"It does seem appropriate that we would ask our legislators to just simply balance the budget," mayor Thomson said on SB1. "Cities are being hit very hard."
In this week’s installment of Ask The Mayor, Bloomington Mayor Kerry Thomson addresses this issue and more 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 talk Senate Bill 1, the governor signed $300 relief from property taxes for most Indiana residents, but schools and cities might be left millions to make up. How does Bloomington fare?
Thomson: Well, cities are being hit very hard, cities and counties alike, and it's a real concern for our community as it is for every community in Indiana. And so tomorrow, in fact, we have press availability together with our colleagues at the county, we will have an assistant superintendent from the school system, as well as some business leaders here to talk about the impacts of SB 1 on our community cumulatively.
The long and short of it, though, is that it's been sold as a bill to really alleviate taxes for homeowners. Unfortunately, what that's going to mean is, if we can't provide basic services, the city and county will have to make it up with local income tax, what this is going to mean is probably everybody is going to end up paying more taxes.
Our public schools don't have a mechanism to raise taxes, and so I think you're going to hear at the school board tonight a reality check for what they're looking at as a result of SB 1. This is an economic development challenge, and one of my goals is really to decrease the wage disparity that we have and make Bloomington in particular, a place where everyone can economically prosper, but attracting new people here. We are hearing that they're open to amending it next year. But it's quite concerning.
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I will note that Indiana had too much money so we were living in excess, and it does seem appropriate that we would ask our legislators to just simply balance the budget. We don't need a deficit, and we don't need excess, and so this ride that they're taking taxpayers on is jarring.
Hren: The city's fiber broadband project needed a relaunch. We reported on some of the problems, delays, damage. You mentioned violation of city codes in a press release. Where is the city right now with that project?
Thomson: So this can be very confusing to our residents, but Meridiam is the is the organization that committed to getting all of this done. And then there are contractors that work for Meridiam. One of those contractors was responsible for putting in the infrastructure, and so Meridiam is looking for the next long-term contractor to finish that work. In the meantime, they have contracted with someone to do the repairs of sidewalks and other things that may have been damaged.
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Hren: We're talking about $8 million in fines. Is this something the city is going to be able to recoup from that subcontractor?
Thomson: To be determined? Of course, that subcontractor is no longer in business, but this was not a short term challenge, and my administration was very serious about getting that contractor to really respect people's property and to do well by our residents.
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Hren: We have an email asking why isn't there affordable housing for older individuals downtown to attract more working, retired adults in the downtown area. She says, they're interested in new neighborhoods that are safe, attractive for walkability, and a mature crowd. As empty nesters who live in a larger home, they are looking to downsize.
Thomson: I think many people would love that. And importantly, many of the people who aren't able to live in Bloomington is because of our cost of housing and the unavailability of it. And so as we look to do our UDO changes, it's a Unified Development Ordinance, I'm really interested in finding ways to incentivize the kind of housing where we have people who can live close to downtown, really a spectrum of people and how we get those driven towards our residents who are not here to go to university, because we've spent a lot of resources and invited a lot of new development for student housing, and I think we've satiated that now.
Hren: What's the strategy for older, retired people who want to live downtown?
Thomson: Well, we have to really balance things. And so, we would love to move some folks out of large houses that they no longer need and enable them to live in more modest homes. I'd love to be one of those people as my kids start to move out as well, but we also have young professionals that are just starting families that also would love to live downtown. So I think we need a mix. And of course, we have many people who need the truly affordable housing as well.
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Hren: Hopewell Commons opens a new city park, there's some temporary pickleball courts. Why are they temporary?
Thomson: They're temporary because they're on land that's slated to be housing eventually. They will be picked up and moved when we need that land back. So this is just a warning to our pickleball lovers that we are looking at other places that we might put them in the future, even for little pop up pickleball courts, because they are a tile based system, so they can be moved.
Hren: And this really kicks off something a little bit bigger, and that's that entire neighborhood development. So what's next?
Thomson: Next is probably a tandem play of really next steps on this police station and the first housing coming in. So we have the Kohr building that's already being renovated. And then we'll start building some more units there.
I want to just make a note that with all of this rain that we've had, I am just so proud of our engineering teams and planning teams at both here at the actual city and at CBU for all of this storm water mitigation that we've been doing, it really has had an impact, and we actually were able to send crews over to help in Ellettsville when they were flooding, because our storm water was so well managed here. And so for those who wonder why we're doing smaller storm water projects in neighborhoods, this is exactly why.
