We are doing second readings of our budget ordinances, and we have a first reading of the budget ordinance.
There'll be opportunities for public comment during each of the ordinances, including whether there's
any amendments. You'll also get opportunities to comment on that, both in person and online. Are there
any motions before we get going?
I'm so sorry Yes, I move that we amend the agenda to put item 4b before item 4a second motion in a second
all those in favor I Any opposed thank you very much. So item 4b, which is the Bloomington Transit Budget
will go first and then and then we'll proceed with a C D then E any other motions
All right, would anybody like to make a comment or any other such thing at this moment? All right, seeing
none, then we will proceed with legislation for first readings. Are there any motions? I move
that appropriation ordinance 2026-04 be read by title and synopsis only by the clerk. Second. All those
in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Will the clerk please read?
Appropriation ordinance twenty twenty six dash zero for an ordinance adopting a budget for the operations
maintenance debt service and capital improvements for the water and wastewater utility departments of
the city of Bloomington Indiana for the year twenty twenty seven. The synopsis is as follows
this appropriation ordinance approved by the utility service board in July of twenty twenty six sets
the water wastewater budgets for twenty twenty seven.
Okay any other motions seeing none we'll move on to legislation for second reading Excuse me point at
point of order. So is there nobody here from utilities to so that we can have a discussion tonight on
since his first reading or
Yes, I believe director Zager is online and available for questions if council has any questions I just
did just want to clarify that this is the first reading for the Water and wastewater utilities budget
and this budget is not connected with the state process that we're going through for the civil city
of her Bloomington transit But I believe that there are utilities folks online available for questions
of council council has any Excellent. So then in which case are there any motions? Yes
Move to discuss appropriation ordinance 20 2604 second Second motion in the second all those in favor
of discussing I any opposed All right Will the clerk please read up? Sorry that is before us. So So
with that Director Zager if you would like to take it away we get these computers on as well Don't worry
if not, don't worry. We can always turn around But take it away
Director Zee if you're there. Yeah I'm just bringing our appropriation ordinance for our budget for
the year 20 27 which you saw a presentation during the budget presentations. This is just the legislation
reflective of that. All right. Thank you so much. Are there any questions. Council member Stossberg.
So just for clarification.
This ordinance is just what was presented during budget hearings. There's nothing different about what
is here this evening versus what we heard during budget presentations No, great. Thank you customer
Puma Smith Can you explain what the depreciation fund is for both the water and then the wastewater I
Yeah the depreciation fund those are depreciating assets. And that is just reflective of the value of
those depreciating assets. OK can you explain it to me like I'm 12. So yeah yeah. So we have you know
all of our our trucks and our equipment just like your car loses value every year.
And so that line is reflective of that for all of our assets. Does that help make sense of that? Well,
if something is depreciating, it's decreasing in value. So why do we have $4.9 million appropriated
from the depreciation fund?
Let me, sorry. Like where does that money come from? Because things depreciate, they become less valuable.
So where does this 4.9 million come from? That is a good question. I will get back to you on that. I
apologize that I don't have the explanation for depreciation in front of me right now.
but I can get back to you on that. Controlling McCam is approaching the podium. I did not help formulate
this budget, but I can tell you that in general, a depreciation fund for a utility would be essentially
a fund that would house resources that would be used to repair or maintain depreciating assets. So that's
why there's actually a positive number in there.
Okay. So maintenance and replacement of depreciating assets usually essentially. Yes. Okay. Well director
Zager if you could research that and get back to us I'd appreciate it. Absolutely. Mr. McCain any other
questions. All right. Seeing none we'll go to public comment if anybody would like to comment
on appropriation ordinance 20 26 0 4.
Anyone in chambers. Surprise. Anyone online. Surprise. So let's come back to council. Would you like
to make any comments. Councilman Smith. I'll just say for the benefit of the public we also have a stormwater
utility but that budget is included with the wastewater. Excellent. Any other comments. Councilman Stossberg.
Thank you.
I'll just thank the utility folks directors acre and whoever else is online for being there to be available
in case we need them. Thank you All right with that then we'll move on to legislation for second readings
we'll be discussing this Don't we need to recommend it first? Yeah. Yeah, actually motions. Are there
any motions? Thank you. I move
to send appropriation ordinance 2026-03 to the next Regular session on October 14th Oh for can you amend
can you amend your motion to be the correct ordinance? Oh my gosh. Yes. Sorry. I amend my motion I meant
to say appropriation ordinance 2026-04 to our next regular session on October 14th second motion and
second all of those in favor of
Thank you very much. This will be discussed at our next regular session moving on to legislation for
second readings I Move that Appropriation ordinance 2026-03 be introduced and read by the clerk by title
and synopsis only Motion in a second any discussion all those in favor No, we motioned to move oh three
before oh two and then all said yes Yes
Alright, so the motion is to read 20 2603 by title and synopsis all those in favor Any opposed all right,
and will the clerk please read It's 20 26-03 in ordinance for appropriation and tax rates of for Bloomington
Transit Corporation for 2027 Thank you
I move that appropriation ordinance twenty twenty six dash three be adopted. Second. All right. Would
you all like to add anything since last week. Just introduce yourself sir. Yes thank you. I'm James
McClary chairman of the board of limited transit. I would like to introduce our new general manager.
He started action yesterday and we've got him fully engaged Nick Good evening council. It's nice to
be here. Nice to meet everyone and I'm looking forward to Working hard for Bloomington transit. Wonderful.
Thank you so much and welcome Nick last name stand-off er Good to meet you director center for
All right. Anything else. I believe we had four questions. Is that correct. I think we had four questions
from council at the last hearing and I think we've responded to all of them. And I don't know if everybody
is comfortable with our answers but we gave answers to all of them. So thank you. Thank you so much.
Council members first. Happy with answers. All right. Any other questions then.
Councilman Smith. So in a packet of denim today we received a presentation of your budget proposal.
I didn't have time to look at it. Was there any change from last time. OK. So I wasn't for sure what
we did at this meeting the third means I don't normally come to this meeting. So I reached out in case
we need to do a presentation.
Never spend no changes since the September meeting. So I just kind of prepared something real fast if
I needed to present something So there's no changes now Okay. Thank you. Ms. Browning That was Krista
Browning for the record. Thank you. Sorry Okay, any other questions? All right. We'll move to public
comment. Does anyone is there anyone who'd wish to comment on ordinance? 2020 603 Anyone online
All right, coming back to council, any comments here? Seeing none, I'll just make one, which is, well,
I'll save this joke for later, but I think obviously, thank you BT, one of the highlights of Bloomington
is that we have a,
a relatively strong public transit. We know that given the, you know, fiscal constraints, especially
with the end of ed lit funds, both going to you but generally that fund ending, you know, as well as
just general pressures in the space that we're facing, you know, hard times ahead and I, you know, really
look forward
over the next year, working together, try to figure out what that looks like and how we can best support
that to make sure that we continue to maintain a really strong public transit, especially if those things
involve combining with IU, whatever those type of things, conversations that need to start happening,
and hopefully we can start having those conversations now, rather than, I don't know, a year from now.
And so, very much thanking you all for the work and welcome to our new director and thank
Thank you to the amazing board members who continue to serve the city and many of whom who served the
city for almost as long as I've been alive. So Thank you all very much for that. So with that Oh council
member Stossberg. Go ahead. Sorry. Yes I just wanted to mention because I had a couple of questions
last time and I just wanted to mention that those did get answered to me by email and just say those
out loud one of my questions was about
The reference to health insurance for BT increasing by so much and whether or not the city insurance
could cover BT and that answer is no That's just not not possible and then the other one was about increasing
fares and the conclusion is that increasing fares is going to decrease ridership and disproportionately
Affect lower-income folks. So the decision at this point is to not increase fares, but
And I just wanted to put that on the record somewhere. Thank you so much customer be much with And and
the answers to my questions were sent via email and they're were included in our packet in case anybody's
wondering Thank you so much. All right with that Will the clerk please call the roll on ordinance? 2020
603 Councilmember Flaherty
Yes, Stossburg. Yes, Piedmont Smith. Yes, Zulek. Yes. Sorry. Yes, daily. Yes, rough Thank you. Thank
you very much. Have a wonderful year All right any motions Thank you. Thank you all I move that appropriation
ordinance 20 2602 be introduced and read by the clerk by title and synopsis only second
There's a motion to second all those in favor any opposed Appropriation ordinance twenty twenty six
dash zero two and ordinance for appropriations and tax rates establishing the twenty twenty seven civil
city budget for the city of Bloomington the synopsis is as follows an appropriation ordinance adopting
the city's annual budget and establishing the necessary tax rates tax levies and Appropriations for
the city's obligations for the fiscal year ending December 31st twenty twenty seven
Thank you very much. I move that appropriation ordinance twenty twenty six dash zero to be adopted.
Second. OK. Fantastic. Before sort of searches how would you all. I mean we have lots of amendments
there's response from the mayor to a lot of proposed things. How would you all like to structure this
part of the conversation best if you have any opinions. Otherwise I'm happy to just say what I think
is best. And any thoughts.
or strong thoughts here.
Let's hear what you think is best. OK. Well, what I would suggest that we do is maybe first we can either
if any council members have any particular things they'd like to say, it would be a good time to do
it. You can do that any time you want. I will happily engage with that. I think it would be very useful
to hear from the office of the mayor that wrote a very useful memo to some of the conversations that
we've had and some of the pending questions. And then I think it will be good for us to then go through
amendments as the sponsors may wish to introduce those or not.
Seem appropriate because we're pretty much Smith It may be more efficient to Since the the mayor's office
both had an introduction I think they're welcome to speak on first, but they also had specific feedback
on So maybe when we get to so those reactions could be when we when and if we introduce those Yeah,
I think that's a great point. Thank you. Thank you for saying that does seem good for everybody Does
that seem good for you all?
All right. Well great then any would you like to say anything as we open up anyone sitting in the beautiful
corner over there? No. All right, then we'll come to you councilmember Stossberg. I'll move amendment
one to Appropriation Ordinance twenty twenty six oh two second All right, go for it You want to tell
us a bit about it? Amendment one is the one that reduces the sanitation subsidy from 1.6 million down
to 1 million pending
The fiscal committee got a presentation from sanitation regarding increased rates. And so there is an
assumption that that increased rates would would mean that less subsidy is required.
This does not guarantee in any way for the public that your rates would increase because we've always
come back next year for an additional appropriation for that six hundred thousand dollars if the increase
fails at the council level. But I think that it's a good preemptive step because we don't know right
now what's going to happen with that increase. Yeah. Thank you so much. Any questions or further comments.
member Zulek Just read for the Public record the administration's position as they support it and they'll
bring new rates to counsel in the fall Okay Thank you very much any other comments All right, would
you all like to add anything? Okay, fantastic Let's go then to public comment. Would anybody like to
comment on amendment one? Anyone online
All right. We'll come back to counsel. Any comments here. All right. Fantastic. Will the clerk please
call the roll on amendment one. Let's try that again. Sorry. Council member Stasberg. Yes.
Piedmont Smith. Yes. Zulek. Yes. Sorry. Yes. Daily. Yes. Ruff. Yes.
Yes, thank you. Thank you very much that carries I'd like to move that we introduce amendment three
Yeah, amendment three Second I don't think you can second if you're gonna second Councilman
President Asari, would you like to tell us about Amendment 3? So first, I'm not introducing Amendment
2 after our work session. I think that was a fairly good answer about what that $600,000 was for. Amendment
3 removes funding for corridor and sub-area and other planning studies. Again, I think we talked about
this in depth about sort of my thinking around this amendment specifically, but I
would like us to have very clearly scoped out studies with clear sense of what we're going to do with
them would prefer fun plans than studies. And so generally speaking my position has not changed on that.
So that's what Amendment 3 does. All right. Does anybody have any questions for President Asari or for
the administration or
I invite you to come up and make a comment. Yes. Thank you. If you have any thing that you would like
to say Good evening. I'm Lynn coin. I'm the interim director of planning and transportation pleasure
to be here this evening. I We gave you a detailed response to the budget so I won't belabor that and
go through it I'm going to assume everybody reviewed that
Think the key points to remember are one. This is a precursor the study is a precursor to Gateway to
other funding and projects down the road as we mentioned in the response the timeline is very far out
and everything begins with a study such as what we're proposing so Would very much appreciate you allowing
us to go forward with this as it's scoped into
It's scoped generally at this point because we do not know Until the study is done where the specifics
will lead and that then leads to applications for funding it leads to engineering design And so forth
our follow-on events to this. So this is the precursor event without this that doesn't happen Okay in
addition It wasn't in the memo but the
This is part part of this responds to the safe streets for all grant the 1.44 million dollar grant that
was awarded the city earlier and the transportation portions of this study Will be eligible for reimbursement
under that grant as an example if 50% of this grant is allocated to transportation work then
We could submit for an 80 percent reimbursement of that portion of the grant. So the cost likely will
not be two sixty five in the end depending on how much reimbursement we can get for the transportation
portions of the study. Again I won't go over all the details of our response. I'll spare you that but
I'd be glad to answer questions if you had any. Does anybody have any questions.
Councilmember Stossberg and then councilmember Piedmont Smith what happens to your process if this Amendment
passes and these studies are defunded Well the process stops We'll continue with studies we have in
progress and then we'll have to regroup and figure out what we can do with what we have and
Take it from there the last study for example on downtown land use was in 2008 18 years ago and one
of the things we really want to get going under the comprehensive plan is a re-evaluation of that given
the Convention Center everything that's going on downtown plus the land south of Second Street The Clear
Creek corridor study that's going on. Those are also very important components. So there's the land
use component that
Will back off there's a transportation component. There's the economic development and vitality component
these just Will get put off. But what's the consequence of those things? stopping like or being put
off like what is the well We will not be able to adapt to changing conditions Okay, which is what we're
trying to anticipate. Let's talk for a moment about
The land immediately south of second Street down Walnut Street is part of the downtown zone. It's a
gateway downtown zone. It has very restrictive zoning. We have properties that are Increasingly going
unused and vacant. We need to find a way to revitalize that and part of that could be an adjunct to
this for example plus the downtown the square the coming College walnut study the impact of that and so on and
We just have to go back and regroup see what we can do to move those along. So OK. Thank you. Sure.
Councilmember Piedmont Smith. Yes. So in the memorandum from the administration regarding this amendment
talks about the downtown corridor stay including Kirkwood Avenue.
This is a question for the mayor Since it's only tangentially related to planning and transportation
But prior to the study of the Kirkwood corridor and As as called for in the transportation plan to think
about how to convert it to a shared street What is the administration's position on?
having Kirkwood seasonally close to vehicular traffic next year? Well, our position remains the same,
that we need a study to figure out exactly the right way forward with Kirkwood and how we can design
it to be the street that we envision that really maximizes safety and business and vibrancy for downtown.
But the plan was, if you recall,
that we would put the RFP out for this corridor study so that we could get moving on that in good time.
