Analysis: Disparate motives, but unified Bloomington city council verdict, police HQ sale nixed for now
On the final agenda item of their final meeting of the year, which marked the end of their four-terms, Bloomington city council members found their way to a unanimous vote on a contentious issue.
At last Wednesday’s meeting, the council voted 0–9 on the sale of the 3rd Street police station for $4.4 million.
Outgoing mayor John Hamilton, who had asked the council to approve the sale, attended the council’s meeting.
Reasons for voting against the sale were varied. Some, like Dave Rollo, opposed the sale, because they do not want to see police operations move to Showers West. That’s the portion of city hall—which is housed in a 110-year old former brick furniture factory building—that the city purchased from CFC properties at the start of 2023 for $8.75 million.
Other councilmembers, like Matt Flaherty, are squarely in favor of moving police operations, as well as the fire department administration, into Showers West. That will put it in the same building as most other city departments. Flaherty put it like this: “I think it’s essential that we have a police that are headquartered in the same place as the rest of civil city staff. Same for fire.”
Rollo also had qualms about the sale, based on a 1923 deed restriction, that requires the land be used as a free public park.
Flaherty and Rollo are two of the four who will return to the nine-member city council in 2024.
Five of the nine Bloomington city councilmembers who take the oath of office on Jan. 1 will be different from the nine who voted on the police station sale. Joining the council to start 2024 will be: Hopi Stosberg, Shruti Rana, Sydney Zulich, Andy Ruff and Isak Asare. They’ll replace Ron Smith, Sue Sgambelluri, Steve Volan, Susan Sandberg and Jim Sims.
The other two returning councilmembers are Kate Rosenbarger and Isabel Piedmont-Smith.
The city council’s work over the last four years, starting in 2020, was sometimes marked by acrimonious debate that, on occasion, devolved into personal attack.
Last Wednesday’s vote could be analyzed as a reason to be optimistic about the tenor of the next four years of the city council’s deliberations.
For one thing, the 2024 edition of the city council will start its service in the wake of a unanimous vote on a contentious question.
The unanimous vote could be a foundation on which the council builds a better internal working relationship, as well as a better relationship with the mayor’s office.
On Wednesday, outgoing councilmember Jim Sims looked ahead to the council that he will not be a part of: “What I want to do is challenge the new council and a new administration to get to the point where there’s no more divisiveness per se, or what can be described as a ‘divided’ council and administration.”
Sims added, “I’m looking forward to the day, to seeing that things are getting back to like when I was first on the council—it was just much more pleasant and seemed like more cordial.” Sims is not returning to council service because he did not seek reelection.
Measured just by its immediate outcome, Wednesday’s vote on the police station sale puts the future council on the same page as the next mayor, Kerry Thomson, who weighed in from the public mic at last Wednesday’s meeting.
Thomson said, “It’s clear to me that there are many outstanding issues with this property that we still have yet to determine.” She continued, “If this property attracted three qualified bids in such a short period of time, it can again attract qualified bids in the future, should we choose to sell.”
Thomson added, “It does not seem prudent to rush into a deal tonight.”
So for Thomson, a deal eventually to sell the building could eventually be made, or some other use could be found for the building.
But Thomson stressed the importance of looping in the descendents of the families that donated the land where the park and the police station now stand. Thomson said she wanted to discuss with those families “what types of future uses would be within the gift’s intent.”
Thomson’s mention of a gift was a reference to a 1923 deed restriction that requires the land to be used as a free public park and to be named after the families that conveyed the property to the city 100 years ago. It was only in 2011 that the city finally re-named the park from Third Street Park to The Waldron, Hill and Buskirk Park.
The city’s legal department says it was aware of the deed restriction from the start of the planning, has reviewed its legal merits, and has concluded that it does not prevent the city from selling the police station building. The city’s position appears to be based at least in part on an Indiana state law, which precludes a right of reversion for longer than 30 years.
On Wednesday, outgoing councilmember Ron Smith asked why the city council had not been informed about the potential impact of the deed restriction a year and a half ago, when the administration first floated the idea of purchasing the Showers West building and moving police headquarters there.
Deputy mayor Larry Allen responded to Smith’s question by saying, “I believe it’s based on the conclusion that we could sell that parcel of property. So we did not believe that that would be a barrier to the sale of the property.”
When Smith pushed back, Bloomington mayor John Hamilton stepped to the mic and told Smith, “From my perspective—a year ago plus—the question was: Do we have the right to sell this property?”
Hamilton continued: “The legal team investigated, said yes. That was kind of the depth of… I didn’t see the deed at that time. I didn’t look to see the deed at that time.” Hamilton wrapped up his point: “The question was: Can we sell it? And the answer was, yes.”
