Now calling to order our deliberation session, 6.30 on March 11th. Council Member Stossberg,
take it away. Oh, do we have to call roll again? Okay, Claire, will you please call the roll? I'm here.
I think they're right. Here. Are these working now? You have to keep talking and I'm here. Here. Here.
Yep, I'm here. Here. If anybody's... My audio is off. My audio is off. My audio is off. My audio is
off. My audio is off. My audio is off. My audio is off. My audio is off. My audio is off. My audio is
off. My audio is off. My audio is off. My audio is off. My audio is off. My audio is off. My audio is
off. My audio is off. My audio is off. My audio is off. My audio is off. My audio is off.
These microphones always make me a little crazy. Oh, I think it might be now and
All right, so the purpose of this deliberation session is the development of 2027 shared budget priorities.
And so what we're starting with is both the deliberation
deliberation session that we had in December where we identified priorities and then that survey that
I got sent out to you all in February. So thank you everybody for responding to that survey on time,
which allowed me to compile results for fiscal committee meetings. So then at the fiscal committee meeting,
we kind of reviewed the
reviewed the outcomes, reviewed the things that kind of floated to the top and how we could sort those
things out, talked it over with Controller McKim and Deputy Mayor Knapp, and one of the things that
they said was it's not necessary to keep our priorities within buckets, and so then the top priorities
draft that I put in the packet is not within buckets, but just as kind of
So each category in terms of results, so I think that the full results are in Appendix A, I made sure
that the top things all were somehow included in the top priority list. And there are different numbers
of tops in each of the bucket categories.
just because of how voting dribbled out. So it was this really kind of fun slash challenging thing for
me to do after discussing with the fiscal committee how to make this data make sense in any way.
And so, for example, under
The high-performing government outcomes, the top three voted on were implementation of existing plans,
maintaining city assets, and developing city plans where none currently exist. And so all three of those
end up in one way or another under our top priorities. The one that I'll maybe point out is
making homelessness brief or non-repeating, which came out as a top three in two different buckets.
So that's kind of like consolidated, right? And then there are several things consolidated under there
in terms of top priorities that all kind of connected in different ways with that bucket. So that,
you know, so overall, like this, I'm just trying to explain, I guess, really badly this data that you
got sent out, all of this information, because there was a lot of it, and how I kind of consolidated these top
13 priorities with help from fiscal committee. So like as fiscal committee chair, that was why this
landed on my lap. But these are in no particular order.
In fact, actually they are kind of in an order. They're in an order of how they were discussed. So the
high performing government ones are first, and then I think it was housing and homelessness, and then
it went on down in terms of making sure that each of the top things found a place in this list in terms
of what everybody was individually prioritizing. But it is not in a ranked list.
It is not this is definitely not me saying oh the number one council thing overall was implementing
existing plans because that's not necessarily accurate. We also can't just go on the number of points
any one of those things achieved because there were a different number of outcomes within each bucket.
So it's like we could only vote for three things you know and there are.
you know, five choices, well, then each one of those is gonna have more points than if there were 10
choices. And so we can't, there's not really a good way to do this except by having a conversation about
what people think, and so that is what we're supposed to do tonight. And so then things to keep in mind
when considering this, and some of this was kind of said by Controller McKim and Deputy Mayor Knapp,
you know, things to keep in mind, is this activity or outcome driven by local government?
And if it's not, how can government support the activity is kind of the follow-up. Because if it's not
driven by us, is there something that we want to do to support whoever is driving it? Is the outcome
measurable? Is it something that we can actually measure? Is the funding allocation for that outcome
measurable? Does the outcome require direct fiscal investment, staff time, or legislation?
in terms of kind of figuring out what kind of priority it might be. And then also, is it a priority
for 2027? And if it's not, and so I'll pull out the safe streets for all kind of concept because that
was one of the top things, zero traffic fatalities or serious injuries by 2039. Technically, next year
is 2027, not 2039, but of course we need to be working toward that goal. So it's not necessarily a,
goal or priority for 2027, but how should that priority be reflected in the 2027 budget, right? When
thinking about the multiple smaller type projects or initiatives that could move us toward that goal
of zero traffic fatalities and serious injuries. And then the last question, is this outcome personally
important to you? Which, because the whole point of this is to be able to submit a ranked letter
to the administration saying these are our top however many priorities in the order that we want them
to be in. And I would like us to largely agree with that order. And this is the hard part, right? Because
a couple years ago when we did this, they were not in any particular order because we couldn't put them
in any particular order. So I'm kind of hoping that maybe we can do better this year. So that was about
the intro that I had.
And so I guess this is the time for feedback. Who wants to throw out any kind of comment? And also comments
in terms of things that I left out of this, including things like low-hanging fruit that you might go,
hey, nobody voted for this thing, but it's this legislative piece, or it's this thing that maybe we
should throw up there as something important. And that's appendix C, I think.
things that I just kind of, the fiscal committee decided if it got no votes, then we were just gonna
not worry about it when trying to consider how to order these things. Is that? Great. Councilmember,
sorry. Do you imagine that we would prioritize in buckets or individual things? So could you imagine
that it would be, you know, item 3A is
priority one and item two C is priority two as a council or that we're saying like, you know, we care
most about, for example, housing is like thing one and then these are top three within bucket one.
I think my vision was to ignore buckets because it felt like there were so many of the outcomes that
crossed bucket lines and part of that is because I think the nature of how we devise the outcomes and
we're like all novices at outcomes and so it's like well what are outcomes actually and also the overall
discussion like where does this outcome belong and so housing and homelessness is a good one because
it literally was in I think it was public safety and in
and in housing. And you could say it belongs in both of those things in different ways, but which bucket
should we put it in the most? I don't know. Deputy Mayor Knapp didn't seem like it. She didn't think
that it mattered. So I don't think we need to worry about the buckets. Council Member Flaherty. That's
what we're sorry. Was your question a bit about what are the 13 top priorities, though, on pages four
and five, and basically
ranking those 13, as opposed to the six buckets of housing and homelessness, economic development,
et cetera. Yeah, well I'm wondering whether there's some utility in us being able to say of the six
buckets, this is our priority, this is how we, of those six things, these are all things we care about,
but of those six, this is the one we care about most of the six first.
Whether there's any utility in ranking those over ranking the 13 but I think that councilmember sasper
makes a good good argument for it's just like here are the 13 things that you know that we really want
to see in and the reasons we want to see them there and I think that we could Like I think we could
start with the 13 and then depending on where our discussion goes and what y'all think about your priorities
then I mean maybe it
will say maybe things will float to the top that all do have to do with like housing, or do have to
do with economic development, or do have to do with environment. And so maybe we could, maybe this is
a both and. But we have to start in one or the other. So let's start with the 13. Yeah, I think that
makes sense. Council Member Zulek, what's most important to you? Thank you.
is most important to me is that making sure that all of our residents have their basic needs met. And
so when we sort these, I think we should be thinking about which one of these things provides food,
shelter, water, and safety towards people. And that is how I've been framing it, just so everyone is
aware of what's going on in my mind. Can I ask the follow up question? So going back to the first things
to keep in mind,
Are those activities driven by local government? I think they can be. Other thoughts on how to rank?
Councilmember Flaherty?
like if we're gonna try to rank these 13 things, we probably need to have another survey that's like
a literally like put them in order and like assign points and then average it across everybody. We want
like an actual system that's reflective of a balanced, like I don't think we're gonna reach consensus
just by like talking. So I think a survey to do that, if we're trying to rank these 13 things, which
are admittedly of different kind and scope, you know, but if that's the exercise, I think that is,
worthwhile to rank them. And I'll just, you know, I think we're kind of stumbling our way towards something
and trying things, which is great. And at the same time, the planning infrastructure and policy
infrastructure of the city is not currently suited, I don't think, to a strong outcome-based budgeting
system. Most of what we have
major substantive areas of city government that have no formal plans at all. Certainly not any legislatively
adopted ones anyway, or that are reflective of both branches of the city government. So there's huge
gaps on things like public safety. The plans we do have lack consistent frameworks for how they think
about or name outcomes, if at all, how we measure for those outcomes. So like zero traffic fatalities
and deaths by 2039,
Great, that's a very clear, smart outcome, but the devil's in the details of implementation, and just
by way of example, the Indiana Avenue project, which we funded through a GO bond, has a third concept
design out that made, without question, objectively unsafe decisions relative to prior concepts. I'm
just using it as an example here. There are trade-offs involved, so we funded it. That's supporting
that outcome, but now it's being changed.
