Buckle up for 2026: Elections, courts, construction, development, and more

The calendar year ahead will bring plenty of news from the civic sector. From contested elections and stalled capital projects to long-running litigation and land-use decisions, 2026 will be another year when many news topics can easily be predicted, even if the exact outcomes are uncertain.

Here’s a non-exhaustive spin through some expected storylines in the coming year!

County and state election races to watch

In 2026, the election schedule calls for primary elections on May 5, which will help determine the ballot for the Nov. 3 general election.

At the county level, one closely watched race is likely to be the one for county commissioner District 1, the seat currently held by Democrat Lee Jones.

Trent Deckard and David Henry are both Democrats, who in 2024 won election to at-large seats on the county council. Now one year into four-year terms as county councilors, they are expected to declare their candidacies for the District 1 commissioner seat in early 2026. According to the 2026 election schedule, official declarations can’t be made until Jan. 7, 2026. The filings can be monitored on the Monroe County government website.

In 2022, Perry Robinson ran as a Republican for the District 1 commissioner seat, and lost to Jones. On Monday, Robinson told The B Square he was still leaving the door open to another run for the District 1 seat in 2026.

If Robinson wants to run again as a Republican, that will be clear by Feb. 6, 2026—that’s the deadline for candidates for either of the major parties to file their paperwork. Independent candidates have an additional five months, until June 30, 2026, to file petitions to appear on the ballot.

The number of signatures required by independent candidates is 2% of the number of votes cast for the most recent election for secretary of state in the election district of the office that is sought. While eligibility for county commissioner candidates is determined geographically by district, voting is still countywide. There were 39,884 ballots cast in Monroe County for secretary of state in 2022, which works out to about 798 signatures needed to qualify for the ballot.

The other two county commissioner districts are not up for election this year.

But several other county offices will be on the ballot. The county clerk’s race is open, as current clerk Nicole Browne is term-limited and cannot seek reelection. The sheriff’s race is already underway. Monroe County Sheriff Ruben Marté has launched his campaign. When he was elected to the chairship in May of 2025, Monroe County Republican Party head Cory Grass said the local GOP is looking to field a challenger in the sheriff’s race.

At the state level, the area’s legislative delegation will offer some races to watch. One is the re-election bid for state house District 61 by Democrat Matt Pierce. He is expected to face a primary challenger in Lilliana Young.

District 61, which includes most of Bloomington, is mostly surrounded geographically by District 62, which includes Brown County, plus significant portions of Monroe County and parts of Jackson County. Assuming incumbent Dave Hall wins the Republican primary for District 62, he will be opposed, by at-this-point probable Democratic Party primary winner Amy Huffman Oliver.

Election logistics

A big story from 2025 was Monroe County’s consideration of vote centers instead of its traditional precinct-based voting locations. The key attribute of a vote center is that any registered voter in a county can vote there. For precinct-based voting locations, only voters who are registered in specific precincts can cast a ballot there.

The effort to establish vote centers in Monroe County failed, with support from only two of three election board members. A unanimous vote is required. It was the Republican Party’s appointee, Danny Shields, who voted against establishing vote centers in Monroe County.

That means vote centers won’t be in place in Monroe County for 2026. But the state legislature could consider a bill to mandate the use of vote centers for all counties. At last count, 72 of Indiana’s 92 counties have adopted vote centers as the way they run elections.

In the legislature’s 2025 session, the secretary of state was directed to conduct a study and to hold hearings on the topic of vote centers, as well as the possibility of shifting municipal elections to an even-numbered year. Among all the bills that have been filed so far is one [HB 1055] that would give cities the option of moving their elections to an even-numbered year, but not mandate it. No bills so far have been filed that would mandate the use of vote centers.

Election infrastructure

Even though Monroe County will keep precinct-based voting locations in 2026, voters will see one big difference in the way Monroe County holds its elections. There will be a new location for early in-person voting—the North Showers building on Morton Street. The space is currently getting remodeled to make way for the start of early voting on April 7.

