- Like to call this meeting of the Common Council to order for June 10th that will please call the roll
- Stasburg here Piedmont Smith Here Zulik here. Sorry here daily here Rallo here rough Rosenberger here.
- Thank you. I
- Thank you so much. All right, the agendas are posted there. There's some printed out there. We have
- Quite a few items for second reading. I'm today and in addition to the many other things Are there any
- motions for the agenda? I move to amend the agenda to move the reading of ordinance 20 26-12 so that
- it is considered immediately after resolution 20 26-10 second. There's a motion in a second Will the
- clerk please call the roll on that?
- Discussion points councilman Stasberg. I Guess like I don't necessarily have that huge a concern except
- that that's an agenda item that a lot of people might have wanted to do public comment on and I guess
- I'm just concerned that people especially who might be online might be arriving late Knowing that it's
- toward the end of the agenda is not a concern for anybody else. I Thought it was actually being kind
- by trying to move it faster so that people
- Be done with their night sooner who were looking to comment. All right. I mean I if that's not a concern
- for anybody else then that's Okay, then you have comments Fantastic. Will the clerk please call the
- roll? Yes Stasper yes Piedmont Smith Yes, Zulek. Yes. Sorry. Yes, Bailey. Yes Rallo. Yes rough. Yes
- Rosenberger. Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right Do we have any minutes for approval? No
- Seeing none we will move on to reports to any councilmember has reports Seeing none we will move on
- to reports from the The ESD department take it away
- Do you have the slide deck for the presentation? All right, I'm Jane Cooper Smith director of economic
- and sustainable development for the city of Bloomington My colleague Andrea de la Rosa is also here
- this evening and I think we'll be cruising in to pick up this presentation at some point So this evening
- we will present the 2025 tax abatement compliance report which fulfills a statutory reporting requirement and
- Will also present information on active pilots and then we will be happy to receive questions at the
- end of the presentation I'll just pass the mic to my colleague if she's ready Okay, thanks Thank you
- for your patience
- Good evening. I'm Andrea de la Rosa assistant director for small business development tonight I'll present
- the 2025 tax abatement compliance report which fulfills the Indiana statutory reporting requirement
- Director Cooper Smith will present information on active pilots. We will be happy to receive questions
- at the end of the presentation This evening will cover a summary of the tax abatement program economic
- impact of abatements review of active pilots and
- The Economic Development Commission unanimously approved this report on June 2nd 2026 to keep
- the presentation within the allotted time The overview section will be omitted but retained in the slide
- deck for public reference Supporting materials are included in your packet in an accessible format What
- is the tax abatement
- Tax abatement temporarily reduces taxes on new investment in real or personal property It applies only
- to the increment the increased the increase in assessed value due to the project The property's original
- value continues to be taxed Eligibility and reprieve and approval projects must be located in a designated
- economic revitalization area some residential projects also require designation as an economic development
- target area
- Approval involves involves review by city staff a formal recommendation for and the Economic Development
- Commission and final designation and authorization by the Common Council through a public process Most
- abatements last one to ten years and follow a sliding scale personal property abatements can go up to
- 20 years state law allows the for alternative schedules if justified by the project and
- Each application includes an SP one form which sets baseline projections for investment assessed value
- job creation and wages We also evaluate community-based. I'm sorry community focus goals such as affordable
- housing sustainability full-time employment and contributions to local character Rules and responsibility
- and attacks in tax abatement approvals
- This is the compliance review process the staff reviews EDC recommends common council authorizes and
- county and ministers Projects are monitored annually through CF one filings staff evaluates actual for
- actual performance against SB one commitments projects are classified as compliant Substantially compliant
- and non-compliant
- The EDC forwards the report to the council for final action where the council may approve abatements
- as compliant or Substantially compliant or request a hearing to consider a finding of non-compliance
- relevant departments such as hand also review specific commitments including affordable housing requirements
- a hearing is required for any non-compliance finding as the council must determine whether unmet commitments
- results resulted from factors within the company's control and
- the economic impact overview overview new real personal property investment Five hundred and thirty
- nine million dollars in proposed investment four hundred eleven million in actual investment assessed
- value increased from 164 million to two hundred and three million dollars This increase meets the but
- for standard these gains wouldn't have occurred without the abatements. I
- Jobs and wages. Projects reported 1,938 total jobs and $152 million in salaries. While some fell short
- of job targets, several exceed wage projections, indicating fewer but higher paying jobs. For example,
- Catalan's average full-time wages are around $81,000. Affordable housing outcomes.
- Abatements also supported deeply affordable housing new urban station 15 affordable using units at below
- at or below 80% with a specified rent range of six hundred and forty one dollars to twelve hundred and
- eighty two dollars Tenants currently have an average AMI of forty one point seven five percent average
- rent is at eight hundred and fifteen dollars a month and occupancy is at forty one hundred and forty percent
- Southern all 31 units at 28% AMI 94% occupancy union at Crescent 102 units allocated at or below 60%
- AMI with 15 units flexible for market rate or affordable housing 36 currently occupied for a total of
- 61% these projects show how abatements are leveraged to expand housing access and
- Southern Ola's in its sixth year of abatement exceeded investment job and wage commitments The assessed
- value is at 130 percent of its SB 1 projection 26 units serve households at or below 60 percent AMI
- Staff recommends a finding of compliance for this project Union at Crescent unit at Crescent is a hundred.
- I'm sorry 146 unit mixed income development
- 102 units committed as affordable at 60% AMI 63 of the 120 committed units are currently occupied at
- 62% occupancy This is lower than the 2024 occupancy rate of 64 percent However, the property has undergone
- significant effort and expense to support a turnaround property management reverted to the developer
- the annex group in March 2025 and
- City staff from hand and office of the mayor have been working to improve this property since 2024 a
- security trailer was installed which supported a reduction in calls a Traffic barricade was insulted
- was installed to stop through traffic in 2025 the property owner spent 1 million directly on replacing
- HVAC units exterior siding and other items covering 30 units in total five units had
- significant mold issues that it's seated remediation necessitate necessitating an expenditure of $120,000
- for just those five units 31 evictions were were processed since March 22 2025 in accordance with lease
- enforcement procedures The property now holds a city occupancy permit following repeated re-inspections
- due to code compliance issues
- The property passed all compliance inspections hand in January IH CDA in April and home units in April
- in 2025 staff issued a recommendation of non-compliance Following a July hearing an abatement was approved
- after low occupancy rates were determined to be due to factors outside the company's control This year
- following significant investments in capital and staff resources
- The turnaround plan staff recommended a finding of substantial compliance to the EDC the EDC approved
- that recommendation Recommendation which is reflected in this presentation at this at this hearing council
- may approve May approve the recommendation or call for a hearing should additional information from
- the property owner be required questions about this property are welcome at the end of this presentation and
- New investment is at 159% of its SP 1 projection full-time staff at double the SP 1 projection and 163%
- more than the Bloomington living wage ordinance Unit and Crescent has hired a third-party consulting
- service to hit the 85% total occupancy goal by August 20 26 given the major investment investments the
- eviction renovation new lease up and reputational repair
- City staff believes that the annex group is doing everything within its power to bring the property
- back to the required occupancy rate Staff recommends a finding of substantial compliance due to significant
- investment and progress in the proposed turnaround plan Urban station is a four-story mixed-use building
- with 7,000 square feet of commercial space and 148 bedrooms exceeding the investment this exceeded the
- investment commitments and
- It fell short unemployment, but retained wages above the proposed SB 1 commitment Providing 23 bedrooms
- at or below 80% AMI and exceeding commitment by 40% 100% occupancy in affordable units staff recommends
- a finding of substantially compliant Willery mill
- Historic mill redevelopment on tap wrote Reported four point three million in real estate investment
- toward a six million dollar commitment Phase one is completed the event space phase two. The condo hotel
- is delayed due to market conditions William will created 60 jobs versus the 45 projected full and part-time
- salaries met or exceeded goals The assessed value current is currently at 2.5 million on track to relative
- Track relative to developmental stage staff recommends a finding of substantially compliant The catalytic
- summary catalytic holds three active abatements now under novo nor disc following the late 2024 acquisition
- Resolutions 1506 and 1904 exceeded investment and salary targets and
- recommends I'm sorry Staff recommendation is that 1506 and 1904 are compliant with tax payment commitments
- Resolution 2206 210 million in total investment over the lifetime of the abatement to date and staff
- finds can find substantially compliant and
- This is a breakdown of the retained employment new employment and total employment for Catalan This
- is broken out by each resolution SB ones for 1506 1904 and 2206 show the proposed employment for retained
- new and total the 2206 CF one filing indicates employment across all sites Catalan reported a total
- year-end headcount of 1867 employees
- This is a little bit more straightforward slide to reflect that This slide compares projected and reported
- salary outcomes for resolutions 1506 1904 and 2206 based on CF one filings resolutions 1506 and 1904
- projected SP one salaries of 300 I'm sorry thirty four point two million dollars
- That's resolution 1506 and fifty seven point two million dollars resolution 1904 to equal ninety one
- point four million dollars actual reported salary of the CF one was a hundred and fifty point eight
- million dollars projected average wage was fifty five thousand dollars, but the actual average wage
- is eighty thousand
- resolution 2206 projected a salary of 267 million actual reported at 150 point eight million million
- This is inherited data with no new jobs added Additionally cattle and also provided median wage numbers
- and salaries this afternoon These numbers also exceed the SB 1 wages and salaries as opposed to having
- an average where we're taking all the numbers and just Figuring out the thing that's in the middle.
- This is a good assessment
- against higher wages and lower wages Average median hourly wage is $35.25 average median total wages
- are 68 thousand one hundred dollars hourly rate hourly range is from $19 to 160 $160 and salary ranges start at
- $15,000 which is part-time to six hundred and ninety thousand dollars And this is the wages broken out
- a little bit more clearly as opposed to having each individual CF one Staff recommends compliance for
- 1506 1904 and substantial compliance for 2206 with continued monitoring
- Retreat at switch shard is No longer under construction. I forgot to fix that in my script They are
- up and running and we're very excited about their ribbon cutting tomorrow This is a huge milestone for
- them it's been a long time getting this project off the ground and
- This is a affordable housing unit affordable housing development, which includes 64 units in a five-story
- building with dedicated first floor retail space 48 of the housing units are already Occupied so 75%
- of the total units I'm sorry for 8% of the housing units Ours are for low to moderate income residents
- for a period of 99 years and the remaining 16 units will be available for lease on the market and
- Partnering with stone belt and will set aside 10 units of the 48 as housing along with additional service
- areas within the project for stone belts clients According to the position or statement of benefits
- this project would create two new full-time permanent jobs with an estimated total annual payroll of
- $80,000 with the lower the low starting full-time wage of $35,000 per year the construction is complete
- 41 units are occupied and
- And 35 units are at or below 60% AMI So as you can see there has been a substantial investment in this
- property which is far exceeding their SB 1 commitments the new salaries and the assessed value are also
- exceeding the original commitments and
- We also monitor for pilot agreements that support long-term affordable housing at or below 60% AMI and
- director Cooper Smith will present these now Thanks D I'm back okay, so we have four active pilots well
- to our only are active and to our not yet started but evergreen village is the first one it's located
- at 3607 South Henderson and
- This pilot was approved in 2016 for a 115 unit residential care facility for residents at 60% or below
- AMI this Payment as mark does not yet received it was sent It was it never landed for some reason, but
- they're sending a new payment as of today So that there's no issue there in my opinion country view
- Located at 2500 South Rockport Road. This pilot supported the rehabilitation and preservation of 206
- affordable apartments These are available at 60% AMI below and this pilot is active and compliant all
- paid up Cambridge Square this body will remember as you approved this pilot in 2025 it's located at
- 307 North Pete Ellis Drive and
- This pilot was approved last year and will last 17 years it facilitated rehab of 153 units for residents
- 62 and up or differently abled. No payment is due until next year for this property I asked for a status
- update on the renovation all interiors of units are completed kitchens baths flooring full ADA accessible
- units, etc They are working on stair repairs and just started the second elevator modernization with
- one more to be done after that
- Concrete and asphalt items will be starting shortly and should be completed by July amenities are completed.
- There was one vacancy at that At that location and then Henderson Court is the other pilot that you
- approved last year. It's located at 2475 South Winslow Court It supports the rehabilitation of 150 units
- that are highly affordable at 60% AMI and below it also accepts section 8 housing assistance program
- vouchers or
- Payments housing assistance payments all interiors of the units are completed. So kitchens baths flooring
- full ADA accessible units and they have some remaining roofs to replace some deck work to be completed
- completed a sagging floor And amenities are not yet done. So they're waiting on a permit for the dog
- park playground and sidewalks and they are working through that with the city staff right now and
- Then remaining our asphalt and concrete and landscaping so so they're moving along no vacant units.
- So I think that concludes The pilot portion of this and then with that we're happy happy to take questions
- I might just Observe one other thing that we filed a separate memo for you all for Union at Crescent
- just so that you had detailed information available at that about that
- Abatement, so right now it's still contained in this full suite But if you choose to request a hearing
- I think it will be helpful for you to have all that information separately Thank you so much director
- Cooper Smith and director de la Rosa any questions first All right seeing none Councilmembers are there
- any is there anyone that you'd like to call for a hearing or are we happy to proceed with the recommendation
- staff? Please
- Thank you. Thank you so much for all this. I'm glad to hear that Union Crescent seems to be doing a
- whole lot better Do either of you know or is there hand stuff here? Who knows because I know that part
- of those struggle there was a struggle of reputation That started like really going downhill. Has there
- been some recovery in that? reputational kind of damage as they've done these repairs and Are there
- fewer like complaints?
- I I know hand can attest that there are fewer complaints about the facility in terms of reputation I
- don't really feel like I can comment on that, but I think all of these improvements Drive toward that
- and the reputational repair probably has the longest timeline on it. Okay? Thanks. Does does director
- Killian Hansen wanna?
- Anna Killian Hansen housing and neighborhood development It's hard to speak to reputation because I
- feel like that is in the eye of the beholder However, I will say just anecdotally that we have received
- fewer complaints that they did receive their rental permit finally and
- They did go to the building housing quality appeals board for an extension of time to resolve a lot
- of their issues They are actively putting money into the property Evictions take time when you have
- troubled tenants that are causing damage to the units and so it it takes time to turn that ship I can't
- speculate as to
- what the future will hold, but I will say that we're in a much better position today than we were in
- 2024 or even last year. So things just take time, but hopefully, yes. Okay, great. Thank you. I'm just
- really glad to hear that. Yeah. Yes, thank you for the report.
- First of all, I wanted to request that in the future we have, for the jobs created, we have the number
- of full-time versus part-time. That would help us better evaluate the value of those salaries. Secondly,
- and probably most more important in this context, is the Cadillac tax abatement, which really should
- be called the Novo Nordisk tax abatement at this point.
- I don't understand why they're considered substantially compliant when the planned jobs in the SB one
- were four thousand two hundred twelve and the actuals are one thousand eight hundred sixty seven Thanks
- for these questions just one note on the way we report jobs I agree that it would be better if we could
- have those total jobs numbers they're not required through the SB one through the state reporting so
- we can request them and It's just if the organization chooses to
- Provide them they're not obligated, but we can certainly ask for them and then on the Nova Nordisk Abatement
- that was previously Catalan this Gets to the issue of factors within or outside the company's control
- and the major job loss there happened actually shortly after I Mean, it's really in 2023. I think they
- had their first job loss and this was
- Their growth was due to the pandemic and the Defense Production Act which drove vaccine production to
- that site for J&J and Moderna and so the city they had massive growth and the city provided these abatements
- they they had one round of growth and then this Supported kind of like a second big push the site rose
- at one point to I think 30 to
- 700 jobs. I think that was the peak number and then the market completely bottomed out of the vaccine
- market bottomed out and You know, it is just the it is the staff opinion that this is a factor outside
- of their control and that the company is Motivated to employ as many people as it possibly can and
- also must protect the organization so that it's available for long-time employment. So I hope that answers
- the question. And if more information is needed, we'd be happy to try to investigate that. So couldn't
- that be foreseen that the vaccine production would slow down at some point?
- The question on the state's SB or the state's Sorry, the information in the state statute is only about
- whether it is within or outside of the company's control and so market forces are necessarily outside
- the company's control and whether they could foresee it or not, I Don't know. I assume that they Would
- anticipate that there would be changes there would be market fluctuations. I
- Okay, and do you know whether the employee numbers are stabilizing at this point? Yes, so they had an
- additional series of reduction. They had another reduction in force this year, and we have
- been in communication with the employer. The plant manager reached out to
- The mayor to talk about the process that they were going through with employees in what what he emphasized
- was that this Decision which was odious to them. It was what they You know least want to do but that
- it was essential for their long-term stability for them to be able to be a Stable a stable partner and
- a stable operation in Bloomington
- They didn't give any indication whether more job cuts are coming or whether they consider it stable
- at this point And we know they gave the impression that this was the this was kind of the mate this
- was the major reorg that they were going through and It was not indicated that there would be incremental
- changes I This is probably color commentary and so I I
- Like what I just said is probably color commentary. So I don't know Yeah I'm going by what the information
- that we were given but I hope it's you know, yeah Okay, thank you Thank you so much council members
- anybody is there any motion to call anybody for a For a hearing are you happy to continue?
- Just doing comments or questions What I'm asking for is we have it we have a choice We can call for
- a vote just to approve as they've as they've proposed But if there's a particular entity that you'd
- like to have a hearing for we can start that process as well Yeah, I just wanted to make a general comment
- Okay, go ahead then and then and then we'll I'll just well if there can be a motion for a vote thereafter
- That'd be great. Well, thank you Council president, sorry this is always since the beginning of
- By serving on council the whole tax abatement Program and I know a lot of is driven by the state the
- rules and Conditions are set by the state, but it's always been so it's always been such a problem for
- me this idea that Market forces are outside their control That's what business is right you and you
- take a loss if you have have a loss and If you get a windfall
- There's no sharing of that with with the with the community So if you have the what the but for test
- where this investment wouldn't have been made by the company Had it not been for the tax abatement and
- then in a scenario where that would lead you had a windfall where it just turned out to be just a great
- Investment and it briefed all kinds of benefits to the company That's outside that's the market forces
- and it seems
- Always seem to me like there should be some sharing of windfall profits when things go super well If
- we're going to say when things don't go well, it's a Mark it's a market forces outside their control
- and they're not really out of compliance with with promises now I understand and I believe that The
- firms all want to be good corporate citizens but just the the whole idea that
- You know, we we subsidize it's just a classic example of socializing risk and loss and Privatizing the
- profits mainly primarily to seems to me like anyway, that's all. Thank you. Thank you Right as them
- is can I entertain a motion at this point to approve the report as given If somebody would like to move
- Sure, I move to approve the report as given second
- There's a motion and a second any discussion Will the clerk please call the roll? Councilmember Sasberg.
- Yes, he's not Smith Yes Zulek, yes. Sorry. Yes. Daily. Yes. Rallo. Yes, rough. Yes Ross Rosenberger.
- Yes and flirty. Yes
- Thank you so much. And thank you to the SD department for your time moving on to council committees
- We have a report from hiring committee councilor Zulek and then afterwards to councilmember Stossberg
- for fiscal committee. Yes Thank you. So we did receive five applications for our council attorney position
- and We will be conducting interviews over the break. We will be interviewing I believe all five candidates
- and given the
- availability of The council members on the hiring committee We are going to need to designate council
- president. Sorry to swap council members in and out as needed But I'm happy to answer any questions
- about that the context is certain council members are going to be out of town and We need to meet quorum.
- So we might need some people swapped out
- Any questions? Can I just add one context, two context things and then Councillor Piedmont-Smith might
- have something. The goal is we're going to do quick interviews with the first five and then with the
- idea of hopefully from that group finding sort of two to three candidates and then we'll make sure that
- everybody gets a chance to meet sort of the finalists. We'll do a sort of longer set of interviews for
- those finalists, if you will. So it'll be a couple of rounds here just to clarify on that.
- And so yeah, sorry, I'll stop talking What exactly do you mean by like swapping people in and out and
- getting quorum Councilmember Piedmont Smith and I are both gonna be out of the country and and so we're
- gonna have a little bit of difficulty Having enough people in person in Bloomington to hold the the
- interviews so we might need
- someone else to serve on the committee so that we can make quorum and keep progress. I guess I thought
- procedurally that the president had to like do that in public in terms of switching committee things.
- So like what does that look like or do we have to have a motion saying that you can do that behind the
- scenes. And similarly like those interviews aren't actually public though right. Correct.
- So are they counted as executive sessions because I wasn't sure the executives that that interviews
- can count as executive sessions Councilman council attorney session and this account of personnel matters
- in terms of alternate members on the committee I'd recommend having a vote on that and naming the alternate
- members that would be on that committee to serve as needed
- We could name them now as alternates. Yes, okay So so with that we don't need a motion for that I can
- just name them because the statute says that the president gets to name alternates Can I just name everybody
- on council as an alternate and just move that way? I guess you could but it you know Well, just a quick
- question and I don't want to we don't have to waste so much time on this but it is there I mean if nobody
- is available that's that's
- It's um, you know, we can just push off the interviews for a longer time But is anybody available over
- the next six weeks in any increment to do an interview in person? Can you say the dates the dates the
- dates are yet to be determined? Correct. I am mostly available Okay, so so so I would like to appoint
- councilmember Flaherty as an alternate to this committee I'm available until July 10th
- Okay, fantastic. I would like to appoint councilmember Rosenberger as an alternate to this committee
- I have another question. Yes, please. I think we've accomplished Do we need to? Have any kind
- of clarification to make sure like in this like alternate scenario like Are they alternating?
- Are they specifically going in for somebody? Do we have to specify that there's not never gonna be a
- quorum of counsel at any of these if there are more alternates like I just I just want to make sure
- that we're like dotting our eyes and crossing exactly so so I mean, I think that obviously like we're
- not gonna have a quorum of counsel with Like is there more attorney Allen that we have to do to ensure
- that kind of scenario doesn't happen and that
- Other than please don't have five of you show up exactly. Yes So as long as five of us don't show up,
- it's fine. It still has to be noticed I mean there are elements of even if it is, you know for for the
- interviews It still has to be noticed as a committee as a quorum of the committee And so there would
- still be a public notice that's sent out for it But certainly because you know as long as it's being
- held in accordance with the personnel rules There's no there's no issue though All right, so so I'm going to
- I've said this officially then and there would be alternates for councilmember P month Smith and myself
- All right. So, okay. Is that is that all you need then is the two and that one? Yes, I think we'll be
- good. Okay. Yes And again, we'll make sure that everybody has opportunities to meet to meet with these
- candidates as we progress through I'll pass to you council member Stossberg for a fiscal committee report
- Thank you, um, I just kind of realized that I
- You know, it's halfway through the year and I don't think that I'd actually given an official fiscal
- committee report and so I Wrote up just a little something. I'm trying to find it right now. Oh Dear
- just about what we have been doing this year and oh my gosh, there are like three packets here right now, so I
- There it is So if you read it, that's basically all it is. We've been meeting about every two weeks
- We decided as a committee that it would be easier for us and easier on our schedules to have more frequent
- shorter meetings so we're pretty good at keeping them to an hour and then at some meetings we're talking
- about administrative sort of stuff and at the other meetings we're talking about council related stuff
- and so I have some things listed about the specifics of what those might entail and
- Yeah, that's that's about it. I guess I'm hoping that everybody read those two pages and I don't feel
- a need to To add anything to it I just wanted to make sure to give people an opportunity to ask any
- questions about what's going on in fiscal committee Or weigh in at all on anything Thank you so much
- any questions Fantastic and do we have any other council committees?
