City Council - Regular Meeting

the Bloomington City Council meeting of Monday, March the 9th. Um, at this time, if we're ready to go on the airways, we'll ask everyone if they please stand for the pledge of allegiance and a moment of silence to follow. Next, we'll go to the roll call for attendance. Madam clerk,

council member Karns is absent. Council member Mosley. Council Thank you. Council member Mottney here. Council member Dannenburgger here. Council member Strazza here. Council member Hendricks here. Council member Ward here. Council member Lee here. Council member Scott here. Mayor Brady here. Thank you. Next, we move on to um recognition and appointments. We had a proclamation that is going to be uh postponed for the uh future. And so we'll go straight into the uh recognition of boards and commissions and appointments at this time. if you'd go ahead and madam clerk.

We have Brian Kylie for the building board of appeals and Bruce Tommpkins for the Mlean County Regional Planning Commission. Brian, if you'd go ahead and stand up so we could all thank you for your service and being appointed to the building board of appeals. Thank you very much. Your tenny and then I don't know if uh Mr. Tomkins is here tonight, Bruce is not for being appointed to the MLAN County uh Regional Planning Commission. Thanks to both of you for your service uh and stepping up to to serve. Um next we'll move to public comment. And madam clerk, are there individuals that wish to seek public comment tonight? [clears throat]

Yes, we have four registered to speak in person and we had one emailed public comment from Zach Furrier. Okay. So there's one person here. No, there was one that was emailed and four that are here to speak.

Okay, great. Uh before we call the individual speakers um to the podium, uh public comment is an opportunity for speakers to provide their views and feedback to the city council. It's also an opportunity for the city council to receive feedback and listen to uh and [clears throat] hear diverse points of views. To maximize the impact of public comment and show respect for the expression of all views, uh speakers should maintain civility and focus on city issues. Speakers must identify themselves for the record but are not required to give their address. And each speaker is given the floor for three minutes. So if you'd call the first speaker, please. Our first speaker is John Woods. John.

Okay. Next.

Okay. Our next speaker is Zach Carlson. always to go first, don't I? Hello, I'm Zach Carlson. Uh I am the people city manager. Good to see you all again. Uh I want to speak primarily on the uh parking and land transfers that are kind of happening or agreements uh as far as lifelong access goes throughout it. I am generally all in agreement. I think using the existing parking lots that we have uh is a great way to use underutilized space. However, there are a few points in there I want to really focus on and question about and I want you all question as well and maybe bring back for later consideration. Um the first being uh the 99-year lease in the Elks lot. Um what we've all agreed upon, I think everyone was here when we had these discussions going to be a temporary parking lot with the idea that future development would happen there. temporary uh in my mind at least is five to 10 years. 99 years is temporary to perhaps to a tortoise who can live 200 years. However, I will not be around in 99 years. I do not think any of us will be around in 99 years. So, I want to reconsider that agreement, put on a three to five year like renewable lease, right? Just kind of automatic renews until something comes up or if there's a developer in mind to redevelop that area. Um, of course I don't foresee um this being a contentious agreement necessarily or I think the two will be great partners along the way. Um, but it's an agreement nonetheless that both need to mutually agree to step away from if a development was to come. Right? If I looked at it correctly, the indemnite clause uh said there's there's um a harmless break. Uh, however, that doesn't seem the proper way to go about city business. uh saying I unilaterally canceling this agreement. Um sorry bye.

