I usually start these things on time. I am one minute late today getting started, but
 I'll give you just sort of a snapshot of what's going on in the city and then I have
 my colleague Tim Street here who is with Parks and he'll give you a little bit of an update
 about what we're excited about in the Parks Department and then we really facilitate these
 based on what you're interested in hearing. So it's a free for all in terms of questions
 and the only sort of rule of engagement here is just to honor the fact that we have several
 people who may be wanting to answer questions and, hey Terry, and so just if we do end up
 filling the crowd here, just be respectful of other people who may want to ask some questions.
 So let me get my list of updates here for you. The first thing I want to talk about
 is the storms that we've just experienced. We've had a lot of rain in the past several
 days and the great news is that while we have been really soggy in Bloomington, we've had
 a lot of the work that we've been doing over the past several years to do storm water mitigation,
 especially as we're looking at climate change and the impacts of the rapid ground water
 movement that we get. That storm water mitigation is really doing its job. So I know we have
 some residents with some wet basements and some other sort of hassles, but we did not
 see the massive flooding on Kirkwood that we have seen in the past. Likewise, we have
 had lots of flooding on the south side, sort of down near Switchyard Park. We even had
 someone swept away in a car a couple of years ago during the June storms and so we're really
 pleased with that and my thanks goes to CBU, the utility for all of the planning that they're
 doing with storm water, but also for the 60 employees of CBU who've been working since
 Wednesday on making sure that all of the grates are cleaned in the street and maintaining
 all of the inlets and making sure that our plants are surviving all of this storm water
 well. I want to talk a little bit about community safety. The first update is that how many
 people here live in this neighborhood or in District 2 generally? One, two, ish. Okay,
 so I'll leave things that are just pertinent to this area for later if we have time. The
 good news is we have our statistics in from last year. Our violent crime went down 24.3
 percent last year, so that's a pretty incredible statistic. Our police department is getting
 to the place where we're nearly fully staffed, and importantly, what that means is that we
 can get back to doing community policing. Of course, we have a robust social work team
 there now at the police department, which is awesome, yes. We really have some of the
 most forward-looking and forward-thinking policies that are available. My thanks to
 our downtown resource officers that are part of the police, but also our downtown ambassadors.
 They work through community and family resources department. The other thing I want to update
 you on related to policing is that we are looking at 714 South Rogers Street, which
 is the large concrete building at the corner of ... It's about first in Rogers. That was
 part of the old hospital site acquisition, so part of Hopewell. We have wanted to preserve
 the building, both to be good stewards to our earth, but also to be good stewards of
 our tax funds. As we have looked at it, it is really clear that it would make a great
 police department. Our police department is very cramped right now. It also is in a building
 that continues to flood, although it did not this past weekend, and really has some major
 issues of accessibility, and also having a welcoming feel, especially when we are getting
 people who are victims of crimes. Let me also update you on the fiber network installation
 that we are doing. I put out a press release on Friday. Did that go out, Desiree? The subcontractor
 that was working on that installation, and this is for our digital accessibility, so
 high speed internet everywhere, the subcontractor went bankrupt, and so they are no longer on
 the job, and the meridian who we have a contract with is working on replacing that subcontractor.
 We do want to see the installation complete so we can get fiber everywhere in the city,
 and we also know that AEG, TrueLine, they changed their name midway through. They really
 had some challenges. Residents had some challenges with them, and so we are looking forward to
 putting together a great network, getting it fully operational, and working with a subcontractor
 that can really put our properties back the way they were when we found them and improve
 safety on the job sites.
 Trades district, you may have also heard that we had some vandalism at the trades district
 last week. That is very disappointing. Every dollar that is spent to repair things at trades,
 things anywhere that is due to vandalism is money that can't be spent helping meet basic
 needs and doing other things for the community. I'm disappointed in that. We are working with
 the forage and others to make sure those repairs get made. I really just want to encourage
 Bloomington to use your powers for good. If there is a challenge and you want to talk
 about whatever problem you are having, happy to be part of the solution and we are really
 trying to be an outlet at the office of the mayor for creative problem solving throughout
 our city.
