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.