- I would like to call this meeting of the Common Council on whatever day it is, this August 5th, to order.
- Will the clerk please call the roll? Yes, Council Member Stosberg? Here. Piedmont Smith? Here. Zulek?
- Here. Asari? Here. Daly? Here. Rallo? Here. I'm sorry, I didn't hear.
- Okay, we'll come back to you when you get your sound fixed rough here Rosenberger here Flaherty is absent
- and back to councilmember rough or Rallo. Did we get your sound? Thank you
- Excellent the agendas are posted there on the clerk's desk on the front doors as well today We that's
- a fairly straightforward meeting. We have a handful of reports I'm including a report from the mayor
- a report from council committees and then some issues related to appointments to boards and commissions
- and we have one in one item for first reading which will we will possibly discuss today and we have
- three items for second reading two ordinances and one resolution. There'll be two times of public comment.
- And so we eagerly look forward to all of that. So with that do yes please. I move to amend the agenda
- to move any reports about hiring which is currently added to number five to move that to council committee
- reports under number four.
- Sure. Second. All right. There's a motion in a second. Any discussion. All right. Will clerk Colleen
- please call the roll. Clerk Williamson. Thank you. Notice. Here. Yes. I was like what am I doing. Yes. Yes.
- Yes. Sorry. Yes. Daily. Yes. Rough. Yes. Rosenberger. Yes. Rallo. Yes. Okay. That that carries. So we'll
- be moving items relevant to hiring from item five into the item for seat. Any other motions. Okay. Seeing
- none or do any council members have reports.
- Councilmember Stasberg.
- Yes sorry I I don't feel as organized tonight as I usually feel but I did want to make sure to announce
- again that this Saturday I will be at the farmers market between 9 and 11 at the den booth in case any
- constituents or any other residents of Bloomington want to come and chat with me about anything at all.
- I would love for you to stop by. There's always lots of things going on with city business. So I hope
- to have some great conversations on Saturday morning. Thanks.
- Councilmember Zulik then Piedmont Smith. Thank you I have spent quite a bit of time on constituent services
- related to parking this week There has been a change in distribution of neighborhood parking permits
- to include only residents living in a single-family unit Apparently the Bloomington Municipal Code limits
- eligibility to residents of a single household attached dwelling however in years past parking passes
- were distributed to residents and multifamily residences and
- along with single family. This change in enforcement came from the surge in newly constructed homes,
- so they have opted to audit each property sent in to check the registration status of said property.
- I've heard from several tenants, property owners, property management companies that this enforcement
- change took them by complete surprise and that they were expecting to be able to receive the same parking
- permits that they had in years past. And I believe as a local government, we do have a responsibility
- to this community to inform people of decisions that will impact them with enough time to come up with
- a new plan. The time to discover that you can't receive a parking pass should not be the week that you're
- trying to move into your new apartment.
- Single-family homes are also more likely than other residences to come with parking already simultaneously
- the notion that only single-family home Residents are eligible for neighborhood parking permits is Unsettling
- to me the government should not be in a position to dictate who does and doesn't get to own a car based
- on the type of residents they live in so
- I'm going to continue to collect information on this and I hope to identify a solution for our residents
- in this but also work with city staff to establish better procedures for communicating big changes like
- this within our community. It's not always about what we do but how we do it. And so I also just want
- to say I look forward to hearing the presentation tonight. And that concludes my report. Thank you.
- Thank you so much. Councilmember Smith. Yes. A couple of things. First of all I will have my monthly
- constituent meeting this
- Saturday at 11 on zoom so after you stop by and talk to councilmember Stossberg at the market you can
- hop on zoom and talk with me of course we are different districts, but I Always encourage especially
- district one residents to come to my meeting, but everybody's welcome The link is on the City Council
- website I also wanted to
- talk about a couple of things from the redevelopment commission meeting that was held on Monday. So
- I'm the city council liaison to the redevelopment commission. I was at the meeting on Monday where two
- things of interest happened. First of all they voted to establish a new Hopewell economic development
- area which will then come to the council for approval that then enables
- funding mechanisms like residential TIF. It's similar to when the Summit District and Shasta Meadows
- came before us in April that we approved that designation as an economic development area for building
- housing there. So that should be coming to us soon. And then secondly, two proposals for the College
- Square site were presented on Monday evening.
- One of them seems to be a total non-starter because it depends on the CIB to participate and the CIB
- has already gone a different direction with their convention center hotel and therefore this proposal
- by Concord Hospitality which depends on getting land from the CIB
- really is just not feasible. The other proposal from Dora Hospitality would be, which is the group that
- was selected by the CIB for the Convention Center Hotel, proposes another hotel, boutique hotel, plus
- 80 to 100 units of housing at market rate.
- So there I failed to see the public benefit and they would only pay eventually four million dollars
- for a property that costs the city seven million dollars. So I was disappointed that these are not good
- proposals and hopefully the RDC will carefully consider the option of doing a new call for proposals.
- So that is my report. Thank you so much. Any other council member Rosenberger.
- Hi, thanks. I just thought after councilmember Zulix I would add a little bit about cars somewhere at
- the city. We have a data point that House owner occupied households have more cars than rental households.
- Thank you. Any others. All right. Seeing none. We'll now move on to reports from the office of the mayor.
- Oh Councilmember Smith. I'm sorry. I'd like to.
- make a motion before we move into the other reports. I would like to move that we make an exception
- to our usual processes and allow allow the period of open public comment under 4 D of the agenda allow
- individuals to comment on the parking study even though it is on our agenda. Normally we wouldn't allow
- that because it's on the agenda. Second.
- Thank you. Motion and a second. Any discussion. Can we have a friendly amendment to also allow members
- of the public to comment on the other report from the mayor's office. The community survey report. Sure.
- OK thank you. Any other discussion. All right. Seeing none will the court please call the roll. Councilmember
- Piedmont Smith. Yes.
- Yes. Sorry. Yes. Daily. Yes. Rallo. Yes. Rough. Yes. Rosenberger. Yes. Stossberg. Yes. Thank you. Excellent.
- So that means that during the time of public comment you can feel free to comment on the following reports
- that we're about to hear.
- About the community survey and the other on parking rates. So with that we welcome a mayor Carrie Thompson
- To the podium say your name, please for the record sign in that type of stuff I am Carrie Thompson.
- I am mayor here in Bloomington and I am going to Get back to presenting general reports once a month
- to council
- because I think it's a good way to keep you all in the loop on general city business that doesn't float
- up onto your agenda and just keep the lines of collaboration and communication wide open. It gives us
- all a really useful line of sight to the broader work that we're doing together.
- And the first two things that I want to highlight tonight are that we reached two really important
- Accreditations over the past couple of weeks first since 2023 our Public Works Department has been working
- on getting a hundred percent rate of full compliance on accreditation and they
- achieved that and it was a lot of work to get there and so I know we have Director Wason with us tonight
- and congratulations on that achievement.
- And then we also have Chief DeKoff with us tonight, and the police department was once again awarded
- Tier 1 accreditation. This is the third time that they have reached Tier 1 CALEA accreditation. So it's
- a huge deal. Only about 5% of police departments get this certification, and it
- It shows how exemplary our police department is. And on top of that, they're increasing traffic enforcement
- these days ahead of the start of school, helping to get all of those safe routes to school even safer.
- So thank you, Chief DeKoff, for your leadership on that.
- I also wanted to give an update quickly on Showers West. We have now reached agreement with all of the
- remaining tenants, and so there's a plan for them to depart. We currently have, obviously, the common
- council over in Showers West
- Engineering and the fire headquarters our administration headquarters are there and we are in the process
- of Assessing what other city departments will go there it is the the bond restricts us from renting
- to private lessees and so we had to Stop doing that. We were out of compliance with that bond and
- And we also have no further bond to spend over there. But Showers West still needs improvements before
- future offices can be inhabited. Needs over a million dollars of HVAC updates and a lot of wiring to
- get Wi-Fi, et cetera, in there. We are looking at best uses for that in terms of departments that are
- sort of cubby hold right now and making sure that we get a good plan together. You'll be hearing more
- about that over the coming couple of months. But we did expend that public safety bond in the order
- that was prioritized when it was approved. And that prioritized the fire expenditures first. And so
- all of those have been expended and that did take the balance of that public safety bond.
- And ending on another good note, Ready 2.0, we were awarded a combined $7 million grant in Ready 2.0
- grant funding, $4 million in matching financial and in-kind support from IU and project partners to
- do creative, affordable artist studios in the Showers Admin Building, not to be confused with
- This showers building showers north or showers west. This is a building just north of 10th and Morton.
- And we're really excited about this because it is a great investment in the creative economy that's
- really starting to boom in Bloomington. So we're bringing more arts activity to Switchyard Park and
- this incubator will
- Provide business training regional connections and new professional opportunities and is Jane Cooper
- Smith still here Jane worked really hard on that. So Thanks to Jane and Paige. That's all I have for
- you Thank you very much council members any questions for for mayor Thompson, please customer P.
- Mutsbeth Yes, thank you for this good news about the ready grant. You said there were seven million
- dollars total in
- And then you talked about $4 million in matching financial and in-kind support for the Showers Admin
- Building. What's the other $3 million? $3 million is the grant, and $4 million is the match. It more
- than matches the $3 million that's coming in. OK. So it's also for the Showers Admin Building. It's
- all for that arts project, yes. OK. Thank you. Any other questions? All right. Thank you very much,
- Ms. Thompson. Thanks.
- Our next presentation is on the community survey results. Director Molina, hello. Passing to you.
- Cesar de Molina communications director city of Bloomington good evening council members so since 2017
- the city has partnered with an independent research firm to conduct a biannual community-wide survey
- so we punted our 2025 scheduled survey to 2026 just given the hefty amount of public engagement that
- was happening last year with efforts like hands consolidated plan we had our city in place branding
- initiative and parks and rec master planning which included a community wide survey specifically to
- parks and administered by equity who is here to present on the results tonight. So please join me in
- welcoming Jeff Anderson who is the president. Good evening. Can you hear me OK. Yes we can. Great. Well
- thank you for the opportunity to share the
- community survey results with the council members and with staff and public. I'm gonna run through very
- quickly how the survey was conducted and then I'll move into some of the key findings. The community-wide
- survey included from a random sample of
- Bloomington residents responses from 561. This was a little bit above our target, which I believe was
- around 520 or 530. Dates of data collection were from roughly mid February through mid April. And we
- recruited the participants who were again randomly selected and invited them to participate
- through email invitations with direct links to the surveys, as well as for those for whom we didn't
- have an email, sending a postcard or printed mail questionnaire with a prepaid return envelope that
- they could fill out and send to us. All forms of
- Outreach included three options in which someone could respond. They could reply online through a URL
- or a QR code on the mailed invitations. They could complete the printed survey and 41 people chose that
- option. And we gave everybody a toll free phone number that they could call and complete a survey with
- one of our actual interviewers, not a robo,
- not AI, but an actual interviewer, but nobody chose that option. The vast majority chose to complete
- it online. We then compared our respondent sample of 561 respondents to census data for Bloomington
- and weighted the respondent sample to align with census figures for region, gender, age, race, ethnicity.
- whether they own or rent their home and whether or not they have children under the age of 18. These
- were awaited slightly because the vast majority of respondents are year round Bloomington residents,
- relatively few IU students completed the survey. And the maximum margin of error for a sample of this
- size is 4.1%. Everything I'm sharing in the presentation tonight is in the full report and that includes
- the demographic
- profile of our survey respondents, as well as the regional distribution and the region definition that
- we used for our analysis. One of the key questions starting out at the beginning of the survey was to
- understand how likely a Bloomington resident would be to recommend Bloomington as a place to move or
- live if somebody asked or was interested in doing so.
- just under three quarters, 72%, or at least slightly, if not very, or extremely likely to recommend
- living in Bloomington, much higher than the 18% who gave a low rating below a neutral midpoint score
- of five. And then the remaining 10% were in that neutral category. And what this distribution means
- is that for every one person who
- said they were unlikely to recommend Bloomington as a place to live. You had four people who gave the
- opposite opinion and said they'd be likely to recommend it. This is a different scale, but we got similar
- results as in the 2023 survey in which 74% in that survey said they were combined either very or somewhat
- likely to recommend Bloomington as a place to live.
- One of the things that we did in this year's survey was make use of open-ended questions. So while there
- were certain metrics and topics that the city was certainly interested in understanding, we felt it
- was important to also allow residents to tell us in their own words, what they value and appreciate
- most about living in Bloomington. And they could give us multiple things. If they mentioned 10 things
- that they like about living in Bloomington, we coded
- each of those 10 responses so that we could quantify the results. And you can see the top answers here.
- The color coding, it shows the groupings by different characteristics. So you can see that the top responses
- cover a range of attributes that they appreciate or value most about living in Bloomington.
- The top response, they like the variety of restaurants.
- The parks, open space, outdoor recreational opportunities was mentioned by 24% as was the ease of getting
- around either by bike or public transportation or just walking. And likewise, 24% like that they're
- in a college town that offers sports and cultural activities and young people, as well as the size at
- 21% with many saying that Bloomington has a small town feel, but has a lot
- to offer in terms of activities. And you can see the remaining responses here. The full report includes
- some of those verbatim comments to help clarify those answers. We followed up by asking on the other
- side what they don't like about living in
- in Bloomington or what improvements they'd like to see within the city. And again, these are grouped
- by similar categories, but you can see in this question by far the number one response was about concerns
- about the lack of affordable housing and how expensive housing has become within the city. 19% expressed
- concerns about
- the unhoused population within Bloomington, and then a number of various city services rounded out the
- top five or six responses, mostly around the condition of streets and sidewalks. Again, echoing the
- need for more services for less advantaged or homeless population traffic safety, and then more transparency
- or responsiveness from local government. And again,
- the full report has verbatim responses. On a series of overall attributes, more specific to that likelihood
- to recommend, we asked about one satisfaction with these categories that you see here. And as you can
- see, the vast majority, 67% or more are satisfied with the overall quality of life.
- the ability to find entertainment and things to do within Bloomington and rating the city as a place
- to raise a family. Roughly half, a little over the half also gave positive responses for Bloomington
- as a place to work and retire. The attribute that received the lowest rating
- is rating Bloomington as a place to start or grow a business. About equal thirds either were dissatisfied,
- neutral, or satisfied to some level on that attribute. If you look to the far right, however, you can
- see that 39% weren't familiar enough to rate this attribute. They just weren't familiar or aware enough
- as to the business environment within Bloomington for a new enterprise. So those satisfaction scores
- are only based on the 61% who could give a rating. It's important to call out the people who just aren't
- familiar in those scores. With regard to public services by far,
- Those that received the highest levels of satisfaction are fire protection, sanitation and curbside
- collection, followed by police protection and public safety. And then roughly half echoing support or
- satisfaction with the upkeep in public places, quality of drinking water, snow removal, and storm water
- management. Again,
- item that received the lowest satisfaction scores were the physical condition of streets and sidewalks,
- which echoes one of the top open-ended improvements that residents.
