we have not exceeded 233 average daily population. And in 2023,
- we actually were under 200, 199 inmates on average per day.
- Can you imagine, right, if we were to invent, instead of dumping money into a new jail, we invested
- in services, treatment, prevention, like how low could we get those numbers? We don't need more beds,
- we need to do the work to incarcerate fewer people. And finally, access to services, the other big,
- in the jail, the other big thing. Services belong in the community, not in jail. When we intertwine
- mental health and substance use services and incarceration, we intertwine those mental health and substance
- use services and,
- Excuse me. We intertwine mental health and substance use and criminality the 2024 jail annual report
- states that quote the Monroe County Correctional Center is the largest mental health facility in Monroe
- and surrounding counties That is a shameful statement and something we need to fix not double down on
- and we know that treatment and services in the community are far more effective than in a carceral setting
- Even if we decided we needed some treatment in the jail for the people who sort of must be there If
- we implement the types of changes we're talking about to reduce capacity We could even take cell blocks
- and convert them into programming spaces if we cut incarceration in half clears up a lot of square footage
- So hopefully you see now why renovation is a viable option. There's no guarantee It's the option but
- I would ask that as you work with the county that you put it into consideration. Thank you Thank you
- for your comment and the materials you offered
- Next speaker, please state your name and please sign in You have three minutes Yes, my name is Jeff
- Richardson, I just want to acknowledge that this situation underscores failed leadership this is moving
- on for over 16 years and
- And it's not only a failure at the county level, but it really speaks to, I think, city-county cooperation.
- We need to find a way that we can talk to each other more effectively, not just at meetings, but in
- between meetings. And I think to characterize this as anything other than failed leadership is a mistake.
- I don't have a position on Thompson versus Fullerton versus North Park. So I will say I have a very
- close friend who works
- who lives, I should say, in the Thompson area. She's part of the Habitat for Humanity neighborhood that's
- ever growing. As you know, eventually there'll be 64 houses there. A lot of the folks there are not
- enthused about the jail. They may be wrong about their thinking. They may need to be educated. But it's
- not fair to say that low income people will embrace this facility because low income people have a need
- to get to the jail.
- when appropriate, so I think that's important. I'm also very distressed about how this is being framed
- that somehow, not by this council, but by somehow the ACLU is the enemy. Somehow they've been rushing
- us. In fact, one prominent official said, and suddenly the ACLU asked us to do X, and I said, suddenly,
- after 16 years, you're using the word suddenly? It's really inappropriate, and it's,
- a shame to frame the ACLU that is doing so much good work nationally as well as statewide as somehow
- the oppressor in this particular context. And speaking of enemies, I'm reminded of the old pogo, this
- is for old people, I've been around for a long time, but the old pogo cartoon that says we've met the
- enemy and the enemy is us. And I feel sometimes we have to step back
- and have a bit of introspection, self-reflection, and say not only what is the desired outcome, but
- how could we, maybe we could have done something a little differently along this way. I know, Isabelle,
- you tried to work with the county on this issue for years, and I'm not blaming anyone, but I am suggesting
- that this is an opportunity for us to step back and say, can we lower the temperature? Can we stop the
- finger pointing? In fact, we had more time
- the county commissioners Screaming at Marta the sheriff and then we did dealing with this problem. Please
- find a way that we can work together For the betterment of our community and to show people a model
- behavior how we can work together and get things done Thank you Thank you for your comment, please Oh
- Do we yes, let's go on to zoom
- Thank you Friends colleagues and members of our community this isn't a matter of one county
- body manufacturing pressure against another It's a matter of local government collaborating to confront
- a dead jail. Could you please state your name before you continue? Yes
- Would you please state your name and then please continue? My name is Commissioner Jody Madeira. Okay.
- Thank you. Thank you. At this point, this resolution is rearranging deck chair. Let's speak plainly.
- 17 years after a lawsuit is too late to complain that you're being rushed into litigation. I was elected
- in January, 2025 on the county level. No one's taking any responsibility for the 17 year delay.
- Everyone involved could have done things differently, but there's been an entire lack of introspection
- from those involved at that time. Well, now someone has to take responsibility. We're in a difficult
- situation, most of itself inflicted. And right now there are serious human rights violations that outweigh
- premature concerns about implementation in infrastructure.
- Although it's framed as support for keeping the jail within city limits, this resolution's practical
- effect is to urge the county to reject the one site ready to move forward. The city's memo implies we're
- dealing with legalese and states that a lawsuit, though intimidating, isn't the end of this conversation.
- This isn't caution or compromise. It's not simply a symbolic expression of preference about geography
- or social equity. This is an invitation to continue down a path that sends the county off a cliff into
- a lawsuit it can't defend,
- And that's the part that the public deserves to hear clearly. You are pushing us through the courtroom
- doors. So let's talk about the lawsuit. If the settlement agreement is dismissed, our constitutional
- duty doesn't disappear. It just gets harder and more urgent. We had some leeway under the settlement
- agreement. Without it, we'll have to run a constitutional jail. So in 2021, the jail transition team
- produced some cost estimates.
- There's a cost to remediate the current facility while awaiting a new jail for items not requiring more
- space. That's between three and 11 million. We have to constitutionally classify prisoners for which
- there is no space that necessitates setting entire groups like all women in the jail to other County
- jails away from their families and communities and children at a cost of $75 per day per prisoner. That's
- a very high human cost. And the transition team suggests 50 inmates as a starting point.
- That's 1.36 million. We need another van for transport, 105,000, and six new jailers for 500,000 a year.
- This isn't reform, it's failure. Then come legal fees, monitoring fees, compliance costs, and we still
- end up at North Park. Litigation isn't a symbolic act of resistance, it's a cash burn. I understand
- the concerns about North Park and the argument that services are concentrated closer to the city center.
- I understand the concern about transportation. These are real issues, but they're solvable.
- This issue destroys the public image of Monroe County and Bloomington, a democratic community publicly
- divided. That's not the image of effective local government, and it's not the message we should be sending
- to the rest of Indiana. It makes it look, frankly, like Democrats can't govern. So please, in conclusion,
- don't pass a resolution that deepens the vision between local governments at the very moment unity is
- most needed. No amount of rhetoric about principle changes the fact that this resolution points the
- county down a dark, chaotic, and dangerous road. Thank you.
- Commissioner Madeira, I allowed the commissioner to continue because I interrupted her So do is there
- anyone else on zoom at this point one other let's go to The chambers and then we'll go back to zoom
- in a moment Make sure you sign you probably already signed in but yes, I did earlier. Thanks. Oh
- Hello, for the final time this evening, my name is C. Forth, and I wish to express support for this
- resolution. A couple of years ago, I actually walked to the North Park location. I had become interested
- in it and decided to just see what the experience would be like walking out there and then walking back.
- you know, along the current sidewalks and infrastructure that is there. And it was a rather inhospitable
- set of like trek to do to the nearest like bus stop, right? It is far from services. It is removed from
- our community. I think it does create a
- a situation in which folks could be released late in the evening, as many folks are from jails or at
- odd hours, and then they're having to figure out how to get back into Bloomington. How do they get the
- transportation? If we don't co-locate the jail with the courts and the sheriff, then you also introduce
- the cost factor of busing those people around, which
- could be a quite expensive thing over years for every single inmate. So, you know, we were talking about
- the costs there just a moment ago of, you know, renovation versus locating at, like, Thompson. I think
- that anything that puts it within the city right-sized for the needs of our community and not putting
- us in a position where we're just
- asking to fill it with more beds is the direction we need to take. I think it was Pierre Montsmith who
- mentioned if the beds are there and we start seeing the federal government swing its weight around in
- the same way that they have in Minnesota, that is an invitation to just
- throw people into that jail. And there's also the question of protesters on campus, right? I might be
- misremembering this, so I do apologize. But I seem to recall that many of the folks who were dragged
- away during the encampment were taken to our jail. And it feels like that's just opening up a whole
- can of worms for having all of those extra beds that are just
- available to either be filled passively by the desire to make use of what is there or filled in moments
- of, you know, the times we find ourselves in, frankly. Thank you for your time. I hope that we make
- the right fiscal choice for our community because I do think at the end of the day there is also that
- just base element. The price tag difference is just astronomical. Thank you. Thank you for your comment.
- Let's go to Zoom.
- Our next zoom participant if you would please state your name, you'll have three minutes Hi, this is
- Julie Thomas Monroe County Commissioner and thank you for the opportunity to speak today We're grateful
- and lucky that mr. Falk of the ACLU, Indiana agreed to extend the private settlement agreement on their
- lawsuits against the board of commissioners and the sheriff until the end of May and by the way, we
- have a great relationship with the sheriff and
- If the private settlement agreement lapses at the end of May without meeting our obligations, the site
- selected, funding identified, then we can be sued. It's not a suggestion, it is a real threat. A federal
- judge can order any number of remedies, but let's be clear, this is a burden borne by all Monroe County
- taxpayers, whether they live in the city or not. It is not a risk or a cost
- that the commissioners are willing to accept when a good solution exists. Our bond council has advised
- us to complete the bond process by July 2026. Any specific site has to be selected before that bond
- can be initiated. North Park is shovel ready. With a purchase agreement and a bond, we can break ground
- early next year and the facility can be operational early 2030. We have done our due diligence investigating
- properties across the county. A few years ago,
- We brought a petition before the city planning commission and city council to build the justice center
- on Fullerton Pike. Both bodies rejected the petition. We spent nearly a year on that process. We stated
- at that time that if Fullerton Pike was rejected by the city, the county would look outside city limits
- for this facility. Thompson is in the city, yes, and the county owns it. But there are issues with the
- property. The city planning commission and city council must approve a change to the plan unit development
- We cannot proceed without that approval. It is a necessary public process that we respect and it cannot
- be shortened nor avoided. That fact alone makes any project on Thompson impossible to complete either
- by false deadline of May, the end of May of 2026 or the bond council's deadline of July of 2026.
- In addition, there are other issues with the Thompson property that need to be resolved before we can
- move forward. Cars features need to be studied and possibly remediated.
- We have to remove a large amount of dirt. There's relocation of high voltage power lines that Duke says
- will take at least a year and a half to complete. And a road needs to be completed from the
- summit development. Even if everything went well, we would be years away from breaking ground on Thompson
- and at a significant cost. Mr. Falk and the ACLU are focused on the jail, not a full justice center.
- We intend to get the jail built as soon as possible.
- That includes the jail, jail administrative offices, sheriff's office, and a few criminal courts. Once
- we are able to, we intend to build the remainder of the justice center. Co-location reduces security
- risks and overall costs in the long term. Yes, transit will be managed. As of 2029, county has to manage
- transit, so it will be dealt with.
- If you truly care about creating a jail facility as soon as possible, that can provide constitutional
- care for people housed there. And if you understand the potential risks and cost of a lawsuit are enormous
- and will impact every resident in Monroe County, I ask you to vote no or continue this motion indefinitely.
- Happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Commissioner Thomas.
- Somebody left their phone up here. Welcome councilmember crossing. Yes. Thank you so much Jennifer cross
- Lee Trying to lower it as much as I can here Monroe County Council Council president I just want to
- thank all of you all for and the co-sponsors for even entertaining this Resolution writing whether it's
- City County shouldn't be like a resolution sport and it's kind of weird that we have to Do something
- like this, but yet here we are
- The other thing that I wanted to say is to councilmember Piedmont Smith. I'm I should say let me back
- up before I make the comment I'm not new to this. I'm true to this. I've been on County government since
- December of 21 And this is the same conversation before stepping into my role that we have been having
- and we continue to have councilmember Piedmont Smith was the
- the city representative to one of the many acronym meetings that the county used to have, which is the
- CJRC. You all repeatedly ask, how can we help? How can we do this? And yet, like a thief in the night,
- those meetings kind of went away with no explanation. And so, yes, I understand that we are at a movement
- right now. Other people should also have to answer, since they've been in their spots for as long as
- they have, not me, why that
- This has continued to continue to manifest year after year after year after year. In 2009, I actually
- had one child. In 2026, that said child just turned 19 who was actually able to vote. And there's two
- more people. So let that sit in. But at the end of the day,
- The question that I have for you all is has anybody talked to you all about the you know We keep talking
- about the cost has anybody talked about the cost to you of what it would take for public transit I would
- think that that's something that we the county would have to talk to you in city probably I think the
- answer to that would be no, but I think we need to have the conversation with you we should be out of
- this mindset of
- Approve it now ask questions later and that's kind of what we feel here on the County Council I am a
- big girl literally and figuratively so I can do all the hard things and I am very much wanting to continue
- to collaborate with you just like what was mentioned earlier today and
- Yeah, we can lower the temperature as well But we have to have a common ground and you all need to be
- included in that because I could tell you one thing We continue to go to North Park Everybody in here
- can be looking into more taxing because that's is what is going to happen because that's how we're gonna
- have to pay for that The only other thing that I will say is as I end and I only got a few seconds left
- I would ask because it keeps being said that
- Quinn Falk is telling us no we keep hearing that you all will have a 9 to 12 month process On that has
- anybody talked to you all probably the answer is no I think we need to do that as I finish up here We
- continue to protest no Kings in our community and no Kings I say we have no Queens in this conversation
- and with that we continue to work together So with that I go what's left of my time and I thank you
- Thank you council president crossly Let's go to back to zoom. Is there other no participants on zoom,
- please step forward and Be sure to sign in state your name and you'll have three Rousseau I Have a very
- good friend in another state whose son was
- Convicted in the last year of a six to twelve month sentence in the county jail in another state He's
- devastated and His mental health is really awful now, so I understand what the previous speaker said
- about The car serial setting is one of the worst of all for mental health services because just being
- there Puts you two or three steps down the ladder I
- The thing that's keeping him sane is visits from his family, and I think that the North Park site strikes
- me as about the worst case for making it difficult for the kind of visits that one needs when you're
- in prison. I support the resolution wholeheartedly for all the reasons that are in it. I think it's
- very well written, and I thank you very much for writing it.
- Thank you mr. So Please state your name and I think you're signed in Hi, my name is Zach Mueller. Um,
- just wanted to say that I really hadn't planned on talking about this but um You know, I just feel like
- You know, I'm not an elected official. I'm not lawyer I've lived in the county for some time. Um, I
- Actually think I've lived in the county longer than anybody who's currently on county council or county
- the county commissioners Grouping maybe not We've had so long as a as a as a community right because
- the county in the city I understand I'm talking before you our city representatives. Well, I've heard
- you know from our some of our elected officials from the county I Get that we might
- run into a lawsuit. We've known about this for how long? How all of a sudden is this the problem? I
- reject patently that, oh no, now, whoa, I got you, it's all good. I reject now that the asteroid is
- coming directly from Monroe County, and it's been shot from space by the ACLU at us, and a federal judge
- is gonna be like,
- and Roe County's gonna get it because they wanna get their jail situation right finally. I understand
- that maybe we have been talking in circles for years and we need some kind of fix that works. I appreciate
- the other member of the community who prepared materials and provided them to you, and I hope they're helpful.
