Tag: Ron Smith

Bloomington city council’s first meeting puts familiar faces in leadership, gives public safety some airtime

Shruti Rana (Jan. 10, 2024)
Matt Flaherty (Jan. 10, 2024)
Hopi Stosberg (Jan. 10, 2024)
Dave Rollo (Jan. 10, 2024)
Kate Rosenbarger (Jan. 10, 2024)
Isak Asare (Jan. 10, 2024)
Gretchen Knapp (Jan. 10, 2024)
Kerry Thomson (Jan. 10, 2024)
Sydney Zulich (Jan. 10, 2024)
Isabel Piedmont-Smith (Jan. 10, 2024)
Kerry Thomson (Jan. 10, 2024)
Andy Ruff (Jan. 10, 2024)
Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson addresses the city council (Jan. 10, 2024)
Bloomington’s city council (Jan. 10, 2024)

On Wednesday, the 2024 edition of Bloomington’s city council gathered for the first time at city hall since it was sworn in on New Year’s Day.

One of the first orders of business at the council’s first meeting, which is required by state law, was to choose a president and vice president to serve for the upcoming year.

The job of president went to District 1 representative Isabel Piedmont-Smith. The job of vice president went to at-large representative Andy Ruff.

A requirement of local law, but not state statute, is to choose a parliamentarian. The job of parliamentarian went to District 3 representative Hopi Stosberg.

For all three council officer positions, those who were chosen were the only members nominated. The votes were all unanimous on the nine-member council.

Much of Wednesday’s meeting was first-of-the-year housekeeping, including the introduction of new Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson, and deputy mayor Gretchen Knapp, who each delivered brief remarks.

Also introduced were some new department heads: Jane Kupersmith, head of economic and sustainable development; Jessica McClellan, city controller; and Sharmaine Pechac, head of human resources.

But the topic of public safety—in general, as well as in connection with the clearance of a homeless encampment last Thursday—got some discussion at the meeting. Continue reading “Bloomington city council’s first meeting puts familiar faces in leadership, gives public safety some airtime” →

Center for Recovery rezone request for West 1st Street stems from 2021 Bloomington map change

The Indiana Center for Recovery would like to build two group home facilities in central Bloomington, one on the north side of West 1st Street, and the other on the south side.

The facilities would be used for treating patients with substance use disorders and mental and behavioral health conditions.

But to use the land for the purpose of treating patients in a group home would require a rezone of the property, which is currently designated as R3 (residential small lot). The Center for Recovery wants the property rezoned to MH (mixed use healthcare), which was previously the zoning district for the property.

The property got rezoned from MH to R3 as a part of the 2021 adoption of a new zoning map for the city.

Bloomington’s plan commission will hear the rezone request  for the first time at its Monday (Jan. 8) meeting.  After hearing the staff report on Monday, discussing it, and hearing comment from the public, the plan commission will likely vote to move the request along to a required second hearing in February.

[Updated at 11:15 a.m. on Jan. 8, 2024. The plan commission meeting scheduled for Monday, Jan. 8 has been canceled. According to interim planning director Jackie Scanlan, Indiana Center for Recovery requested that its rezone request be continued to the next meeting, in February. That left no other petitions on the agenda. With just administrative matters remaining—which included officer elections and confirmation of Scanlan’s appointment interim director—the meeting was canceled.]

Continue reading “Center for Recovery rezone request for West 1st Street stems from 2021 Bloomington map change” →

Analysis | A list checked twice: Unwrapping Bloomington city council’s 1,093 votes over 4 years

Two weeks ago, Bloomington’s elected city clerk, Nicole Bolden, called the roll of the nine city councilmembers for their final vote of the four-year term.

Except for the ornaments, the image was generated by AI, specifically Bing’s Create. The ornaments correspond to councilmembers in a statistical plot showing similarity of voting patterns to other councilmembers. The same plot is provided below with names, and without the distraction of a Christmas tree.

The vote was unanimous: Every councilmember voted in favor of the encomiums that were read aloud for each of the five councilmembers who will not be returning to the council in 2024.

Even the final substantive vote, which was taken on a proposal to sell the 3rd Street police station, turned out to be unanimous. All nine councilmembers voted against it.

Even though the 2020-2023 edition of the Bloomington city council will likely be remembered as one of the most divided in Bloomington’s history, unanimous votes were still easily the most common result.

The B Square kept track of the votes in a public Google Sheet in real time as they were taken, meeting by meeting.