- cited earlier. And then when we asked about their top two priorities, so beyond their satisfaction,
- what are they, what are they most concerned about? You can see that three really rose to the top. One
- of those, the quality of drinking water, which receives somewhat lower scores, police protection, which
- had a fairly high level of satisfaction. And then again, the one that had the lowest
- overall ratings, physical condition of streets and sidewalks as the top two priorities that came up
- most often. For anybody who said these were priorities, but also gave dissatisfaction scores, we asked
- follow-up questions about what their specific concerns or issues are with those. So those who are most
- concerned about the quality of drinking water most often cite either their experience with tasting or
- smelling the water,
- but also 34% responding to things that they've heard or rumors that they've heard of different conditions
- of the drinking water. Not so much their direct experience, but some of the information that they've
- heard. Regarding the lower satisfaction scores, not very many low scores for people who said that police
- protection and public safety is a top concern, but those who are less satisfied most often cited
- Seeing illegal drug use out in public, general concerns with the unhoused population, support for the
- local police, feeling the local police are doing a good job, and then just general safety or crime concerns
- overall. And then finally, for the physical conditions that are priorities and getting lower scores,
- it's largely around potholes or uneven street conditions followed by sidewalks.
- mentioned about half as often as the streets. With regard to various city features, you get very high
- ratings for the parks, trails, outdoor recreational opportunities. Almost all respondents, 85% are satisfied
- with those options. Almost as many with the cultural and entertainment environment in the city, 76%
- are satisfied with overall personal safety. You get slightly lower who are completely satisfied, more
- who are in that somewhat satisfied range. And what this is telling us is that while people have concerns
- about safety, their own experience has been pretty satisfactory in general. And then the remaining attributes
- that you can see there round out
- the other conditions that we mentioned, again, with availability of affordable housing being the biggest
- negative that they're seeing regarding life in Bloomington with a majority 76% who are dissatisfied
- with affordable housing. And then the top priorities that they would like the city to take on in addressing
- those concerns, not surprisingly removing
- barriers to develop more affordable housing rounds out the top tier followed by attracting employers
- or those offering better paying jobs and doing more to attract younger adults and families to Bloomington
- and more support for small businesses and startups. So largely around housing and some of the economic
- and cultural options in the city.
- Satisfaction scores with transportation and mobility are generally very favorable, especially the ease
- of getting around by car and bicycle. You have just over half who are satisfied with those. People are
- a little more divided on the ease of using public transportation. But again, to the far right, you can
- see that 31% are really familiar with and probably not using public transportation. So they couldn't
- really offer a response.
- somewhat divided responses on the availability of downtown parking. And we added questions this year
- about the ease of getting around for those with special needs and the availability of accessible downtown
- parking for that population. Lower scores, but again, about half on the far right are just simply not
- familiar with those conditions for that population and couldn't offer a response.
- With regards to the top priorities for streets and sidewalks and infrastructure, again, road repair,
- repaving, pothole issues came up as the top response, sidewalk repair ranked second. And then further
- down, you can see connecting sidewalks with new sections, seldom a number one priority, but oftentimes
- a secondary priority behind road repair and sidewalk repair.
- more paths and trails for walking and hiking rounded out the top four. In terms of engagement with the
- community, at least 50, at least half, 52% said that they had recently contacted a city staff member
- or department about an issue or topic or question. About a quarter had viewed or attended a city council
- meeting or department meeting.
- and the 9% had participated in or attended a city-sponsored public comment event. Consistently, homeowners
- were more likely to take part in these types of engagement than renters, not surprisingly. As well as-
- Thanks so much, Mr. Anderson. I want to give plenty of time for both.
- plenty of public comment and maybe we'll have some responses and also lots of time for council members
- ask questions and certainly for everybody this is in our packet so so we can read it but I'm gonna if
- it's okay with unless there's any objection I'm gonna extend this portion which is mayoral reports for
- an additional
- 20 minutes and unless there's any objections, but we I'm sure we have a lot of questions So I'll hand
- over to any council members with questions. I have questions as well So customer Stossberg first and
- ask all your questions then we can we can carry on Okay, thank you Thank you so much for being here
- by the way and and talking us through this a little bit I had some kind of questions about the initial
- survey itself in terms of you said there were 569
- responses. I was wondering how many invitations were actually sent out. You said that you got emails
- from a third party database, and I'm curious what third party you used for that. You said that you
- kind of compared to census data and then weighted the responses, but I guess I see a lot of differences
- in the percentages of various respondents compared to our census data. So I'm just gonna point out a
- few of those so then you can use that, like where I'm coming from and my concern with that in order
- to address my other questions. So,
- Trying to find it on my thing. So for example Under the whether you rent or own your current residents
- the survey has owners representing 53 percent and renters 47 percent of respondents but our census says
- that we're about 34 percent ownership and that also compares to the
- 2023 survey where we had 64 percent people who rented respond and 36 percent owner And then similarly
- on the single-family. Sorry on question 26. What best describes your home or current residents? 61 percent
- of respondents said they live in single-family homes whereas according to
- The community survey, actually only about 34% of Bloomingtonians live in single-family homes. And similarly,
- our last community survey, those numbers were actually practically flipped in that 61% of respondents
- were from multi-family homes and only 36 were from single-family homes. So I have some real concerns
- about some of these numbers as compared to census data. And so I guess I want you to convince me why
- this is valid in terms of your process given
- And I guess the last thing that I have in terms of that is that map that I don't think that you showed
- up there in that presentation, which seems to show that there are a whole lot more respondents from
- the south side of Bloomington as opposed to the north side of Bloomington, and similarly, hardly any
- respondents that consider themselves full or part-time students. And we know that we have more than
- 50% of our population are IU students. So convince me that this is valid data. Thanks.
- Absolutely, so the goal of the survey was, again, given that we wanted this to be more of a resident
- survey, we targeted those who are more likely to be year-round residents and less students, because
- the opinions from the students, while important, were recognizing that many of them are not
- Long-term residents haven't been in Bloomington very long, won't be in Bloomington very long. So we
- were designing our sample to be more representative of year-round residents outside of the significant
- IU population. Since those residents are obviously taxpayers are probably more engaged in the community,
- more familiar with city services and city issues.
- than the IU population. So the reason, the difference in what you called out from census data versus
- our sample is taking that into account, given that many of the IU students are going to live in multifamily
- homes and not single family homes. Many of them are gonna be, much more of them are gonna be renters
- as opposed to homeowners and so on. So our weighting is directed more toward
- Again, year round, more permanent residents in Bloomington and less on the student population. That's
- also why the regional differences showed fewer respondents up in the North area around the IU campus,
- because again, we were focusing more for the purposes of this survey on the permanent year round residents.
- Okay, thank you. Is this the time that I can make a comment?
- As somebody who represents district three, which is a huge part of campus and is Represents a lot of
- students. I find that pretty disappointing Students are not necessarily permanent residents, but in
- my opinion student individual students may change but student needs stay fairly consistent and so I
- think that it does our population and
- My constituents in particular and I mean all of us have student constituents and I think it does them
- a disservice to have deliberately excluded them from this community survey because this is not then
- a community survey of Bloomington, Indiana. It is a community survey of a subset of Bloomington, Indiana
- and I think that that's pretty appalling things. I know that this is not to the survey creator because
- you clearly did what you were asked to do by the administration, thank you.
- Well put. Thank you. Council members look I second council member Stossberg's comment as someone who
- was very recently a student herself but also represents 10,000 plus young people. That is a stunningly
- insulting answer. And I I'm interested in how this firm was chosen if
- Director Dimalina would be able to speak on that. I think this can be. Hi.
- Communications director Desiree de Molina city of Bloomington. I think this can be a conversation with
- Jeff and I in 2023 we did receive a lot of feedback in response to the community survey that was issued
- out in terms of things like You know the the questions and the questionnaire and some critiques and
- residents feeling that the questions were lengthy and maybe did not capture some of the concerns and
- considerations for the larger Community and we're pretty targeted. So I don't know if
- I don't know if Jeff has anything that he would particularly like to add to this conversation. We've
- also recently conducted surveys in other communities with a large student population. Our recommendation
- at the beginning of this was to take the approach that again,
- from those who are most engaged with the community that it should focus primarily on permanent and year
- round residents. When we've conducted surveys with student populations, we get a very low response rate
- either because they're not familiar with the community or they're just not as interested. And those
- who do respond oftentimes just provide
- unfamiliar responses they can't rate things they're not familiar with Point of clarification. I'm sorry.
- Thank you for that response. But my question was actually how did the city decide on this firm to conduct
- the survey?
- Cesar de Molina communications director. So again we looked at some of the critiques that we had received
- from residents from the twenty twenty three survey including length question clarity and the city also
- looked at the response rate from the previous surveys which was incredibly low and I believe speaks
- to what Jeff was getting at about you know the engagement and the level of involvement in responses
- and the depth of the level of in responses. So we were just evaluating our options we knew
- Parks and Rec had previously worked with equity to issue their master plan survey And so knowing this
- partnership and their experience being generally positive we opted to go with a known entity And collaborate
- collaborate with them on this initiative. So there was not an RFP that was sent out for this No, this
- was a professional services agreement Understood. Thank you
- We did shop around however. Thank you. Thank you so much to save time. Yes I have a quick follow up
- about response rates and thank you both so much for being here and your patience. Could you tell us
- a little bit about how many unique residents or households were invited to participate how many invitations
- were successfully delivered and what was the final response rate.
- The final response rate was about four to 5%. It's at the low end or kind of at the mid to low end of
- response rates. Again, there were some students that were included in the sample, which could address
- or explain why the response rate was,
- was lower than expected, but we sent out invitations either by email or by postcard to I think close
- to seven or 8,000 randomly selected residents in the city. And do you feel like that, in your professional
- opinion, is that response rate both statistically valid and how are we to infer this as a policy making
- body in the, in the city. Like how, how, how should we be interpreting these, this data? Again, the
- people who generally respond are those who are more engaged and more informed versus those who don't
- respond. One of the reasons why we do the waiting is to make sure that any non-response issues or biases
- are at least somewhat addressed to
- Reach a more representative sample of the of the target population that we're looking for. I can't remember
- if you had another question or not. Well I think possibly the follow up for me is is I mean I guess
- pointedly is is what population does this survey actually represent. Again it represents primarily the
- year round more permanent
- resident population of within the city of Bloomington. So compared to census data, this population is
- gonna be again, more year round residents. They're gonna be older. They're going to be longer term residents.
- They're more likely to be homeowners as opposed to renters or single family residents, as opposed to
- multifamily dwelling residents. All of the things that we pointed out earlier.
- So would you agree then that I mean as they've my colleagues have obviously pointed out the the purposeful
- under representation of students or the designing away or adjustment away from students I think was
- the word used. Do we have we adequately framed for renters. We've got a significant we've got a good
- represented
- representation of renters, 47% of our respondents were our renters, 53% are homeowners. The other thing
- that the other risk with including students is with such a large student population, their response
- rates are among the lowest in community-wide surveys. And as a result, if you've got a student population
- that represents half of the overall population and you're having to wait responses
- that are 2% 3% of your respondent sample to now look like half. You start invalidating any
- kind of statistical confidence testing by having a few dozen student respondents represent nearly half
- of the overall sample. It's not by
- By any means it's not a good best practice. Right. Right. Well that makes sense. Thank you so much.
- Councilmember Rosenberger. Hi. Thank you. I have some questions about the community survey over the
- years. Is it possible to get some of the copies of those critiques from the twenty twenty three survey
- sent to us or were those critiques by email.
- Our friend Dave Askins with the B square bulletin actually took it upon himself to solicit some reader
- feedback from the questionnaire that was provided in years past and so we looked at that very seriously
- and saw an opportunity based on again the low response rate from previous years and some of the feedback
- on The questionnaire both with recommendations for new questions and the way the phrasing and the content
- of previous surveys have been But yes, I'm happy to share that
- Thanks and then one of the valuable parts of a community survey over time is the continuance of asking
- the same questions. It sounds like though there were many changes. So do you know how many questions
- were the exact same so that we can track those over time.
- I don't know an exact number. However, I can say that Jeff and his team and I collaborated He had all
- the access to previous surveys We know that we are looking for year-over-year data improvements trends,
- you know storylines However, you know with the feedback that we received
- We moved into a different direction, but Jeff was aware as we designed this survey of the previous questions
- and taking into some of those responses from residents about how things were phrased or Just simply
- priorities that they felt were not being captured in the questions previously asked Okay, thank you.
- I would love to know that the questions that were deleted or removed versus the questions that we keep
- because I do think
- At least it's important to see that change over time but I mean I am also on the page with my colleagues
- that this appears to be a survey that we can use the results as unfortunately mostly the people that
- tend to show up at public meetings so more longer term homeowners of an older variety. I can I just
- do a comment or.
- I used to work in evaluation and It's super hard to get scientifically valid data and I would say anytime
- we're collecting Survey or a public engagement from this community. It's absolutely never scientifically
- valid It takes a ton of work. So I used to do I coached organ
- housing organization nonprofits across the country to collect data on how people felt about
- their neighborhood, which is very similar to what this is about the city and We had to get 80 to 90
- percent response rate from a random sample based off of the census and it was really hard Organizations
- that primarily worked in socioeconomic neighborhoods that were well off had a very had an easier job
- collecting survey data because people
- wanted to participate. Organizations that worked in lower socioeconomic neighborhoods had a really hard
- time getting responses because people were afraid to answer their doors. But we also had to train people
- and volunteers to go door to door, to do phone calls, to do events, to mail gift cards. Getting a response
- rate, it's like 4% to 5% to me is incredibly low. And I think that most years that this happened, it's
- also unfortunate that this was delayed a year.
- There's a lot of delay here. I Think I don't know if the other surveys were done like this Does anybody
- up here know if we've always waited it to ignore half of our population? I mean it makes sense that
- it's a lot harder sometimes to get responses from different types of households, but
- Those are the ones that we really need. So I think I don't know. I just find this pretty unfortunate
- and maybe we aren't paying enough also for our community survey to like put the time and effort in into
- this kind of data collection and we could potentially look into that in the future, I think. Thank you
- so much. Any other council members?
- I just had one last question because I think the big sort of headline, one of at least the headline
- arguments here is that 72% of residents would recommend or had very positive views of Bloomington. And
- I was interested in the distribution of those scores because we counted everybody above a five. I think
- unless I misread it, everybody that had a six or above is having a positive view.
- And so I was just if we could talk through that a little bit and what I'm trying to get at in all of
- my questioning is you know what's the so what for council and the city you know what are the things
- that we're claiming that that should inform our behaviors actions decisions especially as we're going
- into budget here and what things are just you know I mean what are the things here that are that we
- should what would you recommend that we glean from from this information.
- If you're asking me, I assume. Yes, sir. Sorry. That's OK. That's OK. Just want to make I don't want
- to talk over somebody else's response. Again, we this is a similar question that has been asked in the
- past, but in the past, it showed just the overall
- likely scores at 74%. There was no distinction between people who were a little likely or somewhat likely
- or extremely likely. So while we kept the question the same, we changed the metrics so that we could
- get an understanding of that variation in terms of intensity behind that likelihood to recommend. Overall,
- the score is good with about three quarters.
- likely to recommend Bloomington, but that 18% is a significant number. And while residents for the most
- part, and on most of the attributes that we tested are satisfied,
- having almost one in five who are dissatisfied and were unlikely to recommend Bloomington as a place
- to live is certainly noteworthy. The full report tracks where these lower scores tend to come from.
- And again, they're largely around the two biggest issues regarding the lack of affordable housing. It's
- hard to recommend somebody moving to an area where it's hard to purchase
- a home or afford a high rent. And then the second thing was the impressions or concerns that residents
- have of the city, given the visibility of the in-house population and how comfortable new residents
- may feel or not feel regarding those two issues. So yes, there's good news here, but that 18% is obviously
- something to be concerned about.