- I hope that that can help kind of foster a dialogue with our friends at the county if it is cheaper
- to Like renovate the jail we have and have services centrally located then the county can Look at that
- as savings. This is like when I go to
- to buy something and I buy it on sale, I look at that as a savings because I didn't have to pay that
- extra money because if I fix something, I don't have to buy a new one. Come on, man. I just don't see
- why this is so... Yeah, we're all gonna have to pay more taxes. We already have to pay taxes. Let's
- do something where people want the outcome. I don't know many people who are like, ooh yeah, let's build
- a new jail if we can fix the one we have and it serves all the purposes we can. Maybe I'm wrong.
- Again, I'm not running for office. So Thank you for introducing this legislation or this resolution
- council people. I really appreciate it and There's 15 seconds for you Thank You mr. Miller Please state
- your name and you have three minutes My name is Haley tokes and I just want to thank council for putting
- this resolution forward I strongly support it I
- For all the reasons mentioned, we don't need more beds. We need more services. And I understand that
- we're under the gun here, but that doesn't make North Park a good decision. It's a very bad decision.
- It's fiscally irresponsible. It's going to make people's lives worse. There's not a good reason to rush
- into it. And I just think that Seth made so many fantastic points about why renovation is a really viable
- option, that we should
- Taking very seriously if we're in a rush. Why not go with the building. We already have Thank you Thank
- you for your comment anyone else in the chambers Okay, anyone else on zoom in that case we're back to
- counsel for any further questions Thank you, well I heard one of the
- Commissioners make a comment about how this wouldn't be very Fiscally responsible and that we have to
- answer to our taxpayers well this is a project that at the North Park property would cost every taxpayer
- in this county five thousand dollars and
- Now, I don't know about you, but $5,000 would cover over five months of my rent. Most probably a full
- year of utilities, like $5,000 is nothing to sneeze at for anyone who has ever worried about money.
- I would much rather, I'm happy to pay my taxes, but I would much rather those resources be going towards
- prevention services and keeping people out of jail and in their own homes with
- their families, thank you. Okay, thank you. Any other questions? Yes, oh, Council Member Asari. Council
- President Asari. Thank you so much. Do you have a question or a comment? A question, if it's possible.
- Yes. Will you allow it? And I don't know, is Director Hiddle in the room by chance? Yes, he is.
- Would you allow me to ask a question of him? If you would allow to receive it. It's not of that complex
- of a question. I just he is accommodating he's stepping to the microphone Thank you, I'm interested
- in this I mean this this calls for the council approving a expedited permitting and land use process for
- whatever property, I guess, in the broadest sense, as long as it fits the category of being in town.
- And I'm trying to understand first, what does that actually mean in practice? Because obviously, I've
- long advocated for us just generally having expedited processes for things.
- Can you maybe give me some thought about the viability of an expedited process? And if so sort of like
- what it means Well I think as you probably As you probably know we're nearing the end of an audit of
- our permitting processes which in a very general sense is going to result in a much more expedited much
- more efficient process but that will apply to
- Anything that comes through as far as an application for land user development. I'm not sure if there's
- specific language associated with this resolution that defines what an expedited process would be or
- if it's just a Pat on the back to encourage something along those lines. So I know I'm not aware of
- anything that
- specifically tied with this resolution that would give us more guidance on that wanted to act in some
- way, you know within a limited way about about the jail transaction or swapping of properties or building
- out of The Thompson property or something like that Is there a way is there a mechanism available to
- us as a city? specifically available to us as counsel or to your office where we can where we can
- Actually commit to the statement that we're making in this resolution. Well, the statement doesn't have
- any specificity at all So I'm not even sure we could certainly commit to Doing our best to expedite
- a permit process I think there's probably the capability or I'm sure there's a capability in the department
- to do that, you know if there were an emergency situation or something along those lines we could certainly
- Focus our attention commit our resources to getting this particular thing done but The language as I
- see it doesn't provide us anything more than that. I'm also happy to clarify Thank you, so when I was
- originally writing this one of the
- that I had discussed with my Monroe County Council colleagues was that there is this argument being
- brought up against the Thompson property saying that the process for plan city planning would take too
- long and so one of the reasons that I included that phrasing in the resolution is to basically just
- to communicate a spirit of collaboration and that like we want to work on this with County and so there's
- There wasn't meant to be anything binding
- But I'm more meant like from the body as a whole to support, you know moving this through with Haste
- yes Councilmember Azari, do you have anything else? Yeah, thank you so much councilmember Zulek. Yeah,
- and I think that I I don't I don't question the the
- I think the moral stance, I think it's exactly right and I support that wholeheartedly. I think the
- question though here, given the exact context where the ACLU is looking for a clear signal, if this
- is more than just
- Well, we generally stand with you. I mean, if we're just standing with you, but we can't follow through
- with the way that we're standing with them, don't we think that this language needs to be very specific
- about how we would accomplish it, moving faster, what type of timelines can be committed to, et cetera?
- But yeah, so some interested sort of in thoughts and thoughts there because otherwise my concern otherwise
- sorry I'm turning this into a comment, but my concern otherwise is that You know we we we make a stance
- that I mean otherwise means nothing and You know and I mean I I think if people were watching we're
- watching you know the way that the city and and us as a council has moved on on
- things around You know housing developments, etc. I don't know what confidence I would have in that
- statement, you know without specifics Great unfortunately like the timing We had one council meeting
- prior to an opportunity to speak on this and so I prioritized a Resolution that would get the majority
- of support from council members especially given that we have six things on the
- Agenda tonight. I was prioritizing just the city Reiterating its stance supporting our County Council
- colleagues That's what I have Councilmember Piedmont Smith I would just say we don't know what the county
- would ask of us as far as planning or
- Permitting I mean we don't know exactly the details of that. So it would be hard for us to say exactly
- what we would do To expedite it it's I think the best we can do at this point in time is to say that
- we would do our best to You know work with the county to get If they were to select land within the
- city limits to get the approvals that would be needed I think that's
- Specific as we could be at this point Council member Stossberg I have a question and I'm not sure that
- anybody can necessarily answer this and I'm trying to like do research on the fly about it, but I feel
- like the the understanding that I just got online during the public comment from the county commissioners
- was of the Thompson site is in part not shovel ready because it's not zoned properly for a jail and
- but I think it actually is. And I guess I don't want to turn this into a comment at this point, but
- can anybody actually answer the question publicly right now about whether, because it is part of a PUD
- and it was, I mean, I'm trying to read an amended PUD from 2002 right now while I'm actually listening
- to other things that are happening.
- But it seems to say that jails are added as a conditional use to be reviewed by the Board of Zoning
- Appeals. And so the argument of, oh, we can't get this done by May. We can't get this done by July might
- actually not happen. So I don't know if, I mean, 2002 was well before the time of our planning professionals
- in the room. So I don't know if anybody can answer that publicly or not.
- Sponsors or director Hittle? Dude, can you answer publicly whether a jail is currently allowed as an
- allowed use on the Thompson site on that PUD? Did not include locations Because we did not we honestly
- City Council. We don't have enough research on the different properties in terms of viability for other
- properties I think that's a conversation that we would need to have with the county
- but I mean this body's been accused of overstepping before and so I Primarily wanted to make this about
- this is how it's going to impact city residents. This is our request and Leave it kind of open apart
- from that Director Hittle, would you like to yeah, I think it would we would have to scour the PUD language
- to give you a
- Full and concrete answer wouldn't take too long, but it would take longer than we have right now Probably
- give you the answer tomorrow as to whether or not current zoning would allow it and what would need
- to be done if it doesn't allow it Thank you, I actually also got a text from County Council President
- Jennifer Crosley that said yes, it is currently zoned for jail. Thank you. Oh I need to say that louder.
- I just got a text from Council President Jennifer Crosley saying it is currently
- Zoned for a jail Great. Thank you other questions Councilmember sorry You still have I'd be if permitted
- I'll make my comment my response then and then if permitted noting that Commissioner Thomas is still
- on the line. So if you all wanted to wanted to hear from from from them, they're still here, but I believe
- that Commissioner Thomas said that
- you know, that the issue was both a road that overlaps with the summit PUD question, and that the thing
- was about rezoning, or not rezoning, but allowing the justice center also to be built there in addition
- to the jail itself. So I don't know if that is how I heard what was said, but she is still here if we
- wanted to ask. Are you asking?
- Are you posing a question? Yes. Yes, I am then I will If Commissioner Thomas would like to Affirm that
- thing. Yes. Thank you for the opportunity to speak again Yes Yes, I don't think this is directly relevant
- to the resolution which does not mention the Thompson site I
- Well, it doesn't mention the Thompson site, but it mentions, I mean, it's a site within the city, and
- it's probably one of only a couple that are possible. We have a council colleague who would like just
- a question answered about specifically what it would require. I think it's relevant. Commissioner Thomas?
- Could you could you answer the question if you've heard it from Council President Asari On the road
- access and yes, and whether the Justice Center would be co-located Right. The plan is always to build
- a co-located Justice Center, but What's what's currently permitted is? Yes a jail facility is in the
- PUD. However, the
- There's also a requirement to build a very long roadway through the PUD that we would not be able to
- do. And that city planning has said is not a big deal at this point because of summit's development.
- And I believe we would have to get probably a height variance for the rest of the justice building,
- not for the jail. The jail's gonna be one story, but for the remainder
- of that justice building, we would probably need to also include a height variance. So there are, and
- obviously we'd have to review the slopes because the state changed the law. We'd have to look at karst
- and we'd have to do a tree canopy study. I forgot about that too. And those things we have to do no
- matter what, but the PUD does have to be changed in order to not require us to build a multi tens of
- millions of dollar road that won't actually work.
- Thank you for your response councilmember. Sorry is that satisfactory? County council president Jennifer
- cross Lee has something to yeah. Um, I
- And I hope I'm not speaking out of term and I say this but a few years ago we had Been told with the
- Thompson site as we were looking at the Thompson site a few different things and one was the roadway
- Because there is the Adam Street and I believe there was strong road that was something that was needed
- or that we needed to do and
- And from my understanding and from conversations, that's something, once again, that we've heard from
- city staff is that we can actually work with you all to get that done. So again, the question is, are
- we wanting to work with you all, or are we just really wanting to just say, it's okay, we just will
- go to North Park? Again, that's the thing here. And the other thing that I will say is,
- In order I thought I made a mention of this too when we were saying this but the ACLU literally and
- and it's no surprise since there was the memo that Council or County legal apparently put out to everybody
- But the point of the matter is literally we've heard from mr. Falk himself That it doesn't matter if
- you pass a resolution or whatever the case is
- They need some timeline because it to me it sounds like they have no faith and my city council colleagues
- and in the city staff And so I would humbly recommend that if you are going to say this instead of us
- hearing the hearsay of well It's just going to take a nine month 12 month total process to Figure out
- how we can really do that together. I don't know if that's
- whatever we can do to put words to paper, whatever the case is. That's me, Jennifer Crossley. That would
- be my humble ask, because we just need something. I would think that if we want to keep this in city
- limits, that this is something that we want to have as a concrete, tangible thing that we can say, not
- only are we just talking about this, but this is the action that is on the words that are on this paper.
- Thank you.
- and thanks to my colleagues for Allowing me in the spirit of communication collaboration as we've been
- talking about to to have our colleagues in the county Be available to answer questions. So are there
- any further questions? Comments yes, let's go to comment now Thank you very much. I want to first thank my
- Co-sponsors on this for all the hard work that you've done and and really appreciate your dedication
- The the fact of the matter is this North Park project is far far too expensive for our community The
- commissioners continued with North Park after the October unanimous rejection of that location by the
- County Council And that feels like being strong-armed into a location that nobody else wanted We're
- saying that we want to work with the county and
- But as County Council President Crossley pointed out, we haven't been reached out to or consulted on
- those adjacent issues such as transportation and so on and so forth. So this resolution tonight before
- us seeks to protect vulnerable members of our community. We hear a lot about how the current setting
- of the jailhouse is inhumane and absolutely we need to fix that 100%. An incarcerated person does not
- deserve to be treated inhumanely.
- Part of the effects of North Park would be Potentially inhumane if their family can't get out to visit
- them if they can't receive the services that they deserve And so we're also seeking to protect the taxpayers
- of Bloomington From having to pay for this jail way out there. Thank you Other comment Consumers Nussmer
- Thank you. I'll go ahead and and comment on this. I wasn't necessarily planning to comment on this but
- You know, this is my third year on council and I get a little bit frustrated sometimes when things are
- brought up from prior to This body is being here because there we are a body of nine and the majority
- of us were not here when the
- aforementioned change of zoning was denied and I would really like to be able to move forward from this
- spot Together and I would have liked to have moved forward from the spot together, you know two or three
- years ago but as has already been mentioned it, you know, we were not particularly consulted and A lot
- of how I felt about it, you know as a new council member was well, there's there's a lot of stuff on
- my plate that's you know,
- Really on my plate in terms of this is what I need to make an actual decision about I'm just gonna kind
- of you know, stay a little bit removed from from the county jail issue because I don't get to choose
- that but as it is dragged on and on and on no no one is choosing that and the biggest choice that I
- think was made was the County Council last year rejecting that North Park site and I think that they
- rejected it for good reason and
- That it's far, far out there. It's not centrally located. It's not convenient on a number of fronts.
- And it would cost the taxpayers of this county a whole lot. And at this point in the financial picture,
- it's just not reasonable. And I can appreciate this idea that, oh, but it's the only shovel-ready solution
- right now. Well, you know what? I think that it is possible for us
- to get together another solution that might include, as Council President Crosley mentioned, some written
- documentation related to timelines, related to, you know, what exactly would be needed at the Thompson
- property or another property, you know, that might make good sense in terms of where a jail might go.
- And I'm totally on board with doing that.
