- and welcome to Cats Week. I'm Annalise Poorman. The Bloomington City Council met on February 18th. During
- public comment, local residents urged the council to consider cutting the city's contract with Flock
- Safety, a surveillance company that has been utilized by immigration and customs enforcement. One resident,
- Sam, says he wants the council to ban Flock altogether. I just think we need to go a lot further because this
- is a threat to our lives when you think about who can use it. I do not believe the mayor's line that
- this is a purpose-driven limited use tool, because by definition is a general surveillance network.
- The data is live-streamed, the cameras are independently powered and networked, the public does not
- own the data, the public cannot access the data. We don't know who can get it, and it's been shown being
- used in terrible ways. So I would ask you, council,
- to go a step further and create an ordinance to ban the use of FLOC and similar fascist technologies
- and help stand up for citizens here. I know the current contracts have terms in them that you can't
- necessarily touch, but you can ban future use beyond those contracts, and it takes an ordinance from
- council. So please consider that. Thank you for your time. And that's your time. Thank you so much.
- Another resident Seaforth Breeze says that they live down the road from where a flock camera is installed.
- Breeze says that they believe flock is not accountable to the public. My name is Seaforth Breeze. I've
- been a resident in Bloomington for a little over a decade now at this stage. I wish to speak about flock
- cameras. I'll keep my comment pretty brief. The residence that I'm currently staying at, it's a rental.
- is directly in the line of sight just down a hill from one of the cameras. Every single day, when I
- cycle to work, when I get in my car, all hours, even when I'm on my patio, the camera is staring right
- down at me. To bring back one of the earlier public comments, these companies
- and it's not just flock but expanding beyond that to the security apparatus that is represented by these
- companies, they are not accountable to the public in a meaningful way. They have been demonstrated on
- numerous occasions now in cities as far-flung as like California, for example, to have ignored requests
- from the municipalities that they contract with to keep the data contained to that municipality.
- You know, I'm relatively young. I'm around 30ish and like seeing the expansion of this technology into
- every part of my life, into every venue from my workplace, when I'm driving down the street, when I'm
- going into the shops, when I am, I mean just everywhere. It is a
- tech solution that does not have a horizon. And it justifies, you know, it's a response that is not
- solving things. It is retroactively putting Band-Aids on more structural concerns and needs. Community
- member Moby Jean Glazer also urged the council to cancel its contract with Flock.
- I want to encourage all members of council to take every possible action available to them to end the
- current contract with FLOC and to prevent any future contracts from being made. Right now we
- need preventative and proactive measures taken to ensure the safety of our community members. In a recent
- town hall, I asked Mayor Thompson about FLOC surveillance and its benefit risks to our community. And
- she said she did not believe this technology is surveilling our community.
- However, myself and many others strongly disagree with her. She spoke to the contract itself as a means
- of creating safety and preventing abuse. Many folks feel we cannot trust Flock to keep our community
- safe and believe there's too much potential for those in power to harm our community. This is informed
- by what we are seeing nationally in regards to Flock data being used against protesters, by ICE to harm
- community members, by a police officer to stalk a former partner,
- by police officers to track community members accessing reproductive health care in other states. And
- these are just a few documented examples. Considering the violent and oppressive nature of our current
- federal and state governments and the legislation we are seeing proposed especially at the state level,
- the safest thing we can do locally in regards to FLOC is to end the contract and remove FLOC
- from our community. Councilmember Isak Asari introduced a draft resolution that addressed automated
- license plate readers. According to a letter that he sent to the council, the resolution pauses further
- expansion of FLOC systems and other automated license plate readers. Asari calls it, quote,
- a first step, unquote, toward curbing the city's affiliation with FLOC.
- The Monroe County Public Library Board of Trustees met on February 18th. In his monthly report, Library
- Director Greer Carson updated the board on their partnership with Health Net, a health care and support
- service organization.
- Our partnership with Health Net resumed in January. You may recall a couple of years ago we started
- that partnership when we had some folks from Health Net come and speak to you all about what
- their partnership and what their work is all about. That started in January after a brief hiatus. We're
- glad to be able to work with the group again. They provide space and opportunities to support patrons
- who are experiencing homelessness, who have some basic health needs, and they provide referrals to those
- folks for more serious needs.
- General Manager of Community Access Television Services, Martin O'Neill, reviewed the CATS annual contracts
- with the board. Four contracts this evening, one from the city, the county, town of Ellisville, and
- a memorandum of understanding with WFHB. The city contract is a one percent increase over last year,
- county is a three percent increase, Ellisville is a two percent, and our agreement with WFHB that
- That is the continuation of our weekly government roundup show called Cats Week that we do every Friday.
