>> Hello, good evening. I am Mayor Carey and we are so glad to have you here, and I understand that we're up on a stage and you're down on the floor, which is not our favorite setup. But we are going to stay up here because BCAT's all set up and let's hear it for BCAT. We're so grateful to have community access, television that bring people into our town hall even when they can't be with us. In person, I have with me tonight, Jane Coopersmith, who is our Director of Economic and Sustainable Development at the City of Bloomington and the President of your City Council, Hopi Stossberg, who is also your district representative here. So the way we do this because gratefully, we see some new faces here, lots of new faces. We each will give an update on what we're thinking about and what is top of mind for us at the city right now and then what we really love is your questions that help steer the things that you really want to know about. We had some early birds here, so I asked them what they were interested in hearing about. So they've already worked in to my comments a couple of questions, but we do be thinking about questions because the best part of this is when you all tell us what you really want to know. I just want to start by saying thank you to each of you for showing up tonight. This is something we do every other month. We do these big town halls. We travel throughout the city, always invite the council representative from that district. Then the months that we're not doing these big town halls, I do traveling office hours and so that's a way to just get some one-on-one time with me. If you have an issue or concern that you really want some more focused attention on or don't really want to talk about in a big public setting. So let me just share with you a couple of really recent things that I think are pretty awesome. Just today, we swore in 11 new police officers. So my commitment when I was running for mayor and through my term in office so far, is to really get our public safety operating at full capacity and with policing, of course, get back to community policing. So that's when they're doing something other than just responding to emergencies, they're really friends in the neighborhood, they get to know people and can provide community safety that way. We're getting very close to being fully staffed at our police department, and I shouldn't say this because then somebody will retire or get injured, but our fire is in great shape, that's what I'll say. So we really have made great strides in the last 18 months on both fronts. I also want to highlight the new transportation that we have going on downtown, and people are confused about that, that makes sense. So it's like a little minibus, and it's branded with our Blink Bloomington Transit logo, and that will be circulating, so it will be going on a set route. But if it's not busy, it also can be called like an Uber. So you can say, "This is where I am, come pick me up." So that is really exciting. It's free, and it is an effort to really maximize parking in our parking garages and elsewhere, and to make shopping downtown easier, especially if you're mobility limited. So you want to park a couple blocks away and go to a few shops, and then go all the way back to your car. Blink can help with that. So other bigger but longer-term things. We are working on a complete website rebuild. Desiree is in the back, our fabulous communications director. She is heading up that charge, and we're really excited about doing that, not because website design or rebuilding is fun, but because it's really a barrier to communication and transparency. If you've been on the city's website, you know that it's a website that's been added onto over many years, and nobody can find anything. Even I can't find things. So we're really looking forward to an easy-to-navigate website that gets our residents what they need to know when they need to know it. Make some audience nods. Nods, yes. Everybody, yes. It's like a next year thing. Yeah, it's going to be a minute. The question was, when do you expect to launch it? You-all can feel free to remind me. I have to repeat your questions into a microphone for folks on CATS. So, we also have our friends at Civic Brand who have been working very hard, and I'm going to tip my things over. There are some postcards that look like this in the back. And on the back is a website. You can go by QR code. It is a survey that will take you through a questionnaire about what makes Bloomington special for you. This is a branding effort that we're doing. We took the old wage growth study off the shelf. We decided to actually implement the wage growth study. And one of the first things it said was you really need to have a clear way of talking about what's great about Bloomington because wages are all going to be driven by the kind of businesses that we can attract and retain here and getting those top-level jobs, the mid-level jobs, et cetera. And, you know, I talk a lot, if you've heard me talk ever, about housing. Housing is both a supply problem but it's also an affordability problem. Part of the reason it's not affordable is because our wages are very low here. And so this is all part of a bigger economic development picture that Jane's going to talk more about, I'm sure. Tied to that housing work, we are doing a full audit of our permitting process. Housing permits have been way too slow. And that actually impacts the cost of housing here in Bloomington. And so we really want to make those efficient. We want to make sure that we can get our I's dotted and T's crossed, make sure everybody's in compliance and then get that permit out the door. And tied to that but separate work, we are going to be doing some revisions to our unified development ordinance. That is the code which used to be about 20 pages long just 50 years ago. It's now 564 pages long, imagine navigating that. And we need to do some very targeted revisions to make sure that we actually are getting housing that is targeted at people who work here in Bloomington. So we've really had a lot of student housing development over the