in a way that is counter to the outcome. And so without good measurement and rigor in all of that, in
a coherent framework, I think we're always just gonna be really hard pressed to really make something
useful out of all this, which isn't to deter us. I think this is a good exercise. I think we are moving
forward in some way. I don't think it's useless. I do think we are naming things that have value and
will still give some shape
to things, but I guess I'm trying to note that because I don't want it to be a surprise later. This
list alone is just not how I'm going to be thinking about a budget vote and or engaging with
the administration on budget. I think it matters, but there's more to it than that considerably. And
at the same time, I think I've offered to take on for the committee, which I'm sitting on this year,
and really still hope that we can move towards something like a more coherent framework
for the city that might involve updating plans in a consistent way that has near and midterm and long-term
outcomes and an appropriate number of lead and lag measures for those things. So we can actually start
systematically measuring progress and having like a coherent framework with which to engage a topic
like this. That's not gonna be fast, but I do think we should look to best practices and think about
like what that actually looks like. And just, again, acknowledging that we're not there yet.
there are some limits to what we can do here. Sorry. Well, that's OK. I have a follow-up question for
you, too, or a follow-up thought, I guess, on that. Because that kind of, so if we put out a survey
and then assign points and put things in order based on the survey, then how is that honestly any different
than what we already kind of have? Because it would essentially be like averaging things. And so it's
one of those, like, nobody would probably get their first choice.
Like, is it different? It is more different than it has now. Right now, it's anyone's guess if any of
these things mean more than anything else. But with a survey, we actually would know. Yes, it would
be averages. It wouldn't be a mirror image of any individual's rank order, most likely. But I think
some patterns would emerge, is my guess. And that still might be helpful, at least incrementally more
helpful than the list as it stands now. So I don't think it's.
Again, I don't think it's useless. I just think we have to acknowledge the limitations of this exercise
for outcome-based budgeting. Okay. I'm not opposed to doing that. I kind of wish that I had done that
in preparation for this meeting, but that idea never came up. So, Councilmember, sorry. I have a question.
I want to query our thinking and just make sure that I've understood it correctly here as well.
are the things that rose to the top from each of the buckets. But then that assumes that we, this is
gonna sound like I'm relitigating the question I asked earlier, which I'm not, I'm just curious about
something. Are we saying that there's not a possibility where there's a fourth thing in bucket A that's
higher than
my top thing in bucket three, right? And so I'm wondering about that a little bit as we start thinking
about prioritizing. And then as a follow-on point here, it's that some of these things aren't necessarily,
I feel very strongly, for example, about, we phrase it in some way,
execute on the plans that we already have. Okay, I feel very strongly about that. There's a lot of downstream
things that come from execute on the plans that we have, and that's kind of quite a different thing
than reduce income inequality. They're different, so I'm also struggling a little bit with how we even
compare the list of 13 to begin with.
So I wonder, so I don't know what the, and so I guess the question. Just imagine managing all of this
data when it came in. Exactly, like so, and thank you, thank you for that work. I think maybe the question,
the question for us all is thinking about like, how can we continue to synthesize this in a way where
we get to, so that things are like, you know, that we're comparing like for like. Well, and that, like,
I don't know if we can ever really compare like for like.
But that is why I mean at the end of this there's like the data from the whole thing and that is why
you know if you and and I also want to say like I made sure that this was an accessible document and
It makes it a little bit like gross Grosser like harder to like read compared to say like a spreadsheet
where you can look more across a little bit easier but
It's, I'm trying to find one by looking across. So under transportation and mobility outcomes, for example,
our top had 12 points, which was network supporting travel, all travel modes for people of all ages
and ability. Second one had 11 points, third one had 10 points, and then after that, it went right down
to five. So it was this steep drop off. And so in transportation and mobility, I would have put the
top three in that one. Whereas in environment, we had
a 12, a 12, a six, a six, and a five. And so I think I put the top five in that one. And so that's where
it absolutely is some measure of discretion. And that's why I put that full data in, is that very thing.
And that's why, I mean, there's that example at the end of the list of 13 about public safety, about
reducing crime. We all probably want to reduce crime,
it's kind of an interesting outcome in terms of that survey. The public safety category was
really interesting, actually, and if we looked more closely maybe at that public safety category, I
think if we had discussed that one in the way that we discussed some of the other ones in December,
some of those things, maybe they wouldn't have gone under public safety.
housing and homelessness rose to the top in public safety and in housing. If we had been discussing
both of those at the same time, we probably would have categorized that into one or the other. Then
how would we have voted? It's one of those things where this was helpful. It gets us somewhere maybe,
but it doesn't get us to an end point. If there is something like that,
council members already just suggested, you know, something that's the number four, that's the trailing,
but wait a minute, like I want to raise that up, or wait a minute, like, because here's another question,
especially for those outcomes that were suggested through the survey by all of you, right? If, let me
see if I can find one. If, let me get my window bigger.
So if Council Member Zulek suggested that, sorry, I called you out because you were the first one, so
you're the first result, that Bloomington residents have options other than uniformed police officers
for nonviolent issues. One example is community resource officers are often dispersed to crash sites.
So I think that I put that in as example, community resource officers, but you know,
There's some other response related to that, right? And I think that that really overlaps with, let's
see if I can find Council Member Piedmont-Smiths, which was mental health and addiction treatment services
are increased to meet residents' needs. And those things could overlap in ways that if we were actually
discussing them, they might have been combined into one thing. I have a thought.
You know what we might think of doing for the next round of surveys is that instead of us, and this
is building off of something that Council Member Rosenberger said two years ago, because it was a really
good idea, give us, like if we all had 100 points,
a thousand points, whatever, right? You have some large amount of points and you can distribute them
however you want amongst all of these categories. Now we've already started to say some initial ranking
amongst the buckets, all that type of stuff, but I think that might give you a little bit of a better
sense of the, like I think we might get a little bit more space between things, right? And so that might be
That might be the way to do it, right? Because at the end of the day, the variation right now is going
to be very small, because we're talking about three, four, you know what I'm saying? So if you give
us all 100 points, and then I can say, look, for me, whatever, wage, jobs, and GDP growth is 50 points.
That's the most important thing. It's not, Dave. But if it was, if that's the most important thing,
whatever, I say that's 50 points for me. It does sort of change maybe the way that we
think about and compare things, you know? Also that, that, right? But it also helps us think a little
bit about our approaches, you know, because I think just sort of, you know, my starting place is that
we don't want to be spreading the peanut butter super thin amongst a lot of things, but maybe some of
us actually feel that way, that it's more like, yeah, all of these things are good, let's do a little
bit of each of them. I think it would be really helpful to start to see where, you know, if I could
put all my, anyways, yeah, I've made my point, sorry.
We don't get to turn it off. Other thoughts? Councilmember Zulek. I have a different line, if everyone's
done with this. OK, thank you. This one is for Comptroller McKim. Sorry to tap you in here. Last year,
I felt that a lot of the budget presentations were a little bit vaguer than they had been in previous
years. And so I guess I'm wondering to what extent
can it get as explicit as this amount of money is allocated to this? Obviously, there's only so much
time allotted to each presenter. So I'm just wondering, what are the reporting mechanism options and
how can we get as specific as possible in terms of money to goal? Well, I guess I'd like to hear a little
bit more about in what way it was vague. Let me just back up for a second.
I think as everybody knows, we will still, we still have to present and submit and pass a budget the
way that you always have by fund and by department and by category. So that's gonna have to exist no
matter what when we have to do that. What I think we are hoping to do is if we have some small list
of kind of operationalized, operationalizable
priorities from council, we can then work to sort of tag or associate expenditures with the, you know,
that are still in there, in the same form that they always have been, but also tag them with the council
priorities. So is that the specificity that you're looking for, specificity that is tied to this list
of priorities that you're coming up with, or is it just more of a,
a general, you didn't feel like you got an adequate narrative as to what was being requested, or just
tell me a little bit more. Well, there are the four budget categories that we were very clear on, but
I think it was hard for me to kind of decipher past that where things were going in terms of money,
like very specific dollars, but I do think that would be very, very helpful in terms of adding
on the, hey, this is what council said was a priority X. So thank you, that'd be very helpful. I agree
with the general point, and I expressed it last year, that I appreciate the effort that went into trying
something new and different with priority buckets in the presentations, but I ultimately found it much
less useful than the way budgets have been presented previously, and including in Mayor Thompson's first
year, which was largely a reflection of past practice at that time. So I think comparing the budget
presentations for the last two years would, if you haven't done that already, controller McCann, that
would be helpful to kind of see at least some degree of what we're talking about. It used to be that,
I don't know if this is a good system, but the departments would kind of set goals and then report on
them also. Again, I'm not sure that needs to be replicated, but there was more detail and more granularity
in what was being presented to us kind of from like a
programmatic or initiative or project dimension in past years relative to last year, which I think was
still helpful. Yeah, so there's that. So that's just a comment to maybe share more another opinion and
more context on what customer resilience shared. But I'm also curious just to hear more from you. We
talked about it in the fiscal committee a bit. How are you finding this list?
