Tag: Shruti Rana

Analysis: Age-related facts about Bloomington’s next city council that nobody knew they wanted to know

Bloomington city councilmember Isabel Piedmont-Smith
Dave Rollo, Bloomington city council member. (Oct. 4, 2023)
2021 Bloomington city council parliamentarian Matt Flaherty (file photo)
Kate Rosenbarger (Dec. 13, 2023)
Shruti Rana, Bloomington city councilmember-elect for District 3 (Nov. 11, 2023 NOW conference)
Andy Ruff (2019)
Hopi Stosberg (March 21, 2023)
Sydney Zulich addresses the Bloomington city council. (June 14, 2023)
Isak Asare (June 30, 2023 Democratic Party caucus)

The outgoing edition of the Bloomington city council officially wraps up its service at noon on New Year’s Day.

Returning to be sworn in at that same time are just four of the nine: Isabel Piedmont-Smith (District 1), Kate Rosenbarger (District 2), Dave Rollo (District 4) and Matt Flaherty (at large).

Joining those four will be these five: Hopi Stosberg (District 3), Shruti Rana (District 5), Sydney Zulich (District 6), Andy Ruff (at large), and Isak Asare (at large). [Photos of the nine incoming councilmembers are included in the above gallery.]

Five out of nine different faces might normally mean that the group would be short on experience at the job of city councilmember—compared to previous editions of the city council.

But it turns out that the group of nine that is to be sworn in to start 2024 has four more total years of council experience than the nine who were sworn in four years ago, to start 2020.

And the fact that the incoming city council features the youngest councilmember ever might suggest that this edition of the council would qualify as the youngest ever on some groupwise metric.

But it turns out that the city council that was sworn in 20 years ago, to start 2004, was on average younger than the incoming council. And the city council that was sworn in to start 2000 showed a bigger gap between the youngest and oldest member of the council. Continue reading “Analysis: Age-related facts about Bloomington’s next city council that nobody knew they wanted to know” →

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” →

Fernandez tapped to serve as Democratic Party’s appointee to Monroe County election board

In a news release issued on Monday, the Monroe County Democratic Party has announced that former Bloomington mayor John Fernandez will serve as David Henry’s replacement on the county election board.

John Fernandez at a Sept. 27, 2023 meeting of the Bloomington redevelopment commission.

On the three-member board, Fernandez will join the Monroe County Republican Party’s appointment, Judith Benckart, and county clerk Nicole Browne.

Browne serves on the election board in her role as elected county clerk.

As party chair, it was Henry who chose his own replacement to the election board.

Henry’s choice of Fernandez will not be considered a big surprise.

Fernandez served as Henry’s proxy during the spring 2023 episode when the residency of the Democratic Party’s nominee for Bloomington’s District 6 city council seat was disputed.

It was alleged that David Wolfe Bender did not satisfy the requirement that a candidate live in the council district that they hope to serve.

The board referred the matter to the prosecutor’s office and Bender wound up resigning as the nominee, which cleared the way for Sydney Zulich to be selected during a party caucus as the party’s candidate. Zulich was unopposed on the Nov. 7 ballot and is set to be sworn in on Jan. 1, 2023,

Fernandez currently serves as the vice president for innovation and strategic partnerships at The Mill, which is a coworking space in Bloomington’s Trades District. His public service includes a stretch working for U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development. Continue reading “Fernandez tapped to serve as Democratic Party’s appointee to Monroe County election board” →

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” →

Vote center study committee for Monroe County digs into work at first meeting

Vote center study committee members clockwise from about the 2:30 spot: Ilana Stonebraker (short dark hair with glasses), Stacy Kowalczyk, Evan Anish Nayee, Hal Turner, Danny Shields, William Ellis, Taylor Bryant, Debora (Ralf) Shaw, Daniella Wheelock. Deputy clerk Kylie Moreland is seated next to Wheelock. Not in the photo are Steve Volan who arrived after the photo was taken, and Ami Gandhi, who attended a portion of the meeting via the Zoom video conference platform.

On Thursday evening, an 11-member voter center study committee for Monroe County met for the first time.

Vote centers are different from the kind of precinct-based polling locations currently used by Monroe County. For a precinct-based polling site, only voters from specified precincts can cast a ballot there.

Vote centers are polling places where a voter who is registered in any precinct can cast a ballot.

The committee’s job is to put together a vote center plan, with the number and locations for the voter centers to be used in Monroe County. That plan would need a unanimous vote by the three-member county election board, in order to be adopted.

