Planning notebook: Former Great Wall restaurant site could be home to 426 college students

The property where The Great Wall restaurant formerly stood on North Walnut Street, across from the northern tip of Miller-Showers Park, is now the site of a proposed 8-story student-oriented apartment building.

The building would include a mix of 3-bedroom, 4-bedroom and 5-bedroom apartments, for a total of 426 bedrooms.

That’s based on a preview of an April 10 Bloomington plan commission item given at a Tuesday morning work session by senior zoning planner Eric Greulich. Continue reading “Planning notebook: Former Great Wall restaurant site could be home to 426 college students”

Advice on choice for new jail design-build firm to be heard by Monroe County commissioners, justice response committee still struggling

At their work session this Wednesday (March 8), Monroe County commissioners are supposed to receive a recommendation on which of three firms to select, to design and build a new jail.

The three firms responded to a request for proposals (RFQ) issued by the commissioners. Reviewing and scoring the three proposals was a committee of staff from the county’s legal department, the sheriff’s office, the facilities department, and the administrator for the commissioners.

The three firms making proposals were DLZ, Elevatus, and RQAW.

The timetable for selection and approval of a company was sketched out by president of the board of county commissioners, Penny Githens, at Monday’s meeting of the community justice response committee (CJRC).

Githens said the commissioners expect to vote on the selection of one of the three firms at their March 22 regular meeting. Whichever company is selected would be invited to give a presentation to the CJRC on April 3, Githens said.

The timetable for handling the responses to the RFQ could be counted as a bit of progress towards the goal of responding to the work of two consultants, released to the county government about 20 months ago. The report described Monroe County’s jail as having “far exceeded its structural and functional life cycle.”

But Monday’s CJRC meeting was again plagued by friction between the three county commissioners and the other committee members. Continue reading “Advice on choice for new jail design-build firm to be heard by Monroe County commissioners, justice response committee still struggling”

Another season of Kirkwood street closures, parklets OK’d by Bloomington city council

This year, parts of Kirkwood Avenue in downtown Bloomington will again be closed to automobile traffic—for six months from April 3 through Oct. 1.

Again this year, residents and visitors to downtown Bloomington will also notice orange water-filled traffic barriers marking off some on-street parking spaces, so that restaurants can serve customers there.

The “parklets,” as they’re called, come this year with a “beautification” requirement, which can include construction of seating platforms, incorporation of art and other cosmetic improvements.

This year, the closed-off sections of Kirkwood are the same as in the last three years. Continue reading “Another season of Kirkwood street closures, parklets OK’d by Bloomington city council”

Bloomington parks board holds firm on percentage fee for food and beverage artisans at farmers market

When the city of Bloomington’s farmers market opens for business on the first Saturday of April, the food and artisan vendors will pay 6.5 percent of their gross sales to the city of Bloomington.

That’s in contrast to farmers at the market, who pay a set fee for their stalls, not a percentage of their gross sales.

A request to lower the percentage to 5 percent for food and artisan vendors was heard at the board of park commissioners at its meeting this past Tuesday, as well as at its January meeting.

Speaking at the public mic at both recent board meetings in support of a fee reduction was Eric Schedler of Muddy Fork Farm & Bakery, as well as several others.

But on Tuesday, the board voted 4–0 to adopt contract templates for the food and artisan vendors that require a 6.5-percent fee. The board had approved the 6.5-percent fee last year, at its Nov. 18 meeting last year. Continue reading “Bloomington parks board holds firm on percentage fee for food and beverage artisans at farmers market”

Poll: Wide-open race for Bloomington mayor with a month to go until early voting starts

With just a month to go before early voting starts for the May 2 Democratic Party primary, a poll conducted from Wednesday through Friday of this week shows that any of the three candidates could easily wind up being the Democratic Party’s nominee.

No Republican candidate is running for mayor.

