Aug. 4, 2025: Food, frogs, protest, lawmaker letters, down the drain, low-income housing

Weather

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

Monday: Wear something that doesn’t take too long to dry, if it gets wet. That way you can avoid the risk of taking an umbrella that you just wind up not using, then losing. The chance of rain and scattered thunderstorms is between 30% and 50% starting around noon and lasting through the day. The high temperature will be around 80°F.

Tuesday: Did you get soaked on Monday because you didn’t take an umbrella? Factor that into Tuesday’s choices, because it will be pretty much a repeat of Monday. There will be a chance of rain and scattered thunderstorms between 30% and 50% starting around 10 am and lasting through the day. The predicted high temperature is around 81°F

Enjoy the temperatures in the low 80s while they last. By Thursday, the first day of full-contact practice for high school football teams, the high will be around 86°F and it will hit 90°F by the weekend.

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

Roundup of recent articles

• A visual Taste of Bloomington.  For the first time since the pandemic, Taste of Bloomington returned on Saturday (Aug. 2) with local restaurant booths and musical talent. Kelton O’Connell captured the Kirkwood Avenue action from every possible angle.
• Small frog wins big at Sinkhole’s Garden Smash races.  "I got $5 that says the big frog does not win!” That was the wager offered by an onlooker at the frog races held on Saturday outside the Sinkhole Bar. The three amphibian athletes were in a final round of competition, having won their respective races in the small, medium and large categories.
• Sunday Funnies: Hawk v. Fish.  Why is Hawk so mad about the kind of math that its fledglings have to learn on the first day of school this year?
• Courthouse rally speakers denounce Trump policies, urge voter action.  On Saturday (Aug. 2), the Monroe County courthouse lawn was the site of another protest sponsored by the 50501 Movement, expressing opposition to many of the specific policies that have been enacted by President Donald Trump.
• Letter from Monroe County to state lawmakers in limbo as jail size could face fresh look.  Debate about the wording of a letter from Monroe County to the state legislature asking for changes to state tax law might now include the question of whether to send a letter at all. There’s also now a question about rethinking the scope of the planned new justice center.
• Bloomington tightens wastewater rules, aligns local stormwater regs with state law.  At its Wednesday night meeting, Bloomington’s city council updated local regulations on wastewater and stormwater by enacting two separate ordinances. Hydromechanical grease traps are added to the list of approved devices for fat, oils, and grease management.
• Bloomington extends tax break for troubled low-income housing complex, citing ’factors beyond the control of the property owner’.  Union at Crescent, a 5-story affordable housing development with 146 units in the northwest part of Bloomington, will continue to receive a tax abatement. The city council concluded that “any failure to substantially comply was caused by factors beyond the control of the property owner.”

Quick notes

Property Transfers. This past weekend, The B Square botched the every-other-week schedule for publication of the most recent property transfers. We’ll resume next weekend with a report that includes all the transfers we missed.

Updated traffic crash data. The city of Bloomington has updated the crash data on its dashboard to include 2024 numbers. For any news outlet reporting about a traffic crash, it’s now possible to include information for readers about the frequency and type of crashes at the same location from 2019 to 2024, using Bloomington crash data.

On the calendar

Bloomington mayor’s traveling town hall. A traveling town hall will be held from 6-7 p.m. at Morgenstern Books on Aug. 4. It will feature Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson, director of City of Bloomington Utilities Katherine Zaiger, and corporation counsel Margie Rice.

Condition of former IU Health parking garage? One of the buildings that Bloomington asked IU Health not to demolish in connection with the purchase of the former hospital property was the roughly 390-space parking garage. Appearing on the 5 p.m. Monday (Aug. 4) meeting agenda for Bloomington’s redevelopment commission (RDC) meeting is an item to approve a contract worth $11,500 with CE Solutions, to assess the structural condition of the parking garage.

UDO amendments, alley vacation request. On the 6:30 p.m. Wednesday (Aug. 6) meeting agenda for Bloomington’s city council are several amendments to the city’s Unified Development Ordinance (UDO). These are probably not going to be controversial. They cover topics like where specific land uses—such as self-storage units, tattoo parlors, and fleet vehicle facilities—are permitted under city code.

Also on Wednesday’s city council agenda is a request for the vacation of a 12-foot alley in a residential neighborhood. It seems like a harmless enough request, because the alley currently has a fence encroaching on it, and it does not serve as a transportation connection in any way. But the city planning staff and the City of Bloomington Utilities have objected to surrendering the public right-of-way.

That’s a pretty common position for the government to take. The argument that is likely to be made to the council goes something like this: The alley might be currently unused by the government, but that does not make it forever useless. For B Square coverage of another alley vacation request, in 2022, see: Denied by Bloomington: Request to vacate two strips of right-of-way where parts of buildings stand

Election board meeting. On the calendar for 1:30 p.m. on Thursday (Aug. 7) is a meeting of the Monroe County election board. No agenda is yet posted. But one bit of news out of that meeting will be: Who attends the meeting as the Monroe County Democratic Party’s appointee, filling the party’s vacancy on the three-person board?

AI and natural language processing. The Quantum AI and NLP 2025 Conference is scheduled for Aug. 6–8, 2025, at the Indiana University Memorial Union here in Bloomington. This event will promote AI and natural language processing (NLP) approaches using quantum computing. It aims to bring together experts from academia, industry, and government. The agenda includes keynote speakers from major tech companies like NVIDIA, IBM Quantum, and Microsoft. The conference website includes registration information.

Bloomington Summer Soulfest. Upland Brewing will play host to the Bloomington Summer Soulfest on Saturday (Aug. 9) which will include performances by The Dynamics, King Bee & The Stingers, Matixando, Big Dog, Keith Beatty, and a special feature from Birdena Lee Oakley as the “Featured Artist at Large.” For tickets and times see Eventbrite.

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.

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.

Meet Beth!

This very, very good girl is a bully breed mix. Here’s what the shelter staff have written about Beth.

Beth is a gentle girl who was found as a stray. She did well with her finder's children and dog and did well on her car ride. Beth has the sweetest smile and happily greets new friends with a soft tail wag.

Photo Finish: 6th Street & College Avenue

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