past few years. We haven't had very much housing for our longer term residents. And that is concerning and it has to do, it is impacting our population retention, our population growth, and of course how far people have to commute to be able to work here. A couple of things that I'm going to highlight really quickly, we're in the middle of a parks master plan. That is all focused on sustainability. We have a lot of parks here, they cost a lot to maintain, they're beautiful, they're award winning, so when we talk about parks master plan, that doesn't mean we're planning to build a bunch of new parks. It means that we want to effectively and efficiently care very well for the parks that we have and so that's the focus of that parks master plan. We also have a parking study underway. Is the survey still live for that Desiree? Yes, okay, so if you have thoughts about parking and I'll just say, I have never met a resident in Bloomington that doesn't have thoughts about parking, please go take our parking survey. It only takes about five minutes. We really need all kinds of people to take that parking survey. We want to know why you're not parking downtown. If you are not parking downtown, why you do park downtown, what other modes you're using to not take up a parking spot, all kinds of people, we would love to hear from you on that. We also have capital projects planning happening for a new police headquarters. The intent right now is to put that at 714. You can't hear? You can? Yeah, 714 South Roger Street. We also need a new public works facility eventually. I'm going to talk really high level. I think many people have been reading in the news about the bill that was passed in our state house that really is limiting funding to local municipalities. We are concerned about that and we're concerned about how that's going to limit our budget very directly and very quickly. That of course comes at a time when there's significant federal funding cuts. We are concerned. We are going to be very creative about how we make ends meet. But I also just want to communicate to the public, the budget that you're going to see rolled out in August is not going to have a lot of special projects in it. It's not going to have a lot of new initiatives. We really need to focus on basic city services. Make sure your water is clean and safe. Your streets are plowed and they're well-maintained. Your parks are maintained, etc. This is not going to be a budget where you're going to hear us talking about big new initiatives. This is not the year for that. So that's what you can expect. Budget season, of course, is in August at the city of Bloomington, and we'll have some hard decisions to make. But I just want to really get the public used to hearing that we're going to be back to basics budgeting here, because I'm really committed to doing what we can with what we already have. The state legislature would like us to increase local taxes significantly and that's how they expect us to make ends meet. I'll just tell you, I talked to plenty of residents who are on a fixed or limited income and the taxes really impact people. And so we're not going to do that unless we think it's absolutely necessary and we will do it in a limited way. So that's our approach. And now on to Jane. You cover a lot of territory there. So yeah, I'm Jane Cooper-Smith, I'm the Director of Economic and Sustainable Development for the city. And our city is unique in that we put sustainability with economic development. We actually place arts and small business in the same context as well. We believe that these areas mutually inform one another and create a stronger economy when they're placed in the same context. So we want our small businesses to have access to the people who are facilitating arts and events. And we want our small businesses and our artists and our major economic development practitioners. We want everyone to have access to sustainability. Sustainability is a huge priority for the city of Bloomington. When Kerry talked about, you know, the local income tax impacts, Bloomington has already made a commitment to sustainability through its economic development local income tax. So we have a really significant budget for this already. And it serves us in a number of ways. This isn't the direction I was planning to go, but we'll just go with it. So it serves us in a number of ways. It helps us be more efficient as an institution with, you know, what how we're operating, what kinds of fixtures we have in our buildings, are our buildings all weather properly weatherized and what kinds of vehicles we're driving. It helps us with all those sorts of practical efficiencies. And then it helps us as a community deliver those same types of opportunities. So we have BGHIP, which is the Bloomington Green Home Improvement Program, which offers sorry, incentives for improvements that you make at home. If you're income qualified, you might get grant funding for them. If you're not income qualified, you can get really cheap financing for these projects. And then we offer a ton of resources, so if you're putting a heat pump in your house, you can see what that might cost you to install and then what are the laundry lists of tax benefits you can get with that. And those tax benefits are still there. We know they're there through 2025 and depending on what happens with this federal budget, they may also be there in 2026. So there's a lot of speculation that the federal budget won't actually get approved, which would mean that we just have a continuation. So there are some benefits to that, including the retention of these tax incentives. Yeah, so sustainability is really, really significant and that investment that our community, that you all have made in sustainability, is why we get national attention. Desiree just issued a press release today that talked about our being named, I can't remember what the official title was, but one of the most, or it was a, it was a grade A for sustainability of 112 cities across the globe. There were 112 A's across the globe and only 29 in the US. So we really fight above our weight in