- Hi everyone, I am Mayor Carrie Thompson. I'm going to extend an invitation to come forward if you would like to. We try to have really friendly town halls, so nothing too formal. I have with me Kat Zager who is our Director of Utilities at City of Bloomington Utilities. Margie Rice is our Corporation Counsel and she's here.
- Margaret Van Schaik is my assistant. Keisha Fomby is back here, and she does outreach and engagement with the community. And we also have Lucas, who has a phone that he's waving around for everyone who is on our communications team. So if you haven't been to a town hall, welcome.
- Really appreciate you coming out. I do these every other month. I do a traveling town hall. They move among the city council districts. You don't have to live in the city council district where we're holding a town hall to come to the town hall. We do have some frequent flyers that love to come to many town halls and you're always welcome. So don't wait for the town hall to be back close to your home.
- Generally I give an update sort of high-level update of what we're working on at the city what we think maybe you have some interest in and then whoever's traveling with me that night also will give some updates from their perspective and then we take questions and I'm just going to encourage you all to think in terms of questions
- Happy to have longer conversations in a different format, but we have lots of people here. So your questions help guide us for what you want more information about. But if you have more of a longer commentary, I'm gonna invite you to a different format or a town hall that we don't have so many people that might be wanting to line up. So with that, I will get started and I wanna thank
- the Community Access Television who always comes to these and makes them available to others. So thank you for the great work that you all do to help us reach the community. I'll also note that, oh, and we also have a firefighter here with us, Wes. I just called out all the city staff that I saw, so I had to call you out too, Wes. I also want to thank Morgensterns for hosting us. We haven't done it here before.
- I'm excited to have it in a place with a cafe and all kinds of good stuff. Town halls every other month. The months I'm not doing town halls, I am doing traveling office hours. And that is where you can have a more in-depth conversation with me about a single topic, deeper dive, et cetera, et cetera. You sign up for a segment so we know you're coming. It's not a stand in line and hope you get a chance.
- you will know exactly what time you're gonna meet with me. And then I go door knocking once a month. And we always look for neighborhoods that are interested in engaging. And so if you think your neighborhood wants me to come around and knock, let us know. We will happily oblige. The best news I have for you in terms of city updates is that you'll be able to find them
- much more easily soon because we are working on a new website. And we know the website is hard to make it through, hard to find the things that you need, hard to navigate what's really going on. So we are working on that website. It'll be up in not until 2026. We're making some incremental changes as we go, but you can look forward to a much better website in 2026.
- I want to start just by highlighting some pieces of a news conference that I did last week, which seems now like three months ago to me, on housing. Again, I shared this all in a press conference, but I'll just hit the highlights here. The city has hired its first homeless response coordinator.
- Brian Giffin works with the city now. He is working on the systems to coordinate everything the city is doing and make sure we're getting communication to service providers and vice versa, and that we're really working on a strategy that works for the whole city. We have partnered with, thank you so much, Keisha. I made the mistake of not ordering my tea in time to get up here.
- We have partnered with a number of nonprofits through Heading Home on Housing Action Plan and together with the Community Foundation and some of those nonprofits at Heading Home, we wrote a Lilly grant. We're really grateful to the Community Foundation for their work on that grant. The great news is that that
- grant was funded to the community foundation and it will be providing 10 new case managers to work with folks that are experiencing homelessness in our community. That's really important because one of the principles that the Heading Home Plan originally had in it and that I have asked them to consider
- putting back in it but one of the policies that I definitely support is reunification. And that means when somebody comes here from out of town thinking that there are plenty of services for them here and then they find that there actually is no room in the shelter and there are not enough services that we put them together with case management right away and we help them get back to the communities where their existing support networks are.
- With homelessness, the people most likely to experience homelessness are people who have experienced homelessness. So we need to make that as brief as we possibly can. And frequently, with some good case management, we can do reunification before that episode of homelessness is really extreme or chronic. But in order to do that, we need good case managers that can help us with that reconnection.
- We've also supported in advance the Built for Zero model with outreach and data tracking. Heading Home is running that data tracking. We're really grateful for that. Built for Zero is a model that seeks to reach virtual zero homelessness.
