everyone it is Mayor Kerry and I am here tonight feels a little bit like we have reentered COVID land
so thank you for rejoining us on on zoom we will try to make this as warm and welcoming as we possibly
can and with that said if you need captions they are they are
on, but you need to click on the bottom of your screen to turn them on on your screen. So we have enabled
them, but each individual Zoom user needs to have them show for your personal screen. So if you are
in need of those captions, please go ahead and do that. I want to take a minute to welcome Catherine
Zager, who is our
Director of the City of Bloomington Utilities, as well as Council Member Isabel Piedmont-Smith, who
are both joining today. For those of you who haven't been to a town hall before, I'll go over the format
and I'll do a little bit of orienting to how we'll do this on Zoom tonight. I'll give you a brief update.
on the city from where I sit, and then I'll ask Catherine to do the same on utilities, and then Council
Member Piedmont-Smith will give us an update as well. As you know, we were supposed to be at the Frank
Southern Ice Rink tonight. Instead, our entire city has turned into the ice rink, and so I hope you
all have enjoyed
the Winter Wonderland. We'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute. I am welcoming you to chat
our hosts with questions once the updates conclude. If you can hold your questions until we're done
with updates, our facilitators will be much more able to digest those questions in real time.
and be able to answer those better. The panel will respond and answer to those questions. I want to
just say that usually during our town halls, especially if we have a crowd about this size, we try to
open up the mic and have a more conversational tone.
It's a little harder on Zoom. So we'll do more of a Q&A format. And we do commit to keeping these to
an hour. So these are not some prolonged city meeting that some of you may be used to. This is a one
hour, come hear what's happening and get your questions answered. So I just wanna start with a shout
out to our crews, Public Works and Parks.
street utilities, sanitation, all these folks and fleet who have been out clearing roads and helping
to keep people safe. We went down to 20% on our crews overnight last night and then came back at full
force this morning at 6 a.m. ready to get started again. I want to say an extra special thank you to
CBU that brought
extra equipment downtown and so that we could load up dump trucks with snow and move it off the downtown
streets. And of course, police and fire were on duty all night and throughout the winter weather. And
we were even able to offer some assists to the hospital that was needing some transport of their critical
personnel during the snow.
Make a special comment because there seems to be misunderstanding every time it snows. Property owners
are responsible for clearing their sidewalks. That means businesses and residents. And so the downtown
sidewalks, whatever is in front of your business, please get that cleared. Homeowners as well, get those
cleared, landlords, etc.
We do have a Snow Buddies program where able-bodied volunteers sign up to help their neighbors. So if
you are physically unable to clear that snow, please check out that program. And if you are physically
able to clear snow and you know you have neighbors who are less able, please consider taking time to
knock on those doors and check on your neighbors and help them clear that snow.
I want to just transition a little bit to talking about where we are at the beginning of this year.
Over the last year, many of you have commented the same thing, that you see me out in the community,
and that's what this administration is all about. We knock doors, we show up to
meetings and community gatherings and that's that matters a lot to me because listening is where good
government begins and we listen first then we discern then we lead forward with an action plan so that
we can deliver results to the community and that the number one
result that we are driving towards right now is housing attainability and you see that happening in
several different ways but most tangibly we are really looking forward to groundbreaking in Hopewell
by September 2026. You may already see some earth moving and the core building is moving along but we
will get moving in earnest on that south side development
in late summer early fall. We will do the south Hopewell first and then there are at least two more
phases after that. Ultimately what we're shooting for is that housing doesn't stall between steps. So
we are in the process of developing Hopewell we are learning a lot about
where our planning and zoning misses some beats and could be a lot more efficient and the communication
could be a lot better throughout departments. It is confusing to say the least and what that means is
a cumbersome process for people who want to get housing built. When we increase supply, of course, we
can help drive
the cost of housing down. But really what we need is ultimately to prepare for the generation we already
have here as well as the generations to come. We know we have people who really want to live in Bloomington
and they cannot afford to live here, and some of them just simply can't find units to live in here.