The former NAPA Auto Parts store at the corner of 3rd and Walnut streets, which has been used for early voting in the last few voting cycles, can’t be used in 2026. That’s because it has been demolished to make way for the convention center expansion.

Convention center expansion, host hotel

The steel skeleton for the convention center expansion has already taken shape just south of 3rd Street between Walnut Street and College Avenue. Starting Jan. 26, College Avenue will be completely shut down for two weeks to allow installation of a new skywalk connecting the expanded facility to the existing center at Third Street and College Avenue.

A missing piece for the convention center expansion project is a deal with a hotel developer to build a host hotel. A pretty broad consensus exists that the ideal site for a host hotel, given the choice of the eastward expansion location, would be the former Bunger & Robertson property just to the north, across 3rd Street from the existing facility.

The Monroe County capital improvement board (CIB) is overseeing the expansion project. At the CIB’s first meeting of the year, on Jan. 21, 2026, it would be surprising if the board did anything other than issue a new request for proposals for a hotel developer. There was a 14-month effort by the owner of the former Bunger & Robertson property, which is Bloomington’s redevelopment commission (RDC) and Dora Hospitality to reach an agreement on the land. Prospects that Dora will be able to present a done deal to the CIB by the third week in January are grim, but not zero.

A year and a half ago, the city council weighed in with its view that the roughly $7-million purchase price for the Bunger & Robertson property should be recouped. The RDC’s attitude, at least in the short term, towards discounting the Bunger & Robertson land to help subsidize the host hotel, will be influenced by pending appointments to the CIB that are made by the city council.

While terms expire Jan. 15, appointees may continue serving until replaced. Appointments to the RDC’s five seats are annual, including the two by city council members. Current council appointees Randy Cassady and Deborah Meyerson.

Both Cassady and Meyerson voted in December for an amended RDC resolution that reaffirmed support for the site as a host-hotel location, while striking language that talked about possibly conveying the property at “nominal cost.”

The convention center expansion itself has a construction budget of $52 million and a total budget of $70 million, all of it sourced from the 1% food and beverage tax.

Stalled county jail project: Financing

Another multimillion dollar local construction project has yet to get underway. In late October, the county council refused to authorize the needed appropriation to buy the North Park property, which had been the agreed upon location for a new jail and justice center.

The North Park purchase foundered on the county council’s concern about being able to finance the project, given the impact on local government financing of SEA 1, the 2025 law that reshaped property taxes as well as local income taxes. The working price tag for the jail and justice center project is $225 million.

Whether lawmakers revisit SEA 1 during the 2026 session—and whether any of their potential changes to SEA 1 would ease financing constraints—will be closely followed by local officials.

So far there’s one bill already filed [SB 81] that would significantly revise the framework of SEA 1, to increase the ability of local governments to generate revenue. But that bill is sponsored by Democrat Fady Qaddoura, and would likely face grim prospects, at least as currently drafted, for passage by the legislature, where the Republican Party holds a better than two-thirds majority.

By the end of January, it should be clear what the actual prospects are for any significant revisions to the framework of SEA 1. If the local income tax framework stays intact, here’s the table that local elected officials will start learning by heart:

2028: Local Income Tax rates after SEA 1

[** The sum of these rates can’t be greater than 1.7%, which means that the county council can’t max out the rate for every category.]

Stalled jail project: Settlement agreement

Another big thread in the long county jail story is the ACLU settlement agreement, which originated from a 2008 lawsuit over jail overcrowding. Its current extension expires on Jan. 15. So all eyes in county government will be on the ACLU’s willingness to extend the settlement agreement.

While overcrowding itself may be less acute than it once was, questions remain about whether other deficiencies—such as the basic physical condition of the jail—could prompt new litigation if the settlement expires.