 We are excited about the CCC grant. That's the campus community collaboration grant that
 came through Lilly. That is helping with the trades district. All the funding went to the
 university and then it is being used to really build a tangible partnership between the campus
 and the students there and the commercialization that is going to come out of the university
 and be used to help our economy here and especially help with innovation.
 And finally this Thursday April 10th at 6 p.m. we will be dedicating the new art installation
 at the trades district which is titled OT 987 and so the public is invited to join us
 at that community celebration. I'm going to let Tim make a couple of happy
 notes that are directly owned by the parks department but I will just note that Kirkwood
 is closed which means it's open for pedestrians now and open for outdoor dining and we did
 that just in time for the weather to change briefly but we're looking forward to summer
 days of enjoying Kirkwood together. And I'm going to turn things over to Tim in just a
 second. I just want to recognize a couple new members of our team. Keisha is here. She's
 waving to you. Keisha joined office of the mayor today. Do you want to stand up and tell
 us your role, Keisha?
 What did you say your title is? Community engagement director. I think that's it. I do, so you
 can reach them at call the mayor's office, you can leave a message. Today is my first
 day, so everything is kind of getting settled in. Yeah, you can definitely send me an email
 to work. Our new staff are available only for one-way communication today. You can't
 ask her any questions, but she can tell you what she knows. And then we have Lucas who
 is here, maybe a familiar face. Yeah, so my name is Lucas Gonzalez. I work on the communications
 team for the city, so I'll be working very closely with Desiree. Before this, I worked
 with Desiree, WFIU and WTIU, so a little bit of a different change-up for me, but I'm very
 happy to be serving the community that I love. Awesome. And for those who haven't met Margaret,
 my assistant, she's back here, and Desiree is our communications director. And I'm going
 to turn things over to our parks director, Tim Street, who can always upstage me with
 all of the fun things Parks is doing. All right. Welcome. As the mayor said, my name
 is Tim Street. I have the great privilege of being the director of our great parks department
 here in Bloomington, and it is basically our job to make Bloomington a great place to live,
 or to help make Bloomington a great place to live and enhance our quality of life through
 our parks and trails and programs and all the things that we offer. So tonight was an
 opportune meeting to join. One, because we're here in the Banneker Center, which is a great
 community resource that we operate for this neighborhood and beyond. Some great things
 happen here. And two, we're right at the cusp of launching so much of our season. We get
 a little bit quieter over the winter in terms of programming and things like that, but just
 this past weekend we had our first farmers market and we had, gosh, a thousand people
 come out despite the rain, which was really wonderful. We've got the highest number of
 vendors and artisans we've had in a number of years. I'm really excited about the momentum
 of the market and the way that that's been going. It's really positive. It's a really
 wonderful slice of Bloomington and beyond. We would have opened the Griffey Lake Boathouse
 this weekend had it not been underwater, but no launching boats because the boat ramp was
 underwater. But again, no damage. We're very thankful. We have a little bit of cleanup
 to do after the weekend rains and everything like that, but for the most part everything
 tends to be okay. I'll just update on a few projects and things we have going on right
 now. We're in the midst of completing a slew of accessibility projects funded by the final
 ARPA dollars available to the city that we budgeted in 2024. So some things you might
 hear or see about with that is we're getting ready to do some improvements to the building
 trades park. This park is from 1949, so it's one of Bloomington's older parks. It is a
 previous quarry. And some of the amenities, especially the accessibility, things like
 that are a little dated and in need of an update, especially with the Hopewell neighborhood
 going in across the street. So I'm excited that we're going to be tearing down the old
 wooden ramp that was providing some accessibility and is getting a bit decrepit and putting
 in a new accessible path north-south from 2nd Street to Howe Street, adding a new more
 accessible shelter, tearing down the old one, which if you've looked at it, it starts
 to have a little bit of a lean. So we're ready to decommission that one. So that's going
 to be starting probably the end of this month or early next month. At Switchard Park, we've
 been working with the community council on accessibility to add our first tactile map,
 which I'm really excited about. This is a map for park users who have visual impairments.
