April 12, 2026: Early voting, county jail plan, Ellettsville reorg, public bus routes, sheriff’s lawsuit

Civic Solver

This week’s Civic Solver is a jigsaw puzzle of Bloom Magazine’s cover. Complete the puzzle and you will know what you are looking for when you head out to any of the myriad locations where you can pick up a copy of this edition. If you want to head directly to the puzzle, without landing on a B Square page first, use this link.

Weather Talk

Based on the National Weather Service forecast in text and charts here’s some advice.

Monday: Stay alert! The NWS has issued an advisory on hazardous weather conditions for today: “Isolated to scattered thunderstorms are possible through this evening. A few strong to severe storms are possible late today into this evening focused across far northern portions of central Indiana. Damaging winds and large hail are the primary threats.” The forecasted high temperature is 79F°.

Tuesday: Keep rain gear handy. There will be a slight chance of showers, then a chance of showers and thunderstorms after 11 a.m. The rest of the day will be partly sunny, with a high near 83F°. The wind will blow steady from 13 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 26 mph.

Sign up for weather alerts: Monroe County emergency alert system

Recent articles

• Committee vote on reorg plan for Ellettsville and Richland Township sets stage for possible Nov. 3 ballot placement.  A plan to merge the Town of Ellettsville and Richland Township moved closer to the Nov. 3 ballot after a committee approved an amended draft plan. The proposal now goes to the town council and township board. A majority of voters inside and outside Ellettsville have to support it, in order to pass.
• Sunday Funnies: Hawk v. Fish.  Hawk thinks that the CUTTERS should automatically win the Little 500 because Bloomington is a limestone town. How does Fish educate Hawk?
• Monroe County property transfers through April 3, 2026.  This report includes new property transfers in Monroe County that haven’t previously been reported by The B Square, with dates ranging from March 17 to April 3, 2026. The data in this report comes from Beacon, the county’s online geographic information system for property and parcel data.
• Early voting off to fast start in Monroe County; free parking at North Showers site.  Early voting for the May 5 primaries is off to a fast start in Monroe County, with 632 ballots cast in the first four days—38.5% more than the same period in 2018, the next-highest year. The early voting location is at the North Showers building in downtown Bloomington.
• Ridership slide fuels Bloomington Transit strategy shift: bigger buses, route rethink.  Bloomington Transit is weighing service changes after a year-long ridership slide, reflected in a 16% drop in fixed-route ridership early in 2026. Plans include deploying new articulated buses on campus routes, merging Route 13 with Route 3, and expanding microtransit options.
• Monroe County sheriff sues Indiana attorney general over new immigration detainer law.  Monroe County sheriff Ruben Marté has sued Indiana AG Todd Rokita in federal court, seeking to block a new state law requiring local jails to honor ICE detainer requests. The lawsuit says the new law would force deputies to violate the Fourth Amendment by detaining people without warrants.
• Ahead of April 15 deadline, Monroe County BOC gives authority to president to extend jail accord, if ACLU agrees.  Monroe County commissioners voted on Wednesday to authorize board president Julie Thomas to sign a possible extension of the county’s long-running settlement agreement with the ACLU over jail conditions, as talks continue ahead of the agreement’s April 15 expiration.

Quick notes

Followup: Politics of paving. The April 6 edition of the Almost Daily Bulletin included an item about Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson’s State of the City address last Tuesday (March 31), when she stated: “In the first two years of my administration, we paved over 32 miles of streets. ... To put that 32 miles in perspective, that’s more than the city paved in the previous four years combined.”

Briefly, there is a city data set that supports the mayor’s claim. There is a different dataset that refutes it. This shared Google Sheet includes tabs and analysis for each.

After some emails exchanged with the mayor’s office did not shed any light on the issue, deputy director for public works Joe VanDeventer offered to meet with me. Long story short, the miles for 2024 and 2025 in the Street Division’s dataset, which appears to refute the mayor’s claim, were not, in fact, lane miles. They were centerline miles.

