April 21, 2025: $3B energy plant, eagles, 50501 protest, county website, tax panel

Support for The B Square: A plea, but not a beg. The Buskirk-Chumley showed "Breaking Away" this past weekend. The film features these two lines from Dave's friends, as Dave complains about the quality of the standard-issue bicycle for the Little 500 race:

Moocher: Well, you know, you don't have to ride it either, Dave. We're not gonna beg you.
Cyril: We may plead, but we would never beg!

Please consider this a plea, not a beg, that you consider supporting The B Square with a recurring financial contribution. Please consider making a contribution now, instead of waiting until everything gets desperate!

If you have already done your part, please consider encouraging your friends, neighbors and coworkers to follow your example. You know them better than I do, and will know exactly the right kind of thing to say.

Online Method
Step 1: Visit the website and look in the upper right hand corner for the text that says "Sign in" or the red button that says "Subscribe."

If you're already receiving the Almost Daily Bulletin email message, then you are already a Member with an Account. If you're reading this in your email browser, that means you're a Member.

Step 2: If you're a Member, click the "Sign in" link. If you're not yet a Member, click the red "Subscribe" button. (If you're a Member, and you're already signed in, you'll just see a red "Account" button. Click that.)

Step 3: Pick one of the contribution plans.

Paper Check Method
A lot of people still prefer to send paper checks through the mail. If that's your preference, make the check out to The B Square and send it here:

The B Square
PO Box 3355
Bloomington, IN 47402

Weather

Based on the National Weather Service forecast in text and charts here's some advice:

Monday: You can get away without an umbrella or an outer wrap to start the day, unless you need one or the other for style points. The scattered showers should be wrapped up by 7 a.m. The steady winds of 13 mph with gusts up to 25 mph mean your umbrella would be tough to wrangle anyway. And you won't need it the rest of the day, which means you might just absentmindedly leave it somewhere and spend the rest of the spring wondering where you lost it. The high temperature will hit 68°F coming off an overnight low of 64°F.

Tuesday: If you don't wear a light jacket to start the day, things might feel a little brisk at just under 50°F to start the day, but the temperature will rise quickly and hit a daily high of around 74°F. Rain is not in Tuesday's future, at least according to the National Weather Service.

Sign up for weather alerts: Monroe County emergency alert system.

Roundup of recent articles

• Photos: American bald eagles north of Bloomington This is a photo gallery of an American bald eagle nest. It features shots of an adult eagle visible in the nest as well as both of the adults perched on branches outside the nest.
• Monroe County commissioners balk at putting storage contract for election equipment in private vendor's name: 'This is the people's property' The county commissioners put off a vote on the renewal of a contract with its longtime contractor for support on technical issues for elections (dealing with voting machines and the like), because it included a lease for storage in the vendor's name. Historically, that lease has been in the county government's name, and commissioners were not convinced there was a good enough reason to put the storage unit in the vendor's name.
• CAPTCHA won't last long, as Monroe County gets new web host, new domain name A CAPTCHA test was installed by the county government's website host. But the county is soon changing hosts, as well as its URL. So that test to see if you are human will soon disappear.
• Sunday Funnies: Hawk v. Fish This edition features an amazing pun that trades on knowing the difference between a district representative for the Bloomington city council and a seat that is at large, elected citywide.
• Bloomington's 50501 protest organized as canned food drive The numerals in the name of the event organizers stand for the slogan "50 protests. 50 states. 1 movement." Saturday was designated as a national day of protest against many of the actions that have been taken by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration after he was sworn into office to start his second term in January. The 50501 organization says that Trump, Elon Musk, and their supporters are consolidating power among billionaires, and creating an economy that is "rigged against the People."
• Photos: Trashion Refashion 2025 This is a photo gallery of the runway show for Trashion Refashion this year. It's produced by Discardia, a project of the Center for Sustainable Living. The runway show, which features models wearing designs made out of materials that would otherwise wind up in the landfill, serves as a fundraiser.
• Duke Energy's plan to build $3B gas-fired plant called 'insane and immoral' at Bloomington field hearing Duke Energy is proposing to build a $3 billion natural gas-fired power plant at its Cayuga Generating Station site to replace two aging coal-fired plants, which was the subject of a field hearing in Bloomington. Despite acknowledging the retirement of coal plants as a positive step, speakers at the hearing voiced opposition to the proposal, primarily because the new plant would perpetuate reliance on fossil fuels instead of transitioning to renewable energy sources like solar and wind
• Growth: Fallacy or imperative? More than 200 parcels downzoned on 2–1 vote by Monroe County commissioners Monroe County commissioners voted 2-1 to downzone over 200 parcels in unincorporated areas from High Development (HD) to Residential 1 (RES) zoning. This decision, initiated by the commissioners in late 2024, was supported by the majority based on considerations such as existing neighborhood character and infrastructure limitations. The rezone was opposed by Jody Madeira based on the idea that it did not allow for adequate growth to meet housing needs.