Out of 1,093 roll call votes taken by the council for the four year term, 929, or about 85 percent of them, were unanimous. That includes 8–0, and 7–0 votes where someone was absent or abstained, and other similar patterns where there was a zero in either the “yes” or the “no” column.

Of course, the votes where the council was not unified were more memorable than the split votes, which were often preceded by acrimonious debate. Continue reading “Analysis | A list checked twice: Unwrapping Bloomington city council’s 1,093 votes over 4 years” →

Analysis: Disparate motives, but unified Bloomington city council verdict, police HQ sale nixed for now

Bloomington city council. Jim Sims participated on the Zoom platform. (Dec. 13, 2023)
Bloomington mayor John Hamilton (Dec. 13, 2023)
Bloomington police station from 3rd Street. (Dec. 13, 2023)
Aerial image of Bloomington police station.

On the final agenda item of their final meeting of the year, which marked the end of their four-terms, Bloomington city council members found their way to a unanimous vote on a contentious issue.

At last Wednesday’s meeting, the council voted 0–9 on the sale of the 3rd Street police station for $4.4 million.

Outgoing mayor John Hamilton, who had asked the council to approve the sale, attended the council’s meeting.

Reasons for voting against the sale were varied. Some, like Dave Rollo, opposed the sale, because they do not want to see police operations move to Showers West. That’s the portion of city hall—which is housed in a 110-year old former brick furniture factory building—that the city purchased from CFC properties at the start of 2023 for $8.75 million.

Other councilmembers, like Matt Flaherty, are squarely in favor of moving police operations, as well as the fire department administration, into Showers West. That will put it in the same building as most other city departments. Flaherty put it like this: “I think it’s essential that we have a police that are headquartered in the same place as the rest of civil city staff. Same for fire.”

Rollo also had qualms about the sale, based on a 1923 deed restriction, that requires the land be used as a free public park.

Flaherty and Rollo are two of the four who will return to the nine-member city council in 2024.

Five of the nine Bloomington city councilmembers who take the oath of office on Jan. 1 will be different from the nine who voted on the police station sale. Joining the council to start 2024 will be: Hopi Stosberg, Shruti Rana, Sydney Zulich, Andy Ruff and Isak Asare. They’ll replace Ron Smith, Sue Sgambelluri, Steve Volan, Susan Sandberg and Jim Sims.

The other two returning councilmembers are Kate Rosenbarger and Isabel Piedmont-Smith.

The city council’s work over the last four years, starting in 2020, was sometimes marked by acrimonious debate that, on occasion, devolved into personal attack.

Last Wednesday’s vote could be analyzed as a reason to be optimistic about the tenor of the next four years of the city council’s deliberations. Continue reading “Analysis: Disparate motives, but unified Bloomington city council verdict, police HQ sale nixed for now” →

Bloomington city council rejects sale of police station on 0–9 vote, but door seems ajar for future deal

Bloomington police station from 3rd Street. (Dec. 13, 2023)
Aerial image of Bloomington police station.

At their final scheduled meeting of their four-year terms, Bloomington’s city council voted unanimously against the sale of the city’s police station, which stands on 3rd Street, just north of The Waldron, Hill and Buskirk Park.

Some councilmembers expressed support for Bloomington mayor John Hamilton’s overall plan, which includes consolidation of  fire administration and police operations with other departments in the same building as city hall—even though they voted against the sale of the police station on Wednesday night.

Mayor-elect Kerry Thomson weighed in from the public mic, using the Zoom video conference platform. She called for a delay in the sale, in order to get answers to several questions that had been raised, but did not argue against any sale of the property ever in the future.

The specific purchase offer that was rejected by the council was from GMS-Pavillion for $4.4 million. That amount was the higher of two appraisals obtained by the city for the fair market value of the property. Continue reading “Bloomington city council rejects sale of police station on 0–9 vote, but door seems ajar for future deal” →

Showers West police-fire expansion update: Out for bids in November, construction start in 2024

Showers West expansion city council work session (Sept. 8, 2023)
Kerry Thomson (Sept. 8, 2023)
Showers West expansion city council work session (Sept. 8, 2023)
Paul Post, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, Don Owens Memorial Lodge 88
Councilmember Dave Rollo
Deputy mayor Larry Allen and councilmember Sue Sgambelluri

By November of this year, construction bids are expected to be put out for the expansion of Bloomington’s city hall building into Showers West—which is supposed to house a new police headquarters, and the administrative offices for the fire department.

