Bloomington mayor wants Dec. 13 vote by city council on police station sale

At its Wednesday meeting in a little over a week from now, Bloomington’s city council will likely be asked by outgoing mayor John Hamilton to vote on the sale of the city’s police station.

That’s a key takeaway from a Monday noon work session of Bloomington’s city council.

Next week’s Dec. 13 council meeting is the city legislative body’s final regular meeting of the year.

But before the council is asked to approve the sale, Bloomington’s board of public works will hold a public hearing this Friday, Dec. 8. Even though the three-member board does not need to approve the sale, it is required under state law to make a recommendation to the city council and the mayor.

So on Friday, the administration is just looking for the board of public works to indicate its attitude about the sale—for, against, or no recommendation either way.

At Monday’s session, deputy mayor Larry Allen revealed that the city had so far received three offers for the purchase of the police station. The building is located on 3rd Street north of The Waldron, Hill and Buskirk Park.

One offer is right at the $3.2-million minimum offer specified in the city’s notice of sale, published on Oct. 11.  The minimum offer is the same as the lower of two fair market value appraisals that were done by the city, Allen revealed.

A second fair market appraisal, Allen said at Monday’s session, put the value of the police station at $4.4 million. The city had also received an offer to purchase the real estate at that price, Allen said.

A third offer exceeded $4.4 million, Allen said.

Even though just five of nine councilmembers attended Monday’s work session, a measure of the topic’s importance was mayor-elect Kerry Thomson’s attendance.

Thomson was given a chance to ask several questions about the renovation of Showers West. That’s the part of the city hall building that is eventually supposed to accommodate police operations, when the police are moved out of their current building, after it is sold.

Thomson called the administration’s approach to the Showers West construction design process “rushed.” Thomson said, “The drawings and plans for this work—I think we can all acknowledge they were on a bit of an accelerated time frame.” The construction bids are due early next week, on Dec. 11.

Thomson added, “And you know, with only 27 days or so left in an administration, it does seem like we’re rushing, when we don’t have all of the details.” She said she hopes the construction contingency is adequate for moving forward “in a rushed fashion.”

Thomson said it’s possible to do the required due diligence on the fiscal end of the project, and still execute construction contracts.

One piece of information that Thomson asked for was a listing of the current leases for the tenants in the Showers West portion of the city hall building. She also wanted to know the cost of buying those leases out, in order to renovate the building and move police operations and the fire department administration into Showers West.

The Showers West building renovation is part of outgoing Bloomington mayor John Hamilton’s plan to move police operations into the western part of the 110-year-old brick former furniture factory that already houses city hall.

The city council approved the Showers West purchase in January of this year, on a narrow 5–4 vote.

The expected council vote on the sale of the 3rd Street police station is also expected to be split.

Opposing views on the city council about the sale were reflected in the remarks of councilmembers at Monday’s work session, which was attended by Dave Rollo, Isabel Piedmont-Smith, Susan Sandberg, Kate Rosenbarger, and Sue Sgambelluri. Also attending was councilmember-elect Andy Ruff.

The Showers West renovation and sale of the police station are part of a plan by the Hamilton administration for several public safety improvements, which include the renovation of Fire Station 1, which is now underway, and the renovation of Fire Station 3.

The list of projects which is supposed to be paid for in part by a $29.5-million bond includes:

• Showers West Purchase: $8.75 million
• Showers West Renovation: $15 million
• Fire Station 1 Rebuild/Renovation: $5.5 million
• Fire Station 3 Remodel: $2.5 million
• Fire Training/Logistics Center $2.5 million

About the expenditures from the bond proceeds so far, Allen said on Monday that $8.75 million had been spent for the purchase of Showers West and another $600,000 on design fees.

Rollo observed that if the sale of the police station does not go through, and the city does not receive any proceeds from it, that will leave the administration without sufficient funds to pay for its planned renovation of Fire Station 3. Rollo is opposed to the sale of the police station because he thinks it’s a mistake to sell it. Rollo points to the fact that the building was purpose-built as a police station, in contrast to the Showers building.

A counterpoint came from Isabel Piedmont-Smith, who reacted to Rollo’s statement like this: “I guess I’m a little puzzled: Why wouldn’t the sale go through?”