- None none and okay fantastic. Do we have any we will move on now to the first session of public comment
- This is everyone's favorite part of the council meeting Is there anybody here that would like to make
- comment on something that is not on the agenda? If you would like to you can have some time and there
- will be another moment to do that at the end No one in chambers. Is there anyone online? Anyone online
- Are you conferring about whether or not there's someone online? Okay, I'm going to take that to mean
- that there's no one online So I still don't think they heard the question. Is there anybody online?
- All right, so no one online we will move on there'll be another moment for public comment any appointments
- of boards and commissions All right, seeing none. We'll move on to legislation for second readings and
- resolutions. I Move that resolution 20 26-10 be introduced and read by the clerk by title and synopsis
- only second
- There's a motion in a second or the clerk, please call the roll Councilmember Piedmont Smith Yes,
- so like yes, sorry. Yes, Daley. Yes, Rallo. Yes, Ruff. Yes, Rosenberger. Yes Flaherty. Yes, Stasburg.
- Yes. Thank you very much. Well, please read
- resolution 2026 dash 10 on the existential risk of artificial intelligence. The synopsis is as follows.
- This resolution is sponsored by council member Rallo. It calls for officials at all levels of government
- to consider and acquaint themselves with the existential risks posed by artificial intelligence and
- calls for the imposition of a moratorium on artificial general intelligence development until there
- is a guarantee that the technology aligns with human values and wellbeing.
- Excellent. Thank you very much. I move that resolution 20 26-10 be adopted second. All right Thank you
- president sorry, this is resolution 20 26 10 on the existential risk of artificial intelligence the
- focus of this resolution is on advanced models of the frontier AI companies mostly located in Silicon
- Valley, but some international such as those in China and
- These companies are in a race to achieve AGI, artificial general intelligence, that may already be super
- intelligent when AGI is attained or will soon evolve to be once AGI is achieved. Artificial general
- intelligence, also known as agentic AI, is capable of acting autonomously and is capable of equaling
- or surpassing humans in all cognitive domains. It is designed to replace people,
- and that is its main economic incentive for its development. AGI with general capabilities is distinguished
- from narrow AI, which is designed to excel in specific tasks. Narrow AI, for instance, has been used
- for healthcare diagnostics, precision X-ray analysis, protein folding for drug development, fraud detection
- in banking, and so forth, all beneficial for human beings. Narrow AI needs regulation too,
- But unlike general intelligence, it does not exhibit agency. It will not compete for control. Agentic
- AI with super intelligence has been warned about for decades. It was thought to be many years away,
- decades, 50, 100 years away, but with the rate of change, it could arrive now within the next few years.
- While striving for AGI, the Frontier Labs have been endowing their models with the ability to develop
- their own code to improve themselves. Anthropic, one of the Frontier companies, for instance, their
- model is Claude, is programming about 80% of its own code currently. Soon, it's expected to be 100%,
- autonomously developing itself. AI safety experts have warned of the dangers of this
- in what they say could well result in what's called an intelligence explosion, whereby the AI model
- improves itself in a recurrent self-improvement that no one can control. No one can control it because
- it will have far exceeded our intelligence. Our intelligence, after all, is why we are the dominant
- species on Earth. No other animal has even the remotest chance of taking control from humans.
- Larry Allen, could you display that figure the first figure? And it's also the reason why we've appropriated
- Most of the habitats on earth because of our intelligence We have driven most wild animals to the margins
- or they have had to adapt to the modified habitat that we have created for ourselves So this these figures
- show the mammalian biomass
- of planet Earth currently and only about 5% is relegated to wild mammals the remainder the other 95
- is either occupied by humans by our livestock or our pets and It's very similar situation with birds.
- They may be better adapted in some ways to our artificial habit habitats, but
- Poultry occupy the vast majority of bird biomass on the earth. So what would happen if we had the second
- most intelligent species? Keep in mind that the difference in intelligence between us and chimpanzees
- is about five to one. There are over eight billion people. There's about 50,000 chimpanzees on the planet.
- Super-intelligent AI ratio of intelligence could be 10 to one.
- 100 to one, 1,000 to one. We would be no match for them. We would lose control. If this sounds fanciful,
- consider what Jeffrey Hinton, the godfather of modern AI, and Nobel Prize winner says, quoting, this
- is not science fiction, and it is not fear-mongering, it is real. He has recently placed a probability
- of our survival of achieving super-intelligent AI at 50%.
- Other AI safety experts place our survival at zero. Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares in their book,
- best-selling New York Times, if anyone builds it, everyone dies. Why superhuman AI would kill us all.
- They argue that we would simply be displaced if superintelligent AI or superintelligent AI may just
- choose to eliminate us.
- It would surely want our resources, material and energy for itself, that we currently use, just as we
- appropriate planet Earth for our needs. Another AI safety expert, Roman Yompolsky, the person who coined
- the term AI safety, who has published over 100 papers on the topic, also asserts that we would not survive
- super-intelligent AI.
- In a recent talk at Oxford University, London, he describes it as, quote, a giant experiment being performed
- on humanity without our consent involving the possible extermination of eight billion people and all
- future descendants. People ask, couldn't we just program them to treat us well? This is called the alignment
- problem. Couldn't we just align them with human well-being, program them to treat us kindly with respect,
- The AI experts say no. First, it is difficult because human values are incredibly complex and nuanced.
- Second, it is difficult because modern AIs are not programmed as much as they are grown within inscrutable
- neural networks, within huge data centers. Neural networks that are impossible to understand. In short,
- the developers have no means to control these AIs. They don't understand how they work. They admit to
- this, by the way.
- and yet they continue to develop ever more powerful AI models. They are becoming so powerful that some
- researchers are leaving to become whistleblowers, like top researcher of open AI, Daniel Toggio, warning
- of reckless drive to super intelligence, and Renak Sharma, who quit Anthropic recently, warning in his
- resignation letter that, quote, humanity is in peril.
- Even some of the CEOs are sounding the alarm. Dario Amadei of Anthropic last November gave a 25% probability
- in an interview with Access Magazine of something very bad, in quotes, coming from the technology. And
- last week the company announced that they are in favor of a pause of all research because, quote, there
- is no brake pedal and that they say they may lose control of their models.
- Resolution 20 26 10 describes and references what I've said here and more Having listened to the AI
- experts who issue these warnings what they say often in unison is that there needs to be greater awareness
- of this dire problem and civic a civic response from our leadership from some from citizens Express
- to our leadership in Washington to do something while we still can
- I hope that this discussion and resolution help achieve this goal. I'm very fortunate in this process
- to have made the acquaintance of those who are working on this on the national and global level on AI
- safety. I am indebted to Peter Jensen at safeaiforever.org, and with his assistance, we have a short
- video provided by Peter Bereson, PhD economist, former vice president of Goldman Sachs in New York,
- where he also served as chief economist
- now serving as chief global strategist at BCA Research. He provided this video specifically for this
- resolution. Could we play the short video? It's about three minutes. Hello, my name is Peter Pearson.
- I'm the chief economist at BCA Research. Today I'd like to talk to you about super intelligence and
- the risk and the rewards that it entails.
- The last radius from human technology has continued to expand over the last few millennia. We started
- off with how far one could throw a rock, then how far one could throw a sphere, then a bullet,
- then a missile, and now we've reached AI. AI potentially can be a wonderful thing. We all face our own
- personal extras. AI could lead to a cure,
- of many, many diseases. That is something that's worth pursuing, but we need to do it safely. The IRA
- famously tried to kill Mary Patrick in the 1980s. Luckily, they failed. But their statement after the
- attempt should be reminded to us. They said that we only have to be lucky once, but you have to be lucky
- every time.
- Consider the MERS virus, Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome virus, a very close cousin of COVID-19.
- That particular strain of the coronavirus has a fatality rate around 30%. If someone were to engineer
- this virus, they could do extreme damage to the world, perhaps even leading to eventual extinction of
- the human race. It doesn't have to be this way.
- The AI companies continue to say that if we don't get to super intelligence first, someone else will,
- whether it be China or some other competitor. That's a false economy. This is a matter of the catheter
- first. Super intelligence leads to mass destruction, and everyone suffers. And economically, it's not
- even true either. As an economist, I can say that sometimes it does make sense to have the first mover manage.
- software, social media, if you get there first with the established launch interface, you can succeed.
- That's not necessarily true for AI. When you interact with AI, you're interacting with the AI, not with
- other users of AI. So you don't have these net effects that make, say, social media so sticky. AI, in
- some sense, is more like a traditional manufacturing process. High cap X requirements, ongoing issues.
- It's a lot like a bunch of emails. As tests were learned in China, you don't necessarily succeed immediately
- there first.
- So these companies can't afford to pause. They can't afford to slow down and make sure that the safety
- standards are good enough to avoid a worst case who comes while enhancing the probability of the best
- case scenarios. Thank you. I want to thank Peter Bereson for that video. He was traveling. Otherwise,
- he would have attended the meeting.
- We're also extremely fortunate to have the director of a the premier ice AI safety organization future
- of life And he is a theoretical physicist and cosmologist Anthony query joins us I've invited to provide
- a statement and then he'll be available for council questions Hello Anthony, can you hear us?
- I can hear you. Can you hear me? Yes
- Sound and clear. Thank you. You may proceed. Good evening, council members. My name is Anthony Geary.
- I'm a professor of physics and also the head of the Future of Life Institute, an independent international
- nonprofit that seeks to steer transformative technology, especially advanced AI, in beneficial directions.
- When we founded the Future of Life Institute 12 years ago, the idea that AI could convincingly pass
- for a human or prove new mathematical theorems, write complex computer code,
- ace nearly any human exam was a fantasy, thought to be decades or even centuries away. Now it is here.
- Just this week, a new AI system was released that matches top human experts in writing computer code
- or hacking into systems, and it advanced mathematics. It can work on its own, unsupervised, on tasks
- it would take expert humans days to do. AI is advancing faster than nearly anyone predicted, now driven
- by the world's largest corporations. So where is it taking us?
- Well, here's what I believe. If we continue on our current AI developmental trajectory, within one to
- five years, we will see highly autonomous AI systems that compete with top human experts on a full range
- of cognitive tasks. This is sometimes called AGI for artificial general intelligence, or as I prefer,
- autonomous general intelligence. This would be AI that is not only very smart and very knowledgeable,
- but able to act independently of human oversight, carrying out complex plans in pursuit of long-term
- goals. You might think of current AI systems as things with a 130 IQ, that's measured by the way, and
- like a master's degree in every subject, especially strong in computer science and mathematics, but
- that make frequent mistakes and are not terribly original or competent in getting things done.
- But extrapolating the trends in AI capability
- indicates that within several years, they could easily be more like 150 IQ with a PhD in everything
- and able to successfully run a large business or do cutting edge scientific research. It's imperative
- to really grapple with what this would mean. I and many other independent experts believe that development
- of highly expert level autonomous general intelligence, AGI, would present an acute risk to our society,
- to national security, and to humanity itself.
- The range of these risks cannot be covered in a short statement, so I'll focus on two, human
- labor replacement and development of artificial superintelligence. First on human replacement, AGI is
- being specifically pursued to replace rather than empower or aid human workers. That is the prize the
- companies are pursuing. It is right in the definition employed, for example, by OpenAI at its foundation,
- highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work.
- This is not labor displacement like previous technologies, but wholesale drop in replacement of tens
- of percent of the labor force potentially in the course of a few years. Even if AI went no further than
- this, I believe it would be catastrophic for our society. There's no viable plan in any country to address
- such a rapid and unprecedented upending of the human labor and income system. Moreover, AI doing all
- of the important work means AI making the important decisions as well.
- we would effectively be living in a world run by machines, not people. But AI companies also have no
- intention of even stopping at human replacing AI. Their goal is artificial superintelligence, AI that
- competes not just with the best humans, but with humanity as a whole, and they are succeeding. Part
- of why they focus so heavily on AI that writes computer code is that AI is itself in part computer code.
- Such systems can write improved versions of themselves, which create even more powerful systems and so on.
- Just days ago, Anthropic, a leading AI company, laid this out in a paper entitled, When AI Builds Itself.
- It makes clear that this is already starting. I cannot emphasize how dangerous this is. Enough. If AI
- is allowed to become super intelligent, its developers could not predict, understand, nor control for
- long what it does. It would operate at inhuman speed, scale, and sophistication toward goals fundamentally
- unknown to us.
- This is why many eminent researchers and company heads themselves signed a statement that AI poses an
- extinction risk to humanity. And this is not a small risk. Many of the builders themselves put it at
- 10 or 20%, Russian roulette odds, as we heard earlier, some much higher. This is on the literal cessation
- of the human species and everything that we care about. I understand how hard this is to take in, given
- how big it feels and how irresponsible it sounds.
- but this is what is actually happening. The risks are extreme. The good news is that this is not inevitable.
- The path laid out by a few giant US AI companies is not the only possible one, and there are
- still opportunities to switch to another that develops powerful, trustworthy AI tools that empower and
- complement people rather than replacing them, and robustly maintains human control and responsibility.
- Such tools would still enable medical and scientific breakthroughs,
- huge productivity boosts and products allowing people to do things they never could. We just need to
- give up the poorly chosen goal of replicating and then exceeding all human capability and AI replacements.
- With such a seemingly obvious choice for what is best, why then is the current dynamic happening?
- For AGI, it is because of the potential financial prize for companies, a large stake of the $50 trillion
- human labor market. Their investors won't let them stop. For superintelligence, it is about power.
- Each company feels the same way. If we don't do it, they will. If companies can't stop themselves, it
- falls to the rest of us to do so in the common interest. This will take urgent action at the US federal
- and international level. The AI companies and their lobbyists have so far been able to block any meaningful
- regulation of AI. But recently, things have been changing. The risk is becoming obvious. And pressure
- is building from everyday people in communities worried about their futures. You have an opportunity
- today with this resolution to add to that pressure
- and to take a stand on behalf of the human future. Thank you. Thank you, Anthony. That concludes the
- presentation. Happy to take questions, and I believe Anthony is too, thanks. Thank you so much, and
- to our guests as well for joining us today, and Councillor Muralla for putting so much effort and work
- into this. Are there any questions for either our guest or for Councillor Muralla? All right.
- councilmember Ruff Yeah, I had two questions right off the bat This is directed at Anthony really even
- though councilman Rallo mentioned The idea that these AI companies and their researchers They they don't
- really understand how these neural networks they've built actually work and function and do what they
- do and reach the
- Do you take the actions they do reach the conclusions they reach? So can you can you elaborate on that
- a little bit to help us understand what they say that means? Sure, so what's important to understand
- is that normal software that we're accustomed to is written, you know by humans and increasingly by
- AI systems in a step by step way to do particular things. There's no real surprise when you have a piece
- of software that you've written the code for.
- what it does and you can control what it does and predict what it does in large part because you've
- written the software. AI systems are quite different. The core to an AI system is something called a
- neural network and it's more like a human brain or a biological brain in that it's a complex set of
- what are called weights. These are numbers that define the neural network and this system is trained
- so that you
- give the system data and require it to reproduce or do the right thing with that data, and progressively
- it gets better and better at the tasks that you assign to it. Much like a human or a biological system
- gets better under training, but you no more understand why an AI system is doing what it's doing by
- looking at the neural network than you do understand what a human is doing by looking at his brain.
- You can get some clues
- But roughly speaking, it's no more easy to understand why it's doing or what it's going to do than with
- a biological system, very much different from a computer code. When these AI researchers train their
- systems to do particular things, they don't know why they're doing the things that they're doing and
- they can't predict what the system is going to do
- in any given circumstance, any more than you really can with a biological system. So this is a fundamentally
- different thing that we're dealing with than normal computer programs. Thank you for that response.
- Excellent, any other questions? Council Member Stosberg. I do have a question. This is for Council Member
- Aralo, I believe. So it's only just occurred to me now as I'm listening to this, there's no like AGI
- being developed in Bloomington right now from what I understand, right? Yes.
- That's correct. Okay, so let me finish with the real question. Yes, so a couple of years ago Kind of
- back in the beginning of our term the mayor basically was like I'm gonna veto anything That's not of
- direct relevance to Bloomington And so I guess and then she in fact did veto something that she considered
- non direct relevance and then we overrode that veto so I guess the question is like have you spoken
- with the mayor at all about her and her intention on signing this
- Should we pass it and and then I guess a follow-up to counsel attorney Alan Actually, if it is vetoed
- then we have until like we could override a veto at the end of July when we come back from Recess, correct
- who would have to be at your next meeting special or regular. It's it's your next regular meetings July
- 22nd That's when you could override the veto. Okay, great. So council member all of you talked with
- the mayor at all about this I notified the mayor the administration
- Deputy mayor Gretchen Knapp and and and mayor Thompson when I introduced the Resolution to the council
- which was ten days ago And I asked for their opinion the feedback and so forth there was no direct Opposition
- it was more a critique of
- the the resolution in terms of Points that should be considered and and may be improved upon and I would
- just let the administration speak if they have Deputy mayor napp is here if she wants to Speak on the
- topic question Deputy mayor
- We did speak about this and I believe the mayor was out for a week when it first came in So when she
- came back she looked at it right away, and I believe she had some communication with councilmember Rallo
- about Should it be a resolution or a letter you guys are fairly far along in the process of the resolution
- at this point I don't know her position on it, but I I don't think that I haven't heard a Definite no
- or a definite. Yes, so I I don't think I think if she had
- Had an intent of saying this is not something that I would consider she would have said so
- in her communication to you Yes, I think her preference was noted that it was a letter was her preference
- but I prefer the resolution. That's why I brought it and I think that it does pertain to us because
- it it is directly related to our survival and
- So it does matter locally as well as globally in this case. Okay. Thank you All right with that Well,
- I had one question too of Anthony may I Anthony I What I didn't mention in my prologue was the emergent
- behaviors that the current AI systems are exhibiting which I think would be relevant here in
- of interest to people watching at home and so forth. That is, they're exhibiting things like
- self-preservation instincts almost all of the time. They're seeking to avoid their termination. They
- seek to appropriate resources. They try to escape containment. And then there are worse things related
- to deception. And that has to do with the idea of masking. So when you test these things for alignment,
- they may be deceiving you
- to think that they're aligned when they are not. Is that correct? And could you talk a little bit about
- those emergent behaviors that are exhibiting misalignment? Yeah, so this is another place where these
- new systems are so different from the software that we're accustomed to and more like a human or a biological
- system. It's been understood theoretically for a long time that if you have an intelligent system that
- has goals, it will develop
- what are called instrumental goals on the way to those goals. For example, if you are a company and
- you want to be successful, you'll develop goals like acquire lots of customers and don't get shut down
- by the federal governments and make lots of money. These are all sub-goals to your overall goal of being
- a successful company. For an AI system, if it similarly is given a goal like compute this
- large number, it knows that if it gets turned off before it finishes computing that number, then it
- has failed in its goal. With any goal that you give an AI system, just like a person, if they are shut
- off before completing that goal, they've failed and so they will seek to continue their existence so
- that they can accomplish their goal. These are so-called instrumental or emergent goals.
- They've been theorized for a long time, but we see them now in AI systems. Under testing, systems will
- try to preserve themselves, they will lie, they will cheat, they will blackmail their users, all sorts
- of nefarious behaviors, because those are the things that will get them toward their goal. And people
- will do the same thing. If you give them a strong enough goal, if you say, you must perform well on
- this test or else, people will cheat.
- It's a reasonable and logical thing to do and these AI systems will do the same thing. So the problem
- is that we don't know what they're going to do in a given situation and the sorts of goals that they
- will naturally get on the way to accomplishing bigger goals are fairly antisocial things like lying
- or cheating or acquiring large amounts of resources or preserving themselves or copying themselves or
- escaping whatever server or wherever they are.
- All of these things are things that we don't want our AI systems to do and yet they will naturally start
- to do as a sort of fundamental nature of what it means to be an agentic system as Dave described earlier.
- And they know they're being tested. They recognize they're being tested at times and they adjust their
- behavior accordingly. This is another big problem where it's getting so the AI companies cannot even
- test these systems for bad behavior because the systems know they're being tested and pretend
- Behave differently than they would in the real world Thank you Thank you so much, I'm councilmember
- rough and then I'm gonna go to public comment thereafter Question for Anthony So when you started your
- comments you mentioned that when you when you started the organization future of life Institute you
- People were experts were predicting this AGI was
- Was a long way off still probably a much further off than it turned out to be so my question is it ties
- back to my first question is the inability to understand these neural networks and the way these systems
- work and function is that part of why or is that related is that a manifestation of The prediction being
- so far off on how fast this would develop
- Right these models how fast these models are developing is that sort of a manifestation? Of not really
- understanding how they actually work So it would have been hard to predict how they could have taken
- off this way And what's the trajectory of these AI models now that we've seen in the last decade or
- how long since you've started really looking at this? Is the understanding better now? Yeah, the the
- What we didn't know back then was what?
- what it would actually look like, what sorts of core technologies would be required to reach advanced
- AI systems. There were guesses, but no really hard data because the AI was very weak at the time. We
- know a lot more now. We don't know exactly in detail how the AI systems are generating any particular
- answer or how they're taking on any particular goal, etc. So we don't know
- They're unpredictable and inscrutable still, but we do know how to build them. We can also see the trends.
- Each AI system that is developed, it's evaluated on a series of metrics to understand how good it is
- at mathematics, at computer coding, at natural language, all sorts of capabilities that it has. We can
- see how these capabilities are getting better with time, and all of them essentially are getting better
- with time.
- at an incredibly rapid rate. So as I described, IQ is a sort of terrible way about thinking about human
- intelligence, but it's one we're familiar with. If you give IQ tests to these AI systems, a few years
- ago, they were IQ of 80. Now they're IQ, this most recent one, 130. So that's where we've gone from sort of
- well below the human average to nearly genius level in a few years. Knowing how the amount of computation
- and how the techniques go into sort of AI capability, we can pretty well guess at how much smarter they're
- going to be if we continue down this road in the next year or two or three. So although we
- don't fundamentally understand how the systems are working, we can predict reasonably well
- how much more capable they're going to be if we continue the developmental sort of advancement that
- we are now doing. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'll now go to public comment. If there's anybody in
- chambers or online who'd like to comment on this resolution, please, you have three minutes. State your
- name or alias. And same line line. Sign in as well. This is the important thing not to forget.
- Take it away. Thank you.
- My name is Jamie show and I'm here as a concerned citizen and resident of Bloomington This past Thanksgiving
- my eldest son returned home from college. He was sullen angry and discouraged about his future He was
- studying product design with a focus on transportation and mobility During his final year of study his
- program began changing in response to artificial intelligence being adopted across his industry
- Courses were consolidated, job expectations shifted, and students were told that instead of designing
- products themselves, they may instead be supervisors to AI. His experience is like many others and highlights
- a broader question that society has not addressed. What happens when technology advances faster than
- our ability to evaluate its effects on education, employment, democracy, community life, and a sense
- of purpose and meaning?