So we had anticipated putting that RFP out this fall so that we could get the plan done early next year.
And just to connect the dots here, I think Council Member Stossberg asked what happens if we don't go
forward with these plans. If you don't go forward with the plans, we can't,
Complete the work that is in things like our transportation plan We we fall behind on that if we don't
complete these plans. We also can't apply for funding so these various safe streets for all grants the
the the corridor improvement plans and the grants that we get from federal transportation they all
are contingent upon having these plans done well in advance and having the community commit to the planning
process and having it signed off on. So it is not the case that we can wait for the grant to come out
and then do the plan. We have to have a plan in place so that we can apply for these grants. So we lose
out on funding if we say no to plans is the long and short of this.
Specific to Kirkwood you're saying that this bigger Kirkwood corridor study which is only funded for
30% of the design is Needs to be done before we consider a seasonal opening of Kirkwood next year Is
that what I'm that was part of the plan? Yes to to get this done and get it moving so that we can consider
carefully what it's going to take to close Kirkwood if we do it and
All right, thank you. Any other questions? I have one or two clarification questions. So we talk,
you know, I understand we have to have a plan set to be able to apply for the funding. Could we have
theoretically
I'm not talking about any particular project but theoretically could we have a plan for something without
having done a study first do we have to show a study that has crafted that plan or Dictated that plan
as a general rule to apply for the federal funding. They have very specific requirements You have to
have as I listed in the memorandum your study problem your study objectives conditions assessment alternative analysis
Transportation project a basis for quantitative marriage determine how the alternatives work. It's It
is an analysis. It's an analytical plan of current conditions and what you intend to do in the future
it is and It takes a lot of time and expertise and a consultant to get that done so that it's in the
drawer and ready to go Not only for funding but actually for our own activities internally so but it
is a critical precursor to the funding
Okay, so you couldn't just say this is what we want to do I cannot give you a one-pager of this would
be really good if we could do this right and hand it to the federal government It's competitive and
we wouldn't make it and I I think so my sense is some of the frustration around the studies is that
we hear about several studies and Then nothing seems to happen from them, you know, we hear that, you
know college and walnut is being studied Indiana is being studied and then
A long time will pass and we don't hear anything. What is the shelf life for these studies? Like,
you know, how long can those be good to then later come back and be like, oh, here's the grant. Now
we can implement it. That depends on the funding situation. How long is the shelf life? You'd hope in
your analysis that it is a long shelf life, that it is a good plan. It's a durable plan and it will
stay in place as you seek funding as it becomes available.
The city doesn't have the funding to do the entire project It depends on federal support state support
and that is situational. Some of them have five-year lead times The tip for example is a two-year lead
time. So It is constantly in use as those funding cycles present themselves to us So how long it takes
a lot of that is outside our control. It depends on funding availability from the state and federal
government
Thank you, and we hope we're there when that happens. That's the point of all this understood. Thank
you So I think the the sequence of the study that planning does and then and sometimes some of that
work is done in-house and sometimes when it's complicated it requires external expertise and then it
moves on to engineering for design so a study is typically only 30% of design because
they're not doing the actual technical design. They're saying 30% of this is what you should be doing
in general. And then engineering flushes that work out. That work also takes time. So for example, with
Indiana Avenue, if planning had been able to arrive at a consensus that pleased everyone, or even most
of the people, or even some of the people, none of the design satisfied anyone, the next step would
have been for it to go to engineering for design. By the time
Completed the design then it would be eligible for funding that is a multi-year process It just doesn't
go fast one of the questions I asked planning recently that might be of interest to you was When you
have a project like the college and walnut study very big study and at the end of it we found out it
has 120 million dollar price tag, which is a very large number now we can still
Execute pieces of that and apply for funding using that plan, but 120 million dollars is a lot So the
question I had for planning was when we hire a consultant, how do we both? Leave room for imagination
and creativity show us what we could do with downtown show us. What are the options for Kirkwood but
also not Put ourselves on a path to getting another hundred and twenty million dollar plan if we were
designing a house the first thing our architect would ask is what's your budget, but we don't want to
restrict and
We want to see all the ideas. So there's a balance there. And it is frustrating that things take a long
time. But that is the process. And I was sharing with Councilmember Piedmont-Smith earlier that I hear
in council meetings every year the question for the planning director, why isn't there any implementation
money in your budget? Where's the implementation money? It's because planning isn't the department that
does the implementation. That's engineering. They do the design.
issue the RFP supervise the construction. So plannings implementation would be more like quick studies
with temporary measures to see will this work if we put it in concrete. Does this is this having the
effect that we want it. So just a little extra context. Thank you. Any other questions second round
other first round questions.
I'll have one quick second round question, then, since nobody else has a question. This is for President
Asari. How did you come up with this number for this? It's just the total number. The total number.
Yeah, it's all of the studies. Got it. And also, I mean, I probably should have said this at the beginning,
but we talked about this in other ways. I think that an extent of this, and I think we're having that
conversation now, which is very useful, is whether or not we want to
have sort of studies commissioned, like just as a standard protocol in practice, whether we would like
those type of things to have to come to council on a individual basis or not. I'm putting that out there
as a discussion point rather than as a position point. And again, I think as I said in the
As I said in our working session, I think that perhaps this is somewhat influenced by some recency bias
where we funded a thing and then got a thing back where we're sort of like that isn't necessarily what
we would have funded had we have had more influence on it or something like that. And so I think sort
of that's the approach here of saying, are these appropriate? I think the conversation is spot on in
the sense that
Look I mean there's there's three distinct studies that are that are being put here. One of them not
totally scoped out two of which are somewhat scoped out. So I mean sort of depending on what the feeling
on councils but I but I don't I don't think of the things that we've proposed. I mean I don't. Yeah
I mean I'm happy to happy to not waste time and move on. All right. Thank you.
We'll move to public comment now anybody in chambers or online like to make public comment on amendment
2 For appropriation ordinance 2026 dash amendment 3. Yeah, forgive me amendment 3 for appropriation
ordinance 2026-02 Nobody online. I don't see anybody Trampling each other to come to the podium All
right. We'll come back here for council comment before we take a vote on amendment 3 I
Whose hand is that I'm sorry Councilmember Stossberg. Thank you. I'm not in favor of this particular
amendment I don't have any I don't think that it's good use of council time to approve these sorts of
things as they come I think that it's really important to keep in mind the the long
Picture in planning and land use and that doesn't just have to do with transportation corridors Even
though a lot of them have talked about transportation corridors It also has to do with economic development
related stuff and just what are we going to do with? the land that we have In terms of within the city
of Bloomington what what kind of initiatives should we have? What kind of zoning should be in different
places? There's lots of potential
Study kind of stuff and I think that recently some things that have been highly cited have been safe
streets for all plan and the changes that we as council said that we wanted to get to zero fatalities
and serious injury crashes and in order to do that we need to have studies to To make that work possible.
And so I think that it would just not be a
Beneficial thing for the city to to cut off these studies. So that's it. Thank you Thank you any other
comments on amendment three All right, seeing none will clerk please call the roll on amendment three
Councilmember Piedmont Smith No Zulik No Sorry also no daily
No breath yes clarity no Stasburg no All right that amendment fails something to two one two three five
to two One to one. Oh, sorry. Yes six six six one Oh, I have to do it the other way one six I Didn't
have training for this job, please. Okay
Apologies great. Thank you moving on to amendment for also councilmember. Sorry, would you like to present?
Oh, I'm sorry. I Don't want to move it. Yeah Can we move amendment? This is some of some of the simple
ones like amendment 14 I would propose we do amendment 14 instead of amendment What's the next one of
mine amendment five? Thoughts that's yours councilman Piedmont Smith
I mean I suppose I can move your amendment but you know so I'd move that we put forward amendment. Well
actually I'll put forward Amendment 5 if there's a second second.
It will not waste time on this because I think you know we can consider at the same time amendment 5
and amendment 14 Within the response given by the mayor's office to amendment 5 they make a counteroffer
I think reasonable so I'm happy to amend this amendment to
counteroffer which Keeps the money for leadership development cuts the the branding money while retaining
some of the money for promotion of business I Would happy to do this or would happy to take number 14.
So just sort of maybe we could have a discussion on which is better Councilmember Stasberg, I have a
clarification about this one
So let me find the clarification exactly in Amendment 5 it states that that $10,000 for branding is
in oh Geez oh my gosh, I can't even find it. Okay, yeah
In one in in councilmember Piedmont Smith's it has the ten thousand dollars for branding in a different
line than in councilmember Asari's ten thousand dollars for branding so councilmember Piedmont Smith's
takes that out of management fees consultants and considers that branding and councilmember Asari's
takes it out of I put a note about this somewhere and I'm trying to find it
Other services and charges so I would like clarification about exactly where that 10,000 for branding
is There it is. Yeah, because the office of the mayor Respond this is it the count the office of the
mayor's memo responds to councilmember Asari's amendment on line item 2 as as taking that
Talks about that that is the leadership retreat and then the 10,000 for branding out of the other services
and charges but But councilmember Piedmont Smith has the branding out of consultants and workshops,
so where exactly is should the branding come out of I
is in other services and charges the leadership development it the amendment is correct in stating that
leadership development is under consultants and Branding support is under under other services and charges
Okay, so that means that councilmember Piedmont Smith's Amendment number 14 which the synopsis says
it's taking it out taking ten thousand dollars out for branding
but the line item that it refers to is Taking it out of management fees and consultants and it's actually
should be taken out of other services. That's correct So that means that amendment 14 is actually not
correct The proofreader yeah, yeah, I mean this but but point is if we adopt 14 We'd just have to edit
it or we can edit this one. However, we see fit what I mean again, I think we have to clear up
Approaches one is just limited to branding. The other one is sort of across the board Neither of these
are probably worth us spending too much time on it's not a big move the needle thing So so I'm yeah,
so I'm very I'm very happy to just do 14 if it makes it if it makes it simpler But we'd have to Well
right now we've moved us amendment five. Yes. Yes But I'm happy to withdraw that and move on if that's
what everybody would prefer
I would have to see in writing for Amendment 5 what the new deductions are because right now I would
have to switch back and forth between two documents to figure it out and maybe it's we need the amendment
to be in writing anyway. So maybe it's easier to to do a minute 14 first because that's one correction
whereas the
Changes to amendment five are multiple But we have the amendment five on the table so it would have
to be withdrawn This is a question for the office of the mayor it says in your response to Councilmember
sorry's third point with the promotion of business and cutting that to zero that's
That particular line is used for boarding Commission reception and state of the city public events,
but There has not been any funding in that line since 2023 and We have had those events Since that time
so what line were those events actually being taken out of? So I don't have the notes on where it was
in the 2025 budget, but I know that controller McClellan in the worksheet
That we use a separate worksheet outside of to go over drafts of what the budget could include It was
included in the mayor's promotion of business and that is a confusing title for a line. That's where
she felt it belonged But There was It did not get entered into new world. So when it doesn't get entered
in a new world, it's not going to pop up on The sheet so for this year, for example, we have to draw
on other funds
From the mayor's office and move things around to be able to cover those costs because we do want to
keep putting on those events So it was just an error that it wasn't included last year Previously, it
might have been included under Another line. I'd have to look that up historically, but it's the same
it's the same amount and Essentially, it's paying for you know renting a facility AV sign language
interpretation for state of the city
and food and beverage which in city events is tricky to pay for and can only be done in certain circumstances
and that's where controller McClellan wanted to take that out of Ultimately was the mayor's promotion
of business. So that money was actually spent last year it just wasn't allocated to that line because
of an error even though it was in our worksheet and Was expected to be included So it would have been
I don't know if
It was included in the final tallies or not but it didn't get transferred over from the worksheet into
New World with a manual entry. Well I guess I just feel like it's interesting that that line is getting
funded for the first time in several years and trying to figure out since we've had those things where
the actual reduction is going to come or if it is going to come and so.
The reduction would come from the proposed budget that we sent in which included Funds to cover what
has been historically the cost of those two events plus an extra seven hundred and seventy five dollars
in case some other Public event came up where we needed to provide interpretation or rent a facility.
No, I mean I mean that we've had those events and so Those events have been paid for yes somewhere from
the office of the mayor So I'm trying to figure out where they have actually
Paid for because it's not as though I mean we paid for them. So there's there's you give me money for
them somewhere in the budget So I'm trying to go. Okay, like which lines would they have been paid for
that should now be lower? Because I are now being paid for out of this mayor's promotion of business.
That's what I'm trying to figure out Let me let me dig into that a little bit and I can get you an answer
But the short answer is in the 2026 budget it would not have been in there at all due to the error so
we we have to essentially
borrow money as we do at the end of the year when one line runs over within a category from another
category and cut costs somewhere else to cover that for this year. But I can look up for you where it
was in 2025 and in 2024. That is a recurring call. So it lives somewhere. I just don't know the answer
off the top of my head. That would be very helpful. Thank you. All right. Any other questions on Amendment 5.
This is five right and just for the sake of I mean thinking about how to how to go through this because
I think we have a couple others where we might want to make some like line item changes to them might
I suggest for the good of the order that what we do is you know we can sort of talk through them now
say we're say where we're at then recess for like 10 minutes very so that we can then go through and
actually make the the line item edits before voting on on on the amendment. So I mean just just as just
as one suggestion.
But I'm not in charge. Well, I was going to say so I think we can finish discussing this do public comment
comment and then set this one aside and keep moving on. So if there's any questions we'll do that now.
I see somebody. Yes. Go ahead. Sorry. It would have been in other services and charges and in twenty
twenty six controller McClellan for the twenty twenty six budget controller McClellan wanted to move
it back into mayor's promotion of business which she felt was a more appropriate line.
And then it didn't get entered. So other services and charges is where it would have lived in the past.
Thank you. Council member Stasberg. So in twenty twenty five those events came out of other services
and charges. Yes I guess I'm kind of mystified by that because the actual amount in twenty twenty five
in our budget book is listed as four thousand eight hundred and twenty dollars. And that's that sounds
that sounds correct. Okay. That's about the total of those two events for
all the AV and translation and services and Okay locations and stuff Okay, if there are no other questions
then we'll We'll flip it on over to councilman sasper. Sorry. I have another one then so Right now though
the in the 2027 budget proposal the other services and charges a sixty six thousand budgeted so
What is that supposed to include again because I mean councilmember Asari's amendment just takes it
down ten thousand dollars for the branding. But what is the rest of the fifty six thousand dollars supposed
to be for.
