Kate Rosenbarger (District 2 Bloomington city council nominee)
Sue Sgambelluri (District 2 Bloomington city council candidate)
The Democratic Party’s May 2 primary election for city council District 2 is a choice between Kate Rosenbarger and Sue Sgambelluri. There is no Republican candidate in District 2.
This write-up provides specific background on the District 2 city council primary race as well as general background.
April 20 is the last day to apply for an absentee ballot. Application for an absentee ballot, verification of voter registration, and a preview of the ballot are available through the Indiana secretary of state’s voter information portal.
At Thursday’s meeting of the Monroe County election board, county clerk Nicole Browne delivered an update on early in-person voting for the May 2 primary election, which started on Tuesday.
Early voting at Monroe County election operations at 4th and Walnut Streets. (April 4, 2023)
As of 11:45 a.m. on Thursday (April 6), 134 voters had cast a ballot in person at the election operations center at 3rd and Walnut streets across, Browne said.
Browne also reported that 197 absentee ballots had been requested by mail and sent to voters. Of those 197 ballots, 25 had been returned, Browne said.
Bloomington voters will be electing party nominees for mayor, clerk, and nine city council seats. Ellettsville voters will elect party nominees for clerk/treasurer and town council.
In 2019, about 5,400 people showed up to the polls to cast a ballot in Bloomington’s Democratic Party city primary. Of those, about 2,000 cast their ballot early in person or absentee by mail.
Standing: Lori White and chief deputy clerk Tressia Martin. Seated: Bob White.
Seated from the top: Tina Engle, Tressia Martin, Keeley Hardiman. Standing is Bob White.
Chief deputy clerk Tressia Martin feeds test ballots through the high-speed scanner.
This is the signature history on file with the state of Indiana for the writer of this article.
On Friday morning, Monroe County’s election equipment was put through its paces at the old Johnson Hardware building at 7th and Madison streets in downtown Bloomington, aka Election Central.
When the tallies were totalled up, from the test decks that had been fed through the three regular ballot scanners and one high-speed machine, they added up to the numbers they were supposed to.
Attending the test were all three election board members: Monroe County clerk Nicole Browne, Donovan Garletts and David Henry.
B&L IT Services is a contractor the county uses for logistics and technical support in connection with elections, including the upcoming city primary on May 2.
As B&L’s Bob White told the board, when he put a stack of printouts on the table: “These are the results we got. They were the expected results—if you compare them, they all match.”
Monroe County’s voting equipment is manufactured by Hart InterCivic. Early in-person voting starts on April 4.
Susan Sandberg, Aver’s Public House, Feb. 21, 2023
Kerry Thomson, Aver’s Public House, Feb. 21, 2023
Appearing in the same room at the same time on Tuesday were all three Bloomington mayoral candidates in the May 2 primary race for the Democratic Party’s nomination: Don Griffin, Susan Sandberg, and Kerry Thomson
The room was Aver’s Public House on South College Mall Road. The occasion was a regular meeting of the Monroe County Democrats’ Club. Each candidate delivered a stump speech. After that, they fielded a few questions as a group.
Also given time to speak was the sole candidate for city clerk, incumbent Nicole Bolden, as well as the two candidates for the District 2 city council seat, Kate Rosenbarger and Sue Sgambelluri, who both currently serve on the city council. The outcome of the redistricting process put the two in the same district.
Monroe County election board meeting (Feb. 3, 2023)
The finalization of polling sites for the 2023 municipal elections in Monroe County could not be decided at last Thursday’s meeting of the three-member election board.
That’s because it was still an open question whether any elections would be held in Ellettsville and Stinesville—the other incorporated areas in Monroe County besides Bloomington.
As of the Thursday meeting, there were no contested elections in either place. But the filing deadline was not until noon the following day.
By noon Friday, two additional Republican candidates had filed the paperwork to become candidates in the race for Ellettsville clerk/treasurer.
Democratic Party candidate names are in blue. Republican Party candidate names are in red. The locations for dots and labels of candidate names correspond to where the candidates live.
Democratic Party candidate names are in blue. Republican Party candidate names are in red. The locations for dots and labels of candidate names correspond to where the candidates live.
On Jan. 4, residents were able start filing official declarations of candidacy in the 2023 Bloomington primary elections.
But at noon on Friday, the time for filing official paperwork expired.
No unexpected declarations for mayor were recorded on the last day of filing. That means voters across the city in Bloomington’s Democratic Party primary on May 2 will have three mayoral candidates to choose from: Kerry Thomson; Susan Sandberg; and Don Griffin.
And Democrats will have a pool of seven at-large city council candidates—from which to choose three.
There’s only one candidate in the Democratic primary for city clerk—incumbent Nicole Bolden.
Republican voters will have no citywide candidates to choose from.
The one independent candidate for mayor who has filed paperwork to establish a committee is Joseph Davis. But he has not yet submitted the 352 signatures that he needs, in order to be placed on the Nov. 7 general election ballot. The deadline for Davis and any other independent candidates to submit signatures is June 30.
Susan Sandberg addresses the roughly 60-person gathering at her campaign kickoff. (Nov. 13, 2022)
From left of the UkeTones: Kathy Romy and Susan Sandberg. (Nov. 13, 2022)
Sherry Knighton-Schwandt. (Nov. 13, 2022)
Susan Sandberg. (Nov. 13, 2022)
Bloomington city councilmember Dave Rollo. (Nov. 13, 2022)
On Wednesday, the day after Election Day, current Bloomington city council president Susan Sandberg filed amended paperwork to convert her campaign organization from a mayoral exploratory committee to a campaign committee.
And on Sunday afternoon, Sandberg, a Democrat, kicked off her campaign for mayor with a gathering of about 60 people in one of the indoor shelters at Karst Farm Park.
Another declared candidate for Bloomington mayor in 2023, Democrat Kerry Thomson, will be kicking off her campaign this coming Thursday. Bloomington mayor John Hamilton, also a Democrat, has not yet publicly announced if he will seek re-election to a third term.
Karst Farm Park is a Monroe County government facility, Sandberg acknowledged in her opening remarks. And it was chosen for the kickoff with a specific intent, she said: “One of the things that I know I can bring to the table is a much better working relationship with our colleagues in Monroe County.”
Sandberg’s statement was a reference to the strained relations between Hamilton and the county commissioners. Policy issues where the friction between the two layers of government has been evident include a stalled collaborative effort on the convention center expansion and the location of a new county jail.
On Wednesday this past week, county commissioners invited the mayor to make the next move after voting to establish a capital improvement board to govern the new convention center expansion, contingent on the city council and the mayor’s agreement to its terms.
On the question of the jail location, for this Monday’s (Nov. 14) second city plan commission hearing on a requested rezone by the county government, to allow for jail construction in the southern part of the city, the city planning staff recommendation is now against the rezone. For the first hearing, the planning staff had not given a staff recommendation either way.