- And that's basically it. The Cats annual contracts were approved unanimously. Next, communications and
- marketing director Tori Lawhorn presented the library's Banned Books Week campaign. We did kind of quotes
- on banned books and intellectual freedom. We did the top 10 most challenged books and why.
- kind of educate our audience on that. We also were able to reserve half of the glass case in City Hall
- for September, which is something we haven't been able to do before. So that was another way to kind
- of get our message out in the community.
- We also always have a blog post that talks about statistics for book challenges and intellectual freedom,
- especially throughout the country. ALA always releases those numbers right before National Library Week.
- So we try to make sure that our posts and our content are always data-driven to inform our audiences
- as well. And those always do really well. The MCPO Board of Trustees will meet again on March 25th.
- the Richland Bean Blossom School Board met on February 17th. District Business Manager Paul Federle
- gave an update on cash flows for 2026 through 2028, the timeline for the school's three-year financial
- plan. He said 2026 numbers are already being made available. I encourage you to keep an eye on your
- beginning balance in January and your ending balance in December. That's what this is all about.
- knowing what's coming before it gets here, okay? So then because of that loss of revenue in 2026 and
- knowing we need to have at some point a discussion about 2027 and 2028 because of what the legislature's
- done to you. You've heard me say you're gonna lose 900,000 to a million dollars in your operations fund.
- That's not chicken feet.
- We're really gonna have to prepare for that two or three years down the road. Board member Brad Tucker
- noted that the school is over budget by roughly $1 million in the next three years. Federally added
- that the overage does not include consideration for additional costs, saying the town reorganization
- could cost the school half of a million additional dollars. I was interested in what's happening here
- with your city and the county.
- and I saw that number. And so that's not in here, okay? So we're gonna, that's what we need to talk
- about, stuff like that. So we're blessed to have a cash balance from some good, making good decisions,
- but some things are being taken out of our hands now. Yes.
- RBB Director of Budget and Finances, Debbie Tate, then updated the board on the status of two students
- in private placements for special education. The two placements cost the school almost $1 million per
- year. Board members asked how the school affords it. RBB Director of Special Education, Noah Dixon,
- said that the state reimburses a large part of that cost. That's kind of the very nice thing with the
- seek reimbursement that we get in the sense of if we
- didn't have it, then we would be paying, I mean, without reimbursement, like for the JRC, $877,000.
- But very thankfully, the state does give us that allowance to where
- we're just paying a minimum and then the rest gets reimbursed. So. Dixon said that the students require
- special placements because the school cannot provide them the help that they need. Board member Larry
- DeMoss said special education reimbursements were discussed at the state house this week, but the chairman
- of the education committee said there is nothing the state can do this session. On February 19th, the
- Monroe County election board met to discuss the upcoming primary election and early voting.
- The board is still deciding whether early voting will be 28 or 16 days before election day. Early voting
- hours are also being determined. That if we're going to the 16 days, then the resources that we would
- have spent between the 16 and 28, that we might be able to use those resources to add more polling locations.
- for Election Day. But Election Day is a different situation than early voting. And in this county so
- far, we've been about 50-50 for early voting versus Election Day. A lot of people cannot vote on Election
- Day. They have to go to work. And they have to perhaps work 20, 30 miles away from where they vote.
- So extending
- Early voting hours would allow those people maybe a better time and shorten lines. And I don't think
- we can make those decisions until we actually know when or how many days we're going to be voting. The
- upcoming election will have more polling locations and will include new sites. Registered voters will
- receive a postcard with election information in the coming weeks.
- So a postcard will have to go out to every registered voter anyways before the election. We do that
- after voter list maintenance to ensure that everybody is up to date and that they have correct information.
- That would be a question for Clerk Brown I feel because I've not been here yet when we had to update
- some of the locations.
- The board then discussed potential problems with the updated voting locations and times. Jack Schmidt,
- a proxy for board member Danny Shields, shared how voters can best help themselves. I think it's incumbent
- upon us all to remember that voting is a privilege, and it's something that we should open ourselves
- up to know where we need to go, when we need to go, and how we can vote. So the idea of having it
- easy for everybody every single day. I think it's a bit extreme in my book. I think we just need to
- self-gate. This is the time you can vote. Here are the days. You've got early voting on these days.