For more on housing and homelessness, I really wanna direct you to our housing and homelessness report
that we released in November of 2025. That is a large document. We've done our best to sort of simplify
it, but you can find a lot more details on how the entire city is working on housing and homelessness
in that document. I'm gonna try to breeze through my next updates.
Economic development, our goal there is to grow our workforce population and to grow wages so that we
can reinforce our economic base. Some folks say, why are you focused on economic development? We have
people who can't afford to live here. These two things go hand in hand.
In order to really create the housing we need, in order to meet the needs of people who are unable to
meet their basic needs, we also need active economic development because that grows the pie of what
we are able to offer. Specifically, you may have seen a press release that I did about the
about the College Square property and really making that actionable into economic development. That
property's taxes go directly into our TIF, and that TIF funds lots of affordable housing for us.
In fact, it's the primary driver that we have been using at Hopewell and that we will be using at the
summit development.
We'll continue to support the Convention Center. We are eager to get a new hotel built wherever the
CIB ends up landing with that. And the Convention Center, of course, is proceeding really well. Trades
District also is actually developing really quickly, the public arts going up, culture programming,
new employers, a new hotel there.
There's a lot of vibrancy in our downtown and reinvestment in Bloomington happening right now. I'm going
to give an update quickly on public and community safety. We are fully staffed in fire. We had a total
of 272 applicants and reached full staffing in September of 2025.
We anticipate police will be fully staffed by the end of this calendar year. We are working really hard
towards smarter responses, which means that we're matching the right tool to the right call. We're doing
a lot of publicity on Stride, which is our alternative response. If you don't know about Stride, ask
me about it.
during the Q&A because I can talk for a while about stride. That is our crisis center and a call to
stride gets mental health support and crisis support. We are having fewer unnecessary police responses
and we believe that increased use of stride will result in better outcomes for people who are experiencing
crisis. Overall,
our crime decreased by 6.4% and BPD service calls increased 5.9%, which continued a five-year upward
trend this year. So we have to drive those alternative responses so that we can get a good balance of
getting people what they need.
In 2025, we also targeted several different things that have been plaguing our community, not just ours,
but throughout Indiana and the nation. Of course, those come in the form of fentanyl at times, which
has killed a number of people in our community. We have seized multiple pounds of narcotics this year.
Our police have been working hard not to get the end user, but instead to work up the chain on people
who are really preying on folks that are vulnerable and are experiencing substance use disorder. So
we want to get as high up that dealer chain as we possibly can. And our police have been slow and patient
in working through that so that we can help the people in crisis and cut off the supply.
We've recovered multiple firearms and stolen vehicles this year, and all of this has contributed to
about a 43% reduction in crimes involving weapons over the course of the past year. I want to take a
minute to address FLOC cameras. FLOC has been in the news recently. I want to give credit to Isabel
Piedmont-Smith, the council member who's on the call today.
who has helped bring this to the administration's attention. We use flock cameras to support targeted
investigations. We don't use them for general patrol. The use is limited and governed locally. And we
have the very tightest controls on our flock systems now, where our flock cameras are only directly accessed
by BPD and you have to have a case number, an active case number to query any flock system. And so that
means that an outside system could query if a license plate was used here, but they would have to be
a law enforcement system.
We are in discussions with FLOC to make sure that we are protecting civil liberties here and that we
are locking down this information to the best of our abilities. I'm taking this very seriously and it
is our intention to ensure that law enforcement, including ICE, cannot access our data.
under any circumstances. And so we're meeting with Flock in middle of February and plan to keep the
public updated on those findings and our process. The Flock company is experiencing a lot of feedback
from the public. That is valuable because it puts a lot of pressure on them to secure their data.
And that needs to be a constant process for them, especially in this day and age where we see that our
federal government can turn against its own citizens, especially when it comes to ICE. So we're taking
the FLOC investigation very seriously and we'll be meeting with that company in about a month's time.
I'm going to stop my updates because I've taken long enough and I know there'll be plenty of, sorry,
and Deputy Dog would like to have a voice in the town hall tonight, I guess. I want to make sure that
Catherine and Isabel both have their opportunity to give some updates and we have plenty of time for
questions and answers.