Is it gonna be useful at all? Will it give you the contours of something to start to come back to us
in time to, you know, have something where there's a back and forth and we're iterating on it? Or is
it just sort of like, we take this list, we're gonna do our best to interpret it, hope it goes well
come August, you know, and we'll live with it? Or what? Well, I will say from a budgetary standpoint,
the way they are written right now, it's very difficult for me to be able to work with them. I mean,
I understand them as
priorities for the community. I think that they're probably, they seem like, I think most residents
would probably look at them and say, yeah, that's exactly what we want our council to do, what we want
our city to do. And I kind of tried to make this point in the fiscal committee meeting, and Council
Member Stossberg already reiterated it and included it in the notes at the top that we just need to kind of
think through for each of these outcomes, what part of it is driven by local government and how do we
measure both the outcome and how do we allocate or think about allocating funding for that particular
outcome, whether it's contracting or staff time or legislation, which isn't really a budgetary concern.
So I think at some point,
this needs to move kind of to the next level. And at that point, I think I can probably do a better
job of understanding how to map costs and budget allocations to those outcomes. You see what I'm saying?
Council Member Varela. Well, first, I want to say how much I appreciate Council Member Stusberg's work on this.
large effort, and it took a mathematician's probably mind to sort through the data. Just an old timer's
perspective, there used to be, back in the day, extremely detailed budget presentations, going back
to what Council Member Zulek talked about, and it gave us, not only us, but the public an overview of
exactly what Citi was doing.
the capital investments that were done, the programs that were offered, the services provided, all of
those things were detailed in like 40 plus slide deck. I'm not asking for that, I'm not, but just to,
if you go back 15 years, you'll see that, it was incredible. Maybe it was excessive, because it was
an exhausting process. Now we have outcome-based budgeting, which is a great sort of directive for us.
But I think that what this provides, I think, is a good rubric for you and the department directors
to anticipate the questions that we will likely probe. I think it adds a good framework for, you know,
like, for instance, high-performing government. For instances, I think one of the highest scores was,
let me think,
Maintain city assets, for instance. I gave it a rough Piedmont Smith. Actually, I think the first, it
was the first. Anyway, it's no matter, implementation of existing plans. Got these plans sitting around
the shelf. Some of them are very specific in terms of what they direct us to do. Again, maybe excessively
so, but it would be nice to reference those and say, have we made, what's the CO2?
output, you know, what have we done in terms of, is there any estimates in terms of local food providing
local, you know, those sorts of things. I'm very heavy on maintenance, so I would probably, you know,
this council member will probably be asking about street maintenance, you know, the fleet maintenance
for the city, you know, the downtown is very important, I think,
Economically, I wanna make sure that it's an inviting place where people feel safe and invited and active
and businesses are happy, et cetera, et cetera. In any case, maybe I'm sort of going off course, but
I think this provides a good sort of litmus for you all to know where we're coming from. If I'm not
mistaken, you're not just gonna get
It's not gonna be just like we're just throwing darts at a board. It's gonna be directed. So I find
utility in that. So. Go ahead, yeah. You gave the example of maintained city assets. That's a particularly
good example because that is something that is entirely under the control and responsibility of the city.
And even though it's not necessarily easy to count the money that's spent on maintaining city assets,
it's something that is definitely operationalizable. There are metrics that can be associated
with maintaining city assets. So yeah, I think that's a particularly good example, even though the way
that it's reflected here is very top level, maintain city assets. It's pretty easy to see how that can be
taken into something that could be useful in budgeting and budget presentations. Thank you. Before you
go, one of the things I want to point out from what Councilmember Rallo said about the implementing
existing plans is if you recall from our December session, Isabel, Councilmember Piedmont-Smith came
up with that original list of outcomes directly from all of our city plans. So in theory,
there's at least some of these outcomes, like in terms of the actual specific language of some of them,
that would also nest underneath the implementation of existing plans. And so it's hard to know, I mean,
Council Member Asari, you said it, that that concept was really important to you, but is that something
that should be at the top of a list,
for budgeting for 2027 specifically, or should that be more like at the top of a philosophical kind
of list, like it's really important to us that we use the plans that we have, but that that's
not necessarily, you know, so then maybe in presentations we want to know, you know,
climate action plan might be the CO2 levels and some of those details and what have we done to affect
that and if there's a direct cost that can be associated with that. I just wanted to point that out
as an interesting piece of number one as is listed on here. And then the second thing I want to say
is going back to what Controller McKim said is
going back to those things to keep in mind and maybe we should just go through, use our time to go through
all the 13 and go well is implementing existing plans and activity driven by government. Is it measurable
in terms of outcomes? Is the funding allocation measurable in terms of those things? And even if those
things are important to us, if they can't pass those three things, maybe they need to go on a different
piece of priority that is more of a philosophical priority as opposed to a budget priority.
So are there thoughts on that idea, Councilmember Flaherty? Was there something that you wanted to say
before that? Well, I think where I was headed is consistent with where you were just going, which is
basically we can use some type of system to rank these things. We can talk through them. But how do
we make it actionable in the absence of, again, a coherent actual systemic approach to this in government?
Like, should we be talking through these? And like, are there any existing
plans or metrics, like look, just pick one, right? It's like, okay, reduce systemic inequities,
item B, engagement processes are inclusive and representative. Okay, I'm taking that to mean like public
engagement on policy making, on services implementation. What are we doing on that front right now?
Are we measuring anything at all? Do we have goals articulated somewhere about it to help guide it?
And if not, is it reasonable to start measuring something?
I don't know, asking for voluntary demographic and other data when people weigh in at design charades
and meetings like this and actually start tracking things like that over time. I think with this probably
uniform set of a few questions, is this addressed at all in existing policy documents or plans? Are
we measuring anything related to it now? And if no to those things, can we do something meaningful to
start measuring it now or at least try to give an indication of
I don't know. It seems like we could settle on a limited set of questions that we probably apply to
each of these that could try to move it in the direction of something actionable. Even if we can't accomplish
it all tonight, we could workshop it, and then the committee could do more and also offer opportunities,
if not in the deliberation session, at least asynchronously for feedback from noncommittee members,
again, to try to move this towards something that's
closer to actionable. Yeah. Yeah, and if maybe we can narrow down some of these based on these questions,
especially from Controller McKim, and then use those in a follow-up survey. Is that what you were going
to suggest? Yeah, I was going to build on all of this that the thing that I've been trying to wrap my
head around, too, is let's call it cost to move index, right? So some of these things on this list,
and I'm playing around with this in different ways,
Developing new plans, waste reduction, strengthening food security networks are all things that we probably
could make significant progress on with very little money, right? Whereas what you were just saying,
the point about maintaining city assets is a big, could be a huge thing, right? But it also, okay, so
that's sort of one thing. So I think it might be useful for us to sort of think about cost of move index
so we know like what are our big bucket items to begin with and, you know,
then we back to that mentality of like, do you fully fund this, do you, you know, whatever. Some of
those then would have to be adjusted. I think then to your earlier point, Council Member Slasberg, is
that I identified three things that I think could operate within that 13 that really are more like,
I don't know, approaches or like operational priorities, and one of them overlaps, but implementing
existing plans is like a philosophy, right? We're like, you know, we want things to come from existing plans.
and that is already implemented in our philosophy here, right? Development of plans where none exist
might also be kind of like an operational approach or a philosophy or something like that, and then
maintaining city assets. So we might want sort of sub outcomes actually attached to those in some way,
but yeah, so that's sort of what I'm trying to think about is that if we think about what is expensive
to move versus cheap to move, I think it's helpful in terms of like, okay, well, what really is the
priority of this list?
Okay, do other people agree that those three are like philosophical? I'm not saying exclusively
philosophical. I'm saying that there's an element of them, right? So if we say, if we say we want to
make plans where no plans exist, there's
there's an element of that which is, that is a fundable thing, right? But there's also an element of
that which is saying, there's a particular approach which we want to develop which is saying, we want
to be plan driven, and so implement our plans first, and if you don't have a plan to implement, then
make a plan so we can implement it, right? So that's what I'm saying is that it is a fundable thing,
so is maintaining assets, but we'd have to be a little bit more specific about what we mean by maintaining assets.
