More on the city's response to the 'Enough Is Enough' protests and rallies, systemic racism, Farmers' Market inclusion committee resignations, IU's reopening plan, and your questions. This week's show was done on Zoom and streamed on Facebook Live - see the entire interview below.
On this week’s installment of Ask The Mayor, Bloomington Mayor John Hamilton addresses these issues and more. Listen to the full conversation with Indiana Newsdesk anchor Joe Hren by clicking on the play button above, or read some of the questions and answers below. A portion of this segment airs 6:45 and 8:45 a.m. Wednesday on WFIU. Here are some highlights.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
Hren: After all the protests and rallies fighting racism, what are Bloomington residents going to be able to look back on in 2020 and say, we helped fight and make these changes?
Hamilton: I'm confident we're going to continue to see the evolution in the public safety world. Just some examples we've seen in Bloomington in the last five or eight years. We have body cameras. They came in 2014. We have downtown resource officers that came in. Let me just say they came in part because people asked, how do we do better and put pressure and advocated for change. We have the downtown resource officers for five or so years that focus on particularly homeless services.
We now have a social worker as part of the department we've added. We also have neighborhood resource specialists. We've become CALEA nationally credited. We've followed the 21st Century Policing reports. But those have all been important steps.
And I'm and I'm proud of our community doing that, but we're likely to get to see continued evolution tonight as a Public Safety Board meeting that will hear a lot of ideas to be sure about that. And then, you know, more broadly economic justice, housing justice, education justice, healthcare justice, all those have racial components to them that we'll be continuing to work on.
Hren: We've seen some backlash in the last couple years with the city purchasing the Lenco Bearcat, the armored vehicle. Has there been any talk about things being revisited like that?
Hamilton: Well, sure some people are asking to revisit that decision as they are looking at lots of things in the police department. I'll say that that armored vehicle has been used every month or so since we had it to respond to extremely dangerous situations. Every use is reported to the citizen Public Safety Board to review its use, make sure it's used under the appropriate protocols.
And, you know, I wish we didn't have tens of thousands of weapons in Monroe County that get involved in dangerous situations at different times. I wish we didn't need an armored vehicle to respond to extremely dangerous hazardous situations of hostages or, or other situations like that, but we have needed it. But that's not to say we shouldn't talk about it and review how it's used, review how many times it's used, and keep considering whether it's the right thing to have.
READ MORE: Bloomington Police: Armored Vehicle Won’t Be Deployed For Protests
Hren: The city claimed free speech as a right to the vendor who was a self professed white identitarian. But yet the city took a stand with the contract and t ow truck service for using racial slurs. So how are those two incidents different?
Hamilton: Well, the first thing I'll say is we stand against white supremacy every chance we get. This is an inclusive, welcoming community. Now you know, the details are important, and when you hire a contractor with city money to represent you and be your agent, if you will, in this case in the towing sector, that's one set of rules on what we're allowed to do. And the contract explicitly allowed us to terminate within seven days.
When we run a farmers market, we are we are offering a service to any member of the public who wants to be a farmer and vend at our market. They sign a contract and they actually purchase a lease if you will, to be a member of that market and pay money to the public to be a member of that market and the rules are just different. I know it's complicated, but under the First Amendment, we cannot refuse just like we couldn't refuse somebody to come to a swimming pool or use other public amenities. We can't refuse you to come because we don't like what you think or what you say. That's clearly not allowed under the First Amendment.
Hren: Then you have the broadening inclusion subcommittee of the Bloomington Farmers' Market posting that controversial statement on Facebook, several of those committee members resigned, I believe last night that committee was disbanded. But that group was there to try to be more diverse in the market. So how did something like that happen, and then does that speak to how deep systemic racism is in Bloomington?
Hamilton: Racism is a hard reality. And it's a hard subject to talk about. It's complicated. These conversations are not easy. If they were, we could have solved this generations ago. The broadening inclusion committee was a volunteer committee set up by the Farmers' Market Advisory Committee, which is a volunteer group of farmers who wanted to make it more welcoming both to vendors of color, to attendees of color, be more inclusive. And they made some recommendations in the past few months that the parks department has used.
That's not a statement from the government or a statement from the mayor's office. Or the city. And that group, which was a mix of people from different backgrounds, different races, different approaches, put out a statement that had some inappropriate language in it. And I think members of the committee, were not comfortable with some of that. And so they chose to disavow it and even that committee has, as you indicated, it's been disbanded.
READ MORE: Farmers' Market Subcommittee Disbanded After Controversial Statement
We have some email questions I'd like to get to:
John: How do area police IU PD, City, County, evaluate the effectiveness of the implicit bias training their officers receive?