- in a community and you do that population by population and so heading home has chosen to address veteran homelessness first and so they are working on a plan to make veteran homelessness at virtual zero which means that we are we are housing
- everybody we can, recognizing that some people will be becoming homeless, but we will be getting them name by name, and this is a process that they work with intensive case management on. Additionally, in the housing arena, we have been enforcing Title 16, which may be Greek to you all, but Title 16 is our rental code, and that rental code
- is the code that tells us that housing is safe and habitable and we have had some instances where there are really gross violations of that rental code and people are being charged fair market rent for places that are really unsafe to live in and so we have been
- We have been reinforcing those rental codes and making sure that our landlords in town know that we expect them to have all of that housing really up to code and that renting in Bloomington means that you'll have safe habitable housing. Further on the housing front, so we do code enforcement, we partner with agencies that are doing supportive services.
- But one of the things that the city can influence most on the housing front is zoning and permitting. And while the council is really in charge of the Unified Development Ordinance, and they run that policy, my administration runs the processes. And I'll just tell you that our permitting processes have been way too slow.
- departments that are doing multiple reviews and sometimes not talking to each other well enough, et cetera. So we're doing a full audit on our permitting process. The longer it takes a builder or developer to be able to start a housing unit from the time that they apply for that permit until when they can actually start building, the more expensive that house is gonna be.
- And that does not come out of the profit line of a developer, it just gets added to the expense of the house. And as we're trying to provide more attainable housing throughout Bloomington, that's something the city can influence pretty readily. And so we are taking a hard look at that and really looking for ways that we can influence that.
- We wanna make it easier to build more types of housing in more places for more people without compromising unique neighborhood characters. So we wanna work with neighborhoods. We wanna work with the residents of Bloomington to see what kind of housing we can welcome into neighborhoods and to make Bloomington really welcoming for everyone. The reason I talk so much about housing, you may know it's been a long time passion of mine,
- But as mayor, we need to grow our workforce housing. We have more than 70% of the people who work here do not live here. They're not able to, many of them. Some of them choose not to, totally fine. But if you can't afford to live in Bloomington, but you have to work here, it causes more expense and really a lifestyle that many people
- don't want to sustain. They want to be in the communities where their kids are in school, where their kid is in daycare. They want a short drive back and forth to work. So growing that housing helps us grow our workforce population for the companies that want to grow here. And growing those companies helps us increase our wages. And we need to increase those wages because we
- The obviously affordable housing is tied not only to the cost of the house, but also to the income that you have to pay for that house. And many people are housing costs burdened in Monroe County as a whole. Next, I'm gonna shift from housing and talk about our high street project because that is happening in this district. Anybody here?
- interested in talking about High Street, several people, okay, great. So let me tell you how the High Street Project came to be. It is in the transportation plan, which is council approved, and the Metropolitan Planning Organization applied for federal funding for it. In a previous general obligation bond, which we say
- go bond at the city. So you'll maybe hear me talk about go bonds later. We applied for this go. Well, we got a go bond for the match for that. That project is going to provide a multi use path. And I've already had a conversation about this path with somebody tonight.
- What's a multi-use path? It means it's a path that's wide enough for bikes and peds. And the transportation plan is really seeking connectivity eventually all the way down to the Rogers Farm. And I'll tell you that transportation plan has a number of different ways of prioritizing projects. Top among them, especially because we are a safe streets for all community, is safety.
- And one of our top priorities as a city is working with the Monroe County School Corporation to ensure that we have safe routes to school for all kids. And so we're in full partnership with the school system now on that. And there's a new team under my administration working directly with MCCSC.
- on those safe routes to school and part of this path will be a critical part of that safe route to school. We will, let's see, the multi-use path will be on the east side of the street from Arden up to Hunter and we will replace a couple of traffic signals that are not working great.
- And we'll also add some stormwater infrastructure, and I know we have a couple of stormwater fans in the house tonight. Cat's one of them, but there are also members of the residence gallery that are stormwater proponents.
- Unfortunately, this also means that we will need to be removing some trees and I know that that is of impact, especially to the people living close to this multi-use path. We are planning replanting in coordination with the adjacent property owners so that we can make sure that that looks as much like a partnership as we can possibly get to.
- and have tree selection and planting areas that are agreeable to all. Right now, we are in the phase of right-of-way acquisition, and we're really encouraging the property owners to reach out with questions. I'll tell you, I'm the mayor and I think you think I know everything about all of our projects, but we have
- put out the resources, and we will give them to you again tonight for the folks that are really in charge of this project. And so if you want to talk details and you want your specific details heard by the people designing the project, I can pass it on, but I can also connect you directly to them. So feel free to let me know that you need further connection. And Margaret, who is
- waving sort of now, can also take your name and number. Sometimes there's a lot of people waiting to talk to me afterwards, so I don't mean to make you stand in line. Margaret can take your information as well, and we can have folks circle back to you. The construction was originally planned for 2026, but the start date is likely gonna shift due to utility relocations, underlying gas lines, things like that.
