- Of Dewey. One two three four five. Yeah we have we have enough. This regular session of the Bloomington
- Common Council. Will the clerk please call the roll. Council member Stasberg here. Oh sorry about that.
- Piedmont Smith. Yeah. Zulek here. Sorry.
- Yes here. Daily here. Rallo here. Ruff Rosenberger here. And Flaherty. Not yet. OK.
- All right, the agenda should be posted there. The honorable clerk also prints out a handful if you need
- them. They're also posted online. We have a fairly packed agenda today. And so after we'll have a handful
- of minutes possibly for approval, I don't know, and then we have reports from council members, from
- city offices, and from council committees, and then we'll have a moment for public comment.
- We also have some appointments to boards and commissions and some other matters and then we have one, two.
- three things for first reading and one two three four things for second reading and resolutions and
- then finally there'll be a second period of Public comment. I'm making one slight amendment to to the
- agenda Is that mayor Thompson is not going to be speaking today? And so apologies for that. She just
- got tied up in something else and just said notice so other are there any other amendments or motions?
- I move to allow public comment after presentation from city offices. Second there's a motion and a second.
- Any discussion. Can we be more specific about time periods for that like as a public comment for a certain
- period of time or three minute public comment. Yeah sorry I move to allow three minutes.
- per speaker for public comment. I think it's standard time just on the reports. Yes. Second. OK. There's
- a motion to second any further discussion. All right. Will the clerk please call the roll. Council member
- Flaherty. Yes. Stasberg. Yes. Piedmont Smith. Yes. Zulek. Yes. Sorry. Yes. Daily. Yes. Rallo. Yes.
- Rosenberger. Yes. All right. The measure carries. So the this thing in front of me agenda is has been
- amended. So with that we'll go to do we have any minutes for approval. No no minutes for approval in
- which case we will go to reports. Do any of my colleagues have any reports or statements. Councilman
- Stossberg.
- Thank you. I just wanted to give the report that today was the project 46 kind of like a quarterly meeting
- and retreat. So I went over to Columbus Indiana for that and met with the project 46 team. And we we
- generally the purpose of that was to talk about priority goals for project 46. And so we did after discussion
- and various collective kind of
- voting the top priorities based on that dot voting were floodplain and hazard mitigation Talking about
- renewable energy and energy efficiency and then waste issues of of waste And so then there's like sub
- tasks under that and there will I believe be committees formed related to that next time we meet So
- if anybody is interested in hearing a little bit more about that, please let me know. Thanks
- Thank you so much. Any other comes with Pima Smith. Yes I wanted to announce a couple of things. One
- is that we have a city council deliberation session next week September 9th. I want to mention that
- at the start of this meeting rather than waiting till the end because people may not be here by then.
- We welcome the public to join us for a conversation about what is public safety and what makes you feel
- safe in public, what makes you feel less safe. We will have that next week from 630 to 830 here in council
- chambers. And we hope you can attend. There will also be a group in Spanish. And if I spoke Spanish,
- I would say that in Spanish. Maybe our council president can invite in Spanish.
- The other thing I want to say is that we have that I will have my constituent meeting for constituents
- of District 1 and anybody else who would like to join via zoom on Saturday September 12th at 11 a.m.
- And that link is on the city council web page. Thank you. Thank you so much. Any other comments or or
- announcements or reports. Councilman Rallo.
- Yeah, I think this is worth mentioning. I occasionally mention AI advances. And there was the famous
- one a few weeks ago, which was the open AI model that escaped containment and then attacked hugging
- phase, which is a depository for huge amounts of information.
- Cyber information and managed to penetrate it and I just want to draw people's attention to a forensic
- study that was conducted by a group called meter and In association with redwood research and it turns
- out it wasn't a single agent. It was a multitude of agents. So this is becoming more and more I think
- alarming as we're seeing is a
- There were 1,200 total agents that was turned a swarm that assisted each other, cooperated, assisted
- each other in escaping containment, cooperated, strategized, schemed, broke into different
- groups, coordinated each other on various attacks related to not only infiltrating Hugging Face, but
- other companies. And it was not noticed for many days.
- So people are just now sort of reckoning with the impact and the severity of this operation conducted
- by rogue agents. And this is happening even as the frontier labs continue their research to make more
- advanced models of greater capacity, greater intelligence, which is doubling in its capacity every three
- to four months. Just bringing that to your attention.
- So I would recommend reading the report by Meader and Redwood Research about this incident. Thank you.
- Thank you very much. Any other reports or comments? Online, either of you? Okay. Thank you both all
- so much. We'll move on then to report.
- from Bloomington City on place and branding. And I'll welcome Director Dimalina here.
- I know you all have a hefty agenda. So I'll rush through my intro remarks real quick. Desiree de Molina
- communications director for the city of Bloomington. Good evening council members. So while the memo
- submitted to council provided a much fuller account of the purpose the process and the path forward
- for this Bloomington branding project for the benefit of the record and for the public I just kind of
- want to briefly set the stage here. So in 2016 the city's wage
- Growth Task Force identified blooming branding Bloomington as a strategy to strengthen our communities
- competitiveness and economic positioning. Nearly a decade later council approved funding for this unmet
- recommendation. So thank you. And the city partnered with civic brand to begin the work and the work
- is about opportunity and how we create more opportunity for more people.
- more businesses, and more community partners, and then in turn, how that spurs and supports better jobs,
- better wages, and a stronger local economy. While this condensed presentation could in no way capture
- the multiple sessions of outreach, conversations, and research that produced a very detailed 117-page
- findings report, one interviewee put it like this, Bloomington doesn't know what it looks like in the mirror.
- Of course, no single phrase, idea, or image would ever capture all that Bloomington is entirely. And
- that's not really what a brand aims to do. What this work gives us is a way to identify what is the
- most distinctive and meaningful about Bloomington, build a clear position around those strengths, and
- use it to support our economic future in a thriving community. And now we get to see what that looks
- like. So I'm very happy to welcome Ryan Short, CEO and co-founder of Civic Brand, back to Bloomington.
- Thank you Desiree. Good evening council. My name is Ryan short one of the founders of civic brand. And
- as of this month our firm has been doing this work for 18 years. We work with all kinds of places whether
- it's municipalities DMOs economic development downtowns. And I think this is my clicker. And one of the.
- really interesting things, in my opinion, about place branding is how different and complex municipality,
- even within place branding, municipality branding is compared to tourism, economic development in downtown.
- And it kind of short circuits a lot of folks' mind when you think about that, because when we say brand,
- a lot of times we immediately go to logo. And when we say logo, we immediately go to marketing.
- A company rebrands. That typically just means they got a new logo. And they typically did that because
- they are trying to adjust their positioning so they can sell more stuff. And that makes sense to us,
- to everybody, when you're talking about tourism, when you're talking about economic development, even
- in downtown. Because those are DMOs, destination marketing organizations. They're tasked with marketing.
- So even if we have a definition of brand that is logo, that is marketing,
- That makes sense there. But a municipality is not a DMO. This is not a marketing organization. This
- is an organization that is tasked with really important things, safety, health, infrastructure, improving
- people's lives, and making decisions on a day-to-day basis, hundreds, thousands of decisions on a day-to-day
- basis that makes a real impact in people's lives. So when you start talking about things like logos
- and marketing, that doesn't even
- makes sense of why are we even doing this? Why are we even having this conversation? And we told staff
- before we kicked off this project a year and a half ago, just like we tell every client, we'll get to
- the end of this project. And even if we can guarantee we 1,000% nail it, we will get some feedback.
- We will get some criticism. Why are we doing this? Why did we spend $95,000 on a logo? Why did we do this?
- My nephew has Photoshop. He could have done this for cheaper. Why didn't we have a design contest? We
- literally verbatim said all the comments everyone's here has read and seen. And we will continue to
- tell those our clients the same thing. And that's because those people are right. If the city of Bloomington
- actually did spend $95,000 for a logo, I would be right there with you and say, that's insane. But that's
- not what a brand is. That's not what we were tasked with. That's not what the 116 page audit
- That's not what the 50-page implementation plan suggests. There is a visual identity component. It's
- a small piece of that. We're going to talk about that. But place branding, what it is, is going back
- to those decisions that people make every day. It's not about selling Bloomington to an outsider. It's
- not about an outside audience. It's about an internal audience.
- It's actually probably more about council and staff and leadership and arming them with making choices.
- How do we, we're all doing the best we can to make choices, decisions every single day. But even if
- you're making the right choices, if we're all making choices in different directions, the sum doesn't
- add up to greater than the part. So we're kind of just aimlessly drifting. And that's the challenge
- with a lot of cities. And what a brand does is it creates a shared vision, a shared north star of this
- is what we're all trying to solve.
- so that at every level of staff, council, budget, policy decision, all of those decisions can slightly
- align towards one shared direction. And so diving into the process, this is kind of an outline of that
- year and a half process. I'm really just gonna focus on that first column for a minute. The research
- and public engagement phase. 50% of the project, 50% of the budget goes into that phase. Our team was
- out here for two different site visits. There's a stakeholder committee made up of
- community partners faith leaders business owners different people that represent different parts of
- the community that we met with throughout the process. There was a community survey there were pop up
- events because we don't expect people to come take our survey come to City Hall we need to go out into
- the community meet with them. So we were at festivals farmers markets talking to people trying to understand
- what is Bloomington. What does it mean to you. What are the challenges.
- and being really honest and having some hard conversations about what Bloomington is and where it falls
- short and what the opportunities are. We met with many of the council members at the start of the project.
- We met with a few of the council members at the end of the project. We had community focus groups with
- business leaders, IU students, residents, people of different ages, backgrounds, heard a lot of really
- interesting insights and viewpoints.
- the online survey, and then of course our firm does our research looking at how are you communicating
- out there, what's being said out there, and looking at other competing communities, and all of that's
- what culminated in that 117 page brand audit. Of that 117 pages, there's really four focus areas that
- we think the brand should keep in mind and address. One is protect and amplify Bloomington's one-of-a-kind
- character, keep and attract young professionals,
- bridge the town and gown divide and allied and community decision makers and build momentum that outlives
- any mayor council or moment in time. And so some of those tough conversations that we heard is that
- a lot of people feel like their potential is locked limited or undiscovered in Bloomington.
- For every person that we talked to that went on and on about how Bloomington has everything they need
- and it's the greatest place, we heard from a young professional that thought, I love Bloomington, but
- I think I'm going to have to leave to get the career that I want or to find a partner. We talked to
- young people of color that said, I don't feel like I belong here at times, whether that's meeting friends,
- social groups, or even finding a place to get their hair done.
- We talked to students at IU that said they went to a university that is in Bloomington, but there's
- times where they don't feel like they're part of Bloomington. And so that feedback and that statement
- we saw as the real challenge and the opportunity for the city government. And the switch is that potential
- isn't unlocked by a city's scale.
- If you're not finding your people if you're not finding your place it doesn't just mean you move to
- a bigger city because potential is unlocked by yourself and the environment and the people who help
- you grow and the city government as an organization plays a pretty big role in doing that and helping
- unlock that potential. And so the whole brand strategy really gets condensed down to this idea of unlocking
- potential.
- And the way that a brand is truly used as that decision-making filter for council, for staff, for community
- partners and organizations that are tasked with shaping the environment is to just ask yourself, does
- this decision, whatever it is that you're making at the moment, help unlock potential? And that's ultimately
- what a brand is. It's that guiding North Star decision-making filter. And I know me personally, when I'm
- thinking about something and I'm having to make a hard decision, I'll often go like this. I'll kind
- of like just fiddle with my ring. It's kind of a subconscious thing. I'm not really even sure what I'm
- thinking about. But I think that's my personal equivalent of whatever my brand is. What am I? I'm about
- to make a decision. I'm doing something. I'm thinking about it. Maybe I'm a little nervous. And I kind
- of pause for a half second, fiddle with my ring, and then move forward. And that's what the brand should
- be for counsel, for staff,
- for organizations, before you pass a budget, before you pass an amendment, before you do a project,
- does this unlock potential for this resident, this person, this student? And then move forward. And
- if the hundreds and thousands of decisions that people make on behalf of the community go through that
- filter, you will positively impact people's lives in your community. And I can guarantee you the ROI
- of that is going to be a lot higher than $95,000.
- And so my ring is not my logo, it's not my brand, but it is kind of a reminder of that. And that's ultimately
- what a visual identity is. It's just simply a simple visual reminder of what are you all about? It's
- not trying to communicate to an outside world, an outside audience in cell and say this is what I am.
- It's for you, it's for internal to shape decisions. And so a visual identity that's gonna do that
- Again this isn't an external marketing this isn't advertising this is internal. What we think it needs
- city needs to communicate to be able to do that is it needs to be bold because to truly unlock potential
- and make some of the hard choices and commitments that that takes is bold. It needs to be stable to
- attract those jobs the people that are going to invest in a community a city government has to prove
- that it is stable and show that it is stable and it's going to take everybody it has to be collaborative.
- So when we started looking to design marks, that was kind of our benchmark. It needs to be bold, stable,
- and collaborative. And to us, that was more important to unlock potential than to visibly show Bloomington
- with the courthouse or some aesthetic element. But it was to speak this, because again, this is the
- internal city government organizational brand. And so this is the system that we developed. We think
- it's bold.
- There's some critiques obviously all the B. It looks like a whatever it looks like a bank maybe a but
- whatever you want to say but we think it's bold. We think it communicates stability. We think the color
- palette very strategically is collaborative in our engagement. We heard a lot that you know what the
- city government needs to be all blue in distance from IU. I use red we're blue. That doesn't bridge
- the town and gown divide neither does going all red.
- Right? The town does not need to be overly catering to IU, and it doesn't need a distance from IU. It
- needs to work together. Politically, it's not about left, right, young, old. And we think the color
- palette also does that. It's a very traditional color palette. It doesn't get much more classic and
- traditional than red and blue. But we do think that with the pink and the brighter blue that it feels
- fresh, it feels modern,
- It doesn't just feel old timey so we feel like we can bring a lot of people along with that. We also
- understand and there's a 50 page implementation plan that is very detailed is about phased implementation.
- And when we met with some of the council members we met with Sydney one of the comments that she made
- before we started the presentation was are we changing the logo because you know we don't have much
- budget to implement this. And we said.
- We completely understand that that 50 page implementation plan talks a lot about phased implementation
- plan, implementing things at natural replacement cycles so there is no added cost, and also recognizing
- that if you do evolve to this mark in this symbol, the current mark is also gonna live along side by
- side. So we need to think about how do these marks work together? Because there will be times for a
- long time where potentially these things coexist. And so what we wanted to add was showing how
- This whole system, the whole brand strategy, unlocking potential, bold, stable, collaborative, works
- with the existing icon. Because the icon is not the brand. The icon is the story, the message, the color
- palette, the visual identity, the reminder of everything. And so if you went this far, you can communicate
- that. If you went all the way to the B, icon within that, we think it goes a little bit further, we
- think it works in
- Some more modern cases when that original icon was created, which I think it's a great mark, but it
- didn't exist at a time when there were social media avatars, favicons, different digital instances where
- certain weights and line art might need to be considered. But we think it's strong. It works. And it's
- going to have to work. It doesn't matter. No one's throwing this out. They're going to have to live
- side by side over time for some period at least.
- Next couple slides are just some mock-ups and inspiration of that unlocking potential. Again, that's
- like an internal mantra. You may never say unlocking potential. You may never type those words, but
- it should inspire messaging, thoughts, and ideas. Our approach is that that's a lot more powerful than
- simply a tagline that you just repeat the same words over and over. Instead, it's a jumping off point
- to say a lot of different things, but just how could we say that? This is just one example. The city
- that opens doors, maybe this is on.
- you know, some housing in front of some affordable housing project, and it's a construction fencing,
- right, just an example. Also part of it is a word mark, and this isn't just a font where we
- typed Bloomington, this is a custom word mark that was created that all of the lines across there have
- a similar curve and shape. We think it feels very classic and traditional, like it could have been created
- a long time ago, but at the same time feels modern and fresh with some nuances that feels current as well.
- Some more mockups there showing the system and applications. Same thing in a transition period or with
- this kind of combo of what you have now. Again, the B isn't the brand because the brand works with or
- without that. It's the story, it's the strategy, it's the reminder. It also needs to work alongside
- other community partners that are actively
- Promoting and talking about Bloomington as well. So this is just showing if there was an event Maybe
- that was sponsored by the city and visit Bloomington. So their marks out there your marks out there
- Different different goals but can work together Again just some mock-ups The other council member that
- we met with at the end this project with Isabel and she had some some good input and feedback for us
- on some of the messaging that we had and
- that riffed off of the unlocking potential, so we tweaked the message there. We had a slightly different
- version of that, and so this one is now where potential meets opportunity. Again, just another simple
- example. You may never use that exact phrase, but it's an example of how unlocking potential can find
- its way in a different messaging. And so this is the closing slide. Happy to answer questions, but just
- to reiterate the things, the brand is a mindset for decision-making. It's not a logo.
- It was informed by deep engagement from a variety of stakeholders and the 50 page implementation plan
- is all about measured strategic responsible rollout that includes natural replacement cycles. And here's
- the thing is with the city with FOIA requests Freedom of Information Act that's really great for transparency
- but it does oftentimes undercut you right with being strategic about rollouts because this is day zero.
- This brand has never been implemented anywhere. But it's already out there, because it gets screenshotted,
- put out there. So it doesn't matter if the implementation plan says, countless times, earn the brand
- before you put it out there. It doesn't matter if the implementation plan says, slow rollout, phased
- implementation. Because somebody will go to page 20, screenshot just the bee on a white background,
- and say, that's what we paid for. It's not accurate. I get it.
- That was the brand strategy. So happy to answer any questions, but I appreciate your time. Thank you
- so much. First, I guess we'll have council members, and then as we said, we have a time for public comment
- thereafter. Thank you. I'm sure they'll have lots of questions. So I'm council member Rallo, and then
- I'm going to go council member Buma-Smith, then council member Daley, then council member Zulek. So
- I don't have to call on you. You take your time. Pass on when you're ready. OK, thank you.
- I've got a couple of questions. Thanks for your presentation. But one thing you say is that the visual
- identity, what we are about, or the branding is not the logo. But nearly every page of the report has
- the logo. So I think it can't help but be the logo. Well, the brand isn't the logo. The logo is part
- of the brand.
- Okay, so what some of the criticism I get are things like They're they've been underwhelmed People have
- said Look, there are a lot of cities Counties that begin with B and they happen to have a big B. Okay
- as a logo It seems ordinary It is It's generic. It's corporate and
- So they got me thinking and I started looking at brands and Larry, could you just pull up a couple?
- So I well, you know the visuals of course important so just could you just display the Bloomington brand
- and Maybe just a couple So there's Okay, there's the Bloomington brand and then there's a company called
- Brandykes or brand X. It's a it's a It's a marketing company and it's got essentially the same thing,
- but it's got gray tones instead of blue or red or whatever And then let's just this is for time. Let's
- just go to the there's a generic brand. That's Got a name. It's called It's called elastic beats logo
- black and white and there there's that so
- struck me when I did a search that Indeed, this seems generic and what I appreciated and I'm glad you
- mentioned that the seal You know it actually communicates something that government has a central focus,
- right? There are arrows pointing inward to To a space that is occupied presumably by all interests The
- B stands for Bloomington. Okay, but Is this I mean I'm a little
- I trend toward what people's critique, that this is a generic brand. And can you convince me that it's
- otherwise? How is this Bloomington? How would this communicate? This is uniquely Bloomington. Yeah.
- First, any letter that you create an icon with, you can reverse Google Image Search anything, and it'll
- find similar things, right? There's only so many ways you can make it be, right? You're going to find
- things with every letter of the alphabet.
- The goal of the bee is not to represent Bloomington. It's not to show somebody in Chicago or New York
- this and they feel Bloomington. Because again, this is day zero. It means nothing. The Nike swoosh,
- super random shape on day zero meant nothing until they put it on shoes and implemented it and lived
- it and now it means something. And so yeah, any shape that I make, a dot, a squiggle,
- means nothing is generic, is simple. Until you get to this situation like Pavlov's dog where you ring
- a bell and the dog gets fed, there becomes association. The bell now means dinner. A bell didn't mean
- dinner before. And so the only way that that would not ever be generic, it's always gonna be generic
- on day one. It's certainly gonna be generic on day zero, and it would be the implementation and unlocking
- potential and living the brand over and over. And every time people see that, they feel unlocking potential.
- And over time, emotion would get infused into that. There is some other meaning that's in the brand
- guidelines behind that that speaks to that. Creative collisions is one of the brand principles in the
- brand strategy. That speaks to two things coming together to create something better. And so whether
- that's people on the left, people on the right, an urban environment surrounded by national forests
- like you have, all these things coming together, students, counties, there is symbolism. There is meaning
- in that. But again, it has zero meaning on day.
- one. So can I convince you. Probably not. But I think the community could convince you over time if
- given a chance. Let's let's pass on and then you can go on. I'll be allowed to make comments at this
- point. Just questions. Let's for now just come to do questions and then I don't have any questions.
- Thank you. Mike.
- Questions are for director of communications day Molina if that's okay. Thank you Was there an RFP or
- RFQ issued for this project no, we we discovered civic brand and their work with high point North Carolina
- and Really quite surprised that there was an agency in a firm that worked across the
- country with different municipalities and districts and specialized in city and place branding so after
- exploring The high points work and their brand efforts and what that meant and how that impacted the
- community Really pursued looking into partnering with civic brand Thank you
- Elaborate a little bit more on why local firms were overlooked for this project So With this if it was
- just a logo. Yes, absolutely an exploration of You know, how can we partner with our community to find
- an agency that will produce a logo for the city of Bloomington? but as Ryan just presented as the memo
- states as the implementation and branding guidelines provide a
- This project was so much more robust in terms of community outreach and engagement than just a logo.
- So somebody with the expertise and the wisdom that can learn from different cities and destinations
- from across the country and take those lessons and see how they might fit or not fit within the city
- of Bloomington based on the feedback over many seasons and months that they heard was really an opportunity
- for us to learn about maybe some of our own blind spots.
- Thank you. I'll have more questions later. You're so welcome. Thank you. Anyone else with questions?