In closing, I'll just say that my priorities are not separate. They act as really a whole cloth approach
to a thriving community. And I'm really delighted to see how many people are logged on tonight and engaged
for another town hall. And we will continue to do these. Catherine, I'm gonna turn it over to you for
a utilities update while I silence my microphone and deputy dog.
Good evening, everyone. Catherine Zegar, Utilities Director. We've just got a few updates from CBU that
I would like to let everyone know about. So our first update, I wanted to talk a little bit about our
service line inventory. And so that is specifically
we're inventorying looking for lead service lines. So what we're doing is we're proactively identifying
unknown water service line materials as part of our ongoing lead service line replacement program. This
work helps CBU meet the EPA's lead and copper rule requirements. And so our drinking water is lead free.
Lead can enter water after it leaves the main through older service lines, indoor plumbing, or fixtures.
So there have been recent updates that also require utilities to build a comprehensive service line
inventory and notify customers about known or potential lead lines. Some folks may have already received
a notice. We sent those out last year. If you haven't received one, you may receive one soon. And so
we're asking for resident participation in our lead service line inventory.
So if your service line material is listed as unknown, we're asking for your help in identifying it,
which we have some helpful instructions on our website at bloomington.in.gov slash utilities slash inventory.
When you go to that website, you can click on the button that says Submit Service Line Composition.
And when you do,
There will be a link to an interactive tool that actually was put together by NPR, which can help you
identify your private service line if you can identify it within your basement or where your water shutoff is.
The more customer participation we have with us, it'll help us update our records faster, thus prioritizing
work more efficiently and reducing the time that it takes to complete our inventory citywide. Yeah,
so that's lead service line.
Next, I just wanted to update everyone about our financial assistance program. I've talked a couple
times about how we were looking at how to update and expand our program to better support residents.
And so we have implemented that at the beginning of this year. And so the reason for doing this is because
we budgeted $100,000 each year for assistance, but not all of that was being used.
What these changes are doing, they're meant to remove barriers and help make it easier to access. Some
of the changes are that previously, customers receiving direct payment assistance had to pay two bills
after every three months of support. Now customers can receive assistance consecutively as long as they
reapply and continue to meet our eligibility requirements.
Previously, customers had to apply before being shut off. That requirement has been removed, and now
eligible customers can now apply even after disconnection, as long as they still meet the program
requirements to have service restored. So just how to apply. You can start applying with South Central
Community Action Program at civiform.bloomington.in.gov.
programs slash water assistance. Really, I think if you just Google CBU assistance, you should be able
to find it. And so even if you don't qualify through SCAP,
It's important to note that households with total annual income at or below 300% of the federal poverty
guidelines may still qualify, even if you don't qualify for other programs through SCAP. So you may
still qualify for direct financial assistance. And so we're hoping that these changes will encourage
folks to reach out as early as possible if they know they need help,
because we're definitely here. So that's our financial assistance program. I have two more updates.
Sorry. Our next update, I just wanted to give kind of a general update about the status of fluoride.
Last time we had this town hall, we were exploring some options. We were exploring relining the current
tank. What we've decided to go with is a temporary system.
We removed the bulk tank that was leaking after it was determined that relining it was not going to
be effective. We've installed our temporary system, which has already received approval from IDEM. What
we're waiting on now is a single part for a day tank and to confirm that it's running smoothly.
It should be done very soon. I feel comfortable saying that we should be able to have fluoride by the
end of this month, checking the date. I feel very comfortable saying that we should be able to have
fluoride again by the end of the month. Once we've gotten the system fully tested,
and we are up and running, we'll release a press release for the public to make sure that everyone's
informed and knows that it's back in our drinking water. Then finally, I just wanted to address just
some general information about main breaks. We've had quite a few main breaks recently, and that is
something that typically happens when you see big swings in the temperature.
And so the temperature fluctuations is specifically freezing and thawing cycles. They cause the ground
to move. And then combined with that, the age of the infrastructure, any sudden rapid changes in water
pressure, any kind of issues with the pipes, or even ground disturbances can all contribute to main breaks.