For the benefit of the public the deputy mayor is trying to look that up for me right now so why don't
we go ahead and move to public comments and We hope that we can get that answer. Is there any public
comment on amendment five? Online or in chambers No, all right No comment among council, I'm assuming
council member Stossberg I Mean I I have comments on this
I'll say I'm in favor of reducing the branding by 10,000 and I am OK with putting money into the mayor's
promotion of business if it's specifically just to fund these two events. But there needs to be a cut
to where they were previously being funded and right now that
Isn't what the budget looks like and here Deputy Marinap can maybe tell me what the fifty six thousand
dollars is supposed to be so I'm not seeing fifty six thousand I'm seeing sixteen thousand and ten dollars
that was in our worksheet the ten thousand of that was for the branding five thousand was for the winter
shelter support there's three hundred dollars for the host well the Hopewell website hosting
Three hundred and sixty dollars for public engagement AV that would be at town halls for example and
three hundred fifty dollars for actually a state of the city interpretation lives in other services
and charges so I'm not sure where fifty six thousand dollars is coming from. That's not
in the 2027 Budget that got presented to us during budget week. So it's the Wednesday, August 26th in
the office of the mayor General fund with your expenses it has line 53 990 other services and charges
as sixty six thousand ten dollars and that is in the
So maybe there was a typo somewhere but that is what we have been given. It's not a typo. Sorry. I had
forgotten that there was a change we made after the worksheet. That is where the 50,000 of that is the
emergency management consultant that we had treated as a temporary employee and then turned to a contractor
for a host of reasons that we did explain in the budget. That's where the big money comes from. Apologies.
Okay. Thank you. All right.
so with that any other comments or questions before we Set this one aside and move on to another amendment.
I Withdraw this this amendment at the moment. All right. Thank you That point of point of order do we
want to withdraw it or do we want to table it? Good point. Um, I Would like to table it. I would I moved
to table amendment five
That needs a second. Thank you All right, so that would bring us to amendment six President sorry, do
you want to bring that's okay. I hear you take your time So I move to introduce six with haste second
This one I'll just note was reducing travel budgets across the board The the mayor says that that they
they think they can cut by 35,000 That seems appropriate. I would just note though with amendment 16
I think some of these might be wrapped up into amendment 16 and where we sort of land on that so I'm
very happy to You know table this one for now as well Table or table introduce
Well, I mean We've introduced it but I'm just saying that they if there's the action that we can take
on this is either vote for it as is and or Talk through the 35,000 counter offer I think regardless
that will take a little bit, you know of Rewriting and thinking where where that counter offer exists
And then I'm saying because of amendment 16
This might be a moot point. So Okay So unless anybody has any questions right now, I think maybe we
can table this one as per councilmember Asari's suggestion, but councilmember Stossberg, I would suggest
that we go through the process of public comment, etc Oh, yes, we table things so that then absolutely
take it up from the table. We don't at that point have to do public comment
Okay, so without no more questions right now on this one, we'll go ahead to public comment anybody in
chambers or Online have burning thoughts to share on amendment six. They do not. Oh, yes. I do see somebody
approaching the podium. Thank you please sign in and State your name for the record and you have three
minutes My name is Iris bull I am
member of staff, but I'm just here for myself tonight. I think that pushing the city to improve its
preparation and documentation of the city's budget and staff's appropriation requests is undeniably
the right thing to do because it improves transparency, accountability, and stability to the provision
of municipal services. But as council members have publicly reviewed budget appropriations for the next
year, you have failed to distinguish between the expenses that we can attribute to postage
The ones we can associate with needless bureaucratic process and I think in doing so you've proposed
amendments that will require more of the very thing I think a lot of people actually kind of despise
and that's political theater and On this item. I really just want to sort of speak from the heart it
is so petty to remove the travel budget because it is one of the easiest ways to invest in staff and
improve city services and
I think if you want a leaner government, you need to start by looking at processes and asking people
to document their workflows so that people can understand why things are taking so long. Why are so
many people involved in a specific process? You need to be thinking about the kind of average labor,
the average amount of labor involved in every little thing that we're doing. On the staff side, we have
to justify every single dollar that we spend with
painstaking detail and redundancy. And it's honestly really wild that so much of this process right
now is being drafted and it's not even available for staff to review and publish. I'm only here because
I'm upset. But I'm not the only one who's been paying attention this week and has been totally demoralized
by the process. And that is also taking up staff time because instead of talking about our work, we're
talking about how bummed out we are. And that sucks.
So I just hope that in the future, when we're talking about things that have some real gravity, like
dissolving departments and firing people, that there's some amount of empathy and seriousness to the
conversation. Because over here, we're trying really, really hard to provide the absolute best service
with what are often substandard accommodations for some people.
The appearance that like this is easy for people to come up with an honest number is It's just really
difficult. That's why it's called a budget and Why it's not always spent down every year, but sometimes
it is because things are hard to predict That's it Thank you very much any other comment in the room
or online No Okay
last comments among council members councilmember Stossberg Thank you. I'm not in support of this one
I generally don't like the idea of making everybody split or like cut things by a certain percentage
because I think that it doesn't take into account the Uniqueness that goes along with different departments
and different needs and and different costs related to that I also want to really thank our public commenter
for speaking tonight and
Think mostly like apologize to city staff for some of this conversation and some of the ways that these
potential amendments have been approached because you know and I felt like that last Wednesday during
the work session when we're talking about about staff and positions and staff are really really important
because they actually make everything run and I I just I'm I'm not in I'm not in support of this one Thank you
Councilmember, sorry. Yeah also note. I think I think that I mean first off I think that that's a very
persuasive argument and and and frankly Yes, I I share a council member Stasberg's view of the discomfort
of a lot of these conversations I also though would like to highlight something that that this was the clearest
Argument for an outcome that is associated with a line of funding and that then it seems petty I know
I agree I think a lot of this seems really petty and also later I'll say this clear
I don't think, and as I've said at the work session, I don't think that it's council's appropriate role
to be micromanaging decisions at a city level. We're supposed to be like the board of directors of the
city, not the executive branch. I get that. I think that on the other hand, we've been trying to have
a lot of these type of conversations about the long-term strength and viability of the city.
We can't all get together and discuss these things behind closed doors. So the way that we have to have
these conversations is to put them onto some paper. And when you say these things in any other setting,
people don't take you seriously until you put it on paper. And so I think I agree. I totally agree.
I find this very persuasive, though.
One thing I'd really like to underline is that we've had a lot of opportunities for somebody to simply
say, you know what? Travel is about this outcome. And you're the first person to say that. And so this
is the type of thing that I've been trying to surface throughout this budget process. I will note the
clerk also said something similar about their travel budget specifically. But you've talked about the
budget for travel overall. And so I really share that view. And so I'm happy to withdraw.
this one but again, it's you know up to the rest of you Yes, I'm opposed to cutting travel I think it's
it's a way to invest in our employees to have them communicate with other professionals in their field
to have them learn more in advance in their departments and I so I I plan to vote against this and
Because I'm happy to I'm happy to move to withdraw amendment 6. Yes Is there a second second, okay I
was just being extra cautious. All right. Thank you. So that then moves us on to amendment 7 I'm not
gonna introduce amendment 7. Okay, I
I think we have an we have an updated amendment from Councilmember Piemont Smith. I Don't know if you
could I don't know what number it is, but I think it replaces my number eight amendment 18 Mr. Allen,
can you display this amendment, please? I
It was an amendment to reduce the risk management budget to remove the appropriation for a telemetric
surveillance contract for city owned vehicles. I'm sorry. What amendment number is this. It's up there.
It's a new one. It's not in the packet. OK. So it would reduce the appropriation in risk management
5 3 9 9 0.
by two hundred seventy two thousand dollars which is the estimated cost of the contract for telemetric
surveillance in city owned vehicles and my reasoning. Oh well is there a second second. My reasoning
is that this is surveillance and I think even if it could possibly reduce some risk in
by addressing unsafe driving practices. I think that comes at a greater risk of invasion of privacy
of individuals who are using city vehicles who might you know make a stop somewhere on their way back
to City Hall or on their way to a meeting or something. And then all of a sudden we know exactly where
they are and what they're doing. And I think that's problematic. So that's it.
Thank you any questions for councilmember Piedmont Smith councilmember Stasberg. I think that this is
for the administration actually Can can one of you explain exactly? Again, I remember I'm hearing about
the sum during budget hearings, but can you explain exactly what these cameras? Do you or what these
systems do? I'll take a stab at it and then public works director Adam waste may also want to speak
to it. I'm Margie rice corporation council
the software monitor speed has cameras to look for Drivers if they're on their cell phones, which is
obviously against the law It checks for rolling stops. We thought it was a good idea. We have had a
couple years ago. We had a pretty We had a decent increase in accidents and our premiums went up and
this was a way we thought would be a good idea to
Monitor speed another and driver and attention To address for example, we had a large excavator on a
trailer that tipped over speed to the According to the driver was not a factor But you've got a giant
truck pulling a trailer with a large excavator on it going into roundabout. We suspected speed was a
factor excavator was totaled
very expensive accident speed would have it would have been nice to know whether speed was a factor
or not. Not so that we can punish drivers but so that we can educate and train accordingly keeping people
safe keeping our equipment safe. Our goal here is not to violate anyone's rights but I can tell you
that we do allow our policies employees to make de minimis stops and you know grab
a drink or whatever. But I will point out that that would not be a violation legally a violation of
employee rights because they are being paid on their driving a city vehicle. They're being paid so they
should be doing work. And it's not as if we are so strict that we don't allow reasonable stops while
driving. So but if there is an employee who takes a big
Long furlough and doesn't report it on their time card. That would be an issue and I suppose maybe you
could tell it with this this but again, I think of that as accountability and certainly employees don't
have a right to You know do whatever they want when they're on the clock As a follow-up to that since
it was my original question Do they record location?
They would record Yeah, there would be telemetric somewhere there where they're going patterns driving
patterns. Okay, so like The supervisor at any time could say like where is truck number 12? You know,
I'm gonna let Adam interest that Good evening council members Adam waste and public works director So
there was a lot of different systems that can be used for these different programs think of this from maybe
From a public works perspective and from a general perspective, you know, it does track locations and
things what we're really looking to as well is Sanitation routes, so where's the truck at during a sanitation
route? Where's the truck at during snowplow? So while they're piling snow, so there are other advantages
to this as well Some of those can be public facing as well depending on which systems you go with I
Hope that answers your question. Thank you that answered mine. I
Any other questions? Council member, sorry. I don't know who this is best for, but the actual line figure
is quite a high one. I mean, I know we have a huge amount of cars in the fleet and all types of vehicles.
Can you speak directly to the ROI? I mean, because the, I mean, we gave sort of one example of a time
when it would have been useful, but yeah, like how do we, how do the people of Bloomington make their
money back?
In this day and age of high fuel prices fuel fuel monitoring. So if you're seeing excessive speeds or
excessive braking, you're gonna be using higher amounts of fuel You with sanitation in particular you
some of the programs offer Turn-by-turn route management things like that. So there are definitely some
areas and I could I could provide other examples if you'd like
OK, so it's actually more the active routing, like the sort of software part. That's an added benefit
to the things like Margie talked about from a risk management perspective. Speeds, braking distances,
rolling stops, all of those sorts of things are also part of packages that are offered as well. So there's
that risk management side as well.
OK, so I don't mean to put words in your mouth, but would you say that spending, I think it's $272,000
will result in greater than or equal to $272,000 of investment? There's a very large range of greater
than, right? And so I'm just trying to understand here, because, you know,
Get it. It's like I get I get the values. There's always values, you know, we could do this. There's
gain points I get it. I'm just trying to say like We're living in a time where we're saying that we
have to do less with less where we have all these pressures Why is this a thing that we need to be investing
in now? Yeah, so a couple points here we've been looking at this for several years and over with several
different vendors and So the cost range here is pretty significant it's it's case by case and so
The hope is that the two hundred and seventy some thousand dollar expenditure would result in zero accidents
or result in such a significant reduction that our insurance premiums go down citywide on top of the
other actual routing type benefits of fuel savings etc. So whether or not in any given year you're going
to see a two hundred
over a quarter-million-dollar benefit. But the point is, you see a possibility of a large swing here,
right? Yes. So that there is a possibility that we actually see long-term savings with this. Is there
a maintenance cost of having these? So are we locking ourselves in every single year to spending $250,000
to continue to do this? So there's always going to be some type of subscription. Most all of the firms
that are offering these types of products are going to have some type of subscription fee into the future,
but it all, again, all depends on...
breakdown, so what's the cost? Roughly speaking, I don't need exacts, but I'm just trying to get a sense
of what proportion of this is buying something new versus what proportion of this is paying for a new
service. We can follow up. And a follow up question, sorry. Are we covering the whole fleet with this
amount? Not necessarily. And so let me do this. Let us kind of regroup on our end to try to answer that
in a more substantial way for you to really
Like I said different vendors offer different aspects of different programs and such and how they do
it some are more upfront costs Some are more ongoing. So let us do a little more and we'll get back
to you. Okay. Thank you so much Any other questions Councilmember Stossberg
I have a round two hypothetical. So in the incident that you mentioned where you suspected that speed
might have been an issue, but there was no way for you to, say, prove that with this kind of system,
then you would be able to prove that. So then you could say, oh, this employee was driving too fast,
and that's why this happened. What would happen then to that?
employee potentially and Similarly, I mean does that mean our insurance doesn't cover it does that mean
some kind of other insurance covers it like is that I Mean, I mean because it's not like this software
is limiting speed It's still up to the driver to drive safely Let me take a stab at that and I'll let
Margie answer more of the like legal side of it, but I
It's gonna monitor that monitor that speed at real time. So if the driver is exceeding the speed limit,
you can set the parameters for notification it's gonna pop up on your you know with either a verbal
or Most likely some type of a verbal your speed is over the speed limit. Please slow down type of thing,
you know, so there are components of the system that in real time inform the driver of what Improper
driving was taking place
If you roll through a stop sign with some of these systems, it will let you know right then and there
you have rolled through a stop sign. It will log that in the system. The supervisor would get a report
in terms of just from a public works perspective. Again, we're not looking at this from a disciplinary
perspective. It's more of a record keeping or a tracking mechanism to help us improve driver behaviors
across the hundreds and hundreds of vehicles we have out there every day.
You know in terms of looking at it from disciplinary perspective that's not the original intent If an
extreme if an accident occurred and there were extreme speeds, of course We'd take that into consideration
through our accident review committee and other things And I can tell you that our insurance company
is recommending this purchase they think that it's
One they like the fact that we have a risk management division that's not something that every municipality
has they have encouraged us to review accidents on a weekly basis which we are doing as Adam said the
software can alert a driver that they're speeding they may not be you know they may be distracted not
paying attention it can stop in there that could stop an accident. We are hoping to keep our employees
safe and keep the public safe and if this
would prevent an accident it would be well worth the you know two hundred seventy two thousand dollars.
I think if it prevents an employee or a member of the public from being injured there are costs that
are not exactly dollar you know a specific dollar amount that you can put on an injury to an employee
or to a member of the public. I think it's a good idea. I think it's it could result in reduced premiums.