- Thank you so much and thank you for for being patient with all of our many questions Okay, one one last
- question to councilmember Pema Smith and then we'll move on to the next report but okay to so one one
- to customer Pema Smith and Okay, we have councilmember Pema Smith councilmember rough then Stasburg
- will will close us out. Go ahead so first of all the part of your slideshow that has the actual data
- I don't know, it starts maybe with slide 70. Well, no, that's this page number in our packet. But where
- it has the tables of data, those are images. So that's not accessible to people who have machine readers
- to help them look at documents? Is that available in an accessible format? I'd have to look into that.
- I'm not sure how we would do that.
- But that's something we can certainly look into. OK. And just addressing the mayor's office that should
- be provided in all cases. So I'm disappointed that a lot of this is not actually readable to a segment
- of our population. And then in there I see that there are there are some questions.
- that talk about rank the top strategy you think the city should prioritize to improve our community.
- And I'm wondering who came up with a wording on some of these because the top one is removing barriers
- to developing affordable housing which implies that we don't have affordable housing because of barriers
- that the city has put in place. So it's kind of a leading question.
- I mean I agree that we can probably do more for affordable housing but so could a lot of other entities.
- So I wonder who came up with those that phrasing you know for for the priorities that you wanted ranked.
- This this wording was developed jointly with our team and with the city. And again it's all of these
- are put in the context of not what the issue is or but more.
- What types of actions or strategies the city could could do to address the top issues that people have.
- All right. Thank you. And this was implied by the order but I'm extending time by.
- We're a deficit of five minutes, but extending time for another five minutes It might be pretty quick
- the questions that asked about Was this how do you feel about this Bloomington is a place to start or
- grow a business The questions related to general sense of safety And then the percentage breakdowns
- was there any I Mean, what is it? How does that come?
- It seems like it doesn't tell us a lot, and we should know how people respond to those questions in
- comparable cities. Is Bloomington feeling less safe than our comparable cities? Do citizens feel safe?
- Or does everybody just kind of everywhere feel like, well, we've got these problems are everywhere?
- Are these issues, are the concerns, are our satisfaction levels similar? So that's something I'd like
- to know. Is there any pool or any comparison
- All these questions do people really feel it's less safe or harder to do business here than comparable
- cities or assisted-general trends second question I had the only other one really was Councilmember
- council president, sorry, there's talking about that that question about Would you recommend moving
- to Bloomington
- I'm interested in that question itself. That question, to me, is kind of an odd question. We have all
- these indicators that are somewhat precise about your satisfaction, quality of life in Bloomington,
- safety, all these things. But then to just say, would you recommend? Is that meant to be a summary question of, OK,
- If we can extrapolate by your answer from that, that overall your sense of Bloomington is good or bad.
- Because what is the point of that question, really? I mean, if someone asks me these questions about
- whether I feel safe at night, whether I feel safe in day, whether I'm happy with it, how do I feel about
- the infrastructure, the streets, the puddles, when someone says to a question to me,
- Would you recommend it. I said well you know I must have nice to have some of my family that I don't
- see as much here. My friends what I want my buddy Jim Howe to move here and we could fish together more.
- You know it's just it's it's just an odd to me question. And what the point of that question was if
- someone could respond what the idea is that just an indicator sort of an overall summary of
- But we already had the quality of life question. So it seems I Don't know. Those are my two questions.
- This can we get comparator city? Data or is it available or has this firm done has the firm done the
- similar? Questionnaires and surveys and other cities that we can compare to comparable cities and then
- this whole question about the moving to Bloomington being our sort of a main question So with your first
- question about
- relevant comparisons to other cities. Our firm does not have enough data because Bloomington is fairly
- unique compared to a lot of cities of similar size, especially given the presence of the university.
- So we don't have those types of benchmark comparisons. I know that in the past comparisons may have
- been made, but again,
- A lot of firms provide national comparisons without taking into account what's unique about the city
- of interest, in this case, Bloomington. So comparing yourself to, you know, an industrial city,
- a post-industrial city in the Northeast versus a high-tech city of a similar size, you know, out by
- Silicon Valley,
- whatever, they might be similar in size, but they're very different in terms of composition, the issues,
- the concerns, the assets and so on. So it would have to be comparisons to cities of similar size that
- represent the makeup of Bloomington. With regard to the overall question, we always start at,
- a survey with an overall metric just to get people's general sense. Sometimes it's satisfaction, sometimes
- it's likelihood to recommend. This likelihood to recommend question and the question about the attributes
- again were questions that were asked in the previous waves and were identified as key metrics from the
- previous community wide surveys for the city of Bloomington that were asked be kept so that
- Um, those comparisons, um, can be looked at over time. And for the most part, um, the percent satisfied
- total percent satisfied on this score and the total percent likely to recommend are usually within two
- or three percentage points of the 2023 survey that was done for the city of Bloomington. Thank you.
- I have more of a statement. Is that OK, President Asari? All right. This is, I suppose, mostly to my
- constituents, but in general to Bloomington and I suppose to my colleagues as well at this point. So
- as an elected official, I walk an interesting line when considering who I serve and how I manage competing
- interests. As I said, District 3 includes a significant amount of IU's campus, including fraternities,
- sororities, dorms, and majority student multifamily developments. I also serve several.
- Neighborhoods with primarily single-family homes and multifamily housing that houses more permanent
- residents including low-income folks Having looked at voting data the precincts that include large number
- of students do not vote in high numbers The district three voting results tend to follow how the single
- home at the single-family home neighborhoods vote and if I remember my numbers correctly in the 2023
- primary when I was chosen as a Democratic nominee there were fewer than 30 people who voted in those
- high student areas and
- If I take any of the survey data into consideration What it feels like I am doing is catering only to
- the residents who decided the vote Not all of the needs of district 3 or of the city Because someone
- doesn't tend to vote or doesn't get as involved does not mean that I don't also serve those populations
- I do what it means is that I Is that in order to figure out what is needed to serve those populations?
- I have to do more work. It's harder. I
- It's harder to figure out what those populations need, but it is still my responsibility to do that
- And I hope that my colleagues share that sentiment I really appreciate Councilmember Asari's question
- earlier of so what from this survey because a piece of my so what has to be That a large portion of
- who I serve has been deliberately excluded from this survey Making it irresponsible of me to put that
- much stock into any of the resulting data. Thank you well
- Councilmember Zulek. Thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry. I'll make it quick Well, I just I keep hearing
- that we're in a time where we are not in a financial situation of abundance and for me to have conducted
- a survey that shuts out about 50% of our residents the majority of whom are in councilmember Stasberg's
- and mine and
- my district I can't see how this was a responsible use of taxpayer money especially when I keep hearing
- that we're what was it trying to do less with less. Also this community has a crisis in workforce retention
- and yet we have just eliminated 40000 potential future long term residents from participating in shaping
- the future of our city.
- I don't know why any young person would want to stay here when we're so blatantly disrespectful towards
- them. Thank you.
- for your participation here. Mr. Anderson, thank you for your patience with us, for enduring a council
- meeting. We'll look forward to seeing you next year. And thank you, Director Molina, for the time. When
- I move on, I'm going to extend this portion by another 20 minutes. Luckily, we have a fairly short otherwise
- meeting, so.
- Notes notes note to self always schedule many things on the no, but jokes. Anyways, I'm gonna do this
- and we have the parking rate study next so Sorry councilman Rallo, yes point of order just Are we allowing
- public comments on the we will yes Yes, and there was a motion early on to allow public comment during
- the general public comment session for all of these reports Yes, very good. Thank you
- Okay with that, thank you very much. We will invite the parking rate study And comprehensive review.
- I think we have parking services and Walker consultants here. Thank you Good evening council. My name
- is Michelle wall. I'm the parking service director for the city in March of 2025 the city engaged Walker
- parking consultants to conduct a parking rate study and comprehensive review of all things parking
- Over the course of more than a year Walker studied existing conditions of both on street and off street
- parking conducted benchmarking with comparable communities explored a variety of parking rates and strategies
- and evaluated options for upgrading the city's parking technology and to support future operations.
- Parking services received the final report in June of twenty twenty six and it has since been shared
- with the council for a review. This evening we are pleased to welcome Lauren Sturdevant.
- planner and John Martin senior consultants from Walker parking and they're here to present the key findings
- in their study and share their recommendations for the future of Bloomington Parking Services.
- Thank you. Hello. Good evening. My name is Lauren start event and I'm joined with
- John Martin's with Walker consultants we are based out of the Indianapolis office and we have completed
- our parking rate study and comprehensive review for downtown Bloomington we reviewed rates and technology
- mostly to Look at downtown's parking and how to inform policies to better utilize the parking system
- Our recommendations were informed by what we heard through stakeholder meetings a community survey based
- on parking downtown what the data showed from city data and best practices from industry standards.
- Our key findings are that on street rates have are very low and outdated they have not been adjusted
- since the implementation of
- Parking and off-street rates are also low Parking technology is outdated and at the end of its life
- There's an opportunity for better communication with the public in regards to the parking system There's
- also opportunity for financial sustainability within the parking system and there's a need for transparency
- as it relates to how the funds are being used for the parking assets and
- John Martin's Walker consultants, so we didn't tag team here and I was gonna go through we broke down
- the recommendations, so We broke them into two four major Buckets if you will the organization which
- they're listed here and we're gonna go. I'm gonna just briefly touch on these the policies Technology
- and communications and within each there are three main recommendations the first is the
- Centralize the appeal process and put it into the parking service services division The second is establish
- clear parking service mission statement And the third on organizational recommendations is to adopt
- a data-driven Decision approach make that data available to the public and key performance indicators
- that are tracked
- You can have the same ones over and over make that available and track so everyone can see what's going
- on. Be very transparent for policy recommendations. We looked at this is the map on the right is is
- data from paid parking at the meters. OK so that is specifically at the meters. Those are that's what
- those all those little dots represent the core area. We recommend that as a kind of a zone based is
- what we call it in the industry. That core area is basically from
- third to seventh street. That's the highest activity and that would be the higher demand. Make that
- a higher rate. The areas to the north and south, they'd be a slightly lower rate. Doesn't aren't as
- used as much. They're still used, but not as much. And I think this is a kind of an industry standard
- practice where you see that, you know, Hey, we have this availability in this area. Let's get more people
- to park there and you can kind of modify that with the rate.
- So we also provided adjustment rates increases on rates. That was one of the issues that we saw they
- haven't been raised in the on stream has been raised since their first instituted and then in the evening
- it goes till nine o'clock now for on stream for enforcement. We suggest instead of going till nine o'clock
- go to eight o'clock. And the theory there is that we're trying to get that evening activity people going
- out to eat. I think by eight o'clock we've captured what we want to capture.
- I think that's an opportunity. So from a technology standpoint, we touched on this. So the on-street
- the technology you have is past its prime. It is it is time to replace it. So for on-street meters,
- you have single space meters. We recommend a kiosk. And I know that's something that the city's looking
- at as far as hey, let's get some opinion. It reduces street clutter and it gives the opportunity to
- go to pay by plate. So when I park,
- If I do park mobile I'm already putting my using my plate number now at these meters I would if I would
- choose to use a physical meter I put my plate number and that makes it some advantages. So one I can
- if I'm the user I can go to a different area and it already shows me paying so I'm taking my parking
- with me and not like a single space. And with that the second one would be to use a mobile license plate
- recognition system specific to parking that would
- Track to see okay. Did this plate did they pay the meter? Did they pay park mobile? Are they a permit
- holder does all three and it tells you on the computer Hey, they don't show up. You need to see and
- if right a citation, okay So this that is definitely a best practices. It's in the industry That's one
- of the recommendations and it's it makes it more efficient and then the off-street parking equipment
- that is not going to be supported anymore and
- That needs to get replaced. There's a limited lifespan. Once the manufacturer doesn't support it you're
- kind of based on what's out there and available for communications and wayfinding. We recommend that
- when we looked at the parking some of it you have.
- When I look at this I look at when you think about parking, what do you see this the standard P?
- You know, it's usually in a circle. Maybe not but usually you see it as oh, I know that's parking Yeah,
- I know that anywhere but for for Boomington you have some of that but some of the signs are Flat against
- the building or the garage. Let's put them on a blade sign If you can light it up, maybe a look make
- a little bigger that's that's kind of what we're talking about here and then as far as the
- Second one is to just develop ongoing parking communications marketing to improve websites get the word
- out different marketing tactics so people understand the system you guys have a really really good system
- with the park mobile people that know it use it people that maybe don't maybe they just need some more
- education on it right. And then.
- You have some places where you can walk and see signage and maps about parking not about parking but
- about the downtown We were embraced him improve on that to help get the word out The next step slides.
- It's really up to you guys Okay, so we put together a report with our recommendations And I know there's
- ongoing process to get the word out people so people can understand and give some feedback That we're
- trying to go quick so be respectful of your time and
- Thank you very, very much. Yes. Thank you. These are kind of comments. They're more comments I think.
- But first of all for the zone pricing I do want to recognize that former city council member Steve Bowlin
- who is also chair of our transportation commission currently
- Recommended zone pricing years ago. So I don't know why we had to wait for a study to be done to say
- that's a good idea Secondly, I am concerned about the recommendation To get rid of To use automatic
- license plate readers because they have been misused they are often
- Data access data and send data to a cloud-based system that it's very difficult to secure So the only
- way I would support that would be as if it's a closed system and we use a company that has no ties to
- law enforcement So we need to be very careful with that kind of technology Thank you councilmember problem
- Yes, how do you determine that the parking technology is at the end of its life? I Mean they seem to
- be working. Do you have a record a repair record that? We can refer to yes, I would and I would say
- that just just say y'all know I've been in the parking for over 30 years I've been at Walker for 23
- years. I was here for the study way back when Walker did it before he had paid parking and
- But I will say that that the meters have gone through several generations the current meters that are
- out there the IPS meters and they have had to have a major upgrade because the communications package
- would no longer communicate and that probably would have been a good time to replace them all with fresh
- to look at that. But at the time.
- Let's just get through, we've got to get this fixed. All cities that had those meters had to go through
- that. And just the functionality, we did look at the maintenance and talk about the number of single-space
- meters and devices that you have to maintain. It's over, it's near 1,400-something, 1,453. It's a lot
- of hardware, and it's kind of like your computer, right? So I have a computer, a cell phone. Cell phone,
- better example. These things only last so long, and then you start having issues. These have a battery.
- those IPS meters. So you have to replace a lot more batteries. You have to go out to leaders much more
- often to try to fix that's the IPS meters. And then the off street the manufacturer literally has put
- out they have a new line and they say hey it's a big change and we're not going to support this anymore.
- So there are any community or airports municipalities that have that system for the off street.
- They have to replace it and they have to do it fast because there's a limited time before it's, they're
- not gonna make spare parts and they're not gonna update the software. Okay, that's very convincing.
- When it comes to capital investments, I'm very much about asking questions about durability and longevity.
- So I need to learn more.
- Can you speak about the kiosks a little bit? Does that still allow coin payment or is that exclusively?
- Card readers. Yes, we recommend the ones that are on display. They would take still take coins because
- we did hear in the survey that there's a percentage that still want to pay with coins and So take coins
- and credit card and we recommended the credit card
- be upgraded to the chip payment. That's what we recommended with a tap to pay. It's much more secure.
- It's going to be payment card industry standard, reduce some of the requirements that you have as an
- acceptor of credit cards as far as PCI compliance. So that was one of our recommendations. I know that
- they do cost a little more money when you look at a credit card reader, but I think if you guys pay
- with a credit card, the tap to pay is pretty easy.