And so some people ask, what can we do to prevent them? So the truth is no utility can really prevent
all breaks, but proactive maintenance and infrastructure investment can help reduce their frequency
and severity. CBU does this by tracking main break data to identify trouble spots and prioritize our
water main replacement projects.
The current capital improvement plan used to inform the ongoing water rate case allocates $19.8 million
to replacing aging water mains and servicing valves. So when they break, how are they fixed? I just
in general want to let folks know big shout out to our crews right now who are fixing these main breaks
and these freezing temperatures.
In most cases, when our crews dig up the main to fix it, they do what's called a full seal clamp over
the pipe to stop the leak. Sometimes when you have more severe breaks, they may require the removal
and replacement of the whole section of pipe. And then once the repair is made either through the clamp
or replacing the pipe,
The line is flushed at the nearest hydrant or house and then the water is tested, especially if pressure
was lost. Just to make sure that it's meeting all of our standards. And so those are all of my updates
from CBU. Thanks Kat, appreciate that. Notable that there's only
I don't know, four days left in January, and you think that fluoride will be back in our water by the
end of January. So thanks for all your hard work on that. Isabel, would you like to provide some council
updates? Well, thank you very much. Glad to be here and to see a few dozen people on the call. Always
good to see people, especially from District 1. Go District 1.
But I actually, I don't have very many updates. The council has not done a whole lot yet. We're just,
you know, we have new leadership. This is here with Isak Asari being the new council president, and
Sidney Zulik, the new vice president. I wanted to speak just for a moment about community. And I don't,
I don't know about
you all, but I've been watching what's unfolding in Minneapolis, and it is shocking. And I think no
matter what your politics are, it is shocking and disturbing to see federal agents in a city and that
much fighting and violence occurring. And I think it just reminds us all to
that our local relationships are so important and knowing and being there for our neighbors and supporting
each other and building the trust between local government and the population we serve is so vital.
And I think that's what we're trying to do with these town halls. And I really have seen a lot of support
just with the severe weather we've had.
with the emergency winter shelter, people helping each other shovel out their cars. We have such a great
community and those are the bonds that are going to help us into the future as the federal situation
is more and more uncertain. And so I just wanted to, you know, it's kind of the elephant in the room
for people who have been following the news that it's been very disturbing. So I just wanted to
get that out there that we know that it affects everybody, not just the people in Minnesota.
So thank you. I'm here mainly to listen. Thanks, Isabelle. Thanks for addressing those ICE actions in
Minnesota where they have
they've murdered two US citizens, and those were federal agents that did that. So disturbing on many,
many fronts. And I am hearing from residents who are disturbed about this. For those of you who don't
know, I am advocating that you call your federal representatives before they vote on the DHS bill.
That's the Department of Homeland Security Bill, which funds ICE that is happening this week. I have
called our reps. I will be on the Hill later this week. I will be addressing this with them. Our community
does not support this and we need to be assured that our federal government is actually on the side of
the US people and I think many of us are losing faith in that through these actions that we've seen
with ICE. On that very happy note, I just want to open it up for people to submit questions that you'd
like us to address. While you're submitting questions, I'll just say that
A winter storm like the one we have just had is an opportunity for us to see how many helpers there
really are and that Bloomington really is, as Council Member Piedmont-Smith just mentioned, a special
island of peace and caring where sometimes
sometimes we can lose track of that. But I really hope that we can continue to be that for one another
and to help everyone in our community know that there are neighbors here that want them here and that
will continue to help take care of them. Desiree, do we have any questions submitted yet?
Not yet, but if you do have a question, the best opportunity is to chat one of your hosts, depending
on who you want to direct your question to, whether that's Catherine, Councilmember Piedmont-Smith,
or Mayor Carrie Thompson in the chat. Okay, we've got one that it reads,
Good evening, I appreciate this time to be in conversation. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on how
we as a community benefit from being surveilled by FLOC. How this benefit outweighs what feels like
substantial risks to safety. The program has been rejected or canceled in at least 23 communities, including
Austin, Cambridge, Eugene. Yeah, thank you for this question, Jean. We, so,
Just so you know, FLOC is not a surveillance system. It captures license plates. So we're not keeping
data on people and their actions. And our data is deleted after 30 days. FLOC has been really instrumental in our
community in child abductions, in solving murders, and endangered missing elders. It has been an important
tool in helping to solve things very quickly. You ask a good question, what is the benefit and how does
it outweigh the risk?
