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Sept. 29, 2025: Fatal shooting, school attendance, bus stops, football

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Sept. 29, 2025: Fatal shooting, school attendance, bus stops, football

Weather Talk

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

Monday: Slow down. There’ll be patchy fog before 9 a.m. No worries about staying warm or dry. You might want to make sure you have sunglasses handy, though. It will be sunny, with an expected high of 87F°.

Tuesday: More of the same from Monday except the high will be a little cooler at 84F°.

Practice your Midwestern weather talk about the warm, dry weather the last several weeks: “Sure don’t feel like fall.” If you have to reply to that, use this: “Don’t look like it, either. When are the leaves ever gonna turn?”

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

Roundup of recent articles

Quick notes

$520,000 public art project. An online form has been set up to ask for input about the kind of public art you’d like to see installed at the expansion of the Bloomington Convention Center. The project has a budget of $520,000.

Call: 1.866.StrideTeam If you see someone experiencing a mental health or substance abuse crisis call: 1.866.StrideTeam. That’s the message that the Stride Center will be promoting in a publicity campaign it launched last week. The Stride Center is located on the ground floor of the Monroe County government parking garage on Morton Street, just down the hill from the justice building.

On the calendar

First reading of 2026 budget for Monroe County. Set for 5 p.m. on Tuesday (Sept. 30) is the first reading of the Monroe County budget.

Naming area around Miller-Showers Park the “Stadium District” Appearing on the Bloomington city council’s Tuesday’s (Sept. 30) meeting agenda is a proposal to name an area around Miller-Showers Park the “Stadium District.” I am not excited to live in a town that chooses to concede even more of its marketing and branding landscape to the university—when I think the key to Bloomington’s long-term economic success is the development of Bloomington’s identity that is separate and distinct from the university.

I wrote down my thoughts on the topic, which I have sent to my city council representative, so you know where I stand on this. [The council is meeting on Tuesday instead of Wednesday because of Yom Kippur.]

The naming proposal is part of a companion ordinance that will be presented to the council sometime in the future—which would use the state’s statute on riverfront development projects to award liquor licenses.

Compensation for city council, mayor, clerk. A committee of four councilmembers (Isak Asare, Dave Rollo, Hopi Stosberg and Isabelle Piedmont-Smith) has not been able to reach consensus on recommended amounts of compensation in 2026 for city council, mayor, and city clerk. A report from the committee will be made to the full council at Tuesday’s (Sept. 30) meeting. Last year, a committee made the recommendation that city council salaries more than double to $45,000, which was met with severe backlash, and the council wound up deciding on a much smaller amount ($25,000), but which was still a big increase.

One standard argument against any significant increase (ever) goes like this: You knew what the compensation was when you ran for office, and you didn’t campaign on raising it significantly, so you cannot argue that the salary is not adequate. A counter to that argument goes: There’s a built-in obstacle to ever adjusting salaries to the levels they need to be to achieve community goals. The obstacle is that elected officials are resistant to the bad optics of raising their own salaries, which means salaries that are fundamentally unjust will never get corrected.

Given that city councilmembers have the statutory responsibility of setting the salaries, any increase to their compensation has to come through their own action.

One approach to the issue would be for local Democrats and the Republicans alike to establish an expectation of any candidate running for local city office under their party banner: Candidates have to make a clear statement in their campaign materials about where they stand on the question of compensation. That way, if a candidate runs for city council based on their stated opinion that councilmembers should be paid around $X a year, when they win election to the council, and it comes time to set salaries, no one can object to their effort to raise the pay by saying: You knew what the pay was when you ran. If at least five councilmembers are elected who think the compensation should be at least $X, that’s a change that will pass.

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.

Snow plowing jobs: Oct. 7. The Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) will host four hiring fairs in southeast Indiana for INDOT winter seasonal positions on Tuesday, Oct. 7. The hiring events will take place from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the following locations:

  • Aurora Sub District Office: 310995 Marsh Road Aurora, IN 47001
  • Bloomington Sub District Office: 2965 N. Prow Rd, Bloomington, IN 47404
  • Columbus Sub District Office: 3545 W Two Mile House Rd., Columbus, IN 47201
  • Falls City Sub District Office: 5701 U.S. 31, Clarksville, IN 47129

Winter seasonal positions run between early November and early April at a starting pay of $21 per hour for full-time operations and $25 per hour for snowplow-only/on-call positions. Job duties include performing general highway maintenance, traffic maintenance, snow and ice removal and other duties related to winter operations. A valid CDL is required to be considered for a seasonal role.

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 Lefty Loosey!

Up for adoption, as of Sept. 29 at the city of Bloomington’s animal shelter is Lefty Loosey. Here’s another link: all animals up for adoption at the shelter. (The photo is from the city’s website.)

This very, very good boy is a mix of labrador retriever and hound. Here’s what the shelter staff have written about Lefty Loosey:

Meet Lefty Loosey, a sweet and calm dog who is ready to find his forever home! This people-loving boy adores everyone he meets, especially men, and will happily spend his days looking out the window, watching birds and people go by. Lefty Loosey enjoys pets and cuddles, especially behind his ears and on the bridge of his nose, and he loves to be near his humans, though he is also perfectly fine on his own. He’s a great mix of laid-back and playful. He loves daily walks, car rides, and chewing on plush toys or tennis balls. Lefty Loosey knows how to sit and is learning to walk nicely on a leash.

Photo Finish: 6th Street & College Avenue

A car is parked on the street with five orange parking tickets on the windshield and a green sheet with a tow warning on the side window. (Dave Askins, Sept. 24, 2025)

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

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

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

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