- And we will be engaging in much broader public communication once our schedule is confirmed. So we're giving you a loose schedule now because we don't really know what it is, but we're gonna do a lot of outreach once we know what the ultimate schedule will be. I'm gonna try to talk faster. Annexation is also on the top of many people's minds. You may have seen in the paper
- that the Supreme Court has decided to hear the annexation suit. I have said this many times before, so if you're hearing it on repeat, forgive me. I have never agreed with how annexation came to be. And when I came into office, it was clear that the
- We were already so far down the path and could not adjust the path without scrapping the whole thing, which was a lot of funding, frankly, to do the study and to figure out the financial plan, et cetera. And so we have chosen to see this through.
- I did that for a couple of reasons, but the most compelling reason, and that's the one I'll share with you tonight, happy again to talk further about this with folks. The most compelling reason is that it has been conclusively data-driven shown that cities that have zero elasticity, so the boundaries are firm and they don't grow, what happens is that not only the city,
- But the region around the city start to go into economic decline and in fact population decreases. And the city has not annexed in more than 20 years. The mayor 20 years ago left an annexation plan that was agreed upon by all parties. That was not followed through on by the next administration. It was supposed to be incremental piece by piece.
- And so in a lot of senses, we have extended infrastructure and we've really urbanized areas that are not now in the city because they were in that annexation plan. So we are, for me, this is not a political thing. It is really about the sustainability of our city. And it should be noted that we're already seeing
- the effects of zero elasticity. And so my message to you all, I know we have at least a couple folks who are in areas that are in those annexation zones. I really do wanna talk to you. This is not the old administration. This is a new administration that really does wanna engage with you. I wanna hear what it is that doesn't work about annexation.
- The city should be something that, should be an entity that welcomes you instead of just says, we're gonna take you over. And so I'm looking for the ways to welcome you. And I think we have several, but I'm really interested in your ideas. So this is a, it's a complex issue. Happy to talk again more about it, but
- maybe not everybody wants to hear a dissertation on annexation. And I'd much rather have a conversation. So the legal landscape, and I try not to talk about legal things, especially in front of our corporation council, but I'll give you the high level of the legal landscape. There are two different annexation cases that are before the Indiana Supreme Court. One is the counties against annexation. That'll be heard on August 19th.
- And then there's the constitutionality challenge. And that has been set for an October argument. And that is the one that challenges the constitutionality of the contracts that were signed. And so this invalidated the sewer waivers that were signed by residents in areas intended for annexation where sewer was extended to them.
- And that constitutionality case is particularly troubling because it brings into question the constitutionality and the validity, in fact, of all kinds of different contracts. And so I think that is a case to watch whether or not you're for annexation. I think most of us want to know that the contracts that we're signing
- are going to be upheld by the law if we do them legally when they're signed. So I'm going to close out on annexation. I can answer further questions. But I want to get to the budget, because the budget's on lots of people's minds, probably not as much as it's on my mind.
- what was SB1, which became SEA1 because it got adopted by our state house, has changed the structure of how taxes are being distributed. And it significantly decreases the taxes that come to municipalities. Again, I'll just say this is not a political issue. This is an issue that,
- that in fact almost every mayor in the state has come out against. It is going to impact not only our incoming budget, but also our ability to bond. And we bond for many of the capital projects that we really see as basic city services, how our sidewalks happen, how our streets happen, et cetera, et cetera.
- Both the budget and the bonding capacity of the city will be impacted. It will be impacted some this year. It will be impacted significantly next year. And the following year it will be impacted in more extreme ways. The State House has said that they are willing to amend it after this year. That will not fix our budget for 2026.
- If you're concerned as residents for how your city services are going to be delivered and it's impacting the county and it's very heavily impacting our school system, I do recommend that you call your state representatives. They need to hear from you. What you can expect in our budget this year are cuts.
