A new nonprofit will focus on the arts, tech, and housing initiatives. The mayor condemns the racist stabbing. And city administration wants to move forward on expanding city hall to include police and fire headquarters.
In this week’s installment of Ask The Mayor, Bloomington Mayor John Hamilton addresses these issues and more during a Zoom interview Tuesday afternoon. 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: We are still talking about hate - this time after an apparent racist bus stabbing, is Bloomington safe for minorities?
Hamilton: Well, Bloomington is a safe community, all of this is relative to other places, but we're a relatively very safe community in terms of physical violence. We are not the most diverse community in Indiana to be sure, we're under about 15% people of color. So that's an issue and it's actually something I think the community needs to own and talk about how we keep evolving that way.
I think continuing to invest again, in public safety like we do, but also in inclusion and diversity and training is all really important. And in public health, frankly, I'm not going to talk about individual cases, but some of this reflects people who need public health, help dealing with mental illness or dealing with stresses in their lives through the school system through getting more public health investment from the state and from our local government.
Hren: The city announced a new nonprofit to focus on arts, tech, housing - it's a 501(c)(3). We've heard that multiple times these last few years regarding a CIB. But these are all city owned entities, so the Buskirk-Chumley Theater, the Waldron Art Center, Trades District, The Mill... can you explain how it works?
Hamilton: I came into office seven years ago and one of the first things I said was the string of pearls, these big projects that are in front of the city unusually, all at the same time. That included the hospital relocation, the Switchyard Park, the Trades District, as well as the convention center, possibly. But all of those projects have continued to move in different ways. And they've demanded a lot from city government.
In the arts community we've now added the Buskirk, the Waldron, and we got a recommendation to do more than that. So it's really kind of been building and this nonprofit is meant to help city government advance all of these really unusual and really important opportunities. We have everyday work that we do in all of our city departments. And we've kind of been doing all of this together. But the next five and 10 years, there's going to be more work on all these projects than we've had to date. So the 501(c)(3) is meant to help accelerate a resource that helps oversee the projects - help us provide some management oversight. I think it's a really good move. We'll be working with city council and our partners on making that happen.
Hren: You vetoed city council on its approval of a CIB in place of a 501(c)(3) for the convention center expansion. They overrode that veto, which was expected. What happens now?
Hamilton: I've been a proponent of the downtown expansion of the convention center for seven years now and continue to be. I did veto that resolution because I needed to make clear the county had passed a Capital Improvement Board and said this board exists if the mayor approves and the city council approved and I needed to make clear I didn't approve.
It really doesn't have any effect right now anyway. So my door is open, my phone is available, I'm ready to meet at any time with anybody who wants to talk about how to move this forward. I continue to have serious concerns about whether a CIB can efficiently, effectively, aggressively move forward with a building construction design project. That's something I think we're good at and we could do with with a 501(c)(3) or something else. We'll see what happens next. I'm not sure. But we're going to keep advocating and trying to get the project done.
Hren: County commissioners are looking for county owned land now to build a new jail. City leaders have said they've been felt left out of the process and critics are saying that there should be more done about alternatives to building a new jail. Where's the process with you and the county right now?
Hamilton: Let me just try to make a couple key points. One it is a stain on our community. I've toured it, it needs to be fixed, it's a terrible place. So I think most everybody recognizes we have to take some serious action to improve the jail and the services around it. The second point I'd make is that I think most of us would agree as well that this community wants to invest in things besides just a jail, we want to see that people can get the services they need to stay out of jail, or when they come out of jail to be successful back into the workplace with housing, with mental health support with substance use disorder support with job placement.
So I think it's imperative on us as a community led by the county to make major investments right now in those key areas besides just the jail, let's lead with our values. And then let's deal with the jail as we go along. I think the location of the jail the size that has been talked about 25 acres all got ahead of what should have been the first foot forward, which is let's invest in the values our community supports.
Hren: City Council is looking at three options for police fire headquarters, you hope council would approve purchase renovation of the CFC Plaza that's joined to city hall. The police union prefers to upgrade the current station. Why are they so concerned about moving to CFC Plaza, which would give them more space?
Hamilton: Some of the FOP the Fraternal Order of Police does not always agree with some of these plans. My own view, I think they're used to the culture of being their own department and having their own building. And I get that, I just don't think that's the future. I think it's being better integrated with other public safety like fire. And it's being better integrated with city government, whether it's community and family resources, or building codes or planning and all those other things. So we respectfully disagree about that.
But let me be clear, if and when we do move into the Showers, which I hope will happen - the frontline officers, the Fraternal Order of Police will be right there as we design, how to make it the best police station we can. The alternatives are just not good. The current space they're in is not adequate. It's too small, it's old, it's dark, there's hardly any windows. We don't think rehabbing that makes sense.
Hren: I wanted to ask you about this new public policy for anyone who wants to display public art. It's a court ordered process. What led up to this? And what's the new policy?
Hamilton: The world of city government and public officials and the First Amendment and free speech can get complicated pretty quickly. But basically, the city can sponsor speech ourselves in all kinds. We can run conferences, we can put up public art, we can put up things that the city is speaking on behalf of all of us. And we can do that with a lot of flexibility.
When you open up a space for what's called a public forum to let the public speak, we have to be extremely careful that we don't discriminate against different viewpoints. We can decide what kind of art we want to put up or what kind of conference we want to say, but we can't if we open up a space for the public to speak in a public forum. We can't tell people we don't agree with your voice.
So what this is trying to do is deal with public spaces that way. So the city, for example, can sponsor a Black Lives Matter mural as city speech, we are affirmatively doing that, or we can do an arts mural. But if we say we're going to open up this wall to let everybody put murals up, we can't tell you what kind of mural you can put on. Well, that gets a little tricky in a street on a sidewalk. So this tries to set up the process together. So if you want to do a public project like that, and put up a mural or sidewalk painting, we have a process for that now. And a court wanted to make sure we're balancing all that evenly. So it's tricky, but I think we're I think we're getting there.
