Wednesday night, the Monroe Convention Center expansion project took another step forward, on what turned out to be a less-than-routine vote by the Bloomington city council.
The vote to approve the Monroe County capital improvement board’s (CIB’s) 2024 budget was split 6–2. Dissent came from Kate Rosenbarger and Matt Flaherty. Not attending was Andy Ruff.
The CIB is the public body that was created by the Monroe County commissioners to provide the governance of the expansion project, which is supposed to be funded by the food and beverage tax. The extra 1-percent of tax on prepared foods and beverages has been collected since 2018.
Earlier on Wednesday, at the CIB’s regular meeting, the city council’s upcoming vote on the CIB’s $250,000 budget for 2024 was one of the highlights of the briefing from CIB treasurer, Eric Spoonmore.
Spoonmore reviewed for his CIB colleagues that the city council had voted unanimously at its March 27 meeting to ask the food and beverage tax advisory commission (FABTAC) for a recommendation on the use of the $250,000 in food and beverage tax revenue. Spoonmore called that city council vote an “easy process” that took just 10 minutes.
With the FABTAC’s recommendation on the books, the city council was set to vote on the budget later that night, Spoonmore said. He summed up the situation in a way that included a verbal hiccup, which might have foreshadowed what turned out to be nearly two hours of city council deliberations on the topic, with a split vote: “So everything is all good there, assuming that we have a similar unan– or approval from the city council.” Continue reading “CIB budget OK’d on split city council vote, answers on land for convention center hoped for by May 8”