It could result in reduced. Adam said.
gasoline costs you know vehicle and damage. So we would be watching and seeing what kind of benefit
we get on this. It's hard to say right now what the return on investment would be until we get it and
use it. But I think it's a and again remember that this was 270 two thousand dollars that was in the
legal services O3 and I transferred it to record masking to transfer it to risk for this. It's not new money but
You know it's ultimately up to the council whether you want to appropriate this or not. We'd like to
try it. Our insurance company would like us to try it. We wouldn't probably start by putting it on every
single vehicle. I think Public Works is really interested in it. We would do utilities. We may not put
it on police and fire because they already you know have ways to sort of you know for example if they're
going to a crime scene you know they have
Dashcam that gets turned on so I mean there we'll look at how we deploy but again, we haven't we haven't
we've tested some but we haven't picked a vendor yet and And Adam sat through a lot of interviews with
different companies. So I think he's got a pretty good handle on it Thank you All right. Thank you.
If there are no other are there any other questions? right, we'll move to public comment then anybody
in chambers or online and
OK so moving on any last council member comments. Council member Piedmont Smith and then council member
Stossberg. Yeah I just think here again like with LPR it's trusting a third party vendor to keep information
secure and not share it improperly.
ACLU, at least in one state, has come out in opposition to the telemetric systems and has encouraged
that employees have an option to opt out of them. It's just another data collection point that could
be misused. And so I am, of course, in favor of the amendment that I'm bringing. And I hope for your
support. Thank you.
Councilman Stossberg was next and then president. Sorry I Appreciate councilmember Piedmont Smith bringing
this forward. I appreciate her Priority and attention to privacy in the situation. I do disagree with
her. I do think that This expense Has some potential for improving I'll say
City driver behavior and I mean I'm sure I'm not the only person who has seen city vehicles speed through
my neighborhood and roll through stop signs and It is especially frustrating when there's a city logo
on the side of a vehicle that you're going. Oh my gosh Why are they driving like that? Like I mean,
come on who's who's had a police officer tailgate them?
Like not necessarily targeting Bloomington police right but just like in general a police officer tailgum
or a police officer speed and just be like seriously like your lights aren't on what is the rush and
it's really frustrating from like a resident point of view to see that kind of behavior and I think
that this is a way to potentially improve driver safety and as long in my opinion as the employees are
aware of this
I think that The privacy issue is is Manageable okay, and that's also coming from you know the perspective
of somebody who has a lot of familiarity with remote work and there are a lot There's a lot of watching
happening with some remote work for some
industries thinking about tech industries where their computers record every single keystroke that they
do remotely and That you know all of those things are happening, and I think that this is a much milder
Sort of thing to have this kind of onboard system it also reminds me honestly of several safety related
systems that my
fancy new car has that my less fancy old car doesn't have. And we certainly can't afford to upgrade
all of the cars to have the little alert that goes on when you're too close to the side of the road,
that little lane thing, right? Or that little, oh, the car in front of you stopped, you better beep,
beep, beep, start braking. And it sounds like some of these systems have that capability as well in terms of
Not even necessarily distraction, but sometimes when you're driving, there's a lot of inputs I'm teaching
a 15 year old to drive right now and there are a lot of things that have to be paid attention to at
the same time and I think that one of the advantages of technology is that that technology can can help
us change our focus when we need to so I Will be voting no on this amendment That's a member sorry,
did you have comment no anybody else I
All right. Well then I think we're ready to vote on this one. Will clerk please call the roll on Amendment
18. Council member Zulek. Yes. Sorry. Yes. Daily. No. Ruff. Yes. Flaherty. Yes. Stasberg. No.
Piedmont Smith. Yes. Thank you. All right. So that passes six to two.
Why can't I get my numbers right tonight? I'm not I'm not the math teacher here Okay, that means we
are actually gonna go ahead move on to amendment 10 who would like to Possibly motion for amendment
10. I'd like to introduce amendment 10 Second all right. Thank you. Who would like to talk about it? Sorry
This is many of us, yes? Yes, okay. This one maybe we can spend a bit more time on. At the top level, this
Reduces, but I think that that's Maybe let's use a different word holds the housing development fund
appropriation for programs Until we can have a conversation about exactly how we're going to use this.
We talked about this in depth During the working session. So I'll just add a few things before I'm passing
to my colleagues here I Don't think any single one of us on on this body is
is against, in any form, spending this fund. I've even said out loud I'd be happy for us to spend all
of the money in this fund if indeed we were doing it to significantly move the needle.
Throughout this week and the last week ever since proposing this, there's been a lot of outreach, including
by affected stakeholders. And the question that I've asked every single time when they say it's irresponsible
to cut this fund is I go, do you think that this fund works the best that it can? And the response is
always no. So I find it quite fascinating that we have this path dependency where we're like, well,
we have to fund this thing so that we can keep doing what we're doing. But even the people who benefit
from it are like,
This isn't the way we should be using it. And so I think that we should be we we should hold This one
not not with the objective of holding it throughout the year Just with the objective of us having a
conversation about how do we best? Use this I also would be totally on board with us I think both councilman
Piedmont Smith and I and again not to make you uncomfortable
Sort of you know, I'm just repeating something you have said but both of us have said throughout the
last three years certainly I have nothing against even deficit spending or using for that matter are
considerable reserves When it's targeted at something that's an investment and I think that that Affordable
housing is one such thing and so I would be interested even in exploring opportunities to put more money
into this fund, etc
Exploring what's viable to really make this, you know, be able to be something that we can ideally knock
it out of the park. And concerned that at the moment we basically are doing a sort of first come first
serve. At least that's how it's been explained to us multiple times. And so this is trying to surface
a broader conversation. You know, this I think is sort of the way that I'm approaching this one. So
happy to pass over to Councilmember Piedmont Smith or Councilmember Stossberg who I think also proposed this.
Yes, I think councilmember Osar I put it well in that Our goal is not to prevent appropriations from
this fund but to have a conversation with the administration to Talk about our long-term strategy for
use of this money and How the requests that have come in factor into that strategy to Also recognize that
I think there's less than $6 million total in this fund. It's a limited amount of money, which I don't
think is going to be replenished at the rate that we're spending it. And so we really need to be very
careful as to how it's spent and have a plan in place. And it does, as Council Member Asari said, it
does not feel like the most
Strategic use of the fund is currently being implemented since it's a first-come first-serve kind of
thing so I think we really just want to have a conversation and Come to an understanding about the strategy
for the best use of this limited money And I think just wanting to address one particular
that's in the response from the office of the mayor, specifically from hand, I'm sorry, it's that, and
so saying this for us to hopefully have a conversation, my intention if we are to move forward with
this is not that every single time they want to go about one of these things and they come back to us
and say, okay, we have one project, can we use a little bit of this money? But it's rather for us to
have the conversation once and have it for all, right? Like let's have that conversation, let's decide
the strategy that we're gonna be using here,
And then like I said, I'd even be interested in figuring out ways to put more funding in this if relevant
or interested All right, thank you does anybody from the administration want to speak on this one Kerry
Thompson mayor
Think we're more than happy always to have a conversation about how to do things better There is some
strategy in how this funding is deployed and I think it's different There's a the question that is reportedly
being asked to people who are receiving the funds is is there a better way to use this or are we doing
the the best we can do and
I don't think we're doing the best we can do. We can certainly look at how to do that. That doesn't
mean we're doing a terrible job either. And so I think our administration's been really open to working
with council on various things. The challenge with having to come back for appropriations for any of
this is that if a need comes up or there's a project,
What happens if this hasn't been decided is that that project becomes the measuring stick for the entire
fund instead of actually talking about the process. And what we have seen time and again through the
planning process, through funding processes that work in a case-by-case basis like this is that we end
up not getting the housing built or we end up increasing the cost of the housing.
That's not what any of us want. We all want to do better with the money that we have, but adding layers
and layers of red tape to getting it done doesn't seem like the most practical solution. So I'm just
wondering if there's a counter proposal for working together in a time-bound way to come up with a strategy,
leave the money there, so we don't have to go to three council hearings with all of the staff that
Already are going to a lot of Plant Commission Council and RDC meetings So that we can get them doing
work rather than going to meetings Thank you any other any questions now Chris gamma lodge a logistics
question to the controller sure Control with him. Would it be possible to include
a additional appropriation for a fund like this in the slot that we already have at the end of the year
for sort of the cleanup appropriation where we do fund transfers and the like. Can we can we do that
or does it have to wait until the actual calendar year if we were to make an appropriation outside of
budget time. Yeah the short answer is
If we did the additional appropriation at the end of this year, it would expire on December 31st.
Got it. Got it. It's a good idea. OK. OK. So so so so so the earliest if we were on any of these things
that if we wanted to do an additional appropriation would have to happen at our after our January 15th
meeting after our after we received our budget order from the DLGF, which would probably be in early
January. OK. OK. Thank you. So that's that's useful to know. All right. Any other questions?
None we'll go to public comment Nobody online nobody in chambers, okay, we'll come back to council comment
Councilmember Stossberg and then councilmember Piedmont Smith and then councilmember. Sorry Thank you.
So My name was mentioned earlier, but I did not end up being an official sponsor of this which is why
I did not speak earlier but this was also something that I wanted to do and
I'm supportive of this amendment I'm supportive of it in a different read for a different reason though
than what was already expressed What was expressed was this idea of strategy? We need to figure out
some kind of joint strategy to approach this I'm interested in public transparency and accountability
and the mayor's memo actually made this even more important to me because it lists several projects
that requested more than a million dollars in city assistance and
We have an entire another ordinance from several years ago that says City Council needs to approve expenses
over a hundred thousand dollars in capital investment and yet we don't want to have Some kind of public
hearing when the city asks when the city has asked for more than a million dollars in assistance That
is absurd and to diminish the value of something like that coming before this body is a diminishment of
this body's importance as the fiscal officer we are the fiscal body of this city and You considered
us with projects that might be over a million dollars in city assistance to just be layers and layers
of red tape Earlier in this memo. It's a burden to have to come before City Council and it's not that
you're just disrespecting the nine of us up here as individuals as elected officials and
as a body, but it also feels like blatant disrespect to the residents of this city who have taxpayers.
And it's blatant disrespect when instead of listening to council member comment or to public comment,
instead you walk out of the room. And for those of you not in this room, Mayor Thompson just walked
out of the room instead of listening. I consider that blatant disrespect to the fiscal body
Consider it blatantly disrespectful to the residents of this city who pay taxes, you know to get money
into this fund There has to be an approval of the affordability Incentives for planning projects for
large planning projects for them to take advantage of affordability incentives Plan Commission has to
approve that
Has to approve these payments in lieu that go into this fund that is a public process And yet no public
process should be needed for requests more than a million dollars in city assistance that come out of
this It absolutely should be and as for the timeline issue if these projects take years to potentially
come Then you know what there is time to come before council and say yeah, so we have this project it
Might still be somewhere in the middle, but we would like to support it with a million dollars And if
that project somehow doesn't end up coming to fruition then that will revert back into the fund We can
have legislation that says that and then it does not lengthen the timeline So this is just full of excuses
about why they cannot come before City Council why they cannot come before the public and defend expending
more than a million dollars and
City assets to various personal projects. Thank you Councilmember Piedmont Smith Well, actually I was
Also wondering how this corresponds with resolution 2018 no ordinance 2018-10 I don't know the ordinance
we passed in December of 2018 that said all the
capital at all expenditures of one hundred thousand dollars or more must be itemized in the budget or
must come back to the council for approval. And I'm wondering how this blanket approval of three million
dollars would be following municipal code if in our code it says that such items must be listed in the
budget. I don't know if attorney Allen has a response to that.
reviewing the ordinance which I believe is 2018 10. Thank you. I'm happy to respond to it. Just give
me just a moment just to fully read it and I can thank you.
My apologies for the delay. Thank you for the moment. Just look at the ordinance.
1810 did a few different things. So one of the things that it did is allowed Council to have oversight
over intrafund transfers that also involved a hundred thousand dollar limit So anytime that there's
a transfer between category one fund or category three funds Additionally, there was a capital funds
expenditure of over a hundred thousand dollars that it required review now that it does specify that
those capital reviews that are over a hundred thousand dollars or anything that's not in the capital
improvement plan and those relate to direct capital expenditure
of the city so they wouldn't necessarily relate to potential funding of other organizations or anything
that's non capital spending. That would be my understanding and if the administration has a different
different stance I'd be happy to hear that. So I don't think that these these types of expenditures
out of the housing fund which may go directly to a developer or to another organization qualify as a
capital expenditure of the city exactly as much as they are like a grant or another services type of
funding from the city to a different organization.
Thank you. That said I agree with Councilmember Stossberg that in addition to kind of forcing a conversation
about the best strategy for the use of these limited funds it would also add a layer of transparency
for the public to see how the city is using the money that has come in from developers
And I think that that's an important part of this as well, especially with the dollar amounts that we've
seen go out of this fund More a sort of question for colleagues about how you envision then so so should
we Should we should we adopt this amendment? What do you how do you envision that going? I
Because I because I because I would not want sort of like a lot of like I would that wouldn't be my
my objective here, right? So I'm just interested sort of if you all have some thought on you know What
our timeline would be how we would approach it how you know, how do we actually get to a better outcome
here? I Think that probably there should be legislation similar to that one from 2018 that requires a
any kind of Private equity assistance over a certain dollar amount to have to come through council and
I don't know what that dollar amount might be but I mean We give grants all the time and of course Jack
Hopkins comes through here because it's council money and then there's smaller grants that go
various places that are within hand right and I certainly would not want to and like ESD has a bunch
of grants there's climate grants like I don't want to get in the middle of any of those grants right
because those are small dollar amounts but like over some kind of dollar amount it needs to come through
council in my opinion and so then that would you know manage that to some degree in terms of my concern
with transparency and making sure that
The residents know where this money is going that we know where this money is going that you know five
years from now somebody is not going to have to comb through records to figure out that oh we supplemented
union at Crescent to the tune of two million dollars.
I mean, we shouldn't have to wonder about that. It should be somewhere in the public record. Thank you.
My thinking, though, is that we can take those actions regardless of what we do with this fund, which
I think is a needful and separate conversation.
a strategy component of saying, hey, we want to withdraw this fund to have further conversations. Now,
I fully appreciate your point though, because I think your point would be, and correct me if I'm wrong,
is that you're not
comfortable releasing the funds until we've taken that action of oversight. Am I correct? Okay. Whereas
my argument is that, and I don't think these are in dichotomy, but I really want us to have a conversation
about how are we going to really employ this to get it
to a higher level, a better, I'm trying to bias myself away from using the word outcome. But how are
we going to get to a better end result for residents? So how might we contribute to that part that isn't
a worse outcome? Well, what I heard the mayor say was that they have a big plan of intent
You could say not sure that they've necessarily shared it with counsel. So, you know, I mean if that's
what you're asking in terms of that kind of larger conversation of what should this money be used for?