- It's pretty quick. It does add some convenience. So So you could pay with credit card coin at the physical
- meter Just like you do now Great. Thank you That's my sister Thank you. I had a couple of questions
- partly about that the zone map
- that you included there in terms of the key had the number of transactions per day with you know the
- spots around the courthouse having the most transactions per day. We hear a lot about the need for parking
- on Kirkwood but but along Kirkwood does not seem to have as many transactions per day. And I guess I
- have a kind of a comment around that. Sorry.
- There used to be, and you mentioned this in your study somewhere, I was trying to find what page, but
- it's gone, that there used to be a two hour limit on the amount of time that you could park down there.
- And I feel like I still see the signs for that with some of the coinage on some of the meters.
- But if you use park mobile, you can just extend that time and extend that time and you can essentially
- park in the same spot all day and just even like never even go back to your car because you can remotely
- extend the time. So I guess it's kind of this two part question of do you think that there's actually
- A lot of that going on along Kirkwood with people just parking for extended periods of time and then
- not getting that turnover that we might want to see there and then is there consideration and this might
- be for our staff of Reimplementing that two-hour time window in at least some of the zones including
- on the park mobile app so that people You know have to actually
- get their car out of there so that other people can park. Yeah. So there's one thing that they discuss.
- We do not have a two hour time limit on Kirkwood. I think the data is different because we have Kirkwood
- either closed or parklets on Kirkwood. So that could be your little bit of your discrepancy that you're
- seeing of the amount of money that's made. We currently again just to interrupt you. It's not the amount
- of money it's the transactions per day. So the map shows how many transactions per day.
- there are on the different meters. And so I assume that means the different users, not necessarily how
- much money we're making from it, but how many different vehicles are parked in the spaces. We looked
- at it both ways, but the answer is this. The IPS meter is single space, and we can have the data, and
- this is the data that was used, if you physically paid the meter. So we're trying to figure out, the
- answer we're trying to figure out there is, where do we need physical meters? If you pay with ParkMobile,
- that transaction is not going to show up.
- Now there is a ton of data, but there are and there are a lot of zones, right? But if you look at the
- zones Like we parked when we parked today We looked just looked at it said hello. Well, this zone number
- covers this block face and this block face So you can't really take you could take that and assume well,
- that's where they paid but interesting here if you use park mobile app in Bloomington and
- I can put any zone number and park anywhere in the city. And the idea there is for convenience. So I
- could park here and I could go to another zone. I will tell you this when we came twice, twice during
- our trips here, we came more than once, but we parked and paid with the park mobile down by the square.
- We moved over here and parked. And then this trip we parked at the square and paid. We paid for the
- rest of the time till nine o'clock and
- Then we moved and parked over by the garage at Michelle's office, the parking division. And then we
- parked right, right out here. So if you were to just look at the park mobile data, you'd say, Oh, well
- you parked right here for all those time because that zone number, but we've already parked in three
- zones in our little trip.
- So there's not really a way to figure that out So, do you know at all in terms of that turnover of spots
- which seems to be like the goal right is is turning over spots so that people aren't You know searching
- everywhere for parking and we don't have people like just like parking all day long all the time so
- is there any way to like
- Sorry, anecdotal data like I'm kind of looking at if you look at the data and try to incorporate the
- park mobile data into that It's kind of like hmm Maybe maybe they parked for the whole they were here
- the whole time that may not have been when we do a turnover study if that was one of the tasks we would
- we would go and get the license check the license plate every hour on the hour and
- Over a period of time and then go back and see which cars stayed and how long that's it That's how we
- would do a turnover study specific to that that wasn't in the task It's definitely a good information
- to know but just looking at the data because the options you have with park mobile It's not going to
- be even even that we're only talking about people that actually paid the meter. So anybody that didn't
- pay the meter They're not there either. So there is limitations and I think it's important to understand that
- When you have this kind of data how you use it. So a lot of parking studies you have physical counts
- You you go out and physically count it and that the parking does do physical counts twice twice a day
- at all the off-street Locations and they have and so they did provide that day So we could at least
- get a snapshot of what that was. They do it. I guess I just want to consider I'm sorry to interrupt
- you but it's just been a long report time I just want us to consider
- Implementing some kind of a parking limit to encourage turnover, especially in our our high User areas
- and those places that people want to go. Thanks Councilmember Rosenberger. Hi. Thank you. Thanks for
- being here. I love talking about parking, too Do you make recommend recommendations on the hourly rate? I
- that would you suggest an hourly rate? The report has it, and we broke it down for the next 10 years.
- So initially, we understand it hasn't changed in a long time. So you have a couple of strategies. You
- could just say, let's just pull off the Band-Aid, and we're going to double the rate. We're not going
- to go there. We're going to say, hey, I think the core would go up $0.50, and then the lower demand areas
- 25 cents an hour and this is per hour. So it's not it's not a it's not let go. This is terrible I will
- say years ago we did a recommendation in Cincinnati and we said It was a dollar an hour and we said
- two dollars an hour, but do it over the next five years And the council said we're just gonna go right
- to two dollars. They did but they didn't have the technology They only took coins at the single space
- meters and they had to go Empty some of them like two or three times a day because they were filling
- up so that that didn't work out well, but you know
- That's why we said incrementally adjusted. I think it's about every two or three years. I think it's
- every three years And we we put a table in there in the report to show that thank you. I know we have
- the report It's just that it's nice when somebody else talks about raising rates and what those rates
- are and not just up here saying the numbers Do can you talk about dynamic parking? pricing and if
- Just kind of what you see in the industry and if you like that at all or don't like it. Sure. I will
- say this dynamic pricing is where you base it on demand where and it is tricky. What I have seen at
- work is and I've seen this in ordinances of the first one was in California. They put it actually in
- the ordinance and they said we're only going to adjust rates and by a certain amount and I think it
- was a quarter and it would be based on
- when they, they would physically go out and do occupancy accounts for on street during certain times,
- you know, certain times of every quarter. And based on that, if demand was low, they might lower them,
- but they, they had a limit, they'd lower it. And if it was, uh, above a certain amount, I think it was
- 85%, that would go up. Now it can get confusing when you say, well,
- This block face is going up this block places now. So you kind of have to watch that. So it is not a
- it does sound good. And they did a big study years ago in San Francisco and it was very expensive. Millions
- of dollars. But they had a grant. So and the technology is what they used to do that.
- And I've also seen it I think in L.A. they did it but they did it like in zone so like its zone this
- zone is going to be this it's higher further away it's going to be lower and they had options to make
- adjustments based on occupancy but it was you know it's not like you can't you don't want to do it every
- you know every month and it's kind of a regular basis but not you know oh now it's this now it's that
- kind of thing. So that San Francisco study I read that a few years ago and that is kind of the most
- recent study.
- It that was just a really big one and from that a lot of lessons learned. So yeah, I Guess just a couple
- more little things like the timeline for replacement and if you would think like we do have areas that
- are much more parked than others and Would it make sense, you know to keep some meters or do you have
- to change the whole system at once? so that the streets that are less parked maybe keep meters and
- You know, I think when you make a technology change, and you know, if it's on street or off street,
- it's a little different. So on street, right now you have all the meters in place. It's working. You're
- paying a fee. And if you said, well, let's do the core area first, and then we'll look at the further
- outs, that might be a way. But from a pricing perspective, the vendors are going to give the best price
- when you have, you know, all this is what we want all at once.
- And we're going to phase it in and you're going to be maintaining two systems. So yeah. And the last
- question are you a Donald Trump fan too. Yeah I do have I do have the book. So yeah thank you. And certainly
- that. Yeah that's someone that we do talk about. So I think he makes a lot of good points.
- So some of my kind of wonder about you know, I just I don't take a half hour to find a place to park
- usually Thank you, thank you so much I know the clerk has a few comments would like to add and so I'd
- love to recognize the clerk at this moment Well, how many minutes do you need clerk Bolton
- I would say no more than 45 to 50 minutes. You said 45? I did. I would like to extend this by three
- minutes. No. We'll extend this indefinitely. Please don't. We'll extend another 10 minutes. Go ahead.
- Hang on. I just wanted to make sure I got note of that for our minutes also. So I send out
- an addendum in your packet. I'm sure all of you had copious amounts of free time to read through it.
- I had some comments about the study. I wanted to hit on a few points now that I've actually heard the
- presentation. First off, with the first recommendation in particular is pretty much what I'm going to
- be talking about. I'm not going to talk about the other recommendations, but I did want to highlight
- a few points. The reason parking ticket appeals are in the clerk's office as opposed to parking
- is because the late Dan Combs actually sued the city over his parking citations. And that's when we
- actually got a judicial order to move them out of parking because, well, we didn't want to have somebody
- be the judge, jury, and executioner when it relates to parking. So that's a very short version of it.
- But the study didn't really address that. That was one of the concerns. I also read through the study and
- noticed that there were several errors, generalities, misstatements, and wanted to highlight those and
- say, rather than accept recommendation number one immediately or when next presented with some legislation
- related to it, I would ask that the council ask for additional information and more data. A lot of the
- data that was available was not actually asked for or used, so for example,
- The report talked about the appeal rate and two to four weeks, which is what we put on the website and
- which is what we tell people when they call. Our average for the last two years for turnaround was 3.4
- days. The mean is three. So when we're looking at data, if you're getting a report that says it's two
- to four weeks, that's wrong. But that is what is stated. Similarly,
- When we're talking about the increase in appeals over years, one of the things that drives appeals is
- the number of citations being issued. I've said that to you for, well, all 10 years that I've been clerk,
- but it is something that I have seen for the last 17 years I've been with this organization. One of
- the things that we also look at though is why appeals go up. So we look at changes in legislation over
- the years. We look at enforcement changes. We also look at transaction rates. So when we see,
- park mobile transactions go up over 500% over the last few years, the fact that we only see appeals
- go up by an additional 2% per year, that's something that we will look at. When we look at the fact
- that most of the appeals coming in are over the web as opposed to in person, when we look at why people
- are appealing tickets, over 40% of the tickets appealed are related to park mobile usage.
- frequently user error. People just use the wrong license plate. And sometimes officer error, although
- very small amount. So I don't want to say it's all their fault. That's not what I'm saying at all. Very,
- very, very small amount. But regardless, there are lots of reasons why it happens. I don't think that
- moving something before you understand the core reasons for the issues is a good choice or necessarily
- good for the public benefit.
- So looking at something like this, you can move appeals, but you don't necessarily know why they're
- happening. And will the people who are viewing them actually dig into the core reasons and keep that
- data, which is something that we do on a regular basis. So I don't want to take up all the time. We're
- running very, very late this evening. But I did want to say that the clerk's office, our subject matter
- experts in parking as well with 17 years of experience at the top of the office, law degrees, and familiarity
- and usage with the Bloomington Municipal Code, the Indiana State Code, case law, and the MUTCD. So to
- say otherwise and to make broad statements that do not actually correspond with the data collected by
- the study is inaccurate and not helpful to you. Thank you so much.
- A follow-up question, Council Member Zulik. Thank you, Clerk Bolden. Were you consulted at all throughout
- this study, or was your office? We had a, I think it was about a one-hour conversation during the start
- of their study, which I viewed as more of an introductory session, and we had no further conversations.
- And I will add, I did want to provide some feedback
- When I heard a brief report at the Transportation Committee and asked if I could get the link to provide
- feedback to the Walker study but that was not provided to me. Understood. Thank you. Thank you very
- much. Attorney Allen is this a report that we need to. We don't vote on their action in any way we just
- received and say thank you.
- Wonderful. Okay. So with that we are so grateful for the time that you spent working with the city.
- I think we're surely going to have lots of more questions as we start thinking about implementation
- here. I know a lot of residents are really interested also in the outcomes here. But thank you to parking
- for the work that you do. I know just because of time I'll ask.
- when hopefully a former council member or Commissioner Volin might speak for a while and I can be a
- little flexible with your time when you speak at the public mic if necessary, but it would be nice to
- hear what the Transportation Commission has said about this too. Okay, but with that, let's move on
- if that is okay. We have a report from the fiscal committee. Council Member Stasberg.
- Thank you so much. I joined the Zoom, and I am going to share my screen and hope that that is successful,
- because I think that it will be helpful when going over this. Hopefully you can read that. This is also
- in the packet, and it is, I think, in the second addendum. So I wanted to kind of give this report for
- a couple of reasons.
- First off, let me find my actual report that I wrote so that then I Don't go too off script. Oh No Yeah,
- there it is, okay, so This report from the special fiscal committee and I wanted to give this report
- to the whole council for a couple reasons one is that you know, we
- Revenue streams are changing pretty significantly by the state and I wanted to kind of keep everybody
- in the loop about that because that is kind of barreling down in some ways and secondly Even though
- we discussed this at fiscal committee a couple of weeks ago There are some pretty significant things
- that Reedy shared that I think our community needs to know and so I wanted to highlight some of this
- information at a larger forum with more of the public who tends to do this so That is
- The primary thing so I am going to refresh this isn't on the shared screen but. Yeah I will just do
- it with the shared screen so let me get that back there.
- So we have a few different options right in terms of of the broad overview of what they're what the
- state has said to you is the state is cutting property taxes in terms of property tax revenue streams
- and they're they're saying okay municipalities can make it up with local income tax revenue streams
- and so the special fiscal committee is getting a variety of kind of estimates in different ways and
- to different
- specificities. So the first one that I wanted to go over, and I tried to put this in the report pretty
- detailed, so you can give me feedback about how successful I was at that. So this particular spreadsheet
- comes from AIM, which is the
- Indiana municipalities organization, so they have been kind of plugging numbers in to kind of give all
- counties some kind of idea of what might be coming. So this is a theoretical what if, right, based on
- population, AGI, current lit revenue, okay.
- And then how much property tax loss were expected which means that this total revenue That's kind of
- like how much revenue would have to be made up with some other method So this particular spreadsheet
- says okay if we do one of our options Which is to have a completely separate rate for the county and
- for the city? What would happen to our? To our revenues, okay, so
- In this particular instance, we are, I don't know if I can make this any bigger. I think I can.
- There we go. We are maximizing as a city the lit percentage that we're allowed to do. So that's 1.2%.
- And if we maximize that percentage, we still end up about $13 million less than what we would have received
- if this law had not
- Put into effect Ellisville I want to point out is sort of in a similar situation. Ellisville is that
- next line down? So if they do this 1.2 individual city Lit percentage they are also about four hundred
- and seventy one thousand dollars in the hole, which is not as much as Bloomington, but that's still
- 15% less You know, they have a much smaller budget to begin with so that is the the
- spreadsheet that I wanted to point out because we have two options here essentially cities municipalities
- above 3,500 can set our own rates or We can basically let the county set rates for us and then that
- county rate would be spread through the entire population Okay, and so the next sheet is what would
- happen if the county just set a 1% rate okay, so if the county across the
- Both Ellitsville and Bloomington set that 1% rate all of a sudden. We are not in the hole anymore where
- with just a 1% weight rate where we're maintaining expected revenues and Ellitsville and Steinsville
- are actually getting higher than expected revenues. I do want to point out that in both of these scenarios
- There's this big 1.4 million dollar deficit down here and that is the library and
- Okay, so members of the public the library is capped at this point oh five percent lit rate and that
- is capped by state law and That is the maximum lit rate that can get put on on our libraries. And so
- that is going to put them in significant Significantly less revenue than they otherwise would have expected
- to be in So
- Those are the two from aim now as the city of Bloomington We've also been receiving reports from Reedy
- financial who is one of our financial partners who helps deal with the long-term Finances and I also
- see city controller McKim over there. So hopefully he'll jump up if I say anything like too wrong Okay,
- so this next sheet I'm gonna make it a little bit smaller so that I can actually see it a little bit
- better is what would happen with
- Bloomington civil city because of course readies focus just on Bloomington stuff right and not so much
- the rest of the county if The county once again, this is opting into the county because we already discovered
- from the aim sheet that if we do our own rate We are in a severe We get severely less than we expect
- So if the county adopts the maximum rates, that's what this one is. Okay, so this sheet
- These sheets are super confusing by the way, and if anybody out there is like oh my gosh councilmember
- Stossberg I really appreciate what you had to say, but I had no idea you don't give me a call Send me
- an email come to the farmers market on Saturday, okay So this is putting a maximum of that 1.2 percent
- Lit on the the entire county and it is also Maxing out all of the other
- lit services, so maxing out other county lit at 1.2%, okay? And it's maxing out townships and the library
- at that .05% and also I think transit at that .05% that state law allows for those things. And if that
- happens, we end up actually in quite a surplus. Everybody ends up in quite a surplus if we just
- put a really high income tax on everybody, right? Which I'm not suggesting is a good plan, just to be
- clear. These are all what if kinds of spreadsheets, okay? And so basically almost everything through
- here comes out with a surplus, except for some of the townships. Some of the townships get a surplus
- with that .05%, and some of them are in deficit.