 So it is a map that, one, everyone can use. So it has, just like a regular map, it's printed,
 it has colors, it has everything, but it also has braille and it also has textures that
 you can feel. So we'll have a map of Switchard Park going in in May, which I'm very excited
 about. We've been working on new accessible doors at this facility at the Frank Southern
 Center at the Allison Jukebox building and coming soon to the Twin Lakes Rec Center.
 So new push button entry doors for accessibility. I mentioned farmers markets. One other big
 thing we have going on is we're working on our five-year master plan. And so you will
 probably be hearing more about this coming up. Our department, like most in the state
 and many beyond the state too, operates on a five-year master plan. So every five years,
 we sort of pause, we take a step back and we really engage with the community to find
 out what is it our community needs from the Parks Department. You know, every week I get
 a lot of requests. We need more fill-in-the-blank, pickleball, soccer, just blank space, you
 know, you name it. A lot of people have different things that they really want to see from the
 Parks Department. And while I wish we could just do them all, that is not our financial
 reality, nor is it responsible for us to. So just this past week, we engaged in a bunch
 of focus groups with community members to begin that process. We had five focus groups.
 Over this year, we're going to be doing a statistically valid community survey about
 a needs assessment for our system. And then we'll have some other engagement opportunities,
 an open house about the master plan. And this is sort of a process that runs throughout
 the year and that we take back to our Board of Park Commissioners to adopt. And it really
 sets our main goals and our investments and our priorities for the next five years to
 come for the City of Bloomington. We do have a particular focus this time around on financial
 sustainability. Our Parks Department, like many out there and like many municipalities,
 we have a lot of aging facilities. We're lucky in the last five years to have some amazing
 new things like Switchart Park and now Hopewell Commons. But we recognize that we need to
 have a really important focus on how do we sustain the things that we have in a really
 quality fashion for the community. So, for example, our two pools are from 1957 and 1963,
 I think. Those are pretty dated, the ice arenas from the 1960s. We know that these, the longer
 we go and defer maintenance and things like that, the more expensive it's going to be
 to take care of them. So our plan this year is really going to focus on how do we maintain
 the quality of our parks that our residents have come to expect and our trails and all
 of our program offerings well into the future, you know, beyond our time here in Bloomington.
 And I'll just, lastly, just mention a few other projects we have going on. We're closing
 in on getting a bid packet ready for our power line trail. This is actually one of the city's
 bicentennial projects back from 2018 that had some delays in implementation, but this
 will build a new trail running west from Switchyard Park along the tall power lines that you see
 here. It'll actually pick up a connection to RCA Park and the new Habitat Osage community
 along the way, and then the summit district development that is to come in the future
 will extend that trail out towards Weamer Road. So the B line is a really great recreational
 and transportation spine for our community, and the more we can connect people to that
 via walking, biking, rolling, whatever it might be, the more we can help with problems
 like traffic and climate change and things like that as well. So that's a great project
 coming up. And then lastly, I'll just mention Hopewell Commons. So as part of the city's
 overall effort at Hopewell, there was a desire to build a vibrant common space to function
 as basically social infrastructure for that neighborhood and for the city, a place for
 people to gather, to connect, to be together, to provide green space for those future houses
 or whatever type of living it ends up being. And we're really lucky to have this new one-acre
 park right off the beeline. So if you are in the downtown, just south of downtown area
 in the vicinity of the Seminary Square Kroger and you look west, you'll see Hopewell. It's
 along the new University Street, which will be opening probably sometime in the next month
 or so. But the park itself is already open. You can come in. There's a lawn space. We
 have temporary pickleball courts set up there to help activate the area. And it's a really
 fantastic area with a lot of great design features, like wood sourced basically from
 here in Indiana and kiln dried here in Indiana. It's a permeable pavers that help with stormwater
 penetration. It's a really great modern designed facility that I hope will provide a lot of
 recreation and connection for years to come. We're going to take questions. If you have
 a question and you're willing to come up to this microphone, that is how folks at home
 can hear what the question is. If you're not comfortable doing that, there are two options.