- We will be looking for anything that is not completely essential. We will be focusing not on shiny new objects, but instead on how we maintain what we already have and how we deliver excellent services to our residents, the services that you already expect. We are using priority-based budgeting, and the easy way to say that is
- We're trying to get into a big bucket, everything we do for sidewalks. It shouldn't be that hard, but actually it is. Another big bucket, everything that we're doing on housing, on homelessness is another one, et cetera, et cetera. So the city council has really made a move in this direction. We're really grateful. We think it's gonna highlight a lot for our public
- and the process has been clunky, and we'll get better at it next year, but we spent a lot of time on it, and we hope it provides an even more transparent budgeting process. I'm gonna stop talking and hand it over to Kat, and then we will take questions at the end. Hello, I'm Kat Zinger, the utilities director, and I will keep it brief.
- There's just a few things that I really would like to make sure everyone's aware of and get the word out. The first thing is that we are open for walk-ins. It's been a long time since CBU has been open for walk-ins. We now have an intercom system. So when you walk into that front door, there is a vestibule with an intercom system. All you have to do is press the button and someone will be there to help you. And you are, you can just walk in, have your appointment.
- You know, call ahead appointments are always great too. So if you want to call ahead, I'm sure that would really help out our customer service representatives. But yes, we are open for walk-ins now. Some other key things I wanted to present. One is our Everbridge notification system. We recently made changes to our notification system so that
- When we have a boil water advisory, so when there's a main break, sometimes we'll have boil water advisories, those, instead of going to only people who signed up for Monroe County alerts, will now go to every single one of our customers. So if you are impacted, you'll be receiving a text if we have an up-to-date phone number for you. So if you're not sure, let our customer service representatives know, give us a call, make sure your information's up-to-date so we can get ahold of you.
- Next, I want to talk about utility access. So this is a new system for bill payment. This is replacing the old E-suite bill pay. I'm not sure if folks were using E-suite, but now we're using utility access. So you can just go to our website, go to residential utility services, and then when you go to pay your bill, it'll give you an option to sign up. And when you sign up, you'll be able to pay your bill,
- you'll be able to manage multiple accounts from one place. So you make one account with utility access. If you have multiple accounts, you can manage them all. And this can also be linked to your census account. And so when we started our AMI, so our smart meters, you can create an account to monitor your usage. You'll also get
- leak alerts, so like high usage alerts. If we notice something's off, you'll get that alert if you sign up for census. This can also be found in the utility, residential utility services part of our website. Yeah, and then one other update that I think is pertinent for all customers, many customers, is that last year we made some changes to our financial assistance.
- to increase the income threshold for financial assistance. And now we are taking a look at some of the other barriers that existed in order to have our financial assistance. So look for those soon. Those will be coming and announced with the budget presentation. Yeah. And also,
- I can address, there was some recent news about fluoride in the water. And first, I am happy to take questions, but I would like to say that we are currently doing pressure testing on the tanks, the system, and the pumps to make sure that we know where this leak is coming from. Once that pressure testing is done,
- We're going to reline the tank. This line, this tank has already been relined once and it leaked from that. So we're going to try to do that again because right now with where we are with our water budget, fully replacing our fluoride system isn't feasible. It is included in our capital improvement projects list that we are hoping to submit for our next rate case.
- And so if everything goes to plan, we are hoping to have a fully safe and sustainable fluoride system in the works by, well, okay, if the lining pans out, we should have fluoride back by the beginning of 2026. And then we will be exploring a more permanent option that'll make sure that we don't have an older tank that's leaking.
- And that is in our 27 line item budget for our capital improvement project. Yeah. It's extremely expensive. We'll have to take a wall out of our chemical building in order to replace it. Yeah.
- Yeah, absolutely. And so our first step towards transparency was to make sure that it was included in our report, which, like you say, a lot of people probably don't read. But before last year, it wasn't even really included in the report. So we made sure to put it there.
- But yeah, I think one of the biggest lessons learned here is that we need to really just make sure that we're doing that level of outreach. Some folks do or do not want fluoride in their water. And so just making sure that we are showing what is and is not in your water, we thought that was an appropriate format for that. But the lesson learned really here is that we need to be
- More on top of the education of the highlights of that report. And so what we've done so far now with our utility service board which meets every other Monday at five o'clock at 600 East Miller Drive if you'd like to come it's a public public meeting. What we're doing now is we're going to every year as this annual report comes out.
