Bloomington neighborhood grant approvals delayed to comply with Indiana’s Open Door Law

On the Bloomington redevelopment commission’s (RDC’s) Monday agenda was an item to approve $27,000 in grant awards to seven different neighborhoods.

The grants have been made annually since 1998, and can pay for a range of projects: neighborhood entrance signs and street sign toppers; restoration of historic sidewalks; playground equipment; public art installations; and landscaping, among other things.

But at Monday’s meeting, assistant city attorney Larry Allen told the RDC that the item had been pulled from the agenda for that day, after a question from The Square Beacon about compliance with Indiana’s Open Door Law (ODL).

RDC is expected to have the recommendations from the neighborhood improvement grant council on its meeting agenda two weeks from now.

On April 19, the neighborhood improvement grant council met to hear pitches from eight different neighborhood groups. That meeting was properly noticed.

However, the grant council held a subsequent meeting, when the members deliberated on and decided their recommendations to the RDC. That meeting was not properly noticed under the ODL, according to Allen.

So the remedy will be to post proper notice, re-hold the meeting, and get the recommendations in front of the RDC in two weeks, Allen said. He said he’d confirmed that the delay would not have a negative impact on any of the proposed projects. “There was some built-in time anyway. And so this allows us just to follow the law like we should,” Allen said.

The recommendations made by the grant council at the un-noticed meeting were for awards to seven of the eight applicants.

The applicant not recommended for an award was the Covenanter Neighborhood Association, which had pitched a greenway station project that came with a requested amount ($24,377) that was close to the total available this year for all projects. The project had also received opposition from immediate neighbors of the proposed greenway station, at the southwest corner of Covenanter Drive and Brooks Drive.

The $27,000 awarded for seven projects this year brings the total since 1998 to $971,382.82 for 99 different projects.

Including this year’s initially recommended grants, the average award for that period is $9,811.95.

Based on data in Bloomington’s B Clear Portal, which goes back to 1998, it looks like four of the seven initial awardees would be first-timers: St. James Woods Neighborhood Association, Woodlands-Winding Brook Homeowners Association, Village of Ridgefield Homeowners Association, and Evergreen Village.

The projects are supposed to cost at least $1,100. They require a 10-percent match from the neighborhood.

2021 Neighborhood Improvement Grant Awards: Preliminary recommendations 

History of neighborhood improvement grant awards since 1998 not including 2021