Jan. 25, 2023 around 2 p.m. Kirkwood Avenue and Walnut Street looking southeast.
Snowfall map from National Weather Service.
Jan. 25, 2023 around 6 p.m. Intersection of Morton Street and 7th Street looking north.
Jan. 25, 2023 Bloomington Transit bus headed north on Walnut at 3rd Street.
Jan. 27, 2023 around 10 a.m. Walnut Street looking north, just south of the railroad tracks.
According to the National Weather Service snowfall map, only about 3 inches of snow fell on Bloomington, Indiana, from Tuesday night at 7 p.m. through 7 a.m. on Thursday.
It was a gloppy, wet snow that came with the above-freezing temperature of around 34 F on Wednesday morning.
But the overnight temperature from Thursday to Friday dipped to 15 F. That meant any of the uncleared slushy mix on sidewalks became a frozen bumpy mess.
At its regular Tuesday meeting, Bloomington’s three-member board of public works denied an appeal by a resident for a noise violation ticket.
This scan is from a revised information packet provided to the Bloomington board of public works for its Jan. 3, 2022 meeting. (1) The social security number of the ticketed person was removed only after initial publication of the packet. (2) The fine amount was a part of the scan in the initial packet, but was added after the ticket was issued—which is standard practice.
That’s par for the course when a noise ordinance violation is appealed to the board—in part because the local law establishes a low and clear bar for what qualifies as an unreasonable noise.
Between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m. any sound that is audible for a person with normal hearing, who is outside the premises where the sound is originating, counts as a violation.
The case heard on Tuesday included a couple of wrinkles. One was the delay between the issuance of the ticket and its appeal. The ticket was issued just after midnight on Aug. 21, 2022.
The three-month delay got some questions from board members at their work session, which was held an hour and a half before the regular meeting.
The other wrinkle did not get any board discussion: Included in the initial publication of the board’s meeting information packet was an image scan of the ticket, which featured the violator’s social security number (SSN).
Indiana’s Access to Public Records Act prohibits a public agency from releasing a SSN, unless it’s specifically required by a state or federal statute .
In a subsequent version of the meeting information packet, the social security number had been scrubbed from the image, not redacted with a more typical black box.
A scooter blocking the sidewalk on 6th Street on the evening of Nov. 20, 2021.
Screenshot of uReport filed by The B Square about an improperly parked scooter.
When Bloomington’s city council enacted an ordinance regulating shared electric scooters, the local law came with a provision about sidewalk parking. Users could park their scooters on sidewalks, but with more than a dozen restrictions.
Among the restrictions are some obvious requirements—like the need to leave a clear straight path of some minimal width (at least four and a half feet), and a prohibition against blocking accessibility ramps.
At the July 31, 2019 city council meeting, when the scooter ordinance was enacted, city attorney Mike Rouker told the city council: “[The city of Bloomington] will be fining them every single time we see a parking issue.”
Apparent violations of the scooter parking ordinance are noticeable in many places around town where scooters are operated.
But the city of Bloomington has not made any citations or issued any fines related to improper scooter parking, after the ordinance became effective more than two years ago, on Sept. 1, 2019
The mask mandate says that when community spread of the COVID-19 pandemic is high in Monroe County, as determined by state metrics, everyone “must wear a face shield, face covering, or mask…over their nose and mouth when in an indoor public place and shall at all times, follow current CDC guidelines in every situation.”
Schools get a specific mention in the Aug. 5 order: “For academic and extracurricular activities, all K-12 schools in Monroe county shall follow the guidelines of the Center for Disease Control (CDC), Indiana Department of Education (IDOE), and the Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH).”
The citation was based on a visit to the school from county health administrator Penny Caudill. The note on the citation reads: “Observed few masks, although some students, faculty and staff had masks on.”
The three-member Monroe County board of commissioners voted unanimously on Monday to wrap up the hearing after around 2 hours and 40 minutes of presentations and cross examinations that were at times intense.
According to HAND’s interim director, Brent Pierce, for the 2021 snow removal ticket cycle, the city of Bloomington has so far issued 24 tickets with fines.
Of the total 252 citations, 228 were warnings, Pierce said. It is HAND policy to issue a warning, and if the snow has not been removed after a second visit, then a ticket is issued with a fine.
The snow removal warning/ticket cycle starts on Aug. 1 of each year.