Hamilton: Well, in terms of evaluating the effectiveness of it, every year, we have implicit bias training. But training is not enough. Training is really important, but the culture of an organization is at least as important as the specific training that you go through. I think people I've heard described that Minneapolis Police Force had outstanding anti bias training. But the culture wasn't sufficient to stop the awful incident. We have to be attentive to trainings are done with reviews, feedback on that, but the proof is in the pudding.
Luke: Will Mayor Hamilton commit to implementing and enforcing the Eight Can't Wait and former President Obama's commitment to action to reduce police violence and brutality?
Hamilton: Absolutely. In fact, and these meetings will be happening this week and ongoing to review. The Eight Can't Wait list that I've reviewed, we actually are already in compliance in terms of the items of that except for one and that one will be reviewed. The one in question is about vehicles and using firearms, either from a vehicle or at a vehicle. And I think this is a really good question for our community to decide.
I don't pretend to have the answer. But if a police officer sees a vehicle heading toward a crowd of protesters, for example, with clear intent to run into that crowd, do we want the police officer in no circumstances to try to stop that with firearms? Or do we want to say it's up to the judgment of a police officer based upon the definite dangers of ricocheting in difficult situations? And that's a fair question.
Luke: What are the updates on the market efforts to become more diverse and inclusive. Love to support local vendors but cannot continue to support the market that supports a self-admitted white supremacist?
Hamilton: What I would say is the market supports inclusiveness and the city supports inclusiveness. However, the market is a public market that cannot discriminate against viewpoints by those based upon their viewpoints or we will lose a First Amendment case. So I encourage you to participate in the market. The best way to protect the market is to demand its inclusiveness to be there and be inclusive. We're continuing to work with the whole agriculture community about making it a more inclusive community and we welcome ideas about how to do that.
John: To what extent were you and your county counterparts consulted, not updated, but consulted before finalization of the IU restart report? And are you concerned about IU's lack of provision for testing asymptomatic students, staff, and teachers?
Hamilton: We work very closely together. We meet regularly with a group to talk about the health related challenges. IU's restart efforts themselves were extensive and intensive, involved dozens of committees and hundreds of people. And while I would say we collaborated, and we're kind of updated and informed about those, I was not a direct participant in those and wouldn't ask to be. I will say that the university and the city are working very closely now, to think about how do we navigate the changes that will come when thousands, tens of thousands of young people return likely in August? That does present health challenges.
It's complicated in that IU will probably have some quite strict regimens appropriately so on campus, while the state rules and probably the local rules, we don't know for sure, will be dramatically different from that and looser off campus. And we're working very closely with IU to think about how do we manage the safety of all of us in that in that regard and all of us want to avoid the problem of opening up our community, and then having a surge or an eruption of cases happen that would cause us to have to go backwards, close things down, maybe even have to send people home. We absolutely don't want to do that.
READ MORE: No Fall, Spring Break Among IU's Changes To 2020-21 School Year
Mike: The numbers for Indiana COVID-19 positive tests and deaths do not match federal sources. The numbers reported by the state, for Monroe County do not seem to reflect the numbers by nursing home facilities and that seems to be protecting nursing homes that have significant problems from negative publicity.
Hamilton: I don't think Indiana's being as transparent as we should be at the state level. And I think the governor and the health department and the legislature should be more transparent. Many states do require nursing homes and long term care facilities to to report publicly, their infectious disease numbers. And I think that's the right thing to do. We don't have that done in Indiana, which means, others have to scramble to figure out what are the data.
My father was just in a long term care facility and they can tell you what their numbers are, but it's not run through a health system. It's very frustrating when data is not coming. We've seen the federal level not do enough on data and testing. Because we shouldn't be ashamed of these diseases. It's a public health threat and information is how we solve it together.
READ MORE: Health Commissioner Box Won't Give Nursing Home Outbreak Specifics
Becky: Why can't Monroe County provide surgical masks to all residents? It could save money and lives.
Hamilton: Well, a lot of masks are being supplied in a lots of different circumstances. But I think it's a good question to the health department and to the Emergency Management Department. There are supply issues at times, if there's somebody who does want a mask who cannot get a mask, I would welcome them to contact us or the health department directly if you feel you cannot get a mask. Many employers are providing it, the city as an employer is providing it. We had many thousands of volunteer masks created and distributed to many people so we can try to help with that still.
READ MORE: Local Volunteers Are Answering The Call For Masks
MaryAnn: Have Switchyard Park cameras been installed? And can they be used for residents to identify a stolen backpack or something.
Hamilton: There are quite a few cameras, that was one of the community's goals when the planning was done for that park many years ago. They are not actively monitored cameras, they are only recording devices that can be used. If there's a crime or some event that occurs, they can be reviewed to see footage that can help respond to that appropriately. In fact she probably knows, there's a new police station right at the north center of the park. That's one place to go, they would be welcome to ask about that.
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