The image links to a dynamic map. Districts with 100-percent opaque shading are not up for election in 2024 (MCCSC 1, MCCSC 3, and MCCSC 7). The other districts are up for election.
Two weeks from now, it should be clear which candidates will appear on the Nov. 5 ballot for election to the boards of two local school districts—Richland-Bean Blossom Community School Corporation (RBBCSC) and Monroe County Community School Corporation (MCCSC).
The deadline for candidates to submit the paperwork is at noon on Thursday, June 20. The place to submit the paperwork is the old Johnson’s Hardware building aka Election Central, at 7th and Madison streets in downtown Bloomington.
In 2024, anyone who wants to win election to a board seat for the Monroe County Community School Corporation (MCCSC) will likely be navigating by a district map that is different from the current one.
This is a proposed board seat district map for MCCSC, which appears on the July 25, 2023 board meeting agenda for adoption. This map is unofficial in that the boundaries were drawn by The B Square, based on the information available from MCCSC. The white triangles indicate where incumbent board members live—based on public records. Each of the tiny dots plotted out on the map correspond to 1 person as counted in the 2020 census. The image links to a high resolution .pdf version of the map.
That’s because some changes to MCCSC’s governing plan are set to get a vote by the seven-member board at its regular monthly meeting on Tuesday night.
It’s the governing plan for MCCSC that needs to be amended in order to change the board seat district boundaries. (Attendance boundaries for specific schools are not related to this discussion.)
The board kicked off the redistricting process by adopting a resolution at the start of 2023. The resolution stated, in part, that the board “does hereby commit to commencing with the process of board district realignment.”
It was in 1994, nearly three decades ago, when MCCSC last set its board district boundaries.
But it’s not just the pure passage of time that has led the board finally to consider redrawing the boundaries. It’s because after 30 years, with no adjustments made to the boundaries, the relative population figures for the board districts are now dramatically out of whack.
On a 5–4 vote at a special meeting on Thursday, the city council adopted a map that was recommended by a five-member redistricting advisory commission.
The inclusion of two “central” districts, which don’t touch any non-city area, is a feature of the new map that makes it different from the one that was adopted in 2012, which included just one central district.
The map adopted in 2012 has served for the last two city elections, in 2015 and 2019.
The task of drawing new city council districts comes at least every 10 years, in the second year following the decennial census, so that the population of districts can be balanced out.
On the newly adopted map, the prominence of the 3rd Street boundary between Perry Township and Bloomington Township is evident, which is another feature that makes it different from the 2012 map.
The new map falls just one precinct short of dividing the city perfectly along the line between Perry and Bloomington townships.
Along with the two central districts, the map features four districts that touch the periphery of the city, bordering on non-city areas of the county.
Six of the nine Bloomington councilmembers are elected by voters in a geographic subset of the city—that is, a district. The other three councilmembers are elected by all city voters. They’re often called “at-large” members.
Bloomington city council boundaries recommended by redistricting advisory commission on Aug. 31, 2022.
From left: Bloomington redistricting advisory commission members Amanda Sheridan and Alex Semchuck (Aug. 31, 2022)
The first reading of the ordinance establishing new boundaries for Bloomington’s city council districts will come at a special meeting next week, on Sept. 14.
Discussion at a committee-of-the-whole meeting is set to follow, right after the special meeting.
That sets up a possible vote the following week, on Sept. 21—to adopt or reject the new map that has been recommended by the five-member redistricting advisory commission.
The city council also has a work session set for noon on Friday (Sept. 9) that will include the proposed new council districts.
That anticipated schedule was established by the city council at its Wednesday meeting (Sept. 7).
Bloomington city council boundaries recommended by redistricting advisory commission on Aug. 31, 2022.
Current Bloomington city council district boundaries (enacted in 2012).
On a 4–0 vote taken on Wednesday night, Bloomington’s redistricting advisory commission settled on new boundary lines for the six city council districts, which will be recommended by the group to the city council.
The commission is set to meet next Wednesday (Sept. 7) to finalize its report on the recommended map.
The city council has until Nov. 1 to either adopt or reject the recommended map. If it’s rejected, the redistricting advisory commission has until Dec. 1 to respond to the council. Under state law, the city council has to adopt a new population-balanced map by the end of the year.
The work for city council redistricting takes place in the second year following the decennial census. The point of redistricting work is to restore population balance to the districts that might have shifted in the last 10 years.
Highlights of the new map include the prominence of 3rd Street as an east-west running boundary that is generally respected by every district—with one exception.
Bloomington’s five-person redistricting commission is scheduled to meet for a fourth time this coming week on Wednesday, Aug. 31 at 7:30 p.m.
At the Aug. 31 meeting, it looks like the commission might be considering just one proposed map of new common council (aka city council) districts. And given the relevant deadlines, it looks like the commission could settle on that map as its recommendation to the city council.
It would be a shame if that’s the only map that the commissioners investigate in any detail, before recommending it.
Map of six current Bloomington city council districts overlaid with boundaries of neighborhood associations. The image links to a dynamic map.
The meeting included a look at some maps drawn by the public and one map created by a commissioner.
Deliberations were light on substantive issues, and did not offer much insight into the factors that commissioners will see as most significant, when they recommend a new district map to the city council.
The main takeaway from the July 25 meeting was the scheduling of an additional meeting, for Aug. 22 at 7:30 p.m. The next meeting had already been scheduled—for Aug. 9 at 9:30 a.m.
Under the new city ordinance, the commission has until Sept. 7 to make its recommendation for six population-balanced city council districts. Redistricting work for the city council has to be done every 10 years, in the second year following the decennial census.
Bloomington’s redistricting advisory commission will meet for a second time on Monday (July 25), in the McCloskey Room at city hall, starting at 7:30 p.m.
To preview the commission’s meeting, The B Square took a look back to the council’s work a decade ago, which is the last time the city council districts were redrawn.
The boundaries have to be reconsidered every 10 years in the context of the decennial census. If the census shows that the populations of the districts are out of kilter, the boundaries are supposed to be redrawn to balance things out.
Ten years ago, it was the at-large councilmembers who formed a committee to review potential new maps. That means it was Andy Ruff, Timothy Mayer and Susan Sandberg who confronted the redistricting task.
The map that was adopted in 2012 served to define the council districts for the 2015 and 2019 municipal elections. Whatever map the council adopts this year, sometime before Dec. 31, will serve as the district map for the 2023 elections.
Map B: A map for Bloomington with no central district.
Map C: A map for Bloomington with two central districts.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
That’s a famous quote from the late Carl Sagan, an astronomer who popularized scientific thought on topics like the place of the human species in the universe.
It is somewhat surprising that of Sagan’s 600 published scientific papers, none include a mention of Bloomington, Indiana, as the exact center of the known universe.
Compensating for Sagan’s error of omission are two key notions from that famous quote—“pie” and “from scratch.” Those two ideas have some current relevance in Bloomington’s civic life.
