- Hello and welcome to Cats Week. I'm Annalise Poorman.
- The Bloomington City Council met on November 5th. The meeting was centered on the proposed stadium district
- redevelopment for the area around Miller Showers Park. The proposal drew both enthusiasm and skepticism
- from council members and local residents. Director of Economic and Sustainable Development for the city,
- Jane Cooper-Smith, began by explaining why this area was chosen for redevelopment and how that vision
- could potentially take shape.
- This district, which is not just the Memorial Stadium, and it's not just football. It is this whole
- complex that attracts thousands and thousands of visitors to Bloomington. And it has its own vibe. And
- it is festive. It has an identity that flexes and changes with time. So if you're driving in, if you're
- commuting into Bloomington, it's got one identity at 8 AM on Monday. If you're here on a basketball
- night, there was a basketball game tonight. You can see the cones going up.
- The district starts to change for people who live in the area some of them Love this proximity and some
- of them are chagrined by the activity the inconvenience of the traffic patterns changing You can even
- hear music permeating the district when there are you know activities happening outside in the
- the athletics complex area from Dunn Street near Griffey you can hear even the North marching band practicing
- in those football games so there there are elements that carry throughout the district and I'm afraid that
- I haven't focused on selling it and I haven't painted a real picture for why it's the stadium district,
- but it's very purposeful that it be the stadium district. Senior Director of Government and Community
- Relations for the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce, Chris M.G., said he supported the concept
- of the stadium district, adding that he believes it could attract development and visitors to the city's
- northwest side.
- The stadium district concept began 16 months ago, advanced by a Northside hotelier who recognized the
- potential for this area. It is not to displace, diminish neighborhood identity. Absolutely none of that.
- This is a commercial venture, not a neighborhood one. Neighborhood identity is going to stay the same.
- And so we'll talk about this further in the next public comment, but I want to make sure we realize
- where we're coming from and the improvements made to the boundaries from where they were earlier. Thank
- you for your time. I look forward to speaking again. During public comment, local resident Paul Rousseau
- said he is skeptical of the proposal. Speaking on Zoom, he worried about how the name and vision might
- misrepresent the area. I live a quarter mile north of the Heartworks Brewery. And regarding the boundaries,
- I appreciate that my neighborhood
- just to the west of college, a residential neighborhood is not inside of this. I think that's appropriate.
- And what I'm mystified by is why the vast areas of college student housing between just to the east
- of Showers Park, there are probably, oh my gosh, I don't know how many, three, four or 5,000 units of
- housing in there.
- And I don't know why that's in a district whose purpose is primarily commercial. That doesn't make much
- sense for me. As an overall comment, I don't know if this is the time to say it. I know very little
- about this, just learned about it, actually. And I'm wondering if one of the main purposes is to serve as a
- welcoming to people because this is such a common gateway into Bloomington. Well then why not call it
- that? The gateway district instead of the stadium district because the name stadium doesn't really seem
- to have anything to do with the purposes. During council discussion council member Kate Rosenbarger
- cautioned against moving too fast with the proposal before getting enough input from the public.
- Some thoughts that I have around it if we do put on it and so that I would like. Yes, you to go to a
- maple Heights neighborhood Association meeting I would like there to be a process for recommending and
- choosing a name for the district that happened for Eagleton Avenue, it's one 3 this is an entire district, I think
- It's a lot more meaningful to everyone like residents of our city if they're involved in something like
- that I think there's a lot more buy-in. I know some businesses like the main stadium district, but I
- have not heard a resident say that they like it or that want to live in or near and that is problematic for me.
- Councilmember Matt Flaherty said, in his view, this discussion shows how complicated redevelopment efforts
- can be. He said that the city cannot look at this as a purely commercial move and not focus on the residents
- in the neighborhood. There's a book called Suburban Nation that I read 10 years ago that was probably
- the first urban planning book I read of now many urban planning books.
- And it introduces a concept about pods of development and that the fundamental problem with development
- from the 1950s to, you know, even today in some cases, but let's say 2000, is that we thought of everything
- as separate. Commercial here, residential, multifamily here, single family over here, you know, business
- parks here. And it has a lot of negative effects. With the fragments of community, it creates
- highways in the middle of town, for instance, to get people around because we no longer have a connected
- network. And while that's not exactly what we're talking about here, I think it really resonates with
- what I found to be kind of wrong-headed, I guess, about thinking that this is just about commercial
- and that we can ignore the residential or just pull them out when the neighborhoods like Garden Hill
- and Maple Heights say that they really find this quite offensive and not at all attractive to them.
