City loosens COVID restrictions, UDO duplex ordinance passes with compromise, all eyes turn to annexation procedures, and Bloomington's 4th of July parade will look different this year.
On this week’s installment of Ask The Mayor, Bloomington Mayor John Hamilton addresses these issues and more during a Facebook Live Zoom event Tuesday. 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: Effective on Monday, the mask mandate was lifted including gathering limits. But the county positivity rate went up a little bit, and only 33% of Indiana's population is fully vaccinated. So are we opening ourselves to more variants and restrictions in the future by the loosening of restrictions?
Hamilton: Well, it's a really good question. It really kicked off by the Center for Disease Control Thursday that said, for those who are vaccinated, the science and the evidence really says you are safe, you can do most anything that you used to do. There are a number of restrictions on public transportation and certain congregate facilities, but basically saying you can unmask, you can get together with people - that was a that was a huge step.
And normally, I mean, it's one we should celebrate, right? We've come a long way. And the vaccines are really working very well. At our level, as you indicated, it is a little complicated because most people are not vaccinated. Those who are vaccinated that directly applies to but most people are not vaccinated. And that means they're still at real risk of transmission of sickness, even fatalities and such. So at the local level, we did feel the county health department took a step to to drop the local regulations that were different from the state. We followed suit from the city, but you're right, we are not out of the woods yet.
READ MORE: Should You Go Maskless? Some Medical Professionals Say They Won't
Hren: And businesses can still require masks and the city will help them enforce that?
Hamilton: Businesses absolutely can put those kinds of requirements in place for people. They could say, show us your vaccine card or you have to wear a mask, they could do that for employees. Most proprietors, most private entities can do that on their own. There are some restrictions on governments under law, but we encourage people to be very thoughtful and careful about how to protect your employees how to protect your families.
Hren: Will there be a Bloomington Fourth of July parade, fireworks this year?
Hamilton: You know, Joe, I don't know if we've announced it all. I do believe we've announced that there will be a parade. I think it's going to be a reverse parade though where the parade entries are fixed. And parade attendees drive or walk by them. So it's a little different. And that's COVID protocol. And I think the fireworks - I'm not sure that's planned, but I don't know if the final decision has been announced yet.
Hren: Let's move on to the UDO. The duplex zoning ordinance and the new zoning map passed Thursday night. You agree the approved amendments bring good compromise. There was a good question from Councilmember Dave Rollo that night about why is this in the UDO and not the comprehensive plan?
Hamilton: The comprehensive plan is a little more thematic and aspirational - talking about goals for the city. It's the kind of document there may be a sentence here or a sentence there that different people can pull out and use sometimes out of context. But that document is a guiding document, but the UDO is the legally binding rule of what you can do. And that's really the appropriate place to put zoning changes and such things in. I think Councilmember Rollo was suggesting, hey, if this represents a change in approach, we should do it in the comprehensive plan. I think others of us don't really view it as a change of approach, but really an evolution directly from and consistent with the comprehensive plan.
Hren: At Thursday night's meeting, I heard: don't be evil, you're not giving residents a voice, there was talk of racism and classism, then from even our perspective, you're giving the mayor too much of a platform, then we're giving a platform to those who are against duplexes. And there's different data sets for different claims. And it just really seemed to divide the community. Was there a better way for this process?
Hamilton: Well, look, democracy is fine to have people with significantly different views about how we should proceed. I do know in the last year or two or four, there has been kind of an escalation, it feels sometimes that says if we disagree, we have to attack the other person. Democracy is full of disagreements and the council had amendments, some succeeded, some failed. Different members of the community felt strongly one way or the other. It's really important, I think, to honor that the democratic process worked very well.
There were many, many hours of debate and discussion. I do regret sometimes it seems tempers get hot and accusations can fly between different viewpoints. But I view this is a really healthy debate about the direction of the city. The overall direction was approved to say let's loosen up this very restrictive single family zoning a little bit. So there's a lot of give and take. It's just unfortunate people view that give and take is not just a healthy part of democracy where we have different viewpoints.