Among the survey respondents who chose one of the three candidates, here’s how they sorted out: Kerry Thomson (18 percent); Sandberg (15 percent); and Griffin (9 percent).

The margin of error of the poll was +/- 4 percent.

But well over half (58 percent) of those who completed the survey said they’re still not sure who they’ll vote for.

The large percentage of undecided voters, together with the small pointwise differences between candidates, indicates that, right now at least, any of the three candidates could prevail in the Democratic Party’s primary election.

The poll results summarize the completed survey responses from 594 people, who were drawn from a list of registered voters in the city of Bloomington, and who indicated that they plan to vote in the Democratic Party’s primary election. The poll used a text-to-web methodology

The poll was conducted for The B Square by Public Policy Polling, a company based in North Carolina. Continue reading “Poll: Wide-open race for Bloomington mayor with a month to go until early voting starts”

Residency of District 6 Bloomington city council candidate to be investigated by election board

The first step of a formal investigation into the residency status of Bloomington city council candidate David Wolfe Bender has now been taken.

At its regular meeting on Thursday, the three-member Monroe County election board voted unanimously on a motion that concluded that there is enough reason to believe that an election law has been violated, to set a hearing “at the earliest possible time” after witnesses have been notified they have to appear.

The board was acting Thursday on a complaint brought by Monroe County Republican Party vice chair William Ellis, which was based on an Indiana Daily Student article published on Feb. 17, 2023.

The headline to the IDS piece describes the basic idea of the complaint: City Council candidate David Wolfe Bender is running in District 6, residents say he doesn’t live there.

As a practical matter, the Feb. 10 deadline for withdrawing from the primary has passed. That’s also the deadline for someone to challenge a candidate’s residency claim.

So Bender will appear on the ballot as the sole candidate for the Democratic Party’s nomination for District 6 city council, which means he will win the primary election. Continue reading “Residency of District 6 Bloomington city council candidate to be investigated by election board”

Bloomington council stays motionless on question of removing traffic commissioner

Art composed by The B Square.

As expected, there was no action by Bloomington’s city council Wednesday night on a motion that had been made four weeks ago to remove Greg Alexander from the city’s traffic commission.

Somewhat unexpected at the end of this Wednesday’s meeting was the lack of any motion that was still pending on the question of Alexander’s removal.

The previous motion, which had been made by Dave Rollo, described the cause for Alexander’s removal as “…posting obscene and inappropriate statements…” on social media.

As planned, Rollo’s Feb. 1 motion was withdrawn on Wednesday by unanimous consent of the council.

But after council deliberations on the new, revised motion that Rollo made on Wednesday, it seemed at least a little bit in doubt whether it would have enough support to pass—either that night or after a planned postponement.

So, not as planned, Rollo wound up asking for, and getting, unanimous consent to withdraw his new motion.

That left the council motionless on the question of Alexander’s removal from the traffic commission. Continue reading “Bloomington council stays motionless on question of removing traffic commissioner”

Committee report on traffic commissioner’s removal to be put in front of Bloomington city council

Referral and Deliberations On February 1, 2023, a motion to remove Greg Alexander from the Traffic Commission was made and seconded. The Council referred the matter to a Special Committee on Council Processes for consideration. The Committee met on February 8, February 20, and February 23. On February 23, the Committee agreed upon the recommendation described below. Recommendation The committee recommended to the Council that the motion for removal on the table be withdrawn and that a modified motion on removal, if desired, be made according to the following guidelines: 1. That substantive due process considerations advise that a motion for removal of an appointed board or commission member for cause should be narrow, specific, and sufficiently clear that city council members, members of the public, and the appointee in question fully understand the specific conduct, statements, or omissions that have led to the proposed removal; 2. That procedural due process considerations advise that the commission appointee in question be given at least five (5) business days to respond in writing to the specific allegations and proposed basis for their removal; 3. Legal precedent with respect to cause for removal advises that a council member making a motion for removal should clarify the relevance of and logical connection between the named conduct and how, specifically, those acts or omissions have diminished the appointee's ability or fitness to perform the duties of the appointment as defined by Bloomington Municipal Code or statute, including any evidence demonstrating this diminished ability or fitness to perform the specific duties.

