2019: Happy Thanksgiving, Bloomington [This cartoon was “drawn” about 10 years ago for The Ann Arbor Chronicle. So it’s consistent with the Thanksgiving tradition of leftovers.]
UDO Update: Dec. 3 amendments include height and parking maximums, conditional use for some multi-unit dwellings Cued up for the Bloomington city council’s consideration next Tuesday are 20 more amendments to the draft update to the unified development ordinance, which is the city’s basic zoning and development document. They include an amendment sponsored by councilmember Chris Sturbaum for reduction in height limits from 40
County commissioners rebuff mayor’s proposal on convention center governance, focus turns to next week’s $6M appropriation The Monroe County council was not expected to discuss the convention center expansion at its Tuesday night work session. A draft resolution on the topic, floated at the council’s meeting two weeks ago, had been pulled from Tuesday’s agenda. But an appearance at the council’s Tuesday’s
Beacon Benchmark: Crows make for terrible poetry [Note: Beacon Benchmark columns are an occasional way for the B Square Beacon’s writer to give readers some regular behind-the-scenes insight into this website, which aims to serve some of the news and information needs of Bloomington, Indiana.] What if news reporters had to write their copy
Bloomington mayor suggests numerical equality for city, county in convention center governance, includes CVC in the mix Bloomington’s mayor, John Hamilton, sent a memo late Monday afternoon to the 19 other city and council elected officials that have been meeting since September to try to re-start the convention center expansion project. The project has been stalled at the preliminary design phase after a nine-member
UDO Update: How payment-in-lieu of building affordable housing could still be in the mix The first two days of the Bloomington city council’s work on amendments to the unified development ordinance update were dominated by two contentious questions. Should duplexes and triplexes should be allowed in core neighborhoods? Should accessory dwelling units should be subject to the conditional use public process? Both questions
Local Greens take next step towards establishing new incarnation of political party In the early 2000s, Bloomington’s local newspaper, the Herald-Times, was sprinkled with mentions of the Monroe County Green Party—about 50 references from 2000 to 2006. Only a couple mentions are recorded after that—and those are historical references. In that era, local Green Party candidates included 8th