On the calendar

Crumblin' tumblin' walls of The Mill? Appearing on the 5 p.m. Monday (April 21) agenda for Bloomington's redevelopment commission (RDC) are a couple of items that deal with the leaning wall at The Mill. The price tag to repair the wall looks like it could be as high as $500,000. Based on an initial review of the 2017-18 history of The Mill, the RDC invested around $5 million in the rehab project, when everything is added together. For B Square background, see: Leaning century-old wall at The Mill in Bloomington's Trades District deemed unsafe, event space temporarily shut down

Land for hotel to support the convention center expansion. Also on the 5 p.m. Monday (April 21) agenda for Bloomington's redevelopment commission (RDC) is an item related to the convention center expansion. The item allows spending up to $100,000 for "investigations and due diligence for use of 216 South College Avenue as a host hotel." That street address corresponds to the location of the former Bunger and Robertson property north of the existing convention center—it's owned by the Bloomington RDC. The agenda item doesn't mention any of the specific activity related to due diligence. The Monroe County capital improvement board's (CIB's) favored hotelier, Dora Hospitality, from the start has made its interest known in the former Bunger and Robertson property.

New art for traffic boxes. On the 5:30 p.m. Tuesday (April 22) agenda for the board of public works is a resolution that approves new art for the traffic boxes that previously have had art painted on them.

County health services director job classification. On the Monroe County council's 5 p.m. Tuesday (April 22) agenda is the reclassification of the health services director position from a PAT D to Exe A. The county's outside HR consultant recommended the position stay at the PAT D classification. The item would change the salary ordinance, which means that to be enacted at a single meeting would require a unanimous vote. That's why the item has returned for a second vote. At its previous meeting, the vote on the council was just 4–3 in favor of the reclassification. Dissenting were: David Henry, Peter Iversen, and Marty Hawk.

SB 1: Property tax, local income tax. Getting a lot of press in connection with Senate Bill 1, which has now been signed into law by the governor, has been the decrease in property tax funding for local units of government, especially schools. One way that local units (except for schools) could make up for those funding reductions is through local income tax (LIT). But SB 1 changes the rules for LIT. Some of the changes make a lot of sense. For example, cities could impose a new LIT just on city residents, and county councils would handle taxes for non-city units.

But it's possible that a 10 a.m. Wednesday (April 23) morning panel held at the Bloomington Convention Center could answer some of those questions. The panel includes: Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson; Eric Reedy and Tim Stricker (Reedy Financial Group); Jen Pearl (Bloomington Economic Development Corporation); Hopi Stosberg (Bloomington city council president); Talisha Coppock (Downtown Bloomington, Inc.); Eric Spoonmore (Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce); and Jody Madeira (Monroe County commissioner).

Special city council meeting? On the council's calendar is a special meeting for Wednesday (April 23) at 6:30 p.m. I don't see any materials posted in support of the meeting. I don't know what it's about. I know there is supposed to be a special meeting on April 30, to discuss the 2026 budget. I think it's possible that the April 23 special meeting just reflects a botched posting.

Meet Doris Daily!

This very, very good girl is a heeler mix. She's got a first and a last name! And what a great name it is, if she wanted to start a local newspaper! Here's what the shelter staff have to say about her:

Doris Daily is a sweet dog who loves going on walks and really enjoyed meeting other dogs!

Photo Finish

Ordinarily the photo finish is supposed to come from the B There section of the B Square website. But there's no new photos from B There today. (Photos aren't required—they're supposed to be just short observations from Bloomington area residents as they go about their ordinary day.) It would be a real shame to go without a Photo Finish, so I've included one from the eagle photos, in case you did not click through to the gallery in the roundup above.

There's more to Bloomington than the narrow slice of Bloomington that I traverse in my daily travels. To improve the geographic coverage of B There, please consider occasionally contributing to The B Square brief factual observations about the world outside your own head, as you go about your normal business. (Photos are optional for B There.) The mechanics of making a contribution are pretty straightforward—just let me know if you'd like to learn the ins and outs. If you're looking at this bulletin in your email inbox, you should be able to reach me by hitting Reply.

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

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