Those are the benefits. As your mayor, I don't want to look in the eyes of somebody who is missing a
loved one and say, we unilaterally said we weren't going to use technology that was available to us
without checking to see if we can
more formally secure this data. Right now we have the strictest data agreement with Flock that exists.
And so again, we can only, you need a case number and it needs to be a law enforcement entity with a
case number to get anything from Flock and all it will tell you is if a license plate has been in the
community. So again,
Taking this very seriously, Jean and others who may be listening on the call, if you have ideas for
how to make this safer, I want to tell you it's a concern of mine too. I'm happy to meet and talk about
what your ideas are and what we need to be asking for from FLOC if we continue to use it.
I thought I saw other things popping up, but I don't have here. Nicholas and Helen asked,
Hasn't the city technically increased housing supply with the abundance of rather unattractive apartment
complexes throughout Bloomington? How do you think that increasing the supply is going to have an impact
on affordability? We're considering some form of rent control or something more radical to truly impact
the issue with affordability. Thanks for this question. I'm going to take this and Catherine or Isabelle,
if you want to chime in, just give me a signal.
Just providing increased supply is not affecting the cost of housing at this point. And so we need to
do more than just increasing supply. And part of the critical nature of what we're doing at Hopewell
is that we are creating ownership opportunities that, and we are in the process of building some recapture
Models into that so that we don't have steeply escalating prices there. Hopewell has house models that
we believe will sell for as low as $83,000 and that's owner occupied. That is a very modestly sized
house, just a few hundred square feet. Those models go all the way up to about 2700 square feet, and
as you can expect,
the more square feet and the more complex the house, the more expensive it is. We have to do some layering
to get the affordability that we're really looking at. Part of what we are really up against is that
the market has been really good for student development. I think it'll continue to be good for student
development.
unattractive apartment complexes I think you probably are referring to and you know those student
developments rent by the bedroom and they continue even with vacancies they continue to not be affordable.
So we really want to drive towards something that that is attainable for people and and
That will have to also include, even in the face of voucher cuts and other things, working creatively
with Bloomington Housing Authority and others to create truly affordable housing. On the topic of rent
control, rent control is illegal in the state of Indiana, so that has been legislated through our state
house. Now is a good time to note that
The State House does an awful lot of work that limits what we are able to do at the municipal level,
including rent control.
It also implemented a bill last year called SEA-1 and that is, it's being sold as a reduction in taxes
for our residents. But in fact, what is gonna happen to most is that they will see an increase in total
tax amount as taxes are redirected to the state. And those with the most expensive or highest value
property are gonna see more deduction than those with modestly priced property.
So I think I have answered the layers of question there. Oh, this is a. Can I add something, Carrie?
Yes. So yeah, preemption by the state government is a big problem when we try to address the housing
crisis. One thing that we have done recently in the City Council is to pass
a revision to our incentives. So we can't require affordable housing to be built, but we can offer incentives
to developers to say, okay, if you build affordable housing, we'll let you increase density or increase
the height of your project. And the definition of what we consider affordable has recently been revised.
So it used to be 100
of area median income that somebody who earned 120% of median income would spend 30% of that on housing.
And that's how we determined that that was affordable. Now, that never made much sense, I think, because
120% is more than the average median income. So we have decreased that down to 90%. And then for a tier
two for added incentives,
some of the housing has to be 70%. So for the basic incentive, it has to be 15% of the housing units
have to be at 90% of area median income affordable. And for the tier two, which is even more height
or density, I think 7% have to be at 90% area median income and 8% have to be at 70% area median income.
So we're trying
to at least make our incentives make more sense to provide really accessible housing. Yeah, thank you
for that Isabelle and I'll note that we have a good percentage of units at Hopewell even
even owner-occupied that are going to be attainable at less than 80 percent of the area median income.