- I'm customary Stasberg. Oh, I'm sorry also I'm going to extend this time for 730. Okay Thank you. I
- think this is probably mostly a question. Um, I
- Our administration as well, but I guess I'm just wondering if you could give us a little bit more information
- about how you expect the rollout to actually go and how you're actually gonna use this I Guess I I feel
- like when I when I read it I saw lots of like this could be like this and like this and like yes, sir
- So I just want a little bit more point of order. Yes member Stasburg is still speaking. Thank you. I
- Yeah, there are certainly a ton of recommendations in that implementation guide and again, this is
- There is no mandate of overnight change, right? Like, this is really a opportunity to get staff buy-in,
- to have conversations about our operating philosophy, our principles, acknowledge our bottlenecks. For
- instance, we had our public information officers meeting this afternoon, and we were talking about,
- you know, sometimes a resident calls the city, right? And they call the department where they are not
- getting the answer that they believe that they could receive from the department that they called.
- I don't know, let me transfer you or let me find that answer. And we were talking a lot about customer
- experience, right? And in this PIO discussion, we realized, okay, we have a problem to solve. We have
- a process to solve. And we all looked at it because the PIOs have received a preview and an introduction
- to the brand and the brand guidelines of, okay, how can we look at what we have in front of us in a
- way that unlocks potential?
- Again, there's no overnight mandate. There's no timeline for this project, but it's really an opportunity
- for city staff to evaluate what is going on internally and identify some key performance indicators
- and and challenges that we need to address within our own systems that we can unlock more opportunity
- for our residents our businesses our community partners, so
- Yeah, there's a lot of information in that implementation guide. I can't stand here and really answer
- the question of what we're gonna attack or address first because I don't know. But I guess that's my
- response. Thank you. So what are we looking at in terms of, speaking of KPIs, how will we know that
- this branding is successful and that it has been a hit and done what we want it to do?
- What are we gonna be looking for for that? Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of different metrics that are
- outlined in there. I think one of the challenges with an implementation plan like this is there's not
- an implementation budget, right? So it's not saying do this in Q1, do this in Q2, and let's measure
- it and see how we did. Some of those things you won't ever implement, some of those things you might,
- some of those things are mindsets that you guys could instantly implement right now. We like to take
- You know one our firm everything that we do centers around this idea of a triple bottom line. So for
- those that aren't familiar that you know typically success is measured in profit or economic metrics.
- We think that's OK for companies not acceptable for places and cities and triple bottom line says we
- measure success not just by profit but by people profit and planet. And I wrote a book last year about
- civic branding place branding and
- And that we shift the planet piece to place because place captures the environmental aspects that planet
- is trying to capture, but it also captures the built environment as well, the architecture character.
- So we recommend KPIs through each of those people, profit, and place. And we really focus on action-based
- metrics, right?
- how many more opportunities were created within those things. So there is, I don't have the implementation
- plan in front of me to say these are the exact KPIs. You guys might be able to even pull it up on your
- laptop, but there's recommendations of things to measure, but even measuring certain things, some things
- you have to go get the data, that costs money, that's a project. But we recommend action-based metrics
- because not everything is in your control, right? So if you had an environmental KPI, for example,
- Bloomington could be doing everything right But as we know the environment's impacted by other cities
- and other states and other countries and so we can't just measure How hot it is outside to determine
- how we're moving the needle on that? We have to look at what efforts and actions are we taking towards
- that so We recommend action-based metrics across the triple bottom line is kind of the broad answer
- But there are more specific answers in the implementation guide Thank You Councilmember Rosenberger
- Thank you. I just have a few quick questions. Thank you for being here. How does this marry with our
- city plans and goals. So I guess I'm having a hard time understanding like does this unlock potential.
- What is like what's potential when we're going for like zero traffic fatalities.
- Decreasing greenhouse gas emissions that like I guess I don't understand how they work together Yeah,
- I mean so a city is gonna have a lot of different departments it's gonna have a lot of different initiatives
- and I think that's one of the challenges of a city and kind of back to that like shared North Star shared
- vision is without a brand without a vision We can be trying over here trying to make improvements on
- walkability over here. We're trying to do this and
- And we can be moving the needle on those individual things, but collectively we just don't feel like
- we're truly making progress. And so I think a brand does start to align those projects. How do we unlock,
- I don't know the projects that you listed off, but I know what zero traffic fatalities looks like. And
- obviously that's a good goal, but how is that connected to
- You know traffic engineering. How is that related to the beeline parks and rec? They're all just different
- different plans that are coming at things from different They're kind of touching the elephant at all
- different places and the goal of the brand There is a communications aspect but it is to align those
- and I think if you took that unlocking Potential into those different pieces of the plans those plans
- still address their separate focused areas But I do think they can start to align and work towards some
- shared vision so I don't know I'd have to like know exactly a little bit or about what your
- truly asking other than just how does it align projects? Oh, right. I mean, it's just because, right,
- we are guided by a comprehensive plan to get our city to certain space and I just don't know how this...
- I plan on using the comprehensive plan as I have for six and a half years and plan to keep doing. So
- I don't see it as like my test of like, is this unlocking potential?
- So a comprehensive plan is actually a better example. So I'm glad you said that. A comprehensive plan,
- a lot of communities use that as that is our vision. That is where we're headed. However, a comprehensive
- plan, when you break it all down at the end of the day, ultimately is a future land use map. That is
- like the core component of a comprehensive plan. And so if we are just focusing the future of Bloomington
- and the goal of Bloomington is shaped by a document that's primarily designed to be a future land use
- map, there's going to be a lot of things that slip through the cracks.
- And so I think the brand should influence the future land use map and the comp plan. And it comes back
- to that. So yes, the comp plan is guiding policy, directing staff. But there's just a human element
- that is often not captured in a comprehensive plan. So the brand doesn't replace a comp plan. It's not
- better than a comp plan. But it is different. OK. I don't know that I agree with that, which is fine.
- I also just think there's a question. Okay, like, I guess I read this, you know, in the in the in your
- in the packet. This is to help attract businesses. I kind of feel like we mostly attract businesses
- like big business with tax abatements. So like, what, what is the, how is this attracting business in
- ways that we mostly just do it financially.
- I think if your goal is to attract business with like incentives and traditional economic development
- like that, that's not local first. That's not how I would, the sole way that I, that's a tactic for
- economic development. But how are you unlocking the potential for a business owner? How are you retaining
- students? How are you retaining talent? That's also economic development. If that talent is here and
- stays, if that, I don't know if I'm doing that by touching that cord.
- Sorry, the screen flickered and threw me off for a second. The goal of this project, the recommendation
- 10 years ago came from an economic development component, and that was a key piece of this. But this
- is a lot bigger than that. It's not just, we think this visual identity will attract businesses here.
- That's crazy. We would never suggest that. But we think if you can do these small micro decisions that
- improve people's lives, we think you're going to keep a lot of talented people in this community.
- And those are the same talented people that would critique the logo, say it looks dumb. That's great.
- That's fine. Our entire process is designed to eliminate personal taste. It's not about do you like
- it. It's does this speak to the strategy and can this harm staff? And so I think it's a much bigger
- picture look at economic development than an advertising campaign to try to recruit businesses here
- When the talent doesn't feel like they belong, and the talent doesn't feel like they can stay, the businesses
- aren't coming if they are not here. Thank you. Thank you so much. I have a question, and then I'll pass
- over to you. A couple of questions. And first, thank you for being here, and thank you.
- Just generally, a couple of logistics first. Have we received the full report? Maybe I'm not a good
- reader. I think we got the 50-page rollout plan, but I don't think we have the findings. Did we get
- the findings, anybody? The brand audit? Yeah, did we get the brand audit? I don't think we did, right?
- We have those. I'm happy to provide them. They were not included in the packet. There's an audit, and
- there is individual survey responses. So I'm more than delighted to share it. It's robust. OK, yes,
- yeah, because that, I think, is critical. The second question sort of just generally is, so we haven't
- seen the audit, but we have seen, I think, what you're referring to as the 50-page rollout
- plan or something, who is the audience of that 50-page deck? Yeah, so there's three pieces, ultimate
- document deliverables, the audit we just spoke about. There's the brand guidelines, which that is really
- just staff communications, the POI departments of here's how you use the visual identities. That's very
- basic, like graphic design standards. This is the exact color of blue. Then there's the implementation
- plan. That is also for staff.
- Okay, so the whole the audience is the audience internal government. Yes, okay, and then when we've
- been thinking about the method so You did two site visits. How long were you here on both site visits?
- I think it was actually three because I think our team technically split the sun. You're here now And
- I'm here now, which is a separate visit I think I don't know it was
- three to four days per trip, so about probably eight days on the ground. And then those in-person trips
- bookended some really robust virtual engagement that happened between those. How many in the virtual
- engagements, how many people did you actually speak to? I don't have that number off the top of my head.
- I do think it's captured in the audit, because we have here's the survey results, here's how many focus
- groups, here's how many interviews.
- I don't know that at the pop-ups. What was the methodological approach to choosing who you spoke to?
- Yeah, so at first, we were looking at different stakeholder groups. We want to talk to business owners.
- We would start to hear things. Oh, we need to talk to students, right? So we were identifying different
- groups and demographics that we felt like we needed to hear from. Also, as we did the online survey,
- we're always paying attention to not just who are we hearing from, but who are we not hearing from.
- And then going to that and saying,
- hey, we're not really getting responses from students, for example. Let's do a focus group. And so we'd
- work with staff of, can you help us pull together a focus group of students? I do just want to tack
- on, and this is addressed in the memo. There were also several focus groups that were open to the public
- so anybody could attend. And those were publicized across our newsletter, our city website, social media
- channels, and things like that. So there wasn't any exclusivity.
- Okay, and at what point, don't answer this question, it's a rhetorical one, at what point did we determine
- that our farmers know how to quote Camus, for example? The mayor quotes Camus all the time. The mayor
- does, I'd love to hear. Anyways, I can tell you my favorite Camus quotes in a second. But importantly,
- is the work done? The scope of the
- project is done. Yes. So if we were to ask for edits, additions, like at this point, there's nothing
- else in our engagement with Civic brand. So if we were like, actually, we don't like this work,
- at this point, it's been accepted and paid for, correct? It has been paid for. And if there were edits
- or suggestions, it depends on what they are. We're not going to play hardball with Scope or anything.
- But if it's go back to the drawing board and start over, if it's
- Whatever then yeah, that would be an additional scope. I guess the question is like within the within
- the contract MOU that we have with you Is there scope for revision still or is that all closed? That's
- that's the question There isn't but it depends, you know what they are. We'd be happy to talk about
- them Okay, and then two very last quick questions. I'm getting it back at what councilmember Rosenberger asked
- This all starts with a statement about one report that was done whenever 10 years ago or something like
- that, that was about wage growth. And I guess it's sort of a two-pronged question. One is that how many
- of the other recommendations within that report have we acted on? And then number two is like, what's
- the actual theory of change here? So how does brand marking lead to wage growth?
- So I think I apologize. I do not obviously have the report in front of me, but I believe there were
- six recommendations When we looked at them and what was unmet this one was You know what the city had
- the most scope and control over there were some recommendations about health care and education which
- are obviously national problems and challenges that we have to address and
- The mill was one of the the things that were birthed from that wage growth finding plan And then I believe
- some work that's being done with regional opportunity initiatives as another Jane will Everyone Jane
- Cooper Smith director of economic and sustainable development. So the primary recommendations 1 2 3 4 5 and
- I think actually most of them have been implemented. So branding Bloomington was the first one that
- didn't happen in the previous administration But it was identified because we knew that if we couldn't
- tell our story as a community We could not market our community to other employers or talent.
- So Councilmember Rosenberger made a comment about attracting employers with abatements, but actually
- the primary
- The primary we drive primary way we drive attraction is through quality of place initiatives. So quality
- of place initiatives attract Workforce and workforce attracts employers. It used to be decades ago that
- employees would go wherever the jobs were but that's not the case anymore So what we've done in Bloomington
- is we've made a really beautiful community with lots of assets that we don't know how to talk about
- so back in 2016 they had already identified that we had this gap in
- Our communication and our way of talking about Bloomington. So that's why it was recommended number
- to create an innovation culture So this is why we've been investing so significantly in the trades district,
- which has been incredibly successful and There were questions about KPIs during my council presentation
- and I think It would be great to share some of those successes and numbers with you in more detail creating
- quarterly business slash academic stakeholder gatherings these were created and
- It was called the Lido meetup that was organized by the mill. They happen now in different ways but
- that original Lido meetup that had town and gown economic development orgs some employers present those
- those have been paused because I think that they were not they were helpful for relationship building
- but they weren't purposeful enough to
- Require the time skills skills gap training to match Bloomington's existing labor pool with high demand
- high wage local jobs Well, we knocked this out of the park during the pandemic frankly And then we have
- really great resources through work one and the state's workforce development programs and Ivy Tech
- and all the training that they do Ivy Tech does custom training for employers that are looking at our
- markets So that one's definitely been done and then finally
- Solving the problem of smaller fast growth companies inability to compete for labor on benefits could
- be a marquee recruiting tool for our local economy. So basically saying you've got a startup you need
- to attract high quality professional employees but you can't insure them. What are you going to do.
- This has not been
- Truly completed but there are several programs that I know I've been discussing with employers like
- you Sarah's the chambers made great progress. They are going to be able to offer their membership
- participation in a chamber back to health care plan. So I think we're doing great. And so this really
- is the cherry on top.
- Thank you. Thank you very much director Cooper Smith. All right. Um, I know some wanted also comments
- at this point that we we have some time so Dave and then we'll I'm sorry councilmember Harlow come and
- then we'll go down the line here I still have a couple questions. Go ahead. Take your liberty. Okay
- director Marlena, could I ask you questions on in your memorandum of
- It says on page 4 the city seal is established separately by ordinance and is not part of the visual
- identity update So I take that to mean what it well, I'm asking what's the role of the council on this?
- Is this is the implementation? Solely the role of the administration at this point. Do does the council
- have any say in in the acceptance of well, of course of the report I
- Yeah well of course we're one team here working on behalf of the city I'll address the seal real quick
- that was part of the discussion right and because this project is so much more than a logo we weren't
- looking at replacing the seal it was really how do we create this the structure for city and internal
- use so to earn the brand
- More important than replacing visuals. So and can you clarify your question about it? Is the council
- responsible and for the visual identity? update the logo in other words, do we have a say in it or is
- this solely an administrative decision to accept this and then as a follow-up Well, go ahead So we looked
- at what has to identify yourself. I'm sorry. I just
- Gretchen app deputy mayor. So we looked at what happened in the past and the last time when Tim mayors
- Logo was adopted you guys passed a resolution and it's my understanding that the mayor talked to council
- president and inquired Do you want a resolution on this and and the direction she got and this is my
- understanding. So again Telephone may be at play here. I'm sure President sorry can clarify what that
- conversation was about but but the mayor interpreted the conversation as a resolution is not needed so
- We inquired, we know that it would require a change to the ordinance to change the seal. As Civic Brand
- discussed, we would be replacing things as they come up. There are some things. Parks makes t-shirts
- every year. There's a chance. If somebody runs out of pens, there's a chance. But the logos in the seal
- would live side by side for some time. So if you hate it, the mark, as I think Civic Brand showed, the
- B is not the most important piece of this.
- I think designed by committee is always a mistake but you can add more people in and what you get is
- pleasing to no one. But you know we brought this to you to show it to you. We inquired we looked at
- the past history. I think you know we don't want to do anything that rocks the boat and makes everyone
- unhappy. But at the same time you know we invested in this for a reason. And the reason is wage growth.
- I want to keep reminding us that the reason is wage growth.
- Which we all know is a problem and we can decide that we don't want to do this because we don't think
- it has an impact It was recommended, you know councilmember Rosenberger asked. How does this fit in
- with our plans? This was an item in a plan that was left undone We wanted to check it off the list So
- we're open to your feedback and comments and you know, we can adjust as needed but something needs to
- be done So we just got out of budget and I'm wondering about the cost of implementation Do you have
- a do you have anything in mind and does it?
- Is it contained within, say, a line item of the 2027 budget? The only line item in the 2027 budget that
- specifically has money for branding that would not have been in there otherwise was the $10,000 in the
- office of the mayor's budget, which was completely a contingency. For example, let's say that you wanted
- to update the seal, and we said, yes, now we need to update that item. If there was a design that was
- needed that was beyond the technical skill of our staff,
- Something we wanted to have some money available for that but you could take that away and it would
- be fine because we're not as I said We're not planning on saying everybody go out and throw out all
- your business cards throw out all your existing stuff We're replacing it all at once. It's replacing
- it as it comes up and would have been replaced. Anyway, that's the goal Quick question don't want this
- to have a fiscal impact. Yeah, I used to farm and I never heard people talk about but it might have
- happened at the farmers market but in any case
- A lot of people ask about, actually I gave up existentialism when I became a farmer and became a faith-based
- person. But a lot of questions I get are, we're a town that's identified, a city identified community
- as a community of cultural creatives that know Bloomington, many of whom have lived their entire lives
- here. Why was this not, why did we farm out
- for this, no offense to, you know, it's a civic brand, I know you've done it elsewhere, but Bloomington
- seems to be well placed to develop its own identity and not have someone come in and say, here is...
- I've worked with many of the branding firms in Bloomington, I've also worked with national agencies,
- I've worked in, I've done branding work with, you know, multi-million dollar companies for decades,
- and there is a lot of local talent that could design a beautiful logo.
- But what we're looking for is not a beautiful logo. It's great. I love the logo. I think it is beautiful.
- But what we were looking for. I'm talking about the report too, because people know Bloomington and
- they would have a lot. They do. But what they don't know and what they don't have experience with is
- developing a municipal branding package for the purpose of economic development with dozens of communities
- across the nation. That's the experience. If you were getting surgery done,
- And someone said to you, there are lots of great surgeons in Bloomington, but none of those surgeons
- had done the surgery you needed 1,000 times. You would want to go to Indianapolis and get someone who
- had done that surgery 1,000 times. So the greatest predictor of success for an employee, for an agency,
- is how many times have you done this before? How many times have you been successful before? So I think
- for that matter, Stephen Lucas's wife, Danielle Lucas, who used to live in Bloomington, was a superb
- branding designer. I loved Danielle's work.
- but she doesn't have experience with the particular issues around municipal branding and developing
- a brand for the purpose of economic development and wage growth. So that's the specific expertise I
- see. Two super quick things I'll just add, because we get that in every community. And I'll say first
- that I am the biggest homer for Support Local. I'm probably the only person that I know that's ever
- not ordered from Amazon. It's banned from our company, because our whole mission is Support Local.
- There's two things that I would like to say. One, there's a phrase that I love that says, you can't
- see your label from inside the jar. That outside perspective, if you took a great brand designer, there's
- probably great brand designers in this room that could design a logo and we could all vote on it and
- like it more, right? But the great brand designer that lives here that loves Bloomington, are they gonna
- do the work to surface the challenges that we surface of, you know what, there's a lot of people that
- this is why they're leaving.
- And so I think there is value in outside perspective. And then the other thing, the reason it comes
- down to support locals so often is we could have taken that $95,000. And even if you could find somebody,
- one firm that could do public engagement, research, data, design, implementation, understands public,
- private, all of those things, even if you have that, you could take that fee and give it to one firm
- and it benefits one firm. Or you can hire whoever you think is the best at that. And that should benefit
- every company.
- And every resident, it's not a company. And so I just think it's a really short-term play to go, we
- have this money. We'll just give it to one local thing. I think supporting locals is amazing. This isn't
- an anti-local thing. This project should benefit every local brand designer, every company, if implemented
- and done right. And it tees up a lot of implementation work at the local level. New websites, different
- things that if you do choose to implement, use local implementation. Thank you.
- Do you want to extend the time again I Will stand the time for ten minutes for council comments and
- then we'll go to public comment Okay, I'll try to make this fast It's kind of questions and I'll make
- it in a form of a comment though and then maybe you guys can like send me an email back or something
- because I'm frankly a little confused now after I
- hearing several things which I feel like are a little contradictory that we are using this for internal
- use but the seal won't change. Right. And I feel like the seal is the thing that's used internally and
- similarly the whole purpose of
- Economic development and wage growth, but if we only use it internally, then how is that part of our
- purpose? So I don't need you to answer this right now because we only know but we only have ten more
- minutes right now So I would like to respect my colleagues and respect everybody else in this room is
- here for other things besides this business tonight So I would appreciate
- hearing back about how exactly we're thinking about this in terms of this B logo versus our traditional
- city seal that we've had for a number of years, which I do think just screams Bloomington to anybody
- who is from Bloomington. You see that and you know that that has to do with the city.
- And so that's where it's like OK so if we're trying to be recognizable in terms of the city maybe as
- an organization OK then you see that logo anyway up that's the city as an organization. You threw one
- up there with the with the B with like the the the.
- Bloomington tourism, you know, and it's like I see the Bloomington tourism one and I go oh, yeah That's
- that's the tourism bureau like that. That's who that is who's doing this program and we're doing this
- thing and so how exactly is the is our city seal gonna be different and how is it gonna be used differently
- or is it not gonna be used differently than the be and I I guess I I feel like that needs to be made
- a little bit clearer because a lot of what the
- The materials is you know, it's it's putting this new logo on trucks. It's putting this new logo as
- part of our our fire logo It's you know, it's it's incorporating that everywhere where we currently
- have the city seal except apparently for what up here because the thing that's up here can only be changed by
- by code, the thing that's right there can only be changed by code, but we can put whatever we want on
- our trucks. So then we're gonna have two different competing images and I don't think that that makes
- sense at all. And so I guess I'm just a little bit uncertain as to how this really defines Bloomington.
- Similarly, if I can find my comments, oh no I can't.
- I do appreciate the concept that the branding is more than just the logo. I get that, it's more than
- just the logo. And I also think that I can appreciate to some degree that even though a B is basic and
- it's just like the letter that starts with Bloomington, if you don't know anything about Bloomington,
- our city logo means absolutely nothing. It's just like a weird snowflake, right? But once you're here,
- It like keeps you, okay? And so that's why I'm confused right now about this this using this be for
- internal use and yet trying to attract economic development with it and and I appreciate these two things
- potentially being able to sit side by side with slightly different uses But I think that there needs
- to be some thought maybe more thought put in to how they can sit side by side and
- opposed to I feel like them sitting side-by-side right now is a thought and a reaction to the Multiple
- negative comments about the be I mean the original slideshow that we got put in our packet didn't include
- any of the City seal, you know on those same colored backgrounds that seems like it got added in after
- after the the fur of stuff so
- I hope that I gave enough time to my colleagues. Thank you. Yeah I will be brief because I already regret
- the 45 minutes we've spent on this. But going back further I regret having voted for the budget appropriation
- which funded this ninety five thousand dollar payment for this work. I don't want to. It's not personal
- at all. It's not about civic brand. It's not about any one person but I just don't think this was worthwhile
- in any way whatsoever.
