Tag: Susan Sandberg

Friday: Final day of Bloomington annexation trial

Eric Reedy’s binder with the annexation fiscal plan. (May 1, 2024)
Map of annexation areas. https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1_7o1q_H6CpeK-1gdEzDTxnPk84RZQ_E&usp=sharing

The trial on the merits of Bloomington’s plan to annex two territories on the west and southwest sides of the city has completed its fourth day. Friday is the final day left on the trial calendar.

It now looks like the trial will be over by the end of the day on Friday.

The proceeding is a judicial review, which was forced by remonstrators, when they achieved the threshold of at least 51 percent of landowner signatures in Area 1A and Area 1B, but fell short of the 65 percent that would have stopped Bloomington’s annexation outright.

By the end of the day on Tuesday, when the pace of testimony from the city’s witnesses appeared to be slower than expected, judge Nathan Nikirk raised the specter of a Saturday session. Continue reading “Friday: Final day of Bloomington annexation trial” →

Poll: Big majority of Monroe County voters still unsure in 2024 local primary races, but trends visible

With three weeks left before the May 7 primary Election Day, a scientific poll shows most voters still unsure about their choice of candidates in local Monroe County races.

In the three-way race for the Democratic Party’s nomination for District 3 Monroe County commissioner, 60 percent of poll respondents are still unsure.

But among those who have made up their minds, it’s a dead heat between incumbent Penny Githens and challenger Jody Madeira, each of whom had support from 15 percent of respondents. At 10 percent is Steve Volan. Continue reading “Poll: Big majority of Monroe County voters still unsure in 2024 local primary races, but trends visible” →

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” →

Column: Will Bloomington’s new city council continue a culture of secrecy or chart a different course?

The second page of a Jan. 6, 2021 memo from the council office to Bloomington city councilmembers was heavily redacted, when it was produced to The B Square in response to a records request.

The Bloomington city council members who were sworn in on Jan. 1 have a chance to chart a course for transparency that could distinguish them from the group who were sworn in four years ago.

If the 2024 edition of the city council managed to get through the first two days of the year without violating Indiana’s Open Door Law, then they have already improved on the previous group’s performance.

But there’s more to transparency than just resisting any urge to meet outside of public view to discuss the people’s business.

Transparency is about a cultural norm—an expectation that any information accessible to councilmembers is also accessible to the public.

Ideally, the public should not have to ask to see the same information that is provided to councilmembers. That information should be pushed to the public, by posting it on the city’s website.

But when a member of the public does ask to see the same information that has been provided to councilmembers, it should be provided without delay and without redaction.

The Bloomington city council that was sworn into office in 2020 fell dramatically short of that basic cultural norm of transparency.

The new city council could make a good start towards establishing better cultural norms, by directing the council staff to start posting, a matter of routine, one category of document that has previously been shielded from public view—meeting memos.

A “meeting memo” is a memo composed by council staff and sent to councilmembers on the day of a meeting. Such memos could, as a matter of standard procedure, be posted in the same place on the website as a meeting information packet. Continue reading “Column: Will Bloomington’s new city council continue a culture of secrecy or chart a different course?” →

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” →

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 mayor wants Dec. 13 vote by city council on police station sale

The police station is in the upper left corner of the aerial image.
Calendar of upcoming key dates in Showers West projectg.

At its Wednesday meeting in a little over a week from now, Bloomington’s city council will likely be asked by outgoing mayor John Hamilton to vote on the sale of the city’s police station.

That’s a key takeaway from a Monday noon work session of Bloomington’s city council.

Next week’s Dec. 13 council meeting is the city legislative body’s final regular meeting of the year.

But before the council is asked to approve the sale, Bloomington’s board of public works will hold a public hearing this Friday, Dec. 8. Even though the three-member board does not need to approve the sale, it is required under state law to make a recommendation to the city council and the mayor.

So on Friday, the administration is just looking for the board of public works to indicate its attitude about the sale—for, against, or no recommendation either way.

At Monday’s session, deputy mayor Larry Allen revealed that the city had so far received three offers for the purchase of the police station. The building is located on 3rd Street north of The Waldron, Hill and Buskirk Park.

One offer is right at the $3.2-million minimum offer specified in the city’s notice of sale, published on Oct. 11.  The minimum offer is the same as the lower of two fair market value appraisals that were done by the city, Allen revealed.

A second fair market appraisal, Allen said at Monday’s session, put the value of the police station at $4.4 million. The city had also received an offer to purchase the real estate at that price, Allen said.

A third offer exceeded $4.4 million, Allen said.

Even though just five of nine councilmembers attended Monday’s work session, a measure of the topic’s importance was mayor-elect Kerry Thomson’s attendance. Continue reading “Bloomington mayor wants Dec. 13 vote by city council on police station sale” →

Bloomington mayor-elect asks current mayor not to make strategic choices impacting beyond year’s end

Excerpt from construction drawings for the Showers West renovation.
Excerpt from construction drawings for the Showers West renovation.

With six weeks left before she is sworn into office, Bloomington mayor-elect Kerry Thomson has sent a letter to outgoing mayor John Hamilton asking him to “refrain from making any strategic or discretionary decisions which will impact beyond December 31, 2023.”

The letter was dated Nov. 14, exactly a week after Thomson was elected Bloomington’s next mayor. A Democrat, Thomson’s was one of 10 uncontested races on the ballot for city office—mayor, city clerk, and city council. It was Democrats who were all unopposed in those races. A Democrat prevailed in the 11th race as well.

Hamilton is also a Democrat. But Thomson’s letter could be one indication that the transition between the two Dems is not without some discontent.

Still, responding to an emailed B Square question, about whether there was a precipitating event that prompted her letter, Thomson called her request of Hamilton “a fairly typical request during transitions.”

Thomson confirmed to The B Square that her request of Hamilton includes the Showers West renovation and the sale of the 3rd Street police station.

But Thomson added that her request applies “also to any other significant commitments the city is making for which I and the next city council should have the opportunity to opine as we will be in leadership to carry these out.” Continue reading “Bloomington mayor-elect asks current mayor not to make strategic choices impacting beyond year’s end” →