- Different ways you can do it as well. You've got folks who will take you to the site. So again, let's
- give people a chance to realize that they're responsible as well for this wonderful right we have. The
- next Monroe County Election Board meeting will be on February 24th.
- The Monroe County Redevelopment Commission met on February 18th. Highway Director Lisa Ridge introduced
- bids on Curry Pike reconstruction. We also did some televising on some of the stormwater structures
- underneath Curry Pike to get a feel of what we need as part of the bid and the reconstruction. We also
- identified different sidewalk areas that need sidewalk replacement, curb and gutter.
- fix this along that way this this first phase is basically Bloomington city limits which is around Beasley
- Drive to the state limits or city limits around State Road 48 just is just south of State Road 48. Ridge
- introduced the firms that placed bids on the construction project. We received five bids the sealed
- bids were opened on February 5th at the County Commissioners meeting.
- DC construction services was the low bid of $679,428.75. Our engineer estimate at the time was $609,993.75.
- As you can see from the bid tabulation sheets, the highest bid went on up to $1.29 million.
- The board wanted the bids to be approved so that they can be discussed at the Commissioner's meeting
- next week. The motion passed by a vote of four to one.
- The Richland Township and Town of Ellisville Reorganization Committee met on February 18th, where town
- manager Mike Farmer talked about public outreach. He said the committee has yard signs for people and
- businesses to put out and asked about funding for a billboard. Committee member William Ellis said the
- billboard should be put up closer to the vote. I would hope that any organizations that donate to put
- the billboard up
- would do that closer to the vote. And I would suggest the digital one also by Kinzer 45, 46. Farmer
- said he met with the Builders Association about the logistics of the reorganization process.
- All the builders, obviously, are interested in what we're doing and what it might mean to them. The
- other thing is, when I talk to the Builders Association, they're
- They wondered if we would like to have a booth for free so we could provide information and answer questions.
- Committee member Jerry Sanders said he could probably help with tabling. Mason Greenberg, a Realtor
- of the Government Affairs Committee for the Indiana Upland Realtor Association, said the association
- supports the reorganization. I came tonight to
- see if there's any public opposition, any reason why we wouldn't want to support it, just making sure
- we're having all perspectives in mind. So if there's anyone here with that perspective, I would welcome
- hearing it, but I also just want to know that we're interested in being a vocal resource, a resource
- in getting this out
- And so understanding when and where we can, that's important for us. Ellis said he has heard public
- opposition because there is not a finalized plan. He said the committee is working to address community
- concerns as they arise. Committee member Andrew Henry then brought up subcommittees and reports. I really
- like that idea because I want people to be able to see the unfiltered report
- from the subcommittee. I also wanted to note there have been a bunch of updates to the website, which
- is ellitsvillerichlandinfo.org. All the contact info for all the subcommittee volunteers is now listed
- there. So if you want to contact any specific subcommittee volunteer on any one of the committees, all
- their contact info is now there and you can ask them questions, give feedback, give suggestions while
- they're still submitting and drafting their reports before they come to us for review.
- So at the end of February, we get draft reports. We have a week to go back and forth with the subcommittees.
- Then they submit final drafts in early March. And we have the rest of March for us to put together a
- comprehensive proposal drawing on all those subcommittee reports.
- The draft reports are due on February 27th and the finalized versions on March 4th. Henry said
- the reorganization committee has until April 1st to use the reports to create a comprehensive proposal.
- But I would really like the public to have access to all those subcommittee reports, unmodified, unredacted,
- unsynthesized, so that anybody can look at them and see exactly what the subcommittee gave to us and
- then compare that later with our proposal.
- Ellis said the subcommittee members and the public should be involved in modifications to the reports.
- He then made a motion to post final subcommittee draft reports before they are combined into a final
- plan. The motion passed unanimously. During public comment, Ellisville resident Lisa McCarchuck asked
- how the reorganization would affect taxes. She said to her understanding, there are twice as many voters
- outside the city limits.
- it's an easier sell to that majority to join Aletsville. It's not gonna impact their tax rate as much.
- And so I think you know where I'm going with this. I would hope that as soon as possible, there would
- be a clear communication to
- all the residents of the affected area as to how this will affect their taxes. Ellis said that the tax
- changes are still fluid and will depend on services outlined in the plan. Ellis said the website will
- have all the information about the reorganization and people can contact him with questions. The Richland
- Township and Town of Ellitsville Reorganization Committee will meet again on February 25th.
- And that is all for Cats Week. Thank you for joining us. For Cats and WFHB, I'm Annalise Poorman.