- make sure that in this public meeting, we are giving a presentation that's advertised to the public about the highlights of what's in that document. What does it mean? What did these numbers mean? Is this harmful? Is this normal? Or is this outside of maybe public health recommendations? And so these are the types of things that we're committing to doing moving forward. And I think on a more
- General note, and I love your idea of just putting some education out to the public about, you know, there's minimal levels of fluoride in the water right now. You can consult your dentist and your pediatrician for recommendations on supplementing that. So thanks for that idea. Next question.
- I'm gonna repeat the question. There's a smart cap on your utility. He's wondering, it transmits data. How is it powered? Is it battery powered? I'm going to assume yes. It's battery powered. That's not plugged into anything. Yeah, so our smart meters, they have.
- in general a 20 year lifespan. And so we're about I think in year five of that 20 year lifespan. So we're already looking at like what are the next options. Do we stay with what this are we happy with this. So that's definitely something in our long range planning that we're already considering.
- I can repeat it because cats can't catch it if it's not on the mic anyway. The question is where can we see the most complete plans, the most recent complete plans for the High Street project. Those should be up on our website and we can get you the exact link. I know it's not always intuitive to find your way around our website yet, but we will get that for you Steve and provide it. Yeah.
- Yes, Lauren? So I know that being in jail is a county issue. Yes. But obviously, it impacts Huntington citizens and residents in dramatic ways. So I just wondered if there's any thoughts to have about a role that the city can play or has played or might play in sort of figuring out what's going to happen. The question is,
- Acknowledging that the jail is a county project, is there a thought given to how the city could play a role in what will happen with the jail? I am always a willing partner and I care deeply about all of the services that are provided to our residents. And I also,
- try to respect my role. And my role is with the city, not the county. Obviously, the jail is an integral part of our justice system. And we have the police who do criminal enforcement. And then they go over to the prosecutor, the judges in the jail, which are all county.
- It's important to us that everything works well, including that jail. So again, I'm a willing partner, but don't want to push an agenda. My priority with all things human is treat people with dignity and make sure that they are in safe environments.
- What I know right now is that our county jail has really reached a stress point. So that's concerning. And from what I understand from the experts, it's beyond reasonable repair. And so there is a need to have a new jail. I'll also say something that I
- that is not really jail related, but it is sort of downtown related. When that jail and the justice building ultimately get vacated, there's a lot of people who won't be shopping and eating lunch downtown during the work week. So we should all be thinking about that. That's not necessarily jail related, but that is a real center of activity in our downtown.
- and a significantly sized building. It's a city block that will be vacated ultimately. Let me call on somebody else if somebody else has a question then I'll go to for seconds. Yes. So the question is follow up on Crawford. We are actively working with Crawford on
- their remediation plans. There was significant improvement, but we're not quite there yet. So we do have the next steps lined up.
- So sorry.
- I'm not going to repeat everything that you said, because I'm trying to source a question there for the Katz listeners. But there are a lot of troublesome and unsafe behaviors happening. Even though you didn't ask a question, I am going to offer a response. Yes, everybody deserves safety.
- And so we are working really hard on that in a multi-pronged approach. I'm sure you already have called the police, but continue to do that because we're trying to stay on top of everything that's happening and make sure that we're very responsive. If you see somebody, whether they're housed or not, or you think they might not be housed, it doesn't matter. Anybody who's in distress, who is not of danger to,
- to others, you can also call Stride. Stride has a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week, 365-day-a-year mobile outreach. And Margaret has cards for Stride in the back. You can put it in your wallet. They'll go anywhere. So this is not just down at Winslow, anywhere. I hear from people all the time, I saw somebody
- I didn't know if they were OK. And I didn't feel safe going up to them and asking. But they were laying on the sidewalk in the hot sun. And I was afraid for them. But I didn't want them to get in trouble with the police. First of all, our police are not seeking to get anybody in trouble. They also are there to help. But stride is a much more appropriate resource if nobody is in danger at the moment.
- because they have mental health professionals. And what they have told us is that frequently they'll respond once and they won't be able, they'll be able to just sort of settle the situation or make sure that person's safe for them. But they won't get the person engaged in ongoing services during that first visit. They have to get to know people. And so they want to be called repeated times until there's enough trust built that they can get
- that individual, whatever services it is that they need. So police and stride are the right places to go to make sure that we're keeping folks safe. I mentioned my approach to reunification. I'm just going to stress it again. We have a safety net in Bloomington that has gotten so weighed down that we have a hole in it. And people are being promised services that
- that we just don't have enough of. And so literally, people sometimes get dropped off here. Sometimes they use their last money to pay a fare to get here because they think that we have housing resources for them, but we don't. And it's also not safe for people to be sleeping outside. Even if nothing else was going on, the weather eventually is such in Bloomington that
- you can never truly thrive as a human if you're living outside. So my goal is to really enforce reunification so that people stop having a false promise that we have sufficient resources for everyone here.