- I think when I think of quality of place or strengthening Bloomington's identity, sense of place and
- pride, the things that are called out in the presentation from staff about what this is about, it just
- doesn't seem like this is it. The council voted seven to one to indefinitely postpone the stadium district renaming.
- At the Bloomington Redevelopment Commission meeting on November 3rd, Commissioner Anna Killian Hanson
- presented information regarding the funding of community development block grant programs, social service
- and physical improvement projects, and where that funding will go. She said that the RDC has already
- received a grant of $53,000 from the Community Foundation toward the Hopewell Project and that those
- funds would likely go towards outreach sessions with
- developers, training sessions, and more. It's to be used towards our initiatives at Hopewell South.
- So the way that we wrote it could be used for any of our outreach sessions with developers or lenders.
- We're doing some training sessions that can be used for that. It can be used for our work with Flintlock.
- So it's pretty flexible and we have not
- determined exactly what we're doing with it. Next, the commission discussed a resolution 25-127 regarding
- infrastructure work in the Southwest Quadrant of Bloomington. The RDC has already set aside $5 million
- for the plan. Most of that funding would go towards road work such as possible controlled signals or
- roundabouts and new intersections or passageways to reduce traffic.
- Assistant attorney for the city, Dana Kerr, detailed some of the areas that would be targeted by the
- plan. One location for a roadway would be connecting Vanguard. There's a small piece of Vanguard already
- here that was part of the PIC development. And then, so bringing it all the way up to Weemer, because
- most of Weemer, particularly in this area, is floodplain. There is also a one-lane bridge.
- there that is dangerous. So development in this area, which is one of the few areas left in Bloomington
- to develop, will need more infrastructure for safety and with traffic flow and police and fire. So Vanguard
- is one of those. And Weimar Road then would become part of the trail system.
- could be used for that. So at TAP and WIEMER, there would need to be probably a roundabout, either a
- controlled signal or a roundabout, and probably a roundabout. There would need to be an intersection
- connection here as well.
- Over on the right, you see this is Adams Street. And it ends just behind Summit Elementary School. And
- then it's, you can go up a little bit. And then you have Adams that comes down here. It ends. And this
- is part of the Summit development. And what this would do would create another north-south passageway between
- this part of town and the lower connection. And then Sudbury is this road, it's already to here, but
- it would come over, there'd probably be a roundabout structure there, and there would be some other
- roads inside the development that, you know, wouldn't be anything that the courtesy would do.
- Travis Vensel, one of the developers for the Summit District, advised the Commission to set aside some
- TIF money for the design and build phases of the project. After much looking, all of Sudbury that's
- remaining, which is the Sullivan Summit development, is within the TIF. It's within a couple of areas
- of expansion of the tap-rope TIFs, but all of the
- remaining 135 acres is in some part of the consolidated tip as of now from long discussions over the
- last two years with hand and legal. So if something's changed from that, we haven't been notified, but
- it's all within the existing consolidated tip. And I think that map even shows that, but that's our
- understanding after working with the city for a long time on that.
- We're here to ask for support of this because we came forward and we realized after doing a traffic
- study of 22 different intersections and road improvements that there was a lot of decisions that demeaning
- me made at the city on where the priorities were. There were intersections in that traffic study that
- failed today. There were intersections that needed work. Some work now, there were intersections that
- would need work in 15 years. There's a couple of other projects
- stewing down there and trying to put these all together and anticipate which was coming first and which
- intersection was going to happen and who was responsible for which off-site improvement gave us great
- angst because we couldn't commit to what improvements we were going to do because if somebody else came
- along first they would have to do that improvement and we would get shifted to another
- priority down the list. Next, the commission discussed the plans for developing Hopewell South as a
- plan to unit development, which would make building on the property more flexible. Kellyanne Hansen
- explained. The current R4 zoning would only allow for 28 homes across both those blocks. So,
- with the major, what was that number? Up to 118, somewhere between 84 to 118 homes.