- Think that that those roadblocks Were bumps in the road. I think they're probably bumps in the road
- when you're talking about zoning and when you're talking about changes like that
- those can be overcome they can be overcome on timelines that are relatively predictable if Everybody
- can commit to getting the materials together that would be needed to present Various bits of information
- to the different bodies that would need to be presented as to the generalness of this resolution I think
- that we can you know commit to supporting an expedited process. Oh, that's not the
- It's not the amendment. I think it still says yep supporting an expedited zoning and permitting process
- Because we still like I can support that expedited process But I can't necessarily control it right
- depending on what exactly is needed whether it's something for the BCA whether it's something that goes
- through planning Commission you know, we're
- If we're on those bodies, we're only one of a number of people on those bodies We can't say how fast
- it's going to go through but we can say hey Let's try to do this as quickly as we can and and let's
- try to do this in a way that is responsible so I'm prepared to support this I don't want that that jail
- at North Park and I Want to support our County Council colleagues who said that they did not want that
- jail at North Park last year Thank you
- Thank you councilman rough Up front I'll say of course, I'm not an expert or I have not spent extensive
- time comparing the different costs costs of different options, but I do have some background and a college
- degree that involved Natural resource management a lot of it was full-cost accounting and
- I know full-cost accounting is difficult to do but I I just skeptical that if we really did full-cost
- accounting That the renovation of the existing facility wouldn't be The best option and when I say full-cost
- accounting I'm talking about externalities
- And this applies to any new look at location that would be in the city anywhere else too as well as
- North Park but external externalities like the accounting for the impact on Surrounding uses and surrounding
- properties and surrounding properties wherever this would go to any place other than where it is now
- where nobody really anymore has a right to make a complaint about a
- tremendous change in their own property values or quality of life or or land use pressures around them
- due to the current location so that's that's one example of full cost accounting accounting somehow
- for the impact of Moving this and other people have talked about the external costs of on on families
- on visitation on on inmates and
- are deprived or of potential easier access by loved ones and family members and support and services
- all those external costs the external externalities of the carbon footprint difference with all the
- transportation that would occur and not just Moving inmates or inmates around various reasons but of
- the visitations that occur all the services the carbon footprint of that
- For a location that's remote and I'm not just talking north. I'm talking anywhere else other than where
- it is now I just can't help believe that In what we know about the cost of new construction now in this
- current world compared to renovation and I just I have a really hard time believing that I
- If you really accounted for full costs all these costs that have been discussed here tonight by members
- of the audience by council members That the the option with the least overall cost to society to our
- community as a whole wouldn't be the existing location renovation the existing location and so when
- I support this and
- resolutions on which I'm going to and I think very much my colleagues who who brought it forward and
- I think Sam a Wholeheartedly, but I don't want to my vote to be construed necessarily as well. Let's
- just find a different location That's a new location. Even if it is in this city would be marginally
- better Than the farther out it is right. It's gonna all those externalities are gonna increase the farther
- we move it
- Away from where it is now, but all of those costs will be greater Anywhere else it's moved So I just
- wanted to make that clear that I wasn't advocating to go fishing around for another location I'm advocating
- for full cost accounting of moving in anywhere other than renovating the existing site Thank you further
- comment from council Council members are you
- Thank you all and colleagues for drafting this. Thank you to our county colleagues for being here at
- the meeting and for participating. I think obviously the moral stance that's being said here is clear.
- And as well as the, I think, sort of strategic and economic arguments that are being made. And I mean,
- I think they resonate with me. As I expressed in my questions, concerned about our ability to follow
- through with what we're saying.
- I wish, I don't know, by way maybe of just general suggestion, I think it interesting, and bear with
- me, this will not be a long comment, but it's a two-sided comment, that we're in this small city and
- wonderful small city and wonderful county,
- that we as elected bodies basically have to talk at each other through process, that we get each other's
- attention through writing resolutions and speaking in formal ways. And I just think it's interesting because
- I don't know, in any other context, I just feel like there's a lot more simple ways to go about actually
- solving the problem before us. And I think perhaps that's why it takes us 17 years to make particular
- progress. And I think on the flip side, with respect to our commission and council colleagues in the
- county, there hasn't been any specific ask of us
- to which we can also act, right? If that makes sense, like with the exception of Council President Crossley,
- you know, who said sort of in response to some of the things that I was saying, you know, you should
- be specific in this language. I wonder,
- But perhaps this is a sort of, you know, historian's fallacy. I do wonder, you know, what happens in
- this process should the, if the county were to make a rezone request? I mean, that actually gives us
- something to expedite. And, you know, then perhaps we, you know, can build specifics around that. So
- I'm in a little bit of a betwixt place. I don't know if, I think I'll, you know, I'd like us to go beyond
- this resolution and whether that means let's meet tomorrow. I mean, we can't. We have this 48-hour notice.
- But maybe we need to put together a joint meeting and just actually figure out what we're going to do
- and actually hammer out the real processes of how we can support, if at all. But I also think that we
- shouldn't make the mistake of just
- quickly moving over the significant risks and costs that have been brought up, I think, on all sides
- of this argument.
- Anyways, I don't know if that's itself actionable. Well, I guess it is. My call would be that after
- we vote for this, that we move to either have some joint session or something that we actually can just
- get around the table and figure out what needs to be done. Thank you again, though, for writing this.
- Council Member Zulek.
- My recollection is councilmember daily actually suggested a joint session on the jail with
- county counterparts several weeks ago And so I will I'll just go on record and say I'm very in favor
- of that County Council County commissioners We would love to host you to have a deliberation session
- to hash out how we might be able to expedite the planning process Thank you Other comment before we
- go to a vote
- Okay, well just say that I really appreciate my colleagues for bringing this forward It as councilmember
- sorry said Well, and actually as councilmember Stasberg stated that As I read it as I heard her say
- She I would agree to expedite the process if required It of course adjusted doesn't fall to us and
- But the resolution states that we're ready. We're ready to do that I think the council has been consistent
- with wanting a central location. That's been clear for many years And to be fair the rejection of the
- Fullerton site was not made by the majority of this council as it stands now, so I want to thank everyone
- for their comment tonight as well We have another comment
- Just to say I just want to reiterate that You know the reasons for having it centrally located for central
- proximity to resources such as mental health addiction support services the economic impact of course
- and but also Just preventing the social isolation of those incarcerated. I think is an important reason
- to have it centrally located so
- Councilman Rosenberger, do you want to have your say I just wanted to add something quickly because
- I know we have a really long night. I Am really thank you to the all three co-sponsors for bringing
- this I am in full support. I Used to talk about that's a lot last term, but it sort of lost traction
- and I am so happy to see County councilmember Crossley here tonight and everyone on council up here
- speaking in favor of keeping the jail and
- Centrally located close to everything that it is close to right now and I would just like to add that
- the Another property that I had always talked about is a county-owned property Across the beeline from
- the Convention Center. So right now that is a surface
- Lot and it seems like it might not be used for the Convention Center But also just a couple blocks from
- transit and a couple a few blocks from where it is now in case it does need an entirely New location,
- but I also appreciate looking at renovation costs because where it is now also is connected to a parking
- garage That was built for this purpose. Thank you Thank you. If there are no other comments, then will
- the clerk please call the roll on resolution 20 26 0 7
- Councilmember Zulek. Yes, sorry Yes Daily Yes, Rallo. Yes rough. Yes Rosenberger. Yes clarity Yes, Stossberg.
- Yes Piedmont Smith. Yes Thank you. Thank you. That is unanimously adopted
- Thank you resuming control Thank you, I I move that resolution 20 2608 be read by clerk by title and
- synopsis only Okay, there's been a motion and a second would the clerk please call the roll and
- Councilmember, sorry. Yes Bailey. Yes, Rallo. Yes, Ruff. Yes, there is some burger. Yes clarity Yes,
- Stasburg. Yes Piedmont Smith. Yes, and Zulick. Yes. Thank you. Great. Thank you with a vote of nine.
- Oh that passes And I move I move that
- So sorry, please if the clerk could read by title in synopsis only that would be fabulous and also Yes
- Resolution 2026-08 a resolution of the Common Council of the city of Bloomington, Indiana approving
- certain matters in connection with the formation of a certain economic Development area that the synopsis
- is as follows this resolution originated from the Bloomington rate redevelopment Commission to establish
- the new summit of
- district economic development area, the summit district EDA and a part of that area Shasta Meadows as
- an allocation area having a residential housing program. Assuming the statutory process is completed,
- this will establish what is commonly referred to as a residential tax increment financing area for the
- Shasta Meadows allocation area. Allocation areas for the remainder of the summit district EDA will be
- created as development plans for future advance.
- I move that resolution 2026 dash 08 be adopted Thank you and thank you that's been motioned and seconded
- whoever is here from the city to present on resolution 2026 oh eight, please approach the podium state
- your name and go ahead and Thank you for being here Thank you
- My name is Dana Kerr I'm assistant city attorney and I one of my assignments is with the Redevelopment
- Commission and I'm here tonight to present to you the resolution that was read before you and what this
- does is I'm sure you're all familiar with the summit PUD this would create a TIF district economic
- development area the entire summit
- PUD area, and that is made of five different neighborhoods, and the first neighborhood that's planned
- for development is Shasta Meadows, and it would make it the first allocation area. Now, we have Justin
- Chang from Reedy Financial who's gonna explain that a little bit, but to put this in some sort of a
- context, there was discussion earlier that mentioned Adams Street, and Adams Street has a gap in it.
- and that gap is located in the Summit PUD area. There's also plans for a road in the Summit PUD that
- goes from Weimar to Adams Street, a connection there. So Adams, in this development, Adams would go
- from Bloomfield Road all the way down to TAP, and you would have a connection over the Weimar, and as you
- You probably all know Weimar Road has a one lane bridge on it on the southern portion and is in a flood
- plain. So there's in the PIC development below there, there would be trying to work out construction
- of Vanguard Way which would straighten out Weimar Road. So in addition to the construction of Vanguard
- Way, Sudbury and Adams that would interconnect all of this area
- there would be need to be intersections that would need upgrades. So that's a lot of infrastructure
- that needs to be done. And that Sudbury road is very important because as part of that Sudbury project,
- there is a donation of land for a fire station. So that would allow fire equipment to rapidly get to
- the areas that they need to get to. And so that's a,
- Another point of this So, you know, there's there's a strong need of infrastructure there again that
- was mentioned earlier tonight and so one way to try to help facilitate that is the creation of a TIF
- district and a Allocation area in Chastal Meadows is a residential area. So it would be a residential
- allocation area. And so I'd like to invite Justin Chang from yes
- from reading financial to kind of explain a little bit more about the financial aspects of that Good
- evening, everyone. I'm Justin Chang 3d financial group It's good to see some of you all again about
- a met a couple of you at the fiscal committee meeting about a month ago So it's great to see you all
- again before I dive into
- Areas specific details and what a residential tiff is. I'll just quickly go over. So what a traditional
- what we call a commercial tiff is because really they're Very similar in most ways. There's just certain
- nuances that makes them different so tiff allocation or a tiff stands for a tax increment financing
- and tiff allocation area essentially a way for a city or city town or county to
- capture on tax dollars that they wouldn't have been able to otherwise. And that's especially true for
- a community like Bloomington where we have really low circuit breaker impact. In the state of Indiana,
- what we have is called, we're in a levy-based state, so our levy is set, our tax levy, how much dollars
- we can get is set by the state, and we cannot change that other than 4% or whatever percent the state
- tells us every year. So even if we were to dump
- a lot of assessed value into the city of Bloomington's base assessed values, tax levy would not change,
- tax rates would just go down. So let's say $100 million gets thrown into the city, the city would not
- get any benefits from the $100 million. What a TIF allocation allows for is for those dollars to be
- set aside from the base into what is called a TIF area and the entire taxing district
- Tax rate can be applied on those on those parcels and those dollars will be Funneled into the city's
- RDC. So instead of the city and their underlying units getting zero to no benefit They're really the
- only benefit would be circuit breaker reduction, which the city has None essentially the city can now
- capture and utilize these dollars through the TIF allocation area controlled by the city's own RDC
- Now, very important key detail here is that the RDC is not taking any money from the city or the underlying
- taxing units. What's a very important piece to creating a TIF allocation area is called the BUT4 test,
- which means BUT4, whatever is provided by the RDCs, this development will not happen. And like Dana
- mentioned earlier, if not for the infrastructure and the potential fire station that we could
- put in for this area, this development by the summit, this summit EDA would not have happened. So let's
- say we didn't set up a TIF allocation area and then provide the infrastructure, this development would
- not have happened anyways and all of these assessed values would not have came in. So these dollars
- are only available to the city now because we are utilizing the TIF allocation area. Now, to go into
- the difference between residential TIF and commercial TIF,
- very similar in most ways. The way we collect dollars is the same. The way we, what we call neutralize
- the AVs, how to determine what goes to base and what goes to the TIF incremental AV, that stays the
- same. There's really three key differences. Number one is in a commercial TIF, a allocation area's expiration
- date is 25 years from the issuance of a bond. Whereas in a residential TIF,
- The expiration is 20 years from the issuance of a bond. So let's say we issue a bond on the TIF August
- 1st of 2026. This TIF will expire or go away in August 1st of 2046. I'm not saying we're issuing a bond,
- just giving an example. Number two, there's just extra steps to a residential TIF. For example, we had
- to do a notice to the HOA. That's just an extra notice that we have to provide for residential TIF.
- Not for a commercial TIF and then finally the most important part a residential to residential TIF in
- its name It allows that TIF area to collect on residential part Residential properties whereas the city's
- current TIF allocation area if we think of the consolidated tap road Adam crossing those are traditional
- allocation areas they cannot capture anything from residential residential parcels so any growth and
- residential parcels in those areas is Given back to the base, but that will not be the case for this
- Shasta Meadows Allocation area and so that is really the big difference here in this tip that we're
- creating versus the previous tips that the city already has So there are there any questions for me
- Any questions
- Councilmember Stossberg Well, I have questions. I'm not sure if they're best for you or not. I'll start
- with the one that you Actually, I'm gonna start further back in the beginning So is this TIF district
- being created for all of summit or just for? the Shasta area because there's five different areas and
- I feel like I'm a little confused and
- Yes, so this resolution will create the summit EDA, which the difference between EDA and the TIF allocation
- area is EDA is where we can spend the money on. So let's say the Shasta Meadows allocation area generates
- $100,000. This $100,000 doesn't need to be spent in the Shasta Meadows allocation area. It could be
- spent in the whole summit EDA to benefit that whole economic development area.
- At the same time, we're also creating the Shassa Meadows allocation area to generate those TIF dollars,
- but we're not creating the other allocation areas that will go into this economic development area.
- I hope that's clear as mud. If that's not clear. Clear as mud, yeah. I could try explaining it again.