this category. The last thing I'll say about sustainability is that we're moving our efforts from, well, we're just expanding our efforts to include not just sustainability and greenhouse gas reduction, but really to think about climate resilience and the safety of our residents. So as summer hits, we're really concerned about people who have, you know, don't have access to air conditioning and who maybe have health, some kind of comorbidities that place them at greater health risks. So we have a low income air conditioner distribution program where if people are income qualified, they can get a free window unit installed in their house and they can potentially get a new window if the window frame isn't solid enough to install that. And that's anyone, renters or owners who live here. So we're thinking about that. We're helping install cooling stations across the community and we are trying to help people get to the swimming pool through the high heat, I can't remember, stay cool is what the program's called, the high heat days program. So if you're low income, if you qualify as a low income household, you can get access to those pools throughout the whole year. And then if you're not qualified in that way, when the temperature hits a certain amount, it's a level three high heat day, then we can all go swimming and just kind of try to decompress in that way. So those are some of our climate resilience initiatives. But we think a lot about placemaking. So our big swings for economic development, we want to grow our workforce population. We know that our population has declined. We know that our population is aging, which isn't bad in and of itself. We love retirees, they're a critical part of our community. But when our population becomes imbalanced, then the fabric can become a little weaker. So we need people represented at all parts of the life cycle. And so we know that we're missing that workforce piece. We know that people have been leaving Bloomington for places that are a little more affordable to live in. And so most of our initiatives are really, or many of our initiatives are working on just bringing those people back to Bloomington. So grow workforce population. We want to grow wages like Mayor Kerry mentioned, and we want to reinforce our economic base. And with these three major pillars, we have some pretty practical categories of activity underneath them. But I would say housing and childcare are probably the key of key importance under growing the workforce population. And everything really is driven toward reducing that housing constraint. So when we're talking about economic development, we're really thinking about Hopewell and what's happening there. And to Kerry's point about the development process, how can we reduce the barriers to construction in Bloomington? When we think about big picture economic development in a lot of communities, it's really just what resources, what dollars can the city provide to me and what type of incentive. But in Bloomington, well and everywhere, there's the time value of money. I see Tom here could talk about this much more intelligently than me. But an equal type of support for housing developers is just getting it done fast enough that they're not carrying debt and having to pay interest rates that drive up the cost of housing even more. So we're all really excited and motivated to be working on that. I think I'll park it there and pass to Hopi. There's a lot and we love questions. Thank you. So I'm Hopi Stasberg and I'm the District 3 City Council person. And as Mary Carey said, I'm also the President of City Council this year. And I will give a much shorter introduction than either of the other two because I would much rather just hear your questions. But a lot of the things that have already been talked about are things of course that City Council either already has dealt with or will have to also be involved with. So UDO changes, that's the Unified Development Ordinance, that will all end up coming through City Council at some point. And Mary Carey talked about a new police station, talked about a new public works building, all of those things have to get worked into the budget. We talked about the budget and right now, City Council and the city in general are really working on a lot of budget things to help make the budget process more transparent and make it more understandable with outcomes-based budgeting and helping make it clear, not just what department we're spending money in, but what that department is actually doing and how it is serving Bloomington, and how it is serving Bloomington residents. And I think that a lot of the programs that we have, if you look really at the programs, you can kind of see that. But if you incorporate that more into the budget process, then it's just easier to understand for everybody and it just makes it a little bit, a little bit more transparent, a little bit more accessible for everyone. So and then the other thing that I wanted to mention with regard to things that were already said, what Kerry said about the state property tax changes and how that is going to change, how we as a municipality, I mean, it's going to change our revenues and how we get revenue. And that's, I just want to say that I'm taking that very seriously as a council person, and I think that my colleagues are as well, because it's taxation in general of residents is just, it's very serious, it's not a laughing matter, it's not a joke. It is very, very serious and you have to think very, very carefully about how what we do impacts you all as residents. And so that is something that we are continuing, I'm continuing to learn more about and see how that develops. There's a lot of work going on behind the scenes with translating that bill from the state house and understanding how it's actually going to impact our budgets, and what that means in a very practical, analytical, mathematical sort of way. And then figuring out how we need to respond to that in terms of what our budgets for next year look like and what we're spending money on. And then of course with outcomes, what outcomes are we