- instead of just 28. So as you know, PUDs, you can write your own rules. It seemed like a much better
- avenue to go down than just trying to get variants after variants. Also, their original contract included
- the design work. They have been great to work with. They've made quite a bit of progress, but it did
- not include
- getting over the hump of our own internal barriers, which this is one of them, some zoning changes that
- are needed. Kerr walked through the potential benefits of the PUD for the city. And the nice thing about
- the PUD for the city is that, you know, with the location that this is in, it's not, you know, on main
- roads and things like that. She has done this. Allie has done this in a lot of other locations.
- with great success. But if Bloomington decides, eh, we really don't want to change the UDO entirely
- to allow these things to happen, this can be like a pilot test for this and see how well it does. How
- well does it give us that affordable housing, which my understanding is the RDC's number one goal, number
- two number one goal,
- for Hopewell South is to spend as little as necessary to get the project off the ground and done, plus
- to maximize the affordability of the houses. And when you talk about things like the right of way to
- the roads, that can be very limiting. And the goal is that in
- 200 years, all of our roads would be of this larger size and things, but the fact of the matter is,
- if you go south on Fairview, it's not part wide. So maybe it could, instead of being 60 foot, it could
- be something less than 60 foot. I don't know why. I don't know what to propose. I'm not the architect
- engineer, but I do know that when you
- don't give up as much right of way, that gives you more land to develop. And that gives you the opportunity
- for more houses. But all the considerations are going. There's discussions about fire trucks and trash
- collection. And different things like that are ongoing. Because we just want to make sure these kind
- of things are considered. And they are being considered.
- Valley has actually provided some extremely detailed answers to some of the questions that's been asked
- so far. So again, going through the PUD process is not something that the city normally does an activity.
- Yes, they review them, but we don't create them. And we need the assistance of somebody that knows the project,
- knows the UDO, and her company has already reviewed the entire UDO and knows what would work with it
- and what wouldn't. And so in my opinion, she's the best one situated, her company is, to help us get
- the PUD and make sure that we get what is going to do the very most.
- and increase right away, increase infrastructure costs and such, decrease right away, get you more affordable
- housing. So there's all those benefits of having the PUD. If we tried to go to variances again, there'd
- just be too many necessary. So we're just being encouraged to go around the PUD and again,
- The motion passed unanimously. The Monroe County Commissioners met on Thursday, November 6th. At the
- start of the meeting, Commissioner Jodi Madeira spoke on Operation Green Light for Veterans. Operation
- Green Light for Veterans. Whereas the residents of Monroe County have great respect, admiration, and
- the utmost gratitude for all the men and women who have selflessly served our country and this community
- in the armed forces,
- and the contributions and sacrifices of those who served in the armed forces have been vital in maintaining
- the freedoms and way of life enjoyed by our citizens, and Monroe County seeks to honor individuals who
- have made countless sacrifices for freedom by placing themselves in harm's way for the good of all,
- and veterans continue to serve our community in the American Legion, veterans of foreign wars, religious
- groups, civil service, and by functioning as county veterans service officers in 29 states,
- to help fellow former service members access more than $52 billion in federal health, disability, and
- compensation benefits each year. And approximately 200,000 service members transition to civilian communities
- annually. And an estimated 20% increase of service members will transition to civilian life soon. And
- studies indicate that 44% to 72% of service members experience high levels of stress during transition
- from military to civilian life
- active military service members transitioning from military service are at a high risk for suicide during
- their first year after military service, and the National Association of Counties encourages all counties,
- parishes, and boroughs to recognize Operation Green Life for Veterans, and Monroe County appreciates
- the sacrifices of our United States military personnel and believes specific recognition should be granted
- We, the Monroe County Board of Commissioners, do hereby proclaim November 4-11, 2025 as Operation Green
- Light for Veterans, a time to salute and honor the service and sacrifices of those transitioning from
- active service, and encourage Monroe County citizens to recognize the importance of honoring all those
- who made immeasurable sacrifices to preserve freedom by displaying green lights in a window of their
- place of business or residence from November 4-11, 2025.
- Proclaimed the sixth day of November, 2025, the Monroe County Board of Commissioners. Next, Veterans
- Service Officer Stephen Miller made some Veterans Day announcements.
