Sept. 15, 2025: Housing, employee lawsuit, police standoff, property transfers, football

Weather Talk

Based on the National Weather Service forecast in text and charts here’s some advice.

Monday: You won’t need any extra layers or an umbrella to ward off rain when you head out the door, because the overnight low will be around 61F° and the temperature will climb to over 70F° by 10 a.m. But you might want to have your sunglasses handy for the relentlessly clear skies. The high could reach 88F°.

Tuesday: It’s pretty much a repeat of Monday, but add a few clouds. The forecasted high is 87F°.

Practice your Midwestern weather talk about this stretch of nice weather with this conversation starter: “We’ll pay for this later.” If someone beats you to that gambit, try this as a response: “With interest.”

Sign up for weather alerts: Monroe County emergency alert system.

Milestones

It’s an arbitrary way to keep track of progress, but The B Square publishing platform automatically counts the number of items published, including all the old items before the shutdown. That number recently passed 2,900. Another milestone was recently passed for BloomDocs, which is The B Square’s public document repository. The number of files now uploaded to BloomDocs is over 1,000.

Roundup of recent articles

• Monroe County property transfers through Sept. 10, 2025.  This report includes new property transfers in Monroe County that haven’t previously been reported by The B Square, with dates ranging from Aug. 19 to Sept. 10, 2025. The data in this report comes from Beacon, the county’s online geographic information system for property and parcel data.
• Sunday Funnies: Hawk v. Fish.  Hawk: I used to have a mate who was sculpted out of Indiana limestone, but he flew off without saying why he left. How does Fish answer?
• Edgewood Mustangs blank Owen Valley 34-0, move to 4-0.  In Spencer on Friday night, behind two first-half touchdown passes, consistent running by Braxton Carpenter and Jaxton Collier, and a defense that intercepted two passes by Owen Valley, Edgewood rolled to a 34-0 win.
• South takes Bloomington rivalry matchup, beats North 36–7.  Bloomington’s crosstown football rivalry added another chapter Friday night, with Bloomington South once again getting the upper hand. The Panthers, who entered the game with a 50–16 series lead over North, stretched that margin with a 36–7 victory.
• Standoff between police, armed woman on Bloomington’s north side ends in arrest.  A five-hour standoff between Bloomington police and a woman inside a northside house on Thursday (Sept. 11) afternoon ended with her arrest on a charge of domestic violence. That’s according to a news release issued early Friday afternoon.
• Judge dismisses lawsuits by former Monroe County employee, but amended complaints to be filed.  A judge granted motions to dismiss two separate lawsuits by a former employee of Monroe County government. But under Indiana trial court rules, Lisa Jeneé Trimble will have 10 days to file amended complaints, which she indicated to the court Friday morning that she plans to do.
• Bloomington plan commission backs SRO housing amendment with owner-occupancy rule.  At its meeting on Monday Bloomington’s plan commission voted to recommend an amendment to the city’s UDO, to allow for the creation and regulation of single room occupancy (SRO) housing. An SRO is a scenario where a person rents a bedroom and shares other common facilities.

On the calendar

VET Environmental Engineering. The local Bloomington company VET Environmental Engineering has been in the news a lot lately in connection with mold remediation at the county justice building. Appearing on the Monday (Sept. 15) 5 p.m. meeting agenda for Bloomington’s redevelopment commission are three items for approving agreements with VET—one of them for mold inspection services in the ground-floor office space at the Trades District parking garage.

One of the other items is related to the 714 S. Rogers Building—an additional $50,000 for the mold remediation that had already been approved. The third one is for an additional $63,404 for soil remediation at the 2nd and Rogers location of the Hopewell project, to pay for disposal of three underground fuel tanks that were discovered during the soil excavation process.

2026 county budget. On the 5 p.m. Tuesday (Sept. 16) meeting agenda for the Monroe County council are a raft of items involving the health department. But the biggest item is at the end, which is “2026 Budget Reviews.” After the last of six departmental budget hearings conducted by the council, the $9 million deficit that the council started with had not been reduced by much more than about $1 million. That leaves a big hill to climb. Tuesday could be the day when some tough decisions get made.

$520,000 public art update. On the 3 p.m. Wednesday (Sept. 17) agenda for Monroe County’s capital improvement board are several updates about the convention center expansion, including the public art project that is supposed to be installed there. The amount of the expenditure for public art comes from the city’s “percent for art” for art program, which means 1% of the $52-million construction budget will be spent on public art installations. A news release last week highlighted a public feedback meeting on Wednesday (Sept. 17) at 6 p.m. at the convention center, about themes that people would like to see included.