Is there anybody who would disagree with, say, a paragraph in a letter to the administration basically
describing those three things as a philosophy and specifically calling out public safety as a place
where there's not a plan that is a cohesive understanding of public safety? Council Member Rosenberger.
Anything here? Is it on?
I am having a harder time. I like this. I'm having a hard time seeing how maintained city assets fits
in as a third. I see implement existing and develop plans where none exist as I think philosophies to
be like, who are we to make our own priorities? We have the plans and priorities kind of thing. I guess
maintain city assets to me, it falls more along the
same lines as like make homelessness brief and rare and reduce systemic inequities. So I guess I don't,
I think I'm not seeing the third connection as well. How do other, Council Member, sorry. I'm trying
to still, I was thinking out loud as well, right? Because what had me put it in that list is because
I agree with the statement that Council Member Aralo made that I'm like, that is a priority. Generally
speaking that we do things like
you know, there's a lot of things that fall under that banner, you know, whether from, to me, that includes
sidewalks to like, you know, making sure that the doors are painted, right? And there's a lot of variability
within that. And so when I started thinking about how I think about all of those different things that
we want to maintain, they begged more questions to me. I was like, well,
what do we want to maintain and how do we want to approach the prioritization of the maintenance. If
we might say as a whole, as a funding category, it's like thing that we as a council really want,
you know, maintain basic stuff, right? But then I just think that that would need more workshopping
in the level of like a doing thing, but it may be something that guides all that we are saying, which
is like bring stuff up to a certain standard or something like that is kind of what I'm trying to get
my mind around. But again, I'm thinking out loud here.
Okay, so what about, so I'm trying to think ahead to this actual document or letter, right, that we
need to ultimately agree on. So if there is a paragraph that philosophically talks about the implementation
of plans and developing plans where none exist, specifically mentioning public safety because that was
called out and I mean we couldn't really find good outcomes around public safety, and then
not including maintained city assets, but as Comptroller McKim said, that those are calculable, calculatable
in terms of these questions to keep in mind. You can measure that investment, and to some degree, you
can also measure that outcome in terms of number of potholes that get filled, and actually,
between a pothole being reported as existing and when it got filled. So there's lots of measurability
in some of these maintenance kinds of things. So can we agree on that piece of the letter right now?
Is there anybody who disagrees on that piece of the letter? Okay, what's your addition? Well, I'm not
attached to this, so I'll just put it out there.
it could potentially be helpful for like the abiding by city plans, maintaining city assets, and creating
plans if that could be an interesting structure for the presentations. And so that way each department
could be like, hey, we have these plans. This is how we plan on achieving whatever out of these plans.
This is how we plan on maintaining city assets. And if there are no plans, this is our plan to
create one. I think that that would help me at least. I don't know about my colleagues, but I think
that would be really helpful in wrapping our minds around what is doing what. I would argue that I think
part of at least what we talked about to some degree during fiscal committee, like this whole list should
present like that.
you know, but that could also be something that gets put into a paragraph, I think, of this is how we
wanna see budget presentations. Like we wanna know how the specific programs fit into this, because
that's one of the things, I mean, we don't have specific programs in here, but there are specific programs
that our city does, that our staff do, that would fall under here, right? And so it's going like, okay,
we wanna know how, what planning engineering is doing this year,
to meet that 2039 goal of zero injuries and fatalities, and so have that very, like, that's like my
vision of that controller, and Kim, I don't know if that was what you were also thinking at all. I mean,
that certainly makes sense. That wasn't necessarily what I was thinking, but I understand what you're
saying. Okay, yeah. Councilmember, sorry. I liken just triangulating on this idea as thinking about
those elements as like,
tags, right, because going further with the maintaining, sorry. City assets. Yeah, maintaining city
assets. There's an element of maintaining city assets that will contribute to reducing fatalities, right?
And so do you see what I'm saying? And again, I'm stinking out loud, so I will not be upset if you disagree.
But it gives this opportunity to sort of tag it as saying, we want to see this all the way through the budget.
right? And then we also want to see how you're contributing to these 10 things that we've, you know,
the 10 remaining things on the list as an example. So following that, going down to the zero traffic
fatalities or serious injuries by 2039, is that also something that should be more in a paragraph of
this is important to us and it's important that we make incremental progress in various ways? Tell us
how you're going to make that progress in a very specific, like tell me how you're going to
move us toward this in 2027 because this is very important. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. I'm not sure
I'm going to answer your question because I feel like it headed in a different direction a little bit.
The word maintenance sort of implies status quo and keeping things the same, whereas most of what we're
doing is actually trying to get better and transform and improve. And so I wonder if, like,
I'm not wild about the frame maintaining city assets or elevating that to too high a level relative
to other policy changes that aren't asset intensive exactly as one might traditionally think of those.
Maybe like capital expenditures is like a better way to think about that, including both for like maintenance
improvements, operations, projects. Back to your customer, sorry, your kind of cost to move index.
It's like, yeah, you know,
The transportation system is incredibly capital intensive. And that's both repaving streets, making
improvements to streets, making curb ramps more accessible. It's a whole lot of stuff, right? So I would
encourage us to move beyond maintenance a little bit. I'm just kind of also just workshopping, thinking
that maybe capital investments is a better way to think about that. And then it helps also distinguish
that from things like policy implementation that are really about resourcing it through staff time,
but in ways that are consistent with
the outcomes that we're prioritizing, that are in our city plans, and that's sometimes where, I gave
an example earlier, but it also had a capital component, but I think we run into trouble sometimes with
like, on the implementation side, it's not that it's actually like a lot of money, it's that we're not
doing it. So yeah, I don't know, just some thoughts. So I guess, like once again, so I'm trying to format
the next survey I'm gonna send you, but maintain city assets could still be
like align in how would you prioritize this or how many points would you give this, but I would take
out, implement existing plans and take out developed plans where none exist because I would put them
in in a paragraph form as opposed to a ranked list. Because they would be this philosophical, it's really
important to us that we implement our existing plans. And so that would be taken out of the ranked list.
I guess that's what I'm trying to propose.
I think that is right. I was going to ask what council members rather rough thought about that. What
council member Flaherty said too about the maintained city assets because I was thinking that when council
member Asari was saying it that maintained sounds like our whole purpose is to keep everything the way
it is where we would maybe get a lot of points to repaving a road which like increases speeds which
is you know like not necessarily good for bike ped people or potholes are the reverse
bead bumps, you know, then what? That's not popular. Okay, so I am, I do like, because when I read Maintain
City Assets, I didn't think so much about like repainting doors, but I did think about how we have a
huge, you know, 50 year sewer replacement, right? And I think about those things that would like bankrupt
the city if we are not planning
Them fiscally every year to like make sure right we are replacing all those things So and like our plants
and all that so I wanted to hear from YouTube that makes more sense with the capital Expenditures rather
than maintain city assets Council member all You're running afoul of the nine-headed beast because we
we all have different viewpoints, but I like the word maintenance and
Entropy is real. I feel it every day. It's predictive. You should be able to tell at what pace roads
degrade. And so I like maintenance as a word because it would, so take an example. And it could be very
quantitative. Number of miles of roads paved per year. I can go to the map and I can see it. However,
I don't know what that means in the context of
I was told once long ago that it was a 20-year repaving schedule. Now, I don't know if that's appropriate
or not. And I know some roads wear out earlier than others, et cetera. But in any case, you should be
able to plot how many miles we paved this year, how many we did last year, how many we're going to do
next year. And you've got a trajectory now. You can draw a line. And you can say, how many years will
it take to repave all the roads?
And that would be a good to know. And something I could tell constituents that we're going to get on
this schedule. It's revolving. It's not like we're neglecting the roads. And by the way, the cost goes
up. And so if we're going to maintain the trajectory, it's probably going to mean additional capital
expenditures and budgeting for those because the cost of asphalt goes up or whatever. So I do like that part.
Now, back to zero fatalities by ex-state, that's aspirational, and that involves a lot of moving parts.
You know, you don't just order it like you do repaving a road. It involves a lot of things and is much
more difficult to unpack. I'll let it go. Councilmember, sorry, and then I wanna keep on trying to move
down the list. Yeah, totally. I think one of the things coming up here, and I really love what both
of you just said,
is two-fold. I don't think that it's a zero sum between the question of maintenance and improvement.