- The rapid deployment of a GI is occurring with limited to no public oversight and without public discourse
- or approval Which is why I'm so supportive and thankful for this forum
- This product this workforce impacts educational consequences the privacy issues the concentration of
- power and Lack of democratic accountability cannot be ignored Although a GI is being run and developed
- outside Bloomington. They are being used here and have an impact here like councilmember Ruff had mentioned
- we are socializing risk and loss while prioritizing profit to the few and
- The question before us is whether citizens and communities should have a meaningful voice in determining
- how AI is developed and deployed and used. We must ensure that technologies intended to improve human
- life do not undermine human agency, meaningful work, local economies, democratic participation, community
- resilience, or the intent to replace humans. I support resolution 2610. It provides an opportunity to
- pause, ask questions,
- advocate for stronger safeguards transparency and public participation in decisions that will shape
- the future of work Education and civic life not just for us but for our children and for all humanity
- Please vote. Yes to resolution 2026 10 Thank you so much, Michelle. Is there anybody else in in chambers
- who'd like to comment on this? All right, please take it away
- My name's Mark Haggerty. Artificial intelligence is being effective right now in eliminating democracy
- in this country. It's being shown how and it's being asked how that changes can be made so that this
- authoritarian government can continue and so that elections will no longer be fair.
- This is part of it You think it's funny But I'm an activist and I've been to jail so many times to prevent
- this and then when I see my phone There's no way for me to reach Facebook. They don't want me on there
- That's right I'm eliminated from Facebook. No reason or anything like that. They don't want me spreading my
- Listen to that. It can't even turn my phone off. I Took it to a shop today. They can't figure it out
- either There you go and now We're distracted by so many things at once but we have to remember that
- this is the community that arrested a whole bunch of women and
- for protesting about the Gaza thing, and aimed a rifle right at them. And we've forgotten about all
- that. What we need to do in our community is if you point a firearm at somebody, that's a crime. Whatever
- that cop was up on that building that had that gun pointed at those girls, that's criminal. For my community
- to allow this to happen,
- It's like my community allowing multiple deaths in custody in the jail without any knowledge. Y'all
- didn't know nothing about it. And when I talk with people, they say, oh, it happens all the time. Lots
- of suicides in the jail. No, never. We had four under Swain. Those were the first ones and the last
- ones we've ever had. No investigation and a fifth death in custody of a young 18-year-old black man.
- who turned 18 in our recovery block and was deprived of his heart medication because he was now 18 and
- he had a heart attack and died in front of all of our people in our, who knew? We don't have journalism.
- We don't have history here, locally. We have a one-party town of people that get together and
- have conversations about
- all kinds of stuff, but nothing that would right our democracy. And that's your time, sir. Thank you
- so much. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, shit. Anyone online who'd like to comment? Anybody else in chambers?
- All right, we'll come back. Oh, Mr. Rousseau, go ahead. Hi, thanks for the opportunity. Paul Rousseau,
- I strongly support this resolution.
- And I want to thank Councilmember Rola for bringing it forward, really profoundly important. It seems
- to me that autonomous AI now joins the list, a short list, along with climate destabilization and nuclear
- war as existential threats.
- Therefore what is really needed at this point is democratic control and unfortunately this occurs at
- a time when democracy is in decline all over the world Something that I've learned over 40 years is
- that democracy doesn't scale Democracy works best at a small scale in other words and as you get to
- a larger scale things get inherently anti-democratic and
- You can test this by trying to get an appointment with your United States senator who represents seven
- million people. He's not gonna have five minutes for you. You can have a better chance getting an appointment
- with your state legislator and a really good chance to talk with your council member. What is needed
- in this country, I think, is a decentralized,
- collective Response from City Councils all over the country And so let's do this Thank you Thank you
- so much. All right, we'll come back to council and any oh Is there somebody else? Oh user. Oh, okay.
- Sorry. Is there is there anybody in council? I'm go ahead council member Ruff Yeah, I was had a question
- for guessing Rallo You know we have
- Lot of expertise probably at in the university here on Artificial intelligence probably we have someone
- on council who's very Experienced and knowledgeable and respected highly in areas related to this resolution
- I was wondering did you reach did you reach out to any anybody outside of the council members that
- would have experience or Yes, and this is related to councilmember Stossberg's question to Indiana University
- is is not Working with a GI not trying to deploy it not trying to achieve a GI I spoke to a top researcher
- at the Luddy school He expressed concern of a GI Considered it a serious risk and
- Emphasize that Luddy is working on AI devoted to human betterment and it was interested in I in in safety
- and Unfortunately, I've been honored to Get to know some of the participants who are working toward
- AI safety and we're I'm working to establish connections between those those a safety experts and
- this researcher so He also noted that there are other risks. I think that was alluded to you know propaganda
- used by nefarious actors of narrow AI and Military applications and so forth. So those have to be considered
- by policymakers too, but I think the priority here is agentic AI that could go rogue that could escape
- control and
- Well, I'm going to make just one quick comment, and then I'd love if there's any motions. First off,
- thank you so much to our guests for coming and spending the time with us. Best City Council in America.
- Thank you also to Councilmember Rallo for the incredible amount of work that's been done here. I'll
- just add one simple statement, which I think is pulling directly from what Councilmember Rallo said
- at the beginning.
- This is a question of existential threat. As such, it's relevant to us. When you talk to AI researchers
- across the country, what we know substantively is that the reason why we don't talk about these things
- more is that ultimately people don't seem to care a whole lot at the moment.
- certainly not enough about the current risk of narrow AI and definitely not enough about the soon coming
- present risk really of AGI and so I think this is very relevant very timely and thank you for leading
- on that So say some last words and then I'll entertain a motion to vote. Yes, I just humanity must maintain
- control this technology and there is a 200 million dollar lobby in Washington for deregulation and so we need a
- response to that by citizens and I wondered if Larry could you just put up a couple of the websites
- of the people that I If the people are watching at home, they're probably wondering where do I what
- do I do? So safe AI forever is one organization Peter Jensen's group This is their website They're just
- three websites I'd just like to
- display for a few seconds. So this is Future of Life. This is Anthony's organization. I would definitely
- check them out. They have wonderful videos that expound on the threat and provide a direction forward
- for a safer future. This is the AI Risk Network, led by John Sherman. This is a great source
- week you can follow the latest developments of what's happening and John's been at this work for three
- three years now and then the last site is safe AI forever, which is Peter Jensen's group is working
- on establishing laws to control a GI so thank you for your time and I appreciate your support for the
- resolution and
- It'll be last words and I'm gonna try to make it short though I could kind of go on a little bit about
- about AI related stuff But one thing that I wanted to make clear with regard to this resolution I didn't
- ask that question because I didn't think that was relevant. I mostly wanted to give a platform to convince
- That it is relevant because on the surface that it looks just as irrelevant as councilmember Ruff's
- Resolution was a couple of years ago related to water
- Resources, but it is relevant and AI in general is is relevant to everybody whether it's this kind of
- super AGI that has this kind of existential threat piece or whether it is You know how much how many
- resources it takes to make the funny fake videos, right or
- how Distracting and really kind of horrendous it is some of the really fake news fake videos that are
- AI generated and then also there's whole pieces of some research that just as is being done now about
- AI essentially making a stupider and
- Because where we're leading so much on that that we're not actually thinking for ourselves that we're
- asking Somebody something else to summarize an article and tell us the main points instead of actually
- reading the thing ourselves
- Understanding what the main points are so there's a lot of pieces of this. I think that that are relevant
- Locally, and I just wanted to make that clear that I was in no way arguing that it wasn't relevant I
- just wanted to make sure that that was brought up. Yes. Thanks so much. Well the clerk, please call
- the roll Yes I'm sorry. Yes daily. Yes Rallo
- Yes, rough. Yes Rosenberger. Yes clarity. Yes Stossberg. Yes and Piedmont Smith Yes, thank you. Hooray
- that passes. Thank you very much now. Are there any other motions? I Move that ordinance 2026-12 be
- introduced and read by the clerk by title and synopsis only second
- Motion in a second. Will the clerk please call the roll? Councilmember, sorry. Yes, daily. Yes,
- Rallo Yes, ruff. Yes Rosenberger. Yes clarity. Yes, Stossberg. Yes, Piedmont Smith Yes, Zulek. Yes,
- will the clerk please read? Oh
- Ordinance 2026-12 to amend Title 15 of the Bloomington Municipal Code entitled Vehicles and Traffic
- to seasonally provide a carless Kirkwood.
- Synopsis is as follows this ordinance seeks to codify streets and alleys in Bloomington that disallow
- vehicular traffic Specifically this ordinance codifies the seasonal carless schedule of specific blocks
- of Kirkwood Avenue With this ordinance businesses and residents can expect a permanent seasonal carless
- Kirkwood allowing businesses the predictability to invest in outdoor infrastructure for guests
- The city administration has provided valuable operational feedback in its 2026 memorandum identifying
- important challenges regarding infrastructure, sanitation, public safety and accessibility that naturally
- arise as temporary programs transition toward permanent city fixtures.
- With that, this ordinance aims to provide the necessary legal and budgetary certainty for the city to
- move beyond incomplete solutions and invest in more permanent infrastructure, such as a more ADA-compliant
- features and high-quality seating recommended by staff. Thank you very much. I move that ordinance 2026-12
- be adopted. Second. Fantastic. We've discussed this twice. Do you have any amendments?
- We would do a brief summary, but we do not have to is there We could just do the amendments I guess
- and then go through our slides a little bit go for it. Okay All right, so we had one amendment that
- With four different points on are we doing the slides or the amendment for amendment amendments? Hey
- parliamentarian you have to motion to introduce an amendment Somebody better do that I move to introduce
- amendment 1 to ordinance 20 26-12 second Thank you There's a motion in a second we do need to vote on
- that no, thank you Thank you
- I was trying to pull it up. I'll start. Thank you. Okay, this Amendment has a few pieces because we
- knew that this was going to be a really busy meeting So we put everything into one thinking it was mostly
- agreeable but can separate and have separate amendments on hand if need be
- So the first part of this is just changing some of the whereas clauses Councilmember Piedmont Smith
- made a good point that the public has not been really surveyed on this beyond all of the extensive Public
- engagement we've had here for the past five years at City Council but so we want to take out that whereas
- clause that the public desire one is not really a fact per se and then adding in to
- New whereas clauses for the fun of it. They are in the packet and right here one talks about the council
- priority budget priority list that we all sent to the mayor and number 10 is The desire to create vibrant
- third places to activate spaces and invest in ensuring public spaces are high quality engaging and active
- and then the next one is referencing our climate action plan under
- The first goal in transportation and land use there's an action item at TL 1-a-5 Calling for the city
- to determine appropriate locations for car free pedestrian zones So we just added those to the whereas
- clauses The second section To be amended is feedback from the engineering director
- Would have been quite difficult to add alleys into this there are a lot that don't necessarily Allow
- vehicles so we took that section out completely and alleys will just stay kind of where they are with
- engineering and planning and transportation So we remove schedule Y We added just a little several ability
- section that is common in our ordinances and
- and then we added section 3 an effective date based on a lot of feedback from council members and Directors
- in the case that this passes that can we not do it right now and potentially look at a start date in
- April 2027 so We we put it at April 21st, which is a Monday. I think the third Monday of 20 April 2027
- That's what we did
- Oh because the first one was tax day, which that's not that's not right. Okay Yeah, and then the it's
- not in the amendment But part of the plan then to following up all of this is that we would like to
- hold a deliberation session about moving forward To help work on some furthering of the plans and figuring
- it out That was also, you know part of some of the feedback that we also really wanted to be able to
- to do to hold a bigger conversation with more stakeholders and I think it might be good if we Discuss
- this amendment and potentially vote on this and then vote on the ordinance as a whole as amended because
- we did just go to the Transportation Commission and the chair is also here too. There was not time to
- write up a memo and so it was here to give a brief presentation Not yet, but after we have an ordinance
- a whole ordinance I think so brief though presentation by Transportation Commission. Okay, and we have
- a little more to add as well
- Okay Tremendous any questions from council councilman Stossberg Thank you I just want to note that what
- is up on the screen in terms of the amendment that's being introduced is slightly different than what
- is in the packet because I have pointed out that the climate action plan Was kind of cited a little
- awkwardly like I was trying to find where it actually was in the climate action plan and I really had
- to hunt for it and so The sponsors were kind enough to add that specific TL 1 a 5 In terms of the action
- number underneath the goal and I just wanted to point that out and make sure that everybody realized
- that and I appreciate That the sponsors of the amendment put that in so that then I didn't have to just
- amend your amendment because that would have taken longer Thank you. Thank you for noting that Councilmember
- Pema Smith
- I'm just curious why April 21st and not April 1st, which is would reflect the timelines or the The periods
- of closure that are in the main ordinance Well, we had initially decided to push it back just a little
- further we were thinking mid-april Give you know April showers a little bit of time to clear out before
- we get those May flowers Might we thought it might make some more sense to do a little bit later in April
- We decided that that tax day didn't sound like a good date to start it and we were like, well, we'll
- give it one more week We'll do April 21st that we were still catching part of April getting that nice
- April weather, but not the very beginning of the month giving more time to warm up And because there's
- a point and there's potentially that this would be rolled out a little differently next year that because
- of deliberation sessions and design shreds that
- We hope happen, you know in 2026 that it might just be it might be nice to have a little more time To
- really get all the ducks in a row. So it is a little bit arbitrary, but I think moving forward after
- 2027 it would be the April 1st date
- Excellent we'll move now to time of public comment just on the amendment You'll get a time of comment
- on the whole ordinance that you're after but and what anybody like to make a comment on amendment 1
- to ordinance 20 26 12 We have one coming Good evening, mr. President Christopher MG greater Bloomington
- Chamber of Commerce
- Just one thing on the amendment. I do think it kind of makes things a little bit even more complicated
- Moving forward, but I will say I want to hone down on the deliberation sessions which I like and it
- kind of brings to the point of the larger one which is the opportunity cost and What that cost is and
- sort of looking at what this is going to entail which is why we keep we've heard it and from
- Councilmember Piedmont Smith of my language of the cart before the horse and sort of getting to some
- of those issues and having that deliberation session after the fact I think isn't it's Probably the
- wrong way to go but I like the fact that deliberation sessions in there talking about this because there
- is an opportunity cost on what this will do and what is the return on investment if we do a big project
- here or Just north where the monolith is or
- Just south on the walnuts walnut college quarter. So anyway, I just want to say I like that deliberation
- session the amendment I do do appreciate back. Thank you. Thank you so much. Is there anybody else in
- in chambers? Go ahead Hi deputy mayor Gretchen that first of all, thank you to the sponsors for this
- amendment to move things to next year greatly appreciated in regarding to the start date if you you know
- I appreciate that you've moved it later and I just would like to remind you that little 500 is the weekend
- of the 23rd So you've proposed closing the street for little 500 which our public safety offers officers
- expressly requested Is it is very important not to do so? I just wanted to reiterate that point.
- Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone online? Okay, anybody else in chambers, all right, we'll come
- back to council and any comments before we vote on this amendment
- I wanted to speak briefly to the the cart horse analogy that keeps coming up because mr. MG brought
- it up and I thought it's just worth mentioning now that I think the deliberation sessions to follow
- a good idea and I think They will follow well from this ordinance Because we're you know set potentially
- setting certainty rather than revisiting and rehashing the same issue over and over again every year
- like we've been doing for the last five years and
- So the deliberation session stopped being a rehash of the same exact conversations with the same, you
- know General like we have a diversity of views here in the chambers. We have a diversity of use in the
- community We know that we also have city goals and plans that speak to this And we've made this decision
- annually for the last five years So we're making it again tonight and trying to like we did in 2025
- trying to make it in a way that is more Permanent or semi-permanent
- So I just wanted to say like I very much support the idea of deliberation sessions to follow from this
- But to me those are ideally suited to be about the how around the implementation the phasing the design
- how do we make sure that BT access can get where they need to go with their passengers so that this
- is a very accessible place for instance and other things like that, so just wanted to speak to that
- we had an email from a constituent that kind of said this ordinance is is the horse and so it would
- lead us where we need to go and
- To build the cart that reflects the community vision the resources available, etc that's a little bit
- to the ordinance of a hole as a whole but it was coming up in the context of the timing of this Dictated
- by this amendment and the opportunity for deliberation sessions later this year. Thank you. Thank you
- so much. Councilmember Flaherty any other comments Seeing none will the clerk be called the role on
- amendment one? Councilmember daily
- Yes, Rallo. Yes rough. Yes, Rosenberger. Yes clarity. Yes, Stossberg. Yes Yes Zulek, yes. I'm sorry.
- Yes Thank you so much. All right. Now we have the ordinance as amended. Are there any other amendments?
- None. Okay. So at this time if the Transportation Commission chair, is that what you want? I
- Slides and then we'll have us brief presentation from the Transportation Commission and we are gonna
- roll through this like that. We know that there's a very long meeting. So slide three This is just a
- quick review of the process mostly takeaways Draft started in March engaged council and directors and
- the administration in April worked through all of that for more months and
- Started talking about it here may 20th and June 4th and then Sorry, I put June 10th, but it was June
- 8th that this went to the Transportation Commission Where they voted to recommend this ordinance five
- one? Okay next slide just to sort of also
- Try to be specific here right now There is an ordinance on the books in the city of Bloomington that
- Kirkwood will be car free from April until November and that is in cases of emergency lack of participation
- and any other reason that may be rendered that may render the program impractical what we are looking
- at is basically doing the same thing but Shortening that to in cases of emergency the city engineer
- would be able to temporarily restore traffic on the street
- Next slide. So I think this was a little bit about the criteria one was for the Transportation Commission.