- And so once again, for community members, these state changes are really messing things around. And
- the highlighted portions here, I'm going to shrink this again a little bit, are the schools and the
- public library. So MCCSE, $17 million, almost $18 million less than they would expect to receive. And
- they have no way to increase any
- Other tax dollars, they've got no recourse. RBB, four and a half million. And these are reading estimates.
- The library is down there at 1.5 million. I'm not entirely sure what's going on with the Monroe County
- Solid Waste Management District, which has a slightly less than expected as well. These are numbers
- that we can't necessarily change as a city, but as a community, we need to be super aware of, because
- even at the maximum lit,
- when there's all kinds of surpluses happening, the schools are in real trouble. So that is number three.
- If anybody's following along with my written report, this is sheet number three. Now we have sheet number
- four. And so this is where Reedy sent, hey, we don't actually need a surplus. If we just had the same
- amount as maybe we would expect
- have had without this law like that could work right so that's what this spreadsheet is and so what
- this does is it puts that municipal services rated right about one one point oh three percent once again
- the county you know putting that on everybody and and that is very similar to the aim projection of
- of the one percent
- Okay The county services lit rate at point eight seven oh six, right? So the county rate also doesn't
- have to be maxed out And then the fire EMS rate of the point Two eight oh six. I didn't talk about the
- fire EMS rate, but that is an additional Rate that could be utilized in different ways. The county sets
- that as well and so if all those things go together we can end up with
- With neither a surplus nor a deficit just a nice little even keel These next to Ellisville and Steinsville
- with the Reedy estimate also have a little bit of surplus Of course, the schools are still in heavy
- deficit as is the library And the solid waste district now in this particular sheet Reedy did something
- different with the townships instead of allocating this
- 0.05 percent non municipal lit type to the townships They allocated township money from the fire EMS
- rate and my understanding of that is that the state law is still so fuzzy that That fire EMS rate is
- super flexible in terms of what the county wants to do with it So really just gave an example here that
- I think based on how the law is written right now is
- The county could choose to fund townships out of that and that way the townships would not necessarily
- like they would all they there's zeros all down here at the end so they're all kind of being made whole.
- OK so they don't have either that surplus or a deficit. They're all kind of equal. I know this is a
- lot of information. I'm really sorry. It really just bundles along all of our all of our reports that
- we just had from the mayor to.
- So that was sheet number four. And number five is maybe most interesting for residents to hear, and
- also maybe important for us as representatives to be able to communicate with our residents, because
- what it shows is an estimate. So based on sheet number four, that break-even impact rate, which makes
- Bloomington whole, which kind of sets everybody in the local government up pretty well,
- what is gonna happen for an individual person and how much tax they pay. This sheet specifically only
- applies to homeowners and it uses of course a whole bunch of averages of means in terms of property
- tax paid and salaries like mean salary and it does this based on townships. So what this is telling
- us is that if you live in Bean Blossom Township, actually I'll do Bloomington Township because
- We're in Bloomington. So if you live in, we'll do the Bloomington city, Bloomington township, and your
- mean net property tax is the $3,207.22. This is how much it would be on the old system is 3,800 or so.
- You would be saving about $600 on your property tax bill, but your income is $85,000 on, it's the mean
- income, so how much
- Additional local income tax would you have to pay for that? Okay, you'd have to pay a little bit more
- two hundred and sixty five dollars in local income tax. So overall you're Saving six hundred and thirty
- seven dollars on your property tax. You're paying two hundred and sixty five dollars more for your local
- income tax So per year you're getting about three hundred and seventy two dollars more right in your
- pocket That's that's tax that you're not paying
- If you're in Bloomington Township, that's what this last column is. I want you to notice Steinsville
- right here Okay, if you live in Steinsville, it actually projects that you are going to pay more Okay,
- that your property tax savings are only $24 but you would end up paying 238 more dollars in local income
- tax that if and then the average across the whole county is
- across the whole county, it's $353.80 that people are more in their pocket. And that's per year. That
- is literally less than I spent last week at the grocery store, per year. And in terms of that $17 million
- that the school system is losing, I just want to make sure that we're putting that into perspective.
- So that is why I wanted to include this chart, which is also from Reedy. And as I said in my memo, this
- is a great example of regressive taxation where the folks out in Steinsville who's, you know, they pay
- the least in property tax right now, which means that their property values are the lowest and they
- have the lowest median household income and they are gonna end up paying more
- under this plan, whereas these folks that have some of the highest household incomes, I think that's
- the, yep, $122,000 in Salt Creek Township are gonna be reaping the benefits of $623.59 roughly, right?
- These are, to some degree, estimates, right, based on the data that is in the public system.
- That is what we have been doing at fiscal committee recently is learning and understanding the impacts
- of this bill and how that might mean that we need to to function in the future. Any questions. Thank
- you for that. Has county council given any indication on what they plan on doing.
- Yeah, so part of the changes that the state made this year and the state could still make changes in
- their legislative session next year, by the way So if you're a community member who's like, oh my gosh,
- this is terrible contact your state reps, right? And encourage that so last year what the state did
- is that they wanted to create the must committee so it's it's in my it's the
- Oh, it's a task force that I'm not going to... Anyway, it's a task force that includes a county council
- representative and the fiscal officers.
- from each of the districts and so I have met with County Council President Crosley and Vice President
- Iverson who is also chair of their financial committee and so it is my understanding that because County
- Council has to call the must and so it's my understanding that President Crosley is planning on doing
- that and I've also I'm also trying to connect with some folks and
- You know in our surround other county officials that are elected just to do that and the most process
- is really important and there's definitely you know gonna be some These are not all the sheets by the
- way that we got shared that got shared with us there are some additional pieces of information and some
- additional theories like all of these kind of work underneath what the law says right now and
- Since there's the possibility they could change the law, there are potentially other financial scenarios
- that could also work well. And so part of what MUST needs to do is give a recommendation. But
- the recommendation has to be unanimous. And part of documenting that process and giving that report
- to the state, it's like, how is this process working? Could the officials actually reach a unanimous
- opinion about what to do based on current law if
- You know, we were allowed to do something different than could it be unanimous? And so there's some
- there's some possibility with that. But yeah, great Thank you. Sure other questions I Hope this wasn't
- too much because we're all okay. I see him there. Okay. No, okay All right. Thank you so much. Constable
- Stossberg for your leadership on this committee and for that very informative Presentation. Thank you.
- Yeah, and and do please let me know if and any
- Any residents out there to you because I've I've really been kind of delving deep to try to understand
- it And I don't think that I necessarily explained all of it super well right now, but I think you did
- Thank you for doing that
- All right. That has to be some type of a record. We will move on now to public comment. So we have a
- period of public comment. And again, you may make comment on any of the last two hours of reports that
- you've heard, if you can remember any of them. So with that, we'll
- If you, as people are walking up, if you're in council chambers, just remember to say your name or alias
- for the record, please, and write it down, most importantly. And folks online, there's a button to raise
- your hand. We'll start in council chambers with the tall man. Hello, Steve Volin. Before I talk about
- the Transportation Commission, I just wanted to thank Councilman Brasulik and Stasberg for
- Their advocacy for students, the census in 1790 has counted people in only one way where they have their
- so-called usual residents, not their so-called permanent residents. One of the most toxic phrases in
- representing young people is the phrase permanent address. It's a misnomer. The census considers students
- to be resident where they go to school.
- If they are people and they're here they count and they are citizens of this city. So I wanted to say
- thank you for that advocacy But I did want to speak in my role as chair of the Transportation Commission
- We did receive the parking report Back in I want to say it was June But it wasn't complete. It was we
- were told was a final draft. We didn't get the final draft until the August meeting
- And so I've asked the commission to review the report thoroughly and at our set we do actually it was
- our July meeting. We don't have a meeting in August because of budgets. So at the September meeting
- we will be
- taking a vote on our opinions of the recommendations in the report. So rather than talk any more about
- the recommendations are going to let that process play out. But commissioners are going to be taking
- those recommendations up and we will get back to you at the end of September. And if there's any questions
- happy to answer them I will say briefly that there's a lot of good recommendations of report. There
- are some I personally disagree with. It's not much point in
- Bringing those up now but there is going to your attention will be needed very soon because there's
- a lot of change that need to be made to parking. You've heard a preview some of them tonight and as
- at least one member has said some of these changes are way overdue. Thank you. Thank you. Next commentor
- in chambers.
- Evening council members. How are you? Terry Amsler and my wife and I live in Bloomington and I pretty
- much only pay parking meters with coins I realized come to think of it. It's another discussion or briefly
- community survey very briefly. It's a great idea to do this It's very important. Actually, I love your
- questions in your comments. I wonder this
- question of the random sample versus the open participation thing, which I won't repeat what I've heard
- and which I mostly agree with, but I think saying what, when this report is provided, I don't think
- it's on the website yet, at least I didn't see it, but I may not have seen it, found it tonight or earlier
- today, but I'm wondering how the data from the open participation shows up
- I was unclear about that. I probably just was said and I didn't hear it clearly, but I was confused
- about that. The other thing I think while there are choice making trade offs with all survey methodologies.
- Yes. Amen. Forever. The same time, how you present that information publicly and what it is,
- what it says, what it means, what it doesn't mean challenges is important. It's good public engagement
- if it's authentic and honest and clear.
- So I just recommend that as you describe it, as you present it to people, you account not as something's
- evil necessarily, but what it is, what it's not, what it means. Now the only other thing I'd say,
- I think, if I, tell me when it's time to go and I'll leave. The one, because these things tend, it's
- a danger of all consultant public sector entity work. Everybody wants to look good. Hey, why should
- a little government be different?
- Anybody else, I suppose. But it's important, I think, to look at this. So what's not the good news?
- There's some good news. But I would encourage the council of the city to look at what's not the good
- news only. I think it makes me think you're going to do the council is doing some sort of more deliberative
- session later in the year around public safety or some such, I think. And I'm not directly involved
- in anything. But something like that, I think. But there's information in the survey
- which suggests some framing of some questions, maybe, perhaps, not to privilege the survey. The other
- thing I note, lastly, just about, one of the things it says around the engagement, people that weren't
- engaged, it says 50% of respondents, I assume, on the random sample, I assume, since that's showing
- up that I can see, lack awareness of engagement channels and opportunities. And 39% said,
- They don't think their impact matters, their input matters. I'm not saying they're 100% correct, that's
- another, but there's information for the committee on council processes and others and it's time to
- go. So I'll leave it at that and thank you very much, always a pleasure to see you. Thank you so very
- much. Is there anybody online? Okay, person online, we look forward to hearing from you.
- Hey, good evening, President Asare. I'm Christopher M. G. with the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce.
- Double housekeeping. Next Tuesday evening, your chamber is hosting Women Excel Bloomington, presented
- by Old National Bank at Ivy Tech. The evening event celebrates local women whose leadership strengthen
- our business and our community. A good reminder that strong-ended institutions depend on people willing
- to lead. I wrote a piece on advocacy matters about the parking study.
- I have not looked at the community survey, but kind of going on Council Member Stasberg fiscal committee
- report, I have looked at the budget as presented by the mayor, and the chamber appreciates
- her administration's 2027 from the perspective of protecting essential services, maintaining existing
- assets, and avoiding new full-time position. That's discipline we definitely welcome. General fund pictures
- improved, but the long-term challenges definitely remain.
- Revenue will tighten. We just heard why. Personnel costs will keep rising. Did anybody look at the health
- care costs? Ouch. The full impact of the state tax changes are still ahead, shifting expenses to another
- fund, drawing on reserves, bonding capital work, all pretty reasonably, but none creates lasting savings.
- I'm going to encourage, the Chamber's going to encourage the fiscal committee to use the process
- to look at ways to permanently lower costs of doing business without weakening core services. That means
- serious inventory of authorized and vacant positions, contracts, subscriptions, consultants, facilities,
- vehicles and equipment, all that other stuff. It also means identifying the functions that
- can be consolidated, work can be brought in-house, property or equipment that no longer is needed, technology
- investments that deliver real measurable savings rather than simply adding another system to maintain.
- This is not for across the board cuts.
- Deferred maintenance, then public safety, staffing, and outdated systems all cause taxpayers more down
- the road. There should be no kicking the can. This all calls for a clear multi-year plan that separates
- simple fixes from reoccurring savings. Bloomington still has time to make thoughtful choices before
- revenue pressures intensify. The budget process should be the beginning of that conversation, not the
- end of it. The Chamber encourages
- the full council, particularly its fiscal committee, to carry this work forward. You have priorities,
- but let's look at also ways we can sort of streamline some things, some cuts. These are much harder,
- and I get that. But as we've looked at, times are difficult, and we're gonna have to kind of come together
- with some real solutions, both as a county, as a city, as we move forward. I look forward as a chamber
- of commerce to working with this body in that process. I thank you for your time.
- Thank you very much. Are there any other commenters online? All right, two more. Wonderful. Person two.
- We look forward to hearing from you. Good evening. This is Paul Rousseau. I would like to comment about
- the 2026 community survey. I acknowledge the hard work of those who created the survey, and I acknowledge
- the reasoning of Mr. Andreessen with regard to why the survey excluded most students.
- But it seems to me that capturing the views of IU students is necessary despite the difficulty. Regarding
- whether student residents are as fully engaged with government services as permanent residents, please
- recall the tragedy of Nathaniel Stratton, an IU student who was 20 years old. On September 18th, 2022,
- Nathan was killed by a high-speed motor vehicle while riding a scooter in the bicycle lane on North
- Walnut Street.
- The driver was so drunk that she dragged his scooter under her car for at least a quarter mile. Nathan
- and his family and friends were obviously negatively impacted by one, the public safety failure to intercept
- impaired drivers. Two, the condition of sidewalks that Nathan chose not to use that night. And three,
- the safety of bicycle lanes that are protected by nothing more than a painted white line.
- Are IU students more likely than permanent residents to extensively use public sidewalks? Are IU students
- more likely to be on the streets at an hour when there are impaired drivers at night? I think so. Finally,
- I was struck by the juxtaposition of two of the survey results. On page 52, 53% of respondents were
- satisfied or completely satisfied with, quote, ease of getting around by bicycle, end quote.
- which included the safety of bicycling. But how many of those respondents actually routinely ride a
- bicycle as a means of transit? On page 57, the survey shows that 11% of respondents ranked more bicycle
- lanes that are physically protected from motor vehicles as their top priority for infrastructure
- improvements. Are those the people who actually ride a bicycle every day?