Bloomington police HQ

Another law-and-order issue to watch in 2026 is the future location of Bloomington’s police headquarters. After abandoning a plan by her predecessor John Hamilton, to relocate the police department to Showers West, the administration of mayor Kerry Thomson has turned its attention to 714 S. Rogers St., the former Bloomington Convalescent Center, as a possible site for a police facility.

It’s the Bloomington redevelopment commission (RDC) that owns the 714 S. Rogers property as part of the Hopewell neighborhood real estate. Only recently, in early November, the RDC commissioned a feasibility study to determine whether that building can reasonably be converted for police headquarters use. It’s not clear what the plan is for a new police headquarters if the study finds that conversion of the former convalescent center is not feasible.

The question of reusing the convalescent center as a police headquarters carries added significance because the site sits at the southeastern edge of the planned Hopewell neighborhood, forming an eastern boundary to Hopewell South. Hopewell is the site of and around the former IU Health hospital at 2nd and Rogers streets.

The Hopewell neighborhood is a major redevelopment effort that will itself be a central storyline for Bloomington in 2026.

Hopewell South

In late June of 2025, after a second round of responses to the city’s RFP for Hopewell South was rejected, Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson announced a new approach to developing housing in Hopewell South. The idea is to take an approach that makes it feasible for smaller, local developers and builders to get into the mix. The approach also assumes a rezone of Hopewell South as a planned unit development (PUD), to allow for denser development of single-family houses and cottages.

The current timeline calls for developer and lender workshops on Hopewell to begin around mid-2026. Sooner than that will come review of the proposed rezoning for Hopewell South, which is supposed to get a first look from the Bloomington plan commission at its first meeting of the year, on Jan. 12, 2026. If the plan commission sends the Hopewell South to the city council with a positive recommendation, the council could have the Hopewell PUD on its calendar sometime in March.

Historic preservation: Cottage Grove

Another housing policy issue item that could be landing on the city council agenda in the first half of 2026 is consideration of a conservation district for the Cottage Grove neighborhood, between 10th and 12th streets on the north and south and between Washington and Grant streets on the east and west. A conservation district is typically a precursor to a historic district.

The group of residents in the proposed district who were working on the proposal have now completed their application. Before the city council sees it, the proposal will get a review by the city’s historic preservation commission.

Crawford Apartments: Litigation

In early August 2025, the city of Bloomington filed a lawsuit alleging breach of contract against the owners of Crawford Apartments, a permanent supportive housing complex with 61 apartments.

Also named in the city’s lawsuit is local nonprofit Beacon, Inc. which is the service provider for the facility. The case docket indicates that the next expected event in the case is a status conference set for March 30, 2026.

Homeless encampment: Thomson property

County commissioners granted a reprieve for the planned clearance in early December 2025 of a homeless encampment on the county-owned Thomson PUD property off Rogers Street with an estimated 30–40 residents. In mid-December commissioners voted to adopt a 30-day notice policy and not to post notice before March 2, 2026.

Any decisions by county commissioners made in early March about the encampment at the Thomson property will likely get close scrutiny from the advocates who managed to stave off the December encampment clearance by demonstrating at a commissioners meeting.

Bloomington annexation cases

Two annexation lawsuits will almost certainly see some kind of resolution in 2026, at least for some of the territories involved. One case involves a constitutional challenge affecting five of the seven annexation areas. The other involves the merits of annexation for Area 1A and Area 1B, located west and southwest of the city.

It was in 2017 when Bloomington began the annexation process that is currently fraught with litigation. The process has been marked with bitter controversy at several steps along the way.

Bloomington has come up on the short end of all the court rulings so far in both cases—in the circuit court and the court of appeals. The Indiana Supreme Court has heard arguments in the constitutional case but has not yet ruled. The city is currently asking the Indiana Supreme Court to accept transfer of the case involving the merits of annexation for Area 1A and Area 1B.