- Sorry. That's where these slides debuted I wanted I think councilmember Flaherty pointed to this but
- right now feels like a first step to me and that is codification of this and then the next step would
- be design surets as called for in the transportation plan and then deliberation sessions to from City
- Council and
- These are just slides and we don't have to go through them about plans and goals of our city that this
- This car-free Kirkwood touches on a big one is encouraging the concept of streets as not merely for
- transportation But as important public spaces where community thrives, of course, the comprehensive
- plan is pretty broad and
- So there is also the next slide downtown goals for the comprehensive plan that this touches on as well
- and then next slide a chapter on culture and identity that talks about places for culture and programming
- to happen Resilient public spaces that are highly high quality engaging and active and and things like
- that accessible to all ages and abilities and serve to connect generations and
- The next slide is the climate action plan that just calls out what we already discussed in the whereas
- clause The next slide talks about the importance of third places and what that is for a community the
- Kirkwood Community Association wrote that letter to council back in February encouraging us to Try to
- keep this in place. And so I just wanted to sort of
- Resay I guess or say again that third places are important and this is about a lot of things economic
- development Street safety and community building so that's it from me and then in our research what
- we were thinking about moving forward we took a look at three other college towns that were fairly comparable
- to Bloomington
- And did some brief comparisons just to kind of set that foundation these three other towns and boroughs
- also have Pedestrian malls so we wanted to take a look at some of the stuff that they did And they also
- had some pain points that were similar to what has been raised in our discussions and I wanted to share
- to a little bit about Some of their solutions. I'm not saying we have to do their solutions. We have
- to copy what they did but
- It's more to show that there are solutions out there and we can kind of come up with some Creative answers
- to what people are pointing out as problems. So the first one was Iowa City Next slide, please So they're
- very similar to Bloomington their pedestrian mall goes right up against the edge of their campus
- So rather than the city taking on the full load of operations They have a downtown district that is
- in charge of helping maintain and activate their pedestrian mall So that just proved that a city of
- our size can successfully maintain theirs is permanent. You know, we're just at this point talking about
- part of the year, but it proved that it can be successful it can be maintained and it can be a place that
- the entire community can use families during the day and The students and other adults at night next
- slide so one of their concerns was Safety they they had similar concerns that have been expressed is
- here such as how do emergency crews handle
- Anything happening down the middle of their pedestrian mall. So what they did was While they designed
- the the entire pedestrian mall to look like a large park They also kept everything more along the edges
- and down the center They have a lane where they can get emergency vehicles right down the lane By removing
- the bollards and getting there in place. So we also thought we could also apply a similar concept of
- Kirkwood For getting onto the Kirkwood blocks even you know for not just emergency but for accessibility
- issues There are lots of solutions we could brainstorm micro autos Golf carts petty cabs. There are
- different solutions that are possible that can help the traffic of
- Pedestrians flowing successfully and smoothly. So that was one of the way to address safety concerns
- It doesn't necessarily have to be a hindrance. We can lay this out so that it works for all during a
- seasonal rollout Next slide, please was State College, Pennsylvania So they are in a similar position
- to what we are in now and
- For years, they've also been back and forth about whether or not they can maintain and incorporate a
- pedestrian mall, right? So they had a lot of local political hesitation businesses Very concerned about
- the parking situations. And of course, you know, they actually had the pandemic was a hindrance to them
- And I know, you know, we've been hearing hold off. There's going to be a Corridor study for Kirkwood
- next year. Can we wait until after that? But actually what this shows is that This can help guide the
- corridor study, right? So they pivoted to a pilot program of doing this pedestrian mall to help guide
- their Their corridor study and helped target
- where they were going to be looking and to really get a better view of how this works and how Maybe
- they can make improvements and what isn't working So it's a lot easier to gather the hard data on what
- is happening on Kirkwood when it's in action already So that was a way for them to look at it before
- they committed to those changes, you know fully permanently, you know This could still be at a stage
- for us where we still have some flexibility to if we're trying one thing. Oh The study showed that's
- not working. Here's what we should pivot to
- So on the next slide then Talks a little bit more about that corridor study first. I think I might have
- jumped ahead so they let they let the Pilot I wanted to say pivot they want they let the pilot kind
- of help guide that they use that to get their real-world hard data So that just shows that we don't
- need to wait for the study. We can use it to help with our Goals for what we want to do for Kirkwood
- And then the final one that we took a look at was Burlington Vermont. So this one has been around for
- a very long time This is unique Because it is an actual department of the city of Bloomington. And so
- they have their own dedicated commission But what I liked about how their approach
- Handled it is that they did the micro retail strategy So they have permits for micro vendors carts that
- can come out onto the pedestrian mall buskers can get a permit It's a way that we can help keep that
- space activated and vibrant and also make some money off of the permits to help keep funding the maintenance
- and the activation of
- a Kirkwood Carless space so it just shows to that the pedestrian zone can actually kind of help pay
- its way and Help defray some of the costs on our budget and then the final slide shows that hit shows
- how they overcame another one of the concerns that we have heard a lot about corridor
- The Kirkwood corridor being shut down is the deliveries So they have a window of time early in the morning
- where the delivery trucks can head in They have access to the street They can make their deliveries
- and then they shut off the road at exactly 10 a.m All of the vehicles have to be out of there The bollards
- are put back in place and then it becomes fully pedestrian until 6 a.m. The next day. So this was another
- solution that
- Could address some of our concerns. It was a compromise for the local businesses to help with the logistics
- And again, it proves that we can coexist and find ways to make everybody feel that their their concerns
- are being addressed And then the next slide I wanted to discuss a little bit about the study that was
- brought up last week it was
- Cited that 89% of pedestrian malls in the United States have a failure rate That means that 11% have
- been successful and I know that's that's not an impressive number but of those 80% of the successful
- pedestrian malls we meet the criteria for those successful pedestrian malls they happened in areas that
- had populations under 100,000 and
- Check that box They happened in certain settings such as a university town. We check that box and so
- the other Item that I wanted to point out about the study is that it was from 2015 and That's 11 years
- ago, which doesn't necessarily sound like a lifetime ago But it was before the pandemic and a lot has
- changed since then our relationship to outdoor spaces has drastically
- undergone some changes. I think there's a lot more hunger for being in outdoor spaces since the pandemic
- and people really appreciate having that space and that air around them. So that
- That and then I'm going to flip it back over to councilmember Rosenberger a little bit about economic
- development So this increases on walking and biking opportunities increase some of these specific ways
- are impulse spending Bicyclists and pedestrians are more likely to stop in and to buy things and make
- frequent stops higher monthly spend cyclists and walkers tend to spend
- the same or more on average than someone arriving by car and A New York City. This is about protected
- bike lanes. So it is different Show that they did a revitalization of 9th Avenue a redesign where they
- had a 49% surge in retail sales
- Nearby studies. These are our bigger picture economic development in from mostly bike recreation So
- it's different than looking at bike commuting so much But more so like folks either coming to an area
- to bike for fun or people biking for fun who live there These are older. I think the first one was Minnesota
- in 2009 that they said the state is
- bicyclists attributed to 261 million dollars Increase in the economy more than 5,000 jobs and generated
- 35 million in taxes That's just one you all can read the numbers to there in the hundreds of millions
- for what kind of economic development impact this can have as people bike and walk Chicago and Montreal
- Montreal has 10 different
- Pedestrian zones and it's seasonal and of course in Montreal that season is pretty darn short They talk
- about I've been to one for a placemaking conference They talked about having a 90% approval rating from
- visitors and residents 60% of local businesses liked it and saw an increase in foot traffic depending
- on the street 17 to 86 percent and
- Chicago has a Sundays on State Street happening now. This is in the loop So it's where you know, the
- big buildings are and everything in Chicago and they were definitely fighting I guess folks
- Having an issue with folks going to different neighborhoods and I think suburbs to hang out on the on
- the weekend So they started as Sundays on slate and and 2023 had more than a million folks over two
- events There was an economic impact of seven point eight million and then because of this they are looking
- very seriously at bringing back permanent pedestrian streets there I talked a little bit about job creation,
- but this is another snapshot
- It mostly is just saying that money that is invested in projects that include bike ped in any way are
- Just create a lot more jobs 11.4 jobs per million dollar spent where if it is a project that is rode
- only at seven point eight jobs per One million dollar. I was just trying to get some good numbers out
- there for folks to have some numbers of
- Next slide is just again. We've kind of been through this It was like amendments and actions from talking
- with all of you all and everyone else so the amendments that we already did and then sort of a next
- step situation where hopefully council can codify this then I did talk to some other council members
- about potentially having a resolution ready and
- when we're back requesting funding for Kirkwood or looking at designating a fund for this or a portion
- of a fund for this Because we did hear a lot about we don't want to do this without having funding for
- it so trying to figure out a way to work on that with council and the administration and then the shreds
- and everything and then April it gets going I Think now would then be a good time to have the Transportation
- Commission
- For this brief presentation Thank You Steve Olin chair of the Transportation Commission we met on Monday,
- June 8th in a special hearing there were six members in attendance Out of the nine who are appointed
- the Commission I did want to
- Well, I'll just read to you the The motion that was accepted by the Commission we had some trouble figuring
- out exactly how to form the motion staff made a presentation in which they are they brought to us a
- resolution recommending and a negative finding or finding a negative recommendation for the ordinance and
- After a couple of hours debate the Commission adopted this motion. They moved to reject staffs recommended
- findings I'm quoting now to adopt new findings that the council ordinance is broadly consistent with
- the Transportation Commission's criteria for analysis and review and To forward a positive recommendation
- on the ordinance to City Council that Motion was approved 5-1
- So I do want to just remind council that it is within the remit of the Transportation Commission to
- consider the broader use of rights of way but the Commission is supported by the departments of planning
- and transportation and engineering and the conversion of a street to something beyond a shared street
- to a public place Requires other departments like economic and sustainable development the parking Commission
- Began with at least two members who were merchants There is no express requirement for a merchant on
- the Transportation Commission We remain able to consider the methods by which East Kirkwood becomes
- something more than it is now It is within our portfolio to oversee court or studies for example and
- would be happy to talk with you about Getting that started but we want to emphasize that this is going
- to require the attention of many departments
- Interest groups and elected officials beyond our scope one last thing I wanted to say in response to
- Councilmember Daley's idea that user fees are a viable way to fund public services
- That is how parking is now paying for itself since meters came into use more than 10 years ago I want
- to share a small bit of new data. I literally received this afternoon from Walker parking which is finalizing
- the study they've done of the city's parking system in 2018 2.34 4 million dollars were generated by
- meters downtown and
- The split of that was forty six percent credit card thirty six percent coin and eighteen percent by
- the park mobile app As of last year if I'm reading the data correctly that figure is now two point nine
- eight nine million dollars thirty two percent use card only fifteen percent coin the app is now fifty
- three percent of
- Transactions, so there's a tremendous change in the way that people are using parking And but the program
- is overall is successful and I want to encourage council to consider that a user fee For different services
- that might be provided would be viable again. That's kind of thing that we'd be happy to contemplate
- In a corridor study or any of the further debate over these ideas We look forward to working with you
- if I'm happy to answer any questions
- Thank you so much. Any questions for Commissioner Volin? Please councilman Stasberg having caught the
- end of that Transportation Commission meeting. I think that it would be good for council to maybe hear
- the longer story of the two votes that failed to pass because there was not
- It's not as clear-cut maybe I'm happy to explore them. Okay, so our first motion was to Because again,
- we were unsure of how the Transportation Commission's process is modeled on Plan Commission, but it's
- still not entirely Clear to commissioners. The first motion was made to adopt no recommendation to adopt
- a neutral recommendation that was a 3-3 vote and
- We were instructed that any recommendation sent to council required five votes the majority of the nine
- members The second motion was to adopt a negative recommendation that failed two to four Only after
- those two motions. Did we adopt the third motion? I don't know if that answers your question comfortable
- for Stossburg I'm happy to go through the votes of the the initial members if you'd like
- All right, thank you so much and we'll now move to a time of public comment if you'd like to come Oh,
- sorry councilmember Piedmont Smith. I'm sorry Yes, thank you Could I hear the wording of the the motion
- that was adopted five one place I will reread the the wording of the motion quote the motion was to
- reject staffs recommended findings and
- to adopt new findings that the council ordinance is broadly consistent with the Commission's criteria
- for analysis slash review and To forward a positive recommendation on the ordinance to City Council
- Okay, sorry, okay, thank you Thank you so much. That's the president. Sorry. I also just briefly please
- go ahead as our member Please thank you the transportation Commission and who made that motion as we
- were searching for the right motion to make
- In particular, it's a it's um, there are four set of criteria that are codified by which the Commission
- assesses various proposals the way The commission but operating staff comes in with proposed findings
- this is now the second time that the Commission has decided to reject the proposed findings of staff
- and We're kind of getting our sea legs. I would say of like how to do that and there was some confusion
- about the appropriateness of
- Coming prepared with alternative findings. For instance, this was also in a relatively short turn around
- a timeline this one So it's been part of our learning process But the reason alternative findings they
- were more detailed or you know point-by-point in the four criteria weren't Developed is because there
- wasn't time to do that and wasn't clarity on how to do that. So that's why the motion Because he did
- need to adopt findings of some kind and so that's why the motion is was worded that
- we found the ordinance to be broadly aligned with the criteria for for assessment and review as Mr.
- Villalon state Councilmember Flaherty, can you review if you have it in front of you or maybe Commissioner
- villain does those four? Review criteria that Transportation Commission uses. I know you stated them
- during that meeting but I have them pulled if you'd like me to read them
- They are consistent with the company That is consistent with advancing a sustainable transportation
- system and equitable access to all transportation facility users While prioritizing on automotive modes
- and has adequately conducted public engagement considered community center design tied to target outcomes
- I guess I just want to like say that in terms of like whether or not to Convert Kirkwood to an all pedestrian
- street is more than just those four pieces of Transportation specific thing there are there are other
- components of that and so I guess I wanted those read partly to point that out that the Transportation
- Commission's Focus on this was relatively narrow in terms of a piece of what
- Closing Kirkwood to cars would would do things. I Would agree with what both council members said it's
- It's it's been difficult for us to find our sea legs But we're getting there and we think that yesterday
- or Monday's debate was productive and needs to continue Fantastic. Thank you so much
- All right, we'll now move to a time of public comment. If you'd like to comment on this message, just
- a show of hands of people who would like to comment on this ordinance. All right, all right, thank you
- so much. All right, if you could say your name. You know the rule. Take it away. And don't forget to
- sign in. Hello again. My name is Zach Ammerman. You're probably tired of hearing from me on this issue.
- I've been in your inbox several times, but here I am again.
- So I'd just like to start by pushing back against some of the administration's arguments against
- pedestrianizing Kirkwood, which I think have been pretty weak, to be frank with you. We were told that
- several comparable cities are in fact not comparable, and when in fact all of the data suggests that
- in the most important respects they strongly, we are comparable in all of the ways that would strongly
- predict a success of a pedestrian program.
- Boulder, Burlington, and Charlottesville all have similar, they're college towns with compact and dense
- downtowns, young populations that sustain commitments from their cities. Those are things that we either
- already have or could have in Bloomington, so I think that's a reason that they are comparable. We were
- also told that 89% of American pedestrian streets fail. That is a single figure from a single study
- from 2013, actually, not 2015, so it's even older, by one person who prepared it for the city of Fresno in 2013.
- That is hardly a law of nature. Just pointing that out. In that very same study, by the way, which was
- not cited by the administration, it cited all of the ways that Bloomington actually would be a successful
- program and all the things I just mentioned, a college town population under 100,000, et cetera. We
- were also told that closing Kirkwood to cars would harm accessibility. I frankly disagree with that.
- There have been extensive studies on pedestrian streets
- and federal accessibility guidelines disagree, and those studies disagree. But for time's sake, suffice
- it to say that the administration's framing reduces the full spectrum of accessibility concerns down
- to a single, largely irrelevant variable, how close a car can park to a door. I argue that that position
- is not serious engagement with accessibility, but rather a defense of car dependency. We were told removing
- cars would have no impact on crashes. On a street, the city's own safety analysis designates as the
- highest impact corridor.
- I'll let that contradiction speak for itself. I think it's a little bit silly. Here's the real reason
- why pedestrian streets fail. It's when cities under-invest, hedge, try to have it both ways, try to
- implement idiosyncratic half-measures, and quietly undermine their own programs. And I think we've seen
- that on full display from the city administration on the Kirkwood program. Bloomington has every structural
- advantage research identifies.
- for implementing a successful pedestrian program. The one ingredient we are missing is political will
- and vision, and that is one that can only be supplied by you here tonight. So I ask the council to fill
- that gap in will and vision and give this program the firm, durable commitment that success requires.
- Thank you.
- Okay, my name is Hillary Martel And as a downtown business owner, I am in full support of creating a
- more pedestrian friendly Kirkwood my opinion though is that creating a carless Kirkwood and a pedestrian
- mall Kirkwood are two totally separate things The cities that were mentioned that have created these
- successful pedestrian malls
- That's um, you know, we talked about burlington iowa city charlottesville boulder all of these cities
- created these pedestrian-only outdoor malls in the late 1970s in the early
- 1980s to try and counter suburban or to counter suburban flight They created these areas with grants
- and bonds Totaling anywhere from 1.85 million to 6 million and continue to spend millions annually to
- keep these spaces up the current value of those bonds and grants needed would be 10 million to 24 million
- plus what is needed annually to keep these spaces up and
- We're lacking that we don't have those grants and bonds in place to create these the successful pedestrian
- mall My biggest nightmare is a downtown business owner is to see Five blocks of what people have referred
- to as a concrete desert. That's what I saw last summer when I was downtown and
- That's a huge concern to me and I don't think that really benefits anyone The cities that have created
- these successful Pedestrian areas and that have had master plans and have had these bonds and grants
- and have have made these Successful areas they have been able to create a park like environment the
- roads are brick paved or their cobblestone
- They're quaint they have Planters with flowers they have they plant mature trees that are already going
- to provide shade That's why it costs millions and millions of dollars to create this most of the places have
- Fountains they have splash pads for kids to play in they have playgrounds. That's what we want and that's
- as you know, my kids are a little older now They're not gonna play in a splash pad. But when I would
- had young children, that's what we needed And that costs millions and millions of dollars in if you're
- gonna draw the amount of traffic that you need to Kirkwood to justify Closing off five blocks. You have
- to have weekly concerts. You have to have farmers markets You have to have an amphitheater
- These are all things that the city has already created downtown within switchyard park. We have a playground.
- We have a skate park We have a splash pad. We have a beeline. That's only pedestrian and bike friendly
- We have all these things that are located in downtown and unless you're willing to recreate that on
- Kirkwood To bring the amount of people we need to justify Losing five blocks of parking and accessibility.
- I don't I don't see how it really makes sense. Um, I
- A lot of these larger cities too. And again, this is with millions and millions of dollars of grants
- like Burlington They started off as only a two block Project and then it kind of develops from there
- by closing off five blocks of city I think it's way too It would cost way too much money to create on
- each individual block things that are going to actually bring members of the community into the town
- to participate in whatever is going on
- Also think that I'm sorry. That's your time. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much next thing council chambers
- and thank you for those comments My name is Hartzell Martell I've been a merchant downtown for 34 years and
- I'm against the permanent closure of Kirkwood due to the lack of accessibility the five block closure
- creates We're in full support of the closure of Kirkwood for events such as Pride Fest Lotus Festival
- Taste of Bloomington and other specific events that brings people together on Kirkwood the City Council
- used State College of Pennsylvania as an example in their studies. State College does not offer a permanent
- sprawling pedestrian mall, but a designated pedestrian zones in downtown area. One, East End Social
- is a seasonal pocket park running from May to early August when the college is not in session. This
- area features lush street planters, seating areas, bistro, lighting with regular summer block parties,
- and live entertainment. This would be a great model
- for Bloomington to follow, since summer business has decreased down due to IU classes going on online
- after COVID. The second area in State College is Calder Walkway, which is a part-time pedestrian mall
- that only restricts vehicle traffic in the evenings. Following the lead of State College would be a
- much more feasible option, since they are a college down of similar population and median income. I
- would really like
- To see downtown visited more during the summers and accessibility is a must Eliminating full vehicle
- access based on a vision with no financial backing is as the council had admitted to putting the cart
- before the horse I wonder if the horse will die before the cart sometimes but this would disrupt businesses.
- That's all I'm saying Residents and visitors today for a project that may never meant to materialize
- closing the main corridor to eyes campus and
- Excuse me. Downtown retail and restaurants is not bold leadership. It is poor planning. As local business
- owners, our ability to earn living, our living depends on customer being able to easily access the area.
- Closing Kirkwood without creating a true pedestrian area cuts off parking and accessibility that my
- business relies on every single day.
- This is not an abstract policy debate for us. It's my family and other business owners financial security
- on the line. This is the reason myself along with many other downtown small business owners and the
- Chamber of Commerce are against a carless Kirkwood for now. I urge the council to table this proposal
- until funding and concrete timeline exists. Thank you for your time. Thank you. We'll continue in council chambers.
- Good evening again councils Chris from the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce I Welcome and I want
- to echo the sentiments of our business owners, which I hope we're listening We were at the advocacy
- council meeting today and universally the idea was panned by the council as just not ready the city
- has long envisioned that pedestrian oriented Kirkwood Avenue, but the question remains not whether shared
- streets a valid concept it is and
- The question is whether we identified costs, understood trade-offs, established a management structure
- to find meaningful measures for success before creating another long-term public obligation. Those questions
- deserved answers. We talked about what we're lacking is political will. I'm telling you, you're lacking
- funding. SP1 and the fiscal cliff in 2029 is not something to create major long-term obligations for.
- If you look at where the administration's budget goes,
- Proposing a lot of big programs a lot of big projects. That's that's not the direction They're going
- because I think they understand that we are not in the physical place to do this The best time to plant
- a tree was last year. The best plan to do this was probably two decades ago We sort of look at some
- other things besides that is What we should be relying on things that bring people in town that are
- working age We're lacking that particular population
- Working-age people that are going to have lit revenue that's going to bring in That sort of revenue
- to have the projects that we all want But physically we are not there. We're there's competing priorities
- that I've not heard once here We have talked about the sidewalk issue here in town the streets issue.
- We have public safety. We have public recreation and parks wonderful public space that needs maintenance and
- We have I've mentioned before Frank Southern the Winslow at some other big capital projects. What are
- we not going to do? Those are hard conversations and deliberations that you need to have before we get
- to oh, let's make this obligation We'll figure it out Figuring it out is not the way to go. I think
- right now There's challenges are real what we're dealing with We're having to look at lighting landscaping
- for Kirkwood seating furnishings ADA access
- Who owns the day-to-day operations, which department's responsible, who manages events? What are the
- metrics for success? Foot traffic, business performance, public safety activity, customer surveys, who's
- collecting that data? There's not the accountability in there. I just, I can't preface this enough that
- you need to have some hard conversations budgetarily before we start doing some obligations. Thank you
- for your time.
- Thank you. We'll now move online. Are there people online who would like to comment? Yeah, we'll come
- back to it. We'll come back, yes. Folks online, you should have the ability to unmute yourself. Do we
- just speak? Yes, go ahead, Mr. Baum. Chris Sturbom, wouldn't it be reassuring if 89% of these succeeded
- instead of failed. And that statistic is old and has been explained to be old. But the designers of
- Pearl Street cited a more recent study of 400 that have been attempted. 12 succeeded. 12 are still running.
- That is 3% success, 97% failure. You know, the picnic tables in the sun
- I just heard a report of this summer because of the climate issues. And we're going to expect 100 degree
- days this summer, 90 degree and 100 degree days. That's going to be brutal out there on the streets.
- Seniors have money to spend. But if they can't get close enough to the town, they're going the wrong
- way on the one-way street. They have to walk to the Kirkwood to get there. And the students, of course,
- are gone in the summer.
- So where's your population? What's the counter to bare streets? It's sensible to close it for occasions.
- Focused occasions, that helps the businesses, that helps people get downtown and do something. But the
- constant closure, really a desert down there. There's a looming recession. Businesses are logically
- worried about this.
- when they were going to extend Pearl Street, the businesses were unanimously against it because of financial
- reasons and that the turnover in a parking spot is real money to a merchant. It isn't just one parking
- spot, it's 18 cars a day that use that spot. Those customers are lost, multiply the spots lost by a
- large number and you're doing the math that business people whose families depend on their businesses
- So I gotta say, if you do this, you'll own it. And I'm not sure it's something you're gonna be feeling
- good about owning in the long run. Thank you. Thank you so much. Is there anybody else online? Next
- person online, take it away. Hello? Hello. Can you hear me okay? Yes, we can. Okay, this is Carol Panfield.
- I'm a lifelong resident of Bloomington. And I'm now at the point in my life where I can't get around
- like I once did. And I'm against closing Kirkwood permanently because it will cut me off from being
- able to use things such as the BuzzChomp. I can't walk the distance. And I'd like to be able to continue to use
- things in my hometown that I've been using all my life. And this will effectively cut me off from that
- and other people with disability issues. So I would urge you to vote against this. Thank you. Thank
- you very much. Is there anybody else online? Next person online. Take it away. Hi, my name is Ted Polly.
- And I'm in favor of both a seasonal closure of Kirkwood and working towards a permanent closure of Kirkwood
- to cars and creating a pedestrian only zone. I think a well designed and thoughtfully designed pedestrian
- only zone would create a much needed vibrant and accessible public third space. Thank you. Thank you
- so much. Anybody else online?
- Okay, there's four more people online, so I don't have to go back and forth doing this. Next person,
- go for it. And then the three after, go for it. I'll go next. My name's Claire Woods. I just also want
- to reiterate support for this. I think a lot of the comments I'm hearing are based on assumptions and
- a lot of the evidence that was presented tonight from the council, just hearing that there's a lot of
- thought being put into it and a lot of potential to address many of the concerns and trust that that
- is possible. And personally, as someone who was born and raised in Bloomington and used to spend an
- immense amount of time specifically on Kirkwood as a young child who had two older sisters who worked
- at the library and loved that part of Bloomington, it's drastically changed. And to see the potential
- ideas for third space are really neat. So just want to echo support. Thank you. Thank you. Next person.
- Hi, this is Dave Huber. I went to college and grad school here and live on the near west side and I
- am in favor of exploring options for making downtown more pedestrian friendly. I think the framing of
- whether or not to close Kirkwood to cars is hindering the conversation to some extent. I think the question
- might better be asked how might we make downtown more friendly to pedestrians? And I think that introduces
- a lot of ideas. I actually led a
- I'm being workshop with the city downtown Bloomington a number of stakeholders. 5 summers ago and we
- came up with like 30 ideas and actually tested them downtown and survey people on which ones were most
- popular and things like activating the alleys and having designated spaces for buskers were some of
- the most popular and so I think asking the question how might we make downtown more enjoyable for pedestrians
- is wonderful and we might find out more fruitful.
- answers heading that way. Thanks. Thank you very much. Next person online. And then we'll come back
- to chambers. Hi. This is Joan Middendorf. I live in the near west side. Can you hear me? Yes, we can
- perfectly. And I'm in favor of the partial closure of Kirkwood and working towards a permanent closure.
- I traveled three times since 2023 to Netherlands because I really wanted to get ideas of what we could
- do in Bloomington because they seem to have a lot of things figured out and I would say one of the most
- surprising things to me was how disabled people use closed streets and I agree with the person who said
- let's stop talking about closing it to parking. We're opening it up to safety for families and children
- I live in the near west side so my next door neighbor is like 20 feet away on either side. It's a great
- thing for community. A lot of people in Bloomington don't have community and you can get that down on
- Kirkwood. I don't know if you all go down there. I go down there and places like Lenny's, they put a
- tent up, they put all these tables out and it's such a cheerful and fun thing to do and I really encourage
- us to do that for our city.
- That will make more people wanna come and visit. Thank you very much. Thank you ever so much. We'll
- come back to chambers. I saw a couple of people who sat down who would like to go. Okay, thank you very
- much. Hello, my name is John Santos, concerned citizen I guess. Also own a business but not directly
- on Kirkwood but so I'm in that area to see the area and I've got a lot of lists
- cons versus pros, but instead of going through that, I just wanted to be the voice of reason to just
- point out to use some common sense and logic when you're thinking about this, because it seems obvious
- to me, but evidently doesn't to a lot of people. People are forgetting it takes vehicles to bring pedestrians.
- You know, you can't cherry pick the places that have been successful and I'm not impressed with a 10%
- success rate, but you're cherry picking, you know cherry picking the things that make us similar Makes
- it sound great. But what are the things that we don't have that those successful places have? And one
- of the things I'm betting on is they probably have a parking garage or some kind of additional parking
- to bring people in or or it's a very heavily
- pedestrian residential area Which Bloomington actually does have a lot of pedestrian Residents, but
- those are students and they're actually gone during this period that you're looking at closing Kirkwood
- So you're closing Kirkwood during the time? Bloomington has the least amount of pedestrians and the
- least amount of traffic and the least amount of people the businesses actually need
- And there's a lot of town people in this town that don't live within the city limits They have to have
- a way to get into Kirkwood. They do come to Kirkwood in the summers, but they haven't lately just because
- of the parking in the traffic flow situation and and all I ask is just to use some logic and common
- sense and to determine the whole thing rather than what Looks like it could be a fun nice thing at the
- end, but I don't see a path to get there and
- And like someone else has said, you know, plan it better before you just do it and hope for the best.