Police union president Paul Post picked up on Smith’s point in his remarks from the public mic. Referring to the deed restriction, Post said, “This should have been told to you a year ago, even if it was something that they believed they were right on—which they’ve said tonight, they believe they are right.”
Even if the administration thinks its legal analysis is correct, Post said, “It doesn’t matter. They still should have told you, told us, told the public, everyone, right?”
Post then put a sharper point on it: “When I was a kid, my mom taught me something about lying. She said a lie of omission is still a lie. Don’t leave things out. Don’t leave out important things.” About the deed restriction Paul said, “That was a very important thing that should have been in front of you.”
Last Wednesday, four descendants of the families who conveyed the land to the city in 1923 spoke in opposition to the sale. Nat U. Hill IV, James Haverstock (representing the Waldron family), Philip Hill, and Norris Chumley (representing the Buskirk family).
Nat U. Hill IV summed up the crux of the thinking for descendants of the families: “We don’t believe the sale of the park is legal, is in any way keeping in the spirit in which the transaction was put together, and certainly not an advisable thing to do to promote future giving.”
In the upcoming four-year term, the transition from Hamilton to Thomson as mayor could relieve the executive branch of the political baggage that might be connected to the Hamilton administration’s decision not to disclose to the city council early in the process the existence of the deed restriction.
The unanimous vote that rejected, at least for now, the sale of the police station, was helped by a partial decoupling of the police headquarters sale from the police department’s move to Showers West. If it is sold, then the police will have to move somewhere. But if it is not sold, that does not entail that the police department will stay in that location, and could still mean moving the police to Showers West.
In any case, a vote on Wednesday against the sale of the police headquarters did not mean a vote against moving the police department to Showers West. A vote against the sale also did not necessarily mean forgoing the other public safety capital projects that last year’s city-council-approved bond issuance was supposed to mostly pay for, but not necessarily cover completely.
The Hamilton administration’s financing plan, as of Wednesday night, put the cost of the projects at $31.8 million. That cost includes the purchase of Showers West, renovation of Showers West, renovation of Fire Station 1, as well as the renovation of Fire Station 3 ($1.5 million) and construction of a fire training and logistics facility ($1.5 million).
The Hamilton administration prioritized the Showers West renovation and the renovation of Fire Station 1. The construction contracts for Fire Station 1 have been awarded and work started a couple of weeks ago at the 4th Street location. Construction contracts for the Showers West renovation are expected to be awarded at Monday’s meeting of the Bloomington redevelopment commission.
Without the sale of the police station, which counts as $4.4 million worth of funding in the administration’s breakdown, that leaves a gap to cover for the Station 3 and the training and logistics projects.
The fact that not 100 percent of the police station sale proceeds would be available to the city was a point drawn out by councilmember Isabel Piedmont-Smith, when she asked about the real estate broker’s commission. Under the terms of the agreement with Griffin Realty, which is the former deputy mayor’s agency, 4 percent of the gross proceeds would be paid as commission.
Responding to Piedmont-Smith were deputy mayor Larry Allen and Hamilton, but Piedmont-Smith reacted to the two by saying, “I am not satisfied with the sort of non-answers, but OK.”
Councilmember Steve Volan drew out the fact from Allen that the $4.4 million could be covered with other sources—either TIF funds or rainy day funds. Volan noted that the rainy day fund could be tapped, because it’s greater than is recommended by Indiana’s department of local government finance.
Volan said, “Our rainy day fund has been far in excess of state recommendations for as long as I can remember. Why not make a one-time expenditure from rainy day to get it down to the state required percentage of what we need to operate and use that on the two fire station projects?”
Allen told Volan that’s something the next edition of the city council could consider. Based on the information provided to the city council as a part of the 2024 budget materials, by the end of 2024, the city is projected to have enough money in its rainy day fund and in fund balances combined, to cover 39 percent of annual expenditures. In actual dollars that translates into $18.5 million in fund balances combined with $3 million from the rainy day fund, for a total of $21.5 million in reserves.
So the city council’s vote on the police station sale came in the context of a fiscal scenario where the proceeds of the police station sale were not the only source of funds that the future city council and mayor could contemplate using to pay for the remaining fire station projects.
Flaherty pointed to alternative sources of funding, other than the proceeds of the police station’s sale, as a reason not to treat the sale with urgency. Flaherty said, “I’m not especially concerned about our ability to find other funding sources to meet the other public safety needs that are identified. I think there are options there. We have built healthy reserves.”
Flaherty went as far as to suggest that one alternative would be to demolish the building and to extend the open part of the park to occupy the corner of the lot at Lincoln and 3rd streets as it had, before the 1963 construction of the police station building.
Flaherty said, “I’m serious about maybe needing to demolish and make it back into a park.”