A vote center system for Monroe County is not expected to be implemented in time for the 2024 election cycle. But based on Thursday’s meeting, committee members are not looking to dawdle.

They elected officers—Ilana Stonebraker as chair, Taylor Bryant as vice chair, and Ralf Shaw as secretary. They also set a schedule that calls for an every-other-Wednesday pattern, with the next meeting set for Jan. 3.

The committee also started mulling the kind of information and data that they would be asking that county staff to assemble, to inform the committee’s work on the vote center plan.

Supporting the committee in its work will be deputy clerk Kylie Moreland. Continue reading “Vote center study committee for Monroe County digs into work at first meeting” →

Democrats speak at Indiana NOW conference held in Bloomington: ‘We are going to win…’

Jennifer McCormick, candidate for Democratic Party gubernatorial nominee (Nov. 11, 2023 NOW conference)
Shruti Rana, Bloomington city councilmember-elect for District 3 (Nov. 11, 2023 NOW conference)
Kerry Thomson, Bloomington mayor-elect (Nov. 11, 2023 NOW conference)
From left Carolyn Jackson and Shelli Yoder (Nov. 11, 2023 NOW conference)

On Saturday, downtown Bloomington was host to some prominent Democratic Party figures on at least three levels of the political landscape—city, region, and state.

The occasion was the 2023 Indiana NOW State Conference, which was held at the Monroe County History Center.

Delivering remarks were: Bloomington’s mayor-elect, Kerry Thomson; state representative Carolyn Jackson (District 1) and state senator Shelli Yoder (District 40); and a candidate for the Democratic Party’s gubernatorial nomination in 2024, Jennifer McCormick. Continue reading “Democrats speak at Indiana NOW conference held in Bloomington: ‘We are going to win…’” →

Tasers for Bloomington police: Department prepares for pilot program on less lethal weapon

Excerpt from Sept. 12. 2023 BPD general order on use of force.
Stock photo of taser.
Bloomington board of public safety meeting, July 18, 2023.

In a Sept. 5, 2023 news release, the Bloomington police department (BPD) announced that officers would soon be piloting the use of electronic control weapons, commonly known as tasers.

For Bloomington police officers, the tasers will be added to pepper spray and collapsible batons as options that are less lethal than a gun.

On Sept. 19, at the most recent meeting of Bloomington’s five-member board of public safety, BPD deputy chief Scott Oldham said that he does not expect the tasers to be deployed for the pilot before the start of 2024. It will take some time for an officer to be certified to train other officers in the use of tasers, and then additional time to train officers, Oldham said.

While the board of public safety was briefed on the decision to add tasers to the set of less lethal options for BPD officers, the board did not have decision making authority on deployment of tasers.

Tasers were discussed with the board at its June and July monthly meetings this year.

But the board’s feedback can be traced to a year before that, when board member Isak Asare asked Bloomington police chief Mike Diekhoff about the department’s planned pilot program. Continue reading “Tasers for Bloomington police: Department prepares for pilot program on less lethal weapon” →

Election notebook: Ballot inspections, Salt Creek vacancy

Ballots laid out for review on Sept. 13, 2023 at Election Central.
Draft ballot for Bloomington 01, City council District 6.
Election supervisor Ryan Herndon talks with Bloomington city clerk Nicole Bolden as she inspects ballots.
Deborah “Ralf” Shaw proofs ballot text against the draft ballots on display.
From left: Nicole Bolden, David Henry, and Sydney Zulich.

Monday was the legally mandated chance for the public to inspect proofs of  ballots that will be used in Monroe County’s upcoming Nov. 7 municipal elections.

Ballots were on display from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Election Central (7th and Madison streets).

The ballots had been laid out for inspection on a long table by the county’s election division staff, led by election supervisor Ryan Herndon.

Arriving shortly after 9 a.m. to inspect the ballots were a couple of the Democratic Party nominees for Bloomington city offices—Nicole Bolden and Sydney Zulich.

Seeking her third four-year term, Bolden is unopposed on the ballot for city clerk. Zulich is seeking her first four-year term as the District 6 Bloomington city council representative.

All the Democratic Party nominees on the ballot are unopposed, except for Hopi Stosberg, who is competing with Republican Brett Heinisch to represent District 3 on the Bloomington city council.

Based on the sign-in sheet at Election Central, Stosberg and Heinisch dropped by to inspect ballots later in the day. Isabel Piedmont-Smith, who is the Democratic Party’s nominee for District 1 city council, also dropped by to inspect ballots later in the day. Continue reading “Election notebook: Ballot inspections, Salt Creek vacancy” →

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” →