Piedmont-Smith sized up the situation like this: “So I guess there’s a disagreement about the trust we have in the legal team that looked at this deed restriction.”

That was allusion to a deed restriction that is included in a 1923 document, which requires some land, including the spot where the police station stands, to be used as a free public park. The deed restriction also requires the park to be named The Waldron, Hill, and Buskirk Park—which the city of Bloomington did not do until 2011.

After Monday’s work session Allen declined to respond to a question from The B Square about whether the city thinks the Rule Against Perpetuities,  and or possibly laches are applicable to the deed restriction.

The Rule Against Perpetuities comes from common law, and says that no future property interest can be valid unless it vests earlier than 21 years after the death of a person alive at the time the property interest was created.

Laches is the principle under which a court can deny a claim if it was “unreasonably delayed” by the person bringing the claim.

At the work session, instead of getting into the weeds of the city’s legal position, Allen praised the contributions of the Waldron, Hill and Buskirk families to Bloomington’s community. He said that Bloomington mayor John Hamilton had a meeting scheduled for later that day with members of the Hill family. Philip C. Hill recently hand-delivered a letter to the mayor’s office threatening to invoke the reversion clause of the deed, if the city tried to sell the police station building.

At Monday’s session, council president Sue Sgambelluri called the Showers West renovation and the move of police headquarters a complex project, adding, “It is made infinitely more complex, because it’s going to span two administrations and two councils.”

Sgambelluri said to Allen: “Help me feel better about this.” She asked specifically for a timetable of when additional information could be provided. The one specific item that Allen named was a list of current tenants in the Showers West, which he said could probably be provided by week’s end.

Allen’s disclosure of the value of the property, according to the appraisals, drew some sharp commentary from Rollo.

The published notice of sale for the property  put the minimum acceptable offer at $3.2 million. So Rollo reacted to the deputy mayor’s revelation that the average of the two appraisals was $3.8 million with his assessment that the administration’s notice of sale was “at odds” with the appraisals. Rollo contended that the administration had “undervalued a public asset.”

Allen disagreed that the notice of sale was “at odds” with the appraisals, pointing out that state law just requires setting a minimum offer—not that the minimum offer be the average of two fair market appraisals.

The offers themselves will get some scrutiny on Friday at the public hearing that has been set by the board of public works for 3 p.m. The hearing is required to be held under state law,  which says “…the executive shall designate a board or commission of the municipality to give notice, conduct the hearing, and notify the executive of its recommendation.”

The legal requirement is that such a notice be published 10 days before the hearing. The city’s initial notice of a hearing, to review purchase offers for the police station, was published on Nov. 28 for a hearing date of Dec. 6, which would not have satisfied the 10-day requirement.

On Nov. 30, an “amended” notice of the hearing was published, setting the hearing for Dec. 8. The city appears to be counting the initial publication date of the notice, which included an incorrect hearing date, as starting the 10-day clock for the notice containing the correct hearing date, which was published two days later.

The city’s deadline on the receipt of purchase offers does not expire until next week, on Dec. 12. In late September, when the board of public works approved the notice of sale, Allen contrasted the solicitation of purchase offers with the familiar process of sealed bids for construction work. The purchase offers on the police station would be reviewed as they came in, Allen said at the time,

Reached by phone after Monday’s work session, Rollo told The B Square that he has asked the city council’s attorney, Stephen Lucas, to review some procedural questions. One of those questions is: Could the board of public works vote on Friday to postpone its decision on making a recommendation until sometime in 2024?

Robert’s Rules does not allow postponement to a time beyond the next regular meeting, which for the board of public works falls on Dec. 19. But if the consideration of purchase offers were postponed until Dec. 19, on that occasion, the question could conceivably be again postponed.

Bloomington’s three-member board of public works consists of: Elizabeth Karon, Kyla Cox Deckard, and Jane Kupersmith.

Kupersmith was recently announced as mayor-elect Kerry Thomson’s director of the city’s economic and sustainable development department, when she takes office in 2024.

StudioAXIS renderings of Showers West lobby

Bloomington city council Dec. 4, 2023 work session

Construction contracts for the Showers West renovation were put out to bid on the following timetable:

Bid Documents

• Addendum
• Drawings
• Final Bid Packet
• Specifications