 We have some note cards so you can fill out your question. I'm happy to read it over the
 microphone. Or as long as it's not too verbose, if you want to ask your question from your
 seat, I'm happy to repeat it into this microphone. So those are the options. And while you're
 thinking about or writing down questions and coming up, I'll give a couple of other updates
 that you may be interested in. Part of the reason we may not have a huge crowd here is
 because our election board is also meeting tonight and they'll be meeting again to take
 a final vote. They are considering doing vote centers. And in order to implement vote centers
 in Monroe County, the election board has to have a unanimous vote. And vote centers allow
 people no matter what your precinct is in Monroe County, you can show up to any of the
 vote centers. And so, for instance, we heard from folks at the meeting tonight that lived
 way out in Unionville, but they work downtown and they don't get off of work until 530.
 A person like that and have daycare drop off ahead of that. A person like that could leave
 their work at 530 and go straight to a downtown vote center and get there in time. A person
 who may be a new voter or whose precinct area changes or their voting precinct changes, they
 can pick any of the voting areas. And we have had a number of students especially show up
 at the Union trying to vote, but they don't live in the precinct where that actual precinct
 voting center is. So a county vote center, and there will be multiple county vote centers
 if they approve, you can pick any one. And so you can go close to home, close to work,
 close to school, you can go in the middle of the day, et cetera. And so as one of my
 priorities is to get voter engagement up and the bare minimum is to get people to vote.
 So anything we can do to remove barriers to voting is a bonus and your voice is needed
 at the next vote center meeting or you can write to the election board. It's the county
 election board. So it's the vote center or the election board meetings are available
 online through the county website. You can find them there. You can also go in person
 to their meetings. They happen at the county courthouse, which is the building that's in
 the center of our square between 6th and Kirkwood, Washington or Washington College and Walnut.
 So that was long and still nobody's at the at the microphone. Yeah, Don.
 Why are vote centers even an issue? It doesn't seem to me that that's, I mean, I'm a little
 bit out of it, but why is it even an issue?
 Yeah, so the question is, why is it even an issue? Well, you didn't introduce yourself,
 so I'm not going to do it for you because maybe you want to be anonymous. But I am not
 sure what the opposition to vote centers is. I was not able to stay long enough to hear
 the end of the discussion tonight, but it is a bipartisan committee. I don't think voting
 should be a partisan issue. It's just about participating. But I would, if you want to
 know, I would encourage you to engage with the folks on the election board.
 I mean, we want everybody to vote, but a lot of people will say, "Oh, I had to work." So
 maybe it's just a good idea to take every excuse away.
 I do think we need to make it as easy as possible for people to vote.
 Now, the old Napa building downtown has operated as a vote center for a good while. I know
 that city.
 It's county. It's county. It's county-owned. So the comment is the old Napa building. Well,
 those of us who've been here a long time call it the old Napa building, but it's at Third
 and Walnut. That has operated as the early vote center. There has been no election day
 vote center. So if you want to vote at that place, you have to be in that precinct on
 election day. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the proposal is to have a number of vote centers all over
 the county. Yeah. So people wouldn't even have to come downtown if it passes. And I
 didn't want to hijack the meeting with vote centers, but I'm happy to continue talking
 about them. The other update, and you can think about more questions, more topics, is
 that we are in the middle of, well, we're at the very beginning stage of city and place
 branding initiative that helps us tell the story of who we are in Bloomington and helps
 us welcome everyone to Bloomington. And so there is a website up now called and you go
 to WeAreBloomington.com and you can give us some information about what you love about
 Bloomington, what makes Bloomington Bloomington for you. We're trying to get all kinds of
 voices into this process. There will be more public input as well, but that website's already
 up now. Come on. All right. Thanks, Steve. Break the ice. And if you're willing to introduce
 yourself, that's how we can help build community. My name is Steve Layman. Don's my great-grandpa.
 Okay. So I was going to ask, I know last fall you had an event at 11th and Adams to announce
 a new daycare and residence area. And so my question is, is where are we at on that? And
 I think I told you this most exciting thing I've seen come out for a long time. It's really
 awesome. So this is a project to do a daycare that is, it's an education center, and it
 is up at about 11th and Monroe. It's more like maybe 12th and Monroe. That is a project
 technically owned by the Bloomington Housing Authority. It is very exciting. First of all,
 we don't have nearly enough daycare spots available in Monroe County or in the city
 of Bloomington. This is right near a bunch of housing where people live that need daycare.