I think that we maybe want to split those and actually have both of those as sort of things that we
highlight and feature in our budget. One of the things I really like to two-finger or whatever,
you know, double, say yes to, that Councilmember Rosenberger said was, you know, that there are some
investments that we need to make in the infrastructure in this city.
that if we don't make those investments and are going to bankrupt us as an example, or they're going
to become increasingly more expensive to maintain if we don't maintain them now, and that both is a
guiding element to how we're approaching the budget as sort of like the top level, like this is something,
so I'm submitting to us that that may be our number one priority, because it's the one very clear thing
that's coming out of the conversation,
I don't think that that's contrary to the idea that on top of that, there's a certain amount of things
that we want to make sure that you're doing.
which goes hand in hand with two plans that we already have. You know, there's a certain amount
of maintenance that we want to see, but we also want some real capital investment, right? And so I think
that you could sort of say that as the philosophy towards whatever we want to call this thing, you know,
maintaining and improving our infrastructure or something like that, and that there's a paragraph associated
with that, but then that they're also, I think, maybe our next conversation, and something you might
want to put on the survey, is like, what type of things do we actually want to see here? I think Councilman Rallo
brought up some things, certain X percentage of roads paved. I finally got the joke about the reverse
speed bumps, less speed bumps. So I just think that there's a lot there that's really clear that we're
really getting on the same page about. Okay. Thank you. So I will try to, when compiling this letter,
document or whatever, try to finesse that, maintain city assets, potentially breaking it into two things,
a maintenance and an improvement, or combine them into one and put that on the survey and see how that
goes. So let's try to move down this list in the context of these questions that Controller McKim gave us.
So making homelessness brief, rare, and non-repeating, which rose to the top in two different categories,
and those things underneath it were just other things that rose to the top, or actually got any votes
at all in some cases that I felt like, well, that really connects in some ways with homelessness.
And that's the other thing is there were probably a whole other slew of things that we could have put
under there that also connect to homelessness. So this is another opportunity to be like, hey, put this
other thing under there too. But the first question is, is making homelessness brief, rare, and non-repeating
driven by local government? Yes. Is it a measurable outcome? Yes. And is the funding allocation for
that outcome measurable? Yes.
That's harder to know. Controller McKim, what do you think about the answers to those three questions?
I definitely need to have a lot more guidance on that because I would not have necessarily answered
yes to all those questions. I can tell you, just a highlight of this, I spent all day today with heading
home, the mayor, people from county council, et cetera.
talking about some new thing that Heading Home wants to do around homelessness. And it was a very clear
input-output type of design where you could say we need so many houses, we're going to spend this much
money on, and that's how we're going to get to functional zero. So people are thinking in those ways,
and the question becomes, what is the city willing to put
to make that happen, right? So yeah, I think that is a total thing where you can measure what, now there
are things that are outside of our control within that realm, but absolutely, it's something that we
can fund and see outcomes for. So are all of these subcategories then also accurate in terms of like,
because I guess I'm thinking about number one, is this activity outcome driven by local government?
And I would not necessarily answer yes to that in this very definitive way.
Like it, because it does depend on how much money we as government invest or have to invest. But that's,
and I think that's the key point that, yeah. Yeah, and then if we invest that in this, what are we not
spending money on? Correct, correct. Control McKim. Yeah, and I guess, so you have five separate kind
of subtopics under make,
make homelessness brief, rare, and non-repeating. And I guess to what degree are you addressing just
that top level number four versus the five bullets under that? You know, I think the answers to those
questions probably differ for each of those five sub-bullets, like job and wage growth.
I'm sorry, but there's not that much. Right, yeah, and so that's where like the way that it's like they're
nested. It's like if this seems like the top level goal and job and wage growth could contribute to
making homelessness brief, rare, and non-repeating. Increasing coordination of services could help with
that overall goal. So it's, they're like sub,
there are more specific outcomes that we could invest in, and that became another, you know, it's those
nested outcomes, because in theory, we could nest everything under one big outcome. And it really makes
the mind go like this. I have an important note, just like collective memory note. One of the big discussions
that we've had over the last year and a half, particularly last year in fiscal committee, is that when
it gets down to
How are we going to make homelessness very brief? We chose not to say that we're gonna get into the
nitty-gritty as a council, all nine of us saying, okay, but we want this, and we don't want this, and
we don't, at least at this stage, that we're saying, this is what we want you to come and tell us, people
who are in all of the departments, this is what we're telling you is the priority, so you tell us how
you're gonna do it, at least at that stage. Now, I think it's useful for us to have the conversation,
because it's useful for us, I mean, we all have
areas of expertise where we say, actually, you know, here's some very specific things I'd like to see
in the budget, but we wanted to make sure that the sort of, what do you call it, the agency of deciding
how we operationalize that rests with the departments, right? So I think that that helps a little bit
here, that we don't need to decide, you know, amongst the sub things, all of the things that we want to see.
the decision will happen at the council meeting. We could then say, I don't like that one, actually.
I'd like to rather fund this one twice or something like that. Yeah, and so I want to make clear that
the sub things are things that people voted on. Sometimes they were maybe voted heavily on or had lots
of points, but I went, this is really a subcategory under this larger thing. Council Member Rosenberger.
We were just looking for where
is the vote for job and wage growth? Or did you combine multiple? I know, I know she was saying there
maybe in other places that, because I was like, is that an economic development? I think it's an economic
development. And that's where like in, I tried to really lead y'all through my thinking process, but
then I put it in the packet
kind of in reverse of the thinking process. So under economic development outcomes, we had wages, jobs,
and GDP are outpacing population growth as having six points. And then there was also attract employers
that provide living wage jobs that had four points. And I feel like there was another one too.
Per capita, oh no, that's not right. There was a tracked 24 to 44 workforce, which was two points, which
is kind of related to that too. And then there was economic inequality is reduced, which also could
be wage and job growth. So it wasn't that exact phrase, wage and job growth, but that phrase I thought
kind of summarized some of the other pieces. Thanks, yeah.
Other thoughts about housing and homelessness Councilmember Barallo You can hear me When you query council
Several members said yes, this is government responsibility and you you have some quibble with that and
No, definitely local government does have a role in reducing homelessness. Yeah, no, my concern was
just the very high level of the outcome of some of the, particularly with the five sub-bullets. So it
was actually, my issue was more with the five sub-bullets. Well, let's take a couple, job and wage growth.
I mean, we get target tax abatements that are specific to companies that are
raising the wage floor, right? We raise the wage floor of employee salaries in the city, which is a
minor number of employed people in the city. In terms of mental health and addiction treatment, that's
probably more county related, but we could have an interlocal.
You know, I would hope that the new jail would have those services provided because I think that's essential,
but that's the county, you know, probably. But we're in agreement generally that we have an impact.
It's just to a greater or lesser degree. And maybe how to categorize it. So in this follow-up survey
of ranking, should I just
leave it as make homeless as brief, rare, and non-repeating, and drop all of the sub bullets. I like
the sub bullets. I mean, it adds a detail that. Well, I think the sub bullets are like how to potentially
get there. I feel like I'm off again.
And so I think the question goes back to what Councilmember Sari was pointing out. It's like, do we
just want to tell the administration, we care about this thing, figure out a way to spend money in a
way that's going to impact the thing, or do we want to say, we want to impact this thing in this very
specific way? Yes. I find it helpful.
I find that those are helpful. They're not exclusive to other means of getting that. And I certainly
don't want to put parameters that these are the only way in which it can happen. So maybe on the survey
that I follow up, leave it as make homelessness briefer and non-repeating, but then put these into the
letter underneath there in ways like this. For example, this is, yeah. Great.
Any other feedback on number four? I just want to chime in on that, that what you're saying is, I mean,
I think because we all did the work and you did the work to say these were bullets that got hit on a
lot, I do think it's useful to include them because it is what we said, like increase affordable housing
options and early intervention.
So I think it is good to be like, here are some things that we're thinking about, but the list is not
exhaustive. Is that right? Great. Yeah. Consumers, sorry. Again, two fingering the same thing. It's
like you say, I think we have sort of two outputs here. You're going to create another survey for us
to maybe a little bit to help prioritize. Great. But there's the other side, which is the actual format
of the letter or whatever resolution or whatever we want to send forth.
And I think you're already writing some of it, like now. It makes a lot of sense. We say, our priority
is make homelessness rare, brief, and non-repeating. This is where it ranks within our priorities. And
here are all of the many ways that we've liked of ways to do it, but we are recognizing that it's not
the exhaustive list. I mean, right? I mean, I think that's things that we are willing already to fund.