- Well, so I'm just gonna rephrase and we can see if I actually understand. Yes. So we're creating
- Okay, so the properties in Shasta Meadows the residential properties in Shasta Meadows their tax dollars
- will go into this TIF, right and That money can be spent anywhere in any of the five areas to benefit
- That but the other areas aren't gonna have the residential TIF Yes, I actually use this this scenario
- last time we think of an EDA and an allocation area as a pizza
- the entire pizza will be the economic development area, and that's where we can spend the TIF dollars
- on. If we put a pepperoni on there, that will be the TIF allocation area, and we're only putting one
- pepperoni in there right now. Every TIF dollar generated from that pepperoni can be spent on their entire
- pizza. And throughout the next couple years, we'll put four more pepperonis on that pizza to create
- the entire area. Okay, that was actually gonna be my next question, is whether there's...
- As a vegetarian, I think that I have to comment on the pepperoni analogy. Maybe we can have peppers
- or mushrooms instead. We'll put an entire onion on there if you like. All right. I'm just going to let
- that go on. So there is the intention in future years to make the others into TIF allocation areas.
- Yes, but not from my understanding is that not all of them will be residential allocation areas,
- okay Okay, which might follow up on on one of the last things you said it was that one of the differences
- is that in a residential TIF of course you can collect on Residential properties and commercial TIFs
- can't collect on residential properties can residential TIFs collect on commercial properties Very good
- question. And the answer is yes. I
- So residential tip could collect on everything whereas commercial is only commercial not residential
- Okay, but Shasta I can't remember it also like zoning allowances Shasta is gonna be like all residential,
- right? Yeah, okay. I'm seeing nods from the people in the back. All right So are the other areas you're
- intending to also do residential tips because the other ones are gonna be a combination of residential
- Well, actually at least one of them has some combination of residential and commercial Or should I like
- Wait on that and that's not really relevant to tonight Going to see as it develops out and the time
- frame that develops out over what's going to be best It may be that within those five neighborhoods
- We might even want to carve out a little smaller pieces where this little piece, you know This piece
- will be the residential and this piece will be commercial to take advantage of that So we're not sure
- exactly how the layout is going to look yet. We're not that far down the road. So that's why
- We felt it would better to look at this one area that we know is going to be developed first and take
- the other ones as they come to make sure that we don't Choose a path that doesn't end up being the right
- one. So it's just keeping the flexibility there to Move as the development moves. Okay, great.
- Thank you. I have other questions to you, but I'll let my colleagues go Councilmember Rallo I guess my
- I have two questions. One is, besides road construction, could a fire station be funded? So statutorily,
- yes. That was actually a change recently, two years ago, where fire and police capital operating can
- be paid for by TIF dollars, yes. Does that include capital expenses? I mean, fire engines are very expensive,
- for instance. Yes, that would include capital expenses as well.
- And who is the discretion for spending the revenues from this? Tiff does it come to council that would
- be the redevelopment Commission the redevelopment Commission has sole authority to To allocate the funds
- for a particular purpose within the TIF. Is that right? I thought I came to council for some reason
- so for Commission that controls the funds that is captured by
- Okay, so it's going to be their decision about where what it's spent on they're going to be making decisions
- of Infrastructure for this area. Yes, correct, which is how it's been done. Yes Okay, thank you councilmember
- Flaherty Thank you
- In short, I guess, are the TIF revenues intended to be spent primarily on developing like roads and
- related infrastructure in the Summit PUD area and the EDA that's being created, is that right? There
- is a statutory list of what can be done. The only discussions I have heard have been related
- to infrastructure because that is,
- significant need and I Not sure if there would be any excess money beyond infrastructure that's needed
- because those are significant completing Vanguard there's going to have to be a significant bridge there
- There's going this, you know Sudbury and Adams also has Some unique features that they have to cross
- Then you have I believe it's at least five
- Intersections that need to be upgraded for safety purposes in traffic flow purposes and so so that's
- a lot of design work the RDC out of current funding sources has already earmarked five million dollars
- to go towards design and
- because there's no way to know how much cost there's going to be involved until they actually can get
- out there and start designing the work. So we're moving forward on that. So doing the TIF will enable
- there to be a generation of funds to where those who are most benefited from that infrastructure will be
- that funds will be able to be generated from that area. Thank you. I have a few follow-ups if that's
- okay. It's been a minute since we approved the summit PUD. Is the infrastructure that, so I'm trying
- to just remember the full range of infrastructure that's anticipated to be built there. Is the intent
- here to have the RDC pay for
- all of or the vast majority of the public infrastructure in this summit PUD area, is that correct? No,
- the intent is Sudbury and Adams. Those are the main city streets that are connecting the network together.
- Those are the streets that are important to the RDC and important to that development of that area in
- those, those,
- Intersections are going to be very significant as well cost associated with them. So those
- that infrastructure is really the focus that That we've you know been talking about The developer themselves
- are going to build are still building a lot of the infrastructure there as well as that. Is that right?
- What I'm understanding? Yes, so as far as any streets
- You know where houses might be on the I guess they could be on the main streets, but any of the extra
- streets or whatever That's not being considered Okay as part of part of that there's no design money
- been set aside for any of those streets. It's only Sudbury Adams Vanguard and intersections
- That's helpful. And just what I'm getting at here is I think our general policy for decades has been
- when we have a large development like this, the developer pays the costs of the infrastructure. And
- I was trying to suss out to what extent that's still happening, how much of a policy shift this is,
- if any, or if we feel like the types of infrastructure we're going to be spending the money on here
- are outside the scope of what a developer could reasonably be expected to contribute in bringing this
- development to life.
- Follow-up Comments based on that further Elaboration of like what my questions are trying to tease out
- I welcome it, but I think your answers already have helped on that front. Thank you Councilmember Piedmont Smith I
- On behalf of Summit Development, I think I can add a little clarity to that. The PUD, unlike most PUDs,
- required that Sudbury and Adams be constructed before any other unit could be occupied. That's not typically
- how development is done.
- Block a road. We occupy some houses. We build a block a road, but in this PUD We required those two
- infrastructures to be done first So when you approve the PUD it required a humongous outlay and I think
- we had lots of discussion about that would require public Input in the form of dollars to pay for that
- infrastructure Because we wanted it up front. We wanted those improvements to come ahead of the development
- So I don't think this is really a change in policy. It's
- Change in prior or it's a it's a way to get the priority of the city To fund that infrastructure that
- isn't coming from the general budget but coming from the capturing of that Increment that helps Yes,
- thank you and also to mr. Rollins question as well We say that the RDC determines what it would be spent
- for in the event that there needs to be
- Bonds issued to pay for infrastructure Those bonds would have to come to council We you know, the RDC
- cannot issue bonds. So that would come to council to be able to do so Honestly in all likelihood to
- pay for such large infrastructure It would likely have to be bonded that the RDC would not be able to
- pay as they go along so to that extent
- As far as tiff funds would be used. Yes that there would it would come to council So I wanted to clarify
- that point Councilmember Piedmont Smith Yeah, first I just wanted to clarify what is this Vanguard Street
- that you keep talking about I went back to the PUD plants and I didn't see any street with that name I
- Vanguard has a little stub right now on the just off of tap road and if you would take Weamer Road straight
- down from Bloomfield Road And then skip it Go through the fields then right there where it if you keep
- that straight and maybe go a little bit to the west you'll see there's a little stub of a road right
- there and that's called Vanguard Way, so
- Vanguard way Would be in pick owns Public Investment Corp owns that property and so we the RDC is working
- on trying to work out a memorandum of understanding where you know if we pay for the RDC pays for the
- design that pick will donate the right-of-way to be able to put
- Vanguard way and so that that jog that goes out and comes down It goes over the bridge on Weimar Could
- be turned into a trail part of the trail system and Vanguard would be more of a straight north south
- road So it straightens up Weimar Road It would really be helpful to have a map yes, I
- Google Maps, okay. I have a, I'll look at it. I have another question, but should I wait? Okay. My other
- question is about the estimated TIF revenues. So the development, it's estimated that development will
- create over $477 million in new assessed value.
- Do we have any sense of how much tiff revenue that would create? Like I guess it would be on an annual
- basis. Um, it's not 477 million dollars from the PUD on the PUD. Is that where the estimate is from?
- Would you know so um, if we're looking at just Shasta Meadows the allocation just the Shasta Meadows
- allocation area not
- the entire summit EDA, we were actually, we had a estimated increase of about $50 million, so 477, that
- might be, I'm not sure, I haven't looked at the other allocation areas yet, that might be for the entire,
- all five allocation areas, but if we're looking at $477,000, it really depends on what the breakdown
- of one versus two percents are, but let's say we're in quote,
- Worst-case in terms of revenue wise worst-case scenario. We're all looking at all one percents. That
- would be four point seven and it was all two percent then we're looking at nine point four million dollars
- a year plus but Pending with broad strokes and just thinking of numbers in my head as I'm seeing yours.
- So I wouldn't quote me For the whole development once it's done with the four hundred seventy seven
- million dollar Increased assessed value
- That's not, so the 4.7 million is for the whole thing. Not just Shasta Meadow. Yes, so the 4.7 million
- is based on the $477 million increase in assessed value that you sent. If we're looking,
- Just Shasta Meadows we expect about four hundred and forty three thousand four hundred forty three thousand
- dollars a year in tiff revenues And that's there's a breakdown of one and two percent. I don't have
- that with me right now, but Just to clarify the difference between one and two percent one percent is
- what we're thinking about as Residential homes, so that's your single-family home that you live in on
- your own two percent. It would be
- Well, number one would be agricultural land, but also if we look at apartments, apartments, they look
- like residential, but they're technically 2% non-residential in terms of property taxes. And also if
- you, let's say you buy a house, but you rent it out, that would also count as 2%. But $443,000 for Shasta
- Meadows, there's a combination of both 1% and 2% within that. I just don't have that breakdown in front
- of me. Thank you.
- Questions Councilmember rough Two questions first of all on the Decision-making on the use of the tip
- future tiff revenues You explained that anything this by any bond proposed bond bonding would you have
- to come to council for approval but Let's just say
- Down-the-road 10-15 years the TIF is kind of semi flush with funds and Would the would a future RDC
- Be able to Use the funds allocate funds to the side streets or You know you said that right now the
- plan is for the
- The major road streets at the city and improvements that the city wanted to see mainly right but not
- the residential smaller streets, etc, but in the future Would it be completely up to the RDC? To just
- to what what it got spout on in the end it is but it also has to pass a but for test that but for the
- spending of those funds in that particular way
- the economic development would not happen so It's not supposed to replace private funds it's supposed
- to be used in a way that encouraged the ability for private private funds to be used so okay, I'll just
- say to that what we've seen that kind of Nebulance or fudgy argument where?
- Well, yeah, we build the road and that will enable that into some construction or some economic activity
- that Becomes then the but for right there, but you know, but my the question I really then wanted to
- get at is The I'd like a little more elaboration on the state tax this current state of tax laws that
- I'm understanding in the earlier part of the presentation That the way they worked now The amount of
- additional revenue that the city would get If absent the this economic development area this this tip
- Would be negligible
- It would really manifest itself in the form of lower taxes for the average property owner the average
- resident not in terms of a large amount of new additional revenue unless we do this which then allows
- the city to capture Revenue that state law otherwise would have capped and said you don't get to collect
- any more revenue as a result of this additional development
- You just get to lower, your residents will enjoy lower taxes. If someone could talk about that a little
- more. I'll try and then I'll let Justin, because I like the pizza analogy. Think about it that right
- now, at some, there's a crust. And the crust is only worth so much all by itself. And so if you don't
- do anything out there,
- provide a way to get any toppings on there, to get any pizza sauce on there, nothing's going to happen,
- and it's just going to stay a crust. It won't increase in assessed value, so it won't generate any more funds.
- If you put mechanisms in there where you can get the pizza sauce and the mozzarella cheese and the vegetarian
- toppings and all piled on there, now you've got a lot more assessed value and you've made that happen
- by creating the TIF and using and capturing all those toppings and cheese and sauce. The value of all
- of that, you're capturing those dollars and paying
- that infrastructure that allowed you to get those but you wouldn't have got those had you not Created
- the ability to to get those toppings in the first place But if you if we if you did though if the development
- happened Absent the diff as a mechanism to capture increased assessed value
- It wouldn't manifest itself that way to the community. It would be capped and we would Not really see
- it see the benefits in terms of increased revenues to fund services right, but we would see it rather
- in terms of lowered taxes because of the caps So you actually the scenario just pointed out it's actually
- Monday we sent out what we call a tax impact statement and that statement essentially what it does is
- point out that scenario that you just you just mentioned is what if this development was to happen without
- Us putting that infrastructure. Let's say developer like okay We don't we'll put the infrastructure
- ourself and will so do the development in the city So what if that was to happen? So the answer the
- answer to what will happen in that scenario is yes, you we will see a tax rate decrease without
- a whole lot of additional revenues to coming to the city, but You one key point I point out is that
- the residents of in of Bloomington will see a see a decrease in their tax bill, but that's technically
- not true because Most of the residents are already capped at one are at the 1% cap given our tax rate
- is to add over two dollars for the most part most of us already capped so even if
- The tax rate goes up or it goes down. It has to go down significantly For I'm I live in Bloomington.
- So it'll affect my taxable as well It'll have to go the tax rate will have to go down significantly
- for me to see a decrease in my property taxes Whereas for the summit fifty million dollars if we threw
- fifteen million dollars into into the city's basis value that would not have an effect on the
- on most residential parcels. The larger tax savings, if that was to happen, would actually be on the
- 3% commercial. So we're looking at the businesses. They would reach most of that tax savings. Can I
- also just give you one quick? Jeff McKim, City Controller. I just want to make sure that in our kind
- of discussion of the weeds here, we don't miss the major point that I think Dana and Justin are trying
- to get at.
- that with the TIF and with the constraints that Andy mentioned, which are absolutely true,
- but with the TIF, we can actually bring in more revenue, more tax revenue for city infrastructure than
- we could without the TIF. It's not simply a shift from city to TIF. It is literally we can bring in
- more money because of the constraints and the way that Indiana property taxes work. Thank you.
- Thank you. Council Member Flaherty. Thank you. And thank you, Comptroller McKim, for that follow-up
- point. I do understand that. And I guess what I wanted to ask with greater specificity, because yes,
- if we were going to build the infrastructure anyway, doing it this way makes sense relative to doing
- it through, you know, general fund or other kind of non-TIF funding sources for the reasons you just
- outlined. I understand that.