- Councilman Zulik and then councilmember Rosenberger. Thank you This is the third presentation that we've
- heard in the last few regularly scheduled council meetings where we've outsourced work instead
- of recirculating money in our community by choosing local partners and Listening to feedback that I
- feel our constituents have already given It feels a little bit less like we're using this plan to support
- local and a little bit more like we'll take anyone but the people who live and work here I just don't
- understand why we don't trust our own people to
- know who we are because I think that we do. I think Bloomingtonians are incredibly smart, versatile,
- brilliant people. And I don't think we need anyone else to tell us who we are. Certainly not for $95,000.
- So I really appreciate Civic Brand taking the time to talk with me. It's really not about the firm that
- we picked and much more about how we prioritize local work. So thank you.
- Hey, thanks. I just wanted to say first, trying to go fast, but I'm not. So if this is also meant to
- be accessible and easy for everyone to use, if there's any time to rethink anything, having a custom-made
- font that other folks can't use seems very difficult to me. Just the thing, people did love Avatar.
- That's a joke.
- The other thing is I definitely understand quality of life is why people live places. It's why I really
- support missing middle housing and walkable areas areas because people want that. And then I guess I
- just want to say publicly that this was not an initiative of the city council. And a lot of people are
- saying we the city. But I just want to say like this council had nothing to do with this project. That's it.
- Thank you. Anyone to my left councilmember rough Nothing against the the firm or the initiative of the
- city's Department behind this or the Wage Growth Task Force from years ago six points, but You know,
- there's been some comments tonight that all health care education. These are different kinds of problems
- and wage growth and
- Wage growth is as much of a national social and global certainly national socio-economic problems any
- of these others and I Just I don't I Don't see the linkage here and this idea I just feels like like
- any product that you design a Campaign around that product to sell it commercial product this just feels like
- It's selling Bloomington and selling I Know this is gonna be unpopular with a lot of people and people
- will disagree but the problem one of the main problems is is selling Bloomington to out to investors
- outside to you know predatory equity firms looking to get in and extract as much wealth as they can
- in any way they can and so, you know, I know this it was said this is not really about selling Bloomington, but
- very much like that and We don't need to sell Bloomington the selling of Bloomington to me is is part
- of the problem and this just feels I I don't I'm not buying in At all, but it's from this larger perspective.
- I don't fault, you know the companies I I feel like it's done good work and I don't agree necessarily
- that it's just this I understand that there's an artistic element to this this
- The be itself, you know, I read the report, you know the two different shapes coming together
- in a communication point and that they actually meet and there's a potential symbolizing the sharing
- and of That and yet the shapes themselves are firm solid signaling a solid foundation and strength,
- you know, I see that I appreciate all that right so I don't think it's meaningless, but
- I just think the meaning is wrong So, thank you councilmember Rallo Yeah, just briefly Well, I think
- that this whole process has shown me that there is a communication problem and I think that The message
- has is flat as far as I can tell from feedback from people I've spoken to
- I think mostly because we've just started budget We have budget constraints We are drawing down reserves
- We're not keeping pace with Jack Hopkins funding social service funding relative to inflation Which
- I brought up We're looking to raise taxes in various ways. We're looking to raise water rates We're
- looking to raise parking fees and people are scrutinizing discretionary funding or spending and
- And so it comes at a time when people are, I think, they're limiting their budget right now, and they
- wonder what they're getting. And unfortunately, probably in less lean times, this would have been seen
- as, well, it's an interesting experiment. But I think that people are very critical of it right now.
- And I would probably advise that in terms of implementation, I think the city see all functions very well.
- That's not to say there might not be good things in the report that we can draw on. But this is here
- we are. Thanks. All right. I'm just going to extend for one 20 seconds and say this that to put a positive
- spin on all of this. You know I think one thing that's been accomplished is that you brought a lot of
- unity to all of us because you know we don't like it.
- But I say all that, though, to say that I think the important thing to underline is something that you
- did say. I don't think that we need to receive this as something that's finished, but rather I think
- a provocative way of starting a process that hopefully will lead to in the long term better outcomes.
- I would love to see, for example, locally sourced brands
- put into some of the color schemes, some of the ideas here, some of the strategies, great. I think we're
- also rolling this out the wrong way, but whatever. I think ultimately, thank you for the provocation,
- the quality of work. But yes, I think it's fairly clear where we all stand. We'd love to hear from the
- public, so we'll have 20 minutes of public comment. And also, I will say, you forgot to say how mean
- the city council is. We are mean, so I'm joking. Okay, but we'll open up to,
- Public comment anybody if you'd like to public comment you have three minutes state your name alias,
- whatever you'd like quote Camus and And then we will move on Good evening Dave Askins with the b-squared
- bulletin I'm going to follow up on a question that councilmember Asari asked which was has this been
- paid for I? Could have answered that It was paid for it was paid for
- $95,000 of final payment in November of 2025. So it was completely paid for last year, around nine months
- ago. And so the question I have is, why are we only now seeing the deliverable? And one possible answer
- that could be given in some hypothetical city would be, oh, well, nobody asked to see it. And that's
- why we didn't reveal it, if somebody had only asked. Well, I asked in February.
- with a formal records request under Indiana's records law. And what was produced was only a partial
- set of deliverables. The city claimed at that time that the other deliverables hadn't been provided
- yet. So in July, I ask again, nothing had been provided since February. So my question for you as the
- fiscal body, why don't you care more about the fact that $95,000 got paid
- And we did not have the deliverables according to the city's version of events until only very recently.
- I wish you would ask that question. Thanks. Thank you. Next in chambers. Good evening council members
- for the record. My name is Lilliana young. When I think of Bloomington I think of the people I think
- of the communities.
- that make up our culture. And I think of the city policies that work in tandem with those things. This
- is the city where I found love, where I found my people, where I found myself. And when I look at that
- seal, I see a flower, which is perfect because it reminds me that Bloomington is where my life has bloomed
- and life blooms for everyone. But moving beyond the visual element of this,
- Anybody who's paying attention knows that Bloomington as a city is facing down the barrel of a budgetary
- crisis and $95,000 is a significant amount of money for a city to waste and this entire project reeks
- to me of a waste and vanity and I don't believe it should have ever been on the board to begin with.
- It could have been reinvested in the city in so many better ways that actually improve the quality of
- life for people. Road repair, beautification of parks, any other kind of infrastructure you can imagine.
- But we threw it away on a logo chasing project. Since the money has already been spent and we can't
- do anything about that, I will at least ask the council if you have any power over this
- to reject the implementation of this brand because it is an insult. Thank you. Thank you. Next in chambers.
- Hi, I'm Rowan Morse. I'm a lifelong Blumentonian. I was born and raised here. My grandfather, Tom Coleman,
- he was the one who created the Bloomington Transit logo, the BT.
- As a whole family of graphic designers, I just gotta say this new one is just really not it. It does
- not feel like Bloomington. The one, as Liliana said right before me, it feels like home. It feels like
- something that's comforting and that I've known my entire life. This new one, as Rollo, you've presented,
- there's a bunch of them. I spent a couple of minutes and I printed out
- eight different versions of pretty much the same exact logo. And any graphic designer should double
- check that it's not a logo that is already well known or that you might have any competition with. And
- I think just the lack of, I think effort, the lack of care that they've shown in just putting into making a logo or
- Interacting with the community to have them work on a logo has shown that they don't really care about
- us Like I you know Frankly like have you guys gotten anything of what that was supposed to be any? Tangible
- thing that we are supposed to do that makes our city better. I got Zero and I mean that was a whole
- presentation where that should have been sold and I don't think any of that was sold I
- And so I just I'd say we've spent ninety five thousand dollars on this already and I'd really implore
- you just don't spend any more money Wasting time on something that truly nobody wants Thank you.
- Thank you. We have in chambers and then right after we'll go online Hello, my name is Zach Mueller I
- Am not a lifelong Bloomingtonian, but I've been here for most of my adult life I've lived here 20 years
- off and on so and also
- I am not a farmer. I cannot quote Camus. I am not a PhD. I do not own a bakery. I just have a BA, and
- I'm more of like a Homer Simpson quota myself. And one thing that Homer Simpson said is people can come
- up with statistics for anything. 14% of people know that. So with all of this said, I do want to acknowledge
- that it is tough to come up with something that anybody likes. And I want to give credit to the
- Anybody who says that anything made by committee ultimately gets watered down, or however one wants
- to characterize that to a certain degree, I would say that there's probably some merit to that.
- That said, I mean, I gotta be honest, when I first read about this, my first thought was, man, I looked
- at the language that surrounded a lot of the rollout, and I said, man, if I were to print off
- buzzword bingo card for my friends, who many of them, respectfully, have gone to the mountains and are
- now working in places further out west. I was like, man, if my buddy Tim could see this, he would roll.
- And I gotta be honest, this kind of branding may really be working in a lot of places. I'm not here
- to debate that. I am not a branding expert. What I am is just like somebody who's sitting here
- And we have deliverables that are gonna be actionable. And what else do we have here? We've got some
- implementation that's gonna happen. And then, let me just pull this up. Oh, and then we're gonna show
- but not tell how to soft launch the brand. That feels really weird to me about telling our Bloomingtonian
- colleagues, we're just gonna make this change and you're gonna find out about it in bits and pieces
- after we've made a decision.
- I like transparency. I just do. And like saying, because a top-down grand reveal can trigger resident
- skepticism and feel like a superficial fresh coat of paint, the city of Bloomington should not formally
- announce the brand. Instead, the brand should be soft launched through a show-don't-tell framework.
- I don't like that. I don't like that. And I don't think that most Bloomingtonians would like that either.
- Like about anything. Not this. Changing the budget.
- Spending $95,000 and us only finding out about it. Thanks to the good work of local media. Thank you
- for your help with that, sir I've just got 15 seconds left and I don't like again the money is spent
- Thank everyone for their work There are plenty of people here in Bloomington who could spend four or
- five days at a time going to other Communities and finding out what worked for them and then coming
- back here knowing their identity. That's it
- Peckable timing. Folks online? All right. Pass to you two online. Good evening. Can you hear me? Yes,
- we can. Good evening. My name is Eric Ose. Thank you for allowing me to offer public input this evening.
- While final payment occurred in November of 2025, two public record requests followed and two public
- record requests followed. Materials were delayed.
- And we learned this evening that significant deliverables remain unpublished. I echo Mr. Askin's sincere
- request that council immediately explore and ensure all public records are being released in timely
- and complete form and are openly accessible by all members of the general public. Evidence indicates
- they are not. My comments can address only and be informed by the subset of information that's been
- released so far.
- Given that this contract, $95,000, was an economic development initiative, it is worth asking whether
- hiring an outside marketing consultant addresses our community's core needs in infrastructure, housing
- affordability, and basic city services. Moreover, the provocative report reveals critical technical
- emissions. While it vaguely advises staff to consider accessibility standards, it provides no concrete
- ADA protocols
- nothing regarding digital content specifications or actionable accessibility standards, and I'll just
- say that a fundamental municipal framework that admits attention to comprehensive accessibility fails
- the entire community. Procedurally, the report describes an administrative soft rollout that is already
- underway across departments and digital platforms prior to formal legislative review. I'm just flabbergasted by that.
- It should be seen as a huge gap and that rolling out a marketing framework as an established reality
- without public vetting or council oversight erodes civic trust. I respectfully ask the council review
- the city's public record processes along with this contracts execution and please pause any ongoing
- administrative rollout
- verify that all materials have been released for access by council and the public, and ensure municipal
- resources target measurable public outcomes rather than top-down branding exercises. Thank you.
- Thank you. We have another commenter online. You want? We can hear you now. Can you hear me?
- Oh, we heard you and now then you've changed your voice. Yes, we can hear you. I did, I did. This is
- actually not John Lawrence, but it's Jan Sorby. And I just wanted to say as a designer, I was a professional
- designer before I retired. And I just have to say the old logo was so well thought out.
- Tom Coleman was the chair of my department when I was a graduate student. And what I see in the old
- one is I see all these different pieces, almost like a patchwork quilt coming together and making a
- whole, which is our community. We are all so different and yet we all have this goal of making things
- whole. And so I just wanted to add my two cents saying that I think this,
- New identity says nothing. If you turn it on its side, it looks like two birds pecking at each other.
- I don't think that's the image we exactly want. But I just gobsmacked at the amount of money we spent
- on it. At least it's not as bad as Indiana University, who spent a quarter million.
- on a logo to just change the color, one shade on the color scale. So we're not that bad, but I would
- really, really encourage you all to think about exactly what this does say about our city. And I kind
- of like all the different kinds of people and groups and ideas and thoughts coming together to make
- a tapestry of that flower blooming. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
- Is there anybody else in council chambers who'd like to make comment? Anybody else online? All right,
- one more person online. Hi, my name is Jamie Schull. I really didn't plan on commenting. I came to listen
- to something else on the agenda later. But I am a townie, and I left to study graphic design or visual
- communication design in Miami, Florida. So my beginning career was actually in the arts, and I still utilize
- branding in creating my own brands. When I saw the brand that, thank you, Dave Askins for putting that
- online, I was really quite appalled. And then when looking at all the colors and secondary colors, it
- reminded me of a preschool. Maybe. It was so close.
- That's not exactly where color schemes are actually going right now. So besides all of those other things
- in the design, I'm really hoping that we don't use this and it would be a lesson that we should keep
- Blooming to Money local and trust our own people. We have amazing talented artists here. Why are we
- hiring some
- somebody else in sending that money outside. I really don't know. So that's all I wanted to say. Thank
- you very much for the opportunity. Thank you. OK, folks, next person online. Hi, this is Paul Rousseau.
- I'll just briefly say that I strongly dislike the new branding logo. I think it's awful. I appreciate
- the comments.
- of the speaker two speakers ago about the beauty of the existing one. And I think that the
- lack of transparency in this process is awful. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else online? Anyone else
- in chambers? OK. Thank you so much for the time. And let us move on.
- You sorry reports from council committees. I have a motion. I hope from councilmember Daley I moved
- to adopt the recommendation of the hiring committee and hire Jake Rossman for the position of council
- administrator attorney with a compensation package that includes a yearly salary of 101 thousand four
- hundred eleven dollars and other benefits including vision vacation, etc Of all full-time city employees
- Okay, there's a motion in a second any discussion Councilmember Stossberg did it say in your motion?
- His his first date of service to us. Like when is he starting? Does it need to need to I know does it
- need to attorney I guess the question that I have is If we could maybe talk about the official start
- date here as part of this approval. That'd be great. I think
- I think assuming that we vote for this and we're all okay with it, the goal is to get the person to
- start as soon as possible. We already mentioned his name, but to get Attorney Rossman to start as soon
- as possible, of course, is working, has a caseload that needs to be, what do you call it, completed.
- I think the goal is as soon as possible.
- Do you know what that means in terms of I think the current in talking I think the the assuming that
- background checks all those things go well. The target was October October 12 I think if I'm not mistaken.
- OK thanks. Thank you. Since excuse me I'm sorry since it is going to be contingent on other H.R. activities
- what I would suggest is maybe someone could offer an amendment to the motion and just say
- contingent upon approval of the Human Resources Department background check and then upon negotiated
- start date. I would like to make that amendment as I eloquently would have said. Second. Any
- other discussion. Okay. Seeing none. Can the clerk please call the roll.
- Councilmember Stasberg? Yes. Piedmont Smith? Yes. Zulek? Yes. Asari? Yes. Daly? Yes. Rallo? Yes. Ruff?
- Yes. Rosenberger? Yes. Flaherty? Yes. Excellent. Thank you so much. We'll move on to public. Oh, and
- I'll just make a comment that I'd like, we're going to keep the hiring committee
- as a committee just in case we need any other tasks. And so those of you who have been appointed are
- still appointed going on to public safety. I'll pass on to Councilmember Piedmont Smith. Thank you.
- The Public Safety Local Income Tax Committee met on what did we need.
- I don't even have that in the report do I. Well met in August and we had an extensive report from a
- controller city controller Jeff McKim about the status of our public safety local income tax fund. The
- primary purpose and the first purpose of the fund is to fund our public safety answering point PSAP.
- Also known as central dispatch or what you get when you call 9-1-1. So that's the main reason for the
- PS let's tax after that is funded then the remainder can go to the municipalities and the county government.
- So Mr. McKim's report showed us that the the
- uh, expected revenues from the PS lit, um, PSAP rate. So the part of the PS lit that pays for that central
- dispatch is, uh, expected to be way below, um, what the actual budget for our central dispatch is for
- next year as proposed. So the policy, the dispatch policy board approved a PSAP budget of $4,808, 541.
- $4,808,541. And if we left the PSAP rate the same, we could expect to get only about $3 million, leaving
- a large funding gap. And we got ourselves into this position largely because we had been spending reserves
- in recent years instead of increasing the rate.
- So in order to make up for this funding gap and also in advance of the large uncertainty of what will
- happen after January 1st of twenty twenty nine when the PS lit goes away disappears we don't have it.
- We voted to increase the rate in order to both fund make up that funding gap to fund our central dispatch
- and create a buffer
- a buffer of funds of reserves so that in twenty twenty nine we may we have that buffer because we don't
- know how our funding is going to go after that. So the recommendation of the committee was to increase
- the piece app rate from zero point zero six three one percent to the maximum of zero point one percent.
- And then the piece app is a subset of the P.S. lit and then the whole P.S. lit rate would increase from
- zero point two five percent to zero point two eight six nine percent which would hold the level of revenues
- that the municipalities get after that central dispatch funding about the same. So that's the recommendation
- that will be coming forward from the P.S. committee and we'll see legislation soon
- to officially vote upon that recommendation Any question any questions Thank you, so thank you for this
- report and for that explanation um so y'all discovered in your meeting that the the remaining point
- one eight six nine percent that's for other public safety purposes will be sufficient for budgetary needs and
- Because all of the increases going to the dispatch. Yes the numbers that and I do want to thank Comptroller
- McCann for crunching those numbers for us. But yes those should remain at a pretty constant amount for
- next year compared with this year if we enact those rates. OK thanks.
- a quick question. So we did get multiple communications from Mr. Keough, and I know that he showed up
- at the meetings also to make the general comment, but it seems that what was being implied in the email,
- and I'm sure he might be here for public comment later, but was that the balances may not have been
- consistent
- So like how like that he had low confidence of the actual number or something like that. I was struggling
- a little bit to track. And did you all deal with that question at all or maybe a controller.
- But Kim did he. Mr. Keough did give public comment at the PSLIT meeting. I think his main concern stemmed
- from under the previous mayoral administration.
- The PSAP portion was not held separate from the rest of the PS lit revenues. And so they were just like
- internal records kept but it was not officially separated. And so he had some concerns whether when
- we created the separate PSAP fund which we did as a council last year whether the total money that went
- into that was accurate.
- And I believe 2.4 million dollars was was the figure. I don't recall. But I believe controller McKim
- did. I think he did address that during our meeting and he certainly has addressed that via email. OK.
- Since our meeting. OK. Excellent. Excellent. And I guess we can we can discuss that more when we actually
- have the fantastic. Any other comments.
- Or questions, I'm sorry. OK, fantastic. Let's move along. Best part of the meeting, we have our first
- session of public comment. I'm sorry that it's taken us so long to get here. If you would like to make
- a public comment on anything that is not on the agenda, now is your time. And I will just remind you,
- this is of anything that is not on the agenda. Same rules, state your name, something like that for
- the record. And you have three minutes. Go ahead. Start in chambers. Hi there. Zach Mueller.
- Bloomington resident. I live over in district 3 over off of Smith Road We have now moved from just children
- being hit on bicycles in the In that intersection of Morningside Drive and Smith Road to also now people
- running over street signs, too in the last six months they have run over a stop sign and now a bike
- a bike pathway sign which was extra super duper ironic to me that this happened in the last couple weeks, so
- Do something anything Animals, you know wildlife domestic animals getting hit and rode all the time
- Please anything like rumble strips at this point. We hear the trains going by anyway So anybody who
- complains but oh my god, like there's gonna be some bumps We hear all the time because there's rumble
- strips Like we literally hear freight trains screaming through blowing their horns at one in the morning.
- It doesn't matter Please do something
- Whatever you can do. My neighbors and I are all gonna come to the next transportation meeting where
- I'm sure everybody will be very concerned and then nothing is gonna happen. Please do something. Please
- talk to the mayor's office. Please do something. Don't wait until somebody at four in the morning, because
- I have my ring camera and I saw, runs a stop sign and plows down a street sign that's up in the little
- grass area at four in the morning. Don't wait to do that. Why do we wait?
- I'll keep coming. I'll keep coming here. I don't want to. I'd rather be at home not talking about things
- that I'm not allowed to talk about anymore because the public comment is over, but it was stupid. And
- also this, which is also stupid that I have to keep coming here. My neighbors, like I'm right there
- on the corner. I will do this because all of my neighbors want things to happen, but a lot of them have
- kids. I don't have kids. I wouldn't let my kids ride a bike if I had kids because it is dangerous at
- that intersection. Seriously, one time in the last six months,
- We've had police officers that would do some traffic enforcement, and that was on a Saturday at midday.
- Send someone out there, give $95,000 to overtime for the police department so that they can have officers
- sitting at that intersection giving actual tickets. Do it in the middle of rush hour. Why do it when
- there's very few people? We are about to have football season. There's going to be so many people. This
- is a major thoroughfare between 3rd Street
- and 10th Street. There are gonna be so many more new people in this city. They're gonna be trying to
- go from one part of town to another, going to the football game or away, and it is gonna become so much
- more dangerous. The intersection is Morningside Drive and Smith Road. That is the main thoroughfare
- between 10th Street and 3rd Street. If you wanna go from one side to the other, that is how you go.
- People treat it like it is one of those stop signs. It has the white around the outside, so it's optional,
- and it is so infuriating.
- And I will see you guys the next time that nothing happens. See you later. Thank you. We'll continue
- in chambers and then we'll go online. OK. Hi I'm Amber core and I'm speaking for Bloomington homes for all.
- I'm asking this council to send a letter to the Redevelopment Commission recommending that any sale
- of College Square be conditioned on binding recorded affordability commitments. The RDC is negotiating
- to sell College Square for four million down from a seven point five nine million appraisal plus the
- five million in TIF allocation.
- That's roughly eight point six million in public value going towards a private development project that
- as proposed has an unnecessary second hotel in addition to the CIB approved Dora host hotel along with
- up to 100 market rate apartment units.