 And having daycare really close to your house is really important. It will be affordable,
 and it'll really be just fantastic opportunity for that neighborhood and for the city in
 general. Sorry, you want to ask where we are in the project? So I haven't been up there
 probably in seven days, but they were moving a lot of dirt and putting concrete in the
 ground. So it's moving. Oh, okay. Oh, from Community Kitchen Express, yes. It's about
 a block and a half away from there. Yeah, Terry. I know it's infant to three or four,
 and I don't know about the cost of it. But that, again, is a Bloomington Housing Authority.
 So while it has Bloomington in the name, it's a different organization. We just happened
 to provide some funding to it, but it's... Separate. Yep. That's right. Yeah, but still
 not enough daycare. Yeah. And really, when a community doesn't have enough daycare and
 does not have enough affordable daycare, we really are keeping people in poverty. It can
 cost more to put a child in daycare than what you're going to end up netting in your job.
 And at a time when we really need people working, if a parent is able to work and wants to work,
 we want to make that daycare accessible to them. Yeah. So we are happy to get back to
 you with lots of information. Again, it's not a City of Bloomington project. I am excited
 about it. The City did provide some funding, but that's a BHA project. So if you gave Desiree
 contact information and you're asking about this, we can circle back with you about that
 project. I'd like to claim it because it's one of the coolest things happening. You're
 right. It's called the Early Learning Center. Can you look that up while we're talking?
 Go ahead. I have more of a couple of brief comments than questions, one of which does
 relate to parks and rec. That one is that I have ridden my bicycle out to the Cascades
 Park, which I believe is a city park rather than a county. I do not feel it would be any
 advantage to me as a biker to have the roads cleared, closed off. It would not help me
 one bit. However, it would make it more difficult for handicapped people and for people who
 are trying to bring in picnic supplies. My other comment, as I was going downtown today
 on my bicycle, I went by a food truck creating huge amounts of noise with its generator and
 spewing toxic fumes and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. We should not be at -- supporting
 - administratively supporting food trucks in Bloomington. We should try to discourage
 that. Thank you.
 No. I mean, that ship has sailed. Yes.
 Hi, Corey Hawkins. This is kind of off the heels of what Tim said about failing infrastructure.
 We're here at the Banneker, and if you look around, you might notice that it's failing.
 So the Banneker is more than just a building. It's a living, breathing monument to black
 history and a critical third place for marginalized communities in Bloomington. So what specific
 measurable investments is this city making in this place? One of the places that not
 only historically has preserved kind of the integrity of the black community and other
 marginalized communities here in town, but also currently meets the needs of black LGBTQ,
 low income marginalized communities as they're being attacked across the country.
 Sure. I'm happy to talk about that a little bit. And I see that Kevin, who is our Banneker
 director, has joined us in here this evening. But yeah, as I mentioned, the Banneker is
 a really important and great community asset. And third place, absolutely. You know, from
 after school programs to I stopped by here the other day and on the third floor, the
 weather was crummy and there was like four or five different moms with their infants
 using the third floor. There's a podcast library, there's teen engagement, there's a whole lot
 of things. As a historic building, it is a challenge. And it is a challenge that we're
 constantly facing with how do we keep up with this? How do we maintain the historic standards?
 And how do we also make sure that it stays usable? A lot of that strategically going
 forward is about picking our battles and making sure we're making decisions to set us up for
 sustainability long term. In terms of the building itself right now, there are a few
 things going on. One of the advantages of having a historic building and serving the
 populations that we serve here is it tends to be eligible for a lot of different types
 of grants. And so we're able to go beyond our funding just for the city and find other
 ways to help fund improvements to the building. So we did receive this year a designated historic
 places grant from the state. That is specifically tackling the front steps and restoring the
 front steps with new limestone. If you've been on them, you've seen that the salt over
 the years has really eroded them. So later this year, we're going to have new front steps.
 So that is going on. We are also right now working with Ball State. For the state of
 Indiana, if you want to do like historic architecture projects, Ball State is your place to do that.
