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.