If the city were eventually to prevail on the constitutional question, then property owners in Area 1A and Area 1B would not have had enough remonstrance signatures to force judicial review of the annexation merits. Otherwise put, a win for Bloomington on the constitutional question would render moot a trial on the merits.

But Bloomington waived its constitutional claims for Area 1A and Area 1B—so that the court could go ahead and hear the case on the merits for those two areas. That litigation strategy sets up a possible scenario with bitter consequences—Bloomington loses on the merits, but prevails on the constitutional question. In that scenario, Area 1A and Area 1B don’t get annexed into the city, even though they would have become part of Bloomington, if the city had not waived the constitutional arguments for those areas, and just waited until the constitutional case was resolved.

It’s conceivable, but not guaranteed, that the litigation for both cases is completely wrapped up in the first half of 2026.

Ellettsville, Richland Township

Another issue to watch in 2026, which could affect how jurisdictional boundaries change, is how the possible consolidation of Ellettsville and Richland Township plays out. There’s one big difference between the involuntary annexation process that the city of Bloomington started in 2017 and the possible consolidation that Ellettsville and Richland are considering: The consolidation of Ellettsville and Richland will be put to a referendum vote in November 2026.

Part of the consolidation factors might involve fire protection. To the extent that parts of Richland Township remain unincorporated, it would still legally possible for the county commissioners to expand the Monroe Fire Protection District (MFPD) to include them.

Based on reaction from Ellettsville leaders to the recent decision by county commissions to add Bean Blossom Township to the MFPD, those leaders would not welcome the inclusion of unincorporated portions of Richland Township into the MFPD.

Bloomington: City council, mayor relations

Relations between the mayor and city council in the first two years of a four-year term have seen considerable friction. Two councilmembers, Matt Flaherty and Kate Rosenbarger, dissented on the 2026 budget, citing their lack of trust in mayor Kerry Thomson. Relations between the mayor and the council will be something to keep an eye on in 2026.

Even though there’s a full year between now and the earliest time when councilmembers and the mayor can officially declare that they are running for re-election, early maneuvering is already apparent. Thomson held an early December fundraiser for big donors. That is expected to translate into substantial cash on hand when annual campaign finance reports are filed—the deadline is Jan. 21, 2026. The campaign finance filings can be monitored on the Monroe County government website. Thomson’s solid financial footing could deter potential challengers.

Under state law, the council has to pick a president at the start of every calendar year. The council’s choice of president, vice president and parliamentarian, could affect relations between the mayor and the council.

Based on their roll call votes over the first two years, the group of nine councilmembers can be analyzed as including two clear two-person voting blocs that define the edges of the voting spectrum: Matt Flaherty and Kate Rosenbarger; and Dave Rollo and Andy Ruff.

If the council were to disqualify from consideration as officers the four councilmembers who are a part of the two-person voting blocs, and the president and vice president for 2025 (Hopi Stosberg and Isabel Piedmont-Smith), that would leave Isak Asare, Sydney Zulich, and Courtney Daily as possibilities. Zulich wrote in her emailed newsletter that she is looking to her colleagues to elect her vice president.

Bloomington: 2027 budget

There will be a change in the controller’s office in 2026 that could affect the way the city council approaches 2027 budget planning, but does not seem like it has potential to be disruptive. In late December, Jessica McClellan stepped down as controller and will be replaced by Geoff McKim in mid-January.

Both McKim and McClellan have a previous background as elected officials in county government—McKim as a county councilor and McClellan as county treasurer. McKim’s role in the county government, as a member of the fiscal body, was parallel to that of a city councilmember.

Bloomington branding

At some point in 2026, the fruits of the $95,000 contract with CivicBrand to develop a new brand for the city Bloomington should be revealed—a logo, slogans, etc. The contract terminates at the end of January 2026.

Will professional branding consultants try to convince the world that Bloomington is quirky, weird, spunky, offbeat, eclectic, creative, and artsy—or just let the place be square?