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Aug. 11, 2025: Football, jail planning, election maintenance, city lawsuit against nonprofit

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Aug. 11, 2025: Football, jail planning, election maintenance, city lawsuit against nonprofit

Weather

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

Monday: Slow down and drink some extra water. By driving slower you will be ready for the patchy fog before 9 a.m. By drinking extra water you’ll be ready for the 90F° high temperatures. There’s no rain in the forecast.

Tuesday: Have a plan for staying dry, but weigh the constant risk of losing your good umbrella when you did not actually need one. Starting around 11 a.m. there’s at least a chance of rain and thunderstorms. That increases to 30—50% after 2 p.m. The high temperature is predicted to be around 89F°.

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

Roundup of recent articles

Quick notes

Proposed 2026 city of Bloomington budget. On Friday, Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson released her proposed 2026 budget. The first of a series of hearings in front of the city council takes place on Aug. 18, a week from today. I’m working on a write up of some budget-related topics. Look for publication sometime early this week.

For now, it’s worth noting one very big improvement in the way information has been provided about the city's budget. Included this year is an Excel spreadsheet with a breakdown of the proposed expenditures and revenues for every account line in each department. The format of the data is mergeable with the numbers in the city’s public-facing financial system.

I have merged the proposed 2026 numbers with the past numbers (for proposed, adopted, and actuals) back to 2015 and made them available in a shared Google Sheet. The actuals for 2025 are year-to-date numbers. There are a bunch of tabs in the sheet that I left there so that my work can be checked.

It’s the first two tabs that are of interest for analyzing the proposed 2026 budget: Pivot Operating (Expenses); and Pivot Revenue. The breakdown is by department, but each account line could be easily added in your own copy of the sheet. You could also choose to look at a breakdown first by fund, so that you can see where each department gets the revenue to cover its expenses.

www.in.gov/counties/monroe/ Monroe County’s new website is up, but the redirect for the old domain name was still not working last I checked. Here’s link to the new Monroe County government website domain: https://www.in.gov/counties/monroe/

On the calendar

Bloomington zoning: SROs and commercial agriculture. On the 5:30 p.m. Monday (Aug. 11) meeting agenda for Bloomington’s plan commission is continued consideration of two possible changes to the city’s zoning code. One question is where in Bloomington single-resident occupancy (SRO) residences are allowed to be built. The other question is a potential ordinance that would create a new zoning district for commercial agriculture inside city limits. For B Square background, see: SRO housing, commercial urban agriculture proposals to get second look from Bloomington’s plan commission.

Blood drives. On the 5:30 p.m. Tuesday (Aug 12) agenda for Bloomington’s board of public works is an agreement with the Red Cross that outlines the terms under which the group can hold blood drives in the Showers building, which is home to city administrative offices and, in Showers West, to the fire department’s administration.

This is the same agreement already approved by the city's redevelopment commission, as owner of Showers West. The city is currently working to end the lease agreements with the current tenants of Showers West, because the city says that renting to private groups is not a legal use of the property, which was purchased with bonds issued for a public safety purpose.

2026 property tax revenues. On the Monroe County council’s 5:30 p.m. Tuesday (Aug. 12) agenda is a review of estimates of property tax revenues and circuit breaker losses for 2026 from Indiana’s Department of Local Government Finance. To get an idea of the impact of recently approved tax legislation (SEA 1) on local budgets for 2026, Bloomington is expected to lose $1,589,700 due to tax caps (circuit breakers) in 2026, compared to just $171,619 in 2025. The numbers for Monroe County government are even worse.

Also on the county council’s Tuesday agenda, as a discussion item, is a possible tax abatement for Simtra BioPharma. For B Square background, see: Simtra buys old GE property from Cook, plans injectable drug facility

Planning for new jail. The agenda for the Monroe County council’s Tuesday meeting that has been distributed, but not yet posted to the county’s website, includes an item towards the start of the meeting labeled “Overview of a past presentation” that lists Ken Falk as a presenter. He’s legal director of the ACLU in Indiana. It’s the ACLU that filed suit in 2008 overcrowded conditions at the Monroe County jail, and it’s the settlement terms of that lawsuit under which the jail still operates. When Falk visited Monroe County government in February 2023 he gave the headline worthy quote: “Look, you need a new jail. Everyone knows that.”

Bloomington mayor’s traveling office hours. You can set up a 15-minute appointment with Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson at Hopewell Commons on Tuesday, Aug. 19 from 4:30 p.m. until 5:30 p.m. Pre-registration is required using an online calendar.

Appeal: Annexation trial on the merits. On Aug. 19, oral arguments are scheduled to be held in front of an Indiana court of appeals panel about the city of Bloomington’s attempt to annex Area 1A and Area 1B. The lower court ruled against the city of Bloomington. If you want to follow the arguments live starting at 10:30 a.m. on Aug. 19, the court of appeals has you covered: COA Live Stream.

Hello, you must be going! The play “An Evening with Groucho” is coming to Bloomington Aug. 16–17, with four performances at Constellation Playhouse, presented by Jewish Theatre of Bloomington and The Hundredth Hill. If you’re a young person who often tells older folks, “That was before I was even born,” you might not even know who Groucho Marx was. And you might wonder who said stuff like “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member,” or “Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.” This show is for you.

The show is performed by award-winning actor Frank Ferrante who delivers a family-friendly one-man show, full of favorite rapid-fire one-liners, stories, and songs. Families and kids are encouraged to dress like Groucho at the matinee shows. Photos of whole families dressed like Groucho would be perfect for the "Be There" section of The B Square. Tickets can be purchased online or at Bloom Magazine;s office: 414 West 6th Street.

Tire amnesty day. The Monroe County waste reduction district is holding a tire amnesty day so that Monroe County residents can dispose of tires in an environmentally responsible manner, for free. Restrictions apply to certain types of tires. Tire collection will be held Saturday Sept. 6 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Monroe County Fairgrounds, 5700 W. Airport Rd, in Bloomington. A maximum of eight tires will be allowed per vehicle per trip. Monroe County residents only. No commercial haulers, businesses, churches, schools, landlords, etc.

Meet Molly!

Up for adoption, as of Aug. 10, at the city of Bloomington’s animal shelter is Molly. Here’s another link: all animals up for adoption at the shelter. (The photo is from the city’s website.)

As we all know, outside of a dog, a book is a human’s best friend, and inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read. If you could teach any dog to read, it is probably Molly. This very, very good girl is an Australian shepherd mix . Here’s what the shelter staff have written about Molly:

Molly’s foster tells us that this girl is the sweetest pup she's ever met! Molly loves snuggles and play in equal measure, and thrives with a long walk or some play. Her favorite toys are balls, tug ropes, and squeaky toys. Molly can be a bit timid at first, but once she warms up she makes an incredible companion and best friend. She is housetrained, knows several tricks, and is treat motivated!

Photo Finish: 17th Street & Jackson Street

Art gallery inside Jet Laundromat. The artist is Jacob Gardner. On the cards pinned to the wall, contact information is given for Facebook and Instagram. Also email: skaterjake at gmail dot com. (Dave Askins, Aug. 10, 2025)

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

The geographic coverage of the B There section is pretty limited. Please consider occasionally contributing to the B There section some 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 great start!

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

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