- that assumes that we were intending to build this infrastructure. And I guess I kind of got at that
- in my first question, but I wanted to ask just more clearly, because I can't find it, you know, the
- materials right now, but when we approved the Summit PUD, was the plan at that time, and did the city
- agree at that time that we were going to fund these streets? Or alternatively, was it planned at that
- time that the developer was gonna, you know, pay for these streets? Do you know? Travis Wenzel with Summit.
- First I would say with the previous administration and with this administration dating back to February
- of 2022 when we brought this forward in original discussions, there was always the discussion
- that significant public infrastructure, money would be necessary to build Sudbury and Adams and to improve
- the intersections around that area that fail today
- without any new development, significant public money would be required. The PUD specifically states
- those roads need to come first and that the city understands that significant public money for those
- infrastructures or those main roads would be required. That's in the PUD. It's always been discussed
- as part of the process. That's why those roads are tied to be first.
- All part of that original PUD and the original discussion with the previous administration as well as
- this administration was That's that's what it was going to take to build that infrastructure that was
- necessary Thank You mr. Bensel is anyone from the administration able to confirm the same that the PUD
- materials themselves that we voted on in 2024 specified that the city was planning to pay for
- this infrastructure and
- I just don't recall, honestly. So I'm just trying to understand if this is consistent with,
- because it feels, this is a unique context and it's a large area, but historically, if I'm not mistaken,
- we have not spent public dollars on this type of thing. And so I'm trying to just be very clear if this
- is a policy change that's being proposed relative to what was planned and communicated to the council,
- when the PD was voted on in 2024, could someone from the administration speak to that, please?
- Kerry Thompson, Mayor. It's my understanding that while there wasn't a tangible agreement to pay for
- the infrastructure at that point, part of trying to get this done, because one of the conditions that
- was put on this was to put
- the significant roads in before the developer would have any income coming in to actually pay for them.
- So part of the package that has been put together is this TIF package so that we can get them paid for.
- We have a challenge in the community. We need housing, right? I think we all agree to that. And the
- city has to use its best tools available to try to
- leverage what we have to get the housing that we need. And infrastructure is inordinately expensive.
- And so getting to a place where we can work out for 4,200 units, getting TIFF to come in and help pay
- for that infrastructure that's gonna benefit the city is helpful. Thank you.
- Other questions. Council Member Stosberg. Thank you. I have some other questions, but I also want to
- address Council Member Flaherty's question because I don't recall that being a discussion at council
- when we passed the summit PUD and I actually recall there being kind of the implication that the private
- developer was gonna manage that
- and I think that this is part of the private developer managing that and It feels like a surprise now,
- which I don't really love but I wanted to Follow up a little bit on what councilmember Piedmont Smith
- was asking Justin I think about the actual like dollar amounts because I think that those got a little bit
- combined in my mind it says in the Redevelopment Commission Like purpose and introduction program that
- the construction of the dwelling units So it's estimated that the development will create over four
- hundred and seventy seven million in new assessed value but then in the fiscal impact statement
- it seemed to imply that this TIF alone, just the Shasta Meadows, would have an increase in TIF revenue
- collections by the 443,000 per year. And so I'm a little confused because I thought that you're basing
- that 400 and some thousand off of just for the Shasta area, but the 477 million in assessed value
- was off of the development for all of it. So can you clarify exactly how much this TIFF is worth just
- the Shasta Meadows part, or do you not really know that? So when we came up with the estimates, it's
- using what was provided on the PUD, which from what we saw, there wasn't a whole lot of
- Specific details on the development itself How many bedrooms square footage so we use sort of what we've
- seen in other communities with similar developments and use that as a Tool to come up with an assess
- estimated assess value for the Shasta Meadows itself Not the entire summit EDA. So the four hundred
- forty three thousand annual TIF revenues that would be looking at just the Shasta Meadows I'm using
- our using our estimates
- Okay, so is the four hundred and seventy seven thousand and new assessed about or four hundred and seventy
- seven million and new assessed value Just set Shasta Meadows, or is it the whole thing? That's just
- Shasta Meadows According to okay. Okay, that's not clear in that document Okay Thank you I Think I have we have
- 4,000 units, 477 million into 4,000, that would be very low value if you think about it, right? So the
- assessed value of the entire, the new assessed value would be much higher than 477 million. 477 million
- just would be the maximum assessed value that Shasta could potentially produce. If I can go back on
- page A to the PUD,
- It states the above schedule is necessary the above schedule which is talking about the number of units
- over the 138 acres Necessary depends on the city of Bloomington support concerning utility capacity
- and expansion as well as the developing fund sources including tax increment financing to support road
- and related infrastructure Completion I think that's pretty specific in the PUD that was approved that
- City was going to participate in utility capacity and developing funding sources including TIF to pay
- for related roads and infrastructure Great, thank you. Yep any other council questions Councilmember
- Piedmont Smith Yeah, I'm sorry to keep going back to this but Following up with what councilmember Stossberg asked so
- If the total estimated new assessed value in Chasta Meadows four hundred seventy seven million dollars
- then how come the estimated annual tiff revenue is only four hundred forty three thousand dollars.
- So, I don't have the document in front of you that you're looking at. I believe the $444.7 million of
- new potential is for the entire area. Then you talk about how much Shasta will generate over the 15-year
- period of the TIF. So, it's not a direct
- Don't I think we're getting way in the weeds of the analysis of what might happen with so many units
- that might be built there does that make sense a Few minutes ago. You just said the four hundred seventy
- seven million dollars in new assessed value is for the whole Four hundred forty seven billion or four
- hundred seventy seven million. I don't have the document Four hundred seventy seven million. Okay four
- hundred seventy seven million of what new assessed value new assessed value or market value
- Assessed value Which would be the base don't I don't I think a new assess value Assessment being something
- different than market. I think is referring to the entire EDA So so going back so 477 million dollars
- will be for the entire EDA So all of those five allocate five or six allocation areas that you see in
- front of you. That's four hundred seventy seven million
- The $443,000 in TIF incremental revenue that the RDC will see every year, that's the estimated amount
- for Shasta Meadows. But $447 million in newly assessed value, that's for all the allocation areas combined.
- And that's where you got the minimum 4.7 million in TIF revenue per year. From the 477, you took 1%.
- Yes, that's without me looking at the actual development itself or looking at any comparables. If it
- were all 1%. Yes, correct, correct. That's what I understood like 10 minutes ago. Yes. And then you
- said something different to me. Yeah. I'm sorry about that. Okay, other questions? Council Member Rallo.
- Yes, just to remind me, I can't remember if maybe a planner would know,
- The streets are are they city Bloomington streets? They're not the developer the infrastructure is is
- Ours correct. Yes, Eric Grulick development services mayor So the majority of the streets at least all
- the streets that are laid out in the transportation plans that being Sudbury and Adams would be public
- in terms of streets within each
- The sub area, you know, we didn't necessarily get to that level You know some of them were multifamily
- don't have to be If some of them were single-family than those would have to be based on our current
- subdivision requirements So I don't think that we got to that level beyond roads that are shown in the
- transportation plan So but we're are we responsible for building the roads or is the developer? well, so
- And I think as it's been discussed, you know with the PUD they were required to build Sudbury and Adams
- with the first phase You know beyond that as each phase develops then those internal roads are built
- when that particular phase develops So there was only the requirement for Sudbury and Adams to be done
- before any or with the first phase Okay, do you happen to know if as we proceed there'll be a bond required
- of the developer prior to
- To the construction correct to make sure that it's completed as per you know Yes, so there will be a
- bond for all public improvements sidewalks tree trees roads. Okay terrific. Thank you Other questions
- councilmember Stasberg Kind of along that vein so when we have to when we're saying we're gonna build
- say Adam Street or Vanguard does that include like
- All of the sidewalks and all of that kind of stuff associated with that street or is it just the street
- itself? Yeah, so that that would include all the infrastructure in that right away. So storm water sanitary
- water curbs pedestrian facilities street trees Everything within that right away. Thank you and in terms
- of What right now is kind of being agreed to in terms of what this TIF money is gonna pay for it's
- I guess I'm wondering about the multi-use trail that's supposed to Attach this development essentially
- to the beeline is that on the list of things that the TIF money is gonna pay for or is that something
- that the developer has Yeah, I can't answer that I will have to let somebody else deal with that. I
- don't think so that would be on the developer as I would expect
- It's my understanding that by statute there's certain things that the TIF can pay for and those are
- all public infrastructure curbs sidewalks roads water lines sewer lines that are public if they're privately
- owned privately maintained where it comes on to an individual lot or services a specific lot that can't
- be paid for a trail Probably could be paid for but we haven't designed it yet one of our
- goals in this is to design the entire right of way so that we're not paying for a road to come back
- and dig it up and put a sewer line down the middle of it or a water line down the middle of it later.
- We're not building a road and then coming in later and trying to build a path. We're doing that all
- together. So we're working with the city to design to their standards to the transportation plan within
- that existing right of way so that we can get all that infrastructure in up front.
- This is not the way we normally develop. This is the largest PUD ever approved We usually don't come
- in and put all the major roads that connect it first, but we want to do that We want to do it, right?
- So in this scenario Adams and Sudbury would be designed Fully will know exactly what they're going to
- cost. They would be built full out by the time the first occupancy moves in so it wouldn't be
- driving on pavement that isn't the top code. It wouldn't be later the sidewalks. That would all be there
- ahead of time. Not the way we used to develop and not the way we typically develop. Then each one of
- the five parcels, they will develop in a traditional sense. Might build two blocks of road, build houses
- on it, build the next two blocks of road. That's a traditional way of development. But those major roads
- would be conceptually designed and funded and built
- prior to anyone occupying any of the dwellings. So I think what could be spent on is RDC, a statutory
- regulator, what they can spend on. It's gotta be area-serving public infrastructure. Okay. I have one
- more question that's different. Thank you. Just kind of as an interest, I mean, I think it's clear that
- this TIF and this process would end up yielding money for
- The RDC and thus the city but what does it do to other? Taxing entities that would generally get some
- tax dollars from that I'm thinking specifically of schools for example that usually get a share of property
- taxes So what would what would the impact be on those other entities? So we're going back to this is
- assuming this development was to not if this development never happened without the infrastructure That's
- very important to this whole but for test
- this development only could happen because of the infrastructure that the RDC is providing. So that
- was to happen, but we still tipped it anyways. Again, we're in such a low circuit breaker environment
- that the only gain from the underlying units will be a reduction in circuit breaker, a slight increase in
- in net levy, so we're looking at the school, for example, we're seeing absolute worst case scenario
- for the schools, they would lose out on $16,000 a year in circuit breaker impact, but if we're looking
- at a school specifically, since at least my district, Monroe Community Schools, they have a referendum,
- and referendum can actually still capture antithesis value, so a school, for example, will actually
- come out ahead
- Because of the referendum tax rates, but that's going into a whole nother sidebar So without the referendum
- though, they would lose $16,000 a year for just Shasta Meadows Yes in circuit breaker and reduction
- in circuit breaker. It would be it would not be an increase in tax levy again It would just be a reduction
- in their school circuit breaker. Yes Thank you other questions Councilmember Rallo
- Yeah, I just want I forgot to ask is this This area lies within the unified TIF doesn't it the consolidated?
- Yeah It is not it'll be a new that's why we're setting up a new EDA as well with it because it's not
- currently with it It doesn't overlap at all. No, I'm not done I thought it was overlap. So it's it's
- it's carving out a new area. There's part of it that I
- Overlap but it's carving that out of the consolidated and there's a part of it that Isn't in any TIF
- so it's creating a new area, but it's coming out Okay, I guess my question then is the area that is
- part of the consolidated TIF is does this obviate revenues from that In other words do that does the
- any commercial development there does it are we losing money for the consolidated TIF we are
- Would possibly it would move money from the consolidated TIF but Monies can be used in anything that
- would serve this EDA. So those extra areas outside of the infrastructure Areas the intersections and
- things like that are outside the EDA, but they serve that EDA They're actually in the consolidated TIF,
- but this money can be used for them. Okay, so it's a
- It's a way to keep this area together And be able to create these allocation areas together in this
- one package to Yeah to keep it a package deal and also want to make one thing clear the I mentioned
- earlier that there is a mo you with the summit folks for design and that donation of rogue
- the right-of-way There is no agreement regarding any payment towards infrastructure You know that we
- needed to get through this tiff process Which includes after tonight should you pass this resolution?
- It goes back to the RDC. The RDC will have a public hearing that's been noticed and
- There would be a confirmatory resolution after the public hearing so there is nothing been promised
- of anything to go towards infrastructure and for the Public Investment Corp property Working on an MOU
- for design and right-of-way, but that's not done yet. There has not been any funds That has been promised
- for anything at this point. I just wanted to make sure you knew that I
- Okay, I think I understand. Oh, did mr. Vinson. Did you want it or Sure, if you want to add anything
- I I Think so. No, but with with the current zoning that's in place with the PUD the type of commercial
- development that's loud is neighborhood serving so the consolidated tip only captures commercial not
- residential and
- no commercial will come there because the only thing that's allowed is residential serving until we
- have the residence. So by carving it out, it's not losing because it's never gonna happen. By carving
- it out, you capture not only that commercial, this residential serving, but you could commercial capture
- the residential around it. Okay, very good, thank you.
- Just a quick follow-up on the two previous questions number one was on the impact on the schools So
- I mentioned yes $16,000 circle breaker annual impact on the schools, but especially with a residential
- TIF They bring in a lot of new residents and therefore a lot of new students We actually had a conversation
- with the rural summit schools
- Executive director last month and they see about four residential tips about 50% of that equates to
- new students to the school to that area so we look at a I believe this area has four to let's just say
- 400 New units we're looking at 200 additional students and each additional students Generates about
- seven thousand to eight thousand dollars to this school corporation. So we're looking at
- That that number is way larger than the circuit breaker reduction in itself and to and just a follow-up
- on the carve on the tiff overlapping we're not Creating two tips on one single parcel We're essentially
- removing that parcel from the consolidated tiff and adding it to the new one So that parcel technically
- is no longer part of the consolidated tiff. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you and councilmember Asari
- Thank you. Maybe a question for the accountant. Just sort of three questions in sequence, and I'll just
- ask them all in one go. But if I recall correctly, this was 4,000 or so units that was the sort of estimated
- build out at summit.
