Mayor Thomson says she's working on a long-term plan to help unhoused people, the city appeals the annexation ruling, and the budget is next on the agenda.
In this week’s installment of Ask The Mayor, Bloomington Mayor Kerry Thomson addresses these issues and more during a visit to City Hall Monday. 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 is planning to clear a fourth encampment since the start of the year. Where is that encampment and what criteria do you use to decide whether an encampment needs to be evicted from that area?
Thomson: So we are unfortunately moving another encampment that is south of town. That encampment has become unsafe. And so the city is working hard, of course, to work on permanent and temporary housing solutions so that people don't need to be sleeping outside.
We had initially given notice, and that was back in June, actually. And then it came to our attention that our legal department didn't have anything other than a formal two week notice which we were posting and then giving verbal notice otherwise. But in collaboration with the Housing Network, we've agreed to do 30 days, which was our intention. We then reposted with a legal notice for 30 days. So these folks actually had about 45 days notice.
It's our responsibility to keep everybody safe. And as the mayor of the city, my leadership is and my team is committed to leaning forward towards safety.
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Hren: Is this approach working with finding permanent and temporary housing with those that the encampments are being disassembled?
Thomson: Approaches are targeted towards providing housing. That is a body of work that we are also working on. And what we desperately need are affordable rentals. We need shelter beds that people can stay in. We need to understand why the empty shelter beds are empty, and why they're not accessible to some of these camp residents. And then, ultimately we need a comprehensive plan where the service providers, the city, the county, everybody's rowing in the same direction towards solutions for homelessness.
Hren: I read an H-T article on the new tech center that's coming up just down the street here. It's quoted as saying that Bloomington isn't as special anymore, or maybe it used to be, and that a tech center may not be what drives more economic activity in the area. And I thought that'd be a good question for Mayor Thompson.
Thomson: I'm so glad you asked this question, because what we really need is a shared vision of who we are and where we're going. And I would say that we haven't had that in maybe the last decade, maybe longer. People describe Bloomington as this really special place and really exceptional place. But when you talk to them about that, they may not be able to pinpoint why.
And so really, it's it's my administration's plan over the next year to put together some public input and a really organized way to talk to our residents and our leaders about what it is that makes Bloomington special. I'm really excited about that question because we can't attract economic development, if we're the same as everybody else. And so we need to know why we're exceptional. And then we need the vision for how we're going to grow into that exceptionality.
Hren: Residents of Green Acres are seeking historic protections for the neighborhood in response to the threat of five homes being demolished to establish a conservation district. There's this battle in town about what's historic. What's your take?
Thomson: We want to preserve these really notable properties that signify points in history, where Bloomington has had architecture that really makes a contribution to our community. I would say just the age of the building doesn't necessarily make it contributing. And it is important for us to balance how we are going to house our neighbors and preserving the properties.
I'm really watching the Green Acres conversation. And I think it's a conversation that we do need to balance as a community. Because any of the neighborhoods that are at all walkable, are places where people want to live. And so making sure that the notable properties get preserved. And that the properties that are in some neighborhoods, are really blighted, and I don't know if that's the case in Green Acres, but we certainly want to provide decent housing that is also affordable.
Hren: What kind of proposals do you have for the police budget? We were just covering the salary increase for IU police - everyone's trying to keep up. It's competitive, isn't it?
Thomson: So we're looking at salaries across the board, as you know, you mentioned the study. That was for all of our non-union employees. This is the season that we're doing our fire contracts now. And we do need to look at police pay. And so we are having those preliminary discussions, and we'll be talking about that with council.
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Hren: Any updates on the progress of the Big Dig? I'd like to call it refer to it that's on Indiana has Indiana Avenue close down?
Thomson: I didn't plan for a historic designation on a culvert when I ran for mayor. So that's been part of my joyful learning curve. But we do anticipate the reopening of Indiana Avenue and the city has been working really hard to get that done. And so we've been pushing, we were trying to get it done for move-in day. We're not going to quite make that but we hope to have that done by Labor Day.