 They've got a lot of students, a lot of expertise. And so this semester we are working with a
 professor who I've actually worked with before on our Cascades history and one of his master
 students on a complete building assessment and recommendations on not just how we can
 make repairs, sometimes we know that, but how we make them in a way that is consistent
 with the historic standards that we need to stay with because of the historic covenant
 on this building. Kevin's been doing a lot of work and investigations into the roof.
 We've actually got another grant. Kevin is in the range of like 20K I think we're looking
 at to do that project, the roof project. About 30,000 we're looking at for that. That's
 in process right now and then back to the Ball State thing actually right at the end
 of the semester here. Can you tell me the date? Do you remember the date we're doing
 it here? Early May. We can follow up with that. We're actually going to have a presentation
 of their findings and then we're going to use those findings to prioritize and continue
 to help find ways to solve issues in this building like water penetration and things
 like that. It's either late April or early May. I don't recall that date offhand. Actually,
 I didn't even mention that, but we are working with the Economic and Sustainable Development
 Department. Oh yeah, nope, and that is actually in the works. We're going to do a full LED
 conversion here as well as at a couple other facilities that we have. We definitely recognize
 the value of this and need to continue to find ways to make sure it remains thriving
 and in good shape. Yeah, I'll have to get back to you with specifics on that. I don't
 have any strategic plan in front of me that I know what we're doing next on that, but
 certainly continuing to support the after school programs that meet here. There's a
 lot of, I'm always amazed at the range of events that happen here from sumo wrestling
 to Rubik's Cube championships to churches on Sunday to free computer giveaway with United
 Way. So certainly we want to continue to find ways to activate and make things happen here.
 But I think you're asking more specifically for the local community that really needs
 that activation, how are we going to continue? Yeah, I wish I could give you a bunch of specifics
 right now, but it remains a priority and something our staff here is doing a great job of, and
 we're certainly going to continue with the fair, the carnival, the bike giveaway, all
 the things that we do here. Other questions? Yeah, see. This is a really
 random. Okay, so I remember about eight or 10 years
 ago, the city bought a section of property on the north side of Cascades Park. And if
 I remember correctly, there were several structures there. I drive through there three or four
 times a week. There were several structures there. I believe that there were some Tibetan
 monks living out there and things like that. City bought the property and the structures
 were taken down and everything. And it's been empty ever since. And since I drive by there
 numerous times a week, going to my favorite place, Cascades Golf Course, I always wonder
 are there any plans for that property? Great question. The short answer is no. Those
 properties were bought essentially to preserve the natural landscape of Lower Cascades Park
 when those buildings were basically being sold and abandoned. They were in poor condition,
 the monastery and everything. I was not here at the time, so I'm speaking from my historical
 knowledge, but I believe the desire was to buy those properties to protect what is otherwise
 a very unimpeded natural landscape of trees and forest and creek and everything. The buildings
 were taken down. Additionally, it would be a challenge to put any major buildings back
 in that location because it's also floodplain from the creek there and it floods pretty
 substantially. So essentially more nature space. We may come back there at some point
 and unpaved hiking trails, things like that, we may try to put back into that space, but
 no formal plans for development.
 The comment for those watching was about the boardwalk that we put in a couple of years
 ago at Cascades up to the waterfall. That is certainly one of the sort of natural icons
 of Bloomington. And speaking of, you know, branding our community, I think our natural
 features have a lot to do with that. And so making that more accessible to people who
 are using strollers or walkers or power chairs that I've seen going up there is a huge delight
 to me to see people be able to enjoy that.
 And if you haven't been out there in the last couple days, the waterfall is really gushing
 right now. So now is the moment to go see that waterfall. Other questions? We don't
 have to stay till seven if nobody has questions. Margaret has her hand up. A comment. Thank
 you, Margaret, the Reverend Dr. Marvin Chandler Early Learning Center. And is there are there
 are notes about how many spaces are there?
 A lot of the detailed questions we should get from BHA. But we can get you and in contact
 with somebody there if you're really interested in a bunch of the details. So 28 early learning
 spots, 0 to 3. And for those of you who are not parenting that age group, which I'm not,
 but I am paying attention. MCCSC last year did fund four year olds into pre K. So that's
 accessible to the whole community. So there's zero to three spots are what we're really looking
 for in the community just to highlight there should not be a gap from four to five while
 you wait for kindergarten.