Is that what you're asking? Are you asking? Yeah, I guess I guess to make sure that this doesn't because
I mean there's there's a fail state here where we withhold this money and then
do nothing about this until we basically are like, hey, it's in your court. You engage with us now,
right? And then we make it very difficult to engage with us. And you know what I'm saying? That would
be like the worst, maybe a worse outcome than the outcome we're discussing, whereas the pain point that
you've identified, we can act on regardless. And so that's, right? Well, to my end, I'm,
I mean, to some degree, I'm willing to say trust that, you know, just thinking about this project list
that got included in the memo, one, two, three, four, five, there's five different project lists. I'm
pretty happy to trust the hands department when they say, okay, we wanna fund two of these, they're
the best ones.
They're the best ones for the overall state. It's going to total this much amount of money. And for
them to come with that appropriation with what's the project about, what's it going to do for Bloomington,
why they chose this as the best one, that's the discussion that I want to make sure we have before we
appropriate the money. And that is a different discussion, I think, than what you and Councilmember
Piedmont-Smith were saying in terms of being able to have eyes on and being involved in the conversation
of actually choosing the two that are the best.
I'm fine with trusting staff and the professionals in that field to choose which two are the best. But
then I want them to come and defend, to explain their choice, defend their choice, allow us to ask questions
about their choice, allow the public to see and be involved in all of those conversations, hopefully
without eye rolling happening by any of us. And then for us to be able to make that decision. That's
public transparency. That's accountability.
That's doing that's that's making these big decisions about millions of dollars In front of everybody,
which is what we're supposed to do, right? So so then wondering because your original I think your original
amendment Wasn't as wasn't holding the whole fun back. I think you if I'm remembering correctly was
it? Yo, yo, okay. Sorry. Sorry was comfortable appearance with so just thinking about
You know if the if cutting the difference here is that you is that you appropriate a million dollars
or something like that rather than three and no I I sent a message to the hand department asking because
last year when they when we appropriated money from this account for them one of the things that was
mentioned was kind of the the potential that they were using some of that fund for smaller grant amounts
that might end up being more personal like I mean it's one thing to discuss a million dollar appropriation for a
Corporation, you know a development company to build 216 multifamily units, right? It's another thing
to discuss, you know Individuals getting some sort of rental assistance like that that does not need
to be public So, you know if they want to come and say like hey we have this this program XYZ that we
want to give rental assistance we want to do this that and the other thing which is kind of what they
did last year and
With the money from this program. I'm good with that kind of proposal too in terms of using this money
to more directly You know fund those sorts of things I know that we you know, we have various the hand
department does various grant kind of stuff But I did not get any response to that email Asking if any
of this money was being reserved for any of those programs at all because I was open to leaving any
money in here that was going to be devoted to those sorts of programs but but since I didn't get a response I
Just had to assume. All right, none of it's being used for that. So just cut the whole thing
Okay Councilmember Piedmont Smith Well, just to also address councilmember Asari's question I think
that before the end of this calendar year, we should have a discussion with the administration and with
hand about use of this fund I don't think you know we can prejudge from
the format or the outcome of that discussion but I think it needs to be had and I think it needs to
be had soon. So I would say you know by mid December let's let's have that discussion so that if we
come to some agreement and appropriation can be sought in January. All right. Any. OK. I think we are
ready to council member Flaherty just briefly. I support this and support
Aligned substantively with what most of what I've heard. I think for me the strongest motivating factor
is Kind of over a certain level or threshold. I think a public process and accountability the opportunity
for questions, etc is Worth the trade-offs that involves. Thanks All right, thank you and I think with
that we're ready to take a vote on amendment Number ten will clerk, please call the roll councilmember Asari
Yes. Daily. No. Ruff. Yes. Flaherty. Yes. Stasberg. Yes. Piedmont Smith. Yes. Zulek. Yes. Thank you.
All right. That passes six to one. And I believe the next amendment I closed it out. Are we moving on
to 11. Oh sorry. My place. Okay.
I'm not going to advance number 11. I can make a comment about 11 and why I'm not advancing it. Just
had very good conversations with Director Tim Street about sort of this printing budget, which they
agree it's a lot, but it's sort of the best method they have right now to engage with the public. One,
two, three.
OK. And they are piloting throughout this year already. And as you saw in the response, what it might
look like to lower costs there. I think that this surfaced sort of the right type of conversation. And
so I'm happy to not move this one forward. But if somebody else would like to, I'm happy to second.
But yeah. OK. OK. Thank you.
Amendment number 12. I think there's a motion to recess. Is that did I hear correctly? No, I wasn't
making a motion. I was responding to a face. Oh, okay I think I'm the next one I moved that we introduce
some amendment 12 Second
This one much like the last one holds the two million five hundred placeholder for the parking meter
fund again same same idea. Oh Okay, we're still fine same Same idea here is that I mean we haven't identified
exactly what we want to do how we want to do it and
I think the important thing to note though about the parking meter fund is that it would be possible
to look at this one through the lens of us just, you know, withholding money that must be spent on
the thing that is planned for it here, but there are a lot of different things that we're able to spend
this fund on. So this is actually sort of like a choice here, and so I think it would be good to continue
to have that engaged conversation about what we plan to do, how we plan on implementing it, but obviously I'm
Generally supportive of implementing what came out of the parking of the parking plan or parking study
or whatever it was And also to be consistent with why I said before I think that we should fund things
after we've studied them But I just think that it's still sort of a placeholder. So until we have some
clarity come back to them All right, thank you any questions on oh I'm sorry. Yes. Does any
of the co-sponsors want to speak?
Yeah, I just want to say that this also falls under public transparency for me that There's not a specific
vendor right now identified. There's not even a specific
You know, there's a lot of questions about like meters versus not meters individual meters versus group
meters like like there's a lot of questions like that and so I think that it's useful to be have to
come back to counsel for that appropriation when those decisions have actually been made and I know
it's one of those things like yeah, you can have another information session, but there are a lot of
meetings on
There are a lot of meetings in this city. There's a lot of different groups that have a lot of different
meetings and there are some people that just follow council or just follow one thing or another thing.
And I think that especially with large expenditures and we are the fiscal body we should be able to
be a body that people like oh city's gonna spend millions of dollars on something. Let's see what it
is. So that's why I wanted to wanted to to
Reduce this line so that then the additional appropriation would have to be sought after. Thank you
Councilmember Piedmont Smith Yeah, I second what my two co-sponsors said and I also want to add that
one of the recommendations of the Walker parking study is to use automatic license plate readers for
parking enforcement, which I think comes with some
privacy concerns and surveillance concerns. And so I think that definitely should come back to council.
So that's just an added reason for this amendment. All right. Thank you. Anybody have any questions
for the sponsors or for the administration. Would the administration like to comment on this amendment
or no. OK. So any questions then I see no questions. OK. We'll go to public comment. Anybody in chambers
or online. Nobody online. I see no movement in chambers.
We'll come back here for comment. Any council member comments before we move to a vote on Amendment
12 and no. All right. So with that will the clerk please call the roll on Amendment 12. And thank you
all very much for being so speedy on this one. Council member Daley. Oh yes. Ruff yes clarity. Yes.
Sasberg yes. Piedmont Smith yes. Zulek yes. Sorry.
Yes Passes unanimously. Thank you Councilmember Zulik, do you have any thoughts on amendment 13? I will
not be introducing it. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much Councilmember Piedmont Smith, do you have
any thoughts on amendment 14? Yes, thank you No, we did not we've not officially discussed it because
it I'd like to move amendment 14 the revised amendment 14 which
Attorney Alan, can you please put that on the screen? Yeah, amendment 1 to amendment 14 First we have
can we just move do it and we just move this as amendment 14 revised Yeah, I was just trying to provide
some transparency since it was included in the packet if you'd like to call it revised I mean as long
as we're pointing out what the revisions are and how it changed
Okay if you could please display it I will point out what the revision was and I second a second.
Thank you. All right. Council member Pete Smith. So this this amendment reduces the office of the mayor's
budget by ten thousand dollars which was reserved to implement branding initiatives and the correction
between what was in the packet and what is on the screen currently is that the account
The correct account is five three nine nine zero It's called technically it's called account even though
we know it as line item Just to be extra confusing But yes that number five three nine nine zero is
the correct number and the previous number five three one seven zero is incorrect So that's just been
corrected in the text of the amendment
And I'm bringing forward this amendment because I feel like the whole branding initiative was kind of
a waste of time and I don't want to throw good money after bad. Thank you. All right.
Thank you. Councilmember Piedmont Smith. Any questions on Amendment 14 is revised. All right. No questions.
We will move on to public comment. Anybody in chambers or online would like to make
public comment nobody online has Volunteered a question. Nobody in chambers is moving. We'll come back
here any council comments before we move to a vote Councilmember, sorry, I'm happy to support this and
and not move forward with the one that's I think we should just do this one All right, thank you any
other comments All right, I don't see any other comments so will clerk please call the roll on amendment 14
Councilmember Ruff. Yes Flaherty Stasberg. Yes, Piedmont Smith. Yes, Zulek. Yes, sorry. Yes, Bailey.
Yes, 14 passes unanimously. Thank you everybody Councilmember Piedmont Smith. Do you have any thoughts
on amendment 15? Sure, I move amendment 15 to Appropriation Ordinance 20 2602. Sorry second
All right. Thank you very much. This amendment reduces the Department of Economic and Sustainability's
budget in the amount related to the grade nine salary and benefits of the transportation demand manager
position. So this is a position that is currently not filled and when it was filled for a few years
it didn't seem to accomplish very much. So I send in the interest of tightening belts I think.
We can do without it. Thank you All right, thanks very much any questions Councilmember Stossberg and
then councilmember Flaherty have there been similar reductions from the other category one expenses
for this position like insurance and FICA and perf and all of those sorts of things or was it just the
salary that was taken off and Does category three
allow those other or sorry does number three allow those other things to be changed. What's the I believe
so. Yes I believe that's why number three was added by our wise counsel Mr. Allen. Yeah that's correct.
So in discussions with the controller Mr. Kim can speak to this as well. Those are.
Very specific line items for the benefits of each employee and we didn't know what those totals were
So that's exactly what section 3 does is allow the controller to adjust appropriately So that if this
position is removed all those will be reduced accordingly is my understanding Yes, and I'd just like
to confirm that we will reduce all the appropriate benefit lines if you vote to eliminate this position
Great. Thank you
Question. Oh, yes councilmember Flaherty. Yeah, just curious. I'm in Any follow-up you had with the
administration or just your own thinking? Is it just that this money will then go? Back to the general
fund and just reduce the overall expenditure. Did you consider options for how the money could be better
spent for similar purposes? Thank you for asking Yes, I personally would like to see the money used
Better implement our climate action plan particularly in the realm of food security and our local food
system However, I this is not a venue where I can dictate that but that was my idea and that's what
I've talked with director Cooper Smith about So we'll see Thanks any other questions for amendment 15
Okay, no questions that I see
Any public comment here either in chambers or online? Nobody online, but I do see somebody making their
way to the podium. Thank you very much. You have three minutes.
I'm not gonna need all three minutes. My name is Iris Bowl again. I just think it's interesting that
this position is being cut I think it's out of convenience and not in the spirit of actually trying
to understand how transportation modes could be better utilized around town our east-west corridor for
bicyclists and scooters is terrible and I just generally think that this role offered a lot of promise
and a lot of
A lot of effort went into making it it's very hard to create jobs at the city And I think it's a shame
that out of a matter of convenience because the position is not filled that for example The Transportation
Commission is not being given an opportunity to talk about this particular item. Thank you Thank you
very much last check for anybody online looking to make comment Nope, I don't see anybody else here
in chambers
So we'll come back here for council comment. Any last comments before we move to a vote on this council
member sorry does raise an interesting thought that we hadn't at least I hadn't considered but maybe
both a question for attorney Allen and controller. Kim is it possible to essentially like I mean defund
a position.
keep the position as a line that could be revived so that you don't have to go through the whole process
of creating a new position? Because I mean, it is a good point that it, you know, I don't know if it's
like very hard, except for the fact you have to like talk to us, but you know, but you're right.
So yeah, so what are your? Absolutely. You can keep the position alive. You can keep it in the salary
ordinance. It still exists in the system. You could fund it at a later time.
Right. So OK. That's interesting. So I hadn't thought about that with with position so we could so but
that would look like us defunding it in the salary ordinance and not defunding it in this ordinance.
It's actually the reverse would be true. Okay. Defunding in this ordinance and then there is a later
amendment for the salary ordinance specific for this position and then that would just would not be
passed. So it would remain in the salary ordinance but there'd be no funding in this.
Interesting Thanks, I support this amendment I appreciate our member the public and Engineering department
who commented I would not characterize this as a cut of convenience because it's unfilled. I actually
do think it's a position that was never really Supported or empowered to thrive in particular the
primary lever of transportation and management, or one of the primary levers is parking pricing. That's
not something that was ever authorized for this position to lead policy on. It's genesis, I was part
of that, not as a member of the council, but as a member of the public, engaging quite a lot with the
city's $50 million of appropriations for parking garages, with an eye to trying to manage demand better
before building bigger.
at a higher cost, of course. So it was a bit of a concession that I mentioned previously when we talked
about this, a bit of a, I don't know what the word I'm looking for is, I don't know, like not helpful
because the position was created after we overbuilt supply. So you really needed to manage demand first
before we overbuilt supply. In any case, the position did exist and did some good things for a while,
but I just don't think it's actually really achieved the vision of what we
You know had in mind there and so I would support spending the money on Similar things to accomplish
more in our transportation system consistent with our current city goals and efforts I think that could
be through a position. I did ask questions about that through our you know council question process
Probably that would be a planning position though could maybe an engineering position. I don't know
I think it could also be expenditures, you know, notably we had 10 or 11 applicants this year for the
neighborhood traffic calming and
I think we fund that at a $50,000 level which is adequate for one project a year. This is a this is
consistent year-over-year as well. We have many Residents looking to make looking to address unsafe
conditions in their streets that generally support mode shift By by creating the safe conditions for
for using modes other than vehicles for transportation So that would be another consideration we could you know
triple the amount of that funding and actually fund several of our neighborhood projects, maybe make
a dent more over time rather than having the same people come over and over going through the process
of contacting council members to get their letters of support, all these things that they do in a really
well-designed process. But when it's one in 10 that get funded, clearly we're not meeting the need there.
So I would really like to see this amount of cost savings get reallocated
In a similar for a similar set of goals and I think again that could be personnel that could be You
know programs and capital Those are my two cents. Thanks Thank you councilmember Stossberg, I'm gonna
very simply say I agree with him And I pointed at councilmember Flaherty for those who can't see me.
Thanks Short and sweet. Thank you. Anybody else with comment? All right, so we will move to vote
Walton I was gonna call you councilmember Bolden clerk Bolden. Would you please call the roll?
Thank you. Yes councilmember Flaherty. Yes Stasburg. Yes Yes Yes, sorry, yes Yes, yes Thank you that
passes unanimously Okay, that was amendment 15 I know we had a
Some additional in our packets. Do we have a 16? Yes, I'm I would like to introduce amendment 16. Okay.