I think it's a great way of putting it. OK. Are we ready to move on to number five? Great. Increase
housing diversity within neighborhoods.
And then underneath that, increased predictability for permanent approvals, increased range of affordable
housing options, including those with universal design and or environmentally sustainable. And so is
this outcome or activity driven by local government? Yes. Is it measurable? What, increasing diversity
of housing? Yeah. Yes. And is the funding allocation for the outcome measurable?
partially. I feel like I need to follow up with this with number four. The things to keep in mind, number
four is, does this outcome require direct fiscal investment, staff time, or legislation? And this is
where I feel like number five, in terms of government role in that, would involve legislation. For example?
For example? Yeah.
So this, in terms of the letter, is that this requires staff time legislation for a code change. I have
it on my cheapish, cheapish to move category. Yeah. But I struggled with it. Councilmember Flaherty.
Where do existing plans factor into it? I had sort of asked the question, I guess we go through these,
are we going to request from the administration that they
share information on this framework, and are we asking them to say what in our city, I don't know. I
feel like we're a little divorced right now from specific things that are called for in documents that
I think relative to this exercise are, I don't know, a little bit, went through certainly a much more
robust process as far as community input, legislative adoption, et cetera.
So I think there's synergies. We're just not talking about that piece right now. And I'll return to
the fact that the devil's in the details on all this. I think increased housing diversity within
neighborhoods. The mayor probably says she's doing that. I disagree. The devil's in the details of what
policies. There's policies called for in our plans that we're not implementing. So how do we, those
are measurable.
they're legislatively adopted, they're in existing plans. How do we make sense of that in the context
of these priorities? To be honest, I would take this one out of my priority list for 2027 because it's
legislative, it's cheap, and I think that we should do it in 2026. I would just take that out. That's
my personal thing is that we could do that this year despite
staffing challenges. So that's just my position, kind of in that, because that to some degree is up
to us as a body to figure out ways to do that. And I know that the Mayor's Administration is trying
to do some different things with permitting already, which we don't have any control over, is that permitting
piece. But I'll try a little bit. Just because it's legislative doesn't mean it's exclusively our purview.
We have staff experts in urban planning, for instance. Most legislation comes to the administration.
And just as a pragmatic matter, it is true that when the administration weighs in heavily on a legislative
item they did not develop, they're able to affect it to a meaningful degree. And so yes, we can pass
legislation over their opposition. It doesn't happen often.
I think we'd be naive to say, because it's legislative, we don't need to put it in a set of priorities
and get the mayor's buy-in because it's just our job. It just doesn't work like that in practice. Well,
that's not exactly what I meant, but it's more like we could do that this year. Yes, we could make progress
later this month. And I mean, some of that is what Director Hiddle was talking about at our meeting
last week, too. So in some ways, that might be happening this year already. Councilmember Daley? Yeah,
but I mean, that's exactly what I was just going to say was what Councilmember Flaherty said, is that
We can legislate. That opens pathways to it. But that doesn't mean anything is going to happen. That's
the first step. But we need more to happen beyond just us legislating. So I would leave it on here.
But that's just my vote. Council member, sorry. I think another element of this, agree with both of
those statements. Another element of this, though, is like staff time, which is a part where we have
to say justify.
you know, it sounds meaner than maybe it is, but it's like justify that you need X amount of people
in X office, because this is the thing we're moving towards. Why is said thing not moving forward, right?
And it's like, if you're not going to align with our priorities, then we won't fund your activities,
right? I mean, it's like, it's one way that we could approach such a conversation. So I think it is
very important, even with things like this, that, you know, many ways could be very cheap to put on,
to push forward, that we hold the administration to account.
tell us how you are going to do this this year. And I also, I mean, we had conversations at our very
first budget meeting around this, you know, and Councilmember Flaherty and I've talked about this on
the dais, where it's like, I asked a question about, hey, are we going to see some changes towards form-based
code and whatever, and they're like, yeah, that's what we'll do next year. And so we need to do these
things this year. And then next year was like, no, we're not gonna do that anytime soon, right? So,
you know, having a clear conversation
like that I think is really important that we keep those priorities even if they're cheap.
Okay. Councilmember Rosenberger. One tiny thing, I didn't, the word affordable was difficult for me
to sort of understand an increased range of affordable housing options. I mean, did we mean housing
options or do we mean affordable as in AMI percentages or did we mean different options, different, you know,
home prices. I take it to mean increased range of housing options. So that particular outcome. Oh, now
I'm going to have to open up the December thing. That's the first one on my spreadsheet, which means
that it is one of the ones that came from a plan.
that Isabel would have marked in the December meeting. And I don't have that particular packet pulled
up. So that's where you could track that from if you weren't sure about how to interpret that.
and I actually had a conversation about one of the other ones, and it wasn't that one when we were preparing
for this, because she had comments. Yeah, and some of these outcomes, whether they came from plans or
whether they came from individuals suggesting them, they're easily interpretable in different ways.
But yeah, and that's Gorge 7.
actually with increased predictability and decreased time for permanent approval, so that's interesting.
All right, so what I'm hearing so far is that I'm keeping the top level things on the survey and then
putting the lower level things into the examples. Okay, so we're good on number five then.
Number six, reduce systemic inequities. Is it an outcome or activity driven by local government?
Number six, reduce systemic inequities. I will also say that we played with this one a little bit because
we had these other lower level
lower level things, the ABC about reducing income inequality, making sure engagement processes are inclusive
and representative, reducing race and class disparities in our various systems, and those three things
all received high scores, and this was one of the things Councilmember Piedmont-Smith, as another member
of the fiscal committee, thought that those should be grouped together differently as opposed to grouping
them underneath
other things to pull out and have a whole systematic inequity as sort of category. So I think we're
still answering the question, is this an activity or outcome driven by local government? Often, yes.
Most systems are subject to some degree of inequity. It's sort of like the water we swim in.
We can't control all those systems, but the government interacts with and perpetuates and creates many
systems. So it's such a broad statement, reduce systemic inequities. But yes, of course, many of the
things the government does and engages in have systemic inequities that we could work on addressing.
And having probably some framework, expertise, goals on doing that.
in our various systems would be helpful. I don't know, in utilities and other services, it's
not a particularly equitable system when everybody pays the exact same amount. We can't do,
I don't think, we don't expect the IURC would approve income tiered rates, but something I've contemplated
is could you do a bill discount that's funded not through the rate base,
But from the general fund, like when we had a million dollars that we were using for paying off medical
debt for a limited number of folks in the wake of the LIT increase, that was like part of the like,
okay, let's focus some on like economic inequities. You could make that go a lot farther if you were
saying everybody below a certain income threshold who gets city of Bloomington utilities is going to
get $300 a year off on their bills, you know, part-time or monthly. Like that addresses like a,
an energy insecurity issue in a fairly broad-based way. Just like, I'm spitballing. Just like an example
of a thing like people's ability to afford basic needs, basic utilities varies, so it's not an equitable
system, it's full of inequities. We have limitations in what we can do about that, but there are creative
ways to do something about it.
It's just to illustrate that these inequities are everywhere, of course. The transportation system is
deeply inequitable. And that's part of what our other goals are about. So just sort of saying, yes,
it's government. For sure. I think the opposite word should be instead of reducing income inequality,
which is a total order to address income inequality. Because you can address income inequality by, say,
providing a transportation that obviates need for a car. And rather than
you know, the idea that we could cut everyone a check or something of a certain, you know, even though
that's a possibility, too, that we could maybe have some tiered services or something in terms of income.
But addressing it would be a better word, I think, because reducing it is. I don't mind reduce at the
high level. I'm fine with address for the sub-bullet. And to me, we have talked about
operationalizing equity and systematic approaches to equity and equity frameworks like over the last
couple of budget cycles. We haven't made progress. I know there's been some sort of like preemptive
Trump compliance kind of stuff thrown about. Again, we've articulated a few examples here. So kind of
like a procedural equity element of like engagement processes, right? We're talking about income specifically
and we're talking about the public safety system specifically.
and particular types of disparities there. But the inequities are much farther reaching than that. There's
safety inequities in the transportation system. There's on and on. And again, where my mind kind of
goes on this as far as measurable and outcome, can we measure the funding and all that, it's like we
don't have a coherent system to try to reduce systemic inequities right now. And if that's the broad
top line goal here,
we would have to take steps toward doing that. I think they are measurable. I think you could talk about
a budget impact. So I guess, yeah, I favor that a little more. I mean, I support the sub-billets too.