- and given SEA 1, where we're moving more of city finance to income tax, what is, I know we're discussing
- here this sort of like exchange, I guess, between opportunity cost of funding
- with public funds, though I agree with Mr. Vensel that this was actually talked at length during the
- time that we passed the PUD. But that aside, have you all done calculations of how it would benefit
- the city budget to have, I don't know, 4,000, let's just say it was 4,000, I mean, more likely it's
- gonna be like eight, but 4,000 more adults
- possibly living in the city. Does that have a positive impact on the city's budget in the context of SEA 1?
- So the answer definitely is yes, because with SCA-1 local income tax is based on where the taxpayer
- lives. So as more residents are in Bloomington City itself, that would increase the late distribution
- to the city. We're talking when SCA-1 local income tax actually comes into effect. We're looking a few
- years down the road, right? But the answer is for whether we have an actual specific dollar amount,
- it's no. For one, we don't.
- Like you mentioned, 4,000 to 8,000 units. We don't know what our tax rate is going to be in three years.
- So we provide an estimate right now. It could potentially be drastically wrong just because there are
- just so many moving pieces before we get to 2029. But would you agree with the assumption that even
- if we think it unusual to spend money on public money on a PUD,
- that this could be viewed as us investing to, investing to increase possibilities of city funds in the
- future. So there is a return on investment. There could be a return on investment directly to the cities.
- Yes? Yes, 100%. I think this is why we're seeing a lot of residential-related to allocation areas around
- the state in general as well. It's because a lot of communities are trying to get as many people as
- possible for live purposes.
- So I'm sure that's one of the considerations. Thank you. Thank you. Other questions? Great. Let's move
- to public comment. Would anyone in the public like to speak on this? If you're on Zoom, please raise
- your hand. Great. You'll have three minutes. Please state your name and go ahead. Travis Fensel with
- the Summit Development Group. We just are in favor of this. This has been a long process of us working
- with the city
- This administration previous administration to get here. This is a great opportunity to fund infrastructure
- Bring residents to Bloomington, which has lots of benefits to us in many ways And we'd ask you to support
- this resolution tonight and move this back to the RDC. Thank you Great. Thank you. Next speaker in chambers,
- please. Please state your name for the record and you'll have three minutes Good evening again council.
- My voice is calling
- late Krista Ramsey from the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce and I want to my hats off
- to councilmember sorry even No, we don't know where he is presently, but that was my point. I just wanted
- to bring up which Was the investment that this is we need to increase our tax base that? 2029
- Year of SP one is is looming where we're going to be income tax The lit is going to be that much more
- important. So bringing people in is is vital to increasing that you know, who else could use people
- MCC SC Dr. Winston the superintendent has been on the circuit speaking on their situation and the best
- thing the the best remedy for what ails the schools is more students the one thing that that that mr.
- Vince mentioned is
- how long he's been working on this. February of 2022, that's... we're nearing five years. I don't believe
- they've probably seen a check or anything, but a lot of work has gone into this, and I've,
- over the past year, have heard, you know, I've gotten some calls on this, which made me worried, and
- this residential TIF is a path forward. We've had regular TIFs, spider TIFs. Why not residential TIFs?
- I know the RDC and the company's been contemplating that, and this is really a great way to,
- Really enhance that revenue with very expensive infrastructure and this is public good infrastructure.
- I don't we're kind of getting on a little bit of That subdivision roads, but that's where the petitioner
- is going to take care of that So I you know and as far as the Sudbury Adams Road that was talked about
- quite a bit I mean we've I mean Litigated this the summit PUD when it came before you quite a bit I
- don't know how many times
- We had that same presentation, but it was it was a couple times if you look at your notes, so I would
- just Recommend passing this resolution. Let's send it back to the RDC and Move this process forward.
- Thank you. Thank you next speaker in chambers, please
- Good evening. I'm Julie how big with regional opportunity initiatives ROI We also would respectfully
- ask for your approval this evening and just as a point of information So ROI is one of 15 regional ready
- administrators so the state ready program and we of the 30 million dollar total Ready allocation we
- got for ready 2.0 for the 10
- Uplands regional counties we have obligated four million dollars towards about five hundred thousand
- dollars in design and engineering costs and then 3.5 million of those ready funds would go towards the
- sanitary sewer build out of the infrastructure so state dollars Will also be here to support some of
- that important infrastructure work
- So thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else in chambers who would like to speak? Great. Please approach
- the podium. You'll have three minutes. Is there anyone who's raising their hand on Zoom? Great.
- Thank you. Paul Rousseau. Oh, my goodness. I remember the summit hearing two years ago, and I remember
- a lot of talk about the costs of growth, but those would be taken care of by an increased taxation.
- But now we're gonna use some of the taxation to build the roads, it doesn't seem right. I strongly encourage
- you to postpone this until you're sure. If you're not sure about what was said and what was agreed to
- two years ago, then I would suggest a postponement on this. Because it feels like a bait and switch
- to me. I thought that the taxes would go to accommodate the growth. That's my only statement, thank you.
- Thank you anyone else Great council comment or excuse me public comment has concluded on Resolution
- 20 2608 now we can go back to council comment Councilmember Rallo, thank you Well, I think mr. Rousseau is
- Thank you for observing that and and insisting we be careful I actually I think that I'll go ahead and
- support this. I think that this is one way of capturing taxes that is useful But I would say it comes
- with a kind of a caveat and that is with the concurrency in mind that I think a number of us have talked
- about in the past that is
- to make sure that infrastructure is at least keeping pace with the development as it proceeds, if not
- in place before. And frankly, we've needed a fire station on Tapp Road in that location since the 1990s.
- In fact, it was in the 2002 growth policies plan. And it was never developed, and meanwhile,
- housing has and and some commercial development has occurred there and Still the no-fire station and
- I appreciate that. I'm happy that the developer donated land for that purpose. So So it's ready to go
- and I would just implore that the RDC make that a primary priority as we as we go forward and
- Just as the road infrastructure and all the other infrastructure that's that's needed for this development
- that should be on the top of the list and That's all thanks. Thank you councilmember Flaherty Thank
- you I'm sort of two minds one is I find mr. Russo's comments I'm sympathetic to them because I do feel
- like I have open questions and
- still about what was agreed to, what wasn't. I feel like I've gotten actually a range of answers to
- those questions tonight, things that weren't promised, things that, you know, it wasn't promised, it
- wasn't committed, this wasn't the understanding two years ago, but we think it's justified now,
- and you know, that was sort of the thrust of the mayor's comments. I may well agree, like it might be
- the right time to change policy course from what we've done historically and choose to make
- public investments in infrastructure that we have traditionally required private developers to build.
- I'm thinking of the PUD at the Trinitas built off of Arlington and 17th, it's quite large, there's a
- lot of infrastructure there, thinking of Renwick, others, I'm not certain, but I think we've always
- required developers of those PUDs and of other subdivisions to build
- infrastructure like so that that is the long-standing policy the city of Bloomington I think and I think
- this is a big policy change it matters not because you know it's a very easy argument to make that yes
- this is a small investment we're gonna you know get all these TIF dollars we need all this you know
- additional income tax revenue yes yes of course I get it but again it is a big policy shift we had those
- policies of requiring developers to pay for infrastructure for a reason and
- The fact that that wasn't front and center in this resolution, I guess, is frustrating and a little
- bit of a struggle for me as well. When we have to really dig and work on the fly to try to
- get the information we need to make a sound decision, that's challenging. So again, I'm a little bit
- of two minds. I'd be fine with postponing to actually have more time to actually dig into some of those
- questions that I feel like I had mixed
- responses to and to examine more fully what our policy on this has been in the past, why we're changing
- it now, what the justification for it is, do we plan to pay for the infrastructure for all future PUDs
- and subdivisions, only really big ones, only when we think it's really important, like how are we gonna
- make those decisions? Because those, what we're being asked tonight sort of begs all those questions
- and there's really no discussion about any of it. So in that case, I'd be fine postponing, even if I
- would ultimately probably
- may support this, but if we vote tonight, I'll make a decision. So that's where I'm at. Thanks. Great.
- Thank you. Any other comments? Councilmember Piedmont-Smith. Yes, I think that I am ready to support
- this tonight. This land has been surrounded by developments and yet has sat vacant for 30 years.
- there are reasons for that because of the cost of the infrastructure needed to put this in. And I,
- for one, think that we need this development. I mean, this is something that I discussed, that we all
- discussed in depth two years ago when the PUD came forward. We need this housing.
- And I really don't think it's going to be built and I didn't at the time think it would be built without
- subsidies And I think that was pretty clear During the course of those discussions that the city would
- need to provide some subsidies for this infrastructure. So I Appreciate what councilmember Flaherty
- said that this you know, let's recognize this is a change in policy but I think for this property is
- It's you know, there have been various proposals over the last 30 years and they just haven't haven't
- panned out until we were willing to To you know give some indication that yes, the city is going to
- help fund the infrastructure So I will be supporting it tonight. Thank you. Thank you other comments
- councilmember Stasberg Yeah, I think that councilmember Piedmont Smith said
- Something very similar to what I was gonna say in terms of I really appreciate councilmember Flaherty's
- words and this idea of like is this a new precedent that we're setting and how are we gonna make this
- decision but you know, I spent a lot of time with the summit PUD a few years ago and one of the huge
- issues were these roads that you know develop this this was in a PUD before and development of that
- PUD stopped as soon as the developer had to build these roads and I
- At the time, I think that we all were like, well, it's really important that this go on. And I don't
- think in the council format it was highly discussed that what that would mean is some kind of public
- subsidy for those roads. I think that that was glossed over. For this body, perhaps that discussion
- happened far more behind the scenes or
- You know with the developer and other parties that was not council because councils and really have
- to decide that until like now And then similarly we'll have to kind of have similar discussions again
- when We're asked to approve a bond related to what it is that we're gonna pay for and that is one of
- the reasons why I was asking some of those detailed You know questions about like how much money are
- we actually expected to get from this TIF? to try to kind of
- Preface that just a wee bit in terms of the bond That is going to come to us next but I am prepared
- to support this tonight in large part because I do want this development to be able to proceed and it
- can't proceed without these roads and these roads are Going to be a huge piece of connectivity For that
- area, you know south southwest ish side so
- I do also appreciate mr. Russo's words. So it I mean it does feel a little bit at least in this format
- For this body as a bait and switch. I suspect that it was talked a lot more about Behind the scenes
- a couple of years ago than it was spoken about with this body. Thanks Thank you. Anybody else? councilmember
- Rosenberger I
- I guess from the beginning I've been a little bit on the same in the same boat as councilmember Flair.
- Do you just that usually when we have a resolution or something we get a memo with it. And so I mean
- today with even a council created resolution we had a memo with that which I appreciated. So I think
- there were so many questions today too because city legal
- did not provide a memo, so hopefully in the future that would be great. I just spent a lot of time up
- here combing through 2024 packets looking for what was actually said around the summit PUD back in the
- day. And yeah, I think it just took a lot longer because the packet was pretty sparse about what was
- actually going on here.
- Because I'm if everyone is supporting this like I'm happy to get on board. I think it is unclear if
- this was Agreed on or not even tonight the the developer said it is in the PUD Thank you for saying
- that and the mayor said it is not in the PUD. So I That gave me pause as well. I would say But thanks.
- Thanks for this. It is exciting to have the things move along and
- Hopefully we can have a broader conversation about it later. Thanks Thank you. Anybody else? Councilmember
- Ruff Yeah, overall, I mean I don't recall that well the earlier meetings where the Beauty was approved.
- I know I voted against it at that time But I'm persuaded by the comments tonight and I think I recall
- pretty well from that meeting that there was a good argument to
- to be made that there was an indication of partnership understanding of partnership between the city
- and the developers on developing infrastructure these roads I I Sense I had that's my sense So I Do
- want to say one related thing
- At this point in my life after being in this town over 60 years The it's been said tonight By more than
- one individual You know, this will bring lots of residents of Bloomington which benefits benefits us
- in so many ways We never ask ourselves where does that end what's the yield what's the ideal size for
- Bloomington?
- 200,000 500,000 a million. Where does it stop? I can't see people who I often hear making this argument
- ever coming to a point where they'd say oh, no, no, we don't we don't need anymore and I'm telling you
- I've seen a lot of growth in this community over the last 60 some years and Not everything is good about
- it. There are many downsides and there's a lot of people who
- Just as many people who who don't want to see an expansion as do They're not generally speaking of a
- having a strong voice strong economic influence or in prominent positions a lot of times but You know
- The place sure as hell has grown
- But wages are as much of a problem or more of a problem now than they were 40 years ago when RCA was
- saying whatever I was here and I know that's not just a local problem, but Growth hasn't solved that
- housing housing causes Even there aren't even as many good music venues in this town as I used to be
- And there's certainly more crowds and just more and and that's not just
- No, I don't know if we can talk about I don't know the stats well enough on On crime and other things
- that come along with growing and growing growing into bigger city But I'm really tired of just this
- denial that there are downsides and that there are a lot of people who don't agree with just the pursuit
- of growing the community and that it automatically results in economic benefits I don't think is evidence,
- you know big fast growing cities
- Aren't places where a lot of people can be or want to be But again I voted against this PUD but I do
- think a commitment or understanding there was that if it was approved the city would participate in
- this infrastructure And that PUD has been approved Of course, so I'm going to go ahead and support this and
- Thank you. Any other comments. Councilmember Piedmont Smith. Just a second bite at the apple here it'll
- be short. There are thousands of people who commute into Bloomington from surrounding counties every
- day for work and giving them a place to live within Bloomington will benefit us. Any other comments.
- Will the clerk please call the roll.
- Councilmember daily. Yes Rollo. Yes Ruff. Yes Rosenbacher. Yes clarity Yes Stossburg. Yes Piedmont Smith.
- Yes Zulik. Yes, and it's sorry Yes, great with a vote of 9o that passes I
- Move that ordinance 2026-06 be read by clerk by title and synopsis only There's been a motion and a
- second will the clerk please call the roll I'm sorry was distracted. What's the motion? The motion on
- the table is to introduce a
- by title and synopsis only ordinance twenty twenty six oh six Okay, yes Rough no Rosenberger no clarity
- Yes Stossberg No Piedmont Smith yes
- Was that a yes? Sorry, that was a yes. Thank you. Sorry about that. Zulek? Yes. Asari? Yes. Great. With
- a vote of six. Oh, I'm so sorry. Daly? Go ahead. Where am I? I thought you went first. Yes. Great.
- Thank you. With a vote of six, three, that passes. Is there anyone from the administration who would
- like to speak?