- Yeah, great question. So the question's about renter education so that they know, so renters coming in know what's expected in the code and so that they can ask for those things. Our housing and neighborhood development department has those resources. I just recorded a video today to outreach,
- to students who may be moving in at the beginning of the academic year. And this is a great reminder for all of us who may not be students. I'm just guessing that the majority of people in here are not incoming IU students. That we will be having people driving the wrong way on one-way streets. We will have people lost. We will have people who don't know that their trash bins may be blocking a sidewalk if they just leave them out there permanently.
- So now is a great time for all of Bloomington to take a deep breath and get ready to welcome these fabulous students that are coming to our community and work on our patience in education with them. So you can just say, hey, you know, if you can bring your trash bins in the same day it gets collected, that lets people push baby strollers on the sidewalks and everybody can get by just fine.
- All the patients and some of the frustration I know as well. But I'm really grateful to have the students here, and I'm excited to have them back. But be sure to go out to eat this week. Go this week. What other questions do we have? Yes.
- The question is about two different surveys that the city sent out. The question is how is that information used and how will it be shared with the public? One of those surveys was a survey about really how we tell Bloomington's story. That's part of our branding initiative. That information's really important to us because as long as I've lived here,
- Everybody who lives in Bloomington who wants to tell you how great Bloomington is will list 20 different things, but it also takes them 20 minutes to tell you. And we need a more concise way to tell people why Bloomington is fabulous, at least to get their attention. And so as we're looking at the businesses that are trying to grow here that need to attract those new folks to town,
- As we are looking at what students need once they graduate to stay, we want to keep some of that talent here. And as we look at our tourism, we need to be able to really tell a great story about who we are and why this place is so awesome. So one of those was the branding survey. And I'm sure if you want that
- Data spit out. I don't see any reason why we wouldn't share it with you. I don't know how interesting it would be to you, but maybe it would be. You like those kinds of things, I know. And to be honest, we have sent, we means several different departments have sent out different surveys. So I'm not sure exactly what the other survey is. We are doing that broad community survey, but that has not gone out yet, right, Lucas?
- Right. So you're going to get another survey. Sorry. We're trying to limit the number of surveys and ask what we need to ask one time. And in terms of efficient government, we are still working among our teams to make sure that we're not over surveying. But we're happy to share whatever data we have.
- streets that don't have sidewalks, one on my way just over here today, and one on the way to the hospital. These are important sections of the city. When it snows, the sidewalks don't get cleared for days. And in fact, it seems like you prioritize the drivers on the street. And then mobility into city mobility is also very challenging. And I think that's relevant to the tourism point that you just made.
- It's really hard to get out of Bloomington. There aren't many options compared to other cities. And so I think just thinking about those ways to enhance mobility would be great. So the question, well the comment, but I'm gonna address it kind of like a question, was about mobility and non-existent sidewalks, sidewalks that don't get cleared of snow,
- And also inner city transportation mobility. So how hard it is to get out of town unless you have a single passenger vehicle. I couldn't agree more on several transit issues. When I was fortunate enough to live in a European city while my husband was on sabbatical, I could walk out my front door and literally
- get anywhere in the world until I got to Indianapolis without getting in a single passenger vehicle. And then I would, unless I could hit that shuttle, I would have to get into a Uber or taxi. So I'm a big believer in public transit. I will tell you that some of the biggest cuts federally are coming in transit. And so we are going to continue to struggle to expand that.
- I want to say something about two things. Sidewalks are always a big topic at City Council during budget. We are trying to direct a lot of money towards sidewalks and streets. Again, we're going to be in a process of not expanding a lot of things, but your voice is always welcome there. Snow is the responsibility
- of the property owner, whether it's residential or commercial. So the city has not had a sidewalk clearing program. It's very, very expensive to be able to do that. So I know some incredible cities do that for everyone. Those tend to be cities where it snows all the time and then the city, well, they tax you in order to be able to clear all of that snow.
- hand does compliance on sidewalk clearing we are going to try and I actually I mean the budget so is so of the moment right now but we do have a proposal in to clear a couple of critical areas to have the city clear them because we know that they affect transportation so I
- That'll require a new piece of equipment and some staff time and things like that. But we don't have hopes of being a city that has the city clear all of the snow anytime during my tenure. It would be very expensive. Yes.