 MCCSC has a great vocational learning center, which is called Hoosier Hills, and they do
 a lot of great projects throughout the community. And and we do try to hire and train where
 we can. And including and I'll give a shout out for Tim's crews, even though I have no
 idea if we're looking for seasonal help right now in the parks. Yes. So we still have some
 openings there. But it's great to learn some of these things during the summer and contribute
 back to your community while getting paid. So look on our HR site for open jobs, even
 seasonally. And I will note another thing that's happening tonight. And in this very
 building is the NAACP is meeting upstairs. So we have some people who are coming through
 sorry. Yeah, started 15 minutes ago, but they're still meeting up there. Yeah. Other Yes.
 Yeah, great question. So the question is, how will we be sort of working on our community
 needs assessment? So we have sort of a two prong strategy for that. One of them is to
 try to get still, it's increasingly a challenge to do this, but to get statistically valid
 survey responses from a representative sample of Bloomington households. So that is one
 prong we are working on is randomized sampling of people that we will be sending the survey
 to and hoping we get a good enough response rate to reach that random sample size. So
 we want that, but then we're also doing what we're calling equitable engagement. So that
 started with focus groups, but that is not the end of it at all. So we had some focus
 groups. Now we kind of take a step back and we process what we got from the focus groups
 to sort of build that next step. So there will be, if you're at parks events this summer,
 if you're at the farmers market, we're going to have info tables set up. We're going to
 do sort of a parallel survey to the one that we send out, the statistically valid one that
 will just be available for anyone. So that way we can sort of compare the here's the
 random sample one with here's just one that people who are interested found and filled
 out. And then we'll also have at least one sort of major event about our master planning
 efforts to as a chance to share how far we've gotten so far. It'll be kind of like a midpoint,
 like here's what we've done with our early work. Now continue to give us feedback to
 guide the latter half of the plan development. So there'll be lots of opportunities coming
 up if you're tuned in to like parks channels. Yeah, that is something we've actually talked
 about with our consultant team. And you know, oh, I'm sorry. The question was how might
 we get feedback from some of our unhoused neighbors who also use the park spaces, because
 park spaces are for everybody. Everyone is welcome to use our parks, of course. And that
 is something we've talked about. But we don't have a specific strategy in place yet on that.
 But it's something we anticipate working on this summer. Yeah. Potentially. Sure. Talk
 to me after. Yeah? Thank you for reminding me to repeat the question. I keep forgetting.
 Is there a specific strategy to get people who are not engaged in parks events? So first
 off, we did community focus groups this past week. And we tried to purposefully select
 different groups of people and invite people to represent different community interests.
 So from business and civic leaders to people who represent different user groups and participants.
 Like someone who, we had a parent of a kid who goes to Kid City. We invited a parent
 of a Banneker student who's here a lot, as parks users. Pardon me? Right. Yeah. But so
 I'm just saying as we go across the range of people that, you know, we're trying to
 grab as many different types of people that we can into those focus groups. Some of this
 is still a work in progress because we've just kicked off. And so some of the strategy
 we're still working on with our consultant that we're working with. And our surveying
 company like we haven't even had our kickoff meeting with them yet to develop the survey.
 So more to come on that. And certainly we'll keep that in mind and keep thinking about
 that and how we can engage those folks. Let me just hop in for a second. So one of the
 things that my administration has been trying to do is reach the people who don't naturally
 show up at meetings like this. People can't come at 6 p.m. People don't necessarily want
 to come to a public meeting. People may not know about a focus group, etc., etc., etc.
 So we're trying to stretch our bandwidth to think about how to meet people where they
 are and how to get the input in a way that's comfortable for people. So this is a great
 opportunity for us to say, if you have ideas for how we can reach people that we're not
 currently reaching, please share them with us. We're super open to hearing them. We do
 online surveys. Not everybody has access to Internet, etc., etc. Not everybody's going
 to come to the farmer's market. Not everybody's going to be a parks user yet, and we definitely
 want to know why aren't you a parks user, and could we make it more accessible to you?