- on ordinance twenty twenty six oh six Any updates madam chair? Yes. I'm so sorry. There were several
- other things that needed to happen. Yes. Thank you for that Take it away a councilman. I Move that 2026
- dash 060 red no, it already passed. No, I know I was confirming I know
- Apologies everyone. It is late been working for 15 hours at this point Will the clerk please read by
- title and synopsis only? Absolutely ordinance 2026-06 to amend the city of Bloomington zoning maps by
- rezoning the 6.3 acre property from residential urban lot and residential multifamily within the transform
- redevelopment overlay
- to planned unit development and to approve a district ordinance and preliminary plan. The synopsis is
- as follows. This ordinance amends the zoning of the property from residential urban lot and residential
- multifamily within the transform redevelopment overlay to plan unit development. I move that ordinance
- twenty twenty six oh six be adopted. Great.
- Thank you now that that has officially been taken care of is there anyone from the administration who
- would like to speak on this If okay if if the answer is no we can get started with reasonable conditions
- Would anyone like to bring forward a reasonable condition to discuss? I Have a motion. Okay councilmember. Sorry. I
- I'd like to move, but if you could give me a second to do it very correctly, I'm sorry. I'll just say
- it this way. I'd like to move that we vote as one on every reasonable condition that we still have pending,
- and that we vote to approve them.
- Is that a motion that we can make counselor Allen? Yeah, I believe councilmember sorry is Trying to
- make a motion to consider them as a whole which the board can do So if you would like to entertain
- considering them as a whole in their present form as one discussion You can do that Thank you. Thank
- you There's a motion on the floor to consider the reasonable the remaining reasonable conditions as
- a whole is there a second?
- separate the question if we get into an issue afterwards. I think we've discussed them just arguing
- for the point here. Yes. Council member Flaherty. I'm not seconding the motion. I would support. The
- reason why I didn't is because there are some reasonable conditions that are still in the packet that
- I authored that I do not intend to move to adopt at all.
- namely reasonable conditions seven and 11. And so we don't need to vote on those. I would be up for
- voting on reasonable conditions eight, nine, 10 and 12 as collectively if folks were up for that. And
- I think it could be relatively quick and we could always divide the question if needed. So I could make
- that motion. I withdraw my motion and second council member Flaherty's motion.
- Great, could you specify? I move adoption of reasonable conditions eight, nine, 10, and 12. Okay, is
- there a second? Second. Great, thank you. Council Member Flaherty, would you like to take it away? Yes,
- I'm glad to. So first, just a clarifying note, there was a packet of denim this afternoon that had a version
- B and sorry, 8C and 9C and then updated the version 12. I think it was labeled 12C that probably, the
- accounting got a little, as we had some good versions, you know, a little messy. So apologies for that.
- But reasonable conditions eight, nine and 12 were in the packet addendum from this afternoon. Reasonable
- condition 10 is unchanged from the packet addendum that went out yesterday. I will briefly cover each
- of them and kind of where we landed and their impact.
- Reasonable conditions eight and nine are about sidewalks. They are two paragraphs. So this is eight
- and nine C. Paragraph eight says that the PUD standards and street sections will be updated to reflect
- a six foot minimum sidewalk for all streets except Rogers and the lanes. And right of way dedication
- will be increased as necessary to accommodate those changes. Additionally, what would be reasonable
- condition nine is that the sidewalks bisecting block nine
- in the East West and North South directions will be updated or reflect a minimum width of eight feet.
- And that these sidewalks can be either within the public right of way or in a pedestrian and bicyclist
- easement. And similarly, right of way dedication would be increased as necessary to accommodate the
- change. This is based significantly on the conversations with the RDC last week. And I had, as noted
- in the synopsis confirmation earlier this week from the planning director that
- this change will not entail losing or forgoing any developable lots that are planned currently in the
- PUD. Reasonable condition 10, I'll take questions on them at the end if that's all right. Reasonable
- condition 10 is about tree plots. It says that all of the streets in the PUD need to include tree plots,
- including the Wiley Street and Jackson Street cross-sections.
- which would need to be updated to reflect a tree plot with a minimum width of five feet, which is consistent
- with the transportation plan and the UDO. And there are specific allowances made for block eight, which
- is the easternmost block on the north side of Wiley Street where the sidewalk may be basically a tree
- plot. We may forego a tree plot as necessary to accommodate the sidewalk there because the existing
- building gets pretty close to the street.
- And again, right of way dedication as necessary to accommodate the changes. Finally, reasonable condition
- 12 is on Rogers Street. It would call for the same right of way dedication we have planned in the PUD
- now, but updating the street cross section to show a five foot tree plot and 10 foot sidewalk, where
- currently it shows a five foot tree plot and five foot sidewalk. The 10 foot sidewalk is what's required
- of general urban streets, which is what Rogers is classified as, and it's what we built further to the
- north in the PUD. Finally,
- The update that went out this afternoon on that condition gives extra flexibility in the immediate proximity
- to the stairwell of the existing building. Technically there is room for a 10 foot sidewalk and a five
- foot tree plot, but there's some grading issues. And as they actually get into it, it was requested
- to the city engineer that they have some flexibility to reduce the width of the tree plot or sidewalk
- in that immediate vicinity if necessary. So those four conditions regarding sidewalks and tree plots,
- essentially in the PUD updated to
- fit with the requirements of the transportation plan and the UDO requirements for subdivisions and rezones.
- I believe these were consistent with conversations we had last week. They've had been reviewed and vetted
- by the planning director and the city engineer who both confirmed that these would not have negative
- impacts on the number of planned lots for housing in this PUD. That's all covered in the synopsis for
- these regional conditions.
- I'll stop there. And, oh, just I mentioned that reasonable condition 11 was being withdrawn. That was
- the one that was about lanes, which I was initially bringing with the intent of making sure we had enough
- space to do this, but ultimately it wasn't needed. And for other reasons, it didn't make sense to persist
- with that reasonable condition. So, happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Council Member Rosari.
- I move that we vote to approve
- I forget the numbers all of these reasonable conditions on the basis that we've discussed them at length
- and the and the changes reflect those discussions second The motion is already on the table what you're
- doing is calling the question I call the question then Second which means nobody else can discuss anything That
- There is a motion to call the question on the floor This is not debatable correct will the clerk please
- call the roll That has to pass by two-thirds majority to right yes, it does Will the clerk please call the roll
- Councilmember rough Motion to call the question To reasonable conditions to approve the package of reasonable
- conditions to approve that reasonable conditions eight Yeah, the ones that Matt. Yes for councilmember
- Flaherty worked so hard on that is the most compromised a lot on and I appreciate everything he did and
- I will, I don't like this, but I like what he did and I'll vote yes for that reason. Point of order,
- the motion, if I'm not mistaken, is whether or not we will have the vote on the merits of those reasonable
- conditions. So this is just saying, are we ending debate, ending public comment, and then voting on
- the merits? This is not itself the vote on the merits of the reasonable conditions, correct?
- That is correct. Okay, just confirming, making sure we're all on the same page.
- We're so confused. I think that I thought that right now we're voting on those reasonable conditions.
- No, we we are voting to We're voting to vote. We're voting to call the question
- A motion? I withdraw the motion. I withdraw the motion. I don't want to waste time. All I want is to
- say we've already discussed these. So as quickly as we can, I think we should vote to approve them.
- And then I'm going to make the same motion on every other reasonable condition that we have. I think
- we should just approve them all and move on. But I'll withdraw the motion to avoid us having to discuss
- procedures or to rob you from the opportunity to tell Councilmember Flaherty that he's awesome.
- Great thank you council questions for councilmember flow actually first off. Does the petitioner have
- any response to the updated? Reasonable conditions you can just shake your head if no We will interpret
- that as you're cool with it though
- Anna Killian Hansen Director of Housing and Neighborhood Development the one thing that I want to call
- to your attention our consultant flagged that on the north pathway through the north-south trail that
- runs through the middle of the PUD on block 9 if that council member Flaherty's Reasonable condition
- is adopted Of course, it's a lot better than it was
- We do end up losing three accessible parking lot parking spaces just FYI Not saying anything either
- way, but just for your information. We are gonna lose three accessible parking spaces Thank
- you councilmember, sorry Sorry, my hand was up by accident, okay councilmember Stasberg
- This was discussed last time and the reasonable condition wasn't actually updated to it to reflect it
- But there there I think is an issue with having a tree plot along Wiley Street because Wiley currently
- has a 12 foot setback so I would like to Add an amendment to reasonable condition 10 be adding a number
- four to say setbacks along Wiley in block 9 may be decreased as necessary and
- Should say front setbacks Along Wiley in block 9 maybe decreased as necessary to accommodate the additional
- right-of-way dedication And I'm sorry that We didn't manage to coordinate that earlier to put that in
- there But I think that the intention with those setbacks was to give more space for
- That side of Wiley between the street and where the houses start and the tree plot will do the same
- thing as the setback would do but we need to give an allowance to The petitioner in order to reduce
- that setback as part of this. So do I need to move to amend reasonable condition 10b? Attorney Allen
- Yeah Councilmember Flaherty is that okay with you because that's your reasonable condition
- Okay, so I would like to officially then move to amend reasonable condition 10b to include item number
- four front setbacks along Wiley in block 9 May be decreased as necessary to accommodate the additional
- right-of-way dedication Okay, there's
- A motion and a second. Is this available as an amendment form in writing? I Think that we've amended
- like this before and I was about to send I don't I don't know what we need to do to prepare that I Could
- prepare it for you I mean if everybody's clear on the full text of what it is as amended and votes on
- it It does need to be reduced to writing note. No doubt about that
- But as long as everybody has notice about exactly what the text is going to be and how it's amended
- and what you're voting on that we can Moralize that to writing as soon as possible Great. Thank you
- in that case councilmember Stossberg. Could you please repeat the wording? Yep Front setbacks along
- widely in block 9 may be decreased as necessary to accommodate the additional right-of-way dedication Great
- Thank you. And just to make sure everybody's clear about that currently front setbacks along Wiley are
- 12 feet and Front setbacks anywhere else in the development are to zero feet Great. Thank you. Does
- anyone have any questions about this amendment? Okay Seeing there is no council questions. Would anyone
- like to speak? Would anyone from the public like to speak on the proposed amendment specifically?
- Sorry, we'll get there Not seeing anyone in chambers is there anyone on zoom Okay, great in that case
- any council comments on this amendment councilmember rough Just like to agree with councilmember sorry
- that councilmember Flaherty was awesome on this Great. Thank you Anyone else
- Sorry, we passed Bob. Great. Thank you Okay, and in that case, will the clerk please call the roll?
- On amendment one for reasonable condition 10 be Councilmember Ruff. Yes Rosenberger. Yes clarity Yes Yes
- Yes, sorry Yes Yes Yes Great. Thank you that passes 9. Oh and now we are back to reasonable conditions
- 8 9 10 and 12 Are there any more questions for councilmember Flaherty? Councilmember Piedmont Smith
- This is a question for the petitioner
- the Statement has been made by director of planning transportation that this change these changes will
- not reduce the number of developable lots in Hopewell South Is it your contention that these changes
- will decrease the number of units? And if so by how much oh I see Ali Thurman there Great. Hi guys.
- I Thanks for your patience being with us late this evening. I
- I can confirm that as far as we have reviewed, we think that we are good with the current conditions,
- not removing any units. We think we may have a few units that we need to modify to be slightly different
- units, but we think we can make that work. And I think as noted, we're gonna lose some accessible parking
- spaces, and so we may need to do some work with engineering to see where those can be relocated, which
- I think is something that we
- We discussed, you know, it's that north south section. That's our only one we could narrow it at the
- parking spaces. Um, we're, we're just very tight on those community parking spaces, which is one of
- the places we're doing, um, our accessible spaces just for grading. Um, so that would be probably our
- only comment, which I think, uh, Anna brought up. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Other questions.
- Okay, we will move now to public comment on reasonable conditions eight, nine, 10. Oh, sorry, Council
- Member Flaherty. Did have a question or comment. So I appreciate that feedback that received from Director
- Killian. That is not feedback I'd gotten before this moment. I am happy to amend reasonable condition
- nine to add a sentence
- that would allow for that narrowing for the purpose of accessible parking spaces. So I think I would
- like to do that. So I move that we amend reasonable condition 9C to add the following sentence. The
- sidewalk running north south may be narrowed as necessary to accommodate accessible parking spaces.
- Council Member Flaherty, I believe you cut out. Would you please repeat that? Yes.
- Yes, I move that we amend reasonable condition 9C to add the following sentence. The sidewalk running
- north south may be narrowed as necessary to accommodate planned accessible parking spaces. Thank you.
- There's a motion on the table. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. Is there any discussion for amendment
- two? Is there public comment on amendment two? This could be your time.
- I am Kristen Weida. I am the CEO of Indiana Uplands Realtor Association And I just wanted to speak briefly
- and very clearly about Hopewell and what your zoning and your amendment choices will actually produce
- So if Hopewell is built under the current UDO requirements the site would support 29 homes because of
- those requirements those homes are going to be large and costly with an average sale price and
- of $700,000. If Hopewell is built under the proposed PUD without any of your amendments, the same land
- would support 98 homes. Those homes are smaller, they're more efficient, and the average price of those
- homes, $200,000. Nothing about the land changes. The difference is the rules.
- Every additional requirement that you add to the development adds cost. The cost is passed directly
- to the buyer, your constituent. Where requirements mean fewer homes and higher prices. So the choice
- before you guys is simple. You can build 29 homes for $700,000 or you can build 98 homes
- for $200,000. And I also want to address the conditions of requiring permanent affordability. While
- affordability requirements are often well-intentioned, they can have unintended consequences because
- those resale prices are capped. Homeowners will be unable to build meaningful equity
- Even after years of mortgage payments and costly repairs, they may leave with very little money to put
- into the next property. These homes can be harder to sell. They can be limiting families' ability to
- move for jobs. Their health needs are changing circumstances. In practice, permanent affordability functions
- much like long-term renting, restricting wealth building and mobility.
- So the most effective way to help lower income starter families is not to lock them into permanent
- restrictions, but to increase housing supply at all levels. So I urge you guys to accept the PUD as
- proposed and give all your constituents a realistic chance to own a home and to build wealth for themselves
- and future generations. Please do not add additional requirements that increase costs, that reduce supply,
- and unintentionally harm the very families that these policies are meant to help.
- The best path to affordability is allowing more homes to be built at all price points so families can
- enter the markets they can move up over time and Share in the stability and opportunities that home
- ownership provides Thank you very much would anyone else like to speak on amendment to Okay anyone on
- zoom Great in that case we will go back to council comment on amendment to
- Would anyone like to speak? Okay, in that case, will the clerk please call the roll on amendment two?