Thank you Do I have a second for amendment 16 second super thank you. Can you please talk to us about
it? Okay This one and if you'll forgive me I'd like to take just a little bit of time and talking about
really the approach behind this
I think it's very clear and worth repeating again and again that our that both SEA one and our local
economic conditions do not support the current trajectory of the city's operating budget. We'll stop.
I think the proposed general budget spends approximately five point four million dollars for seven million
dollars more than projected revenue. We know this.
And we also know that we have considerable reserves, which I think that we've spent several years opining
on but Reserves do not make recurring operating deficits sustainable. And so if we use reserves to pay
recurring cost
Those costs return year after year and the revenue does not. And so eventually those reserves are going
to be smaller and the structural problem will remain. So deficit spending as I've said multiple times
I think is justifiable when we're making a deliberate investment with a clear return. That return does
not have to be financial. It may be things like safer streets stronger infrastructure more housing reducing
homelessness better public health lower future costs et cetera.
I think, and again, I'm trying to bias myself away from using the language that I think has grown tired
because I've said it too much and easy then to say that I'm just being theoretical. But I think that
we should be able to say what results we expect.
From our spending we should know the baseline the target the responsible official and how we're going
to determine whether that investment worked And so to me this sort of proposed deficit is not presented
as a defined investment strategy And if you all remember you won't because you know, we say a lot of
things and from this from this dais
But last year when I voted for the budget, I said that I'm voting for this budget, however, I do not
think that we should be spending money this way. I said, I don't think that you deficit spend without
a clear idea about investment, with a clear investment strategy. And so to me, again, and generally
in our budget and despite sort of our efforts here, I still think
That we're in that type of situation and so this matters to me a lot because we have I think is all
of us share a lot of unmet needs and in the city and We need infrastructure and investment and affordable
housing and effective public safety and parks and transit and climate action and cetera, etc, etc And
if we want to invest in those priorities, we have to examine our existing commitments with the same
seriousness we apply to new requests now
All of this I arrive at amendment 16 through and also what the public commenters noted how difficult
it is for us as a council to be nitpicking at things within the budget.
I noticed while writing all of these amendments, and those of you who wrote them, I mean, we had this
conversation on the amendment you just did, how difficult it even was to pinpoint, okay, this account,
actually this line, adding up things together. And as I was working on my multitude of amendments, it
sort of occurred to me that I'm like, this is quite fascinating. I am sitting here as an individual
person with the sole support of a half-time person, and I get 40 people responding back to me in the response,
of whether or not what I've proposed is appropriate, responsible, whether I identified the right accounts,
whether yada yada yada. So it makes very clear that our job, right, is not to redesign departments or
choose individual employees from the dais. You know, we don't manage the daily work. We don't have complete
knowledge of every workload, dependency, legal obligation, you know, et cetera. And nor should we, I
think very clearly. I think we are not,
You know, I mean as I've said throughout tonight like we're not the executive branch and so our role
though However, very clearly I think as councilmember Flaherty has said time and time again Our role
is to establish the fiscal boundaries and public priorities So with that said this amendment asks the
administration to do that work within those boundaries it recommends that the reductions and I've
put here reductions of $2.5 million that they actually focus on long-term savings and in places where
ideally that reduction wouldn't cause sort of unacceptable harm. I think it recommends that the reductions
focus on recurring long-term savings, recommends that the departments share responsibility in rough
proportion to the share of general fund spending, but I think that's just a recommendation.
To put this sort of in perspective, I think a $2.5 million reduction in addition to a handful of the
smaller reductions that we made will put our deficit at about $2.97 million. And with the sort of vacancy
rates and underspending and the padding, et cetera, will do fairly well to bring us into a close to
balanced budget. And so to me, this is not about cutting the budget for the sake of cutting. It's not
an argument that government should always be smaller.
I think that a city can spend less and still spend badly. And I think we can also spend more and materially
improve people's lives. And so to me, fundamentally, the question is what our spending is accomplishing.
And trying our best to ask these questions, I think, has been very, very difficult. And anyway,
so with that, I'm asking us as the fiscal body to sort of force some choices.
And I think I'll end I'll end there I asked for your support on amendment 16 Thank you any questions
for councilmember sorry councilmember Stasberg Well, I have two questions and neither of them are for
councilmember. Sorry. I
One of them is definitely for Controller McKim, if I could ask that one first. And so I know that I've
discussed this with Controller McKim before, and I know I discussed this, or I asked this question multiple
times of Controller McClellan before that, and I wish that I could have prepped you for this question,
because you might have appreciated that. But the question is, what is the best practice for the amount
of reserves to have, and how do our reserves compare to that best practice?
I will say that literally this morning I added, I wrote a section for our financial policies manual
on financial reserves.
But I have not yet gotten to the point of actually calculating the correct percentage, the correct amount.
So yeah, I'm just not there yet. We'll probably have, it is definitely a best practice to have a policy
on reserves, on level of reserves. And we will definitely have one by the end of the year. But unfortunately,
I just don't, I don't have that information yet. I will say that as we,
As we provided in the budget book the the reserves are definitely substantial And you know certainly
would accommodate The small deficit that we've already that we've already proposed and which you've
actually already trimmed down tonight also but that the it's enough to accommodate that if we were to
even see a deficit which there's a good chance that we would not actually see by the end of the year a deficit
That so I'm sorry. I I tend to like to use that when I was at the county I would use 30% as a as just
kind of a rough best practice but And we're certainly above that well above that How far above that?
I mean I think last time I asked this question of Jessica McClellan and it and it's been I mean clearly
a while it at least
Maybe a year maybe since last budget time and I think our reserves were about 50 percent Is that about
that that sounds about right? I mean there's an it should be in the packet It's actually if we go to
the 4b the statement 4b and just look at the operating budget As a percentage of the budget or the operating
balance as a percentage of the budget we can calculate that out Okay, thank you. Um, I'll save my next
question unless you all want me to do it now. I
Sorry, I was gonna ask if there were any other questions. Yes, I was moving on to other first round
questions. Sorry. I appreciate the help. Councilmember Piedmont-Smith. Yes. I want to ask the administration,
whoever wants to answer, how feasible is it for you all to come up with these cuts in the by the debt
and still meet the deadline? I mean,
Since it's not it's not just up to the controller right it'll have to be a discussion is it is it feasible
to even do that and still meet the budget deadline. I can let the controller answer with the details
but I want to. Two point five million dollars is significant. I want to acknowledge first that with
the you know this is the last year that we're
paying the Bloomington Transit subsidy and combined Combining that with our share of the election funding.
We're pretty much even spent I mean even budget so we'll probably be Even spend by the end of the year.
So I want to acknowledge that publicly again and Reducing two point five million dollars. I know it's
been suggested in writing and elsewhere that we reduce
staffing I Want to be very clear that I am serious about running Incredibly efficient government and
a fair government and My team has put in a lot of work to get the morale around City Hall higher we
just won best places to work in Bloomington and
That was a milestone that I can assure you we would not have reached without a lot of very intentional
work. And just the conversation in the documents and in these hearings, even if one's direct department
was not addressed, there is now fear in every department. Are they coming after us?
So, I am open, and in fact, we already had intended, guided by some of our professional services, to
start looking at how to do some realignment. Now that doesn't mean cutting positions necessarily, and
I don't even know that there's gonna be cost savings. But we do have departments that are doing overlapping
work, we have departments that are too big,
various other things that are happening, and I mean too big in terms of they're doing too many things
all under one umbrella, not that we have too many people in them. Asking us to cut 2.5 million especially
from staffing at this point would mean that we would go into the year with, we would have to make decisions
that haven't been thought out, honestly.
and I can say that it would cause harm to our city services a Restructuring of any kind causes a lot
of fear in staff Even when the outcomes can be better for everyone so it's just it's a anxiety ridden
process and I wouldn't want to do it in a matter of a month and
We would have to have cuts made so that we didn't have positions in place by January 1st that I mean
If the appropriations not there that that is what we'd be asking for. This is at least six months of
work to do that so That's my comment on the high level. I want to make another comment that is related
but you know the structure of council meetings are such that
We can't always have a response. I did leave the room during Council Member Stossberg's comments. We
have gotten to a point that the cabinet and other staff and even members of the public expect to be
demeaned when we come to this podium. That's not acceptable.
There's not a structure that people can respond. I told myself that I was gonna let our cabinet know
that when they're called names or when somebody is speaking down to them in a demeaning way anywhere,
if they're not in a position to say something, they can leave. And I was reminded that if we leave,
we don't get the city's work done.
So the highest priority for me isn't really budget related. The highest priority for me is how we work
together. And I have been told by members of our staff, by members of your staff, that it can be a hostile
work environment. That's not a city I wanna be part of. And I think we can do better.
So, as we move forward through the budget process, I know that we have work to do on how we outline
outcomes. I know we have a president of our country that speaks to his staff and the public in unacceptable
ways. I want us to do better in Bloomington. And I want us to have a respectful discourse that honors
people's dignity, even if we don't agree.
So I'll let controller McKim address the details of what a 2.5 million dollar cut might look like and
how we What what complications that causes? Thank you
Of course, I don't have the ability to set these priorities. I've just run running calculations, but
I did take the 2.5 million dollars
And as the amendment indicated that it should be allocated roughly according to the proportion that
that department has in the general fund budget, I just calculated it exactly, so exactly proportionally,
just to see how that would come out. And what that would look like is a cut of 765,000 from police,
718,000 from the fire department, 183,000 from ITS,
137,000 from public works 120,000 from planning Da da da da. I mean, I don't need to read them all 33,000
from the council budget 56,000 from facilities maintenance, etc. So those are really large cuts and
definitely not cuts that we would be capable of producing within a week and implementing within
Couple of months as the mayor just indicated but at least I think that gives you some idea of the kind
of magnitude Of what those cuts would look like if they were out allocate proportionally Thank
you councilmember, sorry, thank you so much both for for all of the comments, I think the We're not
addressing the the the
core of it, which is whether our current spending under our current circumstances is sustainable. And
so let me just ask that directly. Is the way that we're currently spending sustainable? I believe in
this budget we brought ourselves down to a sustainable level. So we could just continue with a budget
like this? Especially if we did not continue with the BT funding.
After this year or found some other funding source of which through the must process there is actually
other another Kind of path to getting BT fund and even with Edie lit going away, right? Okay, what what
replaces Edie lit in that in that sense? Then the the the six million that we're spending on Edie lit.
Where does that come from in the future? Specifically for BT or just overall for you know, just overall
because the because the BT is one one portion of it all of the
all of the LITs will get, the different LITs, the ED LIT, the certified shares, and the public safety
LIT, will all get collapsed into one municipal services LIT if the county council decides to adopt them.
So there's still, yeah, there's still a lot of, the county council could decide to adopt a much lower
amount, and we would have to make some pretty dramatic cuts. So no, there's absolutely, there are plenty
of things that could happen that would make us have to adopt fairly dramatic cuts.
Thank you Thank you any other questions Councilmember Flaherty, I'm curious for the sponsors perspective
on the opportunity of Eliminating general fund Support for for sanitation services, which I've generally
held the view should be covered by The rates that the folks receiving that service pay this came to
the fiscal committee a couple weeks ago and
and I believe after many years of talking about the the administration and public works carbon is planning
to bring a Proposal to phase that over three years. I think it is like 1.6 million in this year's budget.
Oh Did we yeah, thank you. Thank you. Yeah Yes, I guess I'm I
The magnitude we're talking about, even with the full elimination of phase period of time, it's like
$4 a month for the smallest cart size and maybe $11 a month for the largest. This is in a context in
which we already have well below market rate service for sanitation. And not to make light of what somebody
on a fixed income might feel for another $11 a month, but we do also have an integrated billing with
CBU, which serves everybody.
And you know specific assistance programs identified people that do struggle with with paying their
bills and so I Said at the fiscal committee meeting. I was comfortable with phasing that you know All
at once basically and I'm curious for your perspective on That as an option to meet this proposed reduction
in part No, I think that that's that I think it would make a lot of sense you know
I think we also could explore like whether it's rates or whether it just makes sense for the city not
to be collecting at all. Somebody privatizing it is also something worth exploring. I would fall probably
more on the rate side than the other. But again I think it is a conversation that we have to have.
alongside a lot of these other conversations, right? And so, you know, I don't think that, I mean, that
is one way, I guess, that you could get very close to the sort of target figure that I've said here.
I'd also be happy to reduce this number to think of something that makes more sense. I struggled for
quite a while to think, like, what really is it? And then based on the other amendments that I was putting
forward that I didn't put forward, I was like, okay, you know,
this is roughly where I was at. But yeah, I think that that is a conversation that we have to have amongst
many other conversations about where we're spending money. Now, I have to trail what I'm saying here
with what I said at the beginning of the budget process and really going back to last year is that every
single time we propose almost anything, if we say we want to open Kirkwood for pedestrians,
the retort is, we can't afford it. If we say we want some new, no matter what it is, and then we act
like each of those things is like some shiny, oh, that's like a fun, unnecessary thing. But it's like,
no, it's actually just a choice that we're making with other things, but we never surface what we're
making the choice with. And so even now, we're saying, look, there's no way we could cut anymore from
this budget. We're at zero. But even, there's a bunch of things
When we said we'll we'll cut this with people said, okay, we could cut it a little bit more, right?
so so I just and and if if we had moved in the direction that That of actually creating a budget system
that would allow this type of dialogue This wouldn't be a hard wouldn't be as hard of a discussion,
right? So so that's what we need to surface here as well. So Thank you councilmember Stossberg
I just want as a follow-up on that to note that the Sanitation subsidy is actually coming out of Edie
lit this year not out of the general fund and this amendment actually cuts the general fund which means
that if that million dollars was part of that there would have to be a whole lot of gymnastics behind
the scene to cut things out of the general fund and then and then reality sounds like a mess to me and
Yes, but I think just to highlight though what councilman Flaherty said, you know phased approach,
you know, you don't it would make more sense and I think the same if we're looking at You know any type
of restructuring I get it a phased approach I talked about for example, you know funding things at six
months or nine months, right? So that so that we force those conversations about Restructuring I think
is also a possibility of ways to to look at some of this too Any other questions
on to public comment anybody in chambers or online would if you would like to make comment on amendment
17 are you sure it's 16 16 I lied great we have a public comment or online you can unmute yourself and
please state your name and you have three minutes you hear me yes okay Kevin Keough I'm speaking tonight
in support of amendment 16
Targeting 2.5 million in cuts signals necessary structural fiscal discipline as the city prepares for
flattening property taxes and shifting state income tax allocations. At the same time, I want to address
three key observations from tonight's meeting. The comments from the city employee about staff morale,
the council members concerned about open reviews adding red tape, and the glaring lack of public
participation in the room tonight.