- So for future surveys, I would strongly recommend that respondents indicate how often they use various
- forms of mobility in public space. Thanks for the opportunity for feedback. Thank you so much, Mr. Russo.
- We have another person online. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. It's Kevin Keough. Yeah, I was disappointed
- and confused by the survey.
- It mentioned that there was a random sample, but I've been an accountant and auditor for many years,
- and I've done samples. I just don't know how you get there, how you can call that a random sample, and
- how you can come up with an error rate. It seems to me that was really a targeted sample, and hopefully
- we can get agreement on that. In auditing, we call that a judgmental sample, where you just judgmentally
- select who you want to
- to have the sample with. I also did a calculation of sample size you would need for the city of Bloomington,
- 85,000, a sample of 380. I know it's difficult, but if you focused on those 380 and get a true random
- sample, you can make some statistical judgments and the data really would be of a higher quality and
- a higher integrity.
- But all I can say is, you know, you've got a survey of 600 residents out of 85,000. You know how much
- you can say about. On parking, I think you should look at it strategically, and you need to look at
- parking and public transportation strategically. And I think they, there's a lot of synergy between
- the two, because I think if you look at this way, I think the objective would be really to discourage
- local residents from parking downtown much. But when they need to, you want to make it affordable.
- But you want to encourage public transportation. And I really encourage you to look at making it free
- for all residents of Bloomington. I think it would make sense to have free public transportation for
- all residents of Bloomington. But the thing is, for out of town, if you're not a local resident, you
- have to charge what the market will bear. And really enforce it, especially when there's high density
- football games, special events,
- where you really focus on the numbers and the congestion and try to control it. So anyway, those are
- my comments tonight. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Mr. Keough. Is there anybody else online?
- Anybody else in chambers? All right, we made it through the marathon of reports. That was wonderful.
- Congratulations. We'll now move on to some issues related to boards and commissions. Are there any?
- Excuse me. Yes, mr. Chair Under council committee reports was there a report from the hiring committee?
- Thank you Nothing specific. No, I think did you want to give a report? I don't know. I just I think
- the agenda I think we're okay Thank you, thank you. Okay. We have some issues around boards and commissions.
- Are there any motions? No
- No. Okay. Got it. Okay, we will move on now to legislation for first readings. I move that ordinance
- twenty twenty six dash eighteen be introduced and read by the clerk by title and synopsis only second.
- There is a motion to second any discussion. All right. Well the clerk please call the roll. Council
- member Zillick. Yes.
- Sorry. Yes. Daily. Yes. Rallo. Yes. Ruff. Yes. Rosenberger. Yes. Stasberg. Yes. And Piedmont Smith.
- Yes. Thank you very much. Will the clerk please read your thing ordinance twenty twenty six. We try
- that again. I'm so sorry. Ordinance twenty twenty six dash eighteen.
- adopting guidelines and requiring formal written commitments as a condition of eligibility for on premises
- alcoholic beverage permits within eligibility statutory districts councilmember council sponsor
- is councilmember sorry the synopsis is as follows this ordinance establishes guidelines for any applicant
- to eligible alcohol permit programs
- found in Indiana code seven point one three twenty including those eligible licenses within the city's
- existing downtown redevelopment district and historic different district. This ordinance requires applicants
- to enter into a formal written commitment pursuant to Indiana code seven point one three dash dash three
- dash 19 dash 17 as a condition of eligibility. Thank you. I move to discuss ordinance 20 26 dash 18 second.
- Okay. There's been a motion and a second. Will the clerk please call the roll. No. Nope. Yeah.
- Yes we do. Yes. Will the clerk please call the roll. Council member sorry. Yes. Daily. Yes. Rallo. Yes.
- Ruff. Yes. Rosenberger. Yes. Stasburg. Yes. Piedmont Smith.
- Yes. And Zulik. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. That passes.
- Okay, I'll just I'll be very brief have a few introductory remarks and then a wonderful colleague Jane
- Coorsmith and I hope we'll have a few comments and then This is coming now in a slightly new form I
- mean a completely new form from the resolution that was presented a few weeks ago in hopes of reflecting
- immediately some of the
- Complexities that council members brought up in streamlining some of these processes while also taking
- advantage of just already moving to the step of establishing a
- a clear process by which and transparent process for businesses who may be seeking certain additional
- on premise alcoholic beverage permits permits within eligible statutory districts. You'll see this clearly
- in the document but just for perhaps more so for the public under state law. Bloomington currently has
- two such areas and the courthouse square historic district and the downtown redevelopment district.
- And so although the Indiana Alcohol and Tobacco Commission retains
- final authority to issue these permits the city has an important role in reviewing applications and
- determining which establishments should be eligible so the purpose of this ordinance is to ensure that
- these limited permits advance genuine economic development support restaurant oriented businesses contribute
- positively to the vitality and character of downtown Bloomington and we also seek to create a process
- that's very consistent transparent with where successful applicants can make formal written commitments as a
- condition of receiving and retaining city report support.
- As we continue considering the ordinance, we will have a little bit of a gap, obviously, between first
- reading and second. And we're already reviewing several questions raised by local property owners and
- potential applicants. These include whether the definition of a restaurant should be clarified. I think
- I'm very open to changing that to make it perhaps a little bit more broad. Whether local ownership and
- proprietor requirements are sufficiently flexible for a context where, for example, locally owned property
- is seeking
- an outside restaurant operator within their premise, whether the fixed time of midnight closing may
- unintentionally exclude otherwise desirable concepts, including things like late night dining, music,
- entertainment-oriented establishments, et cetera. And we're also considering the implications of the
- living wage provisions and how we might
- work those through, particularly with tipped employees, whether the application process should allow
- a staged or conditional approval when a property owner is restoring a significant or blighted property
- but has not yet secured the final operator, and whether we should more clearly define what constitutes
- material change requiring further review. So obviously not reasons to abandon the framework. We're working
- on this being iterative. All questions about how to make this work as effectively as possible. But I
- think what's most important
- about all of this is that we're establishing a framework that we can continue to improve upon, also
- bringing attention to the fact that this is something that business owners, Jane and I have been working
- on this for over a year, now really engaging with the businesses downtown of trying to figure out ways
- to improve opportunities for investment in Bloomington, opportunities for restaurateurs and others who
- are trying to make
- Bloomington keep Bloomington the vibrant place that it is. And so really particularly interested in
- protecting the public interest without unnecessarily limiting sort of strong hyper strong concepts.
- But looking forward to hearing from colleagues administration local businesses and whoever else might
- want to comment on this. So with that I'll pass over to my partner over here and then back to you. I
- have to lower the mic after.
- transportation commissioner Jane Cooper Smith director of economic and sustainable development Thanks
- councilmember Asari for teeing this up. So well, I'll just offer some high-level comments
- More framing the why for the public. I think the council is pretty familiar with these programs already
- The state of Indiana has leveraged three-way alcohol permits to spur economic development across the
- state by providing exceptions to the state's permit quota system cities like West Lafayette Columbus
- and Ellisville have benefited from the riverfront district program cities like Valparaiso Valpo Evansville
- and Crown Point have historic district permit programs and
- The state has also created additional permits in communities like Carmel, Fishers, Westfield, and others.
- And on February 24th, 2026, Governor Braun signed into law Senate Bill 89, which granted two additional
- three-way alcohol permits to Bloomington. It also awarded on that day three to Lafayette, two to West
- Lafayette, two to Delphi with a population of 2,961, eight to Michigan City, and three to Shererville.
- The quota system assigns permits by population size,
- New permits will be particularly impactful for Bloomington which houses more people. How do I want to
- say this given our previous conversation. So I was going to say it houses more people than permanent
- residents. I think I could say it that way but.
- But if we're just back reflecting on that. But no, so if they're counted in the census, then they're
- counted in our population and they're counted in our quota system. So just erase that. Anyway, there'll
- be particular impact for Bloomington, which welcomes millions of visitors annually. This means that
- the demand for service greatly exceeds the supply, which has driven cost for quota permits north of
- $250,000 and has made it exceedingly difficult for new restaurants to open or stay open in Bloomington.
- Restaurants are either cost burdened if they buy one of the permits off the secondary market
- or their revenue is constrained if they operate solely with the more affordable beer and wine licenses.
- Creating these new opportunities with state supported programs will allow more activity in Bloomington
- and will allow us to once again become the dining destination that we have been in the past.
- One point worth noting, these new permits are different from the quota permits. The quota permits are
- long-term assets for business owners. So those can be leveraged for debt, and they can be sold
- or transferred. So when a business buys a quota permit, it's theirs. These permits are not able to be
- sold or transferred. The historic and riverfront permits renew annually, so the businesses are allowed
- to use the permits, but they can't do anything with them as an asset.
- Permits are owned and held by the business, but they must be returned to the state if the business ceases
- operations and With that I'll just say I'm grateful for councilmember asari's leadership on this issue
- and want to communicate to the council and the public that This is a measure twice cut once moment by
- hearing this legislation for first reading you will receive invaluable feedback from the business community
- and the public which will help Us make sure that this program meets its intended goals. Thank you. Thank
- you so much. I
- Thank you Council comments and or questions councilmember Stasberg Thank you. I Just want to say generally
- that like I like this version a whole lot more than the one that we saw Earlier, so thank you guys And
- I don't think any
- I think mostly I have comments because council members are you started out this by like several things
- that you guys were still looking at and Investigating I think most of the things that I kind of looked
- at I was like ooh Might fall in that category. So first of all Exhibit a is missing The map of the courthouse
- square historic district has a label but no actual map. So if we could make sure that Is it in an addendum
- somewhere? Anyway, if we could make sure that gets in the packet next week, that'd be awesome
- and I Was wondering about the restaurant requirement requiring at least 60% of gross retail income because
- I recall a conversation that I had last year when we were looking at stadium district stuff about some
- concern in terms of the differential between like how much food costs and how much alcohol costs and
- So I just want to make sure that that number gets looked at to make sure to not exclude some really
- great businesses that we should have that
- We shouldn't be excluded automatically for that. I also in terms of the living wage compliance I was
- a little concerned about the phrase to the extent applicable because it sounded like kind of a big loophole
- and wondering what would be considered okay to not follow the living wage. So it sounded like you were
- already like looking at that some. So if we could make sure that that is maybe more defined or something
- like that for next time that would be great.
- Number 11 good standing with the city. What does good standing mean? And I think that that Spelling
- that out might be Helpful and those were my comments. Thanks And it's like like I said, like I don't
- need answers right now because it sounds like you're working on so just adding those to the list That'd
- be great. Thanks I'm so sorry Councilmember Piedmont Smith
- Yes I too appreciate this form of letting the city council weigh in and support certain applications.
- I appreciate this format of that as opposed to the resolution that we had earlier. This makes more sense.
- So thank you for that. And I would say that some of the evaluation criteria are still rather vague.
- Like what is the contribution to the beauty and vitality of downtown riverfront or district.
- I'm not sure. That's pretty subjective. And then workforce practices. I'm not sure what is meant there.
- So those are two I would ask for clarification. Thank you. Gosh. Councilmember Rosenberger I forgot
- it was you. OK.
- I thanks for bringing this and I'm excited about having fewer barriers to new restaurants and bars.
- For that reason I know we're talking we're going to maybe look at that restaurant requirement like I
- am not a fan of it at all. I know that I have heard from some existing bar owners that they don't like
- they want it because they don't want just more bars here.
- which I don't think is a compelling reason that a bar owner doesn't want it. But I just think that we're
- trying to like lessen the cost of entering the hospitality market basically and then we're kind of saying
- except now you also if you want to serve cocktails you have to
- open a restaurant that is 150 to like $500,000. And I think still in Bloomington, there are things that
- we could have here that we don't have like a jazz bar or a wine bar or like a place that is like container
- restaurants and cocktails where like sometimes it doesn't make a lot of sense to have like a lot of
- restaurants in those like beer garden areas.
- Competing against each other and you need like fewer restaurants and maybe like more alcohol or drink
- options. So I just think Well, I also think with Bloomington kind of creating new hubs that we should
- have bar only Options in places like the Gateway like Gateway North and things so that people don't
- always have to travel and
- far distances and we have a lot of housing up there in density. So I like the idea of looking at letting
- the market decide what gets started and what is kept instead of saying like it has to be a restaurant.
- Thank you so much. Thank you. My response. Can I just can respond. Please. It wasn't a question.
- I love that. I note that
- This that entered the discussion when we were talking about stadium district and there was concerns
- from residents about a proliferation of bars. Right. And particularly because 50 percent of our of our
- almost permanent residents are students. But particularly because of that I think that there there is
- a desire a little bit not to you know
- shape the market entirely but to at least consider that if you see within the written agreements it's
- not like that's a you know it has to be that case so you know certainly you know and we're in and I
- think importantly the shift from last round of feedback here is
- you know, allowing ESD to execute on some of those judgments. And so depending on, you know, because
- you could imagine that these things change as things go developing. And so I think the idea here is
- to say, hey, here's some things you might want to consider and that we want you to keep in mind. But
- recognizing that the market is going to change, needs might change, you know, et cetera.
- But I agree with you. The goal is not sort of anti-competitive or protectionism here. But it is, I think,
- a lot of residents are concerned that if we are to establish a downtown district. I mean, I'm speaking
- as a teetotaler myself. But if you're going to establish a downtown district, that we're going to have
- this proliferation of bars. And the goal is to say that that's not the goal of being able to do this.
- It's to make viable restaurants and other types of hospitality.
- think a little bit of attention there in the sense that You know, I don't see it as written as like
- must be this way Just I see it as things to consider within establishing the Redmond agreement, but
- we love more thoughts on that Thank You councilmember Rosenberger. Okay. I just thought it was sort
- of like in the requirements of I mean, it's like I my my I
- packet scrolled without me like making it you know. So I lost it. I guess I think too. I mean we're
- not set on what it is right now. Right. Like oh here we go because it's the third requirement 60. I
- mean 60 percent I think means that it is a restaurant and it's not just serving food on the side. And
- I think the hard work owner said like they wouldn't qualify. And like that is a
- It's almost the only place in Bloomington right now that allows children where you order at a bar. So
- I just think the 60% is too much. And I think, too, it's not just about, I mean, I think the open market
- really should decide. But I think, too, it's like we are leaving out humans if we're saying you basically
- have to go buy food when you go out.
- versus like or feel awkward not buying food. And I do think we don't have a lot of places for older
- people. And all I'm saying is that I think we could also move that away from minimum eligibility criteria
- to somewhere else. Right. So so that it's yeah that's. Other questions or comments or comments. Nope.
- Okay, then we will move to public comment. If you are in chambers, please rise and approach the podium.
- If you are on Zoom, please raise your hand and we will come get you. When you get to the podium, if
- you could sign in and state your name or alias for the record, that would be much appreciated. You'll
- have three minutes.
- Good evening. My name is Galen Cassidy. I'm one of the co-owners of Uptown Cafe I'm here to strongly
- support this ordinance right now as we've all stated before a three-way liquor permit in Bloomington
- routinely sells for 250,000 To 300,000 that price is a massive barrier especially for young professionals
- in the next generation of independent restaurant owners Who simply cannot raise that kind of capital?
- The current methodology of allocating permits does not fit the unique nature of Bloomington and its
- demands and has led to one of the highest medium prices of any community in the state This ordinance
- ordinance creates a clear path for lower cost special permits at 25 to 40,000 and that lower barrier
- gives talented young operators a realistic chance to open here we need that pipeline of new locally
- rooted entrepreneurs and
- I also want to address something directly. You'll probably hear, if you haven't already, from some existing
- permit holders that may oppose measures like this, because new, more affordable permits reduce the scarcity
- value of the license they already hold. I'm just going to say, frankly, I think that kind of gatekeeping
- is selfish as a permit holder myself.