Four weeks ago, Bloomington’s city council delayed a vote on the question of removing Greg Alexander from the traffic commission—by referring the matter to an already established committee on council processes.

In the meantime, that committee has met three times.

This Wednesday, the question of Alexander’s removal from the traffic commission will again be put in front of the council, but this time with a recommendation from the committee.

The original motion, made by Dave Rollo at the council’s Feb. 1 meeting, described the cause for removal as “…posting obscene and inappropriate statements…” on social media.

The committee’s recommendation is neither in favor or against Alexander’s removal.

If the full council follows the committee’s recommendation, it seems unlikely the question will get decided this Wednesday.

After weighing a recent court case, and considerations of what can count as a cause for removal, due process, and First Amendment questions, the committee’s recommendation is for the motion to be withdrawn.

But the committee’s general recommendation has left the door open for a modified motion on Alexander’s removal. The committee has made three suggestions about a new motion, if some councilmember wants to put one forward. Continue reading “Committee report on traffic commissioner’s removal to be put in front of Bloomington city council”

Chatbot vs. Bloomington candidates for city office

With each election cycle, the League of Women Voters hosts a website with candidate profiles. It’s called Vote 411.

Chatbot icon with text: As an AI language model, I cannot seek elected office in the city of Bloomington, Indiana.

Included below are links to all the LWV profiles for all candidates in Bloomington’s city primary elections—for mayor, clerk, and city council.

The Vote 411 profiles include the answers that candidates have written to questions posed by LWV.

What if the same questions were posed to a chatbot that has been trained on a giant corpus of text, to respond to conversational prompts?

The B Square posed the LWV’s questions to ChatGPT, which is an artificial intelligence chatbot developed by a company called OpenAI. It was released late last year. (GPT stands for Generative Pre-training Transformer.)

The LWV questions were given minor tweaks, like swapping in “Bloomington, Indiana” for “the city” to give ChatGPT a shot at providing answers that reflect the unique circumstances of Bloomington.

Another tweak: In places where the LWV questions use the second-person pronoun “you,” some kind of passive voice construction was swapped in. That’s because ChatGPT tends to respond with a disclaimer of sorts when asked about itself. For example, “As an AI language model, I have never tasted maple syrup, …”

Readers are invited to use ChatGPT as a kind of baseline, to judge the answers given by candidates. Is a given candidate’s answer better than a chatbot’s? Continue reading “Chatbot vs. Bloomington candidates for city office”

Bloomington concedes: Simple tickets can’t be given to scooter companies for bad parking by their users

In late 2021, The B Square reported that no citations had been issued to scooter companies for violating the parking regulations laid out in a local ordinance, which was approved by the city council in July 2019.

When no ordinary parking tickets were issued to scooter companies, that came as a surprise to some residents—given the number of scooters they routinely encountered blocking ADA ramps and sidewalks in the downtown area, or in their residential neighborhoods.

The lack of any citations was especially unexpected, in light of the assurance given by city attorney Mike Rouker on July 31, 2019— the night the city council enacted the scooter ordinance. Rouker said that if scooter parking became a problem, parking fines would be imposed on scooter companies whenever the city saw a parking problem.

In August 2022, The B Square raised a question to Bloomington’s corporation counsel, Beth Cate, about the enforceability of the city’s ordinance that regulates shared electric scooter parking. That email went unanswered.

But last week, six months later, Bloomington’s director of economic and sustainable development, Alex Crowley, wrote in response to an emailed question from The B Square: “[T]he language in the ordinance needs to be tightened up, to give us the flexibility to impose fines on [scooter company] without having to impound.” Continue reading “Bloomington concedes: Simple tickets can’t be given to scooter companies for bad parking by their users”