getting for what it is that we're spending money on. And the last thing that I want to talk about is just other ways to access me. Of course, you can email me anytime, hopi.stossberg@boomington.in.gov. And then I also have constituent meetings, generally third Saturdays of the month at 11 o'clock. And so the next one is June 21st. And so we're getting ready for City Council recess. Usually our meetings are Wednesday night. This Wednesday in two days is our last meeting until the middle of July. City Council meetings are kind of on summer recess. That doesn't mean it's a vacation or a break. It just means that our Wednesday meetings are on a little bit of a hiatus. But I will still have my constituent meetings throughout the summer. Usually I have those in person at City Hall. But weather allowing, I've been kind of going out into the farmers market instead. But my website at the city will kind of have updated information about that. So I think that that's everything for me right now, because I am very interested in hearing your questions and what you guys are interested in tonight. So thank you for coming and where are our questions? So Katz, do we need them to come to this microphone over there? They can just ask for, okay. So if you have a question, just raise your hand or stand up. Usually the great thing about these town halls is everybody has been very respectful. So if two people stand up at the same time, I'm sure we can figure out who can ask first. While you're thinking about standing up, did you announce Grand Faloon? No, it was on my list. Okay. We just want to invite you all to Grand Faloon this weekend. Actually, it's going on all week, but Friday night, there's the 4th and Rogers block party at 4th and Rogers. Then Saturday is the main stage concert which takes place on Kirkwood. I believe the concert starts at eight and it's free. Oh, what time? Four? Okay. The event starts at four. But it's free, kid-friendly, just a wonderful celebration. This event is supposed to be IU's love letter to Bloomington. So they've really put it on with us and to celebrate us. While we're announcing events, tomorrow is the groundbreaking of the Convention Center at 3.30 if anybody wants to also come to that groundbreaking. So that is an exciting culmination of a multi-year project. The beginning of it anyway. No, it is a culmination. It's a culmination of part of it. But yeah, I know we're just going to keep on talking until somebody stands up right now because we're just a master at that. Go for it. [ Silence ] >> Yes, so the question, the comment initially was about good that we have more police and then a comment that there's been some drug activity in your neighborhood. And let me just say that we want to do a great job, not an okay job. We do, of course, have to follow the law. And so, and that, you know, there's a standard for getting a warrant, et cetera. And so, there is a limit to what police can do. But I'm happy to talk to you afterwards about how we can improve and, you know, take that back to the chief. I think there's a lot of nuances that sometimes folks in the general public don't understand about the process that the police department does have to follow. Yeah. Yeah. [ Pause ] And it's been resolved now? Okay. Okay. Okay. Who else? I'll take it. Who else has a question? Yes. That would be great. You can introduce yourself if you'd like. We always love to know who we're talking to. [ Inaudible ] Uh-huh. [ Inaudible ] Yeah. So the -- I won't be able to remember the whole question, but the root of the question is that there's been some reporting in recent months about one particular sober-living organization called Malibu House, and the question is how does the -- how can the city hold these organizations accountable for making sure that they're providing safety to their residents and other residents? And what we have learned in -- so that situation has been in the news for two different reasons, and one of those reasons is that some of those houses, and they're -- the landlord is renting to Malibu House, so Malibu House doesn't own these properties, are not providing safe shelter, and so the city has gotten involved because there are -- we, of course, have rental inspections, and we require safe, inhabitable living situations, so that's one of the reasons, and so we have -- we did not just target the sober-living. There were multiple properties that came under that violation, and we are committed in my administration to ensure that if you're renting in the city of Bloomington, you will be providing safe, inhabitable housing, so that's one end of it. The other end of things in terms of regulating sober-living institutions is actually done at the state level, and there are protections there that the city doesn't have jurisdiction over. I will tell you that there are different certifications for different sober-living institutions, and my feeling is that is important to get real certifications that mean that they're providing safety and a good environment to people who are in crisis, so that's where we are with that, yeah. >> Thank you. I also just want to add to that in terms of that specific house that was purchased and encouraged to change as an organization, so Eastern Heights actually had a neighborhood beating. Oh, boy, was it only last week? I think, yeah, a week and a half, something like that, and the director of Courage to Change, and the -- oh, the case manager who is actually going to be working with that house, both attended, and they are -- first of all, as an organization, they are state licensed. They are very concerned with maintaining a high quality of, I guess I'll say sobriety of service to the residents of their houses, like as an organization, and they're also very open to hearing from the community and talking to people, especially neighbors who are then concerned and want to understand more about the organization and who the new neighbors are. So, I can get you in touch with that person, if you would like that contact information. Thank you for sharing those last parts because I think that that community meeting did help at least most people kind of, you know, the unknown can always be a little bit scary, so the more you know, the more comfortable we can all feel with what happens. And what I see coming home all the time is all these poor students and small families trying to get across 10th Street from both directions, you know, they're taking the bus to get to school, and there's no safe way for them to cross 10th Street, and it's been a major issue for a long time, and I've communicated with the city in the past and been told that it's not, but it's a major issue, so I'm just making sure you all are aware of that, and please, please, make it so the safe way for them to cross is true. