From left: BT general manager John Connell, BT bus rider Scott Ferrell. (May 17, 2022)
Monthly ridership stats.
Bloomington Transit (BT) is confronting several short-term challenges even as it looks ahead to a future flush with new revenue.
The new revenue will come from the city of Bloomington’s planned allocation to BT using some of extra money from the local income tax increase that was enacted by the city council two weeks ago.
The project to be built by MHG Apartments takes up about 7 acres of land, which is made up of a half dozen different parcels.
It’s a four-story multi-family building that will be home to the 213 new units with their combined 340 bedrooms. The breakdown on the mix of sizes is: 93 one-bedroom units; 113 two-bedroom units, and 7 three-bedroom units.
The plan commission’s vote was 7–1 with dissent from Ron Smith, the city council’s representative to the plan commission.
Through May 13, the rolling 7-day average of daily cases in Monroe County stands at about 42.
That is greater than 39.9—which is Monroe County’s daily average equivalent of the 200 cases-per-week per-100,000 population metric used by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) as a threshold for its community spread levels.
The current CDC map still pegs the community spread of the virus In Monroe County at a “low” level—which is the lowest of its three categories (low, medium, and high).
According to the city of Bloomington news release, the company making the $50 million investment is Meridiam, which is a global firm focused on infrastructure development. If all goes as described in Friday’s news release, construction of the network could start before the end of 2022.
According to Friday’s news release, a contract with an unnamed internet service provider (ISP) would ensure that Meridiam’s network will offer symmetric service (equal upload and download) of at least 1 gigabit per second everywhere in Meridiam’s Bloomington network.
Wildlife drama unfolded Saturday evening at Miller-Showers Park, which is wedged between Walnut Street and College Avenue on Bloomington’s north side.
In the early evening hours, a great blue heron flew in and landed near the east bank of the southernmost stormwater detention pond, towards the spillway to the next lower pond.
From there the bird worked its way along the bank southward, catching and eating at least one pretty big fish, which looked like a largemouth bass.
The great blue endured repeated harassment from a female redwing blackbird, which would flutter about, at times landing on the bigger bird’s back. The great blue was unperturbed.
Also counted as part of the evening’s wildlife inventory at Miller-Showers Park was a mother mallard, with at least four ducklings in tow. A muskrat carved a V-shape in the water as it swam along the surface from north to south across the pond.
Seals from provisional ballot bags after they were broken at Friday’s election board meeting.
From left: Hal Turner and Shruti Rana, members of Monroe County’s election board.
At its Friday meeting, the three-member Monroe County election board voted to accept as valid 19 out of the 32 provisional ballots from the Tuesday, May 3 primary elections.
Provisional ballots are those that are cast by a voter, but set aside due to some question about whether they are valid. Provisional ballots allow a voter to make their choices for candidates, without requiring Election Day poll workers, in circumstances that might be hectic, to make a final decision on validity
View to the northwest of the Monroe County’s election operations building at the corner of 3rd and Walnut streets around midday on May 12, 2022.
A little more than a week after Tuesday’s primary elections concluded in Monroe County, work has started on preparation for voting in the Nov. 8 general election.
On Thursday morning, the county’s new election operations building, at the corner of 3rd and Walnut streets, started a planned cosmetic change.
By midday on Thursday, the building was halfway through its transformation from an iconic blue, reflecting its heritage as a NAPA auto parts store, to a more subdued earth tone.
The past practice used by Monroe County to make a cost of living adjustment (COLA) for employees could lead to a historic fiscal impact on the 2023 budget.
That’s because the county’s fiscal body—the seven-member county council—has typically tried to key its COLA to the percentage increase in the consumer price index (CPI) between the previous December and the December before that.
Closeup of AT&T communications equipment affixed to the Johnson’s Creamery smokestack.
The May 10, 2022 board of public works meeting was held in city council chambers. Assistant city attorney Daniel Dixon is addressing the board from the podium.
The removal of AT&T’s equipment will help set the stage for the owner’s partial demolition of the smokestack—from 140 feet down to 60 feet. The building, with its smokestack, is owned by Peerless Development.
Last week, the CDC reported Monroe County at a “medium” spread level, likely based on release of historical data from the state of Indiana to the CDC—which did not distribute the cases to their respective dates of testing.
That’s an issue that was addressed by Monroe County health administrator Penny Caudill at last week’s board of health meeting. “We had a jump a couple of weeks ago—the state had like a ‘data dump’. So it was old reports that got entered, and those got calculated into everything,” Caudill said.
The county’s levels were rising at the time, but they were not at the level that would have indicated a “medium” level of spread, Caudill said. “Even though our numbers were rising, they weren’t necessarily at that level.”
Caudill was still cautious, and pointed out the impact of various social gatherings related to Indiana University graduation events could still be felt.
The number of gene copies of COVID-19 measured in Bloomington’s waste water is showing high levels, Caudill said, and warrants close monitoring.
The current rolling daily average of COVID-19 cases in Monroe County looks like it has leveled off in the low 30s.
Hospitalizations in Monroe County remain low. Indiana’s Health District 8, which is made up of 7 counties including Monroe, had a census of 9 COVID-19 patients on Monday this week. That’s two more than at the end of April. But that compares to more than 170 at the peak of the pandemic.