- Sorry, Councilmember Rosenberger? Yes. Clarity? Yes. Stasberg? Yes.
- Yes. Yes. Sorry. Yes. Daily. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. With a vote of nine oh amendment
- to passes and now we will come back to council questions for reasonable conditions eight nine ten and
- twelve. Are there any more questions. Great. Then we will go to
- public comment on reasonable conditions 8, 9, 10, and 12. Would anyone in public chambers like to speak?
- Please approach the mic. You will have three minutes. And if you could state your name for the record,
- that'd be great. Yes, Jeff Richardson. I just want to say that with you folks meeting with the redevelopment
- commission was modeling the best kind of behavior. That was one of the best meetings I've attended ever.
- And I've been to a lot of meetings. And I just want to compliment you and really demonstrates that working
- together, you can accomplish great things.
- I hope the county takes notice of that, but I just want to acknowledge this is why tonight it ran so
- smoothly. It was beautiful. This is beautiful. Thank you. Thank you for the kind words. Would anyone
- else like to speak on reasonable conditions? Eight, nine, 10 and 12. Anybody on zoom? Great. And we
- will come back to council comment. Would anybody like to speak? Great. Oh, council member. Sorry.
- Just thanking council member Flaherty and the entirety of the mayor's office, the administration for
- working so diligently on these. Thank you also to Ali. But really for making it, I mean, we've worked
- through these now, I think over almost
- going on three months, two and a half months. And just, I just really wanted to, I mean, I think a lot
- of work has gone into getting these right, getting these in a way that's acceptable without lowering
- the number of houses. We've just made amendments even to deal with the issue of parking. So I just really
- wanted to thank Council Member Flaherty and all of you for all of your contributions to this and looking
- forward to voting for this.
- Thank you, anybody else? Council Member Flaherty. Yes, also just briefly, thank you to city staff who
- were able to give feedback on these, especially recently, we were able to work quickly through some
- outstanding questions and get to, I think, a stronger place and mutually agreeable place, thanks.
- Thank you, any other comments? Will the clerk please call the roll? Council Member Flaherty.
- Yes Stasburg. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you. With a vote
- of nine oh reasonable conditions eight nine ten and twelve pass. Yay. Would anyone like to introduce
- any other reasonable conditions.
- Councilmember Stasberg, I guess I'll move reasonable condition number 14. Okay reasonable condition
- Oh, and there's been a second. So reasonable condition has been moved and seconded with the clerk. Please
- call the roll. Oh my bad Go ahead Councilmember Stasberg This this is a reasonable condition that is new
- It was mentioned last week kind of in the context of Councilmember Flaherty removing any of the lane
- narrowing from his consideration. One of the things that I had brought up at the Planning Commission
- level was a concern with the speed of the lanes being high, especially given that there's no sidewalks,
- that these lanes would be shared by multiple types of road users.
- And that there would also be people pulling out of parking spaces and things like that, that there could
- just be the potential offender benders. So reasonable condition number 14 requests the petitioner work
- with planning and transportation and engineering to design the lanes with a target speed of 10 miles
- an hour, utilizing design elements intended to create low speed, high comfort environment for vulnerable
- I did consult with planning transportation department and engineering department about the wording of
- this and they approved that wording Great does the petitioner have any response to reasonable condition
- 14? Fabulous council questions. I
- Okay. Public comment on a reasonable condition 14. Anybody please approach the podium if you'd like
- to speak. Please raise your hand on zoom if you'd like to speak. Looks like we got nothing.
- Council comment. Would anybody like to share. Okay. Well in that case would the clerk please call the
- roll on reasonable condition 14.
- Sorry y'all councilmember Stasberg. Yes Piedmont Smith. Yes Zulik. Yes, I'm sorry Yes Nearly yeah.
- Yes Rallo. Yes, rough. Yes Rosenberger. Yes and flirty Yes
- Sorry, I didn't hear that Yes, thank you yay with a vote of nine zero that passes would anyone else
- like to introduce reason a reasonable condition I Move to introduce reasonable condition for Okay, reasonable
- condition for has been moved to introduce is there a second Sorry, I didn't think it was the second
- This it didn't get updated It's really hard to get around to talking to everyone about it. I mean obviously
- we can all talk about it here We are still working on a definition of permanent affordability to add
- into this reasonable condition Councilmember Piedmont Smith and I met yesterday about it and then asked
- I don't interim attorney
- Allen for some definitions. So we got some things today. Well I can we can I think follow anyone's lead.
- It could kind of go the way it is. It could wait and get amended. It's just it's been a lot I guess.
- Questions comments. I'll add to that as a sponsor that
- We also met with director Killian Hansen last week to try to figure out wording around selling second
- mortgages and some other stuff and that wording just Doesn't have finality yet So I I am not sure how
- much it's worth talking about now versus I mean we're just gonna I think have to postpone the whole
- ordinance for another meeting to finish off the permanent affordability so
- Councilmember, sorry Question are we not comfortable in seeing particularly that we've just amended
- a couple of things by Doing it and speaking Can we not are we not comfortable to arrive at that type
- of a conclusion tonight? with reasonable condition for I'm not comfortable with that I've talked about
- it a couple different times with councilmember Rosenberger after the last over the last few days and if we
- didn't have language over the last few days, I don't think that we're going to suddenly appear with
- language at 11.25 at night. I would also chime in. That question makes me laugh a little, because I
- think you encouraged us to push it if we needed to. So I thought it was totally OK to say we can't get
- it done. Of course, we'd do it in one. I'm just saying, if we have the language, we can also just do it.
- Move that we postpone reasonable condition for until May 6 Okay, there's been a motion and a second
- on the table to postpone reasonable condition for until May 6th Would the clerk please call the roll?
- It's just a procedural motion to postpone Would anybody like to make a comment then
- Great. Will the clerk please call the roll? Councilmember Piedmont Smith. Yes Zulek no Sorry No Daily
- yes Rallo yes
- Yes Rosenberger. Yes clarity. Yes Stossburg. Yes Okay with the vote of seven to that passes So, I guess
- ordinance 2026-06 will be continued in its entirety on mace We just continued
- reasonable condition for with that motion. How would you suggest we vote on the entire thing that I
- think I just have to move to continue ordinance twenty twenty six oh six to our next regular session
- on May 6th. Okay. Council member Flaherty has his hand up. I was going to share a little bit more about
- reasonable conditions for folks awareness. I think I anticipate there's a motion to postpone the adoption
- of the ordinance until our next regular session. But
- Just for clarity on a few things that are in the packet, reasonable conditions six, which we already
- adopted. I anticipate bringing a motion to rescind reasonable conditions seven, which is about energy
- efficiency. I anticipate not moving as I mentioned before. And in lieu of reasonable conditions six
- and seven, I'm seeking a written commitment covering those topics of electrification and efficiency.
- of which there was a draft in the most recent packet addendum that came out today. I would rather not
- vote on that today though, since we are seemingly postponing until a future meeting because there was
- still at least one substantive question I would like to dig into further in conjunction with staff or
- in collaboration with staff. But I wanted folks to be aware of that additional context and anticipate
- the procedural steps when we next take this up.
- Thank you Well, I guess we have the full ordinance before us are there any other motions Councilmember
- Stasberg Once again try to move to continue ordinance 2020 606 to our next regular session on May 6th
- second Okay, there's been a motion and a second any comments councilmember Asari Just to two comments
- on it. Um, one one is that
- I assume that there's people in the room waiting. I can't see them, so maybe they're not. And who might
- want to give public comment? So just that as a consideration. And then just to address the earlier comment,
- and I know we already voted for it, but partially why I thought we could move forward with a reasonable
- condition for or even without the reason that I
- over this meeting came to the realization of it is because of the clause at the end of it that requires
- the administration to come back. But I mean, if there's substantive things for reasonable condition
- seven, I mean, I guess that gives a lot of reason not to. But yeah, but that was sort of my thinking
- is that it's sort of the same function at the end of the day that way. So that was sort of why I moved
- in that way, Councilmember Rosenberger. Yeah. Thank you.
- Happen because I do see somebody in chambers who would like to make a comment great Let's go to public
- comment if you'd like to speak on Ordinance 20 2606 as a whole, please approach the podium and state
- your name. You'll have three minutes Thank you, thank you Paul Russo again I thought we'd be having
- public comment on amendment for just really wanted to
- what I wanted to talk about. No surprise, I'm here to talk about land trusts again. And what I would
- really like to do is have a clerk distribute this if possible. You may have seen this by email, but
- this is a much improved version. And what I would like to say is that... I'll abbreviate my comments
- in the interest of time.
- We've been told that the best method to create permanently affordable housing Is by using silent second
- mortgages with first rights of refusal? That was told to you a week ago As I've demonstrated in this
- chart before you such a method fails in fewer than ten years while in comparison a community land trust
- would succeed under identical conditions and
- If you have any questions about this, you have my email. We'll probably be talking with the director
- of housing development about this as well. In my research about community land trusts over the last
- month or so, I guess, including conversations with CLT executive directors, it has become clear to me
- that Hopewell offers Bloomington a golden opportunity that is the envy of other similar cities.
- The two largest obstacles to land trust homes are land acquisition and mortgage lending. And yet here
- we have, what is it, 25 acres? And we paid, the city paid six, six and a half million for it I think.
- And I think by today's prices it's probably worth 25 million. We own the land. That big hurdle is overcome.
- And Summit Hill,
- Community Development Corporation has been working with two local lenders now to secure loans for buyers
- with incomes between 50 and 80% AMI, whereas hopeful homes would be easier to finance because the buyers
- would have incomes between 80% and 120% AMI under a community land trust. Once you get something started
- with some momentum, every time there's an opportunity for land to build a land trust,
- If you're ready to go, you can jump on that opportunity. That's what all these other people have been
- telling me when I have conversations with them. There are some land trusts that get started with one
- parcel, and they don't have philanthropic money to expand their land holdings, and they just sit there
- for five or 10 years not growing. But the ones that are a little bit bigger to start with, which is
- what HOPE will allow you to do,
- would allow you to rival other places, such as State College, Ithaca. I can go on and on. Thank you.
- There are other college towns all over the place that have done this. And we're way behind. Thank you.
- Thank you. Would anybody else like to speak?
- Wendy goodlet CEO at Habitat for Humanity of Monroe County I sent an email today, but I want to read
- some of the remarks from that for the public as the only developer slash builder offering affordable
- homeownership opportunities for households between 35 and 80 percent AMI in our community I would like
- to provide some insights regarding the challenges of creating affordability at the Hopewell South PUD
- and beyond and
- First, permanent affordability restrictions can lead to several unintended consequences, the greatest
- of which is limiting the equity a household can realize. Given that home equity represents the largest
- proportion of wealth for U.S. households and that U.S. homeowners have an average net wealth that is
- 400% greater than renters, we should allow homeowners at Hopewell the same opportunities as others in
- our community to grow their equity.
- The housing market in Bloomington is so supply-constrained that it is nearly impossible for an average
- household, let alone a severely income-constrained household, to move out of a starter home. Locally,
- 80% of the homes built by Habitat and sold are still owned by Habitat family. Rarely does Habitat family's
- household income improve to such a degree that they can afford a more expensive home.
- This is mostly attributed to Monroe County housing costs far outpacing incomes Due to the investments
- both public and private that are required to keep habitat houses affordable Habitat implements measures
- to ensure that those dollars are not transferred to the homeowner should they decide to sell during
- their during the term of their mortgage the tools to achieve this are a second mortgage a forgivable
- second promissory note and a grant of right of first refusal
- Utilizing these tools habitat has successfully purchased fixed up and resold 19 homes to a second qualified
- habitat family Thus maintaining affordability for the next family This process also maintains the quality
- of the home Which is something that will not automatically happen with a deed restriction in most cases
- due to the lack of equity Deed restricted properties are in need of expensive repairs when they are
- sold to the next buyer affordability necessitates
- Prioritizing outcomes if you want the highest number of low-income earners to have access to homeownership
- Then as decision makers you need to reduce the barriers to building affordable units From an affordability
- standpoint more asphalt and concrete mean higher development costs, which then push up the price points
- of houses. I Also talk about our energy efficiency Commission councilmember Flaherty I'd be happy to
- talk to you about about that as well as
- But the number one issue affecting affordability in Bloomington is lack of supply. It is imperative
- that you make it easier to build housing of all types. This is the most effective way to ensure long-term
- affordability. Increasing supply eases demand, which drives down costs. Please be thoughtful about the
- consequences of your decisions regarding permanent affordability. Thank you. Thank you. Would anybody
- else like to speak? Anybody on Zoom? Great.
- We will come back to council comment. Are there any motions councilmember Stasberg? I'll move to postpone
- consideration of ordinance 20 2606 until our next regular session on May 6th Okay, there's been a motion
- in a second to postpone ordinance 20 2606 to our next regularly scheduled session on May 6th Is there
- anyone who would like to discuss anything? Great, will the clerk please call the roll?
- No. Sorry. No. Daily. Yes. Rallo. Yes. Ruff. Yes. Rosenberger. Yes. Clarity. Yes. Stasberg. Yes. Piedmont
- Smith. Yes.
- Thank you with a vote of 7 to that passes an ordinance 20 2606 will be heard for I don't know fifth
- or sixth time on May 6th, which is the day after election day. So don't forget to vote Okay, are there
- any other motions on the floor There are two others but you don't have to
- Just say there is a clerk's note that resolutions 20 2605 and 20 2606 will be referred to the next regular
- session unless anyone is Feeling really passionate about introducing either of them going once Not if
- they're not introduced If there's no
- Objection I will move to additional public comment general public comment if you've already spoken in
- a period of general public comment You may not speak but anyone who has spoken on a legislative related
- Public comment you are more than welcome to speak during general public comment. Would anyone like to
- approach the podium? anyone on zoom great
- Going last time. Okay council or public comment has concluded last thing items on council schedule as
- we said earlier the next regularly scheduled council meeting will be held on May 6th in council chambers
- at 630 that is a Wednesday and there is a council hiring committee tomorrow at 530
- In the allison conference room. So if you would like to watch us try to find new lawyers Please come
- on down and hang out with us in allison conference room at city hall tomorrow Anything else councilmember
- stossberg? There's a fiscal committee meeting on friday at 8 30 also in allison conference room And
- it's also available on zoom if you want to zoom in in your pajamas Friday morning. Thank you fabulous
- friday morning plans. Love it anybody else
- Great I adjourn this meeting