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for mentioning that. So that is a state road, and the state does have project plans, and I'm not gonna know all of the dates off the top of my head, but if you drive by there right now, you'll notice that there are utility flags on the side of the road, and I mean, they should start construction this year. That is what is supposed to happen. So this project is gonna be in two phases. The first phase is gonna work from 10th Street to just past Pete Ellis, and then there's gonna be a second phase that goes from where they stopped just past Pete Ellis to Russell Road, and yes, there is a plan online, so I could get you that link, too, if you wanted. So there is a plan online. The state has that all drawn out already because now they're entering the construction phase, and there will be better pedestrian... It will honestly not take very much to be better pedestrian infrastructure at that corner of Pete Ellis and 10th because there's literally no pedestrian infrastructure there right now. So there will be pedestrian infrastructure there. There will also be other improvements along that way, and ultimately, there will be pedestrian access all the way from Pete Ellis to Russell Road, which is also an area that is just completely lacking and devoid in terms of pedestrian infrastructure and also bicycle infrastructure. I believe the plan right now has a multi-use path along... I think it's gonna be along the north side of 10th Street all the way from the bypass to Russell Road ultimately, and it's gonna take multiple years for that to happen. And so I've heard from some people that it's just like, "Come on, let's make it go faster," but it is at this point, I think, the fact that the ball is rolling and it is going because it has really been a long time coming in terms of working with the state and trying to get that project elevated to the level of it actually getting planned and completed. So the city is gonna watch it and make sure that they do what they need to to make it safe for people walking, right? That's really in the planning phase. So there was a public meeting about that first part from the bypass to just past Pete Ellis and I think that it was actually about two years ago because I was not in office at that time and there was a public meeting about it and they showed the project plans and it was a whole public input thing and yes, there are pedestrian crossings there. So it's the kind of thing like once it's in the plan, like that's the way that it should be, but yeah, yeah. And I just want to mention you can communicate directly with INDOT. We do and we likely have a weightier voice than any other individual, but it's not as significant as you might think and so it's also important that you use your voices there. I did want to mention in this context that on the city's website we do have a live projects map and even the projects that are not ours, anything that we know about, we'll highlight them on there and you can click on them and get the links to, you know, it'll take you right to INDOT, to the site for that particular project. So if there's ever anything going on in your neighborhood or on your way to work, whatever it is, if it's in the city of Bloomington, our intention is to have it on the map. You can let us know if we're missing something, but our crew is pretty good at putting things up on that map in real time and you can just click on it and get the various links that you need to find out more information. Who else has a question? In light of the state putting pressure on the city to increase taxes, I guess in light of the goal of not having to do that, is the city's budget healthy in moving through their budget, do we feel like the city is going forward, even pushing back a little bit with the state that the budget is healthy and in a good place for the next few years? The question is, given the cuts that are coming, is our budget in a healthy place? Yes and no. We moved to a system last year of doing these GO bonds to fund capital projects. Our ability to do that now with the intention that we would do a new little one every year, we can't do that because also in this bill you have to have a one-year break, no go bonds, and our current one is a two-year bond, so the intention to do rolling GO bonds is no longer going to work. This gets into some complexities that perhaps the sort of mother goose version of this is we're not there yet and we had been in a place of saying yes to everything that we wanted to do for a lot of years. Our budget was growing and growing and growing and we tried to sort of rein that in a bit last year during my first year in office. We're going to have to get used to saying no we can't do that this year. It sounds like a great program or project, it's not a good year to do that and because of the math on the income that's going to come to the city, it's going to limit our bond capacity anyway. So not only with go bonds. So it's quite significant. I know we had a lot of action at the state house and it was I can't imagine being a resident with a full time job that is not at the city and paying attention to everything that happened at the state house. I will just say your voices really matter there. I spent some days up at the state house advocating for our city. We need residents to be calling because the whole approach was well if you don't have enough money just put more local income tax together