- certain areas that have gravel runoff into the street. And I don't know what the compliance, you know, what hands compliance is or what the guidelines are, but it seems very dangerous to have loose gravel on the sidewalks. Is there any? And also, you know, ankle deep water flooding, you know, it's kind of hard to deal with, but you kind of ran with it here, I understand. But we also have a lot of pedestrians on the sidewalks.
- Right, so the question is about both drainage and runoff from gravel moving, et cetera, from alleys. So we have had really a summer of unprecedented rain. And so many places in the Midwest are experiencing this.
- this phenomenon of the water doesn't have anywhere left to go. I'm going to let Kat talk in a minute about that. But yes, I just want to acknowledge it is dangerous to have gravel on roads, gravel on sidewalks. And so we do encourage if they're private,
- private alleys, we do encourage those owners to clear those up. We're also trying to have compassion for the fact that our infrastructure is, I mean, like people's homes, et cetera, are having a hard time keeping up with the amount of rain that we're having. And without blaming any one thing, climate change,
- that the water is coming faster and in more significant increments. And so we're all gonna have to do better with how we think about treating our stormwater and how we slow it down. I wanna say this part and Kat will give you some more technical stuff, but we have had some projects proposed in neighborhoods that do
- smaller stormwater mitigation, so not mega projects. It's frequently what we hear is, but my neighborhood, my house is not flooding. The problem's not here. Well, the water's all running downhill. And so as a community, we have to understand that the stormwater project in my neighborhood is helping to contribute to the whole picture of
- we mitigate flooding. And it's going to be more and more important to do that. And all of these puzzle pieces have to fit together. And so the city's not targeting you or wanting to put something ugly in your neighborhood. Really, the way we're doing these stormwater mitigation projects now, they're really beautiful. In fact, I heard from a resident today
- that one of the projects that we did in his neighborhood that's now fully grown is just a spectacular hummingbird garden now. So just think of the assets the city can offer. Let me hand it off to Kat to talk a little more about stormwater. I'm stoked, okay. Yeah, so when we think about stormwater, there are a lot of things that the utility is now doing.
- our stormwater utility compared to our other utilities is relatively recent. And when I say relatively recent, I'm talking like late 90s, early 2000s. So some of the things that we're doing to address, I'm gonna first address the sedimentation. So that's like all that gravelly runoff. CBU has, we don't really regulate the alleys or the gravel in someone's,
- next to someone's yard. But what we can do is once it gets out into the streets, we are doing our street sweeping program. And we've been really excited about that program because what it... Oh, okay. Only two minutes left. All right. We have a great street sweeping program where we're designing routes based on stormwater needs and protecting our stormwater system. That's one thing we're doing. Another thing we're doing is
- Every year we contribute, right now it's at 60,000, but we up it as construction costs increase. We contribute that towards engineering's greenway projects so that we can add rain gardens like the ones that Carrie was talking about that have become these amazing hummingbird habitats. Those are things that we work with engineering
- City engineering, because they're already gonna have the ground open. They're already gonna be having the street repaved. Why not put it in then to save on cost? So that's another program we're doing. Another thing that we're working on is our stormwater system-wide assessment. And so what that means is that we're going to take a look at our whole watershed and so that we are better able to identify hot spot areas
- that really need stormwater mitigation. And so, you know, Carrie was talking about like, oh, it doesn't look like it's flooding in my neighborhood, but maybe that's an area where we're getting a lot of stormwater or a lot of runoff from. So that'll help us make better educated decisions about where we put our bioretention, stormwater infrastructure, appropriate
- detention or retention. I could go on, but I'm trying to keep it short. We have two minutes, so. Sorry. I'm just gonna
- Because we're at seven and we're with Kat, I am going to wrap this up and let Kat answer your question individually. But in terms of wrapping things up, I wanna thank you all again for coming and for asking great questions. It helps us have some indication by way of a non-survey survey, what people are thinking about and are interested in in the city.
- And your questions and comments really help guide the work that we do. So thank you. Your presence here was an investment in the city tonight. And I introduced various staff members at the beginning. I encourage you to grab a cup of coffee or any way you want to support or a book. And support Morgan Stearns and my gratitude to Morgan Stearns for hosting us tonight. Thanks for coming.