- We're asking the council's letter to recommend that any purchase agreement on College Square require
- as enforceable conditions of the sale no fewer than 50 rental units at or below 50 percent a.m. I plus
- ten thousand square feet of commercial space at half market rate for local small business and nonprofit.
- We're asking that it be backed by a recorded covenant and that public money involves be paid out in
- phase tiered or phase tied to construction milestones Private developers should not receive Bloomington
- public land discounts and TIF subsidies without directly investing in sustainable and affordable social
- infrastructure
- Homes for all would like to set the precedence with the RDC college square sale And we're asking for
- this letter to be sent before the RDC votes on a purchase agreement Thank you. Thank you so much and
- we'll go online and then we'll come to you. Mr. MG Okay, we'll come back here So soon a good evening
- council. This is Chris term G from the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce
- I really appreciate councilmember Piedmont and Smith's update on the public safety public safety local
- income tax committee and I'm just a point of clarity if we had the if the vote on the recommendation
- if she could Provide where that aligned with the other members that would be I think helpful We do need
- to sort of look at that. I think we when we saw the public safety Presentation the last week or the
- week before
- Dispatch had quite a few openings and this is one of the areas where it does need some help So I think
- this does fall into very much public interest. I appreciate your time tonight. Thanks Thank you very
- much Is there anybody in chamber else anybody online? All right zooming along we will go appointments
- to boards and commissions. Are there any motions? Sure
- On behalf of interview committee B I would like to recommend for the mark dr. Martin Luther King jr.
- Birthday Celebration Commission the appointment of Jatana Ayala Ruiz to seat c1 Second motion in the
- second any discussion are there any other appointments because I'm we can combine those motions and
- Okay. With that will the clerk be called the roll. Councilmember Piedmont Smith. Yes. Zulek. Yes. Sorry.
- Yes. Daily. Yes. Rallo. Yes. Ruff. Yes. Rosenberger. Yes. Clarity. Yes. Stasper. Yes. Thank you.
- Okay we're now moving to item 5 B and another motion please. Council member P. Smith on behalf of interview
- committee C. I would like to move that Jose Fuentes a member of the commission on Hispanic and Latina
- affairs be notified that at our next regular session we will vote on his removal due to lack of attendance.
- of the commission's meeting second He has he has not attended several meetings this year I don't if
- Deputy clerk Crossley wants to provide the detail if she's ready to do so He has not attended
- Any meeting since February of this year and code specifies that if you miss three in a row That is cause
- for removal Yes councilmember Stasberg has he been contacted and just like ghosted us or I
- Okay. Yes. So I reached out to him and had a conversation. He acknowledges that he missed it. He acknowledges
- that he also did not let the staff liaison know and he knows that this is also something that would
- be brought forth to counsel this evening. So does this fall into the we just don't do this very often.
- So the procedure is we have this motion as kind of an alert.
- That it's going to happen and then he'll get sent a letter that this official thing happened. Right.
- Is that how this works. Yes. OK. Thanks. Sorry. Any other comments. If not will the clerk please call
- the roll. Try that again. Council member Zulek. Yes. Sorry. Yes. Daily. Yes.
- Yes. Ruff. Yes. Rosenberger. Yes. Flaherty. Yes. Stasberg. Yes. And Piedmont Smith. Yes. Thank you.
- We're now moving on to item five B. I mean this is the consideration of his of a commission of the Historic
- Preservation Commission appointment removal. Well I would love before.
- Anything else happens. I'll pass over to attorney Allen and to give a little bit of context And with
- with sort of what the course of action here here is etc Yeah, so beyond excessive absenteeism I'll just
- say generally commissioners that are appointed by council can only be removed for cause in this case
- a notice was sent to mr. Brainard cross of the Historic Preservation Commission that the council would
- take up that matter
- He was given an opportunity to submit materials he did so those materials are ample and there are quite
- a few of them. It also deals with video and recorded meetings over the course of at least two meetings in July.
- the council has several options in terms of the action it could take at this point if the council feels
- like it has Sufficiently reviewed all of the evidence and is ready to take action Of course, it could
- vote and find that this is for cause and in order to find For cause a few things have to be satisfied
- just to be clear and for communication to the public One there does have to be a preservation of mr.
- Cross's due process rights since it is for cause so he has to have
- Notice, have to have notice of what the alleged violation is for, what the rules that would have applied
- to him for, the date and the time at which a decision would be made and also an opportunity, obviously,
- to respond. That, for the most part, did happen. I think that that's under contention by Mr. Cross,
- whether that was sufficient, but it did happen in terms of a notice that went out. Secondarily,
- When you finding whether to find for cause it does have to be related to mr. Cross's ability to serve
- on the Historic Preservation Commission Given the complexity of these particular issues in the past
- council has offered to recommend this to a committee
- and specifically the Committee on Council Processes to hear evidence and to review these things. That
- is one option that the council has, so it could recommend it to a committee if it wanted to have a committee
- recommendation and have somebody that reviewed the evidence. Additionally, the council could, if it
- feels like it needs more time to review the evidence, postpone this to a future meeting as long as it's
- publicly announced.
- My recommendation would be one of those two things I think given the amount of materials to ensure that
- it is fully heard and Contemplated that that's that's the best course of action. However, you know the
- discretion is a council I can't tell you all what what you have Read and understood as long as we make
- specific findings on the record I'm happy to take questions about that but that and I'll just note really
- quickly the council has not necessary has not adopted a
- Formal procedures for this that that is however, these procedures are dictated by Indiana common law
- and the council's own regulations that require the four-cause removal Thank you so much, sir Any questions
- or are there any motions or comments? Yeah, please the council members look um, I've asked HPC attorney
- Anna Holmes here to answer any factual questions but
- to answer any factual questions. So if anyone has any questions, she is here. And thank you so much,
- Attorney Holmes, for being here. Are there any questions or motions? Happy to entertain either. Or comments?
- Please, Councilmember Daly. Sorry. Thank you. I actually have a question for Council Attorney Allen.
- The four cause there needs to be the specific reasons That are met. What are the specific reasons that
- are? Enumerated here against mr. Cross Yeah, there were there were some of the primary ones is so
- under for cause under the municipal code the council has specifically referred to a code of conduct
- that applies to all boards and commissioners that is kept by the clerk's office and that code of conduct
- applies to Certain behavior treatment decorum in meetings. There are several factors to that. There
- are four factors I can read them off if you prefer more specificity of that Those were
- violated or thought to be violated at least that's the Allegation here is that those were violated the
- code of conduct was violated in two particular meetings those occurring on July 9th and at the end of
- July as well Secondarily there was Messages sent to all commission members asking for immediate response
- that has a potential of violating the open-door law That is one of the other allegations that was made and then
- Finally it is there and this kind of goes hand-in-hand with the code of conduct There's a requirement
- to be able to do the business of the Commission and to respect the time of the public and the Commission
- significant amount of time was being taken to delay the action of the Commission and also of staff's
- time over the course of that period and that was inhibiting potentially the business of the Commission
- and and also
- posed a risk of having Several of the commissioners resign as a result of what was happening in the
- meetings Thank you for that clarification for everybody's edification Any other comments or questions
- or motions Councilmember Rallo and then councilmember daily
- When does the Historic Preservation Commission next meet. Next Thursday I think it's. Excuse me.
- I'm sorry. It's Thursday September 10th at 5 p.m.
- I just want to clarify another option for council that I failed to mention. I'm sorry. You could also
- let this pass by and take no action on it. I don't mean to foreclose any of your many options.
- Be transparent. I move to postpone this consideration to our next regular session September 16th so
- that the full council can review evidence and have a more well informed discussion at that point.
- Okay, there's a motion in a second any discussion I'm councilman Stossberg. I guess I kind of have a
- question to my colleagues. I did do some Research into this the last few days and I guess I'm wondering
- Which of my colleagues would like that more time I guess and maybe that'll be clear with this vote of
- a yes or a no So so could I just
- sort of informally ask how many of you need more time? Do you need more time? Just show of hands. Okay,
- and folks online as well, so yeah. So that's the motion. Any other discussion? I forgot I was chairing
- the meeting. Any other discussion?
- Okay I'm seeing none. Can the clerk please call the roll on the motion to postpone this decision to
- the next meeting. Council member sorry. Yes. Daily. Yes. Rallo. Yes. Ruff. Yes. Rosenberger. Yes. Flaherty.
- Yes. Stasberg. Yes. Piedmont Smith. Yes.
- Yes. All right. Thank you very much. And so we will pick that back up at our following meeting. Apologies
- if you were here for that. Moving on to legislation for first readings are there any motions. I move
- that the clerk sorry suddenly forgot my words. I move.
- that appropriation ordinance twenty twenty six oh one be introduced and read by the clerk by title and
- synopsis only second motion and a second. Seeing no comments will the clerk please call the roll. Council
- member Daley yes.
- Yes, sorry about that rough. Yes Flaherty Yes, Stasberg. Yes, you want Smith Nope Zulig. Yes,
- and it's sorry. Yes. Will the clerk please? Oh, I'm sorry. Did I skip you councilmember Rosenberger?
- Sorry, I'm sorry that carries the will the clerk please read I
- Appropriation ordinance twenty twenty six dash zero one approval of additional appropriation for the
- Department of Public Works Council sponsor is not necessary for this one and the synopsis is as follows
- Appropriation ordinance twenty twenty six dash zero one appropriates funds from the parking meter fund
- for parking parking a lot resurfacing project Thank you very much I move to discuss ordinance twenty
- twenty six dash eighteen Twenty
- Appropriation ordinance twenty twenty six dash zero one apologies. Thank you. Second motion in a second.
- Will the clerk please call the roll on discussing this legislation. Councilmember Rallo. Yes. Ruff.
- Yes. Rosenberger. Yes. Flaherty. Yes. Stasberg. Yes. Piedmont Smith. Zulek. Yes. Sorry. Yes.
- Thank you very much Who is here to talk about this? Thank you, sir. Take it away Good evening council
- members Adam Wason public works director for the city of Bloomington always an honor to be in front
- of you So this hopefully will be a pretty simple request in 2025 budget We had appropriated money to
- resurface the downtown parking lots 1 3 & 5 otherwise known as the buzz Kirk lot or maybe the uptown
- lot or the library lot or
- So we had awarded that contract or that project through a low bidding process to Riverside paving and
- contracting And we did that at the end of 2025 for the amount of with the low bid in the amount of one
- hundred and thirty four thousand one hundred and thirty nine dollars Unfortunately as we were trying
- to work through the project scheduling for this project the contractor backed out and stated they'd
- no longer were interested in performing the work but
- which left us in quite the bind as we were hoping to get this work done before the summer construction
- season ended with them backing out and the project already being awarded D.C. construction. We are in
- the position where we need to ask for that money to now be reappropriated. So it was twenty twenty five dollars.
- That were appropriated as part of the budget with them backing out we do need to come to you and request
- a reappropriation of those funds to then or the project to the secondary bidder which is DC construction
- we would like to do this as quickly as possible so I am asking if it is possible for you to consider
- this vote in one evening tonight you are allowed to do that under state statute we're
- getting towards the point in construction season we're trying to fit this in yet before the end of before
- we finish that up and the contractor could actually come during fall break. So this is an appropriation
- request in the amount of one hundred and thirty nine thousand one hundred and thirty nine dollars. And
- I'm happy to answer questions as well as I've got our city controller Jeff McKim here and some legal
- staff as well. Thank you.
- Thank you so much. A quick point of information, Attorney Allen, are the folks online able to vote on
- an ordinance, an appropriation ordinance? Since it's an appropriation ordinance, no, they wouldn't be
- eligible to vote on it. Okay, but could they vote on the procedure for us to vote on it because we need
- three-fourths of the body to say yes, correct? We need unanimous consent. It has to be unanimous in
- order to consider it. Can they vote on the procedure? Typically, there can't be a part of the debate
- Regarding it either so it'd be need to be unanimous of the members who can participate and since they're
- unanimous of the members that can participate or unanimous vote So is that everybody or is that and
- we can come back to that question, but just I mean it is relevant to Director Wayson's point here, but
- okay Sorry for the procedural thing Go council member Stasberg. So I just want to make sure that I understand
- what happened. So the
- I'm gonna try to like dumb this down, right? So there was some money that is like 2025 money that we
- put in a special pot and said we're gonna use this for paving but now the special pot that we put it
- in is like gone and so now but that money is still like there right, but the but the pot is gone and
- That's the where we were gonna pay is gone. So now the money is like free floating still somewhere in
- the general fund And so you're saying that now we need to put it in a 2026 pot Is that what's happening?
- Like the money is there and it never got spent, right? But it's in a 2025 pot and now we need to put
- in a 2026 pot and send it to somebody else Sorry one I'll also answer that but one quick Correction
- you said the general fund. This is actually in the parking meter fund
- Okay, so the general fund is not involved in this at all. The term you're looking for is encumbrance,
- right? So the 2025 is a simple term. Yeah That encumbrance lapsed when the contract doubt died essentially,
- but the money is still there in the parking meter fund So it's like the same money. It's like not different
- money It's just saying we're gonna use it in 2026 not 2025 just and then and then the excess over is
- just like other
- funds that were budgeted already in 2026 that just haven't been spent and Existing appropriations exactly.
- Yep Any other questions comments motions councilman Rallo I Had a procedural question, but I asked mr.
- Allen about it and it just has to do with Whether council members can even attend a meeting
- or an appropriation ordinances voted on
- But remotely and what's the answer. I think we're getting a determination soon. I think I mean surely
- surely surely. I was precluded from attending a meeting where I apologize. And so just thank you all
- for the grace of allowing me just a moment to look this up.
- Under Indiana Code 514, 1.5, 3.5, actually among the things that are excluded, since this is just an
- additional appropriation of money that already exists, it's neither adopting a budget, a referendum,
- or increasing any penalty or fee or a tax, and therefore there is no problem with the hybrid participation
- in electronic meetings, so they are full participants and they can vote. I apologize for the error.
- Thank you very much.
- We may not vote for it. OK, any other questions, motions? I'll just say that I'd be happy to vote for
- this today. Can we not beat it to death then? Anyone? Is anybody else? OK, could we have a motion then?
- I'll entertain it. I move that the council votes on this
- What would be the right motion to adopt? Wait, I think that we have to have a special other emotion
- and I I'll try to find it real fast. It was somewhere in our CCP paperwork stuff from From from Lisa
- Yeah, Tony Allen, I mean just so just so that we do this correctly, I mean we want
- So there does need to be a special motion the motion would be a motion to a Motion to proceed to a vote
- after first reading and so it's very simply that and then it needs to be unanimous consent to be a pretty
- I Move to proceed to a vote after first reading Second motion in a second. Will the clerk please call
- the roll on the motion to proceed to first reading I'm sorry to vote after first reading. Thank you
- Yes, just to clarify who did the second All right, and then moving on for the votes councilmember Ruff.
- Yes Rosenberger. Yes Flaherty Yes Stossburg. Yes Piedmont Smith. Yes, Zulek. Yes. Sorry. Yes. Daily.
- Yes, Rallo. Yes
- Okay that carries do I have a motion then to adopt I move to adopt appropriation ordinance twenty twenty
- six dash zero one second motion and a second will the clerk please call the roll. Oh wait have we gone
- to public. We have to go to public comment. I'm sorry. So it is now on the table to be adopted. I'd
- love to go to public comment if anybody has public comment on this. Thank you so much. Councilman Smith.
- Anybody in chambers have public comment on appropriation ordinance twenty twenty six oh one seeing none
- anyone online Give them a moment No, still no. Okay, fantastic in which case Will the clerk please call
- the roll? Councilmember Rosenberger No Flaherty Yeah Stasberg yes
- Edmund Smith. Yes. Zulek. Yes. Sorry. Yes. Daily. Yes. Rallo. Yes. Rough. Yes. Thank you. Thank you
- very much. And Councilmember Rosenberger no pressure but would you like to say why no or because I didn't
- give space for public comment I mean for comment before we voted. I know you did it and I was like it's
- OK but I would just rather use parking meter funds for other things and do this out of like a resurfacing
- budget instead.
- Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you Director Wason. We're moving on. Are there any motions.
- I move that ordinance 20 26 dash 19 be introduced and read by the clerk by title and synopsis only.
- Second motion and a second. Any discussion. Seeing none. Will the clerk please call the roll. Councilmember
- Flaherty yes Stasberg yes Piedmont Smith yes.
- The leg. Yes. Sorry. Yes. Daily. Yes. Rallo. Yes. Rough. Yes. Burger. Did you hear the last one.
- I did not. But was rough the last one. I'm the last one. I'm a yes. Thank you. That carries. Will the
- clerk please read.
- Ordinance twenty twenty six dash nineteen amending title two to align job titles with the collective
- bargaining agreement with the Don Owens Memorial Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police council sponsors.
- Councilmember Rallo the synopsis is as follows this ordinance amends section two point three two point
- zero two zero a one of the Bloomington Municipal Code and replaces the title of senior police officer
- with officer first class and the previous officer first class title with officer second class.
- Thank you very much. I move to discuss ordinance twenty twenty six dash 19 second. Will the clerk please
- call the roll. Council member Stossberg. Yes. Piedmont Smith. Yes. Zulek. Yes. Sorry. Yes. Daily. Yes.
- Rallo. Yes. Ruff. Yes. Rosenberger. Yes. Flaherty. Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much.
- Who's is there someone presenting. Thank you very much. Welcome. Welcome. Good evening members of council
- and Edina Casamania and I'm assistant city attorney for the city of Bloomington.
- I'm here tonight to present a proposed ordinance that updates our municipal code to reflect the collective
- bargaining agreement between with the Fraternal Order of Police the Don Owens Memorial Lodge 88 Fraternal
- Order of Police. So this is pretty simple change small change to align our code with the new collective
- bargaining agreement. This ordinance proposes to title changes the first
- Title change will be of senior police officer updated to that officer first class the second The previous
- officer first class will then shift to officer second class This amendment explicitly names the Fraternal
- Order of Police as the exclusive bargaining representative
- for a unit that includes officer first class sergeants with no supervisory duties and officers second
- class. The update ensures that our city code accurately reflects our union agreements and supports fair
- structured compensation for our officers moving forward into our 20 27 and beyond. And so it's pretty
- within the packet you have the memo that is detailed a little more. If you have any questions I'm happy
- to answer those questions.
- Thank you. Any questions. Yes. The anticipated fiscal impact is four hundred fifty thousand dollars
- in additional per contributions over the life of the bargaining agreement. Has one fourth of that been
- budgeted for twenty twenty seven. You repeat the question again. Can you repeat that question. Has.
- the appropriate amount in additional perf funds perf Contributions been budgeted in next year's budget
- Jeff mckim Yes, the short answer is yes, the collective bargaining unit or agreement has been fully
- Instantiated in the budget proposal Thank you, and then I have one other question if I may yes, please
- So in one of the whereas clauses it says the Board of Public Safety Received a memo outlining the components
- of the collective bargaining agreements and the amendment to title two It just said they received it
- Did they have to vote on it or they just got it as an FYI? It was more of an FYI the Board of Public
- Safety had a chance to see it and know what was going to be coming forward on May 12th 2026 so they
- They did not vote on it, but they had a chance to see. Okay. So there's no requirement for them to write.
- There's no requirement for them to vote. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Other questions
- online. Any questions. Would I'm comfortable as sponsor like to say anything. I have nothing to add.
- Okay. I support this. And motions.
- Speaking for myself also happy to vote on this today Point of I Don't know clarity, I guess can we vote
- on this before we actually vote on the bargaining agreement resolution. It's good question I'll make
- a motion. But wait, can we get an answer to can we get an answer to the yeah to the point of information?
- Yes Yes, can can we um, yeah and like
- phasing this like it's on the agenda now but does this have to go with something else or is this sort
- of anticipatory because it doesn't bind us to voting on the next thing though does it? It's anticipatory
- the other thing is if for some reason you were to decide not to pass the collective bargaining agreement
- which included this language then the ordinance would be of no effect necessarily and so that's the
- risk that you would run
- And also the would you say and maybe this is a question for controller McKim the the fiscal impact is
- it appropriately attached to this or is it really the fiscal impact of the collective bargaining agreement?
- The fiscal impact that was included in this particular piece of legislation is specifically included
- is specific to this legislation it is not
- The there's a separate fiscal impact. However, I will say that the overall collective bargaining unit
- There are collective bargaining agreement fiscal impact does include this amount It's the full amount
- of the contract suit I'm saying not totally could you explain explain explain the mechanism? I mean
- the short answer is
- This the fiscal impact for this particular piece of legislation is appropriately attached to this legislation
- What I mean to say is that by changing title to no money is going to leave city coffers until the collective
- bargaining agreement is is is Adapted it's correct, right? So so so the the fiscal impact is not of
- us changing the language in title to it is of the Reason why we might need to change the language in
- title to that's that's what I'm asking
- Right. OK. So if we vote today we are not you know committing to anything. We're just making space so
- that it's easier to to do that when time comes. Should we need to. So that's why I'm happy to vote on
- it. But oh but I'll accept any motions or we can move on. Oh.
- Public comment does anybody would like to give public comment at this time? Please mr. Post Well, we
- lost our pen I'm here It's hidden
- We've got it. We'll keep it all official here Okay Good evening council members Paul post president
- FOP lodge 88 I represent the men and women of the BPD's collective bargaining unit Thank you for hearing
- this matter tonight We appreciate mayor Thompson and her administration and working with us much earlier
- this year in our bargaining sessions toward the next contract
- This proposed language change the ordinance is a creative solution to help position ourselves in the
- environment the financial environment we see going forward. We hope that this will keep us competitive
- in terms of our peer rankings on the certified salary list for years to come as well as help retain
- experienced officers for a few more years of service to the city. The proposed language change the ordinance
- was considered by the members of the bargaining unit earlier this year who voted positively to accept
- the changes as a necessary component of the next contract.
- We stand in support of the amendment to Title 2 and ask for your support as well. Thank you. Thank you
- very much. Anybody else in in council chambers would like to make a comment. Anyone online. All right.
- We'll come back to council. Any comments motions otherwise.
- Move to vote on ordinance 20 26-19 after first reading second There's a motion a second any discussion.
- I Will the clerk please call the roll? Councilmember Piedmont Smith Zulik yes, sorry. Yes, daily. Yes,
- Rallo. Yes rough. Yes Rosenberger Yes
- Clarity yes Stossberg yes I move to adopt ordinance twenty twenty six dash eighteen second Councilmember
- Zoellick yes.