If the correct figures for that table, and its column heading “lane miles” had been entered, then those numbers would have been much greater, probably twice as big. This explains why the mayor’s statement was only apparently refuted by the dataset, and that VanDeventer’s communications about it were solid.

On the calendar

760-bedroom project. On the 5:30 p.m. Monday (April 13) agenda for Bloomington’s plan commission is a site plan review for a large apartment project at the current site of Bloomington Iron and Metal south of the B-Line Trail near the Trades District. The project proposes 360 apartments with a total of 760 bedrooms, distributed across three buildings.

Jail project? As of Monday morning, there is no online agenda posted for the 5 p.m. Tuesday (April 14) meeting of the Monroe County council. But the agenda circulated to councilors does not include any item specifically labeled for discussion of the new jail and justice center project.

Still, I think it’s likely the council will give the topic at least some discussion at their April 14 meeting. After all, in a Feb. 24 resolution, the council set for itself an April 7 deadline: “[T]he Monroe County Council will actively work towards executing a purchase agreement for property and identify the funding source for said purchase and construction of a new facility no later than April 7, 2026.” That deadline came and went with no public announcement.

At their meeting last week, county commissioners gave their president signing authority for extension of the lawsuit settlement agreement with the ACLU past the April 15 deadline. That seems to be based on the idea that ACLU attorney Ken Falk would find, in the phrasing of his late 2025 letter, some “clear movement” on the county’s part towards building a new facility.

Where would Falk see clear movement? The push that commissioners made in their March 26 resolution to re-establish North Park as the location for new jail probably would probably not count as movement, if there is no concrete step towards purchasing it. Given that the previous purchase agreement has lapsed, if there’s no purchase agreement in place, it would hard for commissioners to argue to Falk that they have shown movement.

So one possibility is that the commissioners have drafted a fresh purchase agreement, and it’s that purchase agreement that commissioners have in mind as “clear progress.” If so, that will be daylighted shortly, because the county council would also have to approve amy purchase agreement, which could bring the matter of North Park again to a head.

On the county council’s side, some councilors think the county-owned Thomson PUD, which is inside the city limits, should be the leading candidate for a jail site. To show Falk “clear movement” on that site, could mean demonstrating a clear path to getting the property rezoned for a jail, which would require action by the Bloomington city council. That could be a tough sell, given the city council’s track record of rejecting the required rezone of the Fullerton Pike property for a jail a few years ago, and its current methodical approach to consideration of the Hopewell South rezone.

Thrown into the mix on Sunday night was a news release from Bloomington councilmembers Courtney Daily and Sydney Zulich announcing a future resolution that would call for keeping the jail inside city limits.

Hopewell South PUD: City council, RDC joint meeting. Bloomington’s city council already had a work session on its calendar for April 15, to talk about the Hopewell South PUD. That’s now expected to be a joint work session with the Bloomington redevelopment commission, which is the land owner and petitioner in for the requested PUD rezone. The work session is set to start at 6:30 p.m. The council is expected to take up the question of the Hopewell South PUD again on April 22. For B Square background, see: Hopewell South PUD pushed to April 22 as Bloomington council, mayor spar over conditions.

Ms. Lake Lemon: May 16. Start your training regimen now. This amazing contest of skill is to be held at Riddle Point Park this year. Monitor the Ms. Lake Lemon Facebook page for details, as they become available. The B Square covered last year’s inaugural event.

Meet Thetis!

This very, very good girl is a Great Pyrenees. Here’s what the shelter staff have written for Thetis:

Thetis is a sweet and gentle Pyrenees who loves meeting people and dogs alike!

Photo Finish: 4th Street & College Avenue (WFHB)

The Photo Finish items are drawn from the B There section of the B Square website.

Thanks for reading. I hope your week is off to a great start!

Dave Askins
734-645-2633
dave@bsquarebulletin.com

Sponsors stand with local civic journalism

The B Square Bulletin is made possible by financial supporters who believe in informed, engaged communities. Learn more about how you can help ensure The B Square survives to serve Bloomington residents now and for generations to come.