Hamilton says the city hasn't had to reduce city services due to increased COVID cases, the Monroe Convention Center expansion is still on hold, a study is underway on the future of performing arts venues.
In 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: The city sends press releases on COVID cases and the number has been breaking records as has almost every entity including the state recently, hospitals are overwhelmed too. From a city perspective, how much are the COVID cases hurting or affecting city services?
Hamilton: Just a month ago was the highest number of city employees we had test positive ever since the start of the pandemic. And then this month, we're beating that - we're already at 34 cases this month. So far, we have not had major disruptions. You may remember we had to delay the recycling pickup, we had to close one parks building, Banneker Center, for a week, basically due to staffing shortages.
A lot of employers were really just kind of on the edge of making sure we were covering our public safety shifts and our sanitation shifts, our water plan operators, all that stuff. So, you know, it's very serious. We do hope Omicron, that this latest surge will not last very long.
READ MORE: Monroe Co. confirms 196 COVID-19 cases, government opens at-home test registration
Hren: A milestone hit a couple weeks ago, remonstration ended January 7. Nothing is official, it's going to take a few weeks for all the signatures to get validated. But some of the early numbers say all but one area has reached that 65% mark to invalidate annexation. What's your reaction to that?
Hamilton: The main message I give is just take take a few breaths, it's to way too early to celebrate a victory for those who wanted that either way, or to despair about how it came out, whichever way you wanted it to come out. I'm an advocate for annexation. So I continue to believe it's really important for the city's future.
Clearly there were people activated who wanted to gather signatures, but this is an extremely technical area. Just because you sign a piece of paper doesn't mean that's effective. It has to be the right person. It has to be the right signature. It has to be notarized in different ways. And of course there's the issue of waivers where property owners in the past agreed to be part of the city.
So the next step is the auditor has sent over a lot of petitions, our legal team in the city reviews them, we will send them back to the auditor in a few weeks. And then the auditor has the responsibility to put out her final numbers, which we may or may not agree with. And then it's possible that it'll go to court, and as you said, if it's over or below certain thresholds, it may or may not go to court.
But there's this big looming waiver question of places that agreed to be part of the city that are now not wanting to be part of the city and the state legislature changed it, we think illegally.
Hren: What does that say to you, though, the grass roots efforts to achieve that many signatures?
Hamilton: It's not a surprise. I regret that people spent so much energy and time fighting what I think is good for the city and frankly, good for the whole community and for the region. But I understand it, and we're gonna work it through. And that's why there's a legal process to go through annexation. And we're gonna follow the rules as we have, and if we think others haven't followed the rules, we'll have to point that out and see how that gets resolved.
READ MORE: Bloomington Annexation Coverage
Hren: The Waldron Arts Center is open again after being taken over by the city, renovations and new management overnight - what's the latest?
Hamilton: We took some time with a commission made up of local residents and artists and many others who recommended going forward with a kind of a short term plan, if you will, a three to five year plan for the Waldron, which has now been implemented. We put about a half a million dollars of renovation into the building to get it back up to snuff. It opened again, as we promised the first week of this year.
We're in the midst of negotiating the longer term management of that, and expect that to get resolved relatively soon. But we've got a new HVAC system there to keep the air cleaner and we know we have some theater groups ready to use it.
READ MORE: Bloomington 'Thinking Big' Leveraging Waldron For New Downtown Arts Center
The City Council appropriated at our request about $100,000 for a really intensive study about how do we most support our performing arts. It's a huge part of our city. It's part of our DNA. It's also part of our economy. So that study is just getting started and it will look at, should we use the Waldron? Should we build a new facility? Should we use a bunch of different ones that we have? What should you do? And that means looking at a lot of assets that we have, it means looking at the demand and looking at supply that we have in the community. And that'll be going on over the next year or so.
Hren: Any update on the convention center expansion? Columbus is laying the groundwork for one. I talked to Terre Haute Mayor Duke Bennett last week, and their's is almost done.
Hamilton: The COVID pandemic really threw a wrench in a lot of those plans. And I think, Joe, the short answer is we're still kind of keeping our powder dry and waiting to see what happens. I continue to believe it's really important opportunity for the downtown and for the whole region. We're a tourist destination. We're a place people love to visit. We tend to have more visitors on the weekends than we do during the week right now. And a convention center can help help address that. But there's no there's no action right now.
Hren: The Johnson Creamery smokestack is unsafe, and the owners, Peerless developers from Chicago were notified they have 60 days to fix it. Are they cooperating?
Hamilton: If you look at it carefully, you'll see that it's got some signs of wear, actually some tilt to it, which is of concern. We did another inspection in December and just said, look, there's risk here. And we don't want anybody hurt by anything that could happen here. They have 60 days to get with us and a plan to rehabilitate that. It's really important to be done before the Farmers Market opens. We are in contact with the company. I'm not yet confident that they've taken on what they need to, but we're going to be in regular contact to make sure they do the right thing.
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