That was one key takeaway from a city council work session held at noon on Friday.

The hoped-for timeline was described on Friday by project architect Chris Hagan from StudioAXIS. Hagan’s firm was selected by Bloomington for the project in April, after a different firm, Hoefer Welker, had initially been selected in March.

The timeline drew some pointed questions from council president Sue Sgambelluri. Offering some skeptical commentary on the timeline was police union president Paul Post, who was seated at the work session table.

Also in attendance at Friday’s work session—which was held in the Allison Conference room—was Kerry Thomson, the almost certain future mayor of Bloomington starting in 2024. She’s the Democratic Party’s nominee and the only candidate on the ballot, with no registered write-ins.

Thomson took a seat along the back wall with the rest of the public. Around 50 minutes into the meeting, which was scheduled for an hour, councilmember Ron Smith made a gambit to allow Thomson to offer a comment. Smith’s gambit was firmly declined by Sgambelluri, who was presiding over the meeting. Continue reading “Showers West police-fire expansion update: Out for bids in November, construction start in 2024” →

Convention center expansion: Bloomington city council looking to make CIB pick by early September

Panorama of convention center looking to the southwest as seen in August of 2022.
B Square plot based on county data
Results of 2023 Bloomington community survey

The Bloomington city council’s one appointment to a new seven-member capital improvement board (CIB) could be made at the council’s Sept. 6 meeting.

That’s the timeframe that city council president Sue Sgambelluri announced on Wednesday.

The CIB, which was created under state law by Monroe County commissioners on July 5 , is supposed to provide the governance structure for an expansion of the Monroe Convention Center.

The city of Bloomington has an online application for all board and commissions,  which now includes a box that can be checked for the capital improvement board. Continue reading “Convention center expansion: Bloomington city council looking to make CIB pick by early September” →

Bloomington primary election 2023 photos: A look back to the distant past of one week ago

Wildlife was not allowed to vote at Bloomington High School South—there’s no election-deering allowed within 50 feet of the polls. (May 2, 2023)
Don Griffin (May 2, 2023)
Kerry Thomson (May 2, 2023)
Don Griffin (May 2, 2023)
Kerry Thomson (May 2, 2023)

For the B Square’s day-of election coverage last Tuesday, words and numbers took priority over photographs.

But a complete record surely demands some photos, even if they’re late.

In that spirit, below is a set of photographs, in mostly chronological order, as they were taken during the day—at different polling places and then at the Cascades Inn where the local Democrats gathered to celebrate their victories. Continue reading “Bloomington primary election 2023 photos: A look back to the distant past of one week ago” →

2023 primary election notebook: A closer look at results in Bloomington’s city council district races

The winners of the four contested Bloomington city council district races on Tuesday were Isabel Piedmont-Smith (District 1); Kate Rosenbarger (District 2); Hopi Stosberg (District 3); and Shruti Rana (District 4).

That’s an even split between two incumbents and two newcomers. The incumbents are Piedmont-Smith and Rosenbarger. The newcomers are Stosberg and Rana.

They’ll be the Democratic Party’s nominees in the Nov. 7 city elections.

Those basic results have been known since election night. In the meantime, The B Square has discerned a few noteworthy facts about the election numbers. Continue reading “2023 primary election notebook: A closer look at results in Bloomington’s city council district races” →

2023 Bloomington Democratic Party primary results: Thomson wins mayoral nomination, 5 of 9 councilmembers won’t return in 2024

On Tuesday, Kerry Thomson won a clear 10-point victory over second-place finisher Susan Sandberg in the race for the Democratic Party’s nomination for mayor of Bloomington.

[.pdf file of 2023 unofficial primary election results]

Thomson did not get a majority of the 8,012 votes in the three-way race.

Thomson’s 3,444 votes gave her about 43 percent of the vote, compared to 33 percent (2,644) for Susan Sandberg and 24 percent (1,924) for Don Griffin.

No Republican has yet declared a candidacy for mayor and no independent candidate has submitted the required 352 signatures to qualify for the November ballot. To appear on the ballot as an independent candidate for mayor or city council, qualifying signatures  have to be submitted by June 30.

So it’s likely that Thomson will be the next mayor of Bloomington. Incumbent mayor John Hamilton did not seek re-election. Continue reading “2023 Bloomington Democratic Party primary results: Thomson wins mayoral nomination, 5 of 9 councilmembers won’t return in 2024” →