 And Keisha has lots of experience in creatively engaging people in public processes, so we're
 just so, so thankful to have her on our team. I'm going to encourage you to share thoughts
 with her either now or later, or you can share them with me after the meeting. But we really
 eagerly want, not just in the parks process, we want to know how our government can do
 better serving the people that are feeling unserved. So that is a, it's a priority for
 our team, and if you have thoughts, please share them with us, because we, we are only
 so many people, you know, thinking through this, and an outside perspective is always,
 always welcome. Dave?
 [inaudible]
 So yeah, so the, I'm, I'm going, you can tell me whatever I missed, but I'm going to try
 to repeat the, tonight at the Redevelopment Commission meeting, which is also competing
 for people's attention tonight, they did a public opening of the bids on Hopewell East,
 and the bids, the project proposals for Hopewell South also have been active, and so Dave was
 asking about, did he miss something? No, no decision has been made about Hopewell South
 yet, and sorry. [inaudible]
 It's still in flux. Yeah, so, and, and Hopewell is, we're really proud that Hopewell Commons
 is open, and it's been my administration's priority to try to get a high number of affordable
 and attainable homes in Hopewell, and it is, affordable is one piece of the puzzle, and
 so what I'm talking about is technically affordable, which comes with some kind of government
 subsidy.
 Usually those are low income tax credit projects, so there's a formula for how you, how a developer
 could afford to build a project that is specifically designated for low income households. Then
 there's what we refer to as attainable, which is for people who make enough to not qualify
 for a subsidy, but still not enough to pay for what otherwise might be market rate in
 Bloomington, which as we know is very high, how are we going to house those people? And
 how do we make properties available to them? That actually in today's market is a much
 more difficult challenge. And so as we look at the other tracks in Hopewell, which is
 comprised of several different projects, my goal is to make whatever is not technically
 affordable attainable to folks who are not otherwise wealthy. So we continue to problem
 solve on that. Other questions? No? Hopewell. Yeah. Yes.
 To my knowledge, Orchard Glen is actually affordable. It's it has subsidy attached
 to it. Yeah. And so we we have talked to the property managers over at Orchard Glen who
 also now have some some other successful properties about how they're doing what they're doing
 and and what the formula is. Those aren't new construction. And so we're in a slightly
 different paradigm now. I want to take this opportunity to thank the folks who run Orchard
 Glen, but also the other responsible landlords in our community who are dedicated to keeping
 properties attainable and or affordable, those who are taking our housing choice vouchers,
 because we still need more landlords who will accept those housing choice vouchers. And
 as we look to really solve the challenge of people who are experiencing homelessness without
 a shelter, so literally living outside, we need to keep people housed where they are
 with eviction prevention and other diversion. And we need to make sure there's enough supply
 of low income housing. We also need the attainable housing for others. So when we're looking
 at the housing spectrum, we need several pieces of that spectrum really bolstered. And that's
 how we're going to get to a good picture of a Bloomington city where people can truly
 thrive. Okay. I'm going to give you three minutes of your night back. I thought it was
 way earlier than that. So I'm only gifting you three minutes. I want to thank you for
 coming tonight. Really appreciate your participation. I do these six times a year, one in each city
 council district. I also do traveling office hours for people who need 15 minutes of just
 my attention with nobody else really listening. And those are great opportunities and have
 been accessed by people who don't love coming to public meetings for one reason or another
 or have something private to talk about. So you can tell others who may not have wanted
 to join you tonight, those traveling office hours are done in the months when I don't
 have a town hall. So 12 months a year, I'm out in public doing something for input and
 encourage engagement. And Margaret is telling me to tell you that you can sign up ahead
 of time. Is that what the charades were? Door knocking. And I also go door knocking once
 a month. And I just I pick different neighborhoods trying to get all over the city. So if you
 want me in your neighborhood, let me know. Yes. It's a great idea. So Terry, you always
 have great ideas. So I'm going to I'm going to just let people know you can talk amongst
 yourselves so that we can say goodbye to the people on screen and and thanks again for
 coming tonight. [applause] [music]
 [music] [music]