and you can get what you need or we'll fix it later was the other answer it's going to be an uphill battle to fix it later. So we're not in a great spot. I do want to recognize that Dr. Markay Winston our wonderful superintendent of MCCSC has joined us and just want to give a shout out to the amazing work she's doing very tough circumstances because those cuts are going to have a bigger impact on the schools and they have no ability to put in a local income tax. So they are just dealing with the cuts so yeah I'm just going to say that the really short story in terms of that is that the state is lowering property taxes lowering the revenues that we can get from property taxes and then telling municipalities and county as well you can raise income taxes in order to make up some of that shortfall I don't think that it could even necessarily make up all of that shortfall but what that does is it just it it just changes the tax liability it just says oh instead of these people over here paying it we're gonna have these people over here pay something more and you know if you think about people owning a home say or owning property right even if it's not the home that they live on rental property or business property versus people who are just trying to make ends meet working a job and all of a sudden those people are just making ends meet working a job they're gonna get more tax liability through their income tax and so that's why it's not this like clean and easy thing for like me as a council person Carrie as mayor like us as a municipality or as a county to go oh well it's fine we'll just raise income taxes because it's not like we can't that's that's not a good solution for residents for the population and so that's kind of what makes it really hard and so then you're going okay how are we gonna figure out losing revenue without necessarily being able to make up all of that revenue because we don't want to do that to our residents so and and we had an extra chair up here in the beginning I don't know if dr. Winston wants to come up and be be in a hot seat but you should feel free to just sit out there and be anonymous if you want to as well I fully support that okay can I come and join you I'm just anyway thank you for that question who has another question come on you all came out here for something I know quite a few people that are if not terrified close to it yeah I know a lot of people are really scared about the immigration situation and we're working with all of our nonprofit partners and faith communities to make sure that the support that we that can be offered is offered and Exodus is doing a great job I'll give them a shout out but there are several other nonprofits that are really doing a great job we are you know that the executive orders keep changing the policies keep shifting but my communication hopefully has been clear that that we want to be supportive and welcoming in Bloomington and and I think you know we have all kinds of people that are scared green card holders and naturalized citizens now as well so I'll just encourage you all to support those great nonprofits faith communities that are leading the way with that I will add to that that one of the other things you can do is just listen to the people around you who might be in that situation and I actually attended an event last night with it was it was a picnic it was a annual refugee picnic that I have attended every year since its origin about four years ago and it was really fun and family friendly and there were lots of people there having a great time and in the midst of that there were also people that told me that they were scared even though they are totally legal and they have all of their paperwork and and so just hearing that from our neighbors and supporting them we'd also love to hear what you're excited about this summer in Bloomington or anything else if you don't have questions we would just love to hear from you yeah more of a statement it's exciting to see the new convention center finally have their groundbreaking and all of that and I know as far as economic issues that we're having right now it's supposed to be a boon but one of the things that our current convention center is is a resource for local organizations to be able to go in and have celebrations and things like that and I'm and over the last year couple years their current convention center has the prices have gone up and they're starting to price out some of the organizations and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and what the pricing is going to be like there because obviously I think business is coming from out of town and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and what the pricing is going to be like there because obviously I think business is coming from out of town and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and what the pricing is going to be like there because obviously I think business is coming from out of town and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and what the pricing is going to be like there because obviously I think business is coming from out of town and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and what the pricing is going to be like there because obviously I think business is coming from out of town and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and what the pricing is going to be like there because obviously I think business is coming from out of town and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and what the pricing is going to be like there because obviously I think business is coming from out of town and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and what the pricing is going to be like there because obviously I think business is going to be like there because obviously I think business is coming from out of town and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and what the pricing is going to be like there because obviously I think business is coming from out of town and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and what the pricing is going to be like there because