The city plans to respond to the county's offer of a CIB to run the convention center in a week or two, a feasibility study recommends an arts incubator, and a listener emails in to ask for the mayor's homeless population plan as winter arrives.
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: Another Convention Center meeting and another twist, county commissioners sent the city a proposal to continue where you left off before the pandemic - to create a CIB (Capital Improvement Board). But from our last show, you've changed direction on using a nonprofit organization. So where do you stand right now?
Hamilton: The commissioners had a different view, they actually out of nowhere kind of passed this Capital Improvement Board - they didn't give notice to their own staff. There was a resolution that was passed and discussed in 15 minutes and created a CIB, which is a little unfortunate approach, I guess, not very collaborative. I'm going to continue to propose ways to go forward, I'm hopeful that we'll be able to move it forward, I continue to be optimistic.
We we've seen six years of not being able to get this done. And I'm a little concerned that we're we're still kind of in a holding pattern. But we're gonna keep what we said in early October, that within 30 to 45 days, we'd be sharing a more detailed plan which we still plan to do in a week or two ahead.
Hren: To be fair, though, you're saying non-collaborative, didn't the city do that when announcing they would just go on their own and expand the center on Facebook and not talk to the county?
Hamilton: No, Joe. In fact, we've been talking to the county and trying to meet with the county for many months, we've offered all kinds of discussions and meetings to explore it. Now, we did have a time deadline and said we need to know by early October, this was way back in the summer. And when the time deadline wasn't met, we said okay, that didn't work. We weren't able to reach agreement. We're going to propose another path forward.
So we did that although all that has been very public and very open and very collaborative. What happened last week was surprised everybody and wasn't even publicly noticed as a vote. I still think the public mostly wants to see this happen. So I'm hopeful we'll be able to figure it out. But I'm not sure that last week advances very far.
Hren: What about any word from City Council? Have you talked to them? Do they support a CIB, and if they do, would you?
Hamilton: So what we we've said all along is, this is ultimately a choice for the community to make. The county council and the city council are key players in deciding which way they want to go forward. So we're laying out some options. And ultimately, they can decide how to go forward. And I'm happy to live with whatever the community decides how to go forward. We're making our best case, we'll see what the options are. I'm not certain, but I'm optimistic.
Hren: Columbus Mayor Jim Lienhoop announced he will not be running for a third term. Are you running for re-election?
Hamilton: I will be announcing soon, but not right now. About my plans for the next term.
Hren: Just curious what goes through a politician, especially in your position, to whether or not to run for re-election?
Hamilton: I think naturally, a lot of us think about, why did I run for this office? What am I doing? Am I being effective? Am I moving our community forward in a mayor's role? Do I feel excited about the work ahead? Being a mayor, it takes a lot of energy. It takes a lot of attention and focus. I love what I'm doing. And I've loved the progress that I think we've made with the city. But you know, sometimes there's family considerations. Sometimes there can be health. I don't have any of those considerations, personally. It's a challenging job, and you have to love what you do. And I suppose we think about, hey, what's next? What am I working toward?
Hren: We do have an email from Pam. She wants to know the mayor's plan for our homeless population. She says that you have sent cops to raid several homeless encampments, they have been displaced. No winter shelter, no section eight housing available, no low income housing built. So where can our homeless be when we enjoy great amenities?
READ MORE: Housing coalition wants legislative action
Hamilton: Well, thanks for the question. It's something that we work on every day here in the city and with a lot of partners. I am very pleased that we have a new institution called the housing security group that I helped found and get started a couple years ago and it's a very inclusive group of government nonprofits and funders that is front and center focused on this. We announced a couple of months ago the built for zero commitment, which is to build our community to zero effective homelessness.
There's millions of dollars have been dedicated from the city from the county working together well from the private sector. We're looking for support as well. I do want to make clear we have very strict rules in the city about how any encampment is dealt with. There's lots of notice - we are not from the city sending police into break up encampments. We of course respond to emergencies, but encampments are a challenge.
We do have many more units of affordable housing, over 1000 more units than six years ago, including about 100 that are focused on people with homelessness, but we still have people. I am a strong advocate for investing, particularly from the county, public health dollars, we should be spending more on mental health support, substance use disorder. We have millions of dollars from the federal government, I think we'll get money from the state. So I do think we need to do more.
READ MORE: Two houseless encampments displaced in Monroe County
Hren: I hear there's a study being done and I think what gets people's attention is changing traffic patterns on College Ave. and Walnut St. But that's a small part of a bigger study?
Hamilton: Bloomington has a very extensive transportation plan that Council adopted and comes through the planning commission. And one of the things that big document says is you should do corridor studies. And two big ones is the whole Walnut/College corridor from the 46 bypass down to Allen Street on the south. How does traffic and transportation flow? How does development work? And so that study is going on this year and next year, a lot of feedback, it will look at the one way streets and whether those are the best.
The second big corridor study is kind of the East/West Third Street Atwater corridor. We're not launching that study yet, that'll be next. But there'll be a lot of chance for the public to weigh in whether you have a business or house on Walnut or College, whether you drive on it or walk on it or bike lane or whatever. That study will make recommendations that would then have to go to city council if there's any major changes, zoning, traffic widen, narrow change all that stuff.
Hren: Another study that did come out is the Arts feasibility study report. Key recommendations including retaining the Waldron Art Center as a core asset, increased downtown neighborhood programming. This one was interesting: create an Arts Incubator to address shortage of affordable spaces. What's the city doing now?
READ MORE: Full feasibility report available here
Hamilton: This came out of the whole Waldron thing, because when we got the Waldron back from Ivy Tech after 10 years, we said, what are we gonna do with this? So we created a big community steering group that looked at that, and they said, well keep it, use it for at least five years for the arts, but then you should commission again, a long term study to really look at the arts, what we can do in the community.
So that's what this study did. They recommended a bunch of things. One they said, don't try to build a great big, fancy new arts venue. They said you have so many venues in town, you have great venues, from the university, to churches and synagogues, to schools, you don't need a brand new one. But you do need some other things.
One of the really interesting recommendations, surprising in a way was you should really think about an Arts Incubator, a place kind of like The Mill for the tech sector, but a place where the arts community can kind of be and make things happen maybe with some performance and practice space. They suggested looking at that in the city, including at Hopewell, maybe some other places. So that's on the table to look at over the next few months.
