Hamilton says a handful of residents are now connected to high-speed internet from GigabitNow, the city is concerned about the proposed CIB without an inter local agreement, and the Hopewell neighborhood groundbreaking is scheduled for Friday.
In this week’s installment of Ask The Mayor, Bloomington Mayor John Hamilton addresses these issues and more during a Zoom interview Monday 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: Let's start with the storm damage - it's been quite a month with severe storms, how is the cleanup going?
Hamilton: I was talking to public works - they had some personnel working 80 to 90 hours that week, we were picking up dozens and dozens, I think maybe 80 downed trees that we had to clear off of streets and sidewalks. So it was a rough couple few days because we had two separate episodes for four or five days apart. Of course, a lot of people were without power. Duke I know had to struggle to deal with that. There were people without power for multiple days. I want to thank our crews, they did a fantastic job cleaning up all that damage, and appreciate the patience of the community. Luckily, you know, compared to some of what's going on around the country, we haven't borne the worst of it. But it certainly was a challenging six days or so there a few a couple of weeks ago.
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Hren: Let's get to GigabitNow - the broadband infrastructure installation, the city is working on getting high speed internet to residents, I know the H-T and our newsroom reported a couple of weeks ago, but the delivery service that was promised is not happening. So if it was promised, why isn't it happening and what's being done?
Hamilton: Well, it is happening, Joe. I mean, this is a big project, I just checked a couple days ago, there's almost 90 miles, maybe now over 90 miles of conduit that had been installed. And the first customers are now live. A handful I know. And another 500 customers are being offered the service. And the expectation is that every month there will be hundreds more, if not thousands. More over the next couple of years.
Now it's a two year project. And that means it's going to take some time to get to all the neighborhoods but there's been a lot of construction going on. Of course, it's up to each person, each each household each business whether they want to take the service, but I'm looking forward to the two gigabit up and down. And we're also very excited about the digital equity program, which will offer essentially free internet service to hundreds and hundreds of our residents and households.
Hren: Since we've last talked the Monroe County Commissioners approved a CIB to manage and operate the convention center expansion. That's a move forward with a project that hasn't seen much progress - but haven't heard much from the city. Do you have a response?
Hamilton: Joe, we have been working for seven plus years on the convention center. It's been a really long road. We've been frustrated from the city that we weren't able to move more quickly. We really should have been completed in construction. I continue to be focused on really making sure that we can build a a transformative, efficient, beautiful convention center expansion right downtown.
I still am concerned that the county move forward with the Capital Improvement Board without agreeing. We had been wanting to negotiate an inter local to set out some of the details. They didn't want to wait for that but have kind of charged ahead with the Capital Improvement Board.
I did have a meeting last week before last with a county commissioner. We've been trying to sit down for a long, long time more than a year and talk about options. And so I'm hopeful that that can continue. You can create a board but you have to have a plan going forward. And the county doesn't have a plan yet. And they've kind of gone ahead to create the board. These are complicated big projects. I sometimes remind the county that you guys need to build a jail, you need to focus on getting that done - criminal justice reform is also complicated. And we want to make sure we have the team, the plan and the structure that will let us do this convention center.
Hren: The Hopewelll neighborhood groundbreaking is Friday. It's the site of the former hospital. Not many cities have a chance to totally redevelop a huge parcel of downtown?
Hamilton: It is a big deal, Joe and we've been working on this course with IU Health, we negotiated the purchase of the 24 acres, they built their half billion dollar new complex on the east side with IU which is which is terrific. And we now are breaking ground on the first investments in that 24 acres.
We're starting from the east side really right next to Kroger the B-Line between First and Second. And we'll be basically reknitting the street grid. So we're going to be building kind of the regular blocks of city streets so that we can then work again with investors to repopulate that. It's an amazing opportunity. Once in a century, as we've talked about for a city to get to do this. It's very exciting. We have a great master plan developed with the public.
We're looking for affordable housing right out of the gate at the oldest part the Kohr building there to advance that as well. So we have a full range of options for people and come on out Friday at 3:30 if you want to see the groundbreaking to get that construction started at Hopewell, it's very exciting day.
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