I think they're important areas where we've identified specific, but I just wanted to name, there's
extend farther than the sub-billets too. Okay. So council member Flaherty just made an argument for,
is this driven by local government with like, yeah, we can affect certain parts of it. Does anybody
want to make
different argument. Councilmember Rosenberger. It's not different. It's not different. I just though
wanted to say we're talking about what can kind of be measured. Well I'm not to the measured yet. Do
we want to go to the measured? If we all tend to be like yeah
Council Member Flaherty made a good argument, so then we can go on to question number two is the outcome
measurement. I mean, I can weigh on that still, that I think it is a good argument, and I mean, I think
in terms of equity and inequity in our city, we don't have a, the city doesn't operate with a definition
of equity, I think. I mean, we, so it's like, there's a long way to go on this one, so I think starting
would be good.
Right, like some cities, I think, have great examples of departments and definitions and what that means
and what can be triggered if it's not getting implemented and things. And so I think that would be great.
And just something that we've talked about potentially starting to measure is who is engaging publicly
and who isn't, which is then something to look at to be like, hey, you know, mostly white people are
speaking at our meetings. And so I guess I just thought about something to measure
I know other cities do ask people to fill out some demographics and public comment. Okay, great. So
that addresses the question, is it measurable? So yes, driven by local government to some extent, it
can be measurable. Certain things can be measurable. Is the funding allocation for that outcome measurable?
Yes. Okay, great. Can I say one more brief thing on that?
is that I recently found out through my day job about an organization called Viva DEI. If you go to vivadei.org,
it's sort of a resource that was set up specifically in the context and the wake of a lot of the sort
of current federal administration's attacks on the idea of equity and inclusion or the importance of
diversity and thinking about how we govern or how we do anything. So anyway.
Lots of cities are still making progress on these issues and I think there's a, yeah, I would encourage
my colleagues to check it out because I think it can speak to this particular context for this goal.
Okay. Next, number seven, vibrant and resilient economy. Is it, is the activity or outcome driven by
local government?
I think it's very similarly to the homelessness conversation. I think to a large extent, yes. Yes. Is
everybody good with that yes answer? Is the outcome measurable? So I'll tell you where I struggled here,
because generally this is a priority for me. But the words vibrant and resilient are words that could
mean lots of things to lots of people.
Yeah, so I think we need to operationalize that one a little bit, change that one a bit. So do you think
that that title, vibrant and resilient economy needs to be adjusted, or do you think that the examples
underneath it need to be potentially expanded?
Because there's probably other things that could fit underneath vibrant, resilient economy. And I mean,
number eight is create vibrant third places, neighborhood hubs, activating vacant spaces. Public spaces
are high quality, engaging and active. Those things in some ways could combine together. One is more
talking about social stuff, I think, and one is more talking about economic stuff, which is like social
community kind of building, which is not necessarily economic. Certainly, you can have a very vibrant
community that has no money.
But I'm like, you don't need money to make community. But there's similarities there. So that was a
question to Council Member Sari for this minute. Do we need to workshop the top level or the bottom?
Well, actually, I really, this is something Council Member Rosenberger just said that I really agree
with. I think the issue with the framing currently is that it might lead to a reinforcing of the thing
that we got last year in our budget, which is,
Yeah, everything is this, and so you could talk about anything as vibrant and happy economy or whatever
we said. I do think some of the things under it, wage growth, jobs, increased number of employees living
and working in Bloomington. I mean, all of those things are the type of things that I'd like to see
us investing in. But I think we need to workshop this a little bit.
I mean, it does come directly from one of our plans, but I think we need to workshop a little bit how
it's framed so that doesn't, you know, it could go in a lot of directions. Okay. Council Member Arano.
I think the word was operationalized. I think I understand. I mean, number of local, locally owned businesses
would be a good measure as opposed to businesses that, you know, where profits go somewhere to shareholders far away.
I think GDP is increasingly a bad measure for economic well-being. I think that you could have one-tenth
the population profiting very well and 90% doing very poorly and have a positive GDP. So I think we
need to look into other measures of well-being for the community. And one would be, to what extent do
we recirculate wealth in the community?
and that would probably require a consultant or something, but I'd like to see how many dollars recirculate
as opposed to just exit the community. So. Okay. Income leakage is very important to the economic development
circles. Okay. So what I hear is you agree with it as a concept, but the title, vibrant and resilient
economy needs to shift.
And I'm not actually sure without looking, and I honestly don't want to take the time right now to do
it because we're kind of running out of time, how much I subcategorized other things under that or whether
vibrant and resilient economy was one of those things that got the most votes. And if it was, it probably
comes directly from a plan. So if it did, then I can look back at that December meeting and figure out
the source with Councilmember Piedmont-Smith and see if there's a way to make that clearer. So if y'all kind of,
give me grace to do that for the follow-up survey. I suddenly have a whole lot of work to do with a
follow-up survey. I'll get there. Okay, so create vibrant third places slash neighborhood hubs, is that
driven by government? Yes. Yes. Okay. Closing Kirkwood as an example. Yeah, is it measurable? Is the
outcome measurable?
That was a question I had. What metrics would we be asking to see out of third space? Well, we could
do attendance at various things like we do for certain Kirkwood events. We could also do the amount
of events that happen throughout the year, the distribution of events. I know we have a lot on Kirkwood,
but if we wanted to expand that
expand the third spaces past Kirkwood, like do we have events going on on the west side, on the east
side, like simultaneously so that all of our residents can thrive? I think those are all measurable.
I would also say that a measure of that could be businesses that would move in to different areas to
create those neighborhood hubs would be something else that was potentially measurable.
Is this on? Yeah. If we look at our zoning maps, we need to make sure neighborhoods all have areas zoned
that can be hubs. I think that's the neighborhood hub part of it for me. Yeah. Yeah. All right. And
is the funding allocation for that outcome measurable? Yeah. OK. Great. Number nine, Bloomington residents
have options other than uniformed police officers for nonviolent issues.
Is it driven by government? Is it a measurable outcome? And is the funding allocation measurable? Great.
Number 10, zero traffic fatalities or serious injuries by 2039. We've already talked about this a little
bit. And I also put down, just in my notes when we were talking about it before, this question, is this
also more philosophical? Like Council Member Asari was saying, because is this
Because it connects to city plans, it's technically a part of the transportation plan. So should this
just get moved into that paragraph related to implementing the plans that we have and call it out as
a very specific piece that we want to know and we want to invest in steps?
I think that question actually helps clarify how the other two operate that we've suggested as sort
of guiding principles different than this one, because this one is a clear, we have a whole plan for
this, and us putting this as a priority in our budget is us telling the office of the mayor and the
city's broader administration to come and tell us, what are you doing this year in funding to move this
forward? I mean, I think it's super straightforward.
We want that, we wanna make sure that it stays a priority, and so on and so forth. So does it belong
in the top level paragraph of implementing? No, it belongs in the survey. I think the part of the top
level is already covered by do our plans, so the part of the, at the under level is, yeah. Here's one
that we're calling out. All right, does anybody have any opposing, Council Member Flaherty? I was gonna
move on to one of the sub bullets, is that okay?
Just that I'd like to perhaps have a deliberation session next month. I could even lead it on pedestrian
network being cleared quickly and effectively after snowfall. This is a persistent challenge. Obviously
existing policy landscape is inadequate. So it's, and this isn't really, I mean it's definitely recovered,
sorry, it's covered kind of conceptually in the Safe Streets for All action plan.
but it will entail changes that are probably different and more specific, including funding, all measurable
for sure, including the outcomes, the impact, that is different than what's in the plan. So that's another
reason that this, in favor of this sort of being specifically called out. So you want me to pull out
that? No, no, no, I'm just saying,
Number item 10 here. Oh should be specifically called out because okay in the List of yeah, okay. Yeah,
and and that's another like that particular 110 a I think was one of the top however many under
transportation and I stuck it underneath the zero traffic fatalities or serious injuries because
You know, it is such a safety impact. And of course, it's other things too. You know, going back to
Council Member Zulek and what she said in the beginning in terms of her priorities, in terms of making
sure our residents are able to access the things that they need, that they have the stuff that they
need. And if you're dependent on the pedestrian network in order to get those things that you need,
then that really breaks down. So okay, so we're good on that. Strengthen food security networks. Is
it driven by government?
entirely, but partially. And by local government specifically? Yes. There are actions we can take to
improve this, yes. Okay. Might fall under equity, other things like that. I mean, similar to
other conversations, but there are actions we can take, and food security is something we've all said
we care about a lot. Okay. By food, yep. Yep. Is the outcome measurable? Yes.
is the funding allocation for the outcome measurable? Yes. Air quality is maintained at a high level
and carbon emissions are reduced, driven by local government. Measurable outcome out of funding allocation.