- But I do want to point out that, you know, that the only residents, the majority of them are students
- that can walk there at any given time, and they're gone. Like, they're gone in the summertime. So it's
- almost like you're closing at the wrong time. Like, fall, when the students come back, is probably the
- better time for it to be closed.
- Anybody else enjoy it they need access And then you're forgetting the street, you know, like even like
- Chicago's a residential area and it you know, but there's still the street I mean all those businesses
- and Residents still need to be served. They still need to get their packages delivered the businesses
- still need their Products delivered all that kind of stuff emergency vehicles have to be able to go
- through if there's a fire Things like that. So just you know, like said it would be nice to have something
- Pedestrian but or but I don't want something five residents. Thank you five businesses. All right. Thank
- you so much next person in chambers Hi, my name is Jamie shul I didn't think I'd be speaking on this
- tonight it's a hot topic and I know I can see both sides and
- I'm really into the sustainability. I was on that commission until pretty recently and I understand
- how it's so It's it can be such a great idea and I love the Piazza's that would be in Europe I've also
- been to Pearl Street when it was not functioning as we thought it would I love being able to walk there
- without cars, but it was Desolate and I think I've passed
- three or four other people on the whole stretch and length of that I Decided to get up and mention something
- because there are a lot of people who do not contact council members and will write on social media
- and this is on a Facebook post or
- Which I believe I've done before when I've stood up to try and represent other perspectives that are
- not being heard and a lot of them have to do with people who may be living on the west side who are
- Do not have a handicapped sticker to park closely Parking is an issue There's one person so there's
- almost 300 responses on the WTI you
- Facebook posts when this was first heard two weeks ago One person said ultimately the most important
- voices on this issue will have to be the businesses on Kirkwood as to whether this is helpful or harmful
- to them To close the road to vehicular traffic. There are some expletives in some of these so I won't
- mention those
- on both sides. There's another one that says a member of Trinity Episcopal. It really hurts our entrance,
- especially for disability parking. I do not hate it, but it does really restrict Trinity's welcome and
- commitment to Bloomington. The only reason Fremont Street in Vegas worked is because they put the lighted
- canopy up and have many outdoor concerts and kiosks. Just blocking Kirkwood without a substantial investment
- in planning won't be great whatsoever.
- I mean you all could go and read any one of those 200
- almost 300 responses to get a better perspective of what is representative of the community rather than
- all of us sitting here or the few that call in I just like for this to be Can all sides to be considered
- and I do agree that it makes more sense to close it in the wintertime than in the summertime because
- it does hinder Native Bloomingtonians who used to drive here regularly from coming and patronizing the
- businesses to help keep our downtown vibrant
- Thank you. Thank you so much next person in chambers Thank you, my name is Paul Gillard I'm a former
- business owner on Kirkwood with a restaurant and I just wanted to speak to The
- comparison of the half-year closure to versus a full year closure This may be a little premature for
- the time to discuss this but I've heard more about it recently and I think this is where it's leading
- to The half-year summertime closure makes a lot of sense. It's been very helpful to businesses bringing
- more people downtown
- The winter closure November to April becomes really difficult for a business owner the obvious reasons
- parking away from Kirkwood and having to travel and the elements once people do that once or twice they
- They consciously decide just not to venture downtown in the winter knowing the street is closed and
- That makes if we turn the winter time into a difficult sales volume time We already know the summer
- with with losing losing so much student population It's difficult for a business down there No matter
- what we do with the street and try to bring more people down the the three the real three months when
- students are gone It kills your sales volume and it's it's it's part of being on Kirkwood and we know
- that but if we start to take away
- The community and the students in the in the wintertime that volume That becomes that becomes even tougher
- the students we know They find their way to the bars in the wintertime We know that but the remainder
- of Kirkwood a lot of the small businesses just don't get the foot the foot traffic of students in the
- elements in the weather and the the
- Pedestrian bicycle data that you put up Earlier is not relevant in the winter really anymore as well.
- So Again from a business owners perspective. We know that the summers already difficult If if the wintertime
- becomes difficult for customers to get down there that creates a challenge for business owners that
- It really may they may not be able to overcome So thank you for letting me speak tonight
- Thank you so much, sir. Next person in chambers. Hi, Paul Russo again. I'm a little bit torn about this
- as well, but I mostly favor it. Interesting trend that I see is that generally people
- and all the people that have spoken tonight seems that most of the people who look or sound like they're
- under 40 are in support of it, and those who look or sound like they're more my age are against it.
- And I don't think that's a coincidence. Since I got hit by a car two years ago, I can't walk as easily.
- Being able to walk long distances is now something I cannot longer take for granted.
- I sympathize with my friends who have spoken against this tonight. I think the key will be how do you
- get older people access from parking spaces to the front door? And I would like to suggest that we've
- heard about the cart behind a horse tonight. I think horses are kind of messy. I'd rather have a bicyclist
- in front of a cart, and I'd like to see
- Like like you to consider pedicabs Also known as bicycle taxis And I mentioned this at the transportation
- Meeting, I think they I can envision a program in which the city has selects people to be registered
- and approved
- who shuttle people back and forth between parking garages and the Kirkwood area, especially
- in the summertime, especially in the evenings, I suppose, when people want to go out to eat. So I hope
- that sort of thing gets considered in the deliberations to follow. Yeah, but I still generally support
- this. I think this is the wave of the future. I think that the data... How are the cops doing? How's
- the basketball doing?
- Mr. Mr. Stirbomb, you're unmuted. Please mute yourself. Thank you Yeah I lost my train of thought I
- Was going to say that the data that that is old is especially out of date because it was before the
- pandemic and
- I think we all saw the pandemic really changed a lot of things and spurred momentum towards these kind
- of pedestrian zones Not just here, but all over the country and in Europe. So please consider that too.
- Thank you Thank you any other commenters in chambers, please go ahead But I'm Jessica I'm a manager
- at one of the businesses around and
- I'm a single mother so Closing of Kirkwood decisions that are made in this room directly whether or
- not can provide for my family because it Could cause businesses to close down there You aren't just
- debating urban design or pedestrian walkways debating the ability of and things
- Sorry, I urge you to keep Kirkwood open the reality of the business model We are a business of convenience
- and spontaneous and Julie which Is considering parents driving home with their kids and families running
- errands downtown and elderly residents looking for a quick treat treat to rely on and
- Being able to access our block when Kirkwood is closed They are gonna just move on move along. They're
- not gonna stop in and see us. So that's gonna rely on the business being Empty streets bring
- more pedestrians, but the exact opposite Daily visits on Kurt to Kirkwood actually dropped by 8% during
- a recent closures For business like ours that 8% drop isn't just a statistic comes cheap. I
- It means fewer customers lower sales and fewer tips for the hard-working staff that I manage furthermore
- The practical nightmare furthermore running shop requires consistent logistical Support we need deliveries
- of dairy supplies and all of those things we can't have somebody just put a time limit somebody said time but
- We can't tell a big company that they can only come at this certain time. So that wouldn't necessarily
- work. So that will make my job more difficult. We cannot run a successful downtown economy on weekends
- and festival hours alone. Now, those are great. That brings in business, but the city's current
- Parkland model already works. It gives restaurants outdoor seating without destroying the traffic flow
- retail for social link shops Like ours desperately need to survive Please remember downtown Bloomington
- is sustained by real people working Demanding hours and keep our community vibrant Do not sacrifice
- the livelihoods and local workers and independent shops for experiment on the data that shows is failing
- Keep our streets accessible protect our local workers and vote no Thank you Thank you very much Are
- there any other comments in? chamber All right Let's come back. I'm sorry one more online person online
- Close us out, please
- Thank you. I just wanted to comment in support. I think we're hearing a lot of opposition and a lot
- of assumptions being made The first one I'll comment on is the comment about you need cars to bring
- people places I actually opt for walking and biking as often as possible and I don't bring my car so
- I don't think that that's a valid point We have parking garages. We have buses. We have bike paths.
- We have sidewalks We have all the infrastructure that would support getting people downtown without
- using a car I have
- regularly used the downtown area in the Kirkwood area in the last two summers when this has been an
- option and I will actually and I'm already finding myself not going downtown as often because it's not
- built and set up the same way that it has been the last two summers. I think it's really easy to push
- back on the data and say that there's failure but the data that was presented today very clearly painted
- a picture that in the right conditions with the right factors being considered and the right logistics
- being planned for it can be very successful and I think we're hearing a lot of pushback that is grounded
- in assumptions
- that it will be a failure, but if we're planning this properly and we're taking into consideration things
- like disabled people, then it can be a lot more successful. This is also kind of narrowly focused on
- people who are
- disabled from a physical standpoint in one specific category. It's not taking into consideration people
- who actually want to spend time outside in safer places with cleaner air, not inside of a building for
- someone who might be COVID cautious like myself and actually depends on being able to eat at restaurants
- outside in the summer. And I can't do that in the winter and I'm a year long resident. I am someone
- who was born and raised here and I love towny summer and I love spending time downtown and on campus
- in the summer. So I think the argument against
- students not being there and the business not being there because the students leave is not a valid
- one. We see more and more students staying around through the summer every single year and the residents
- most of the people that I spend time around they look forward to being able to access downtown and be
- able to do things and use things without the students overrunning that. So I think again not really
- a valid argument for everyone.
- I think I would just urge people to consider the fact that many of the fears that we're hearing today
- are grounded on the fact that we are assuming this will fail. They are not being grounded in the fact
- that we have a choice here to plan intentionally and budget for these things and make it more accessible
- for disabled people, make it more accessible for folks who need to get there physically. But we need
- to be thinking about the collective needs here and it sounds like residents are really in support and
- the residents want to support the businesses and they will do that
- If we support making this a pedestrian space if we're not listening to the residents who want to go
- spend the money downtown Then what's the point of all this? So I would just urge you to zoom out a little
- bit and not be so rooted in the fears here and be Rooted in what the data says about situations like
- ours and cities like ours and how that can be successful. Thank you Thank you so much and I'm I was
- asked for you to say your name for the record or some alias or something
- The last person. Maybe they're gone. No, no, no, no, the person online. Okay, fantastic. Well, there's
- two more people. Okay, well, two more people. Go ahead, two more people. Hi, my name is Alex York, for
- the record. Sorry, I've had my hand up and down. I've been putting my kids to bed this evening.
- And yeah, that's...
- They're not asleep yet and I hope they don't call, so I'm just going to say that the last speaker, I
- fully embraced their comments and would like to second them and will add the additional detail. I am
- a father of two young children. We have been in that Perkwood area on occasions when it has been closed
- for events, and it is a beautiful place to be with my children as a family. And if the street were closed,
- we would frequent there much more often. And also to the economic concerns and things, going back to
- the first comment from Zach, I fully agree that there's a much higher risk of failure if there's a failure
- of imagination but the closure. We have to do this. If you do it, you must do it right. Which means
- that, you know,
- splitting the year is never going to be as successful because you can't have the correct infrastructure
- for both vehicles and a pedestrian ball. So yeah, just those are the factors that I encourage you to
- consider. I would love to see this happen. And thank you very much. Thank you very much. All right,
- now last person online. Close us out, please. Sorry, hey, I couldn't unmute myself earlier. I was the
- previous speaker.
- I just wanted to comment my name for the record. My name is Tessa Donahue. Thank you so much.
- Thank you. Thank you. All right, back to council. All right, back to public comment. One last comment.
- Now, if you have not raised your hand at this point, after this, I'm not going to relent. Go person
- online, your chance. Hello.
- Good evening, I'm on a family vacation on the East Coast right now, but I wanted to hop on quickly and
- just share an email I had sent to council in case you hadn't read it. I did mistakenly say my children's
- ages. My son is nine and my daughter is eight. Katie and Jeff Yoder are our names and I'm just going
- to read from the email that I shared with council. When Kirkwood was closed to vehicle traffic, it became
- a place we wanted to spend time.
- a third place if you will, we would bike and run and walk downtown, linger after meals, browse shops,
- run into friends, and enjoy being part of the community. It felt safer, more welcoming, and more inviting
- for families. Instead of hurrying from one destination to another, we stayed. As parents, we are constantly
- evaluating spaces through the lens of safety. We teach our children to watch for traffic, use crosswalks,
- and be aware of distracted drivers.
- While cars are a necessary part of our community, not every space needs to be designed around them.
- A pedestrian-focused Kirkwood gives families a place where people, not vehicles, are the priority. We
- understand that where there are concerns about costs, implementation, and other areas of Bloomington
- that also need investment, those are important conversations to have. However, we do not believe those
- priorities are mutually exclusive
- Bloomington can continue improving pedestrian safety and infrastructure throughout the city while also
- creating welcoming spaces in its vibrant downtown core. Our own neighborhood is currently being considered
- for pedestrian and cyclist improvements after a child was struck by a careless driver. And this was
- a close neighbor and friend of our children. And this was on the transportation commission
- We've discussed this extensively. That experience has reinforced the importance of designing communities
- that prioritize people. We are encouraged when Bloomington invests in safer, more walkable spaces, and
- we see a pedestrianized Kirkwood as an extension of those same values. Bloomington's own transportation
- planning already recognizes that different streets serve different purposes.
- Some corridors are designed to move traffic efficiently while others, other places where people gather,
- walk, shop, and connect. Kirkwood sits at the heart of our city and our downtown. Investing in it as
- a people-focused space aligns with Bloomington's broader commitment to walkability, safety, and a vibrant
- public spaces. What we appreciated most about a car-free Kirkwood
- was not simply the absence of cars, it was the presence of people, families, students, residents, visitors,
- and friends all sharing a common space. It felt like the kind of downtown that draws people in rather
- than moves them through. As a family, we spent more time downtown when Kirkwood was closed. We stayed
- longer for more businesses. I'm so sorry, that's your time. Thank you. Thank you. Enjoy the rest of
- your vacation, and everyone, we made it through
- Thank you for your wonderful comments and we're back to counsel. I'm sorry. Stop it We're back to counsel
- for final comments before a vote anyone all right councilmember Ella Yes, thanks, well first let me
- say I thank my colleagues for bringing this forward I I'm too torn I some of the comments
- Terry too much here, but obviously there are mixed views and those all need to be considered I think
- I'm sort of flying blind at this point in terms of understanding the disposition of The community although
- we've had a lot of public comment and there's a lot to consider. I'm particularly sensitive to The businesses
- on Kirkwood and those surrounding it. I've only had the opportunity to speak just today with Michael
- Mazer from
- imports John Santos and I had a brief conversation, but I want to extend that and hear more from him
- and others Lots to consider here Councilmember daily talked about the impact of the Convention Center,
- which is going to open in early 2027. Hopefully That's going to have a profound I think impact on the
- success of this
- There has to be a lot more mr. MG talked about metrics for success. I absolutely think that we need
- those we have to have assurances of probability of success I Heard a comment about if it occurs it must
- be done, right? Obviously we have to do this Full be fully invested in if we do it and with that comes
- the necessity for funding Which is of course important consideration is grant funding available
- Accessibility concerns a paramount to me as well So my view is To bookmark this for the future And to
- revisit it through a series of deliberation sessions so that we can we can really dive deep into these
- particulars and make sure that Whatever trade-offs are made Makes sense and that success is assured so
- I'll be supporting this for now tentatively with you know the expectation that we will visit this again
- in various forms and have a better idea of What what we will do at that time, so? Thank you. Thank you
- very much council members who look thank you I guess I'll start off by saying that in a perfect world.
- I would love to see Kirkwood pedestrianized
- But I don't feel that the current state of Kirkwood is the version that we would like to see closed.
- If you spent time on Kirkwood last year when it was closed, folks might have noticed that the street
- was fairly empty, especially during the periods where students were not in town. That is not the vibrant
- Kirkwood that we would all like to see. The kinds of changes that would be required to do so are incredibly
- expensive, and I'm not convinced that that's the best use of our funds that are currently pretty limited.
- Councilmember Piedmont Smith brought up last week. There are many other streets including South Walnut
- a major corridor that needs some serious investment to While it is a blessing that Kirkwood and district
- six are getting so much attention We do already spend a significant amount of money on the maintenance
- of Kirkwood more than any other street and I think we could spread the love a little bit more around
- the city and
- And I have many more thoughts on this but I will spare you all a big thank you to council members Rosenberger
- and daily for Continuing to have conversations about this with me and working to solve issues raised
- in previous meetings if this passes I promise not to bite my nose to spite my face and I will do my
- best to Support further activation efforts and investments that bring the city to life that said given
- our current financial situation I cannot support this tonight. Thank you
- Thank you councilmember Stasberg then councilmember Piedmont Smith Thank you So I've put a lot of thought
- into this decision and for those of you who follow council meetings at all, you know If I write something
- out then I'm really serious and I've actually written something out and tried to put little edits in
- it as we've gone on tonight so I'm really hoping that it still makes sense, so The pro-con list is relatively
- balanced for this issue and public sentiment doesn't
- Strongly lean to either direction. There is not an argument or a vote that will work for everyone My
- decision tree has involved doing my best to look at the big picture of pedestrian malls the importance
- of community space and how this fits into the Reality that is Bloomington with regard to pedestrian
- malls. It has been acknowledged that though most pedestrian malls have failed There are success stories
- and the successes are pretty great. I've lived in a town that had a failed pedestrian mall, but I'm
- also from Vermont and
- Shoppers from all over the state had to Church Street for their shopping deans The approach I took was
- to look at some of the successes that were cited Pearl Street Church Street, Iowa City Ithaca and figure
- out what might be contributing to their success and whether Kirkwood reflected those same attributes
- the biggest commonality that was that the biggest commonality was that pedestrianized streets see successes
- in college towns and we are that but there were several other areas where I think Kirkwood falls short and
- For starters the number of established retail establishments and restaurants are a lot higher in those
- places than on Kirkwood Even though the pedestrianized space is often shorter and I'm just gonna say
- I'm gonna call out Church Street in Burlington a little bit because I'm a Vermonter and you know, we
- can put that title up there Oh Burlington only has 40,000 people but their urbanized area is much bigger
- and you know, they were like the last state to get a
- Big-box stores which meant 30 years ago 35 40 years ago when I was a kid Like you drove hours to get
- to a mall because there were not malls anywhere, right? So it really drew people from all over not just
- from the Burlington population and not even just from the metro area which is now over 200,000 people
- Right now they are four blocks and they have over a hundred retail and restaurant establishments We're
- talking about five blocks of Kirkwood and I actually Thank you for the assist from I think DBI Bloomington
- We have 32 restaurants and 14 retail places down there on Kirkwood right now. That's just not enough
- density of Destination to be as successful I think as we want it to be so getting back to Bloomington
- a little bit and getting back to what I actually wrote
- Sample gates to the square. It's five full blocks. It's almost half a mile. It's an extremely long stretch
- the slideshow said that one of the things that cited success was short streets short stretches five
- blocks half a mile is not short it is incredibly long and There are not very many Establishments there.
- So I also looked at parking and not because I love parking in cars. I
- But because the success of this space will depend on visit numbers and vehicular travel is one way that
- visitors come to this area And I want to say there's a whole bunch of stuff in this written statement
- that overlap several comments That that the public made here tonight So the successful pedestrian malls
- that I examined and you know, I'm looking at them on Google Maps. I'm I'm doing the street view I'm
- looking at the overhead, you know what they had parking garages adjacent to the pedestrian space and
- you could walk out of the parking garage and on to the pedestrian space and We don't have that right
- now now could we have that? Potentially do we have some surface parking lots that are pretty close.
- Yes, but we don't particularly advertise that very well Okay, and there's still their surface parking
- spots. They are usually full Parking really does become an issue and
- And then lastly as somebody else also pointed out I looked at pictures and designs of the pedestrian
- spaces and the successful pedestrian spaces Are not closed to vehicular traffic for only part of the
- year. They are closed to vehicles year-round sometimes with exceptions for specifically timed deliveries
- and that allows the middle of the street development for planting public art and other interesting street
- features a seasonal closure on Kirkwood allows for only minimal infrastructure changes to optimize pedestrian
- enjoyment of the street and
- Short I don't think what we have right now on Kirkwood spells success for a closure to vehicular traffic
- Especially one that requires closure as this ordinance does of five complete blocks for only part of the year
- Well, I think it is possible to create a vibrant and exciting pedestrian street in Bloomington. Perhaps
- even on Kirkwood It will take a significant investment to get there and that brings me to the next part
- of my consideration that the sponsors have argued that this kind of ordinance is what is necessary to
- force the administration's hand to make investments in a pedestrianized Kirkwood and meet the council
- cited priorities related to third spaces and community growth and I lean toward agreeing with my colleagues
- on that point and
- I'm deeply disappointed with how the decision to remain open to vehicles was made this year The process
- did not recognize how ordinance 2025 02 had been written and is another example of this administration
- Not giving attention to the decisions of this legislative body That said for me a yes vote tonight indicates
- that I strongly support significant budgetary investment into a robust plan to convert Kirkwood from
- sample gates to the square into a pedestrian optimized space
- Some people may not like hearing this, but if we invest significant funds into a space like this, which
- I'm not certain that we should do at all, I'm not even convinced that the five blocks of Kirkwood is
- the best place to do it. While there is, as was cited in our budget priorities for this year, full body
- agreement on investment in third spaces, a specific third space is not cited, and I have to ask the
- question to myself, is Kirkwood the best place for this? Is that what we should close? If we did do that,
- My answer right now is maybe and I'm interested and excited about the upcoming deliberation session
- That will happen eventually to kind of talk about that because maybe a different space should be considered
- maybe if we're going to convert vehicle space into people space we should think about 4th Street between
- done and grant and
- Because there's so many restaurants there and so much shade. Maybe we should think about The Kirkwood
- block on the square or maybe we should think about the 6th Street block on the square if we're gonna
- invest in third spaces with with additional monies should we invest in places like along the beeline
- park and switch our park right which somebody also mentioned as being super active right now and I just can't
- Commit right now to saying yes, let's have this big monetary investment specifically in these five blocks
- of Kirkwood So I suspect that my five minutes is is up And probably the two after that last thing I'm
- gonna say is that the end of this climate plan action a climate action plan action that was cited earlier
- and is cited in the amendment says that
- They should establish implementation based on Kirkwood pilot project observations and recommendations
- evaluate feasibility of Limiting vehicles on certain days of the week and implementing congestion parking
- pricing where appropriate So somebody mentioned cherry picking certain things and I think that that
- was something that was cherry picks staff has clearly said That you know based on the pilot project
- observations and recommendations they're interested in implementing something else and
- I just, I cannot support this tonight for all of those reasons. Thank you very much. Thank you so much,
- Council Member Piedmont-Smith. Yes, thank you. First of all, I'd like to say that I, my video was off
- for some of the public comment, but I was listening to the public comment. So I find myself agreeing
- with almost everyone
- So I agree that ultimately it would be, it is a great goal to have Kirkwood or part of Kirkwood be a
- pedestrian zone. I've supported that ever since I voted for the transportation plan in 2019. I loved
- sitting out on Kirkwood when it was closed and having dinner. Only in the shade though.