City council liaisons to boards and commissions. On the 6:30 p.m. Wednesday (Sept. 17) city council agenda is a resolution that would add to the bureaucratic edifice of the council’s approach to handling board and commission appointments. The council currently has three interview committees with three members apiece.

To this structure, the resolution would add liasonships to each board or commission with certain required activities—like writing three emails a year to the board or commission chair. Even though the resolution already appears puts an upper limit on the number of liaisonships of three, the resolution adds a requirement that no committee member can be assigned more than four liaisonships:

Interview Committee Chairs shall serve as Council Liaison to up to two Boards or Commissions, while each of the other two members shall serve as Council Liaison to up to three Boards or Commissions, with no member serving as Liaison to more than four Boards or Commissions in total.

It’s possible that the limit of four is meant to factor in additional liaisonships that are appointed by the council president in a different section of the resolution:

The Council President shall annually appoint Councilmembers to serve as Council Liaisons to the following Boards and Commissions: Board of Public Safety, Board of Public Works, Board of Park Commissioners, Council on Community Accessibility, and Dispatch Policy Board.

If that’s the intent, it would probably make sense to revise the resolution by deleting mention of the total four-liaisonship limit in the section that talks about appointments made by interview committees, and to incorporate it instead in the section about appointments made by the council president. It could say something like: Appointments made by the council president should not require any councilmember to serve as liaison to more than four boards or commissions.

That is, unless the intent is to allow the council president to make their appointments first, in which case the section about appointments made by committees should refer to the limit of four in the context of the appointments already made by the council president.

Taste of Tibet: Sept. 20. The buffet starts at 6 p.m. (RSVP is requested). A guided tour of the monastery will be available during the open house from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. on the same day. The buffet will include traditional Tibetan delicacies like momos, Pingsha, Alu khatsa, and Tibetan butter tea prepared by the monks.

Coffee roasting open house: Sept. 27. Who doesn’t need more coffee? From the news release issued by the folks at Needmore: “Needmore Coffee Roasters invites the community to celebrate the opening of its new dedicated specialty coffee roasting facility with an Open House on Saturday, September 27, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 1310 South Monon Drive. Guests can tour the facility, learn about the roasting process, sample freshly roasted specialty coffees, and enter giveaways for free coffee and merchandise. The event is free and open to the public.”

A Little Extra Love: Oct. 3. Local photographer Rodney Margison, in cooperation with Down Syndrome Family Connection, is presenting his first solo exhibition, “A Little Extra Love,” opening Friday, Oct. 3, 2025, from 5–8 p.m. in the atrium at Fountain Square Mall in downtown Bloomington. (Rodney is the managing editor of Bloom Magazine—he’s the guy who receives my column submission for each edition.)

Bloomington Paint Out: Oct. 4. Grab a paintbrush and a canvas and go paint a scene somewhere in Bloomington. From the organizers: “The event is open to professional and emerging artists of all ages and skill levels to create original artwork of any subject in any medium. Stamped/tagged works must be completed that day by 3 pm to be eligible for judging.” The idea is that you check in at Bryan Park in the morning and get an official stamp for your canvas, so that the judges know you created your painting that same day. If you see someone painting with an easel outdoors on Oct. 4, chances are they’re a Paint Out artist.

Pumpkin Launch. The city of Bloomington hosts a competition every year involving the construction of a contraption to fling a pumpkin as far as possible. It’s Pumpkin Launch! The deadline for entry is Oct. 15. The competition itself takes place on Oct. 25. For past B Square coverage of Pumpkin Launch: Photos: Cold rain can’t squash Pumpkin Launch 2021

Little 500 fall racing series. Mark your calendar for Nov. 1 and Nov. 2 for cyclocross and street sprints.

Meet Rocky!

This very, very good boy is a cattle dog mix. Here’s what the shelter staff have written about Rocky:

Rocky is such an excellent heeler. This guy loves to learn and has done nothing but impress us with his great attitude. He loves to show off his skills and likes to taste test treats. If you've been looking for a heeler soulmate, come meet Rocky today! Rocky would be best in a home without other dogs or livestock.

Photo Finish: 6th Street & Walnut

The Photo Finish items are drawn from the B There section of the B Square website.

The geographic coverage of the B There section is pretty limited. Please consider occasionally contributing to the B There section some brief factual observations about the world outside your own head, as you go about your normal business. (Photos are optional for B There.) The mechanics of making a contribution are pretty straightforward—just let me know if you’d like to learn the ins and outs. If you’re looking at this bulletin in your email inbox, you should be able to reach me by hitting Reply.

Thanks for reading. I hope your week is off to a great start!

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