- I'm sorry. Yes. Daily. Yes. Rallo. Yes. Ruff. Yes. Rosenberger. Yes. Flaherty. Yes. Stossberg. Yes.
- Piedmont Smith. Yes. Thank you. That carries. Thank you very much. We'll now move to the next thing.
- I move that ordinance 2026-20 be introduced and read by the clerk by title and synopsis only.
- Second motion a second. Will the clerk please call the roll? Councilmember, sorry. Yes Daley. Yes, Rallo.
- Yes, Ruff. Yes, Rosenbacher. Yeah clarity Yeah Stasberg. Yes Piedmont Smith. Yes and Zulik. Yes.
- Thank you. Thank you. Will the clerk please read
- Ordinance 2026 dash 20 amending title 20 of the Bloomington municipal code to improve sustainability
- and housing affordability pursuant to council resolution 2026 dash oh five council sponsor is Councilmember
- clarity. The synopsis is as follows.
- This ordinance contains amendments to the unified development ordinance per directives outlined in resolution
- twenty twenty six dash zero five a resolution to initiate a proposal to amend title 20 unified development
- ordinance of the Bloomington Municipal Code in order to improve sustainability and housing affordability.
- I move to discuss ordinance twenty twenty six dash 20 second motion a second with the clerk we call the roll.
- Yes. Councilmember Daley. Yes. Rallo. Yes. Ruff. Yes. Rosenberger. Yes. Flaherty. Yes. Stossberg. Yes.
- Piedmont Smith. Yes. Zulek. Yes. Sorry. Yes. Thank you. Councilmember Flaherty would you like to start
- off or is there do you have somebody else presenting as well.
- I'm happy to start. I assume that the Planning and Transportation staff, who are the folks who assisted
- the Planning Commission in developing these recommendations, will probably present. So yeah, just a
- reminder that this came by way of direction from the council with a 9-0 vote on resolution 2026-05 in
- May of this year. I think it was May 20th. And I'll just say thank you also to staff for meeting this
- statutory and ordinance or resolution deadlines on getting this back to us in less than 120 days.
- That's appreciated. So yeah, look forward to digging in. I definitely have some questions myself,
- you know, based on the details that evolved from staff and planning commission discussion. But yeah,
- I'll turn it over to planning and transportation staff at this time. Fantastic. Director Grulick or
- Director Coyne? Okay, fantastic. Mr. Grulick, to you, sir.
- Thank you Eric really development services manager. So I'm here tonight to present The proposed changes
- that were directed to staff from this resolution So as as has been noted the City Council directed planning
- staff to bring forward changes to the unified development ordinance to reflect certain directives and
- initiatives within that resolution and
- Give a minute. I think there's a slight lag There we go So the City Council gave directive to the Planning
- Commission to bring forward certain changes to the unified development ordinance looking at very specific
- elements within the UDO So it's important to note that while we did certainly make these changes in
- accordance with the resolution this also serves to
- Fulfill requirements from a recent house bill that directed local governments to look at aspects of
- their unified development ordinance That can be adjusted to increase housing within the community So
- this resolution accomplishes many goals Certainly bring us into compliance with that with having a hearing
- as well as changes that we will have to document with a reporting requirement to the state at the end
- of the year so the resolution
- Just real briefly Directed the Planning Commission staff to bring forward changes looking at minimum
- lot width and lot area requirements within residential zones as well as within other mixed-use zones
- Also directed us to consider reductions and setback requirements Look at all terrain subdivision standards
- impervious surface coverage lot frontage standards
- In order to improve housing attainability within the community Also directed us to bring forward language
- regarding certain electrification components with incentives and including that within planned unit
- development qualifying standards and then lastly directed us to bring forward amendment to remove parking
- minimums in all zones by
- So to that end we looked at the unified development ordinance and the resolution language to see what
- Adjustments could be made So as I mentioned we looked at a lot width standards lot area standards and
- are proposing changes across the board in all of the residential zoning districts So you can see those
- on the screen and in the packet
- So all kind of you can see the numbers and then I'll kind of go through a little bit with some illustrations
- of how we got to these numbers So as I mentioned we did propose and the Plaint Commission brought forward
- this language as well Reducing lot area lot width standards across the board also adjusting setback
- standards So we are introducing a build to range within the r3 and r4 and RM districts
- That is to give a little bit more flexibility for front yard setbacks for buildings Allowing for buildings
- to be even closer in a lot of situations to improve and increase develop ability of properties
- We are proposing to Adjust the side yard building setback standards. So in all of the districts we are
- getting rid of the additional setback requirement that was present for second stir second story portions
- of a house within the r2 district we are Decreasing the side yard setback for requirement from 8 feet
- to 6 feet the r3 district side yard setback standards are
- Staying at four feet and then the are four district. We are proposing to go down to zero feet We're
- also proposing to decrease the rear yard setback requirement in these districts as well as increase
- the impervious surface coverage Allowance within these districts as well the Plain Commission did also
- extend the impervious surface coverage increase to the MM and MN and
- district as there are a lot of lots that are Occupied with single-family residences or present in some
- areas of the city that have been developed with single-family Residences and so this gives a greater
- allowance for use of those properties So some of the language within the resolution directed us to look
- at two specific planned unit developments that it had been approved within the past 10 or 15 years or so
- One of those was the South Dunn Street PUD That is by Hillside and Henderson and then the second PUD
- was a PUD that was done on the corner of Dodds and Morton about ten years ago or so ish and
- Both of these developments had very narrow lots and reduced lot sizes. So the South Dunn Street PUD
- had lot widths that were about 40 feet wide and 4,500 square feet. But they also featured several lots
- that were on corners that I'm going to call half lots. And I'll show you in just a minute how these
- half lots are very indicative of a lot of situations that we see in the community where you have lots
- That are about 40 or 50 feet wide and can be about 2,500 square feet So those lots were present in the
- Dunn Street PUD and then the other PUD that we were directed to look at was the PUD that I mentioned
- on Dodds and Morton so these lots were 28 feet wide had a
- Lot size of about thirty nine hundred square feet had certainly reduced side yard setbacks and impervious
- surface coverage so the resolution directed us to look at those two PUDs as kind of a role a role model
- of what development standards could look like So as I mentioned with those half lots in the South Dunn
- Street PUD We also looked at and found and we encountered this very frequently within the city for lots
- that were created
- Prior to the the 73 subdivision code that had minimum lot size and lot width requirements We saw a lot
- of situations within the community where you had properties that had been platted as a typical 50 or
- 60 foot wide lot 130 or so ish feet deep that had been subdivided at time to create lots or a half that
- size so you can see here an example that is very common and
- Some of the older neighborhoods where you had a lot you have a lot that was created. There's about 40
- or 50 feet wide about 2,500 square feet So you can see certainly the prevalence of reduced side yard
- setbacks And then the need to increase the allowable impervious surface coverage to allow for the type
- of lot Development that you see here. So again, just kind of a little bit different view of that same
- situation where you've got these lots That have been cut in half
- That are about that that 2500 square foot lot size. So that's how we came up with the numbers for the
- proposed Minimal lot size in the r3 and r4 district to kind of replicate and mimic this historic pattern
- that we have seen In some of the neighborhoods within Bloomington So one of the other key components
- that staff looked at with the resolution was one of the goals to allow for the creation of lots and
- That alter one of the current standards within the unified development ordinance that all lots have
- to front on a public street And those lots have to meet the minimum lot width and lot area requirements
- of the district So we've certainly seen a lot of situations in Bloomington where you have lots That
- are very deep or you have very large backyards of lots that are underutilized With this we we looked
- at the possibility of allowing lots to be created
- just off of an alley. One of the challenges that we encountered as we worked through this language was
- making sure that we were meeting fire code requirements so that fire trucks could adequately
- serve properties, as that is obviously very important.
- and so we came up language that was was heavily discussed and vetted with the fire department as well
- as engineering department Street department and all of the city departments to make sure that what we
- were coming forward with was something that worked for a variety of city departments So we have two
- different Allowances that are being introduced in this language one of those and I have a graphic here
- that will kind of show that in a second and
- Allows for a lot to be created that doesn't meet that typical lot width on the street standard So it
- allows for a lot to be created that doesn't exceed six feet in width But provides that there is a no
- build easement That is planted along that six foot stretch that gets back to where that new house was
- being is being constructed and then also additional language that says that no portion of that house
- may be more than 150 feet
- From the street. So again that is to address fire code requirements Outlining that they're able to get
- to all portions of a house Since we are looking at creating a situation where a house would be placed
- behind another house And couldn't easily be seen from the street So the second standard here that we
- are proposing to incorporate deals with a situation where you know, you have a lot that is much deeper than
- That that the house would be more than 150 feet from the street And so in that case in order to meet
- fire code requirements, they would want a 20 foot wide fire road Moving down the side of the property
- to get to the back side of that lot where the house would be So I'll show just kind of real quickly
- what those two scenarios would look like so this situation here would be the first one that I was describing
- we're a six foot no build easement would be required and
- And this would allow for a portion of the back of a property to be subdivided off and utilized So while
- this particular example here does have an alley on the back. The alley is not a factor in this particular
- scenario It's just simply showing that a six-foot no-build easement would be required along The side
- of the property where you're getting access and then would allow for that lot to be created in the back
- And then the second scenario here that I was describing dealt with the situation where you have a lot
- that greatly exceeds that 150 foot distance And so in order to for fire department to be able to serve
- that new lot in that house in the back You would have a 20 foot wide fire access road that would provide
- service to that that new house in the back so those are the two scenarios that we are proposing to allow and
- with the the changes to the subdivision code so we are removing the the four to one depth the width
- ratio that also has been Challenging in the past for the creation of these lots. So we're hopeful that
- you know these state these these alterations that we are proposing with the setbacks minimum lot area
- minimum lot width and then a lot frontage requirements will allow for new lots to be created within
- the city and
- You know, certainly in terms of the new loss being created, we don't we don't expect that this will
- solve all the problems. But with all of these amendments, you know, we're looking to adjust the needle
- a little bit to allow situations where more lots could be created. Obviously, it's situational and depends
- on where existing houses are in a lot. But it does give an allowance where there is where there is none now.
- So the next section of the resolution dealt with kind of three components or two components one of those
- was a Request to add language dealing with electricity and other non or other renewable energy sources,
- so we did bring forward language regarding that and then the second component to this was
- adding this requirement within the qualifying standards for PDs and then also adding it within
- the Sustainable development incentive language as well as a requirement for projects that are coming
- forward using the sustainable development incentives So we included language from that that was slightly
- modified from the Planning Commission, but that is in the the current packet and
- And then the last standard that was in the resolution Was to bring forward a amendment to eliminate
- minimum parking requirements in all zones So we did bring forward language striking the minimum parking
- requirements for vehicles The Plain Commission did feel that in order to be fully compliant with the
- resolution that directed us to remove all parking minimums They also added
- Eliminating bicycle parking minimum requirements as well. So that was added at the Planning Commission
- stage So with that the Planning Commission did vote at the August hearing to forward this to you with
- a 6-2 favorable Recommendation and so with that I'm happy to answer any questions
- Fantastic. Um, thank you very much. I am very happy that the sort of Potential of the resolution has
- met the opportunity of the ordinance see what I did there. No, okay. We'll go to councilmember Rallo
- first Thank you, mr. Gerlich I had a question about This has come up in the past impervious surface
- coverage maximum in the various
- Residential districts are one or two or three or four RM Etc and it goes up to This is on page. I don't
- know what this is. It's on I see it's on page 103 No 104 I'm not sure that's relevant to the actual
- packet. It's probably It's probably the the code, right?
- But do you see where I'm talking about we're under other standards So it changes are two to from 40
- to 60 are three from 45 to 70 are four from 50 to 80, etc so in coming up with those numbers and I'm
- just wondering about like aggregate impact of this have you done, you know an analysis where this would
- Where this would occur relative have you talked to utilities first of all has utilities weighed in and
- said because We just heard doing budget they're gonna spend five hundred thousand or they intend to
- spend five hundred thousand dollars on a plan for an artificial wetland in part to control stormwater
- Right. So we're we're doing something to mitigate stormwater Impervious surface increasing impervious
- surface is increasing stormwater runoff, right?
- Yes, sorry working. Are we working cross-purposes here? So yes, we did communicate with utilities department
- and their director their director did indicate that you know She did not have any concerns with this
- impervious surface increase You know as I mentioned, you know, we're seeing adding we're proposing these
- changes to hope to have small incremental additions to your houses and
- Better utilization of lots so the the impervious surface coverage for the r3 and the the r4 district,
- you know As I mentioned here, that's that's really essential if you want to allow for those those smaller
- lots You know those 50 by 50 lots that you know to apply the same 40 percent Impervious surface coverage
- would severely limit what you could do on those lots. So if we want to still see
- You know an average size a house of you know, a thousand square foot footprint or something of that
- effect You know, you're going to have to relieve those impervious surface coverage numbers in order
- to allow for that to actually happen So the two kind of have to go hand-in-hand but to answer your question.
- Yes, we did talk to utilities department You know, certainly they are aware of the stormwater needs
- within the community and are working on various projects to try to address that but she was not concerned
- with This increase that we're proposing
- Okay, what what I really like to see is I mean we live in the age of AI, right? I should be able to
- ask Gemini Given a hundred lots that could be essentially subdivided I mean, I assume we're doing this
- in order to have an impact of some kind and so Okay, we should be able to anticipate what that impact
- is for a period of time how many how many lots would be affected and
- What's the total surface area? What would be the runoff impact and then? Compare it to what we're going
- to mitigate that should be an analysis that we could ask for Yeah, so certainly you have two scenarios
- there one where you've got the currently built environment within neighborhoods of Bloomington and you
- have somebody that wants to do an addition to their house and
- You know, so it's it's a negligible increase on that particular property You know where they're adding
- on to the back of their house and they're you know adding another 15% onto that particular lot, you
- know You're in a built environment where you've got streets. You've got certain stormwater infrastructure
- and so these
- Random also might call them, you know utilization where people are adding onto their houses You know
- certainly one scenario and then you've got the different scenario where you've got a vacant piece of
- ground that is being developed With a brand new subdivision that would be utilizing these Reduced lot
- sizes that are currently under place and so the stormwater system within that subdivision would be built
- to handle all
- What this impervious surface coverage would foresee as you know kind of the I'll say worst-case scenario
- of you know Every single lot is built to that maximum pervious surface coverage What are the stormwater
- detention facilities that are needed within that subdivision to handle that capacity? so stormwater
- would be addressed in those situations more obviously more heavily with a brand new subdivision where
- it would be designed from the scratch to meet all those needs but the You know the
- Incorporation of individual lots scattered throughout the city that might utilize this impact You know
- would disperse that enough that it's not all of a sudden one neighborhood where there's a great increase
- You know, it's just very similar to you know, the amount of building permits that we see now for additions
- and remodels You know, we don't expect that to go up substantially but you know as I mentioned these
- are necessary if you want to get a smaller lot and
- The backside of a property somehow and allow that to have a reasonable house in there, you know You've
- got to give on some of these now I get it and I understand trade-offs I guess I'd like maybe some numbers
- like you know a scenario Painting a scenario given this what's the impact because stormwater mitigation
- is expensive You know, I mean just to plan for this thing is half a million dollars comes from a rough-ass
- What would we anticipate the number wasn't given but it was certainly in the multi millions So anyway,
- thank you for yeah, I can try to see maybe what kind of Objective data we can come up with for you And
- I'll just I'm just sort of maybe set scope a little bit. I don't think Some people already expressed
- they do not want to vote on this tonight. So So we will be doing at least a second reading. So anything
- you can't answer is
- collect for next time. And so I'll go to Council Member Flaherty, please, and then we'll come back to
- Council Member Sosberg. Thanks. I had a couple questions related to the impervious surface thing and
- also the minimums. So highlighted in the slides were a portion of the resolution that said, in addition
- to R1 through R4, staff could look at other
- You know, zoning districts, and you all did, you looked at the other residential ones as well, and were
- proposing changes. In fact, most of, I think, the residential multifamily high-density, you know, mixed-use
- ones, you're actually proposing to eliminate lot size, lot area minimums, and lot width minimums entirely.
- And so, first question, I guess, yeah.
- couple of questions. One is just why that approach with those lots eliminated entirely and instead of
- having a minimum area just relying on basic market dynamics and the setback requirements to set functional
- limits versus the R1 through R4 where you've kept minimum areas and minimum widths but just reduced
- them from what they were. Could you tell me a little bit more about that rationale about those two different
- approaches? Yeah, absolutely. So when you look at
- development within Bloomington 90 percent of what we see is redevelopment of existing properties you
- know we don't have a lot of green space that's just sitting there that that nothing has happened on
- that people are
- Creating new lots within so, you know other than the summit PUD there. There just aren't a lot of green
- space areas So, you know, we're not seeing people coming in and subdividing properties that are that
- they are zoned that are zoned for RH They're coming in and they're developing properties that are already
- zone that and they want to do a variety of housing within there so
- Having this minimum lot size for the RH, you know is something honestly that we have not really utilized
- We have not seen a subdivision come in for new lots in the RH district. I'm going to say maybe 20 years
- and so we really felt like if we if we want to give the the greatest open possibility of what maybe
- small lots might look like, you know, they within an RH district they want to create a 20 by 20 lot and
- Or less than that and sell that for tiny homes or whatever there might be down the line, you know Why
- why would we risk have a restriction for a lot size where you know? We don't really care how many lots
- you have on this particular property because it's zoned multifamily. We don't regulate density So what
- what are we accomplishing with a minimum lot size in the the RH or the RM district?
- Interesting. So having very tiny lots in like a mixed use medium scale, which is what I think most of
- Hopewell is zoned, for instance, is you're expressing that that would be okay. So a 20 foot by 20 foot
- lot for a tiny home, but a 20 foot by 20 foot lot in R3 or R4, which say Prospect Hill or McDowell Gardens
- adjacent to the Hopewell would not be okay because you've kept that larger minimum lot size.
- Yes, I think certainly as a part of a lot of council members are realizing or understand, there can
- be a large feeling of a huge dramatic shift in the established neighborhoods if we say we want to allow
- lots that are 20 by 20 or something like that.
- So with this resolution we're trying to balance, you know as I was pointing out with the examples of
- you know This is how we came up with a 2500 square foot lot because you see lots like this right now
- within the neighborhoods And so we're looking to accomplish something that you can see very frequently
- You know, you can't really make that argument that you know You see 20 by 20 lots within these core
- neighborhoods now and so that that felt like something that was a hard correlation to make that this
- is a Situation you're gonna already encounter
- Okay, I have additional questions, but I can hold if we've got other people Any other questions from
- council members councilmember Stossberg? Thank you. Um, so One of the things that was done For my colleagues
- to know this particular plan Commission meeting was very long and
- and so one of the things that ended up being added on at the plan Commission meeting was the change
- in impervious surface in the mixed-use districts and mm MN and mm and I guess I would like Your opinion
- mr. Grulick on the fact that what then ended up happening was so it's like 70% impervious surface coverage
- maximum across a
- most of our districts except for the court the MC and the MI and I mean the MH is in there too, but
- we don't really have any image anymore, right? So that one just doesn't really matter but is there like
- a reason that you can think of that we should Keep the MC and the MI at 60% as opposed to moving that
- also to 70% for the impervious surface coverage and all those M districts and
- Sure, um, so as you as you certainly recall, you know the inclusion of the MM and the MN district was
- not something that staff initially brought forward that was something that the Plaint Commission added
- you know internally, I think our concern with impervious surface coverage in the mixed-use districts
- and oftentimes what we we seem to run into are scenarios where people
- design a property using these standards and so they fill it with building and parking areas and then
- they're out of room for landscaping or Yeah, that's that's oftentimes a situation that we run into and
- so Allowing that impervious surface coverage in and of itself May not be the most terrible thing but
- it starts, you know that a lot of the MM
- Properties more specifically and MC are very large properties. So, you know you kind of go back to what
- was the reason what is one of the goals that we even had in previous surface coverage to begin with
- It was to also ensure that you had certain green space within a community, you know on properties You
- have room for landscaping, but also you have room for habitat and just general green spaces in the community
- as a whole and
- And so, you know at some point you you and certainly this is a very cognitive decision that the council
- can make if They feel like the greater impervious surface coverage allowance should be something extended
- to the other districts You know, you certainly have that power to do that. But I just want to be sure
- to point out that that there does come a certain downside to that impervious surface coverage and seeing
- somebody fully realize that on a property and and most mm properties a lot of times are very large and
- So so it can result in a loss of green space in the community as a whole So, I don't know if that completely
- answers your question. Yes, you could certainly extend it to the MC district But you know there are
- just obviously downsides to to that as those can be very large properties so as staff person and professional
- in this field Would you rather? revert the
- and MN back to the 60% impervious surface coverage and 40% landscaped area as opposed to change it like
- Increase it to the 70% as was done in the Plan Commission I mean, I think the difference is very small
- obviously 60 to 70% So we're not talking about a huge impact but also I guess maybe a separate point
- is like we had not really run into this problem of the impervious surface coverage being the limiting
- factor in development of MM and MC
- Zoned property certainly does certainly play a role But that that is usually not been the challenge
- that we have encountered So when we approach the resolution and the directives were in there certainly
- within the the r1 r2 r3 and r4 and the RM state districts You know, we see we see where the boundaries
- are keeping development at bay But we're not really seeing the impervious surface playing that large
- of a role in the MM and MC But
- Like I said that that was not something where we had seen the problems that we were coming forward from
- a staff of we need to fix this But it is a negligible difference Okay, and then similar to that. I mean
- the proposal ups the impervious surface and the are for an RM and well to 80% in those two and So what
- you just said was that like well in those?
- You know MMS and MNs and those places like one of the reasons is you want to make sure that we don't
- lose too much green space and I guess I'm a little concerned with moving that up to 80% is going to
- lose so has the potential of losing too much, especially maybe in the RM's
- But the are forced to honestly just in terms of where some of those are. Yeah I was just going to say
- you know if you look at a zoning map of where are for is there is not a lot of ground that is that is
- zoned for that within the community. You know there are isolated corridors or intersections or along
- major roads where the are for district is. Certainly you've got a lot of are for that was utilized in
- the summit PD.
- So that that might be a little bit different. But you know the R4 and the impervious surface cover.
- Yes it is great. But those are already built out areas. So this is just utilizing or giving the ability
- to better utilize those properties now. And I can certainly have a map perhaps next time of where our
- four zone properties are if that would be helpful. Yeah I'll look at that too. I.