- These permits should serve the public interest in long-term vitality of the Bloomington's food and beverage
- community not protect the private investment returns of a limited group of current owners These guidelines
- do this the right way. They prioritize real restaurants with strong food sales favor local ownership
- and Require written commitments so the city can keep things accountable These permits remain a public
- economic development tool rather than a private investment that are protected and flipped so
- Again, I urge you to pass this ordinance and I appreciate you hearing me. Thank you. Thank you very
- much. Is there anyone else in chambers? Okay. Anyone on zoom? Okay, great. We will get to zoom after
- this next person in chambers. Good evening council is rainy Cassidy the local citizen here and taking
- into consideration the timing of this ordinance. It couldn't get better if you were at the taste of
- Bloomington on Saturday. It implemented
- when we were when we had the taste and the way it worked that we saw the independence the unique restaurants
- and the quality and diversity of our community when we look at this liquor license as they say it and
- putting it in the control of the city council the local residents and the people that are going to grow
- things that will start that generation that keep the vibrancy that we've had over the years there's
- details to be worked out
- but through the work of ESD, the council and the discussions, it seems as though after reading it and
- the districts that we're now on the right path to continue to keep that independence, diversity and
- quality of culture and food that helps bring us all together. So I would highly encourage that you continue
- on and move this forward so we can keep what we've grown for the years and what'll come in the future.
- Thank you.
- Thank you very much. And now we'll go to the commenter on Zoom. You should be able to unmute relatively
- shortly. You'll have three minutes. Please state your name for the record. Thank you. Hey, good evening
- again, Council. It's Chris Turingi from the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce. I first want to
- commend the work of President Sarre, Director Coopersmith on the work they've been doing the past year,
- the improvements they've made recently.
- I also want to echo the sentiments of Mr. Cassidy and Mr. Cassidy on their public comments. The chamber
- strongly supports additional alcohol permit opportunities as an economic driver and a very cheap economic
- driver. These permits can lower the real barriers for economic independence, fill vacant spaces, create
- places that better serve residents and visitors. And much like Councilmember Rosenberger, I sort of
- see that we have relatively few small adult-earning gathering places where people can meet
- drink over conversation without being full service restaurants or brewery or a late night bar. Not every
- neighborhood gather needs to have a large volume of food and alcohol that value. Let's remember that
- smaller, well-run establishment can still add vitality and create the kind of social space that many
- adults in this community say is missing. We understand the council wants safeguards, the chamber wants
- safeguards. These permits should support active business, not speculation, remain tied to the establishment
- intended to serve, and not be warehoused or transferred.
- The key is making these clear and easy to administer. We encourage the council to avoid any compliance
- system going around revenue calculations, repeated access to business records or routine appearances
- before council. It creates real costs for city staff and we should be lowering the amount of work of
- city staff.
- and business owners. The city needs to administer this program with a limited staff capacity. Simpler
- standard would require operational kitchen, maybe without food available while having food available
- while alcohol is served, if we want to require that food portion of it. That reduces the administrative
- burden while still supporting responsible service, allowing different models to really succeed in that.
- I'm also going to flag the provision that has been mentioned by council members, sorry,
- and that is that this be a vehicle for expanded wage mandate. Traditional living wage calculation doesn't
- reflect tip service work functions and applying that through this process could quietly price these
- small businesses out and have unintended consequences. And we've seen a business try this before. So
- a few additional considerations. Local ownership should be encouraged without hard residency requirement.
- Routine change of the menu, staffing hours should be handled administratively rather than should go
- to council review. Let me look. Anyway, yeah, I think that's everything. The chamber supports moving
- forward this. This is exciting. We ask the council preserve safeguards against speculation and misuse,
- but having predictable, affordable, and workable for small business that's meant to support. And I thank
- you for your time tonight. Great, and we thank you for yours. Thank you. Are there any motions at this?
- I'm sorry.
- Would anyone else like to speak during public comment? Please raise your hand or hold your piece Anyone
- on zoom Okay at this point I will entertain a motion I move I move to send ordinance 2026-18 to a second
- reading on September 2nd Second right. That's our next regular. Is that the next regular session? Yeah second
- Yes because there's budget there's been a motion in a second to postpone this ordinance until our next
- regularly scheduled meeting on September 2nd. Will the clerk please call the roll. Council member Daley.
- Yes. Rallo yes. Yes. Rosenberger yes. Stasberg yes. Piedmont Smith yes.
- Yes, sorry. Yes. Thank you. Thank you and that passes and That concludes my chair responsibilities Right
- moving on to legislation for a second reading your resolutions. Are there any motions? I move that ordinance
- 20 26-16 be introduced and read by the clerk by title and synopsis only second motion in a second any
- discussion Will the clerk please call the roll? Councilmember Rallo
- Yes. Rough. Yes. Don't know what's happening there. Okay. Rosenberger. Yes. Stasburg. Yes.
- Piedmont Smith. Yes. Zulek. Yes. Sorry. Yes. And daily. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Please read.
- Ordinance 2026-16 to amend an ordinance fixing the salaries of officers and employees of the police
- and fire departments for the city of Bloomington, Indiana for the year 2026. The synopsis is as follows.
- Ordinance 2026 amends ordinance 2025-38 by adding a lieutenant position within the police department.
- I move that ordinance 2026-16 be adopted. Second. All right.
- We have already heard this presentation, right? But did Director Paycheck, did you want to add anything,
- answers? I also see that Chief DeKoff has waited very patiently all night here. So if you'd like to
- just answer the question that we asked, and then there may be a handful of follow-ups, and then we can
- move on. There were some amendments that were submitted for typos. I believe Council Member Piedmont-Smith
- were going to sponsor them.
- Good point. Do you want to introduce those at this point. Yes I only have one for each ordinance so
- I will introduce amendment one to ordinance twenty twenty six sixteen second and these were sent out
- in addendum three to our council packet at six twenty nine p.m. today. So sorry about that but they
- really are just correcting some typos. So.
- This amendment updates proposed ordinance 20 26 16 to correct typos and inadvertently transposed numbers.
- And I will mention that. So the ordinance in our packet for this week was already corrected. So this
- is but it needed to be done as an amendment. So this is an amendment.
- to the language that was in your packet last week. So just to clarify for staff, department heads for
- future, if there's, if an ordinance has already been discussed once, then rather than submit a new ordinance
- with the corrections amendment needs to be prepared. Thanks. Thank you.
- questions on the amendment all right motions ah Before that any public comment on this amendment No
- one I'm so surprised anyone online like to make a comment on this amendment Fantastic back to council
- motions So no, we have them already will the clerk we call the roll. Sorry Councilmember Ruff Yes
- Rosenberger. Yes Stasberg. Yes. Well I'm reading through the red line right now. I'm trusting. He bought
- Smith. Yes. So like. Yes. Sorry. Yes. Daily. Yes. And Rallo. Yes. Thank you.
- All right. Thank you very much. Are there any other amendments to to the proposed legislation? I don't
- believe so. All right. Well so with that as amended and questions pending to you director. Thank you
- again. Councilmember Piedmont Smith shard paycheck director of human resources. We like you said we
- you heard the presentation related to this last week. I just wanted to.
- Recap that council had a couple questions my takeaways for this. You wanted some further explanation
- of the long term fiscal implications for this request for public safety. You also wanted some confirmation
- around how many sergeants there are now and how many are being proposed. You had questions on if there
- were similar sized apartments that were structured like
- our police department here at the city of Bloomington as far as like number of staff and responsibilities
- and you also had some questions around how this shift in workload from the requested
- change in lieutenants and sergeants would affect some of the staff stressors that you have heard comment
- on before and so I have my colleagues here controller McKim who will affirm Strategy for the long-term
- fiscal implications and then we also have chief executive
- Decoff here who will follow Controller McKim to answer questions that you have about the structure of
- the police department Thank you very much controller McKim Thank you very much. Good evening council.
- I don't think the strategy will be very exciting here I'm just going to kind of reiterate the facts
- here and then hand things over to Chief Decoff, but
- First as councilmember Stasberg pointed out at the last meeting there is an error in the current salary
- ordinance and that it indicates that there are 13 sergeants when in reality there are and have been
- 14 sergeants in the appropriated budget for 2026 and this error in fact appears to go back at least
- several previous salary ordinances as well. The current version of the salary ordinance that you're
- being presented though clarifies the proposed number of each rank 13 sergeants and five lieutenants.
- This proposal eliminates one sergeant position and creates one lieutenant position. The estimated cost
- of this change in salaries and benefits is $19,969 for a full year and prorated to about $76.80 for
- the rest of this year.
- The cost for 2026 will be absorbed through unspent appropriations in the ones category and the removal
- of one sergeant position and creation of an additional lieutenant position has already been included
- in the police budget submission for 2027 that You'll be considering very soon So I will hand things
- over here to chief deep cough who can kind of address the concerns and comments raised last week during
- the first reading
- Good evening council. Mike Decoff police chief for the city of Bloomington. I was asked to address kind
- of the need for this position. So we currently have an administrative sergeant and all they do is manage
- our training. We have a pretty streamlined staff starting probably 35 years ago. The chief at the time started
- Eliminating some of the administrative positions that were had for instance. We had two deputy chiefs.
- We had captains on every shift And what happened in that time since now we have we've pretty much kept
- it streamlined I have one deputy chief I have two captains ones over the administrative part of the
- department ones over the operations to part of the department and then we have lieutenants that run
- each shift and we have a lieutenant that runs the detective division and
- those lieutenants have sergeants under them and the way our Staffing and shift schedules work. There
- are three rotations of officers on each shift So there's a sergeant over each rotation that allows us
- if there would be some type of emergency or like little 500 scheduling what we do is we we operate by
- squads and
- which are a rotation and then there is a supervisor over that squad. So that helps us maintain supervisory
- control over what our people are doing. It helps us comply with national CALEA standards and the span
- of control that supervisors have. This new position that we want to do is we're basically replacing
- a sergeant with a lieutenant because lieutenant has more authority
- has More ability to direct operations than a sergeant does and we we're looking to actually expand what
- that position does because We struggle right now on special projects to have to have oversight of over
- those We don't have the personnel to help us research different things and this new role this new position
- we believe
- will be very instrumental in not only managing training, but will also help with those projects and
- help us do research and look into other types of things that we could do differently at the
- police department. Thank you so much, Chief Dieckhoff. Any further questions? Councilmember Stosberg.
- This might be for the controller. What is the implication that
- however many years the Documents have just been wrong about the number of sergeants that we have I Can
- probably answer that it's it's not been filled So it's just kind of been on the books, but we've never
- had 14 Sergeants, okay. How has it actually been on the books if it's not in this ordinance? I Can't
- answer that I guess that's why I figured the controller these
- I mean, I wasn't here, so I can't answer as to why it came that way. But that is the number of sergeant
- positions that you as a body have appropriated in the police budget over the years. So there are lines
- in the budget for 14 sergeants.
- You all have appropriated funding and maybe previous councils of appropriated funding for 14 sergeants,
- but somehow there was just a disconnect between the salary ordinance document and The budget as appropriated
- so so basically somewhere along the way The 98,000 and some was multiplied by 14 instead of 13 and this
- just wasn't updated and nobody caught it
- Director paycheck just said she and I both been kind of looking at previous it's been at least ten years
- So yes at some point possibly that happened. I mean, I'm sure it's not the only Time in which various
- documents disagree, but yeah Thank you. Thanks so much for looking into that clearly. We didn't realize
- it either because we never filled it so Any other questions
- I was gonna say councilmember Allen Yeah, thank you. I just wanted to point out something on the amendment
- really quickly There was there was a carryover of the redline edit, but without the strikethrough. So
- I apologize for that on section 3 of the amendment just to for
- To create to remove any ambiguity ambiguity the amount equal to should be eighty nine thousand six hundred
- and twenty six and then as follows equal to again eighty nine thousand six hundred and twenty six instead
- of What it is now, which is eighty nine to six six six to six, which is incorrect So that is a correction
- on paragraph three to the amendment just
- The red line version that was attached to the amendment which is essentially what council was basing
- their motion off of is correct and shows the proper red lines it just didn't didn't transfer over with
- the redacted part. Thank you. My apologies for the air. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Others
- comments questions. If not happy to go to public comment let's go to public comment. Anyone like to comment.
- All right online. OK. Coming back to you. Are there any motions or final comments. I just wanted to
- say thank you to director paycheck for not only answering our questions but citing your sources bringing
- them actually in with you. That was pretty awesome above and beyond. So thank you to everybody.
- Oh, thanks. I always forget that I'm sorry every week will the clerk please call the roll? Councilmember
- Rosenberger. Yes, Stasberg. Yes Piedmont Smith. Yes, Miss Oelick. Yes. Sorry. Yes, Daly Rallo Yes,
- and rough. Yes. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you for your patience Thank you for being here. We'll move
- on I move that ordinance 2026 dash 17 be introduced and read by the clerk by title and synopsis only second
- Motion in a second any discussion. Will the clerk please read call the roll? Councilmember Sasberg Yes
- Piedmont Smith. Yes, Zulek. Yes. I'm sorry. Yes, Bailey. Yes, Rallo Yes, Ruff. Yes Rosenberger.
- Yes Thank you. Will the clerk please read Yes
- Ordinance twenty twenty six dash seventeen to amend the twenty twenty six salary ordinance of appointed
- officers non union and AFSCME employees for all departments of the city of Bloomington Indiana. The
- synopsis as follows ordinance twenty twenty six dash seventeen amends the twenty twenty six appointed
- and AFSCME employee salary ordinance to incorporate updates to certain civil city positions. Thank you
- very much.
- I move that ordinance twenty twenty six dash seventeen be adopted. Second. All right. Back to you director
- paycheck. We had questions. You can answer them. Should I move amendment one. Yes please. Bless you.
- I move amendment one to ordinance twenty twenty six dash seventeen. Second. So again this is a correction
- of typos and one misplaced job title that was in the wrong chart.
- And again, it's a correction to the text that was in our July 29th packet. Questions on the amendment.
- All right. Public comment on the amendment. Anyone online. OK. Back to council. Comments. All right.
- Will the court please call the roll.
- Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Thank you
- very much. As amended to you. Thank you. You heard this presentation last week. I most of your questions
- were related to
- The timing of this request being so close to budget presentations and also some questions about long-term
- fiscal impact. I just want to reiterate that These are not new requests These are concerns that probably
- came up over a year ago and this is just the first time that department has have had an opportunity to
- Make-request we are trying to put our operations first and our employees our personnel first and these
- requests are us advocating to prioritize our operations in a way that we would be willing to Adjust
- or reallocate funding that is in other categories again in order to prioritize our
- personnel and our operations and so I would just ask you to consider as the three department heads that
- are represented in this salary ordinance amendment that you just Trust and consider that we have been
- thinking about this for a while now And these are the requests that we have in front of you So I wanted
- to address timing and if you had some more questions about long-term fiscal impact I don't know what
- More controller McKim can help explain but he is here if you have some additional questions. And again
- last week your questions were very specifically related to timing and long term fiscal impact. So we'll
- take any questions that you have.
- Thank you, Council. Yeah, so I wanted to address the fiscal impact in a little more detail of both the
- changes proposed for human resources, in particular the reclassification from a grade five to grade
- seven, and then also the reclassification from a grade eight to grade nine for public works.