- My office is going to be supporting a number of Veterans Day events starting today. Directly after this,
- I'm heading up to Meadowwood from 11 to 2 for a Veterans Day luncheon and book signing. Then on Veterans
- Day itself, we're going to be supporting an early morning coffee with veterans at Starbucks and Indiana
- Avenue with a number of IU folks. Then we're going to be at the IU flag raising that starts at 730 a.m.
- Then we're going to
- be at the Veterans Day Breakfast Social at the Center for Veteran and Military Students from 830 to
- 11. And starting at 1030, we're going to be at the American Legion for the Veterans Day program sponsored
- by them. And finally, on the day after, on the 12th, we're going to be hosting a Veterans Day employee
- appreciation event for all Monroe County government veteran and military members. We're going to have coffee
- and donuts, so if you have folks, please let them know about that. We're real excited. And then additionally,
- the Indiana Department of Veterans Affairs has produced a program called Operation Emergency Food for
- SNAP beneficiaries. Folks whose SNAP benefits are in danger may apply for a Military Family Relief Fund
- grant that will pay up to the amount of the SNAP benefits. A couple of things that are of note.
- the benefit does count against the $2,500 maximum grant benefit per individual. So that is a consideration.
- And we're being told that they're processing checks as quickly as 72 hours. So if anyone has need, please
- reach out to my office. We're happy to help get folks connected to that benefit. Then Monroe County's
- fleet and building manager, Richard Kreider, spoke about the ENB paving Maple Grove road paving project.
- The scope of work is drainage improvement, sidewalk repair and replacement, and asphalt replacement.
- On July 25th, we entered into an agreement with Specialty Engineering Group to provide professional
- services for the project. To date, design and development construction documents have been completed.
- We're currently in the bidding phase.
- Notice to bidders was published on October 6th and October 23rd. A pre-bid meeting was held at Showers
- North on October 24th, and proposals were due by 10 a.m. this morning. Lastly, Highway Director Lisa
- Ridge gave some insight on the traffic control and flagging stormwater project with Marshall Security
- LLC. We typically use temporary flagging on different projects throughout the year.
- So this is just an as-need basis. It's similar to the contract we've done with Security Pro in the past.
- Before the meeting ended, Commissioner Julie Thomas delivered the sad news that longtime Monroe County
- civic leader and activist Charlotte Zitlow had passed away. We had received the sad news yesterday of
- the passing of former County Commissioner Charlotte Zitlow.
- And it's one of those things where every time I walk in this building, I think about her efforts to
- ensure that this historic courthouse was preserved. And there are a number of other projects she's worked
- on, but I think this is probably the most visual in our community and the most visible and the one we
- see most often.
- as well and I just really appreciate public service and I appreciate her public service and she will
- be missed by her family and friends. The next Monroe County Commissioner's meeting will take place on
- Thursday, November 13th.
- The Ellitsville Board of Parks and Recreation met on November 3rd. Rachel Peden McCarty of the Ellitsville
- History Center spoke to the commission to inquire about a budget to help fix issues at the History Center.
- I just wanted to come tonight. It's been at least more than a year, year and a half, two, with Chief
- Durnall at the Ellitsville History Center. He gave me a key. We've been working there.
- From time to time, I look up things for people. We've met people that want to see things or donate things.
- But now, we have a regular Tuesday at 10 a.m. volunteer hour. And so, we've had some people come, and
- we're trying to get it so we can have it open on a more regular basis. But I come to you tonight to
- let you know that, first of all. Second, and I talk to you, Mr. O'Donnell, we need someone to look at
- the computer there.
- because I've never been able to turn it on. And I would like to see what potential budget we have to
- get display cases and things off tables in the future and see how we can raise money. Maybe we can have
- something at the Spring Fling event. McCarty also spoke about how the public can get involved.
- anybody watching on CADS, if they're interested in volunteering, you can always show up at 10 a.m. on
- a Tuesday. If we're not going to be able to be there, I'll try and post a note on the door because we
- do have some other commitments. But, or my name, Rachel Peden-McCarty, you can find me on Facebook and
- send me a message and we'll... I'll see what I've got a fellow might bring with me tomorrow, see if
- he can just give us an idea of what we need to do.
- Board President Jimmy Durnall agreed to work on finding an exact budget the next day and promised to
- follow up with McCarty. The Ellitsville Board of Parks and Recreation will meet again on Monday,
- December 1st. And that is all for Cats Week. Thank you for joining us. For Cats and WFHB, I'm Annalise Poorman.