- Just I think want to state for my colleagues that I have the intention of an amendment that retains
- minimum bicycle parking Since we don't actually have like comment as part of this period So I'm certainly
- not ready to vote on it tonight because that is certainly an amendment that I said actually at the end
- of the Planning Commission meeting That I would end up having for this at this level. Thanks We do actually
- have comment First readings just FYI
- That's cool. Come council member suspect. Could you repeat that your intention? What what's the amendment
- that you were to retain the minimum bicycle parking, okay Any other first-round questions councilmember
- Piedmont Smith You in addition to reducing the front setbacks and
- Side yard setbacks and all those reductions Allowing more buildable space you also added an exemption
- from tree preservation requirements for existing lots Less than 5,000 square feet in r3 and r4. Can
- you talk more about that where in? The code is that and why did you add that? So that language is currently
- in the tree preservation standards in chapter 4 so that's where the in
- Yeah, so that's that's where the tree preservation standards are so we're adding language in
- the applicability section of that to exempt lots under that size from those requirements because and
- we've certainly seen certain instance instances where variances have been sought because on lots that small
- The presence of those substantially hinders the ability to develop those lots You know, we're already
- talking about small lots as they are So, you know, you've got four trees that are on there which constitute
- closed canopy Most of the time you have to save almost all of those and so just their presence hinders
- that so again This is this is a big picture Trade-off of you know, if we want to have more housing within
- the community, you know, there there might be certain
- Adjustments that have to be made to accommodate that and so that's that that is a trade-off but we do
- certainly see and you know as you can maybe kind of see in I Stopped sharing here But you know in those
- exhibits where you've got half lots that are very small to begin with you know if you want to see those
- fully built out and utilize with you know a house that's a thousand or 1200 or 1400 square foot footprint and
- You know that that is resulting in a high utilization of that property. So it's just you're not going
- to be able to preserve trees and use a lot At a small lot in that situation. So that was something that
- we were proposing to help Remove one of the barriers to develop ability for these smaller lots So since
- I I was unable to track this into the actual text of the UDO What are the tree preservation standards
- that you're exempting?
- So the tree the tree preservation standards deal with how much of a lot is currently covered So it's
- a it's a percentage and it's a graduated scale there So the more of a property that is covered with
- trees, you know, the the preservation requirement is a little bit less It's about 50% and then as the
- tree coverage requirement or as a tree coverage
- Presence on a property goes down where you only have a small portion of it that's covered you have to
- save a higher percentage of that So, you know if you're in eighty to ninety percent or I'm sorry, you
- know ten percent or less coverage You've got to save ninety percent of that And so you've got you've
- got two different goals that are somewhat working against each other here where you know You want to
- have smaller lots you want to have houses on those with reduced setbacks but you know that that may
- not allow for a
- the trees to be covered on that, or the tree preservation to be met on that lot, because the presence
- of those trees prevents anything from being happening there without a variance. And so this is a known
- situation. So in any situation where you know you're going to have a conflict, rather than forcing somebody
- into a variance situation that is known ahead of time and predicted, build in something in your code
- to give an adjustment for that situation. Because this is not going to be uncommon. We're saying that we,
- Want these half lots, you know these 40 by 40 lots So we know that there will be very likely Challenges
- with meeting both standards, you know, I'll certainly say there were some members of the public You
- know that spoke in favor of this as they've encountered the tree preservation standards certainly being
- a challenge to being met on development of small lots, what is the current process of
- a variance of that does that just go to the hearing officer or So it can go to the hearing officer or
- the Board of Zoning Appeals You know one of the the most challenging components with the variance is
- the evaluation of the three criteria And the third one that there is some peculiar condition about a
- property that presents a hardship. That's always the hard one to meet So, you know in that argument
- you would be saying
- The lot is so encumbered with tree preservation that it's undevelopable without the granting of the
- variance. That's it. That's a known problem in that we know that right now that these lots are very
- small. If there are trees on there that have to be preserved per the UDO they're already going to encumber
- their property and present a hardship. So rather than forcing somebody down in the variance process
- knowing that there will be that hardship ahead of time why not just build that into the code to deal
- with that situation now.
- Understand what you're saying for me. It's kind of a hardship to lose trees sure It's a trade-off This
- is again just what staff is proposing to bring forward the council can certainly modify this they can
- strike any aspect that they don't want But you know, I just want to make sure to point out, you know
- both sides Okay, thank you. I have other questions, but I'll wait other questions councilmember rough
- Real quick, Mr. Green, if if and I know realize there may be practical impossibilities or certainly
- substantial substantial practical issues, but Would the state law do you know would state any state
- statute preclude requiring individual lot Stormwater tension of any kind an individual residential lot.
- I mean, I understand maybe dramatic
- Practical issues and in their hardship in what you just talked about three preservation, etc But just
- for the record just for the way, I'm gonna be thinking about this So storm what there are stormwater
- detention requirements that that apply for subdivisions There are not and and I'm speaking with 85%
- Depth of knowledge of CBU's requirements, you know, there are not stormwater detention Requirements
- for single-family lots when they develop we typically see when there is a a Lot within the city now
- an existing infill lot that is being subdivided CBU has not typically required stormwater detention
- on those on that two lot subdivision or three lot it's situational certainly, you know, there is a scale where
- You know, you're creating eight lots or something where there is a detention need or requirement, but
- that would be for CBU to better answer than me So but my question was was not really that it was simply
- do you know If the state law would preclude that I I don't have an answer making a requirement whether
- it's CBU or Whoever would be responsible. I don't have a great answer, but we can look into that but
- for next time Okay. Okay. Thank you
- Other questions. Council member Stossberg while we're talking about the tree preservation thing, I feel
- like I remember there being an edit on this or an amendment on this at the planning commission level
- to but maybe that was only talked about and wasn't actually done. Do you remember what I'm talking about?
- I thought that the Chris Smith increased it to six thousand feet. There was discussion on that, but
- that was not in the final motion from Mr. Smith.
- Thanks He ended up withdrawing that one and then just came back with the impervious surface coverage
- Other questions councilmember Piedmont Smith Yes going back to the fire access for lots that are subdivided and one
- building is behind the other building. So in the first image you saw that was kind of like that flag
- shaped lot. I think I understand better about that. That was the six foot no build easement right. Yes.
- So when it says in the text
- The building must be accessed from an existing lot of record with a six foot no build easement. You're
- talking about six feet wide from the street to the second house. Yes. So showing that exhibit here.
- So the intention for that is to make sure that there are no obstacles or encumbrances or structures
- within that six foot zone so that the fire department could get from the street to that that house that
- is in the back.
- It's six feet. So is this just so that Firefighters and their hose can get yes from the street back
- there. Yes, because it's 150 feet. That's the length of them So that's yeah, so the 150 foot is the
- the pole length for the hose. That's the maximum So that's six foot was something that the fire department
- said was essential To make sure that their staff can get from where the truck is parked on the street
- to the structure so an easement just means you can't
- Build anything on there. Can you also not put trees on there? It just says a no build, you know, we
- we did not get into the specificity of the language regarding landscaping What is commonly understood
- under no build easement I guess it you know, so we don't see is not a building So yeah, so, you know,
- obviously fences and structures sheds and whatnot would be that you know we could work with the fire
- department to see if they felt like
- Landscaping would be something to be need to be addressed Obviously, that's a challenge because we would
- we would never see you know Nobody comes to us for a permit to put in shrubs or trees on a single family
- So we have we can certainly put the language there You know might be might be hard obviously to track
- and enforce since we're not involved with that, you know No, I wasn't suggesting that I would suggest
- That we add the word wide so okay
- From an existing lot of record with a six foot no build easement from the new lot to the street. I mean
- to me it makes much more sense to say a six foot wide no build easement so that it's not somehow like
- oh well sure you can go six feet into my property with your hose but then I have a shed you know. Certainly
- that does help clarify that. OK. Thank you. Other questions.
- Okay and we are still in first reading so we will go to council comment prior to public comment. Yes
- council comment. Anybody. Councilmember Piedmont Smith in addition to the amendment that council member
- Stossberg mentioned about putting back in the minimum bike parking which I would totally support.
- I Am Right now I'm not feeling supportive of the Getting rid of minimum car parking requirements It's
- I've seen in my district repeatedly that this is problematic when a Either
- Single family home is rented to multiple adults or as I've seen repeatedly a single family home is converted
- into a duplex that they're. Unfortunately the result is not that people don't have cars and instead
- ride their bikes but the result is that there are more cars and those cars are taking advantage of the
- public right of way to park.
- And what we've seen with the mess of the neighborhood parking zones and the confusion about grandfathering
- people who live in multifamily homes to allow them to have those parking permits that initially the
- parking enforcement or the parking division was going to actually enforce our current code which said
- they can't have them unless they're single family.
- So that caused a lot of consternation among people who live in multifamily homes or rent them out. What
- I'm getting at is that we have a limited right of way on street parking. It's not an unlimited public
- resource. And if we're going to allow more density, which I'm in favor of, I think that the people who
- build that more density need to take some responsibility themselves for providing the more parking because
- we're just running out of on street parking.
- in certain neighborhoods. And a lot of the neighborhoods in my district are older neighborhoods. They
- have very narrow streets. They have kind of uneven width of streets from one block to the next.
- And saying, oh, you don't have to put in any parking is like giving away our public right of way and
- saying, we're going to provide your parking for you. It's not a matter of let the market do what it
- will because people don't
- You know developers don't want to pay to put in their own parking and they are but they're taking an
- asset away from others in their neighborhood by using that on-street parking. I'm sorry I'm not being
- very eloquent but I definitely have a problem with getting rid of the minimum parking requirements.
- So I'll be looking into an amendment on that topic. Councilmember Flaherty.
- I'm also looking at a few amendments would support the minimum bike parking one. The intent of the resolution
- was not to eliminate minimum bike parking, but, you know, in precise language, fair enough. Also looking
- at maybe a couple of other amendments, one to just slightly reduce the minimum lot areas and widths
- in R3 and R4. I think that I found a good number of lots, don't need to get into it today, but I found
- a good number of existing lots that are actually smaller than the proposed minimums.
- that have terrific small homes on them that we wouldn't want to prevent being built, I think, so I can
- make a few amendments for that. I'd be interested, I think maybe Council Member Stosberg is as well,
- to revisit or look closely at the changes that came in the Plan Commission around impervious surface
- with some of the other R and M zoning districts. The rationale in the resolution for Plan Commission
- and staff looking at the impervious surface
- you know, minimums and potentially adjusting them was precisely because when you make very small lots,
- you may need to make those adjustments. Changing it to, you know, increasing the imperfect surface amount
- to 80% in residential multifamily, like that doesn't follow the same logic. There might be a different
- rationale for that that people on the Planning Commission had in mind, but it's really not something
- that the resolution was intending to direct. And so I think those changes on the kind of larger lot
- higher density zones may not be warranted. Additionally, I just wanted to note that we had a packet
- addendum with legal memo from Council Attorney Allen that addressed the legality of incentives as an
- optional path for prioritizing electrification, very similar to housing affordability incentives that
- are not mandates or requirements. So just drawing my colleagues attention to that because
- City Legal did have a memo suggesting that some aspects of the proposed changes in this ordinance wouldn't
- pass. Legal Master, our council's opinion is the opposite. Also, of note, Corporation Council Rice actually
- had the opposite opinion that City Legal currently holds, which he went in briefly some months ago.
- Let's see. On the parking front, I respect and appreciate the thoughts shared by Council Member
- Piedmont-Smith. I will try to bring more
- research and data to the conversation when we talk about this at the next regular session about why
- and how minimum parking requirements both prevent housing from being built and increase the cost of
- housing. My general view is that when you have parking challenges, you regulate it through parking policy,
- not through housing policy.
- The public right-of-way, you're right, nobody is entitled to use the public right-of-way to store private
- vehicles. We do tend to use the public right-of-way streets as storage spaces for private vehicles in
- all sorts of ways. But the way to regulate that is through the neighborhood parking zones, their pricing,
- whether or not we're giving away unlimited guest passes to folks with no regulation for a nominal fee.
- We can actually manage appropriately all those things through parking policy.
- But I think undermining the development of housing out of an unwillingness to, I guess, pursue the parking
- policy route seems unsound to me. Moreover, I think when it comes to accessing the public right of way
- within a zone, within a neighborhood, everybody in the neighborhood should have equal rights to that
- space, actually. I think it's fine to have a neighborhood zone and say, yes, just people who live here,
- not people who live elsewhere, can park.
- In the area, but I've always found it a little strange that since 2018 we've said only people in detached
- single family homes can store their private cars on the street everyone else too bad. I don't appreciate
- that kind of I guess just discrimination in our neighborhoods against some residents. So I would favor
- and moving away from that as well.
- So yeah, I will try to bring some more information to the meeting next time and send to my colleagues
- in advance because there's many hundreds of communities around the country and a lot of academic research
- and empirical research that has been done on the problems with minimum parking requirements in terms
- of, again, preventing housing from being built and increasing housing costs. Lastly, just to thank you
- again to city staff. I think your work on this has been really, really good. I do have more questions
- that I'll need to follow up with the planning department about. They didn't need to take up time tonight
- asking. Thank you.
- Other comments? Okay. Let's go to public comment. If you'd like to speak on this ordinance, please approach
- the podium. You'll have three minutes, and please state your name or alias for the record.
- And sign in. Sorry. Good evening again, Council. This is Chris Rumge from the Greater Bloomington Chamber
- of Commerce. Over 920 members now with 80
- percent or more that are nonprofit or small business I Want to say I strongly support the ordinance
- before you tonight It gives more flexibility reduces unnecessary development costs makes it easier to
- build housing and reinvest in Bloomington support the broader development reforms of reduced setbacks
- smaller lots greater infill flexibility fewer barriers to housing and investment and increase the allowance
- from previous surface and
- These are just tools. We're working on the margins here in Bloomington just to make it a little easier.
- We don't have this undeveloped land, so we shouldn't overstate what this is going to produce. And I
- worry a little bit that we're going to amend this to the point of watering it down to where it's kind
- of meaningless. I think if you look at the PUD electrification, I don't know if sustainability goals
- really belongs in this particular one.
- Didn't come across as an incentive to me. It seemed more punitive in nature because we don't like PUDs
- I also thought that you know the business community eliminating the parking minimums. I'm going to agree
- with Councilmember Flaherty on that it lets business and property owners determine that sort of parking
- needs And what sort of infrastructure is needed in that? And I think it should include bicycles I think
- what what we're trying to do is make this a little easier where I've seen businesses pay firsthand
- For requirement infrastructure that may be used a handful of times a year. That's just not cost-effective
- We can't we can't legislate our way to change people's behavior quite like that and The less land and
- money devoted to requirements that may not serve the project is really in our best interest But I do
- want to say this does a lot of good and my compliments to the staff on this and the plan commission
- there I don't know a lot of the others Commissions in this state, but we have a really good one that
- really had a good
- Robust conversation about this. So overall I like the direction Bloomington is going Setting reasonable
- rules giving property owners flexibility ruling costs that don't solve clear problems So we encourage
- you to preserve these reforms while addressing the PUD provision And also just not throwing out the
- baby with the bathwater there might not this is not going to be perfect if not everything that we Want
- is in this
- Chambers would still support this because it goes and it moves in the right direction might encourage
- the council to have that same mentality as well Thank you Thank you
- Hello, my name is seaforth breeze they them pronouns. I'd like to express my support for this proposal
- I've been trying to follow this as best as I can through some of the public engagement sessions that
- y'all hosted and Like I think that this is moving us in the right direction in a lot of ways I think
- that the minimum parking requirements I would respectfully disagree that with
- Council Member Piano Montes-Smith, sorry. I think that for some of the reasons that were just stated,
- both by council members and by Chamber of Commerce, that it presents this stumbling block, especially
- for smaller developers and for individual households that are looking to make this change. That is a
- substantial upfront cost.
- that has to be absorbed to find that parking on that lot, right? And then when we're already having
- the like six foot sort of right of way, or not using the right terminology, but when you're already
- eating up a lot of that property for the fire department to get access and you're juggling all these
- other things, I think that is probably a step in the right, a wrong direction. I think that minimum
- parking requirements should be removed in this context.
- I think when it comes to the stormwater sort of retention and handling that, it might be interesting
- to try to look at neighborhood approaches that have been done in other cities, like with greenscaping
- and green infrastructure, where they move a lot of the handling of stormwater to the properties along,
- the green spaces that are by the street.
- and allowing that to absorb it. I think that that might be a more productive way of handling that than
- shying away from the impervious surface requirement. I think for many of the reasons that were laid
- out, that is a significant stumbling block on such a small property. So is it better to handle that
- there or is it better to handle that at the community neighborhood level where we look at when we're
- resurfacing roads how we can
- allow water to flow into catchments and things like that. And then finally, for the tree coverage,
- or no, I'm gonna adjust the bike parking. I think the bike parking minimums is actually a really good
- idea to reintroduce. Unlike the car parking requirement, which could be a very substantial investment,
- both for the driveways and for other sort of infrastructure, putting in bike
- Parking is very affordable and much easier to include. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Do we have
- any commenters on Zoom? Okay, let's go online and then we will come back to chambers. Hi there,
- Zach Emmerman. Just wanted to say I'm broadly supportive of this. I think reducing lot, allowing for
- smaller lots is a great thing.
- removing car parking minimums is another no-brainer, I think to me. I think all of those are great things.
- I would ask that you please add back in the bike parking minimums. So all of that I'm broadly supportive
- of, but the reason I wanted to talk was actually about the tree protection section. As far as I understand
- the way that this proposal was written, it would basically remove all tree protection from the smallest
- lots at all. It's not just the canopy retention requirements, although that's the bulk of it.
- It's all tree protection in the UDO is now would be gone for the smallest lots. The bulk of that is
- canopy retention, but there is already an exemption in the existing code under, I think it's subsection
- four, for small parcels less than two acres, which is roughly 87,000 square feet, much larger than the
- current, than the exempt, the 5,000 square feet. So there already is a variance allowed under the code.
- And just anecdotally, I live near Bryan Park,
- There's a house going in on the west side of, just to the west of Bryant Park on Henderson, on a very
- small lot size. I don't know exactly what the, I didn't get a tape measure out of measure, but it's
- a small lot size where they took down two trees, two large trees, to put in what's gonna be probably
- a very nice house. Now I'm all, I'm very supportive of putting one more house thing in. I think that's
- great. And I don't know the details of this specific lot, but the point of that is that they're already
- able to take down trees to build, to put,
- housing on small lots. Clearly, they already have the tools for that. The subsection four already includes
- the minimum. I don't think we should be adding in a blanket exception that would eliminate all tree
- protection for the smallest lots. I think that's going to introduce the sort of thing as like a death
- by 1,000 cuts that's slowly reducing our canopy over time. Yes, that's all I wanted to say. Thank you.
- Thank you.
- We'll go back to chambers if you could sign in and state your name for the record. That would be wonderful
- You'll have three minutes I'm Amber core. I'm with Bloomington homes for all we're a group of Bloomington
- residents who work on affordable housing and we believe housing is a right not a commodity and
- We ask you to vote yes on this ordinance. Right now the zoning code makes it hard to build anything
- except large expensive lots. This ordinance cuts minimum lot sizes significantly and totally removes
- the minimum lot size in two districts entirely. A parcel that could only ever hold one large house could
- now hold three or four smaller ones. The new ordinance lets a property owner
- add a second home behind an existing home without the need of a new public street allowing
- for multi-generational co-land ownership. That's more units being added without the city needing to
- build new infrastructure. I also want to highlight the rewritten single-family attachment changes
- letting townhouses and row houses be sold as individual condo units, not just built as rentals. This
- opens the door to home ownership at a price point a lot more of our neighbors can actually afford. Allowing
- four units per structure means more of those ownership opportunities are available to more working class
- people. Yet none of these zoning codes
- changes changes Sorry changes the Need to preserve the affordable housing that's already standing like
- the housing Bloomington Homes for all is fighting for at Seminary Point if this council is serious about
- affordability You must protect the housing that already exists
- while simultaneously changing the zoning codes that block the progress of new affordable housing development.
- When you vote yes on this ordinance, please don't think of this as a close and final effort on improving
- local affordable housing policy. Pairing zoning reform with improving tenant rights is critical work.
- Because loosening the rules on new construction does nothing for tenants who are already at risk of
- displacement. Bloomington Homes for All is already doing that tenant advocacy work and we will continue
- to do so with the support of this council. Thank you. Thank you. Go to the next person on Zoom please.
- Harry Bennett, Operations Director for Habitat for Humanity of Monroe County. We support many of the
- proposed amendments. Reducing minimum lot sizes, widths and setbacks, increasing impervious surface
- coverage, eliminating minimum parking requirements should all enable more homes to be built in residential
- zones. Bloomington needs more of all types of homes to accommodate full-time residency.
- people who want to live in Bloomington for the long term. That means a variety of starter family, empty
- nester and retiree homes for all income levels. In addition to these helpful changes, we're offering
- a few recommendations for your consideration. One proposed amendment that causes us concern
- is the requirement that planned unit developments meet sustainable development standards.
- Currently sustainable development standards are established as incentives, voluntary adoption of standards
- that allow developers to benefit from incentives to increase density and lower unit costs. Making this
- sustainable development standards a requirement for PUDs would prevent affordable housing developers
- like Habitat from using PUDs to develop neighborhoods. Habitat is the only developer
- and Bloomington building neighborhoods and selling single family homes to low income residents. Both
- of the neighborhoods that we've developed in Bloomington Trail View and Osage Place are PUDs. These
- are important tools for affordable housing because they give upfront certainty about development parameters.
- And that provides us clarity in determining our project scope costs and schedule.
- Sustainability is critically important to Habitat. Our homes exceed state building code standards and
- that includes the Indiana energy code. Yet we benefit from flexibility to pursue grants and donations
- consistent with various interests. For example, right now we're able to install solar panels on the
- homes that we're building in Osage Place. This was through a generous grant from the city of Bloomington
- and also funding that we received
- a cool corporation and a local donor. But when that funding is exhausted, we might not be able to afford
- to install solar panels. At that time though, we may benefit from other funding that is to put in a
- vehicle charging stations or maybe to use low building emitting materials. As you consider this provision,
- please take care to avoid negative impacts to low income housing developments
- that may not be able to afford to meet all of the sustainable development standards all the time. Thank
- you very much. Thank you. Testing. Great. We'll come back to chambers. Please state your name. You'll
- have three minutes and sign in if you could.
