March 13, 2025: Partisan school boards, curtailed county spending, Blood Moon

Relaunch update

Yesterday, I got to do something for The B Square that I've never done before: Write a check to a freelance reporter. That was a big milestone. Here's a link to the article by Kelton O'Connell: Bill requiring partisan school board elections halfway to becoming Hoosier state law.

To write very many checks to freelance reporters, some cash flow will need to start soon. So there's an easy answer to a question I've heard a lot so far: Will there be a way to donate money to The B Square? Yes! That's in the works, and as soon as it's ready, it will be announced. By the start of April, I hope it will be sorted out.

If you ever find yourself looking for an old edition of the Almost Daily Bulletin, and you don't want to rummage through your email inbox, they all get posted to the website, too, in their own section.

Weather

Based on the National Weather Service forecast here's some advice:

Thursday: You might want a light jacket in the morning, coming off an overnight low around 46°F. Wear something to ward off the UV rays, like a baseball cap, and a long-sleeve shirt—it will be sunny. Fashion hack: Long sleeves can be rolled up to avoid overheating from the forecasted high of 76°F.

Friday: Whatever you wore on Thursday will probably work for Friday, too. It's a repeat of Thursday but slightly warmer, with a high near 79°F. Enjoy the dry weather while you can, because there's a chance of thunderstorms between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. then showers and possibly a thunderstorm. After that, it will definitely rain, somewhere between a quarter and half of an inch.

Roundup of recent articles

• Monroe County councilors put brakes on raises for sheriff's deputies, all new personnel requests, want new jail project cost scaled down Faced with anticipated lower tax revenues this year and in the next few years, due to state legislation and a local budget error, the Monroe County council has taken steps to conserve fiscal resources. At its Tuesday meeting, the council delayed indefinitely a pay raise for sheriff's deputies and suspended the personnel administration committee's work on new personnel requests that cost anything. The council also expressed concerns about the increasing cost estimates for the new jail and justice center project, and is looking for ways to reduce the cost, having recognized their fiscal control over the project.
• Bill requiring partisan school board elections halfway to becoming Hoosier state law Senate Bill 287 would make school board elections partisan and has passed the Senate, and is now under consideration by the House Committee on Elections and Apportionment. The bill also proposes to increase the annual compensation for school board members to no more than 10% of the lowest starting teacher salary in a district. At the Wednesday committee meeting, after the article was published, the vote was was 8–5 to pass an amended bill on to the full House. The amended version resembles the House's version of the same legislation [HB 1230].
• Tuesday’s tornado sirens: Time for Monroe County residents to test their severe weather plan—and resist storm-watching urges The article previews Monroe County's participaton in statewide tornado siren test on Tuesday, March 11 at 10:15 a.m. Information included in the preview includes enocouragement from emergency management officials to have more than one alert method, know shelter locations, and prepare supplies.

On the calendar

The big calendar has seen some improvement since the end of last year. It's still a big pile of events, but there are some filters for different categories. I have not yet classified all the syndicated feeds correctly. The biggest improvement is that all those events will now now load lickety split in your browser.

Grant for Monroe County's health department ($289,909): On the 10 a.m. Thursday agenda for the county's board of commissioners is a new grant of $289,909 to support disease intervention services. The source of the grant funding is the Strengthening Prevention and Control for Health program in the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA).

The services to be provided include free testing for those 14 and older for: chlamydia, gonorrhea, HIV, Hepatitis C, and Syphilis. Other program elements, according to the meeting information packet, include surveillance, case follow-up care and referral services, and education. The grant means an expansion of service coverage to 16 Indiana counties including: Bartholomew, Brown, Clay, Greene, Hendricks, Lawrence, Monroe, Morgan, Owen, Parke, Putnam, Shelby, Sullivan, Vermillion, and Vigo.

7th Street stop signs: According to Bloomington communications director Desiree DeMolina, the reinstallation of stop signs on 7th Street along the 7-Line corridor, which has been delayed, will start next week (March 17). That coincides with Indiana University's spring break.

Total lunar eclipse: Early Friday morning (March 14) around 2:30 a.m. the full lunar eclipse will be visible in Bloomington—it looks like it will be in the southwest sky. Back in 2022, this "Blood Moon" eclipse, as it's called, fell on Election Day morning.

Reporting in the works

No start to UDO (unified development ordinance) changes. On Wednesday night, Bloomington's city council took two 4–4 votes on resolutions that would have initiated changes to the city's basic law on land use. The tie votes meant that they failed. (Sydney Zulich was absent.) The resolutions would have addressed a range of topics: amending sustainability incentives; elimination of parking requirements; removal of restrictions for duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes; removal of some ADU requirements, and increases to accessory dwelling unit (ADU) size. I will try to publish something sometime before noon Thursday.

Meet Bambi!

Bambi is a very, very good girl—a German Shepherd/Yellow Lab mix described by the shelter staff like this:

She loves people. She needs a big back yard to play in. She loves to cuddle and just be near you. She does like to try and get on the table to get food when you leave the room. She does need training she's not fully potty trained but is kennel trained.

Photo Finish (from B There)

For more items like these, see the B There section of the B Square website.

You might notice that today's featured item was contributed by a reader, not by me. If you, too, would like to consider occasionally contributing to The B Square brief factual observations about the world outside your own head, as you go about your normal business, let me know. (Photos are optional for B There.) If you're looking at this bulletin in your email inbox, you should be able to reach me by hitting Reply.

Thanks for reading. Have a great weekend!

Dave Askins
734-645-2633
dave@bsquarebulletin.com