I think something like 76 percent of them will be attainable at less than 100 percent of the area median
income. It's a complex puzzle. This is something that both council and the administration are working on really
maybe we shouldn't say in lockstep because we have different parts of that that we work on, but we all
have the same goal. I'm really appreciative to council that they've been working on this a long time
and the complexity of getting legislation right and getting in the end the programs right on
the administration side can be really tricky. It's great to have
phenomenal partners on council that are working for the good of our residents. The next question is
from Janeth Welch. Sorry if I'm not pronouncing your name right. Has the city had any conversations
with the county commissioners or council members about a location for the new jail, especially any properties
the city owns?
So I'm not sure what timeline this is referring to because as most of us know, the jail has been a very
long conversation. And so yes, the city has, I have had conversations with both commissioners and council
members about jail locations. I'll just say briefly that
My personal opinion is that the jail does not need to be downtown. There's no jail visitation, so it
doesn't need to necessarily be on a bus line. Most of that staff actually eats in the cafeteria. They
have a great cafeteria at the jail. The Justice Building is another issue though. The Justice Building,
of course, many, many people have to come to the Justice Building
for many reasons. It is really important that that is in a central area, on a bus line, etc. Where the
county is now with the jail, we had thought that North Park was totally off the table. Recent comments
from commissioners have made it sound like maybe it's not. I'll just insert my personal opinion now
on the jail.
which is that we really, I believe in a government that really values every dollar that we have. And
I think building a mega jail,
in this day and age is not in anybody's best interest. And we would be much better served as a community
to build just the jail that we need and to ensure that we really are using whatever other dollars and
expertise we can to do recovery services and diversion programs. So that's my two cents on the jail and
I have heard a plethora of different properties discussed, so I'm not really sure where they are right
now. Let's see. This is from Ann Edmonds. My house was one of the ones chosen to complete the survey
on the new parks and rec master plan. Will there be other opportunities for community input?
I'm really concerned about the possibility that we may lose our city pools. Swimming is a survival skill
unlike other sports that the city supports. Thank you for your comment, Ann. I actually don't know about
other opportunities to input on the parks master plan, but I will say that I
I also agree with you. As you know, Anne, I am a lifelong swimmer and it is a survival skill. It also
has been shown in multiple studies that public pools are essential for community fabric, really, that
vibrant cities tend to have at least one. Where we are with parks right now is that we really need to
be great stewards of what we have already invested in. And so the Parks Master Plan, the process has
been about really ensuring that we have good fiscal planning for maintenance and upkeep of the parks,
which of course we treasure. For a city our size, we have just
a wealth of parks and they're excellent. I will say that both pools are in need of a lot of repairs.
We may come to a point as a city where we can afford to have one public pool, but not two. That decision
hasn't been made. I am just being realistic that we have state cuts
are with us. We already have a lot to maintain. And so we will be having to make some hard decisions,
not just about parks, about many, many things in the coming years, unless we can get the State House
to reverse what they have already done. And they are talking about some added amendments. So then this is
I don't know if it's a comment or a question, but from Christopher MG, from a business and workforce
perspective, predictability matters. As the city looks ahead, how does the mayor and council plan to
improve clarity, flexibility, and timelines in policies like the UDO and permitting processes so Bloomington
can be actually open for business for private investment? Christopher, I'll answer from
the Mayor's perspective and then Council Member Pumon-Smith can answer from the Council's perspective,
I'm sure. As you know, we are going through an audit process with our permitting right now. We're in
desperate need of complete reform in our permitting process. As we look to the UDO and some changes
we'd like to make there,
What is essential to me is that we are driving the UVDO to be easy to develop good things and hard to
develop bad things. That's the general principle that we are shooting for. An easy means that it should
be a fast track. It should not take 18 months to get a permit in the city of Bloomington. Some of what
we deal with,
by trying to do the right thing is that we add layers and layers and layers of complexity onto our zoning
code. And then it's very hard to figure out how to get something done. So my hope is that in making
some tweaks to the UDO and through this permitting process, we can actually simplify things rather than
make them more complex. And my goal is to get to a place where you can get
most residential permits within 30 days. That should be doable. If you're doing just a single infill
lot without any variances, we should be able to get you in and out. That's the goal. That's what we're
working towards, and I think that's going to make a better Bloomington for all of us. Isabel, I'll let
you comment on that as well. Well,
First of all, I want to say Bloomington is open for business, and we do have a lot of investments in
economic development through the city, through the BDC, through Mr. MG's organization, the Chamber.