Can I just ask, are we talking about
air quality and carbon emissions reduced by the city fleet, or are you just talking overall? I think
it's overall. That's actually one of those outcomes that is in our climate action plan. So it's overall
that we want those reductions. And so I think that's one of those things, in terms of actually doing
it, we can mostly affect what the city itself is doing, because we can't force other people
to transition, but we can give incentives to people to transition. So there's all those grants through
the Sustainable and Economic Development Department around adopting other alternatives. There's a whole
range of policies. Again, a whole plan for it. You have city operations and community-wide, and the
degree of control varies just like all of these, right? Yeah. Yeah.
We can control some of it and can't control some of it, of course, because it's not like we live in
a bubble with only our air quality. We get that nice wildfire smoke sometimes coming from lots of other
places. So all right, we're good with that. Leave it in there. Waste reduction. Is it affected by government?
Yes. Is the outcome measurable? Yes. Is the funding allocation measurable?
What should we do about this crime is reduced? Little note down here. Does anybody want me to go ahead
and put that into the survey? Council Member Zulek.
Well, a lot of these sub points, and for anyone who is looking, it is on the same page, on page five
at the very bottom, crime is reduced. A lot of them are already covered in different categories, so
I wonder if we could, I think, actually all of them are covered in other categories. I would say that
crime is reduced is a very broad category, and I think that they fit better in other
categories if my colleagues agree with me. Agreed. So leave it off because it's covered in other places.
Yeah. Okay. Council member Rallo. And it also fits into the development of plans where none exist, notably
public safety, which is, I mean, I think the two primary things that could evolve from is number one,
there was a CAPS report, which I think is
is mostly anecdotal, but I think useful. And then there was the Novak report in 2018 for 21st century
policing, and I think it evolved from that, that gives some information too. But clearly, we need a
kind of a comprehensive approach to public safety. Agreed. And reducing crime is an outcome of that.
Here's another kind of question I have around that.
to make that kind of a 2027 budget priority and this will be like the last thing and then we're going
to go to public comment. Do we have an expectation in 2027 that it would be a plan that would be developed
with say a consultant and all of those pieces or would it be something that is developed more in-house through
a cooperative process between council, administration, police department, community input, CAPS commission,
all of those things. Because that's a good thing to kind of understand and clarify because I guess that
kind of, I feel like plans that are done by consultants are usually like, they're like,
This is a horrible way to say it. They're like, plan plans. Whereas when you do that in-house thing,
it's more like just a first-level plan that maybe isn't as comprehensive, but at least might get to
some of what we want to do. I guess I'm just trying to figure out how to write it up and what kind of
expectation we would have for 2027.
I guess we'll have a time before we send out the letter of resolution or whatever we sent. But one thing
that we might want to think about are other sort of guiding principles, right? And last year this came
up through our budget conversation where we were actually like, and Councilmember Rosenberger said it
as well, was this idea of like
less planning, more doing, as one was saying. So I think it would be useful for us to have
further conversations about that, like how do you wanna guide the question of whether or not and how
often and how much we engage with consultants as an example, particularly in a restrained resources
time that if we already have lots of plans and that's sort of principle one or two for us,
Do we want to put a restriction on and here are the places where we want you to engage with consultants
and in what ways. Maybe we should consider having a future deliberative session just about this concept
of a public safety plan and a shared understanding
I think we all agree on the public safety plan. I was just saying generally, just because you mentioned
that idea of do we want to get consulted. I do think that's a broader conversation we should have. It
doesn't have to be a long one, but just a conversation that we have at some point about structuring
how we as a council would like to see both
consultants engaged with and then followed through with I think is sort of it's in between those two
things of the making plans where they don't exist and following through with our plans because since
I've been on council we have paid for consultants where I haven't seen the results yet you know the
branding exercise for the city updating permitting like we had all these things somebody to come and
tell us how to
tell people about recycling. It was like $300,000. Then these things are just, oh, we did them, and
then we're on stage 17 of deciding about Indiana Avenue and Kirkwood. It was not fair to say that. I
don't remember. Councilmember Rallo, did you have something that you wanted to add to that? I know.
I concur. Okay.
I did have something to add at the end. I've got two things. The first one is, I like Council Member
Stossberg, your question that I think could transfer into budget questions for the administration, that
these are our priorities, but if it isn't a priority or if it's something the administration is like,
nah, you know.
year number five, is this the priority for 2027? If not, how should the priority be reflected in 2027?
I like that, just so like everything gets addressed in some way. I mean, I know we're not at our final
stages yet, but council member Zulek, I think said like a couple questions that maybe we want answered
in the budget slides, right? And I think that would be really good too, that like, if not now,
what kind of prep is there and what is it gonna look like in the next year or something. And then number
two, just a little bit about the plans. The famous comedian Michelle Wolf likes to say, I've got plans
on plans on waffles. So, I didn't quite hear you. I've got plans on plans on waffles. It's just nonsense
sometimes, it's funny.
So much nonsense, and on that note, Councilmember Asari, President Asari, do you want to take the meeting
back to go to public comment, or do you want?
Council Member Zulek, one last comment. Okay, final round of comments. You all have one minute. Well,
do we want to have public comment first and then final round of comments? Okay, yeah. Let's do public
comment first and then we can all have a sort of closing comment and then we'll wrap up the meeting.
So, public comment. Mr. M.G., we'd love to hear from you. Anybody else who'd like to...
Anybody else, whether you're online or in council chambers, if you'd like to make public comment, same
rules as normal, three minutes. If you'd like to state your name, that would be wonderful. Are there
folks online? Yes, there are, but I have a question. Okay, so we'll start here with Mr. Emgy.
Thank you, Mr. President. Christopher Emgy from the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce, a 904 membership
organization, 80% of those local.
I'm just looking at my notes and we talked a lot about assets and how I sort of saw what are those assets.
Some of them are very transportation based with the sidewalks, the Indiana projects have been brought
up. Others are more economic development. I often talk about baseball fields. Frank Southern, we just
had a pneumonia spill. Those are things that sort of bring in sort of tourists and have an economic vitality.
That also includes the arts. We have the Waldron and the Buskirk. And then there's more community ones,
such as the Banneker Center and Alice and Jukebox. So it's very hard to sort of put all of those into
one umbrella or the term bucket, which I don't like. When we talked about homeless, I think one of the
things that if the council was sort of centered on is what can we do, what can we fund that can save
money down the road? These are investments. It's the ounce of prevention.
So what can we do to maybe save money on businesses for cleanup costs coming from needles and other
trash? So we've got to look at it with that lens in mind. And then a little bit on the social service
end. We didn't mention it, I don't think, tonight, but the Jack Hopkins. That's very social service.
You mentioned in conversations about getting more focused there, maybe increasing that funding and getting
some very social service, maybe less projects and maybe a little bit bigger from one of our providers
that sort of looks into that. Cost to move. I liked Council Members Asari on that. What is that going
to cost? I mean, a lot of these things that I think the council claims it can draw, it doesn't really
have quite the resources to start really handing out the type of checks, especially in this economic
environment, SB,
one that I think that would allow for that. So we've got to make sure we're sort of investing that money
wisely in the city. And then also looking at in the opposite, what can we cut? What assets do we not
need? So it's something to look at there. And then we talked about plans. I'll leave you with what I
scribbled. Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. And I think that sums up
tonight. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Is there anyone online who would like to make a comment? Yes, we have two hands around. Fantastic. First
person, you'll be unmuted, and you have three minutes. Hello, this is Kevin Keough. Hey, Kevin.
Good evening. For the past several months, my public comments have focused on the symptom of our cities
late publication of the annual comprehensive financial report, the ACFR, along with questions about
when it's due and are there any consequences to late publications of the ACFR. Today, I'm here to address
the underlying condition. I'm moving beyond the topic of simple timeliness to the critical legal requirements
of the single audit report and our contractual bond covenants, also the need to strengthen our local
government's administrative processes and much needed improvement with internal controls.
In my recent email inquiries to the State Board of Accounts and responses from Beth Kelly, the Deputy
State Examiner of the State of Indiana Board of Public Accounts, she was unequivocal. The September
30th deadline is not a suggestion. It is a federal regulation mandate under the uniform guidance. This
deadline exists to ensure