When you look at a handful of public comments offered on a multi-million dollar budget, it's clear the
public is largely checked out. This is not because citizens do not care about local taxes or city services,
but because an opaque budget presentation. It's very hard to understand the budget, and to make meaningful
engagement, it's almost impossible. Public meetings, public comment, and fiscal transparency are not
red tape. They are fundamental pillars of the local government.
I also urge, as I have in the past, the long-term solution is adopting formal government financial officers
association presentation standards. These are the best practice. It's important to emphasize that preparing
a GFOA compliant budget document is fundamentally the responsibility of the administration,
not the council. The executive branch builds and presents the budget, the council's roles, policy direction,
and oversight. Look at communities like Fishers, Indiana,
where the administration produces a modern GFOA budget document that bridges the gap between municipal
finance and the public. Bloomington can, and should, they can do even better. At the core, GFOA standards
are specifically designed to demystify complex municipal budgets. They translate thousand lines of line
items into clear strategic goals, program-based outcomes, and multi-year financial forecasts into the future.
When the administration delivers a budget built on these standards, it provides true accessible transparency
without administrative friction, enabling strategic belt tightening that protects core services, respects
city employees, and actively re-engages the public. I support Amendment 16 as an essential first step
towards spending discipline, and I urge the council to direct the administration to adopt the GFOA budgeting
standard to give our city a clearer
more accessible budget process moving forward. Thank you. Thank you very much. Anybody else would like
to make public comment? I see somebody in chambers approaching the podium. Thank you. You have three
minutes. I didn't want to make three comments tonight. My name is Iris Bull again. I think that the
number of people in the room is not representative of being checked out. I think it's representative
of the government working to some degree.
People show up when infrastructure breaks down. I think that proposing cuts without having a clear plan
for where they're specifically going to come from and which steps you specifically want to fire, I think
it's reckless. And I think it's unnecessary. This is like a manufactured hostage situation. If it feels
like the only way to have a conversation, it's creating a conversation that no one wants to have with
you. That's just not how you talk to adults with any modicum of respect. That's it.
Thank you very much. Any other public commenters. We do have another one online. Awesome. You can unmute
yourself and you have three minutes. Thank you. Yeah. Hello. Do we have.
Okay, I think you're still muted. Can you unmute yourself and you have three minutes? I hear him. Oh,
hi. Go ahead. Yeah, you must still have me on. This is Kevin. I know Eric's raised his hand. Somehow
he hasn't been officially. All righty. Thanks, Mr. Keogh. Eric says he's unmuted, so it has to be something
technical and working in the background.
You might want to attend to that. Well, OK. If it's not working, do you want to try maybe putting your
comments in the chat, and we can read them for you? I'm sorry, I don't know what the- Participation
indicator is muted or not, because- Oh, you're on.
You're on. Hello. Hi. We can hear you. Awesome. Thank you. So that was a problem. That was a problem
on your end. I did not change anything. Good evening. My name's Eric Ost. And I want to echo many of
the things that folks have said tonight. I appreciate that there is a good degree of importance in these
conversations. How we spend money not only reflects priorities,
But to some extent, priorities are opinions. But it also enables government to work. And I think that
using adversarial language or taking an adversarial position, as I've heard some comments tonight,
is not, I mean, sure, we can feel different ways. But anyway, to more of the part of the matter, I support
incenting and prioritizing conversation.
The council is the fiscal body. It oversees how things are spent. And it's important for the executive
branch to engage with the legislative branch. I know that people are busy, but that's part of the way
government is structured. And it's a necessary element. So I do support
To the degree that the legislative branch can incent and prioritize greater degree of conversation about
expenditures, you need to use those tools. I spent the day today looking at data and I wanna bring to
the floor a concern I've raised many times over the years is that we seem to be stepping backwards in
terms of transparency. Public records are no longer published
released public records are no longer published for the members general members of the community to
see accident data which used to be published is now withheld intentionally withheld under a premise
and hypothesis that I believe does not stand. So I asked the legislative branch to be attentive to these
things and to the extent that you need to pass revisions to the Bloomington municipal code to direct
the executive branch to do certain things in certain ways, I suggest and request that you do so. So
here is to collaboration and a better future. Thank you. Thank you very much. Any other commenters online?
No. Okay. Thanks for everybody to everybody who commented tonight. Any council comments before we move
to vote on amendment 16?
Councilmember Stossberg and then councilmember Piedmont Smith Thank you, I'm not in support of this
amendment The two well the second question that I didn't ask I didn't ask it because councilmember Piedmont
Smith asked it or Essentially asked the same thing which was about how much time it would take to actually
make these changes First off in terms of spending down our reserves. We've been trying to spend down
reserves like I
for three years everything that I heard in all of the Fiscal related meetings that I was in was we have
more reserves than we actually need and we're trying to spend down reserves and when you When I was
looking back and I didn't do it in preparation for this meeting But you know, I've done it relatively
recently when I was looking back at actual expenditures for past years and whether or not we
actually deficit spent there were at least a couple years where we didn't and then our reserves actually
grew when we were trying to reduce them and I Think that it's responsible governance to have some reserves
to have some money in our pocket just in case but we don't need to have so much money in our pocket
just in case that we are withholding city services and
I think that Additional cuts would be doing that in terms of this kind of broad-based thing, but also
this Well, actually mostly I guess this like broad-based thing. It's I Don't think that that is necessary
this year. I appreciate the argument that we have to think about tightening our belts Well, everything
I've heard about preparation for this budget is that we have already tightened our belts is that we
left things many things pretty flat and
So that we could prepare for this future where our revenues are a little bit less certain and then the
other reason why I'm voting no is that the time and feasibility I Absolutely agree with everything that
the mayor said is that what they would have to do to make this happen in the next one two Three weeks
at the most would not be well thought out would not be a good long-term plan and would be really
Challenging on staff because it's not as though the controller himself can just make all these cuts
It would take every single department head and half of every department head staff to be able to identify
Those kinds of numbers and that I think that that's unnecessary to put our staff through that in the
next one to three weeks So I will not be supporting this amendment. Thank you Thank you, so councilmember
Piedmont Smith and then councilmember Flaherty
Well I will just agree with everything councilmember Stossberg said and suggest that an amendment such
as this or an idea such as this really should have come a lot earlier in the process.
Thank you. Councilmember thank you. This is really interesting. I very much appreciate councilmember
sorry for bringing this and the
Thoughts you shared behind it You're right that you know through your experience this budget process
you're noting that that it's it's very difficult for council members to understand Specific line items
and things to cut there might be things we identify but it's it the administration ready is in a much
better position on that front We're also hearing and I think I get it and I agree to some extent that
you know the current time frames available are simply impractical and
But let's run the counter hypothetical. So you come six months ago to say, I want to see 2.5 million
reduced from the plan that isn't yet produced. And they say, that's meaningless. We're going to bring
you the budget that we think is the right one for the city. We're essentially being told there's no
right time for the council to weigh in on something like this. And it is a matter of trade-offs. And
when we talk about council priorities and things, we want to see improvement on things like, I don't know,
Utter failure to clear pedestrian infrastructure of snow and ice for the safety and accessibility of
our residents that was noted in the council You know set of priorities and we didn't actually make any
meaningful improvements in this budget proposal on that on that priority front I Guess we could have
said, you know in August. Hey, this is like quickly like this isn't good enough and we need to see you
know a $500,000 plan to do better like meaningfully better on that front and you need to cut that from
somewhere else to make a budget neutral That's not an amendment yet. It's just an idea
And so therefore, it's not binding and the likely outcome is actually gonna be like, well no, we don't
think that's the right thing. All I'm getting at is that like, I don't know, I think I'm in support
of this amendment. And I recognize its limitations and its challenges and problems. But the opposite
conclusion to me is essentially conceding that our hands are tied on doing anything meaningful about
the budget.
You know ever and I you know, I Don't I don't think that's an acceptable outcome or conclusion either.
So again, I recognize this isn't a optimal by any means Even so I think there are ways to go about it
and do it that actually don't have to involve cutting staff necessarily and or if they do involve cutting
staff It might force conversations around optimal staffing that you know again shouldn't be rushed but
Conversations we need to have so I think I'll vote for it. Thank you Thank you any other comments from
council before we move to a vote on amendment 16 councilmember Ruff Councilmember sorry doesn't need
me defending him. So that's not what I'm doing here when I say this but There was a comment made that
this was reckless and When councilmember was sorry began
Presented the amendments and open the amendment is there any cotton it's open in comment explained it
the thoughtful a very thoughtful approach which is well if we're going to say Council members don't
really have the staff help the expertise the experience to make specific decisions about budget cuts
and all these technical all these areas Well, but yet we're the fiscal body with the ultimate responsibility
for the physical decision. Well that's
Totally logical and rational and thoughtful approach to then say okay those with the expertise and the
time and the staffing and the full-time jobs to do it Present us with something that reaches that addresses
our concern or in this case councilmembers So far specific concern a proposal about a budget that was
not sustainable. That's totally logical. There's nothing reckless about that approach and
But I will say privatization I saw that come up at one point that would come up of city work city jobs
is generally always going to be a non-starter for me as savings tend to come in the form of worse jobs
and benefits and wages and working conditions and quality of services delivered. But finally you know.
One of the public speakers said something about priorities or just opinions. And yeah there's a certain
legitimacy to that. If I say the subsidy the subsidy to sanitation is a totally different kind of subsidy
than the subsidy to bicyclists of which I am one of eight hundred thousand dollar and
You know curb sets of bump outs and curbs and etc. To me those are entirely different one in the case
of the sanitation services subsidy. If you take that away it's made up in the form of almost just call
it a tax as it's as the cost is picked up by those who received that fundamental service which is most of
significant majority probably of the citizens as opposed to some expenditures which address or go towards
supporting a much smaller slice of the community in terms of users. So I don't think that all, I strongly
disagree. While I acknowledge that priorities are
to a certain extent opinions I think we could get majority agreement from citizens about what is more
or less a fundamental basic city service that will is simply lifted onto their pushed onto their shoulders
when a subsidy like sanitation fee is reduced or removed or shifted compared to some other expenditures
which are much more of a choice. Anyway thanks for giving me a moment to to just say what I had to say.
I know I haven't said much tonight but I've been thinking through everything very carefully. Thank you.
Any last comments before we move to vote for amendment 16. Council member sorry.
I just piggyback on just the last part of Councilmember Ruff's comments there. You know and again if
you know if we think about this process I think one of the positive externalities of us this year trying
to be as involved as possible and looking into all of these issues of budgets that has surfaced a lot
of very interesting conversations that
hopefully continue sort of throughout. Echoing what Councilmember Flaherty so eloquently said, the reality,
I think it's easy to frame this as though we're sort of like today waking up and being like, let's transform
the budget or something. The reality is that we've been fairly consistent in saying most of the things
that we've said throughout this time for the last several years. And also, I don't think that this is
something that
is in any way adversarial or you know like nobody has to be wrong in order for us to do better. And
so so but going back to what Councilmember Ruff said to tie sort of my approach and thinking here completely
together the conversations that we have to have continually are how do we do best by the people who
fund all of
of these activities and who are the beneficiaries of all of these activities and how do we do that in
the most equitable way but how do we do it in a way that's deserving of them and and that's what drives
all of these conversations and I think it's really easy for us and we've seen it you know we start having
conversations about you know whether it's our own salaries or whether it's positions that exist in the
city and and we start looking internally as though this city exists
for us right like it exists for the people who are employed here but we all are here to serve the
people of this city in the best way possible. That's the guiding point. Again, when I said, for example,
talking about sanitation, it's just a conversation that we should have. How do we give the best possible
service to the people of the city? I wasn't making any deeper value statements about my political views
or anything, but I'm just saying that is what should drive so many of our conversations, and I hope
that we can continue to do so. I really appreciate all my colleagues. I think we do keep that at
for a front of our minds, even though our format sometimes make it seem like that's not the case, if
that makes sense, right? Because our format is of necessity sort of, I don't know, episodic and sometimes
tense. But anyways, with that, I will be voting for this. Let's see how it goes. All right. Thank you.
And with that, can, Clerk, please call the roll on Amendment 16.
Councilmember Stossberg no Edmont Smith no Zulik No, I'm sorry. Yes, daily. No rough No Clarity yes
All right, that amendment fails two to five Thank you. All right. I'm assuming there is an amendment on
17 somewhere since we had an amendment 18. I can't find it There is no amendment 17 Super Okay, fantastic.
So we are done with all the amendments. No, we are not Are there any other amendments that I've missed
Councilmember Stossberg, I think for the sake of Order I'm gonna move to take amendment 5 off the table. I
Okay, so I'm doing that for the point of order because I think that we need to dispose of it in one
way or another whether we vote on it or Because we we passed councilmember Piedmont Smith's that was
similar or whether the original mover of said amendment Re-withdraw it right I had that we were gonna
come back to it take a recess and possibly rewrite it Okay, so we are not doing that. So I have the
second the motion
Okay, super. Thank you. So we need to vote on that now so to withdraw Amendment five since it had been
brought up we didn't know well Whoever sponsored whoever moved at the first time which I think
was councilmember Sorry could withdraw it or we could just vote on it and vote it down. I withdraw motion
amendment Five great, but we still need to vote on it. No to withdraw. I
You actually could just let it die if you want you don't you don't even have to address it at this point
Okay, I withdraw my motion to withdraw just Amendment five is dead Thank you. Okay, so that's it with
amendments. Then we are done. We're ready to move on to the full
Appropriation ordinance 2026-02 and I'm gonna pass this back over to president. Sorry a point of information
here Controller you had said that you would you didn't want us to vote on it if we make amendments today
Do you still hold that view? Yes, we will need to but what I would ask is that you continue this meeting
to the the 14th and
This will give us the opportunity to take all of the the amendments that you have passed to enter them
into our financial system and then enter them into Gateway and to produce a final form for which you'd
be able to vote on on at the next meeting Any motions, yep, I move to I motion to move appropriation
ordinance 2026-02 and
to our next regular session of October 14th. Second. Motion and second any discussion. Council member
Stossberg. I'm just wondering if it's worth having any final comments on this tonight or whether we
should just save final comments on all of this for next week. I'm just kind of thinking about the length
of next week's meeting. Does anybody have any thoughts on that.
I'm happy to have final comments right now. Anybody would let's do final comments right now anyone comments
start with customer Sasper I'll just say that that I I appreciate that we've I'll say spent more time
talking about the budget this year I think then we have the last two years combined because I do think
that that's important to do I I do I think I
Echo our public commenters one of our public commenters mentions that Some of this was maybe not the
best way to bring it up and not the best way to initiate a conversation about certain things and I I
agree with that in some respects that it Was not necessarily adversarial but I think that it puts city
staff in a really weird spot and
to have us talking about them in the way, like on paper, in the way that the amendments happen, right?