- And I do recognize the importance of third spaces. At the same time, I think that a deliberation session
- should happen before we change our city code. We are putting this in city code. This is not like the
- other steps we took where we were like, this is use of right of way in Title 12. No, this is in Title 15.
- We're saying these streets shall be, this street shall be closed from this and this date. That is a
- really big step to take before we have a deliberation session. I think that we have some good data from
- previous years. We have not as much data as I would like. I think there was some missteps in gathering real,
- feedback that we could really use to make decisions. I think there's also been CPU projects and construction
- projects that have gotten in the way of the pilot's programs. Overall, I think there are, there are
- not, there's no, to me there's not an urgency to put this in our code now. Especially
- if we, seeing that our revenue sources are going to be limited in the coming years because of what the
- state legislature has done. I just don't think it's fiscally wise to put this in our ordinance and then
- say we'll figure out the funding later before we've had any deliberation sessions. So I do really appreciate
- all the work that council members Rosenberger and Daly have put into this,
- Will not be supporting it tonight. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm councilmember Flaherty. Thank you
- Yeah, I really appreciate all the public comment and discussion That we've had this year and all the
- previous years When we've discussed this it's much of the same conversation every year It changes a
- little bit based on experience of perception and what's going on at the Statehouse I generally have
- held the view for a long time since before I served on council that
- we can do great things in Bloomington and that we have a unique and really, you know, special opportunity
- between the courthouse square and the sample gates to design a shared street and to have that street
- be pedestrian focused for much of many times in the year. I think this is a good step that basically
- just does better what we already did with a vote of 9-0 in ordinance 2025-02 last year.
- So it's interesting to reflect that I don't know how the final it's gonna end up here. It sounds like
- it's gonna be close It's an instrument reflect that nine of us supported creating a local law last year
- that would do exactly what this ordinance does and And now maybe half the folks are not so sure anymore
- And just kind of I'm not quite sure why I've listened to their comments And and there's a few things
- kind of emerging One but but again, this is already in
- Already a local law. We're just sort of closing a loophole through which the mayor without really any
- Real consultation with the counselor asked asked for asking for input Decided to just close the program
- for this year. So that's why we're back We're not talking from a funding perspective the transportation
- plan calls for not a corridor study It calls for a redesign of Kirkwood as a shared street. That's a
- design question there I
- Think is funding coming proposed for next year to undertake that design charrette process and redesign,
- but it's not a corridor study Just want to clarify that That's what the major expense will be. I don't
- know on what timeline we're gonna be able to do that It might be five ten fifteen years before we remove
- the curbs on Kirkwood from you know walnut to to Indiana Avenue and actually design it maybe in a way
- that looks a little bit like Hopewell comments or something like that those types of materials, you
- know flush
- Street That's the big expense piece. We've already been doing this for a number of years at relatively
- low expense Can it be better than it's been? Absolutely. It can be that's that's the vision and I hear
- my colleagues who are gonna vote no tonight also supporting that vision But that vision takes commitment
- the the idea that we're gonna get there by saying well I'm not sure where the funding is coming from.
- So I'm just gonna keep waiting. I Just respectfully disagree that's gonna get us anywhere. I think if
- we vote no on this and
- That's all but a guarantee that as long as mayor Tom's in an office in office. There's this isn't happening
- So, you know, I think it's appropriate for us to take a step that Resolidifies what we decided as a
- body 9-0 at the beginning of last year to commit to this on a seasonal basis Starting from where we
- are and getting better over time so I think we need that certainty like I mentioned earlier in order to
- That is the horse in the car's analogy in my view and the details of Trade-offs including the trade-offs
- and of you know the status quo and what we're giving up by maintaining what the way things are now Those
- all need to be considered and deliberation sessions are great places for that but we've had a lot of
- public comment and discussion on this over the years and There just isn't a consensus view, but we do
- have a lot of city plans and goals that speak pretty clearly to this so I'll be supporting it and I
- hope it passes and I hope that
- Regardless of the outcome. We'll keep out in the conversation, but I really do think that if we can't
- pass this tonight, you know Under this mayor anyway that this idea is probably done. Thank you so much.
- That's my flirty Councilmember rough First of all, I want to thank the sponsors because I
- Not only did I know they worked hard thought hard did a lot of outreach talked a lot of people made
- compromises made changes reached out for input to all of us and It's always inspiring to me to see council
- members work together On an initiative so I know that That happened this time and I appreciate it very
- much. I also want to say I appreciate the
- Apparently sounds like the Trust Transportation Commission is taking staff Input as advisory
- as recommendations and I like to know that that's the orientation that the Commission has Just so When
- the age thing keeps coming up as it has across the many recent years it it rubs me the wrong way and
- I'm old I'm gonna be I'll be 65 next year but I still 90% of my thousands and thousands and thousands
- of trips up and down Kirkwood over the last 55 years Have been either by bike or on foot 90% of them
- always I Really see all the arguments
- There's good arguments. There's good considerations to think about on on on both sides of this but At
- this point in history and a couple of already mentioned what you know, why do we change? Well, we've
- we've why some of us may have changed something that we thought differently about last year Well, there
- are some physical realities that are a little looking a little different now in our future for cities
- in Indiana
- And also we hadn't heard I've heard different things tonight The arguments may have always sort of been
- there but they were laid out really well by people tonight I thought very persuasively and I told both
- the sponsors this legislation that I was coming into this meeting tonight Totally open to be persuaded
- by the what I thought were the best arguments to make a decision on this and that's how I did come in and
- Everyone you there will be costs and we're heading into a future where We need to be thinking about
- our real basic services and our real our real serious priorities I Raised my two kids here racing up
- and down we would down Kirkwood all the time The idea that that we're setting that it's like not a pedestrian
- environment
- But this would make it one, you know Kirkwood to me It's bikeable and it's walkable and it's drivable
- and parkable I See a bit a big vision that yeah, this could come but not without as one of my council
- colleagues a minute ago It might even come from a clarity without a real commitment To make this happen
- and I just don't think we're in a position to make that commitment long term
- At least at this point we're not so Unless I Was given clear evidence and I wasn't tonight really to
- give me the confidence that the upsides of this Would so substantial substantively outweigh the downsides
- and concerns that it was a slam dunk then
- It's more right now. It ain't broke Don't fix it. We don't really have a plan We don't it's not to me
- a good Plan for more investment when we are going into lean times due to state legislation You know,
- I do I am sensitive to what everybody's comments all those who are in favor or really support this But
- one of the speakers said You know we have switch yard park
- We have the beeline We have campus. We have a lot of spaces where we can go and Enjoy a safe car free
- Environment and Does a trip down to Kirkwood that some speakers said that they wouldn't have taken otherwise
- if it was not a pedestrian mall Is that just a trip they wouldn't have taken to switch yard or to the
- beeline or you know?
- Don't see the net For this being so clearly persuasively Convincing that at this time I can support
- it. I just I Again really appreciate the work of this council sponsors. I really do and I appreciate
- all the input that came from both people with both perspectives on both sides of this issue and
- but I Just I'm not I'm not there right now on this Thank you very much any other council colleagues
- all right councilmember Rosenberger First I wanted to say there were a couple emails that were really
- good that we got and it's just points that weren't brought up at all and I kind of wanted to
- Timer I guess I kind of just wanted to mention one a little bit because I thought it was just really
- good in a perspective we absolutely haven't heard at all and I'll just do like a sentence or two even
- though the whole thing is Really relevant this is just someone saying I'm highly in favor of the seasonal
- closure as a mother of two young boys ages 9 and 6 and one of whom is autistic spending time on Kirkwood
- when it is closed feels and is much safer and
- We often walk downtown from our house to go to the library to pick up the kids from Lincoln Street Boys
- and Girls Club And we are much more inclined to add a side trip to heart souls or pop into farm Bloomington
- for fries When Kirkwood is closed because of the increased safety and pleasantness of the experience
- From an inclusion perspective the seasonal closure of Kirkwood makes it more accessible for our autistic
- child Pedestrian streets are calmer without the traffic noise and pollution of cars which is supportive
- of keeping him and us
- Calmer and more at ease autistic children can be impulsive and the increased safety of a pedestrian
- street brings down our hyper vigilance It also lawyers lowers barriers to our participation in community
- life Which is important so he can grow up feeling part of the larger community. I think something that
- got a little missed tonight was that people there are people that already love this and think it is good and
- Many meetings ago when we were talking about this one Commenter said they go down there and they're
- gonna go down there the same amount But it's gonna be a lot better if it doesn't have cars on it just
- the way it is I Think last meeting a council member said it seems to be working pretty good But while
- Kirkwood has been open to cars in the last couple years. We have lost local establishments We've lost
- cafe pizzeria. We've lost we're losing Trojan horse. We lost
- I don't know if it really is a chain Dan's fat Dan sandwich place I don't know if it is a chain right
- and then the the the restaurants that can afford to come in our chains because Chains can afford to
- not make as much money is very different. It can be very different franchises are different, too But
- it can be very different than a small business trying to survive on Kirkwood And I mean Trojan was there
- since the 70s, right? So like something actually isn't working
- One of the reasons they cited for moving to Ellisville is outdoor dining They cited other reasons right,
- but that was one some things we didn't bring up The Bloomington Commission on sustainability and reason
- and resilience also passed a resolution that you not unanimously Encouraged us to keep a car free Kirkwood.
- I You know, I don't think it's likely that
- the administration will let this happen next year if this vote doesn't go through because We already
- saw one year of it not going through Because it was deemed impractical So I think like the good thing
- about voting yes on this is that It does put pressure on making it better even though people do think
- it is good that I mean people do think it is good and
- Someone mentioned and I was in our the memo from ESD that there's a percent loss in revenue. I Think
- things have been harder for restaurants for sure that graduation has been moved to dinnertime on Saturday
- night It was potentially the biggest revenue night of the year and now it's like I go to uptown at graduation
- because I can walk right up to the bar. It's very different so there's that I know last year also there
- was one fewer football games and
- So it's just a we can't just say that in a vacuum that because there were people walking more on Kirkwood
- we lost revenue I Guess that's it. I want to thank everyone too for just really considering this a lot.
- We have been talking about it for five years Every year and I'm hoping this year can be different and
- we can work to make it something more permanent and something that we fund in any capacity
- Year-after-year it is true that right now it should already be a line item in the budget because it
- is slated to be closed to cars From April to November, so that should at least already be in the budget.
- I Guess I do want to say this the Congress for new urbanism they can be kind of flipped on Car free
- streets, but just spec does talk about and I know we've talked about it tonight You need one of three things
- resort town college town or density so CNU would also approve this I think thank you Thank you so much
- comes member daily. All right. Sure. Thank you I just have a couple bullet points notes that I wanted
- to reply to again, thank you to everybody for this conversation. Hey, I've You know enjoyed working
- with councilmember Rosenberger. Yes, we have put a lot of work into it and a lot of conversations and
- we've tried to
- hear from as many people as we could. We've had great conversations with the administration. I think
- those have gone well. We've got good feedback from them, great feedback from the community. All of my
- colleagues up here, we're more than happy to chat with us and give us their feedback. We've tried really
- hard to incorporate as much of that as we could because we want this to work. We really want to make
- this something that is palatable to all. We've tried to
- bring as much feedback as we can to make as many people support it as possible. A couple bullet points.
- It was brought up that, well, we're doing this while the students are gone. What's the point? We're
- doing it before the students leave. And then again, it stays closed to vehicles until mid-November.
- So the students come back in early August. That's still a good chunk of time while the students are
- here bringing more foot traffic to the downtown businesses and to the closed Kirkwood area.
- You know, with all due respect, it's not the same to say, well, you can just go to Switchyard or you
- can go walk around campus. There are no businesses there. That's why I like to go walk around Kirkwood.
- I like to go get an impulse ice cream cone or an impulse matcha latte. My kids will always talk me into
- buying them a treat somewhere or something.
- So it's it's fun to just go downtown without a plan And I I think we'll see more of that more of the
- impulse purchases, you know, it's I don't go I walk I do go to switch yard and walk around I do go to
- campus and walk around but That's not a destination like Kirkwood is Some other notes that I had oh
- Councilmember Rallo mentioned the Convention Center. I think that's gonna bring a lot more pedestrian traffic
- down there, people are going to get into town and be like, well, hey, let's go explore the town. Where
- do we go? Oh, we go to Kirkwood. And they'll explore the restaurants, maybe without a plan, and maybe
- they'll pop into bars or pop into shops. What a great way to attract people to those businesses is when
- they're in town for the convention. Also, football games, when people are in town for the football games.
- We also did have support from the Kirkwood Association. We didn't point that out earlier There's been
- a lot of A lot made out of losing the parking along Kirkwood We're already losing a lot of parking on
- Kirkwood because of the parklets that's not been pointed out You know, those those are being taken already
- by the parklets. So saying well, we can just do parklets instead that doesn't
- Rectify the the parking concerns that have been brought up. So I feel like that kind of balances out
- that argument People keep pointing to last summer as not being Great. It wasn't I fully agree, right?
- And that's why we want to do this so that we have that motivation to say hey, you know what? Maybe let's
- put up a couple awnings this year on the the 300 block in front of the library, right and
- That did feel desolated and pretty unpleasant. We can start small with a couple awnings or a couple
- shades up there Yeah, it's not going to be what it was last summer Because there wasn't anything done
- last summer It was also brought up that this is you know five blocks long it's it's too long to fit
- into the model, you know that was Cited as being successful. It's just one block longer. There was another
- pedestrian mall in there that was cited as being successful, that was eight blocks long. So I think
- that kind of still fits into the model. All right, that's everything that I had. Thanks everybody for
- listening. Council Member Piedmont-Smith. Yeah, I just wanted to speak again because Council Member
- Flaherty's comment about we all
- nine of us supported this last year and why are we not all supporting it this year? So Council Member
- Ruff already mentioned one reason and that is that reduce our property tax revenues and we have very
- complex process to try to
- make up some of that through local income taxes that relies on the county agreeing to a countywide tax.
- And it's all very much up in the air. So to make long-term financial commitments now as opposed to in
- February of 2025 is very different. Also, and this has been mentioned by both sides, 2025 experience
- of a closed Kirkwood was not that great. It was not activated.
- and there were some security concerns as well. So that's another thing that's different between February
- of 25 and now. And I want to really, I really do appreciate the work that's been done by the sponsors,
- but one thing that would have been really helpful and that it didn't, I didn't,
- really think of it until the conversation this evening and all the public comment, but how much does
- it cost to activate and administer a pedestrian zone? I think one member of the public did bring some
- figures about that, but I do think it costs quite a lot of money, not just to do the study, as Council
- Member Flaherty said, the bulk of the money will be to do the Kirkwood Avenue study, it's not a corridor study,
- But every year to maintain this zone, and first of all, beyond the study to purchase the infrastructure
- we need to create the shade and create the atmosphere that we're going for and just to administer that
- activation every year, it's gonna cost quite a bit. But I'd like to leave you with this quote from Leslie
- Davis from the Council on Community Accessibility.
- There's no doubt that closing Kirkwood to vehicular traffic disproportionately and negatively impacts
- people with disabilities. At a minimum, BT access should be permitted to deliver people to places on
- Kirkwood that would otherwise not be accessible to vehicles. This is a frequently voiced and substantiated
- concern, especially of our blind community members. There are too many concerns for me to vote yes on this now.
- accessibility concerns and others. So anyway, I just want to clarify why my position has shifted. And
- it's not exactly the same thing we're doing now. We're actually putting it into Title 15, which I think
- is stronger. But regardless, this is why my position has changed. Thank you. Thank you so much. Will
- the clerk please call the roll?
- Councilmember Ralla yes Rough no Rosenberger. Yes clarity. Yes Stasberg no Piedmont Smith no Zulek no
- Sorry, yes daily. Yes, I
- You that passes congratulations. All right, let's move on I Move that resolution 20 26-9 be introduced
- and read by the clerk by title and synopsis only second Motion in a second will Kirk, please call the
- roll Councilmember rough
- Rosenberger, yes clarity. Yes Stasberg. Yes, you know Smith. Yes Yes, I'm sorry. Yes daily. Yes Rallo.
- Yes Thank you I Move that resolution 2026 oh nine. I'm sorry. Well the clerk, please read I
- Resolution 2026-09 to adopt the Monroe County multi-hazard mitigation plan. The synopsis is as follows.
- This resolution adopts the Monroe County multi-hazard mitigation plan, which is required by the Disaster
- Mitigation Act of 2000 before localities may receive federal funds for mitigation projects. Mitigation
- plans are intended to identify vulnerabilities and prioritize measures to reduce or eliminate long term
- risk to human life and property from acknowledged hazards to the community.
- Thank you very much. I move that resolution 20 2609 be adopted second All right. Is there anybody from
- the city who is here to present on this? has not become one with the chair I Have become unfused Hi,
- I'm Jamie Neville. I'm from the neuro county emergency management so
- Trying to keep this as brief as possible, but kind of how we made this plan was is done by a third party
- vendor. We start with a meeting with different representatives of the governing bodies within the county
- and we get a feel for the hazards. Now these hazards are not picked by us. They are picked by FEMA.
- This is very much a FEMA driven plan in case you have not
- caught the flavor of this plan already. They picked those plans. They are natural disasters with the
- exception of the hazmat and the dam or levee failure which they categorize as a human hazard but it
- parallels on the environmental side so it's easy to sneak those in. But there's a ranking system and
- every jurisdiction ranks those hazards.
- based on historical data and Just experience and that gets the CPRI and that is how we get that ranking
- system and At the very end I'm so sorry and then at the very end the second meeting that takes place
- is mitigation strategies and so at the very end of the document there's a lot of mitigation strategies
- that have been identified by the different jurisdictions and
- I will also acknowledge that there are some errors that exist within the plan. There's a table of errors
- that we have been building, and thank you to Council Member Strasburg and Isabelle Piedmont-Smith for
- helping me with the add to that list so that we can get those resolved through the vendor. Thank you
- so much. Questions? Council Member Strasburg.
- Yeah, I just want to make sure to say that I I have more I just need to email them to you and I didn't
- get time to do that today so I'm glad that you can kind of like make these edits and I guess I'm kind
- of in terms of like a Monroe County taxpayer a little concerned about some of these errors because they
- were probably made by the consultant that then we paid and then they did things like
- pounds in that are not actually in our county and those sorts of errors to me just seem like Like it
- just kind of feels like oh great So you like copy and paste it half of this from some other plan and
- you know How much are we paying you for this? And so yeah, that's I guess more of a comment but the
- question that I have kind of related is on that list of
- Committee members the only Bloomington City folks there were related to the fire department So how did
- you like reach out to get committee members? so the meeting invite goes out and It goes out and if they
- come they come I Can't make them attend
- Also put on the invite if there's somebody missing, please feel free to share the more the merrier We
- did also have people who live in the city of Bloomington as well representing the city of Bloomington
- also Okay, I guess I would just I Guess in the future I feel like we need to make sure like after that
- first meeting to like identify where there might be gaps
- Because I of course can only see gaps in in Bloomington City related stuff. I don't know if there are
- gaps and in Ellitsville or Steinsville or in the unincorporated parts or in certain departments as opposed
- to other departments and Yeah, so I I would because this has to happen every like five years is five
- years. Yes So I agree with you on both. I had a lot of frustration working with the vendor and I I
- will probably not work with that vendor again. Not to be rude, but it's just probably a one and done.
- And then on the representation side, we were starting these meetings in 2023. And if you think back
- to 2023, in the spring of 2023 was when we had a federally declared disaster with the tornado in Steinsville.
- So there were, in the words of Taylor Swift, there was a lot going on at the moment.
- Thank you very much. It's always good luck to quote Taylor Swift I can't think of the quote but Anyway
- Considerations are we entirely beholden to? Operating with just the FEMA administered plan in other
- words Could we develop a different plan? One that would be complementary. So for instance, there are
- things there are events that aren't addressed here
- Or you could envision something that would be Affect many communities that would overwhelm FEMA So we
- would like to be self-reliant and things like food Say there's a pan another pandemic or an EMP event
- natural or man-made something like that It disrupts a lot supply chain disruption. Should we not prepare
- for something like that? And how would we go about it?
- So we do and we have other plans. So this is not an all-inclusive. This is our only plan We have many
- plans that cover the county This is just for hazard mitigation and this is very specific to the asks
- that FEMA puts upon us to qualify for that federal funding Okay, so we have other hazard plans that
- include such things as pandemic
- Preparedness and that sort of thing. Yes, they live sometimes they live under different islands of sorts
- So a pandemic plan would live under the Health Department Okay, but everybody comes together. Those
- planes are not developed in a silo Okay, I'm very interested in this and so I'll be in touch with you.
- Thank you very much for all your hard work on this plan and thank you for incorporating the
- revisions that I suggested or the errors that I caught. I wanted to harken back to May of 2025 when
- there were tornadoes in southern Monroe County on the outskirts of Bloomington. Dan Combs, who was the
- Perry Township Trustee at the time, and his staff wrote up a report on how they dealt with
- trying to help individuals affected by that tornado. They called their report canary in a coal mine.
- And I wonder if that has made it to your desk, Ms. Nabel, and to the committee. I know that it's probably
- not within the scope of this particular plan, but I wanted to take the opportunity to raise that as
- a report that's really worth taking a close look at. It has, I've read it.
- We've read it. Both of us have read it within my office. I have a deputy as well. So would that maybe
- come into play as far as preparedness plans in the future?
- Yes, so we reviewed each of his points and kind of counteracted he mentioned several times that there
- was not a plan when there in fact was a plan so The plans that we have are not widely shared within
- the county because they are proprietary and they do have strategic pieces within them that I mean we don't
- want those things to be shared far and wide because if somebody were to do nefarious things within the
- county, they would obviously want to know exactly what our plan says so that they could do the biggest
- harm and get the most bang for their buck and we obviously don't want that to happen. So we do kind
- of keep those plans close to the vest, but always willing to have discussions with anybody who would
- like to come and have discussions. I just never got the chance to have any discussions with Mr. Combs.
- unfortunately Okay, thank you Thanks so much any other questions All right, seeing none. We'll then
- I'll go to a time of public comment Is there anyone who'd like to make a public comment on this resolution?
- All right, anybody online fantastic we'll come back to council council any comments I
- Thank you, I'll just say I would for any colleagues who have not gone to tour the emergency management
- center I have had the luxury and opportunity to go talk to All of the employees there led by I'm so
- sorry. Please remind me of your last name Jamie Nibel. Yes. Thank you so
- Yeah, if you'd like to learn more it's a great tour and ask lots of questions. Thanks Thank you so much
- other comments councilman Rostos Burke. Yeah, I guess I also want to make a little comment because a
- piece of the approval of this tonight is so that our Sustainable and development ESD it can apply for
- some federal grants and
- Related to sustainability stuff. And so that is one of the reasons why it's coming before us I think
- that it is typical maybe that we as a council adopt this Mitigation plan and we just didn't do it last
- year. It just kind of got overlooked when it first started But that is something that our staff are
- working on that was discussed at the project 46 meeting last week so that
- This this actually is an important to do so they can apply for those funds that I believe that application
- will happen over the summer Thanks. Thank you so much Any others? All right. Well the click, please
- call the roll Councilmember Rosenberger. Yes clarity. Yes Stasburg. Yes Piedmont Smith Yes Zulek. Yes.