And the trades district has really come a long way in the last few years. And so I think there is a
lot of movement in that area. And so I would challenge you, if you think Bloomington is unfriendly for business,
We certainly have tried very hard to listen to the business community, and I think we invest a lot there.
One other thing I'll add to what Mayor Thompson said is that in addition to the permitting review and
making that more efficient, the Hopewell South PUD proposal actually offers
pre-approved plans for building different types of housing. And I think this will be very useful, especially
for smaller scale developers to just take a plan off the shelf and say, yes, in this block, we're going
to build these five houses and we're going to, you know, do three of this kind, two of this kind. And
that's already been approved. So that'll make development there much better. And I appreciate the mayor
bringing in Flintlock Labs
Is that right? To create that proposal and we'll be seeing that in the City Council probably in March
or April. It's exciting. I don't know if there's a question in here, Paul, or not, but I'll read your
comment. Carrie, I'm dismayed to hear that you prioritize growth because I think that prosperity through
growth is a myth.
Growth is ecologically unsustainable and it promotes inequality. Supply and demand does not explain
the rising cost of housing and increasing supply will not be the cure. For the people who live here
now, we already have inadequate city services with regard to public safety, sewer and stormwater management,
street maintenance, et cetera. We do not need more people. So Paul, I'm happy to address your concerns
and happy to have a conversation with you.
I will say that Bloomington's population has actually declined. What we're seeing now is that we have
better than 70 percent of our workforce is coming from outside of the county traveling in. That is definitely
ecologically unsustainable. What we are seeing is that
that now especially with SEA-1 in place, the way that municipalities will be able to fund their public
services is actually through income tax. It's not through property tax. The fewer people that we have
living here, the worse those services are going to be. Particularly if you look at a development like
like the Hopewell neighborhood, you're actually investing a very small amount in infrastructure development
and roads per home and per person that's there. This is one of the most sustainable things that I think
we can do. Happy to talk to you offline about that or answer further questions.
Um, and let's see, um, KRKCP, you have a, um, this is, uh, I think a long comment. Uh, uh, this is,
this is, uh, many paragraphs long, so I'm not gonna read the entire thing. It's, uh, uh, it surrounds, um,
Oh, audits. And the general feedback is that the timing of audits makes audited financial data largely
historical. Yes. So for whomever this is,
think it might be, Kevin. As you probably already know, my administration came in and there
were significantly delayed audits. We have been catching up on those and we have made a great amount
of progress with those. We are waiting on, as you know, it looks like you are
Yes, you're a long time CPA. So you know that they have to be sequential. You can't put all the audits
together at once. And so we're waiting for the auditor to return the next audit. And then the one following
is ready to go. And then at that point, we should be pretty well caught up.
We are working on it. It's a concern of mine as well. But I do want you to know that we have really
gained a lot of ground in the timing of these and in the transparency, especially the transparency between
Between the controller's office and the rest of the administration and therefore to counsel as well.
Council, I think, is getting much better and timelier financial information and a lot of behind the
scenes that
that is not always easy to digest. The way that local governments do finances, we have a general fund,
then we have several bonds and other things that we manage. I know you're a CPA, but to my knowledge,
we don't have any CPAs on council and the general public are not CPAs. We are really working hard in
my administration to be as transparent as possible with our finances.
and really get them to a place where they're palatable and digestible for the general public. Desiree,
can you see all of these comments? Are we missing anything? Isabel, did you want to comment at all on
the audits, financials, anything? Well, I think that we do need to get on a better schedule with our audits,
As you said, Mayor Thompson, your administration had some catching up to do because of the previous
administration. So I think we're getting there. We're getting to a better place. And we have a fiscal
committee now with the council where the comptroller meets with us regularly. And we're trying to get
on a path of more reporting and a better understanding since it is our fiduciary responsibility to approve budgets.