- So first of all, the fiscal impact of the HR changes. As Director Paycheck has already discussed,
- These changes allow some tasks to be performed in-house rather than by outside consultants. The cost
- of the upgrade consists of the difference between grade five to grade seven of $22,299 in salary and
- benefits for a full year, which comes out to 85.76, 85.76 for the rest of this year.
- Now, what about the savings? Where does the fiscal impact come? The savings will show up in 2026 in
- reversions to category three. In other words, the department will be using fewer consultants because
- they'll be doing the work in-house. Those reversions will come into the ED lit fund.
- and will be much more than the 8577 cost of the upgrade. And in 2027, the category three expenses have
- already been reduced in their proposed budget by $41,000. So again, that $41,000 reduction in consulting
- in the category threes more than makes up for the approximately $22,000 cost of the upgrade.
- We probably will because the savings are in category three.
- rather than category one, we probably will at the end of the year need to come for a transfer once we
- do the end of the year appropriations and transfers, but it will just be a transfer because the reversions
- will more than cover that position. In public works, so the difference between a grade nine and grade
- eight is $11,168 in salary and benefits for a full year. For the rest of this year, that would be around
- $42.95. However,
- These costs are, again, being directly offset by reductions in the services category through gained
- efficiencies. So in particular, currently the center stone contract for Brighton B-Town is budgeted
- in an ED-lit facilities budget for $381,000.
- However, due to operational efficiencies the program is showing savings of over seventy six thousand
- dollars to date in this year And so at the end of this year that money will revert back to ed lit Again
- a transfer from category three to category one might be need to be done but the savings of that seventy
- six thousand dollars will be well over the
- 4200 dollars that'll be that'll be needed Further and so that's 26. Let's talk about Next year 27 these
- savings can't carry through to future years. So in 2027 the centerstone contract because of
- these efficiencies is they are reducing the request from 381 thousand dollars to 350 thousand dollars and
- So that represents $31,000 in savings. And again, this will more than cover the estimated difference
- in salary of the special projects and operations manager. So these changes and the savings through the
- reduced category three requests in the general funds public works admin budget are already reflected
- in the 2027 proposed budget. So the fiscal impact of this change is better than neutral as well, both
- for the rest of this year and for the upcoming budget year.
- So I'm happy to answer any other questions about that. And I'm not sure if Director Wason is available
- online to answer any questions. I think he was intending to be. Well, are there any other questions?
- OK. Seeing none, we'll go to public comment. Anyone like to comment? Anyone online? Oh, yeah. Back to us.
- Any comments, please? Yes, just real quick. I work closely with the downtown specialists and the special
- projects and operation manager miss Cassie Wernie on a lot of downtown projects and the downtown specialists
- do functionally report to miss Wernie, but feedback that I've gotten is that
- Oftentimes they run into confusion with other departments on who is responsible for what due to the
- inconsistencies between reality and the organizational chart So I really believe that this ordinance
- as it relates to public works in particular will allow for stronger accountability and clearer expectations
- amongst city staff Excellent. Thank you so much. I'm councilman Stasberg. Thank you. I just want to
- thank controller McKim for giving us such a
- specific and detailed fiscal impact report about that and talking about the 2027 and those kinds of
- savings and I kind of feel like these two ordinances were just a great example of the How the discussions
- that at first reading are supposed to work in terms of bringing up these questions and then coming back
- Both of you director paycheck as well with very solid Responses to what it was that we were interested
- in hearing and that also extends to chief decaf he left but Anyway, thank you all so much so much
- Yeah. Ditto. Thank you so much. Please. Councilmember Rosenberger. Hi. Was anyone in charge of the council
- office notified of the opportunity to do this regrading. And if so who would it have been. That would
- have been me. And I do not specifically remember including the council office. And I apologize for that.
- Sometimes that.
- Happens and I need to be more consistent with making sure that I share information with the council
- and also with the clerk Because you have more discretion in some of the Processes that you have related
- to your personnel. I oftentimes just
- assume that because you have more discretion than a department head that you have other avenues and
- other options. And so I apologize. I actually ask myself that same question. Did I share this information
- with the council and with the clerk. And honestly I don't think I did. I don't remember doing that.
- So I apologize. Thanks for your honesty there. I.
- Do you find that unfortunate since we have worked with you about changing the grade of our attorney
- positions because we have a hard time with our hiring. Yeah that just feels like a real missed opportunity.
- You're correct. I apologize for that. Thank you. Any other comments. Councilmember Piedmont Smith.
- Yes well I appreciate Dr. Paychecks honesty I am dismayed by this news and by her assertion that we
- have more flexibility in our staff grades because two years ago when there was a reconsideration of
- all the whole compensation framework we had very little leeway and I was council president at the time
- and despite
- bringing real world experience to bear on the pay grades and not being sufficient and commensurate with
- the work that our staff does and being told that in the future we would have to stay with the low grades
- as they are and then we were told in the future we'd have an opportunity to revisit, I find it particularly
- galling that this opportunity was not shared with our office.
- I remember those conversations and this was a as council member Rosenberger said this was a
- missed opportunity. Thank you so much director paycheck. Clerk Bolden. Sorry for interjecting but I
- do believe that there were some emails sent in April about updates and staffing.
- from the HR department to the clerk and council office. This could have been an oversight and at the
- time we did not have I mean we had some staffing challenges at the time so it's hard to know where those
- emails went and hopefully we could just move forward from here to consider those positions and I do
- recall that former
- Council Administrator, Attorney Laener, did significant work with rewriting the job description and
- having it regraded for our office researcher. So there is at least some of that work that was done by
- Attorney Laener, and hopefully we can consider revisiting the other roles in our office in the next
- few months. Thanks. Thank you all so much. All right.
- Clerk will you please cover up. Yes. Councilmember Zulek. Yes. Sorry. Yes. Daily. Yes. Rallo. Yes. Ruff.
- Rosenberger. No. Stasberg. Yes. Piedmont Smith. Yes.
- I'm sorry. I have a job. Yes we will move on. Thank you. That passes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
- We'll move on if you have any other motions. Move that resolution 20 26 dash 14 be read by title synopsis
- only please. Second motion and a second. Any discussion.
- All right. Will the clerk please call the roll. Councilmember sorry. Yes. Daily. Yes. Rallo.
- Did he say yes. I didn't I didn't hear anything. I'm sorry. Remember Rallo. Oh thank you. Yes. Ruff.
- Yes. Rosenberger. Yes. Stasberg. Yes. Piedmont Smith. Yes. And Zulek. Yes. Thank you. Will the clerk
- please read.
- Resolution 2026-14, approval of amended legal representation agreement for common council. Council sponsor
- is council member Asari and the synopsis is as follows. Resolution 2026-14 approves the amended agreement
- for legal services to provide additional time for the common council to receive legal representation
- on an as needed basis. This resolution also sets a maximum amount for the agreement,
- That is not to exceed the salary for the vacant deputy attorney deputy administrator position. Thank
- you very much. I move that resolution 20 26 dash 14 be adopted. Second. OK. Councilmember sorry. OK
- so super briefly. This is just a an amendment to previous resolution that established our ability to
- enter into a part time contract with our
- our wonderful, amazing current interim attorney, Alan. As we all know, that we're coming to the end
- of the process of hiring or appointing a new counsel attorney. And we foresee having some overlap between
- the excellent consulting services that we've received and the new attorney
- I mean, surely at the discretion of counsel and the discretion of this new attorney. So this is just
- allowing us to continue that while setting. I think the original framework had a not to exceed amount
- that is, through budget and all of those things, is going to be difficult here. So just pegging that
- to that second attorney position
- I don't know if it's strange to ask you to add anything to this, but Attorney Allen, is there anything
- that I'm missing in the basic overview here? The only other thing is originally that I pledged to work
- a guaranteed minimum number of hours, and so to just allow the flexibility for counsel's needs for the
- overlap, we took away that minimum, essentially, so there's not a minimum of 15 hours. It could be just
- as counsel needs it. You may need zero.
- Any questions or comments happy to questions Councilmember Piedmont Smith and then Stossberg How much
- have we paid for this contract so far The controller just left I Don't know off the very top of my head
- but I can I can find out if you give me a few a few moments I
- Thank you. Maybe a colleague can go ahead. Okay. Councilmember Stosberg. Well, I kind of had a similar
- question. I actually messaged councilmember sorry about this over the weekend in terms of section two
- which has the not to exceed the full salary of 85,440 and kind of asking shouldn't that not to exceed
- be lower than that because we did have somebody in this position for the first two months of this year
- and so shouldn't it be a not to exceed
- You know however much you know like that eighty five thousand minus what was already spent in January
- and February minus however much we've already spent for attorney Allen services.
- Yes. And so I thought about that. The thinking here is that we also haven't been spending on the other
- line one with the main attorney or the lead attorney position, transferring here from our consulting
- line that we had budgeted X for. I think it's $30,000, something like that, and transferring back to
- a line one.
- We have lots we have lots of savings in that area because we haven't had both of the positions filled.
- In fact all three of the positions haven't been filled right. So so this is this is a nom I mean.
- you know whatever the amount is here it's it's just pegging it to the fact that we're about to hire
- we hope I'm someone in the in the lead position and just sort of saying this is where we expect it to
- be you know no more than but again we've taken out the minimum minimum service hours in the original
- contract so you know I think that this is a this is an appropriate range.
- I'm also curious on the question that comes from repeat month Smith answered so I don't know if you've
- been able to determine I have the amount if you'd like The amount total that's been invoiced so far
- is close to the 55 it's forty nine thousand three hundred and ninety dollars Thank you Can you repeat
- that I'm sorry It's forty nine thousand three hundred and ninety dollars
- Are there any other questions? Okay. In that case, we'll go to public comment. Would anyone in chambers
- like to speak? Okay. Would anyone on Zoom have their hand raised? Okay. Thank you. We'll go back to
- council comment. President Isara. So I just have a real brief comment, and this is, I mean, something
- that we brought up.
- I think it's important for us to think about this in a way as like a mirror. I mean, when we started
- the hiring committee and part of our charge was to get temporary cover, one of the things that we discussed
- was like, okay, where do we need a lawyer? And I think that this does give, I think, ample evidence
- of the fact that
- You know there are a lot of processes that we do in council that I think we need to think very carefully
- about right like I mean you know sort of paying a lawyer to attend a meeting for example is something
- we should we should be considering like how we as especially as we're thinking about you know.
- how we continue to staff the office and other changes that we might want to make. But again, a lot of
- that is on us. And I think a lot of it's like habit that we've talked about in the past, that there's
- just a lot of spaces where we have legal representation where we may not need it. And obviously, paying
- for legal representation by the hour
- points that out. And I'm sorry that I have to say this while Attorney Allen is here, but it's obviously
- no knock on Attorney Allen. I wish I could just spend all day with Attorney Allen. But the point is
- I think that we often hide because we have these full-time positions. I think that some of
- those inefficiencies are sort of hidden in our own system because people are here. And so I think as
- we're thinking about restaffing and all of these things, and all of us have expressed those concerns,
- about staff load time et cetera. You know I think this is a really good opportunity for us to think
- about in a mirror. You know you can quantify the spaces where that's happening. So you know I do think
- it sounds like a staggering number. We are a you know we have a lot of activity and there's been a lot
- to cover in a short time including
- long meetings with county and all types of other things that you know, but Anyways, i'm just i'm just
- saying that both to thank attorney allen for his service but also for us to I think we do need to it's
- part of the reason why we're introducing this because we do need to sort of bring this the reins and
- a bit here, so Sorry, that was a long speech councilmember piedmont smith Yeah, first of all i'd like
- to thank mr. Allen for all of his help in the last several months
- And we are very fortunate that he was available and willing to take on this temporary position since
- he has so much experience with the city. And I think we've all benefited from that. And I want to acknowledge
- also that he had a totally unexpected task this summer when the the joint city county subcommittee on
- the jail location started meeting.
- So I really appreciate all of his help. And I also agree with council member sorry that this kind of
- underlines for us that we you know we're paying legal rates for some work that somebody doesn't need
- a JD for to do. So we might think about as we move forward in reorganizing our office you know what
- maybe could be
- done by somebody who is more interested and more inclined towards just administration and office systems
- organization as opposed to somebody who is really has the experience and qualifications of a lawyer.
- So anyway thank you Mr. Allen. Council member Rosenberger.
- I thank you. I think we talk about this a lot reexamining the roles and responsibilities of the staff
- we have and what that might look like going forward. I know there is a little talk of not having or
- do we need an attorney at our meetings. I think maybe oddly unfortunately we do that. We've definitely
- had a lot of
- I don't know how to say it nicely adversarial conversations here where we need someone with legal expertise
- to defend I think the role and authority of council in Bloomington. I think it still would be nice to
- look at how other cities divide their work that I think they more loosely.
- have roles that aren't specifically defined in state code that we could look at as well. I think also
- like where does packet production reside is an important question. It is a it is a document of city
- council which is not necessarily the role of city council to put it together. I think it will be exciting
- to move forward but I just want to say like I do
- think you're needed here, not that anyone says you're not. I really appreciate you being here. And your
- legal expertise and your historical institutional knowledge is impeccable. So I would love to be in
- those conversations moving forward, of course. And I think our executive sessions are really nice for
- that. Thanks. Great. Thank you. Councilmember Stasberg. Thank you. I first want to also.
- say a huge thank you to Attorney Allen. I think that his service has been exemplary. And then I also
- want to speak to this point of what tasks we're having our staff do, kind of from the different perspective,
- that at the start of this year, I had a list of legislative initiatives that I wanted to get done. And
- I have had to back burner basically all of those.
- Attorney Allen has been able to find time to do some research for me. But I know he has a really limited
- time to be able to devote to some of the actual work that we're supposed to be doing right now. And
- so it has been invaluable having him. But I also just want to say we absolutely need an attorney to
- be able to do legal, give us legal advice, legal guidance,
- navigation of state law and how we can Impact the city in the ways that that we want to impact the city
- that the city needs to be impacted and That that's just really important and those are things that I
- know that attorney Allen has tried to work on with me in amongst doing all the meeting coverage and
- all the packet coverage and all of those things that Have to be done
- And it means that some of that other more discretionary stuff got, at least for me, deprioritized this
- year. So thank you. Thank you, Attorney Allen. I second all the nice things said about Counsel Attorney
- Allen. Does anyone have any other comments? OK. Will the clerk please call the roll?
- Councilmember daily. Yes Rallo Councilmember Rallo. Yes rough Rosenberger. Yes Stasburg. Yes Piedmont
- Smith. Yes, Zulek. Yes. Sorry. Yes. Thank you Thank you that passes and I will
- Power right back over the president. I'm sorry Wow. Thanks. Oh my gosh Okay, we now come to a final
- time of public comment. Is there anybody who'd like to make public comment? Anyone online Anyone in
- the room well Things of council schedule we have another executive session Scheduled for next Tuesday at 6 p.m
- 6 o'clock I believe and We do not have a council meeting next week any other But then we have budget
- session right after that and we will be meeting on Mondays and Wednesdays, correct? Do our meeting change
- time does to 530 so Monday and Wednesday 530 for both of those meetings two weeks from now. I'm customer
- Stasberg There's a fiscal committee meeting this Friday at 830 in the morning and Allison conference
- room and we'll be discussing elected official salary and stuff
- Thanks. Clerk. Just a reminder, because I know there are a lot of committee meetings that you all are
- trying to schedule. And if your schedule changes for some reason, please notify us as quickly as possible
- so that we can make sure you have a quorum going to the committee meetings and we don't have to cancel
- anything. Interview committee, a meeting tomorrow as well. Just a reminder. Anything else? With that,
- boom, adjourned.