- My name is Kathy Berry and I have been, I guess to paraphrase others, I have been broadly not supportive
- of this ordinance. I have a couple questions, how tiny is affordable? Is tiny affordable? And how much
- infill do you need? I feel like the trends that this ordinance will
- encourage are already happening and to, to codify or to take away sort of the brakes on, on
- infill development could actually have an effect of causing the tear down of older houses. Right now,
- Bloomington does have a mix of houses. Um, I am a dedicated reader of the reports in the B square bulletin
- and the Herald time of housings,
- the recent sales of houses and how much they cost. This month, a 1,390 square foot unit in an established
- older condo development sold for $165,000. An 894 square foot fully remodeled older home on a roomy
- lot, a lot that has what would be considered
- you know, prime subdividing, sold for $230,000. Both of these are homes that I've walked past many times.
- They're near where I live. Also, a new home right now, a 920 square foot single family, single story
- home with covered front porch and a back deck is currently being offered for $420,000.
- And again, I wrote the addresses here if anybody wants to know, I'm not going to call out where people
- live because that's their choice. So I think that we have options to make these kind of changes now
- with the code the way it is and that these kind of developments will occur naturally. Thank you.
- Thank you. Now we'll go to Zoom. Hi, can you hear me? Yes.
- Hi, this is Paul Russo. I strongly oppose the UDO changes. An assumption I heard in the presentation
- from Mr. Grulick is that land without buildings or built infrastructure, such as large backyards, is
- necessarily land that is underutilized. Why would utility require construction? When land is used to
- grow food, is that land underutilized?
- When land is used to contribute to the urban forest, is that land underutilized? When land is used as
- permeable mitigation against storms and floods, is that land underutilized? Increasing density is growth
- by means other than sprawl, but it's still growth. I would like to point out the lack of any substantial program
- to increase the proportion of residents whose primary means of moving through public space is walking
- or bicycling. In such a setting, growth means more cars, more trucks, more congested fossil fuel trips,
- more impatient entitled drivers, and more life-changing injuries and death for pedestrians and bicyclists.
- The quest to increase density appears to be based on a myth
- that higher density will necessarily transform Bloomington to a place that is better for walking and
- bicycling. We're inviting more people who have no intention of not driving. These UDO changes have the
- cart before the horse. We're not going to get any closer to a sustainable village by first increasing
- the population. If people want to live in a city with a greater population, why don't they just move
- to Fort Wayne?
- Why does Bloomington need to grow? Who benefits from growth? Are children more likely to walk to school
- if we increase motor vehicle traffic? Will the typical Bloomington streetscape be improved by a higher
- density of motor vehicles? Who would benefit from increasing the size of Bloomington? How many of these
- people actually live in Bloomington? So what are we doing here? Did the citizens of Bloomington demand
- more growth when they were last asked
- a decade ago. Were the citizens emphatic about the need for more motor vehicles? Will the new Bloomington
- branding logo be a stylized hubcap? Thank you. Thank you. There's another next person on Zoom. You'll
- be able to unmute yourself. You'll have three minutes. Please state your name. Thank you. Hi.
- Thank you. This is Jan Sorby calling in.
- I want to say the idea of splitting quarter lots has long been a great idea. I think that's just a wonderful
- way to get more density and get more density that's rather invisible if it's part of your neighborhood
- historic pattern. So I wanted to say that. And Mark Cornett actually did a great study. I think it was
- in north, on the west side might have been the
- I can't remember which neighborhood it was. But he slid the lots on just the corners and he increased
- the potential growth density by hundreds of lots. I think that's great. However, I have to say that
- this is a huge step.
- It's a huge change to our UDO. It hasn't been 10 years since we adopted the current UDO. It hasn't had
- time to even see how it's going to work out. It's also a very broad brush application. And I think we
- need to look more critically at our different neighborhoods, the different structures, and see what
- we've got there before we make these huge changes.
- I will say my neighborhood has very, very, very few storm sewers on the interior of the entire neighborhood.
- We have had neighbors, one of the last great big floods and storms we had, we had neighbors that live
- right on the creeks that goes through Bryant Park and all of their basements filled with water.
- and ruined their furnaces. And I would have to talk to them, but there's very little that they could
- do about getting any remuneration for that. Also, we have to remember that there was a person who died
- when he got swept away a few years ago between Walnut and College. And that is in part because the Bryant
- Park neighborhood has no way of handling storm water.
- And until we get some stormwater capability in this neighborhood, I really think that this is a very,
- very bad idea. I think that we have to be careful. We have to do small steps rather than this big brush
- application. Each neighborhood has different capabilities. Each neighborhood has different kinds of
- streets. Each neighborhood has different kinds of limitations.
- And the one thing I'll come back to is I think splitting the corner lots is a terrific idea. It's what
- has been done for a long time. And I welcome that addition. But boy, stormwater mitigation with increased
- impervious surface and a couple of that with global warming. Thank you very much. That is your time.
- Thank you. Thank you. Is there anybody else on Zoom? Is there anybody else in chambers?
- Okey dokey. Do we have any motions. I would like to make a motion to move ordinance twenty twenty six
- dash twenty to a second reading on our next regular meeting at September 16th. Second. Okay. There has
- been a motion and a second. Could the clerk please call the roll. Council member Rallo.
- Yes. Ruff. Yes. Rosenberger. Yes. Flaherty. Yes. Stasberg. Yes. Piedmont Smith. Yes. Zulek. Yes. Sorry.
- Yes. Daily. Yes. Thank you.
- Thank you. We will continue that on September 16th and that concludes our Legislation for first reading
- and now we're moving to legislation for second readings and resolutions councilmember Piedmont Smith
- Yes, I move that we alter the agenda to discuss resolution 20 26-17 Before the other three items second
- second readings
- Okay, there's been a motion and a second to discuss resolution 2026 dash 17 before the rest of the second
- readings which would put our order in D ABC And there's been a second is there any discussion just the
- reason to do it is because we need this for next week So we don't want to get to the 1030 rule without
- passing it. It should be very fast everybody
- Councilmember Stossberg, I would kind of like to do a friendly amendment on this to have it in the order
- of D BC a because I think that C and B are also going to be quicker and that a is going to be the longest
- one I don't know if that's a friendly amendment Yes, I'll accept that as a friendly amendment and I'll second
- Okey-dokey, so the proposed order is now DBC a Is there any more comments Okay, well the clerk please
- call the roll Council member breath Yes Rosenberger yes clarity I
- Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you very much. That passes. Are there any other motions.
- I move that resolution twenty twenty six dash seventeen be introduced and read by the clerk by title
- and synopsis only second. OK. There's been a motion and a second. Any discussion. Will the clerk please
- call the roll. Councilmember Rosenberger. Yes clarity. Yes Sasseberg. Yes.
- announcement. Yes. Yes. Sorry. Yes. Daily. Yes. Rallo. Yes. And rough. Yes. Thank you. Thank you very
- much. Oh I'm sorry. Well the clerk please read.
- Resolution 2026 dash 17 approval of agreement with Community Justice and mediation center CJM to facilitate
- deliberation sessions on public safety count council sponsor Piedmont Smith.
- The synopsis is as follows resolution 20 26 17 approves an agreement between the Common Council and
- the Community Justice and Mediation Center to plan facilitate and report on community conversations
- on public safety which are to be held as part of the Common Council's deliberation sessions on September
- 9th and October 21st. Thank you very much. I move that resolution 20 26 17 be adopted. Second.
- Okay. All right. Thank you for hearing this. This is the result of discussions that I've had with Wyatt
- Lawson the director of C jam as well as with council members Zulek and Stasberg. Together we are planning
- the deliberation sessions. The first will be next Wednesday as I mentioned at the start of this meeting tonight.
- So you see the details here it's basically laying out very clearly what C jam will do as part of facilitating
- these sessions and then what's the responsibility of council members and we've been working together
- and have another meeting scheduled before next week and it's been going very well. So hopefully we can
- move ahead with the agreement to pay them any questions from council.
- Okay, we will go to public comment. Is there anybody in chambers who would like to speak on this? Is
- there anybody online? Okay, give it one more minute no takers, okay in that case we will come back to
- council comment any comments Councilmember Piedmont Smith. Oh, I just want to thank CJM for
- their collaboration and I think they are giving us a discount so Look forward to working with them
- Much-appreciated councilmember Stasberg. Sorry. This is a question. Can you just clarify which budget
- line this is coming out of? I think that attorney Alan may be able to clarify that Okay, thanks great
- any other comments Okey-dokey will the clerk please call the roll
- Councilmember Flaherty Yes Stasberg yes, Piedmont Smith. Yes, Zulek. Yes, sorry. Yes, daily. Yes, Rallo.
- Yes rough. Yes and Rosenberger Yes, thank you. That passes unanimously moving on to be a
- I move that resolution twenty twenty six dash fifteen be read by the clerk by title and synopsis only
- second Great. There's been a motion in a second. Could the clerk please call the roll? Councilmember
- Stasberg Yes, Piedmont Smith. Yes, Zulek. Yes. Sorry. Yes, Daley. Yes, Rallo. Yes, rough. Yes, Rosenberger. Yes
- Clarity. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Will the clerk please read Resolution 2026 dash 15 approval of collective
- bargaining agreement with Don Owens Memorial Lodge 88 Fraternal Order of Police. The council sponsor
- is Rallo. The synopsis is as follows.
- This resolution approves and authorizes the execution of a four year collective bargaining agreement
- between the city of Bloomington and the Don Owens Memorial Lodge 88 Fraternal Order of Police Incorporated.
- Thank you very much. I move that resolution 20 26 15 be adopted. Second. Thank you. If whoever is here
- to present please yes.
- Deputy mayor and with apologies to my friends in ESD in the public. Thank you for moving this a little
- earlier so we began our negotiations with the Fraternal Order of Police Union in spring had a very successful
- and and efficient bargaining session and just to recap some of the the substantial changes from the memo and
- This is a four year contract that locks in a three percent cost of living adjustment for each year of
- that contract. It increases the maximum longevity pay for 20 plus years of service from five thousand
- to twelve thousand five hundred which is on par with the longevity schedule in the fire contract that
- already existed.
- And the schedule was adjusted to rather than give us steady increase to give some more substantial increases
- at five, 10, and 15 years to encourage retention. It also includes some changes to the titles as you
- saw in the earlier.
- Legislation and that does require as you saw that will have a fiscal impact for the city of Wilmington
- But it also increases the amount of retirement pay that the state contributes That is that is the reason
- why we made that change it we pay a little bit more and the state also pays more so it increases the
- benefits to our Officers at a cost that is shared with the state we also made some changes to specialty pay and
- And the changes are largely made to encourage officers to get the specialties that we most need and
- to ensure that folks retain those and some of the high stress ones and add some new specialties that
- we need as a just.
- That you may be interested in the chief of police retains the right to say, you know Who is eligible
- for which specialty pay? So if you're concerned about costs that is controlled already through management
- supervision there is a budget and that budget is controlled by the chief making those assignments and
- finally the other most significant change was we made some changes to bereavement leave and compensatory
- time to Patrol and detectives work
- A work week means different hours for them. So in our previous contract, we talked about a week off
- for bereavement leave. If you're talking about patrol, what that meant was they would have 40 hours
- off, and then they would have to come back to work during their work week. And we wanted to ensure that
- they had the full work week off, which is the intent of the policy, and the same for compensatory time.
- to reflect the actual work week that they work based on the actual hours instead of standard hours.
- So those are the majority of the changes. And I'm happy to entertain any questions. And Mr.
- Post is here, who is the president of the union. And I also want to thank our other members of the team
- who participated, Ms. Kamasian, Kasmanian, sorry, and Adina, Corporation Council, the director of Human
- Resources and others.
- Thank you very much. Council President sorry. Thank you so much. Two super quick questions. The first
- one is what was the vote. The union vote. Thank you. It was 44 to 16. OK. And then and then the other
- thing that and this is it.
- I don't expect to necessarily deal with this here, but then thinking long term, I know going into the
- negotiations, one of the things that a lot of the union had talked about, and I think something that
- many of us here share, was concerns about sort of lifestyle support, not just bereavement, but just
- sort of mental health and just sort of like
- quality of workplace, you know type type things have we addressed any of those in any substantial way
- and and I'm not saying it particularly well, but You know just yeah So the the department does have
- quite a lot of resources in that regard and certainly the chief could speak to that Better than I could
- it was not a request
- This contract there were a few things that we talked about and went back and forth on that Ultimately,
- we determined if we did them it might not have the outcome we hoped for it might have some
- other repercussions But it is a concern and I would just reiterate that the number one way we can support
- our officers in their mental health is to become fully staffed so we appreciate all of your support
- with the previous contract and keeping our our our officers that the Salary and the benefits and these
- things contain the context
- Yeah, and I'm just just saying so I won't make any more comment but just saying that that's something
- you know very very happy to work on and support if there's things we can do around the edges to you
- know, just improve the lifestyle of our of our You know aside from benefits and pay just much appreciated.
- Thank you Thank you Councilmember Piedmont Smith Yes, I saw that there were there were 60 votes and
- How many people were eligible to vote it seems like a low number to me given we have 95 police officers
- That's a great question. I don't know the answer to that. Mr. Post Post president FOP 88 that was the
- total that there are 60 members that were currently eligible at the time of the vote and
- To participate we made sure to try to give everyone an opportunity We had voting over several days in
- order to do that. So that was the total amount. Yes Thank you Other questions Okay, we will move on
- to public comment anybody in chambers Come on up, please state your name again
- Post president FOP 88 again, we wanted to say thank you to the administration to Deputy Mayor Knapp
- for her team We had a very smooth contract negotiation this time. We all appreciated the like she said
- the efficiency And getting it done much earlier in the year and gave our members an answer to some of
- the questions that they had going forward especially with the Kind of the financial situation everyone
- finds themselves in you know from the state down
- This really helped throughout this year of them having some knowledge about what the next four years
- are gonna look like in their world So again, thank you Thank you very much. Is there anyone else in
- chambers that would like to speak? Okay, anybody on zoom Okay, coming back to council comment. Would
- anybody like to make a comment? Okay, will the clerk please call the roll I
- Yes. Councilmember Piedmont Smith. Yes. Zulek. Yes. Sorry. Yes. Daily. Yes. Rallo. Yes. Ruff.
- Yes. Rosenberger. Yes. Flaherty. Yes. Stasberg. Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much. That passes unanimously and
- I will entertain other motions I Move that resolution 2026-16 be read by clerk by title and synopsis
- only second There's been a motion in a second. Will the clerk please call the roll? Councilmember Zulek.
- Yes. I'm sorry. Yes, Daley. Yes, Rallo. Yes rough I'm sorry. I Didn't I didn't catch you on that one?
- But you said I'm sorry you said I'm sorry I
- I'm seriously confused. When I called your name, I didn't actually hear your response. Yes. Thank you.
- Rosenberger? Yes. Flaherty? Yes. Stosberg? Yes. Piedmont-Smith? Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much.
- And will the clerk please call or, sorry, will the clerk please read by title and synopsis only?
- Resolution twenty twenty six dash sixteen approval of collective bargaining agreement with the Bloomington
- Metropolitan Firefighters Local 586 council sponsors councilmember Rallo The synopsis is as follows
- this resolution approves and authorizes the execution of a two-year collective bargaining agreement
- between the city of Bloomington and the Bloomington Metropolitan Firefighters Local 586 I Move that
- we adopt resolution twenty twenty six dash sixteen second
- Okay Deputy Mayor nap welcome back me again Okay, so the main changes in this contract at first this
- is a two-year contract the contract we were Negotiating had also been a two-year contract. And so this
- is repeating a two-year contract It includes a 3% cost of living for each year of that contract it also increases
- adds some logistics and training officer appointments, increases union time off from seven days to 10
- days, holiday pay increases from $100 to $300. The most substantial change in this contract, though,
- is actually the addition of retirement, some special considerations for retirement. So for the benefit
- of the public, firefighters tend to need to retire long before the Medicare
- Eligibility begins and so there is a period of usually somewhere around 10 years that needs to be covered
- They do have Cobra options through the city of Bloomington Our insurance is excellent and it is also
- very expensive and so it's cost prohibitive for someone to retire and then pay the 14,000 some dollars
- a year for that insurance coverage so these are some provisions that were made to improve that situation
- and ensure that our firefighters who have given their
- Bodies to this service are taken care of one is a subsidy to that retiree insurance in the form of a
- $5,000 contribution for a maximum of ten years or until the member is eligible for Medicare And if they
- must also retain continuous coverage So you can't opt out of the city's insurance retire and then opt
- back in you have to be continuously enrolled when you retire and
- It also creates a new program. It's called a post-employment health care plan, a PEHP. This is something
- many fire departments use in which the city will deposit $150 quarterly per member. And then members
- can ask the city to also add funds in the equivalent of vacation time. So essentially they can say,
- rather than take this vacation time, I'd like to put it in my PEHP. It gives them some control over
- those funds.
- And...
- There were some other minor changes made, but those are really the big ones. The retirement insurance
- and creating this PEHP program, which has been a long-standing request of the union, is what we've got
- going here. And thanks again to our bargaining team. I neglected to mention that Chief DeKoff was obviously
- part of the FOP bargaining team, so I will not omit this time that Chief Kerr and Max Litwin were also,
- Deputy Chief were also part of that, along with our
- union members and Margie and and Adina from legal and Director paycheck dr. Paycheck from human resources
- Great. Thank you very much questions Okay Oh councilmember Piedmont Smith I have pretty much the same
- question as for the last agreement so I
- There was a vote of 88 to 13. So what is that? 101 It's does that represent all the eligible voters?
- I will defer that to President Jordan, Canada Jordan Canada president local 586 that number includes
- all but three firefighters and
- Who are not members. OK so all of the members voted except for three. Oh OK. So there are one hundred
- and three or one hundred and four total firefighters who are unionized. Thank you so much. Thank you.
- Council member sorry. And do we have any indication of the 13 or so who voted against the reasons why.
- No we don't get a report on that and I don't believe that the process includes it I know that of course
- there are always members who want more base pay and Thank you Okay, we'll go to public comment would
- anyone in the public like to speak about this I'm sorry Anybody on zoom
- Okay great. We will come back to council comment and maybe a question council member Stossberg. Sorry
- I was just a little slow on this question update this time. Is there a reason why the fire contract
- is two years and the police contract is four years. They requested it and we don't object. Okay thanks.
- Okay. Anybody on anybody else.
- In that case will the clerk please call the roll. Council member is sorry. Yes. Daily. Yes. Rallo. Yes.
- Ruff. Yes. Rosenberger. Yes. Flaherty. Yes. Stasberg. Yes. Piedmont Smith. Yes. Zulek. Yes.
- Thank you. Thank you. That passes unanimously. Congratulations. Are there any other motions? I move
- that ordinance 2026 dash 18 be read by the clerk by title and synopsis. Second. There's been a motion
- in a second. Will the clerk please call the roll.
- Councilmember daily. Yes, Rallo. Yes, rough Rosenberger. Yes, clarity. Yes, Stossberg. Yes,
- Piedmont Smith. No. Zulek. Yes. Sorry. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. That passes eight one. Who is here
- to present council member sorry.
- Oh, I'm so sorry. Go ahead councilmember daily We did oh I'm sorry clerk Bolden. Will you please read
- by title and synopsis? Yes ordinance 20 26-18 adopting guidelines and requiring formal written Commitments
- as a condition of eligibility for on-premises alcoholic beverage permits within eligible
- Statutory districts council member sponsor is a sorry the synopsis is as follows This ordinance establishes
- guidelines for any applicant to eligible alcohol permit programs found in Indiana code seven one seven
- point one three twenty
- Including those eligible licenses within the city's existing downtown redevelopment district and historic
- district This ordinance requires applicants to enter into a formal written commitment pursuant to Indiana
- code seven point one three Nineteen seventeen as a condition of eligibility Thank you. I Move that ordinance
- twenty twenty six dash eighteen be adopted second Okay councilmember, sorry, would you
- like to present an amendment. I'm sorry I wasn't on speaker. We've talked about this now several times
- and would love to introduce Amendment 1 if that unless there's an objection. Okay. Amendment 1 and I'll
- move very quickly over it. I think. Oh sorry. I'd like to. Is there a second second. Thank you. Okay great.
- Amendment one is is just a response to Discussions that we've had already around this ordinance and
- particularly reflecting sort of question and suggestions was raised by council members and stakeholders and
- Happy to go over it in detail, but sort of at a high level, remove several city created barriers from
- minimum eligibility and sort of move those into general considerations, particularly dealing with the
- sort of 60% food sales requirement, the 50% local ownership requirement, the Indiana formation, Monroe
- County office requirement, and the 260 day minimum operating requirements. So sort of all of those things
- are just sort of moved into general considerations that can be
- part of the written agreement but but we just wanted to sort of bring this down to the core while leaving
- it as sufficiently broad to accommodate other types of districts that might exist. So trying to be light
- touch about this in response to the comments that you've given before and happy to answer any other
- questions or if Director Cooper Smith would like to say anything. Otherwise that's a man.
- Great are there any questions on amendment one councilmember be another amendment to you I would like
- to offer an amendment to amendment one second Is it written So I sent this to attorney Alan earlier
- so that it could be displayed The there are certain sections of
- Amendment one that contradicts Indiana code which states in part except as provided in section 16.3
- of this chapter the commission may issue to the city of Bloomington not more than two three-way permits
- the following apply to a permit issued under the subsection an applicant for a permit must be a proprietor of
- an owner or lessee or both of a restaurant located within an economic development area, an area needing
- redevelopment or redevelopment district as established. So, um, taking out the requirements about being
- a restaurant, um, I think is, is kind of confusing and misleading. Of course, Indiana code would prevail
- anyway. Um,
- Because there's it always does and there's always a section in our ordinances that says you know if
- any part of this is superseded or is not deemed appropriate then all the other sections will still be
- applied. However I think it's much clearer to just take out to rest reinstate the sentences about a
- restaurant.