I think we are learning a lot and heading in the right direction. Thank you. Thanks, Isabelle. This
is from Sam Dove, wanting to know the status for county homeless camp at RCA Park. Sam, as you say,
that encampment is actually not at RCA Park, but it is adjacent.
and that is on county property and so the county many of us have seen the county has talked about that
at various commissioner meetings we're trying hard to partner with the county so that we have sort of a
a shared understanding of when camps need to be moved, the best way to do it. At the city, we took the
recommendations of heading home and the South Central Housing Network two years ago when I first took
office. We incorporated those into our procedures for when a camp does need to be moved. That creates
a lot of transparency and also
frankly, it has helped a lot just to have something people can anticipate. What we do is unless there's
an immediate risk to health and safety, and I will say that generally, there are health risks of living
in an encampment. We're talking about more safety risks.
then we give a 30-day notice and we immediately deploy as many services as possible to get people relocated.
We keep belongings, etc. so that we can do this with as much dignity as possible. Ultimately, I want
to share that my vision is that we will get to be a Bloomington where nobody has to sleep outside.
that everybody is offered a roof over their head. That is what we need to work towards as a community,
and we really need all the boats rowing in the same direction. I will note that there is some legislation
at the State House. I don't know if it got heard today because I have been a little tied up today, but
this legislation is regarding encampments and some of it is actually helpful. But there's a clause in
that legislation that says that camps need to be moved within 48 hours and that will override
any municipalities existing policies. I've been working with the legislators that are writing this bill,
pretty intensively over the last couple of weeks. There've been many improvements, but I still have
a problem with that particular part of that legislation because especially in a large encampment, it
is impossible to move people with dignity within 48 hours. That piece of the legislation is concerning.
We are at 6.58. Desiree, have you seen anything that I'm missing?
I am seeing one more question. It's from an anonymous participant. Is the cited 70% of the working population
coming from outside of Monroe County or outside of Bloomington and possibly living within Monroe County?
What is the current population of Bloomington and how much has it decreased since 2020?
Okay, so the current population of Bloomington is about 80,000 the school population, we know is decreasing
because they actually keep track of that and and it has been a challenge.
The 70 percent is from an ROI study. I believe you can probably find that on their site, and that is
from outside the county, not outside the city. I do see one more question that I think we can wiggle
in. The Bloomington Symphony had a wonderful concert at Switchyard Pavilion. However, the chairs at
the event were exceedingly uncomfortable. Does the Parks Department have any plans to replace those
chairs? That is a question I do not know the answer to.
But I saw a symphony performance and those chairs did look uncomfortable and probably we are dealing
with skating a line between comfort, ease of cleaning, and transportability, if that's a word, when
it comes to parks chairs for performances. So we may need some of those
Bloomington innovators to create a comfortable performance chair that's easy to clean and move away.
All right, that brings us to seven o'clock. I really appreciate all of you all joining on Zoom. I hope you're
wearing your PJs and have a nice cup of tea in front of you and this was comfortable for you all. For
any additional questions, please feel free to reach out to me at mayor at bloomington.in.gov. You can
also feel free to call our office.
Really appreciate you all being here with us tonight. We will do another traveling town hall in March.
I can't remember where that one is, but I'm sure it's set and it will be announced. And on the months
that I don't do traveling town halls, I do traveling office hours. And so I will be out and about in
the community. That's your opportunity to sit down with me one-on-one and get your
questions answered, discuss some of these things. So in February, look for that announcement. Sign up
ahead of time so that you don't have to stand and wait. Have a great night everyone. And if I may, I
also have my constituent meetings on the second Saturday of the month from 11 to 12. And those will
be on Zoom all year except for July. So you can go to the City Council website and get the link there. Awesome.
Thank you, Catherine and Isabelle for joining the town hall. You all are awesome. Have a good night,
everyone. Thank you.