Is it saying, well, we're just putting it all on paper. And if we want to tone police me, which I really
don't appreciate in general, and generally speaking, I think is really inappropriate, then we could
say a lot about the tone
Some memos and some things that get written, you know, and it's like oh, well, okay Let's let's just
consider that right now and I think that That happens across the board and I Guess that's all I have
to say about it as it doesn't have to be adversarial. It's not necessarily adversarial but there's
tone that happens on paper, just like there's tone that happens when people speak, and sometimes tone
means one thing, and sometimes tone means another thing, but to express frustration from this dais is
not inappropriate. And in fact, I had a constituent ask me about a week and a half, two weeks ago, how
do you even stay calm up there? So whatever she sees,
She's like, wow, she actually does stay calm in the face of all this. Am I passionate about some things?
Yeah, I sure am. And one of the things that I'm passionate about was one of the other things our public
commenter said, which is transparency. And if you notice, nearly everything that I voted for tonight
in terms of amendments was about transparency. It was about putting our residents first in this whole process
As councilmember Asari said remembering that we all work for them not just the seven plus two that are
absent up here and The other elected officials in the room, but every single city staffer works for
the residents and I think our city staff generally do a really great job doing their jobs and working
for the residents and figuring that out and
Serving them in the ways that they need to be served at all different levels. And so once again, I'm
going to apologize to staff who felt like their jobs were uncertain Because that is never the way that
our staff should end up feeling Especially during this kind of time. So thank you very much Sharing
again, I'm sorry Any other comments
Councilmember flirty. Thank you I've appreciated the discussion we've had tonight Unfortunately, I am
NOT available for next week's meeting so I won't be here to take a vote on the civil city budget But
that'll be ill material I think because my vote would have been no and I will talk about that for a
moment now I also voted no on the civil city budget last year and mean for that to be interpreted as
just broad dissatisfaction with mayor Thompson's administration and how she's leading the city's executive
branch and
My lack of buy-in and some of her priorities and some in some cases how she directs her staff to spend
their time and the city's money There are some specific issues that I think of as like foundational
problems in in the executive branch governance right now that I I would like like into something like
a floor or a threshold of good governance that I need to see met in order to give me the basic confidence
to support a budget request like this and
And at a certain point when we've raised these foundational issues and they've not been addressed or
the administration refuses to address them, the budget is one of only a few accountability mechanisms
we have depending on the item. Sometimes legal action is another accountability mechanism. None of them
are ideal. They're clunky accountability mechanisms. They nevertheless are that. And I did have remarks
written up for some of the specific issues and instances which I could get into. I'm not sure how productive
that is or the appetite for that right now. So I won't.
unless unless you really want to hear but All right I'll try not to believe I'll try to belabor it too
much. No, I mean I'm quite serious about this and it isn't and I don't mean it by any way of disrespect
to the mayor and anybody on their staff, but I've been quite upset and concerned about what I believe
is the violation of a
some of our local laws, so specifically Bloomington Municipal Code 15.08.040, which allows the city
engineer to make temporary experimental or emergency traffic regulations. Those regulations aren't allowed
to extend past 180 days by the letter of city code, yet the administration has chosen to largely forego
updating Title 15 in order to issue repeated orders for the same thing over and over. I think it's a
clear violation of the law. It's been raised repeatedly with, I would say, increasing urgency and still,
and including in the budget context by me, and still explicitly asked if they'll stop violating this
law in 2027, they don't agree to do so. To me, that's a rule of law issue that goes beyond the specific
code provision in question. Again, this is one accountability mechanism, one of three that I can think
of for this issue, and it's a floor for me. It's a minimum expectation. Second, on
You know, I mentioned snow removal earlier. To me, that was a real failing. One of the things that is
a top priority for me is the safety and accessibility of our public infrastructure for all residents.
Snow is tricky. I don't feel like there was a meaningful effort to improve that issue in this budget.
And I'm especially dissatisfied with the enforcement efforts of the city.
You know a really striking example of this is the college square property the city's redevelopment Commission
owns in our major snow events the last two years at least That property has been in violation The hand
director has said it was the responsibility of the construction manager Weddle Brothers construction.
I just find that wholly inadequate It was in violation for two weeks. We were the property owner the
city government You tell me we can't get our contractor to do to fix the thing I think their overall
approach to issuing warnings before fines is fundamentally misplaced and does not
The enforcement as a tool to get compliance on that front is just fundamentally failing, and I'm not
seeing the serious recognition of that problem. And it is legitimately a safety life and death problem.
It forces people into the dangerous streets under dangerous street conditions. And probably the biggest
public safety issue in our city is the deaths and severe injuries on our streets. Which brings me to
the last issue, which is about follow-through on commitments and funding
previously made to the council. In particular, I've been quite disappointed that what we negotiated
during the 2024 budget cycle in the form of a bond ordinance was the Indiana Avenue Safety Improvement
Project. That was part of an extensive budget negotiation. And over the past several years, staff has
had a lot of wide-ranging public engagement on that project. They developed a design that would
unquestionably increase safety for vulnerable street users. However, a few individuals at Indiana University
Oppose the project and prefer to car centric design that would largely replicate existing conditions
that are again objectively unsafe documented where we had residents die and be severely injured That's
based on prior primarily closed-door meetings staff ultimately end up recommending a subpar concept
to the Transportation Commission Which the Commission unanimously rejected is inconsistent with city
code and the goals of the safe streets for all action plan We directed staff to bring back a proposal
consistent with city code consistent with the the goals of the city and staff
just went radio silent, didn't tell us anything about it, didn't bring anything back or say anything
for six months until I asked about it, at which point they said they're not gonna pursue it, and hadn't
even talked to IU following the commission's vote, hadn't even talked to IU, but they're not gonna pursue
the project anymore with a sort of hand-wavy answer about, oh, it's gonna be incorporated into this
downtown kind of transportation study. That whole process on so many levels is just, again, a failure
of governance, in my opinion,
It's a failure to follow through on the commitments made to council. And at that time, I asked what
happens if conditions change. We were assured by the controller that the administration would come to
the council to work together to figure out what to do. That's not what has happened. Additionally, the
fact that because we can't get buy-in from a stakeholder or two who are deemed to be more important
than everyone else, we can't move forward on the project is just fundamentally unacceptable to me. Again,
it's a floor.
of what I expect of government. These things are all tied to the budget. They're tied to the appropriations
we're making. And again, when you're left with minimal recourse on accountability, I'm choosing to exercise
my vote here as a signal of accountability. So those are three specific things that I think
are representative of broader categories of things that I am dissatisfied with this administration.
And you can probably expect the same from me next year if we don't see market improvement across those things.
What my vote would be next week. Thank you again. No disrespect. It's my perspective I do appreciate
that the many good things the staff are doing There's lots that I agree with the things that my colleagues
are bringing to through the budget process tonight that I supported I appreciate that effort as well.
So, thank you Councilman Flaherty any other comments Okay, and with that I think the motion is still
on the table so I
I forget what it was to table. That's a procedural thing to move. Yeah, that's a procedural thing. We
can do voice vote. Yes. Okay. Fantastic. All those in favor then of moving this to our next regular
session on October 14th, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. Thank you so much. That will be read
on October. I mean, that will be next read on October 14th. Thank you all very much. Let's move on.
Are there any other motions?
I move that ordinance 2026-25 be introduced and read by the clerk by title and synopsis only second
motion and second all those in favor say aye Any opposed? All right. Will the clerk please read? Ordinance
2026-25 and ordinance fixing the salaries of officers of the
the police and fire departments for the city of Bloomington Indiana for the year 20 27. The synopsis
is as follows. This ordinance sets the minimum and maximum salary rates for all sworn fire and police
personnel for the 20 for that for the year 20 27 in accordance with council approved collective bargaining
agreements. Thank you very much. I move that ordinance 20 26 25 be adopted. Second. Wonderful.
Anyone to present on this? I guess we've already talked about it, but any additions to this one Councilmember
Stasberg, I would like to move amendment one to ordinance 20 26 25. Okay So I think though director
paycheck was gonna say a few words. So is that okay? Can we? Did you want to speak before no,
thank you. Sure paycheck resources director. I'll answer any questions. Okay. Yeah Fantastic
Amendment one take it away Amendment one just add some clarifying language in a couple of places Under
training it clarifies the 100 hours per 20 hours of training The language aligns with the collective
bargaining agreement and then the clothing allotment adds a per year after that which is like the intent
and is what is there and the per year was just absent that's all it does and
Wonderful. Any comments or questions on this one? Seeing none, we'll go to public comment on Amendment
1. Would anybody like to comment on Amendment 1? Anyone online? Fantastic. Coming back to council, any
final comments on Amendment 1? Thank you for your work, Councilmember Stosberg. Will the clerk please
call the roll? Councilmember Piedmont-Smith? Yes. Zulek?
Yes. Sorry. Yes. Daily. Yes. Rough. Yes. Flaherty. Yes. Stasburg. Yes. Excellent. That passes. We're
now on the ordinance as amended. Any other motions. All right. Seeing none any questions. Seeing none
we'll go to public comment as anyone would anyone like to make public comment on this portion of the budget.
Anyone online seeing none. We'll come back to counsel any final comments All right, will the clerk please
call the roll on ordinance 2026 25 Councilmember Zulek. Yes. Sorry. Yes. Daily. Yes rough. Yes clarity.
Yes Stasburg. Yes Piedmont Smith. Yes Thank you. Thank you very much. That carries. Are there any other motions?
I move that ordinance twenty twenty six dash twenty six be read by the clerk by title and synopsis only
second motion in a second any discussion all those in favor say aye aye any opposed will the clerk please
read Ordinance twenty twenty six dash twenty six in ordinance to fix the salaries of appointed officers
down union and AFSCME employees for all the cities of
For all the departments of the city of Bloomington Monroe County Indiana for the year twenty twenty
seven the synopsis is as follows ordinance twenty twenty six dash twenty six sets the maximum twenty
twenty seven salary for all appointed officers non-union and AFSCME employees for all the departments
of the city of Bloomington Indiana. Thank you so much. I move that ordinance twenty twenty six dash
twenty six be adopted. Second. All right. Are there any amendments any motions.
Councilmember Piedmont Smith I move amendment 1 to ordinance 20 26-26 Second amendment 1 is on the table.
Go for it this amendment Revises section 1 of the ordinance to eliminate the vacant transportation demand
manager position from the ESD department Any questions for the sponsor Councilmember Stasberg
Earlier in the evening. There was a discussion about the idea of Defunding it but keeping it in here
so that then it would be like easier to recreate later if we ever wanted to What are your thoughts on
that? My thoughts on that are that If we have this position, it should not be an ESD So I would still
take it out of the ordinance and if we want to revisit transportation demand management
It should probably be in the Department of Planning and Transportation. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Any other questions or comments. Seeing none we'll move now to time of public comment. Would anyone
like to make a public comment on this amendment. Anyone online. Seeing none we'll come back to counsel.
Any final comments. Thank you very much. Will the clerk.
Councilmember Stasberg sorry, it went so fast I agree with councilmember Piedmont Smith that that eliminating
it from ESD is the right thing to do Because I don't think it ever should have been an ESD in the first
place. It should have been somewhere else and I think that I really appreciated councilmember Flaherty's
comments on other Planning transportation related things that this money could be potentially reallocated
for though. I also appreciate the idea of reallocating that money toward
implementation of our climate action plan which are two things that may be sort of related but also
maybe aren't so I hope that there is a broader conversation about that in the next several months and
also understanding that that that's a hundred and some thousand dollars that is no longer in our budget
that could potentially be reallocated at some point in 2027 for some additional project. Thank you so
very much. Any other comments?
Seeing none. Will the clerk please call the roll on this amendment? Councilmember sorry. Yes Daily.
Yes, rough. Yes 30. Yes, Stasburg. Yes, Piedmont Smith. Yes, Zulek. Yes, that amendment carries Let's
go back to ordinance 20 26 26 nice as amended any Any other questions
I don't think so. No. Yeah. OK. I can talk about this amendment. I think that we and maybe. So my intention
here was that our our our incoming attorney based on how we we have room in our budget and salary to adjust
the other position. And so this was the attempt to do that now. This is not the right place to do this,
nor the right mechanism to do this. I think we would have to take different type of action in collaboration
with HR. So I'm not going to introduce it, if that's OK. But I think it's a broader conversation that
we should have, as I've been saying. Sort of the refrain for today speaks a lot, I guess. But yeah,
so something for us to revisit is sort of the
That's second our second Lord position. Okay, so any other motions amendments questions Seeing none.
We'll go to public comment on ordinance 2026 2026 26 Anyone online seeing then we'll come back to council
any final comments or No, well the clerk, please call the roll. Oh councilman Sasberg. No, go ahead. Oh
It's fine. I was just gonna thank our staff again. That's all because this is like the ordinance that
actually sets their salaries for 2026 So thank you our staff for all the work that they do. Thanks Will
the clerk please call the roll councilmember Daley Yes, rough. Yes Flaherty. Yes Stasburg. Yes Piedmont
Smith. Yes, Zulek. Yes. Sorry. Yes. I
Thank you that carries and yay any other motions Yeah I move that Ordinance 20 26-28 be introduced and
read by the clerk by title and synopsis only second There's a motion to second any discussion All those
in favor say aye aye any opposed will the clerk please read I
Ordinance 2026-28 in an ordinance to fix the salaries of appointed deputies and employees of the Bloomington
City Clerk for the city of Bloomington Monroe County, Indiana for the year 2027. The synopsis is as
follows. This salary ordinance establishes the 2027 maximum salaries for Bloomington City Clerk employees.
Thank you.
Any motion I move that ordinance twenty twenty six dash twenty eight be adopted second. All right. Clerk
would you like to say anything. I am here to answer any questions and record your votes. Council would
you like to ask any questions. Council member Stasberg is that in turn hourly rate based on the living
wage ordinance. Yes. Thanks. Any other questions.
Seeing none any motions Seeing none. We'll go to public comment. Is there anyone who wishes to comment
on the clerks? I mean originates 20 26 28 Anyone online coming back to council any final comments, maybe
your last chance I'd be remiss if I thanked all of the city staff and didn't specifically thank the
clerk staff as well because the clerk staff do a tremendous amount for
City and keeping all of our meetings in order and all of those things. So thank you to those staff members
as well Because I'm in the in the sort of vibe of losing battles another conversation that I've continued
to have throughout the year is the importance of us really thinking about both the structure of council
staff and the structure of the clerk staff, I think that there's ways that we can
really harmonize and bring better outcomes to all of this. I hope one day that we will all join together
in this wonderful, glorious paradise. Okay, with that, will the clerk please call the roll.
I mean I have much broader things that you know, you know, you wouldn't like them Okay councilmember
rough Thank you Flaherty, yes Stasburg. Yes, Piedmont Smith. Yes, Azulik. Yes. I'm sorry. Yes daily
Yes, thank you all very much. All right now we're
or any well wishes. Well, I hope you all get home safely and whatnot. Have a wonderful evening. This
is adjourned. Bow.