Hren: The city came out with the annexation fiscal analysis late last week. I was surprised how much the city had a negative balance to catch up. That first year was about $10 million and under at minimal cost. And then there was $23 million maximum costs. I assume that's for initial infrastructure, but then had a surplus the next three years in the grid. Can you explain that a little bit more?
Hamilton: The picture is that this is a financially feasible annexation, that over time the revenues match roughly the needs, which is what we would expect, because they do that in our city, we provide the services that the revenue support. Just as an example of why it looks so front loaded is we put all the costs of, for example, two new planned parks, that would be part of bringing these places into the city, we would invest in parks. Well, the cost of those parks is front loaded in that first year - that may not be incurred in the first year and it may be financed, it could be spread out, but just for analysis, it's done that way.
READ MORE: New Law Impacts Annexation Remonstrance Waivers
Hren: Those needs are to extend the service of police, trash, recycling, roads, animal control, transit, but not by fire? Fire departments will stay under where they're at?
Hamilton: Yes, a state law that passed, in the four years since the legislature illegally stopped the annexation, set up a new rule that says if you already get fire service from a certain size fire district, too big enough, then you don't change your fire service when you're annexed. You just stay where you are. I think that's a really ill advised law. And it covers about 90%, most of the territory that we're considering annexing. So those folks would retain the Monroe County Fire Protection district, whereas this very small number would switch on to the Bloomington fire department.
Hren: People want to know how much more they'll be paying more in property taxes. And I was looking again and it ranged from 2% to 80%. There were a lot of different scenarios, but the majority seemed to be a 40% increase?
Hamilton: If you look at it, and we'll go through this more, and there's plenty of time to talk about it, the average residential customer residential owner would see something around a $500 annual increase in their property taxes net, that would kick in in 2025. Some people actually, if you look at the average senior over 65, and have a modest income, your tax bill actually net goes down after annexation a little bit. If you're a commercial property owner or industrial property owners, those can be much bigger numbers and can significantly skew the averages.
SCROLL DOWN TO: "Tax Impact Analysis" to see annexed individual tax bills
Hren: Why would property taxes go down for seniors after being annexed?
Hamilton: There's significant deductions in protecting any rise in property taxes for a number of folks, including, for example, relatively low income seniors who own their home. And with the net benefits, there's some reduction in costs. For example, for sewer service and others, you can actually see a net reduction. And that's all in the fiscal report. And you actually can look up parcel by parcel what the impact on you is projected to be. Now, I do want to be cautious too. These are fiscal projections for five years from now on what the property tax rates will be.
Hren: Have you been in any talks with the county commissioners or council because as the city grows, it's also decreasing county resources. They still have to fund the health department, fire services, courts. What are the discussions with the county?
Hamilton: Yeah, they're very live discussions, we've had many already, several and will continue and as I've got an open door to do that. Of course, the county's boundaries do not change. They also care for all the bridges in the county. But it does change their responsibility, for example, for maintaining roads, or for providing Sheriff coverage. One thing the fiscal analysis showed was that the county will actually have more revenue per road mile they're responsible for after annexation compared to before. But those are the kind of details we want to talk about. It does change income tax allocation a little bit, which is based upon population, but again, that generally funds those ranges of services that are that are changing as the boundaries change.
READ MORE: Bloomington To Resume Annexation Of Some Areas Of Monroe County
Hren: Why do everything in one big piece right now? Is this effective? Will this draw more dissent and division with local leadership doing this in one big swoop?
Hamilton: It's a really good question, Joe. I mean, there's a couple different ways to think about it. One, because we haven't annexed for 17 years there is a big pressure in the pipe, if you will, for all the growth that has happened. And if we tried to do it a piece at a time, it would take us a long time to catch up. Another way to think about it is if we do this, or something much like this proposed annexation, and the city council will decide ultimately the boundaries, it puts us in a position indeed to do that kind of incremental year by year, regular annexation that we should have been doing from my perspective over the last two decades. But we need to catch up or we will always be behind and won't be able to catch up.
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