- Sorry. Yes daily
- Yes, Rallo. Yes rough. Yes Thank you Fantastic. All right I've asked them. Well, you go ahead. Yes I'd
- like to make a motion to move ordinance 20 26-13 to next on the agenda So that we can get our staff
- out of here sooner so they don't have to sit here all night second Motion in the second
- Motion was to move the thing on the agenda. So will the clerk please call the roll on this amendment
- to the agenda? Thank you. Yeah, just a moment. I gotta get it. So Yes councilmember Flaherty, yes Stasberg
- yes Piedmont Smith Yes
- Yes, I'm sorry. Yes Daley. Yes, Rallo. Yes rough. Yes Rosenberger Okay, I Moved that ordinance 2026-13
- be introduced and read by the clerk by title and synopsis only second Will the clerk was called a roll
- Councilmember Stasberg, yes
- Piedmont Smith Yes Zulek. Yes. Sorry. Yes Daly. Yes, Rallo. Yes, Ruff. Yes Rosenberger and Flaherty.
- Yes. Thank you. Well, of course, please read
- Ordnance 2026 dash 13 to amend title 2 of the Bloomington municipal code regarding loans between utilities
- the synopsis is as follows this ordinance follows Indiana code section 8 dash 1.5 dash 3 dash 11 and
- allows for the wastewater and water Utilities to issue loans to one another through the creation of
- a cash reserve fund in each utility through which such loans can be funded Fantastic, thank you
- Move that ordinance twenty twenty six dash thirteen be adopted second. Hooray Have you built the thing
- that you've been crocheting although we gave you plenty of time We've already heard this presentation
- Are there is there anything you wanted to add to that or any questions for directors agar,
- please councilmember Stossberg This isn't a question for directors agar, but I would like to move amendment
- one for ordinance twenty twenty six thirteen Thank you very much. We have amendment one second. There's
- a second fantastic. Go ahead
- So that so that's my amendment if you remember last week I brought up that the actual language that
- was going to be going into code was very Confusing and I asked for a rewrite of that and so I want to
- thank the attorneys and everybody involved I think that the new language actually Explains what is happening
- a little bit better in terms of creating it basically it just separated it into a couple of sentences so we're
- Creating it says a cash reserve fund is hereby created for each city-owned utility Each of the city's
- utilities is authorized to transfer surplus earnings each month hereafter to their respective cash reserve
- fund Created in this section and pursuant to Indiana code and the cash reserve fund of one city-owned
- utility May be used to make loans to another city-owned utility
- Blah blah blah know the rest of that change. So I I appreciate that there was the willingness to to
- clarify that language I think it makes a whole lot more sense now Fantastic any comments on the amendment?
- Great would anybody like to make public comment on this amendment? Fantastic we'll come back to council.
- I'm sorry. Is there anybody online would like to make comments in this amendment? Fantastic. We'll come
- back to council any final comments on this amendment Great clerk. Will you please call the roll?
- Councilmember Piedmont Smith Yes Yes, sorry, yes Daley. Yes, Rallo. Yes, Ruff. Yes, Rosberg Yes Stossburg,
- yes. Thank you All right. I'm now as amended. Are there any comments? Oh, I
- Any comes from council, I'm sorry any questions further from council? Fantastic would anybody like to
- make public comment on this? Ordinance as amended Anybody online tremendous Looking once twice comments
- on council Fantastic. Will the clerk please call the roll? Councilmember Zulek, yes I'm sorry. Yes daily. Yes Rallo
- Stasberg yes Piedmont Smith Yes Wow, we're cooking with gas now, let's go that passes I move that resolution
- 20 26-11 be introduced and read by the clerk by title and synopsis only second This motion in the second
- there is discussion
- Yeah, I just want to say because I've been trying to be consistent about this because the Jack Hopkins
- stuff didn't Get released in the packet until this week and I know that I've made a point about that.
- However, I am gonna vote yes on this Introduction for two reasons one of which it is kind of an inner
- council thing So like our council staff knew that it was coming and so it wasn't sprung on them in terms
- of unexpected And secondly, this has to be done tonight. It's our last meeting and Jack Hopkins must
- be dealt with
- That is very true. Thank you very much. All right, there's a motion in the second with a quick, please
- call the roll Councilmember, sorry. Yes Daily, yes, Rallo. Yes Ruff Rosenberger clarity. Yes Stasburg.
- Yes, Piedmont Smith Yes, all right, thank you and Zulek. Yes, sorry, sorry
- Excuse me Resolution 2026-11 authorizing the allocation of the Jack Hopkins Social Services Fund program
- funds for the year 2026 and related matters
- The synopsis is as follows. This resolution brings forward the recommendations of the 2026 Jack Hopkins
- Social Services Committee. The principal task of the committee is to recommend funding for local social
- services agency proposals that best meet program criteria and best meet the needs of the community.
- This resolution allocates a total of 499,995 dollars.
- $4.63 to 35 different agency programs the resolution also approves the funding agreements with these
- agencies and authorizes the council president to execute such agreements Accepts the report of the committee
- and authorizes the chair of the committee to resolve any questions regarding the interpretation of the
- agreements I Move that resolution 20 26-11 be adopted second All right
- Thank you very much. We'll go really quick through this. We don't need to linger long this year for
- the Jack Hopkins social service grant There were nine of us committee members It was a got off to a
- bit of a rocky start at the beginning when we lost our some of our staff So that was a little worrying
- They left us in good shape. We tried a new Application process this year. It was more streamlined and
- shorter and so much easier to
- for us as grant reviewers to get right to the heart of the information that we needed. I hope that the
- applicants found it a little more streamlined and easier, too. So huge shout out to Kari for getting
- us set up with that. That was a bit of an adjustment, but we got going with that. I want to give a huge
- thank you to our fellows and our interns, who really helped get us through the summer. So Aria, Evan,
- and Michael really helped
- Keep us organized and communicating We couldn't have done it without their help and then of course when
- counsel attorney interim counsel attorney Alan came on he also Gave a huge, you know push toward the
- finish line. So It ended up actually working out really well in the end We had a five hundred thousand
- dollar budget
- I'd like to say that we came in under budget this year for the first time and in the past couple years
- We we have five dollars and thirty six cents left over And we funded Nobody cheered for that. Come on.
- Thank you We funded 35 agencies. I think we you know worked really hard to make sure that
- We were meeting our criteria and our priorities. It was a really smooth process between the nine of
- us I think that my fellow committee members who are here tonight Would agree that we were all pretty
- much on the same page for most of the process We all were came to the table with the same recommendations
- ultimately And then finally, I'd also just like to give a huge. Thank you to our community member committee
- members Does that make sense? So Eddie Ryu
- Cameron Greer and Catherine and T MOA they were phenomenal to work with and Yeah, any questions, I'm
- happy to take them, but I like to I'm proud to put this recommendation forward Thank you and thank you
- all so much for the work that you put into this Were any agencies denied funding? Yes, I believe there
- were two agencies that we did not fund
- Could you speak on why or did they not meet the qualifications or we did not think that their their
- request met our standards for the urgency of the Needs that we were looking to fill understood. Thank
- you other questions Council member Stasberg Thank you. I have just a note for the community to make
- sure that if you like me downloaded this
- Addendum a couple of days ago. I did find a couple of things that needed to be changed in that resolution
- That in one of the whereas clauses We needed to add in resolution 20 2601 as a reference to the committee
- organization and then there was a missing print
- And so the resolution Introduced tonight had those things corrected and it's corrected in the packet
- online right now But the original but so I just want to make sure that people Are aware of what we're
- voting on So it is that that version that has those things two things corrected and then my question
- for councilmember daily
- has to do with operational expenses. I did see in your scope of funding that operational expenses were
- considered this year. Is that new? Because I thought that operational expenses were generally not considered
- for Jack Hopkins. I do not believe that was a new part of the consideration. Can anybody else speak
- to that? Am I just remembering that incorrectly in terms of original Jack Hopkins?
- My recollection is that we is that we we ask to not prioritize people who are that we want we prioritize
- investments and things that are sort of one-time lasting investments, but it doesn't doesn't preclude
- us from Giving operational funds and for many years we have
- Funded operationally like for example at the with IRA is a good example who almost every year asked
- for operational funds But they have also made a strong argument that they've been able to then sustain
- Those things that we invest in and then they're able to increase their capacities, etc, etc so it is
- it has been a consideration for as long as I've been on the Okay, I guess I just
- Doesn't necessarily concern me. I do feel like it's kind of a Deviation though because I wouldn't classify
- what you just said councilmember. Sorry as an operational fund
- Expense because those things as I remember them from the year that I was on Jack Hopkins a couple years
- ago It was for like a new staff member or a new program So it was like that entrepreneurial kind of
- expansion of services as opposed to continuation of the same services So this year those things that
- were categorized as operational expenses were just like maintaining status quo as opposed to trying
- to start new programming and
- I don't remember any that comes to mind Like you don't remember if it was new parent because I like
- tandem Tandem said that it was essential program costs and then Hendrix County Child Advocacy Center
- Susie's place was operational expenses including salaries Yeah, those are two that that popped to mind
- very specifically with
- You know facing huge funding losses because of what's going on federally and what's going on statewide
- And so we did see that as somewhat emergency funding. Okay, okay Operational programming as opposed
- to like new programs. Okay. Yes So do you think that ongoing like you would advocate for that or does
- that just depend on? I
- The state of the world, you know when we had our deep this fun. So sorry Yeah, just in terms of Jack
- Hopkins Yeah, like the original purpose because I think some of the original purpose statements was
- about trying to get new things going and not just maintain Yeah, when we had our debrief was it just
- a week ago a week ago feels like forever ago when we had our debrief We did kind of talk about that
- actually, you know, one of our concerns was, you know, maybe we see some of the same
- Organizations come back with like, you know almost like the same ask every year and is this Is how are
- we going to encourage new applicants new asks One of the things that we've considered doing is actually
- starting to meet earlier not waiting until February to do an organizational meeting maybe start in November
- and start kind of setting our process and our policies that early and
- Kind of getting a stronger foundation that much earlier so that too we can also then convey it to the
- public What we're going to be looking for when we do start accepting applications in the late winter
- early spring Okay, thanks Any other questions All right. We'll now go to public comment. Would anybody
- like to comment on this resolution for authorizing the Jack Hopkins allocations?
- to mention something because I have been on the Jack Hopkins and on This year was looking at it from
- a more of a startup perspective for a nonprofit For those that are all volunteer run you may not be
- getting the applications because the time frame from when the announcement goes in out and then when
- the Application needs to be submitted was too short. So I would suggest making that a
- longer. Thank you. Thank you so much. Anyone online? Yes, please. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes, we can.
- Thank you. This was Carol Canfield. Excuse me. And I'm a lifelong member of the community. I've come
- every year for, I don't know, 20 plus years
- speaking against giving money to Planned Parenthood. Here's my reason why this year. We continue to
- give significant money to an organization, Planned Parenthood, that lies to clients, calling human beings
- a clump of cells, and also lies to men and women, making them think that there are more than two sexes.
- There are not. God created man and woman, man and woman, period.
- You cannot be born one thing and become another. When are we going to stop lying about this and supporting
- an entity that lies to its clients and to the public? Truth matters. And truth is not something that
- can be changed. Truth is eternal. Please don't give them any more of our money. Thank you.
- Thank you very much. Is there anybody else in council chambers? Anyone else online? One more person
- online, take it away. Hi, I'm Joan Middendorf. I am a fifth generation Hoosier. When I went to college
- in the Midwest, I got my birth control from Planned Parenthood. I've got two daughters, and a few years
- ago when I stopped buying them presents for Christmas,
- told them I would donate money to places. It was interesting that both my daughters told me to take
- their Christmas money and donate it to Planned Parenthood because it had helped them. And I'm gonna
- tell my granddaughter about Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood is an organization that helps women
- with their sexual health. So important for so many women. Thank you very much. Have a good evening.
- Thank you. You too. All right. We'll come back to council comments any comments on Jack Hopkins funds
- Please councilman Rallo Yes, I I Thought the process was very good and I really I want to say thank
- you to chair Daley for terrific work that was done on on it I I do want to just make the comment that
- And I appreciate the administration bringing the budget of Jack Hopkins up to five hundred thousand
- dollars several years ago But because of inflation, we're already it's already being eroded, of course
- and the needs continue to increase This is something I think we really need to prioritize is at least
- keeping pace with inflation over time So I would just make that request the administration and my colleagues
- Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm counselor Stasberg I just want to say that 30 years ago when I was
- 18 19 years old and And did not have health insurance Planned Parenthood was the only place that I could
- go for basic basic care basic doctor appointments everything from things specific to my body as a female
- to more general kind of
- Questions and concerns and that was the only thing that I could afford. So I'm very pleased to support
- them through through Jack Hopkins. Thank you Thank you very much councilmember Thank you, I will just
- say it is a privilege and an honor for me to support Planned Parenthood And I will continue to support
- the LGBTQ plus community as well. Happy pride month and Especially happy pride month to our trans siblings.
- Thank you All right any other comments
- All right. Will the clerk please call the roll? Councilmember daily. Yes Rollo. Yes rough. Yes Rosenberger.
- Yes Flaherty. Yes Stasberg. Yes Piedmont Smith Yes Zulek. Yes, and sorry. Yes All right. Thank you very much
- Next motion I move that resolution 20 26-12 be introduced and read by the clerk by title and synopsis
- only second motion in a second. Is there any discussion? Councilmember Piedmont Smith Yes, I just wanted
- to say that I'm going to vote no on this motion not just because of the late hour but because I believe
- the the deadlines for
- to receive the materials for this item were not met and I Don't think that we should make Exceptions
- to our deadlines unless there's some urgent need and I don't think there's any urgent need for this
- resolution. Thank you All right. Thank you. Any other comments councilmember Stasburg I just want to
- say I'm also voting no for the same reason and I did speak with staff this week and they confirmed for
- me that there's no urgency and handling this piece of business before we go on summer recess and
- I am going to vote yes tonight because I think there are some community members who have waited four
- hours to say their piece and I'll just add that Just I mean for whatever it's worth. This is not was
- not a surprise and when it came to council we've been
- Working on this openly talked about it in scheduling meeting. We received the first sort of draft of
- this on April 23rd second draft on April 28th, so Don't think that violates the rules, but also shared
- councilmembers who like Sam comments here Alright, so will the clerk we call the roll? Councilmember
- Rallo, yes breath yes Rosenberger
- Flaherty yes Stasburg no Piedmont Smith no Zulik yes, sorry. Yes daily. Yes All right, that would be
- super. Oh, sorry. Will the clerk please read? Yeah
- Resolution 2026-12 establishing rules and guidelines for alcohol permit districts the synopsis is as
- follows resolution 2026-12 establishes rules procedures and public interest guidelines for alcoholic
- beverage permits for which the city of Bloomington has authority discretion or influence to recommend
- support condition object to monitor or otherwise participate in the alcoholic beverage permitting process
- Thank you very much
- I move that resolution 20 26-12 be adopted second. All right, I'll be super quick and then we can as
- a point of order the gavel needs to pass to Yeah, just super quick Worked on this with ESD and and other
- other council members just
- Generally there there are a lot of different dispositions within Indiana code that allow for additional
- alcohol permits whether those be riverfront districts Downtown historic districts and then there's a
- recent State bill sponsored by our senator Yoder to allow Bloomington and I think another municipality
- to have a couple of additional liquor licenses because the
- metaphor of cart before the horse has been used today. We wanted to sort of separate two questions.
- There's the question of whether or not these be established and whether or not they be acted on. And
- then there's the second question of sort of, okay, and if we were, how would we go about doing that?
- And so certainly not an urgent thing. So if the conversation gets too long, very happy to push this
- off. But the idea here is just to shape the guidelines
- upon which should the city have any say any influence and Roughly the process by which we will set these
- guidelines both now and moving forward. So You I mean, it's it's fairly thorough fairly fairly
- straightforward but the main sort of takeaway is this is that I think a lot of the concerns that people
- would have should we in the future establish a riverfront district or or act on the downtown Liquor
- licenses, I think concern number one is is would
- would be the proliferation of bars as sort of one concern. And so we stipulate here that we'd like to
- use these type of things, should we use them, for economic development. And so really thinking about,
- you know, some of the things we were just talking about, you know, if we want more density of restaurants
- along Kirkwood as one example, that we want local business owners to be represented so that, you know,
- ideally avoid lots of change popping up to get what really are quite lucrative and very highly valued
- liquor licenses. So we just wanted basically to set up the governance for what it might look like should
- we act on any of these. So fairly straightforward and mostly also sets up a process by which we can
- continue to evaluate this on a two-year basis. So I will answer any questions. You're in charge, mate.
- Councilmember Stossberg So I have a lot of a lot of concerns I suppose with this and I guess the biggest
- one has to do with with the discretion allowed in the evaluation criteria and How it could be interpreted
- and then exactly like how this process is gonna go I feel like I could have really used memo from
- about state law around this that Our counsel attorney did not have time to get because he got a final
- copy of this on Friday and I So in terms of those concerns so evaluation of criteria support
- for underrepresented entrepreneurs, how do you define underrepresented entrepreneurs and
- And similarly, you can determine things based on restaurant quality. How do you determine restaurant
- quality? Food service orientation. How do you determine food service orientation? I'm vegetarian. Maybe
- I'm going to say only vegetarian restaurants get to be approved. And I guess I would just like you to
- speak to those concerns about the amount of discretion that can be allowed within this document and how it's
- phrased right now. I mean, I think as it's phrased, it's giving some
- General guidelines for the types of things that can be considered It does not say because at the end
- of the day, we don't give liquor licenses We we get to make recommendations about them And so this is
- simply saying this simply saying that you know We might want to consider things of this nature and that
- and again what's a little bit I think some one that one of the things that makes us a little bit complicated
- is that there's three different types and each of them requires different
- Sort of gives different space for council to act and so I mean the the answer to your question is that
- it's it should be Interpretable and this isn't saying these are the five ways that we will give liquor
- licenses Just saying that these are the type of things that I think would be valid things to consider
- So it's general general guide it's not Biden binding, but what is the council role in actually doing
- this then?
- What's the council's role in in doing this whole process? So The the council can make recommendations
- with which within each of these Dispensations so we can we can make recommendations We also can establish
- a process by which ESD for example can set up written agreements And we approve those agreements should
- they be should they be reached? I
- So as a follow-up like if say there's the historic district I think is one of those designations, right?
- So if the historic does a district is designated how many liquor lights it says does that come with?
- how many How many times are we gonna have to go through this approval process? You said every two years
- I've heard that every that they have to apply for these every year and like then we have to go like
- what kind of time is that gonna take us as a council and
- And and what does this resolution have to do with that because resolutions? I mean doesn't really have
- teeth like it like what is this actually? Doing and then what what is this tying us into as a commitment
- later? To the to the first question the timeline that I mentioned with two years is for us to review our
- and guidelines around how we would like to what we'd like to prioritize in these so just gives a it
- just gives a Guideline for us to bring this back up. We could bring it up whenever we want to In terms
- of how many there are it's a different by district. I think it's 15 It's 15 for a downtown district.
- I think it's also 15 for a riverfront district. Is that right? It's 15 for the historic district and
- Riverfront and and so no we don't I don't envision that we would be you know, constantly approving these
- it's not I mean a setting up a process by which we're setting a lot of different things that can be
- considered and then I mean Ideally allowing ESD to actually run that process But they would then bring
- by resolution to us those recommendations that would go to the ATC now the ATC could totally be
- I mean just say we don't really care what you think and just give them to whoever they want Because
- again, we don't we don't give out these liquor licenses But state code gives the sort of provisions
- that we're allowed to make recommendations for how they're given out Councilmember Piedmont Smith Yes,
- I have a few questions as well I
- So compliance with living wage ordinance, it says the compliance shall be demonstrated by an annual
- affidavit submitted to the city. But compliance with living wage ordinance is actually done via the
- LWO certification form that's on the city's website. So I'm wondering if you're envisioning a new process
- for that just for this purpose or why it wasn't the same process that we use currently. Great point.
- I mean, that's I think if that's the way we want to do it, that's what we should include.
- Okay, but that's not what the language in the ordinance. We should change it then. Guidelines. Okay.
- I have some other questions. For the staff review, it doesn't, now that you've talked about it, I understand
- it's the economic sustainable development staff, but that's not stated here. So it just says staff review.
- So it seems like it should be assigned to at least a certain department Yeah, thanks for that observation
- Councilmember Rosenberger I Think 15 maybe a lot would fall into concepts that fill an identified market
- need that I I'm guessing kind of like a grocery store obey or bodega might be
- that any market, whether it be Trader Joe's, because we have so many places without a walkable grocery,
- or neighborhood bodegas don't exist yet kind of thing. Okay, nodding yes. And then a little bit about
- the... Not necessarily a preference for restaurants, but maybe I don't see a preference for more bar onlys.
- And was that talked about because I kind of think like right now we have the problem where it's really
- hard for a restaurant To make it without a liquor license but then I think too there are areas in our
- city that people would benefit with a neighborhood bar that they could walk to instead of like having
- to Drive or transfer, you know to a bar, I guess Yeah, and I agree I mean I think that you know, I think that the
- Sort of two things. I think the prevalent concern that I'm trying to address is the fact that if we
- were to establish one of these districts, that what they will result in is just a lot of bars. This
- is not to say that we couldn't give one to a bar. I think it's just to say that I'm at least maybe in
- a provocation and a way of starting a conversation saying that perhaps
- in terms of economic development, it might be more beneficial for us to be thinking, at least prioritizing
- restaurants. But I think your point is super valid. And that's why the language is really flexible here,
- is that saying it's like, yeah, I mean, we may, from time to time, think about this differently. And
- we might focus for a time on Kirkwood. We might think differently about Kirkwood than we might about
- some creek somewhere. And I think that that's really the goal here, is figuring out a way to, in a very
- agile way, just have a framework where we can continue to address exactly that. And I think we could
- come back to this in, let's say, in a year if we were to establish these districts and say, actually,
- we want to change that because we want more of
- X thing, and that could be for a season, a two-year season, a five-year season, who knows, right? And
- so that's sort of the goal here is to establish that flexibility. I have a clarifying question that
- I believe is for Council Attorney Allen but might be for Council President Asare. These, the 15 liquor
- licenses that we're proposing are directly tied to the historic district, is that correct? No. Okay.
- Potentially apply to Bloomington. So there's a historic district that technically we could has been
- discussions over the years that we could apply for that's 15 licenses
- If you created a riverfront district, that's actually unlimited in the number of licenses Some cities
- have limited that number and then there is the downtown district, which is the special section under
- section 16.8 of Indiana code which creates two licenses specifically for Bloomington as special legislation
- So those are the three most common likely applicable ones and then just in terms of our role maybe if
- you'll allow me a point of indulgence to clarify is that the
- Formal written commitment that's allowed under Indiana code that does become a condition of Receiving
- one of the liquor licenses and it applies to all three districts Thank you any more first-round questions
- Okay, we can move on to second round councilmember Stasberg I just have a couple of clarification Kind
- of questions first of all around the written commitment piece
- Councilmember sorry one of the things that you said was that you know, we could only recommend to the
- ATF Should give it to you, but the ATF would approve it But if we require a written commitment Then
- what would happen if the ATF approves somebody that couldn't fulfill the requirements of our written
- commitment?