obviously I think business is coming from out of town and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and what the pricing is going to be like there because obviously I think business is coming from out of town and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and what the pricing is going to be like there because obviously I think business is coming from out of town and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and what the pricing is going to be like there because obviously I think business is coming from out of town and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and what the pricing is going to be like there because obviously I think business is coming from out of town and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and what the pricing is going to be like there because obviously I think business is coming from out of town and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and what the pricing is going to be like there because obviously I think business is coming from out of town and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and what the pricing is going to be like there because obviously I think business is coming from out of town and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and what the pricing is going to be like there because obviously I think business is coming from out of town and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and what the pricing is going to be like there because obviously I think business is coming from out of town and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and what the pricing is going to be like there because obviously I think business is coming from out of town and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and what the pricing is going to be like there because obviously I think business is coming from out of town and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and what the pricing is going to be like there because obviously I think business is coming from out of town and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and what the pricing is going to be like there because obviously I think business is coming from out of town and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and what the pricing is going to be like there because obviously I think business is coming from out of town and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and what the pricing is going to be like there because obviously I think business is coming from out of town and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and what the pricing is going to be like there because obviously I think business is coming from out of town and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and what the pricing is going to be like there because obviously I think business is coming from out of town and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and I'm really concerned about the new convention center and say what you actually are going to do. It's a list of what you'd love to see. And between that master plan time and the time that it was time to move dirt on roads and other things, there wasn't a whole lot of funding that was coming in and the construction prices were going up and up and up. And so with a massive vision statement, which is the master plan, and no tangible plan for how we'd actually achieve it, Hopewell has been an incredible opportunity which is also to say it's been a challenge to get it to pencil. And you will see housing there. My commitment and my goal is to get the people that we want living in Bloomington. It would be easy to put Hopewell together for a student housing developer. The multinational financing is there. It's open and shut. It is less easy to get a neighborhood that we're really proud of that says this is Bloomington and that calls the people who work in Bloomington to live there. And that's what we're going to get at Hopewell. And so the details of how we're going to get there have taken some expertise to finagle. And I think we're getting closer. But in all transparency, it's been a challenge. And I've been in housing a long time. It's not rocket science, but there are a lot of components that get interwoven into it. And the easy way is usually not the way that we want to go. Because it's going to get us what's easy to finance. And I think we have enough of that in Bloomington. And unfortunately, the parents of the students that we want at MCCSC, they don't live in those places. And the folks that are working at Novo and at Catalan and Cook and not Catalan, Novo now, at Boston, etc., they don't live in those places either. We need the place, the people who are going to walk to the university, who are going to be working at trades district, who are going to go over to Cook. That's who we want living at Hopewell. And we want to make that attainable for them. And attainable means reasonable for your income. So it's not a great thing that we're not turning dirt on houses yet, but I also will say it is a good thing because we're trying to protect Bloomington from the things we don't necessarily need more of. We need to get it right and we only have one opportunity to do it. Yeah. Two minutes. We're getting the two minute warning. Yeah. Anybody else have a burning question or a comment that they want to make before we close things out? I'll hang out for a little while afterwards, maybe. Hope you and Jane will for a few minutes too. Okay. We're going to close out. I'm going to encourage you to go to Grand Faloon this weekend. Go to the city pools and have fun meeting some new neighbors and think about how you might like to contribute to your city through volunteering, contributing your treasure other ways. Thank you for being here. Your voices matter to me and I know to Hopi and Jane as well and this is how we build a city that really works for everyone. ("Pomp and Circumstance" by Edward Elgar) ("Pomp and Circumstance" by Edward Elgar) ("Pomp and Circumstance" by Edward Elgar) ("Pomp and Circumstance" by Edward Elgar) ("Pomp and Circumstance" by Edward Elgar) ("Pomp and Circumstance" by Edward Elgar) [ Music ]