The city wants to move ahead with the convention center expansion without county collaboration, the 2023 city budget is up $22 million from last year, officials held a first hearing on a site for the new jail, and more on urban deer.
In this week’s installment of Ask The Mayor, Bloomington Mayor John Hamilton addresses these issues and more during an interview Tuesday at City Hall. 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: Let's start with the city budget passed for 2023. Its $120 million, but it's without some raises for the union employees. Are those still under negotiations?
Hamilton: I'm really pleased with that budget, every few years we negotiate labor contracts, we have three different labor organizations. And this year, we're negotiating with the American Federation of State County Municipal Employees, and we have not concluded negotiations yet. So they don't go in the budget until we conclude, but I expect we'll conclude them before the end of the year. And then we'll go back to council to appropriate the money for that.
Hren: During public comment, they asked if the city wanted to see maintenance technicians walk off their jobs, City Hall employees are getting two $500 bonuses. Why are they upset?
Hamilton: We are incredibly lucky as as members of Bloomington community to have such a dedicated workforce. We have done in the non-union side, some very substantial benefits, some of which will go to union members. For example, the two $500 bonuses are going to go to everybody next year, virtually everybody. And then we're doing a bunch of other things. We want to be an employer of choice. And that's really important these days. And we're working really hard to make sure everybody's treated well. And with respect and well trained.
Hren: Let's get to the convention center expansion project. A couple of weeks ago, t he city posted a Facebook entry, saying the city would move forward with the expansion since talks with the county are dead. What is going on?
Hamilton: We've been working for six years on a convention expansion. And we've taken two swings at it. We worked toward getting a Capital Improvement Board and a joint project. And we weren't able to land that before the pandemic. Just recently, with support from the Chamber of Commerce, we've proposed a different way forward where the transfer could happen from the county to the city, and we could move forward with it. And they didn't want to go that way, either.
I'm actually quite optimistic, though, Joe, I think the city is in a position to move forward, fully collaborating with everybody. I mean, county commissioners, county council, city council, Chamber of Commerce, the whole public to move this forward. We have the site that's ready, we have a good design that's kind of outlined, we have the funding that's been in place since 2017. And the city is ready to move forward.
READ MORE: City eyes lot at Third and College for new convention center
Hren: But it does seem like what I'm hearing, the commissioners do want to go back to the CIB together?
Hamilton: The commissioners have expressed a lot of different things. They've expressed a lot of doubt about the whole convention center. And that's fine. It's not unanimous - there are people in the community who aren't in favor of it. And I think the commissioners have expressed that they're not sure about it. And that viewpoint is fine. But the problem with the CIB approach is that gives that viewpoint a veto over anything that happens. So under a Capital Improvement Board structure, the commissioners have the right to say no at any point along the process. And if they're not committed to it, we need to move forward with a team that is committed to success and committed to making it happen.
Hren: The City Plan Commission held the first hearing on rezoning land the county wants to use for a new jail. There's some environmental considerations, site access, no bus lines to jail from downtown. Your thoughts on that.
Hamilton: I've been very clear, let's just let this process run. Do the kind of regular stuff that we do on location, things that leave downtown, they could have a negative impact on downtown. But I'm trying to keep an open mind about that and let the process run. We'd like to be at the table, maybe a little more. But the most important point I want to make is this. We as a county, have many, many millions of dollars in American Rescue Plan Act and new local income tax coming into the county. And I think we need to improve our services.
I think that we have the opportunity to invest more in mental health services and substance use disorder services. And a lot of what we're stressed we're seeing in our community is people who are kind of bouncing in and out of the criminal justice system, and the jail is not a place to get well. And we need to do better on that.
Hren: Mary emailed in, she's concerned about the growing numbers of deer in South East Bloomington. There was a deer taskforce many years ago that made recommendations, such as allowing higher fences. Have any of these recommendations been acted upon?
Hamilton: Thanks for the question. This was an issue when I ran for mayor seven years ago and there were two deer questions, one was the deer at Griffy Lake, which was the impact on our nature preserve and the other was the deer question inside the city and in our neighborhoods.
Inside the city, the issue is still undecided. I have seen some recent data and there's a report, I think that's either out or coming out soon. What that's telling us is I believe true in the southeast quadrant is where we're seeing the most deer/human interactions, deer/car interactions, if you will, that kind of thing.
There are some changes in our rules for fencing that have come. But I do think as a community, we still need to decide how do we want to manage this. And my approach has always been, it may be different in the southeast side of the city than the northwest side of the city or on IU campus. And this is not a uniform impact in our community. So I'm encouraging neighborhood groups to weigh in on that. And the city council I know is interested too.
Hren: I want to ask about e-scooter companies, the city asked to stop service from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. Are the companies complying? And what's the feedback been?
Hamilton: Yeah, the companies are complying so far as I know, we've just put that in place recently with them. I've been generally a fan of of alternative transportation, having ways for people to get around our community, whether it's walking or biking, or scootering, or skateboarding, or all these other ways people get around the community. We've had over I think 1.2 million rides of scooters in the city. So people are using these a lot. But we have noticed, of course, we had a tragic fatality of a solo rider in August and then we had a scooter rider who was basically run over by an apparently criminal act.
We've looked at other cities so we feel like that may be a good step to try to protect safety. Those two incidents, for example happened around 2 a.m. Scooters are less essential for transportation from classes. So we're kind of trying it out as a pilot. It's not a curfew, if you own your scooter, you're allowed to use it whenever you want, but it's just working with these companies to try to see if this will help improve safety.