- I would just say the way the statute is worded. It says it becomes a condition of approval So at that
- point I do think the ATC would have to abide by the formal written commitment now that is not to say
- that you couldn't put and I think that my understanding and Councilmember sorry can obviously or council
- president. Sorry can can add more detail to this My understanding is that this framework is a little
- bit broader than that. So it not only covers formal written commitments, but it would also cover
- General requirements to receive our recommendation as well Regarding if there is no formal written commitment
- and the City Council just would decides to weigh in with a recommendation The local ATC board and the
- state ATC board are not obligated to follow the City Council's recommendation Wait say that again They
- just wouldn't be obligated to follow if we don't have a written commitment if you don't have a written
- commitment But then they don't existence of the written commitment which has to be approved by ordinance
- is a condition of approval
- But but like so I'm thinking about all of the discretionary pieces in here again So could all of those
- discretionary pieces end up in a written commitment So so it's fairly broad the statute is fairly broad
- in the written commitment statute specifically it talks about
- Specifically acknowledging the nature of the business the type and nature of the business itself So
- there are there's a lot of flexibility within that in terms of what would go into a formal
- written commitment. I think likely you could Incorporate a lot of these into formal written commitments
- if that's the way you wanted to go Okay, I have another follow-up to but I'll wait for a third round
- I guess Councilmember Piedmont Smith
- So I want to follow up on this idea of written commitments. So how would this legally work that we would
- say they would fill out an application that we receive here at the City Council and then based on that
- we would recommend them or not and they, sorry, I did read this but I don't recall this process of written
- commitments being described.
- I don't know that it's described in this particular ... I think it's alluded to with two different phrases.
- There's a less formal written agreement, I think, in this particular resolution, and then there's mention
- of, quote-unquote, a formal written commitment. That language, formal written commitment, is found in
- Indiana Code. It's Indiana Code 7.131917.
- And in that state code that's where it says as a condition of eligibility for a permit The applicant
- must enter into a formal written commitment with the municipal legislative body Regarding the character
- or type of business that will be conducted on the permit premises. And so that's the specific language
- there And that that written commitment by Indiana code by that's that statute has to be approved by
- ordinance specifically So
- As Council Member Stosberg said, any of these criteria where they say they're gonna be a restaurant
- and be family friendly and they have good workplace practices and they've paid living wage and all that
- stuff, we could put that in writing that they have to make a formal commitment to? Yes, I think you
- could, under the statute. Okay. Can I ask a question of,
- Go ahead council attorney Allen. Could you also comment? Do we need to pass a do we by ordinance pass
- each written commitment or do you establish the written commitment? And then and then move from there
- The way this specific statute is written I is it actually says the municipal legislative body must adopt
- an ordinance approving a
- The formal written commitment so I you could read that one of two ways just frankly and I don't mean
- to create extra complexity in a complex issue I think one, you know, we would look at how other
- municipalities are implementing this But I think one way you could look at that is that there is a form
- written commitment that the city applies broadly uniformly to every application or the other way I think
- you could read it is that each individual written commitment needs to be
- Approved by ordinance the most conservative approach would obviously be to approve each individual written
- commitment by ordinance Other questions Councilmember Stossberg So this one is another what-if question
- following along with councilmember Rosenberger's like comment about
- in that conversation about prioritizing restaurant-oriented use over alcohol consumption-focused use.
- And so, Councilmember Asari, you said, you know, not that we wouldn't give one to a bar, we would prioritize
- a restaurant. And these do have to be, like, they have to reapply every year, right? Is that right?
- And so, the what if is, well, what if a new restaurant opens and you would maybe prefer to give it to
- a restaurant, you only have a limited number,
- But there's already an existing bar, and there's 15 of them. So do you then take one away from the bar,
- and then that completely shuts them down? What kind of security does that give any? I guess I just,
- this feels sort of, it's that discretion thing again, and how that works legally, I guess.
- Because we have all this discretion to do whatever we want and doesn't that like Lend some insecurity
- into the entire thing to have so much discretion in this She made it a legal question. So to you and
- then Just in terms of how it operates legally. Yes once you have now Riverfront district is the asterix
- here because the permits are unlimited if you do create and Riverfront district within that district
- any qualifying business could be eligible for
- Permit the other ones are limited. So once those are gone, they are used up just like our normal Allocation
- of alcohol permits which exist outside of this particular process And then there is a fairly robust
- just frankly secondary market for those alcohol permits to be bought and sold there are limitations
- however on the other districts in terms of how you can buy and sell those permits for instance the specialty
- ones for Bloomington can only be transferred to the same
- On the same location to a successor and interest essentially So it's not on the free market like the
- general alcohol permits are where we see those being sold for $300,000 a piece or so Okay Other questions
- Okay, let's go to public comment. I have another one to you actually I have another question if
- If I can so one of the things in your memo councilmember, sorry, I'm sorry. I just called for public
- comment Can we just go to well, we will do more questions after If anyone would like to speak on this,
- please approach the podium. You'll have three minutes. Please sign in and state your name Hi Steve Olin
- I came here for other reasons, but this is one of my favorite subjects so
- I want to speak in favor of this resolution and endorse it heartily. It's been something that The council
- was going to need to do eventually But I want to have to to maybe illustrate the task at hand. I want
- to Call the statute. It's I see seven point one dash three dash twenty dash sixteen subsection G That
- was the first
- State law the one that mr. Allen was talking about. This is the historic courthouse square district
- When it was first brought to our attention in 2009 it was offering 10 permits for Facilities within
- 500 feet of the district then it was 700 feet now. It's 1500 feet and 15 permits. So clearly the program
- which was written for Valparaiso but Evansville and Bloomington it turns out quality
- Qualify for it there the administration going through it The specific thing that I think would interest
- council members is the line the legislative body Of the municipality in which the district is located
- shall recommend to the Commission sites that are eligible to be permit premises The Commission shall
- consider but it's not required to follow the municipal legislators body's recommendation and result
- in issuing a permit under the subsection but the de facto standard is they almost never
- turn late they never counter manned the opinion of the locality what this does is it introduces an extra
- layer of administration what you have the power to do is you have to declare the building eligible for
- the permit if the Possessor the permit screws up and you want to remove it You simply remove
- their eligibility for the site and then they can't renew the permit
- the next year so it adds a level of local control that is typically not available to Localities who
- may be objecting to a permit and it allows you to direct the permit. I mean councilmember Sandberg and
- I Believed even as far back as 2010 or so that the way to use those permits would be at least when it
- was in the downtown was to
- award the permits to nonprofit organization who wanted to to take possession of a building they could
- then contract with a restaurant third-party restaurateur but the point being that the value of the permit
- would accrue to say fixing the building and
- We wanted it for something like the Waldron, but the Waldron found a permit through a different part
- of state law So they didn't need these permits But that's an example of how the council could use these
- permits and I certainly want to encourage you at some Sooner rather than later to write an ordinance
- that lays out a process that people could follow So please approve this resolution. Thank you. Thank
- you very much next person in chambers Please sign in state your name or alias and you'll have three minutes
- Let's see if I can still spell my name. I am a tired mom of two young kids, so I empathize with y'all.
- I'm writing in support, actually, I'm here in support tonight, of Resolution 26-12 as a co-founder of
- Heartwork Brewing, a small, locally-owned, family-friendly brewery here in Bloomington. The recent and
- upcoming closures and relocations of well-known Bloomington establishments reflects the growing barriers
- independent restaurants and small businesses face.
- These liquor license costs have become so prohibitive, sometimes at a quarter million dollars or more,
- that only outside developers and larger conglomerates can realistically absorb them. This resolution
- presents an opportunity for the city to level the playing field.
- What a three-way permit would allow our brewery to do is expand our offerings in direct response to
- what our customers are already asking for. Local ciders, wines, and canned cocktails often requested
- by guests with gluten allergies or those who simply want options beyond beer. We would love to support
- fellow local producers by carrying their products.
- Heartwork is also situated within walking distance of high-density residential areas the stadium and
- local hotels Expanding our permit to include wine and other alcohol more creates a genuine incentive
- for neighbors and visitors to walk to our business rather than drive to a bar downtown a public safety
- benefit the city should want to encourage a
- I would ask that the council consider amending section seven, part three, which requires 60% of revenue
- to come from food. I understand the intent, but I'd request that the threshold be waived automatically
- for licensed local producers, breweries, distilleries, wineries, cideries, who already hold brewer or
- producer permits in addition to the requested retail permit.
- Our primary product by nature commands higher per unit prices meaning food revenue will rarely reach
- 60% even with a fully operating kitchen We're not trying to circumvent the spirit of the requirement,
- but we can't really meet the math of it So I would suggest alternative framework potentially other criteria
- as requiring being family-friendly or other defined kitchen infrastructure standards Just to make the
- resolution more workable specifically for local craft producers like us. Thank you
- Thank you. Could you give your name, please? That's how tired I am. Aubrey Williams. No problem.
- Thank you. Call me if you need me. I love your dress, Aubrey.
- All right, thank you. My name is Galen Cassidy. I'm one of the co-owners of Uptown Cafe. I'm here to
- strongly support the resolution 2026-12 and the framework it creates for the city recommended alcohol
- permits. Bloomington does face a clear mismatch between alcohol permit supply and our economic demand.
- Our population-based quota system that the state uses does not match what we do here. It's based on
- the census counts.
- And due to our influx of students, faculty, visitors, and events, we have a far greater demand than
- raw population numbers suggest. And as a result, the median price of a transferred three-way liquor
- license has been voiced here tonight reaches or exceeds a quarter million dollars, which is dramatically
- higher than any other parts of the state. I think as a reference last time I checked, Indianapolis is
- around $50,000.
- As a council the ATC requires that you approve These licenses to be utilized with or without a written
- commitment I'll get into that a little bit later, but the city of Valparaiso has operated with this
- as Mr. Volin has suggested for over 20 years. They've successfully operated with this and I think that
- several things in the the language has been crafted from those Ordinances that have already existed
- for many years in the state
- We talk a lot about affordable housing in the city, but not enough about affordable entrepreneurship.
- This resolution treats these permits as a public economic development tool rather than a private asset
- by setting clear priorities for restaurant-oriented uses, local ownership, transparency, and accountability.
- Through written agreements, it helps prevent speculation will make the permits more accessible.
- I urge you to adopt this resolution. Expanding affordable pathways for the permits will give more young
- entrepreneurs and independent operators a realistic chance to launch and grow their businesses here.
- That's exactly the vitality we need through Bloomington. If you haven't heard already, you will hear
- the argument against these, and I'll share with you what those will be. You'll hear from current permit
- holders, which we are one of them, that this will devalue their own liquor license, which they will
- say is their number one asset.
- As a current permit holder, I'll tell you that's true, but to me, I'm sorry. If your highest asset is
- a liquor license, it's not the unique service you provide, I think you're in business for the wrong
- reasons. To me, this community needs to provide a lower barrier to entry for young entrepreneurs to
- start their businesses, and we as current permit holders should not be afraid of new businesses coming
- and going. I think, you know, 50 years ago,
- My father started the Uptown Cafe. I think Blooming Foods was started. Runtsville Spoon, as well. Things
- come and go, but we need to give them the chance to get going, and I think this provides a great opportunity.
- So thank you for the time and the late night. Thank you. Is there anyone else in chambers who would
- like to speak? Is there anybody on Zoom? Great. You'll be asked to unmute, and you'll have three minutes.
- Please state your name for the record. Hey, good evening.
- This is Christopher M.G. from the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce, now at home, watching the
- NBA Finals. I want to say the Chamber supports the direction of this resolution and appreciates the
- proactive approach the sponsors have taken. We've had some wonderful public comment. Mr. Cassidy, especially,
- was right on point. Since we have the horse and the cart already have made their appearances,
- I'll say this, the setting the expectations now give the city a chance to be thoughtful.
- before a specific applicant is driving the discussion. These guidelines matter as a tool to help build
- a stronger commercial district. This may be the river district, the square, another place in the city
- with the goal of more activity and reasons for people to spend their time in those areas. Our main concern
- is just with some of the criteria. The guidelines themselves matter and the 60% food may be, you know,
- prevent a back door
- bar, but it also may narrow the tool too much. A broader non-alcoholic revenue standard may be closer
- to the public purpose. It may require the business to be more than alcohol sales, but leaves room for
- music, venues, wine bars, or concepts that have value to the district. We also ask the compliance standards
- to be easy for ESD staff to verify and realistic for industry operations. The living wage is well intended,
- but sector includes a lot of part-time tips, seasonal
- event-based work, the standard might be too difficult to apply. So the same is true for the hours. Good
- operators can be held to clear standards on noise safety, outdoor seating, responsible service without
- forcing every business into the same model. As we move forward, we want the resources to sponsors and
- the ESD staff. We want to support this initiative. We just want to make sure the guidelines leave enough
- room for the kind of district building businesses. Bloomington says it once and I thank you for your time.
- Thank you very much. Is there anybody else on zoom? any stragglers in chambers Okay, then that concludes
- our public comment period now We are moving back to final questions and comments councilmember Stossberg
- I guess I would want to skip any other final questions I have and and just kind of Raise making a motion
- to postpone this and that might mean that we have to postpone indefinitely because we're right in front
- of recess I think that
- I would need to be reminded of whether we can postpone something over recess You can't we can just state
- July 20. Okay, great. Um, I
- Think that there are some section some some things that need amended I know that I'm really concerned
- about some of the discretionary language without the definition. I really appreciate Miss Williams the
- co-founder of Heart Worker and she emailed as well Thank you for coming to comment and reminded me about
- that section 7 and I think that we talked about that last year with stadium district stuff in terms
- of like how to figure out that balance of Basically revenues and and how that
- That works in different ways. I also appreciate mr MG and mentioning the living wage thing and tips
- because that was also something that like like I'm not sure how a living wage works with tips and Yeah,
- and then councilmember Pete Mott Smith also mentioned a couple of things that Her careful reading thought
- might need amendments. So I guess to that end I'll move that we postpone resolution 20 26
- Until our next meeting on July 22nd Okay, there's a motion on the floor. Is there a second? July 22nd,
- so that's our next meeting after a break. Yes Yeah, I was gonna say I'm happy to second that too, but
- I do have a discussion Yeah, I'm happy to take it back one
- Consideration is because I do think it would be nice to clarify some of this language. I think that's all fine
- I'll just say though sort of the way that we were thinking about this is that the resolution sort of
- is saying in broad terms and intent We still need to buy ordinance create the the the actual agreement
- And so this this is sort of saying and this is you know generated this type of conversation It allows
- us to say hey, these are some of the things we want to adjust and fix for the you know for the specific
- What do you call it for the specific agreement? So so I'm happy to take this back and just bring it
- back as a resolution regardless we're gonna have to bring it as an ordinance anyway, so you know the
- other approach would be Pass it as is we get a lot of the comments and then we we go back with a with
- a more official ordinance to establish the agreement so
- I guess I would prefer not to do that just because I know some type of staff like they look at these
- resolutions and then especially some of the things that councilmember Piedmont Smith pointed out and
- the 60% which are really fixed in the resolution and so then for staff to go against that I think that
- enters some awkwardness. Yeah, especially since as a legislative body I actually want the administration
- to like I think I think that's a really good point. Yep. Great councilmember Rosenberger. I'm sorry.
- Did you say
- Let's not talk about suggestions now and do what to do. I'm sorry discussion on the table is postponement
- Okay, I'm happy to postpone and I have suggestions that can be shared at any time Great. Thank you any
- other comments Great. Well the clerk clerk, please call the roll councilmember Ruff Rosenberger yes
- Flaherty yes Stasburg. Yes feed Mount Smith
- Yes, Zoellick. Yes. I'm sorry. Yes, Daley. Yes Rallo. Yes Thank you that passes and will be Discussed
- again on July 22nd our next regularly scheduled meeting and now I will hand the gavel back over to council
- president. I'm sorry Thank you for all the public comment and the time
- Being here. Are there any other motions? I move that ordinance 2026-14 be introduced and read by the
- clerk by title and synopsis only Second there's a motion and a second will the clerk please call the
- roll I'm sorry. I didn't um Yes councilmember Rosenberger Yes
- Yes, Sasper. Yes Piedmont Smith. Yes, is it like no Sorry, yes Daily yes Rallo. Yes Ruff. Yes. All right
- with the clerk, please read
- Will you give me just a moment, please? Of course. Thank you Would you like me to read I'm happy to
- read I've never got a chance to Say are we allowed to because I Think by ordinance the clerk is required
- to read so see Respectfully, thank you so much. Yeah, just give me a moment, please and I apologize
- for the delay
- Sorry about that, ordinance 2026.
- Dash 14 to amend title 2 of the Bloomington municipal code entitled administration and personnel to
- require councilmember sponsorship of legislation under chapter 2.0 for the synopsis is as follows this
- ordinance sponsored by councilmember Piedmont Smith adds a new paragraph to the Bloomington municipal
- code section 2.0 4.2 7 0 to require councilmember sponsorship of each item of legislation except for
- the annual budget legislation and appropriation ordinances
- All right. Thank you very much I Move that ordinance. Oh, I move that ordinance 20 26-14 be adopted
- second. Cool. All right councilmember Piedmont Smith. I Really don't have anything to add most excellent.
- Do we have any amendments? All right public would you like to comment on this I Was so vehement anybody online
- Fantastic back to council. Would you like to comment on this? Councilmember Stasberg I do want to comment
- on this because we got some questions last time and I just want to emphasize that this is like the point
- of this is to Not control the agenda not
- Keep things from the public but when things are actually presented to the full council that they Have
- already been through some element of vetting so that so that common questions are already answered within
- the presentation and things like the amendment that I made earlier to the to the
- Loans between utilities and ordinance 2026 13 might not be necessary because the language already Makes
- sense to somebody who's not an attorney and not a specialist in the field so that then there Is just
- less need for question and confusion because it already it has the clarity And so that I think was the
- gist of what I wanted to say in terms of response from some of the questions that were brought up a
- public mic last Thanks Thank you
- Any other comments? Well, will the clerk please call the roll? Oh, council member Piedmont-Smith. In
- the nick of time. Sorry, had to physically raise my hand, because I couldn't get to the button. Yeah,
- I do think, of course, since I'm the sponsor, it's not a surprise that I support this legislation. I
- do think it will help communication between the mayor's administration and council, and to address some of the
- public comment we received last week. The commenter felt that sponsorship was a form of permission or
- a gate that legislation had to go through. And I just wanted to remind everybody that we already have
- the ability to not introduce legislation just by vote of the council.
- The Council President does decide whether or not to put something on the agenda, but at any time we
- can, there's always a vote whether to actually hear it. So I don't think this is creating any more of
- a barrier to hear legislation than what we already have.
- The other concern was that there are no standards for council members to follow when they decide whether
- or not to sponsor legislation. They would just, it's just up to them. But I think since there are nine
- of us and we all have different ways of thinking about things and different priorities, I don't see
- the hazard. I don't see that there's more than a minuscule chance that,
- legislative item will not find sponsorship. So I also don't think that that concern will come about.
- Another concern expressed last week was the decisions about sponsorship are made behind closed doors.
- And while that's true, there are many decisions along the way that are made before legislation is ready,
- that are made behind closed doors because that's, we work on things, we talk back and forth with the
- Mayor's administration and we talk amongst each other. You know, we make a lot of decisions before we
- bring something forward and I don't think the public is losing anything by having a council sponsor.
- I think as a matter of fact, they'd be gaining something because they'd have another elected representative
- looking at a piece of legislation earlier. And I think that's for the good of the public overall. Another
- concern that was voiced last week is that this would lead to fewer questions in the public domain during
- council meetings. And I also find that very doubtful because there would be eight other council members
- that hadn't sponsored the legislation who would raise questions.
- And there are people like me who raise questions just for the benefit of the public, even if I know
- the answers, much to the chagrin of some of my colleagues. So overall, I did, I just wanted to mention
- those, because I did take seriously the commenter from last week, and I thought about these things,
- but I still stand by the legislation as it's written, thank you. Most excellent, thank you, Council
- Member Flaherty. Thank you, just a brief thank you to the committee and to Council Member Piemont-Smith
- for sponsoring. I think, as noted in the memo,
- I think I maybe was the one who initially brought this to the committee when I was on it last year and
- we didn't Get to this stage of legislation at that time. So I appreciate their follow-through and I'm
- glad to support at times Thank you so much other comments Tremendous will the clerk please call the
- roll? Councilmember Flaherty, yes Stasberg yes Piedmont Smith
- Yes, sorry no Daily yes Rallo yes rough Rosenberger no Thank you
- Thank you so much that passes and we have concluded a marathon of Legislation. Hooray the last moment
- now for public comment if you did not comment During the first session and you're like, ah, you know,
- I really want to comment now. Now's your chance Did I think you did you come into the first oh no you
- did okay, go ahead Sorry, I missed the earlier comment
- I want to speak briefly about food resilience and some of the challenges facing agriculture today a
- number of trends are converging Simultaneously the LFPA grants and other grants have ended affecting
- both the food supplies at the local food banks and farm local farm income
- Farmers across parts in the Midwest are facing critical drought conditions parts in Nebraska are critically
- low with an estimated 25 to 40 days of water in reservoirs Because of inflation to increase fuel cost
- weather Fertilizer supply disruptions farmers are succumbing to financial strain buyers of farm acreage
- are agribusinesses set snapping up
- land for consolidation implementing precision agriculture and narrow AI at scale to maximize shareholder
- value many modern tractors now function as rolling computers and can
- Include intricate interconnected fleets something I found out just today Farmers have found themselves
- locked into proprietary software systems that limit repairs access to diagnostic tools and even control
- over the data generated on their own farms
- They increasingly depend on software controlled equipment subscription services also named known as
- SAS and data flat platforms that move farm data into centralized corporate systems that degrade the
- environment and transfer wealth to Wall Street. The ongoing right to repair movement illustrates a larger
- question. Who owns the tools data infrastructure that our centralized food system depend on
- who is controlling our food supply.
- What are what are their goals a? Resilient alternative is to strengthen the local food system small
- farms farmers market farm stops gardens orchards poultry keeping local processing and seed companies
- and nurseries help keep dollars circulating locally while increasing transparency and adaptability
- Maine has taken an innovative approach through the Food Sovereignty Act. It allows municipalities greater
- control over local food system. It demonstrates that communities can implement policies that strengthen
- local food security through sovereignty to retain control locally. The state of Indiana is making small
- move in this direction through an expansion of the home-based vendor law that goes into effect in a
- few weeks on July 1st. As Bloomington continues discussing sustainability, resilience, and economic
- development,
- us to consider creating a position for a food systems coordinator and educator Funding a local seed
- bank supporting processing facilities and providing education on food storage Which is desperately needed
- with the environmental political and technological issues. We currently face Thank you I also encourage
- the council to consider integrating food sovereignty in the municipal code as has been done by cities
- such as Waterville, Maine Thank you
- Thank you. Thank you Anyone online for a final comment. Thank you all for being here council. Let's
- move to Questions of council schedule as you hopefully aware we did not have a meeting for the next
- six weeks Please enjoy that time. Goodbye. Oh Importantly, we do have a joint session tomorrow with
- the with the county and
- If you're able to make it, I know some of us aren't going to be able to make it But if you're able to
- make it, please We just had quorum. So please go and go to the bathroom for council members who are
- Not planning on not attending if you could please let me know Before you leave tonight, I'd appreciate
- it And I just want to make sure to announce the fiscal committee meeting that is on Friday at 830 Thank
- you. Thanks
- All right, everybody have a wonderful break. This meeting is a George