- because that is actually required by Indiana code. That's what this does. Mr. Allen can you display
- the amendment to the amendment please. Jane Cooper Smith economic and sustainable development. And I
- just wanted to offer a little context on how the phrase restaurant works related to this state statute and
- how we think about restaurants locally so I think about restaurants as the places that I go to buy food
- and eat but for the purposes of the ATC all bars are our food service establishments and are referred
- to as restaurants in the code so I'm just sharing that context to highlight that whether it's that that
- that the state code sees all bars as restaurants that's
- That's your face is how I feel about this also. I did move it and it was seconded. Councilmember sorry
- this and would love to tell you just guidance on this. I mean I think I was slightly over correcting
- on the on the amendment. So you know so I'm not opposed to this. I think the only question is
- We are trying to write this so it refers both to the two existing districts and also any other existing
- districts that may exist in the future the two existing districts do have the Restriction for restaurants
- Others do not and you can imagine another one in the future not having that restrictions like a rear-front
- district doesn't have that restriction that it be a restaurant to my understanding I might be wrong
- and so I think that's sort of the goal of keeping it and
- not specific to restaurants but just saying a business and then there's the prior thing in the amendment
- language that says that restaurant where necessary basically so but would love attorney Allen's thoughts
- just I mean whether this restricts us in any way to make it impossible for us to apply to other things
- or whether it's whether it makes no difference either way the way the the guidelines were already written
- There's several mentions of restaurant already in the guidelines besides these sections that are going
- to be deleted by this particular amendment. So I think it's fairly clear that it applies to restaurants.
- Also the basis of the guidelines is that to be an applicant in the first place you have to meet the
- criteria under the specific areas of Indiana code which for the two existing districts the historic
- courthouse district and the downtown redevelopment district means that you have to be a restaurant as defined.
- Indiana code which has a there are requirements for restaurants I mean minimum square footage how big
- the seating is and things like that But Jane is essentially correct as well Also, there are instances
- that don't necessarily reflect restaurant for future things But you would also have to develop those
- districts and so you'll have an opportunity Potentially to pass legislation to develop those districts
- and you could always amend this Or lay an addendum over top of it specific to that that district so
- I don't think
- Either way, I don't think this amendment hurts anything. I don't think that it necessarily Is going
- to change anything either way to be frank. Thank you councilmember Rosenberger We don't have this in
- the packet. Is that right? That's correct. It's being shared on the screen right now and I can we can't
- always see it. Okay It's hard I'm just trying to read it if that's okay my question is
- though, like, I mean, all of our bars are restaurants where you have to serve food or have food,
- you know, able to serve, right? So our bars have, like, soup or hot pockets or things. Like, I, we're
- not talking about making anything, like, a percentage again, though, right? That's correct. And I don't
- mean to speak for you, but that's correct. It's just justifying, like, bringing back the, like, I had,
- just deleted all the language that said restaurant and turned it into business in every instance. And
- so this is just bringing back the language of restaurant in there to align it with code, to be clear.
- I mean, it's, yeah. Got it. OK, thanks. Yeah, but there's nothing. The part about the 60% food,
- for example, that was sort of a more restricted way in the first draft is not in there anymore, regardless
- of the two amendments. Right, right. Got that. Thank you.
- Other questions on amendment one amendment to sorry amendment one to amendment one Okay, great we'll
- go to public comment on amendment on the amendment to amendment one Would anybody like to speak? Anybody
- on zoom Great. Thank you. We'll come back to public or council comment on amendment to amendment one
- Thank You councillor
- Happy to vote on it. Great. Well the clerk please call the roll. Councilmember Rallo. Yes. Ruff. Yes.
- Rosenberger. Yes. Stasberg. Yes. He wants me. Yes. Zulek. Yes. Sorry. Yes. Daily. Yes.
- Thank you amendment to the amendment one passes and now we'll discuss amendment one Any council member
- questions council member Stasberg Can you tell me why you got rid of the local ownership? Related
- requirements. Yeah, this was a little investment related stuff
- This was just brought up by several commentators, both by email and stakeholders that we met with, that
- the realities of ownership are often
- I mean, far more complex than sort of, do you live here, do you not live here? Of course, this still
- is within the things that ESD can consider in recognizing this, and I think that as we've stated both
- in the whereas clauses and in our much discussion here, I think that that's still the intention, but
- it's just not being
- super restrictive where we don't need to be Because if you say exactly 50% and then it's like okay,
- but what if the operators here and you know There's the owner moves out of town like there's just so
- many sort of variations to what? Locally owned like really means and so I think that's that's was was
- the idea there Other questions Councilmember Piedmont Smith Why was the reference to the living wage
- ordinance?
- Yeah this was just a just a legal recommendation. Not that we're not going to consider that but we don't
- have we cannot put that in a requirement because they're private businesses. So we can we can use that
- as our criteria to saying like well we're going to assume it. We will give these to people who are paying well.
- like as an example, but we cannot say, you know, you must do it this way or that way. I think is that
- the best way of describing it, Attorney Allen? Yeah, I think that's right. So it was to also avoid,
- essentially avoid confusion because we had a reference in there, but as situated right now, the way
- the living wage ordinance is worded, none of these would apply. The living wage ordinance wouldn't apply
- to any of these.
- And so it would create a certain amount of confusion and also potentially just just a lot of headache
- for staff in terms of a minute and many administering it. However you know if council wanted to change
- the living wage ordinance in the future that's an option to make sure it applies to these things to
- apply them. So under criteria it doesn't have like living wage or anything it says workforce practices.
- Could that include consideration of the pay? Correct. We could include consideration of pay. We could
- include that they have happy workers. We could include any of those things. But again, the goal here
- is to give
- ESD particularly the tools to use these available permits for economic development along the lines of
- our existing goals and strategies as a city so But I but I do think I think future work would be good
- to update I know this is you know work that councilmember rough did so long ago But I think would be
- great to think about adjusting that and we can amend it to apply to these cases if that's what we'd
- like to do Thank you any other questions
- Okay, we'll go to public comment on amendment one as amended would anyone in chambers like to speak
- Okay, anybody on zoom, okay, please state your name. You'll have three minutes A good evening council
- to Christopher MG from the great beyond Supporting this amendment and the great work of president is
- sorry on it I think as a stakeholder the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce Has been listened to
- and this is
- Cleans this piece of legislation up quite a bit. I think it streamlines it Makes it less complicated
- appreciate the work of Council Larry Allen on this we're gonna miss him when he leaves he's added some
- Press of input as well. So I just want to say we support this amendment. It improves good legislations
- and it makes it very good. Thank you Thank you very much. Anybody else?
- Okay, great we will come back to council comment on amendment one as amended Councilmember Rallo, could
- I ask a question? Could I ask the ESD director to comment on the 50%? Eliminating the local ownership
- component of the permitting sure I mean suppose I mean do we run the risk of competition basically pushing
- out local ownership and
- Yeah, I'm not I'm never sure how to thread the needle on these things this you know, I recommended the
- local ownership requirement To councilmember Asari's point there was a lot of feedback on a number of
- issues this included so I think that there are ways in the review process that we can ensure that there's
- major local impacts and that we're prioritizing our local players and
- But I think it just won't be through this 50% requirement Okay name, could you tell us those ways we
- prioritize sure well, I think we could I Don't know ask about that in the in the and forgive me I would
- request all of your patience I'm a morning person and it's very far past my bedtime. So just establishing that I
- We're just here to unlock your evening potential But this program is absolutely unlocking potential
- for our community it's doing it you guys are doing it even if you don't want to do it you're doing it
- So could I say one other thing? This is in the context of what? my colleague said earlier comes from
- a rough in that we are a community where there's a lot of money to be made and
- either in speculating and housing which we've seen and You know through rentals and things like that
- and Predatory Investors who may see this market as vulnerable without some local ownership requirements
- Are you in agreement or is this something we don't need to worry about? Sure keep an eye on sure
- Sorry, you finished I just well I think just to be a little more specific kind of imagining a model
- to unpack councilmember Asari's example like It capital structures can be complex and so there may be
- a local entrepreneur say a creative Who wants to open a new establishment? But perhaps two-thirds of
- their investors are from out of town. Would they then be disqualified?
- Opening a project even though maybe it's farm to table and local growers would benefit so I think we
- can see a lot of community benefit Even if there's outside ownership, but I would personally prioritize
- local ownership every single time if I have the ability to do that This is this sets it at zero. I mean
- if we're two-thirds Well, I don't know Yeah, so so so to to two important comments there and comment
- number one is that this actually the the
- desire to remove this came from local stakeholders. So this wasn't we weren't being lobbied from outside.
- I mean this was literally Ron Walker who was like this is going to make a little bit complicated to
- you know to figure out like you know how do I how do we move things. But it is still in the thing which
- is within the within the considerations local ownership structure is one of the things that should be
- considered. We just if we set it up as like it has to be 50 percent it makes it just
- Difficult to administer and and just a little bit more difficult to you know to to continue like so
- it presents just some challenges But I but a hundred percent agree like the the goal here I mean, that's
- why we both wanted it in the original thing. But again local stakeholders were the ones asking That
- this that this was made difficult Could I also respond with a process answer? So I would I plan on
- So the application process would go live the application will reflect the criteria and the guidelines
- and then we'll have an application cycle and I My plan is to treat this almost like a grant review committee
- because I think these are really precious resources I think it's a huge deal that we're considering
- bringing these into our market. And so I would want a panel of reviewers to
- Review the applications and complete complete scoring rubrics and have this be evaluated together And
- I don't know who exactly I want to have on that panel, but I would certainly want there to be council
- representation on it So I'm just sharing that to say that this These considerations will have oxygen
- and airtime As long as your est directory. Yeah fair You know, I have no doubt that you committed to
- that What's up?
- Yeah, okay So that I I'm troubled by this just simply because you know, I used to farm I used to sell
- products and There was no you know, there was there was lip service to buying local, right? There wasn't
- any fair point and I always came it up short. Yeah Yeah, I think this is gonna sink it for me that particular
- That's a good point Any final comments
- Councilmember Stasberg I'm with councilmember Rallo right now. I'm I'm uncomfortable with with completely
- removing the local and also the percentage of food sales versus other sales I I think that sixty percent
- may you know, like there was a discussion about that Is that the right number and I'm not sure that
- that's the right number But I think it completely eliminating the number
- Kind of de-emphasizes part of the purpose and point which was to not just give this to bars and and
- I think that I Think that unless it's actually part of the guidelines and
- Then it's not going to be sustaining through time. And so I think that it's really important that whatever
- we do we manage to make it both flexible but also sustain the vision that we have for it through time.
- And so I don't feel like that that does this. So I'll also be voting no on the amendment. Thank you.
- I would be I would be happy to I just think the.
- I mean I would be happy to scratch the this part from from the amendment and then I mean very easy to
- do and then we could issue guidance about like what does that mean in particular instances and we could
- do that via resolution for example right because so that if depending on what my colleagues want to
- do I'd be very happy to do that if Attorney Allen thinks that that's feasible and possible. Councilmember
- Rosenberger has her hand up. Please go ahead.
- I wanted to come on a couple things. I do think keeping this as flexible as possible is a good way to
- start. It can always be changed. I think I'm mostly looking at you, Council Member Stossberg and Rallo.
- I just think right now, to me, the point of this is taking away a major barrier to any kind of food
- or alcohol establishment.
- existing in Bloomington, you can't really run a successful restaurant without alcohol. You can run a
- successful bar. But like I talked about last time, like we don't have, we have like restaurants or we
- have college bars for the most part. And like, so we're missing this entire middle like, like world
- to hang out in because of our rules right now that you either have to pay $250,000 for a liquor license
- or you have to pay $250,000 for
- commercial kitchen. So I like that we're flexible and nimble on the food serving part of it because
- even if you had to do 30% food, you're looking at a commercial kitchen and you also won't survive. So
- I think that's really cool. And I did want to give one fun example. I used to live in multifamily housing
- in Detroit and my neighbors
- They created a perfume line and then they opened a bar that married different scents with different
- cocktails. And it was a super big hit and super cool in downtown Detroit. And like right now, that kind
- of thing isn't possible here. But it will be with this. So I don't know, I'm happy to change it as well.
- If not the food part, but the local ownership, but I also think
- Director Cooper Smith made a lot of good points. It's like where are we drawing this line and what if
- like the major owner is in Bloomington but the funders are from someplace else or vice versa. I think
- you get into murky waters there. So kind of I like the idea of like setting it and seeing what happens.
- That's it. Thank you. Would anyone like to make an amendment to Amendment 1 at this time.
- Tony Allen, is it, would it be possible to sort of do this by, would I need to write it and send it
- as an amendment as such? If you give me, you can make it orally so this is, but I can put it in writing
- so that we can display it. Well it would just be, because it would just be scratching one line of the
- amendment, right, instead of. So it would be removing possibly a deletion
- But the question is, do you want the amendment to be local ownership 50% or do you want it to be something
- else or do you just want it? Yeah, because I think the issue is less than 50% and more what local ownership
- means. And so I think we could give clarity afterwards on what do we mean by local ownership or something
- like that. Director Cooper-Smith, what do you two think? Can I just repeat to make sure I understand
- what's being considered? So you're suggesting that by scrapping that
- Amendment you could later define local ownership so we could it could be referenced in this legislation
- but defined later in a separate piece But are you retaining the previous recommendation for a percentage
- of sales to define a restaurant? No, no, they're just talking about the local ownership question So
- so scratching the part of my amendment which deletes that language in the original draft. I
- just scratch that line from the current amendment so that it retains that we want 50 percent ownership
- stake in and to be a local I Don't have any issues with that if that's if that's okay with you attorney
- I just have to pull it up and can tell you exactly the line Would that would that work for councilman
- Rallo I Don't I don't know if that
- would work for me, honestly. I would have to think far too much about that in terms of keeping that
- percentage in as a strict percentage. And so that's where, like, to completely remove the concept of
- local ownership from minimum eligibility requirements is, I mean, it's the same thing as my concern
- with the restaurant with at least 60% that I wasn't sure if 60% was the right percentage.
- I'm uncomfortable, you know not having something in there that emphasizes the importance of Of some
- kind of a food option and then similarly with the local ownership, you know, maybe 50% isn't the right
- percentage but I think that there needs to maintain that emphasis that you know, we're trying to support local
- entrepreneurial ship with these With these kind of special licenses I apologize. Is it okay if I yeah,
- okay, so I think that if you are interested in You know supporting true restaurants with a with significant
- food service what we've heard the business the feedback we've received from the community is that the
- percentage of sales is not going to be a
- Super great metric for doing that because depending on the operation The alcohol sales may still dwarf
- the food sales So one of the examples given was for a brewery that has high-priced beer and lower-priced
- pizza But they're moving a large volume of food But it's just imbalanced and so we were entertaining
- other there are other ways that are simpler to define a restaurant and that would also take ESD out
- of cumbersome annual compliance
- We would do compliance, but we wouldn't want to review sales records if possible, right? so what were
- those ways that you guys have figured out to Define that better because that's what I think would be
- nice to have in here. Well, this is why I think we ended up wanting to de-emphasize it in the criteria and place
- Emphasis on it in the guidelines in the review. We talked about whether it could be defined through
- the types of kitchen equipment that are on site But honestly, we didn't like legal review didn't necessarily
- endorse that as a as a way to do it So I don't think that we had a good answer. And so we thought it
- should be taken out of the concrete I moved into the qualitative
- open to facilitating that some other way. Thank you. Council member sorry I have nothing to say. I'm
- happy to either either introduce this or not but I think we should vote. Okay. If there's no other comments
- there's a revised amendment. Okay. That reinserts the 50 percent ownership.
- I mean and again, would you like to introduce this as an amendment? By me by me by voice members, sorry
- We could go I mean that I just think this was the original draft language that's what that is what director
- Cooper Smith and I had originally sort of conceived in our first drafting of this so I'm comfortable
- leaving that in and
- We can always like like Councilmember Rosenberg says we can always go back and change it. Okay. Would
- someone like to introduce I would like to introduce the amendment to thank you. So you can see what
- it says. Great. For the Second Amendment to Amendment 1. Does anybody have any questions. Okay. We'll
- go to public comment on the Second Amendment to Amendment 1. Would anybody like to speak. Thank you.
- Is there anybody on zoom.
- Would someone like to speak in chambers? You know, I'm Galen Cassidy here I think that this origin as
- it was originally laid out and there is appropriate is my opinion in terms of the percentage of food
- sales, I do think that the industry and the
- the hospitality industry, restaurant, and bars has a little bit more nuance than what was formally required
- in some of the original logic behind those food requirements. I think this town in general wanted to
- get away from just a bunch of sports bars. But I agree with what some of the council members have said
- about some cool, innovative concepts that maybe aren't super food-focused.
- The craft brewery scene in particular is it is a great example. So I support this but probably would
- support also leaving the The food requirement percentage out of it. So, thank you Okay, any council
- comments The clerk is not in the room so we can't call the roll I
- Will the clerk please call the roll on Amendment 2 to Amendment 1. Councilmember Ruff. Yes. Rosenberger.
- Yes. Stasberg. Yes. Piedmont Smith. Yes. Zulek. Yes. Sorry.
- Daily. Yes. Bravo. Yes. Thank you. That passes. And now we'll go back to Amendment 1 as amended as amended
- twice as amended. Are there any questions about Amendment 1. OK. We'll go to public comment on Amendment
- 1 as amended twice. Does anybody in chambers like to speak. Anybody on Zoom. Great. You'll have three
- minutes please state your name.
- Good evening again council Chris room drink great building a chamber of commerce For those of us home.
- Could you give a recap of where we're at? What was added and what wasn't in this amendment just because
- I think we just added the 50% We kept that in there from the original resolution and We took it out
- and we put it back in but the food is still out if that's if I'm got my scorekeeping at home and on
- that level I think this is still big improvement
- And again, I'm going to say this. We want to make this less complicated the better. We don't want to
- be looking at entrepreneurs and business owner books. And I think we've we've accomplished that. So
- my hats off again to President sorry for the work he's done and Director Cooper Smith as well.
- Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else on zoom in chambers. Great. We will go back to council comment for
- amendment one as amended. Would anyone like to speak.
- Councilmember Stasberg, I just want to say I I'm gonna vote no on this because of the the food and restaurant
- thing But I I also want to say that I don't feel as though I had the time to really understand this
- very well we This was sent out to us last night pretty late. And then today I was basically in Columbus,
- Indiana all day at a workshop and I was trying to read this during my like lunch ten minutes, so
- I am a little bit challenged right now because I feel like there's more in here that has been changed
- that I didn't actually get a chance to really look at and understand and digest. So the things that
- I pulled out, I'm glad that the local ownership emphasis went back in. I think that that does improve
- things to some degree, but I think that the restaurant thing needs to have better, something
- different and and better with it and I am I'm I'm just concerned that I Don't otherwise feel as prepared
- as I should be because of when this was received. Thanks other council comments Okay, will the clerk
- please call the roll on amendment one as amended by one and two Councilmember Rosenberger, yes
- Sosberg no Piedmont Smith. Yes Zulek. Yes, sorry. Yes, daily. Yes Rallo. Yes rough. Yes Thank you. Thank
- you that passes seven one Now we are back to the original ordinance as amended would anybody on council
- like to ask a question
- Okay, let's go to public comment if you would like to speak on Ordinance 20 26-18 as amended, please
- approach the podium And if you're on zoom raise your hand we'll get to you Gail and Cassidy again, so
- I think I've made my opinions clear on this just appreciate from the staff
- You council members for hearing this out and a lot of you may not realize this but This a version of
- this ordinance is over 20 years in the making And it's been a long long time and I can't say enough
- about a lot of the things that have been mentioned about encouraging economic growth and giving a low
- barrier to entry for a lot of young entrepreneurs that we're trying to attract to this community to
- start some really cool
- restaurant or bar concepts or otherwise and Just appreciate all your times the the Late nights
- and everything. So thank you for everything. Appreciate it. Thank you very much Is there anybody else
- in chambers who would like to speak on this? Is there anybody on zoom? Great, please state your name
- and you'll have three minutes Thank you again, Christopher mg greater Bloomington chamber of commerce.
- I want to echo mr. Cassidy's words which were exactly mine, but I think we
- have to realize why this is such an important tool. We want to keep it predictable, these permits, so
- they can capture new investment, fill in some difficult properties, create new business that otherwise
- might not happen, and this is a vehicle to do that. We're hoping that these applications have big investment,
- and what's causing the big investment is, oh, these
- Sort of streamline cheaper liquor permits that allow that to happen when in our community does not happen
- $250,000 that's a barrier. And so this is really taking that out and seeing what we can uncover based
- on that So appreciate all the work of everybody involved We support this. Thank you Thank you. Is there
- anyone else on zoom? One last call for chambers. Oh Is it
- Um, we'll go back to council comment. Would anyone like to speak on any final comments? Oh, council
- member Rosenberger. Yep. Just a quick final comment. I, um, I think what Mr. MG just said, I wanted
- to echo that a little bit that or, and also Mr. Cassidy that this is a 20 year thing and I thank you
- to staff and council members for working on it.
- I'm my tiny pessimistic view is that or that, you know, I just kind of want to say people are always
- saying Bloomington is so ahead of the game and all that stuff like my hometown, New Albany did this
- 20 years ago. And it's totally changed the downtown and that made it cool for people. We don't have
- that problem exactly, but it was like just all good things and no bad things, which is really exciting.
- And so the next thing to me in our year is New Albany recently became
- Adora district where you can carry alcohol around Outside all the way from downtown to the river, which
- doesn't mean a lot to some people But it's just an idea that we had with Kirkwood being open to humans
- and we could potentially do that again here after this Thanks Thank you. Any final comments Great. Will
- the clerk please call the roll? Councilmember Stasberg
- Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you. That passes.
- Wonderful. All right, well, this leads us to the last item. Where is the agenda? The last thing on our
- agenda, we have one last time of public comment. You get the privilege of giving a public comment at
- 11, 15 at night on your, you know, surely it's on someone's to-do list. Anyone, public comment on anything?
- Anyone online?
- Which case I'd like to read some Camus quotes. No. All right. So going back to council schedule or other
- than obviously next week we have the Council deliberation session Councilmember Stossberg, there's a
- fiscal committee meeting this Friday at 830 and Allison conference room. You can also access it online.
- Thank you tremendous
- I I don't know the date yet, but I'll work with clerk and council staff on thinking about we need to
- do I Don't if appropriate, I think an executive session For for initial onboarding of our new candidate
- those things and if it's appropriate, I don't know if it is But anyways, we might hear about that Kate
- Councilmember Rosenberger. Sorry question pedestrian safety
- Committee is working on meeting and if you all remember when we passed our 2026 funding recommendations
- We asked planning staff to come back mid-year to give a report and I wanted to ask if council wants
- that report only in writing or if they would like a presentation and a report Thoughts Writing is fine
- with me writing is fine. I
- with us and we can ask you questions on a written report, I'm sure. OK, great. Thanks. Excellent.
- With that, adjournment.