Right. Uh so let's kind of rethink this. Um the second part is the Jefferson closure. That block right there. Generally speaking, I'm opposed to closing streets. It it breaks up our urban fabric in our nice little grid downtown. And more than just a nice little grid, right? Um this is also an area just off of uh business 51, right? um that ID dot itself is like, yeah, we're not going to reduce the lane size. It's still going to be the same distance curb to curb. Um good luck getting that past them. And if in the future we want to undo that, you know, through ID do again, I think we all know here ID dot are not the most friendly people to talk to. What I could do to some of them I will not say in public record. Um however, uh overall I think it's not the worst idea, but it could be better. I think we can rework that to you know temporary ballards during um working hours we could say right come down during the night during the evening back up during the day to keep that keep that as a safe area overall. Um last little bit there is the Roosevelt oneway just seems odd. I'm not opposed to it but like it's odd isn't it? One way for one block for 20 diagonal spots. Um, overall I think this is the wrong direction city wants to go as far as increasing parking around the city when we are in fact a city. We are an urban area. Parking is antithetical to a city, especially to a downtown. So, I want us to reconsider it. I know it's more of a temporary fix since the Market Street garage is coming down. However, um, we really need to be looking forward into a less carcentric urban area or else downtown will just become Eastland Mall 2.0. Lastly, there's no beer garden in the Miller Park master plan. Where I'm going to drink my old style. Thank you.

Next. Next we have Matt Ericson.

Uh, hi there everybody. My name is Matt Ericson. I am the owner and operator of Come Together Space on the corner of Roosevelt and Jefferson. And I'm here tonight because I was just informed about the uh for said um closure of Jefferson and the parking change on Roosevelt. And u I was just wondering if uh why there seemed to be no uh community outreach as to why this was going to happen. And I definitely also disagree with the closure of Jefferson. It's a a really uh nice thoroughare for to really undo backed up traffic. Um, and then of course for the parking on uh Roosevelt um which uh is shown to be on the west side of the angle parking and I I do agree with angled parking. I think it's nice. I think it's even better when people back in especially for loading things in and out of their vehicles. However, I am concerned about having the angled on the west side instead of the east side. Um on the west side, which is the side where my building is, um the sidewalk is only 59 in wide. And then we have grass and and vegetation and whatnot. And the uh sidewalk on the east side is 138 in plus another 36, which makes it three times as wide as the sidewalk on the west. So just to handle sheer volume of more people, uh it seems that that would just make a lot more sense that the traffic walking traffic from parking would be on the east side. Um especially if some of that parking is for lifelong access, uh which will be our new neighbors, which I'm very excited about and very happy about. So again, my concern was just on and more questions on why these decisions were made and and and if we as a community could have a little more input and maybe

a later um you know vote or whatever this is going to happen. So that's it. Thanks. Thank you. Are there other speakers? Lastly, we have Chris Gibbons.

[clears throat and snorts]

Good evening, members of the council. My name is Chris Gibbons. I live in Ward 4, precinct 27. [clears throat] What I'm about to read was a private letter that I sent to my city council member, Dan John Dannenburgger, [snorts] uh on January 30th, 2026. [clears throat] I didn't receive a response and so that private letter is an open letter now. It's titled The Evils of Flock Surveillance. [clears throat and cough] Alderman Dannenburgger, I ask this with the utmost sincerity and also disappointment when you are greenlighting this massive invasion of our privacy via flock surveillance. Did you consider your children? [snorts] Did you consider the risks to their security, their privacy, their development, or their autonomy? [snorts] Did you intend for them to inherit a better future or a bleeaker one or in fact a hellscape? [snorts] Did you choose to upload pictures of them to your Instagram or to your Tik Tok? Do you allow them to upload videos of themselves to YouTube? Do you have a lollipop baby monitor or ring cameras at your home? If not, I ask you why. [snorts] Do you expose them to dangers willingly or neglectfully? Do they wear seat belts in the cars that they ride in? Again, if so, why. [snorts] Where's the line is the bottom line here for me. There are so many reasons why flock camera technology is awful in its nuts and bolts. [snorts] They're cheaply constructed. They're blatantly racist. The OI is terrible. The encryption is non-existent. They're unconstitutional. [clears throat] The Illinois Secretary of State has launched investigations into them. and every other day another city across the country bans them or backs out of contract. [snorts] Uh but by far in my opinion the most

evil and insane piece of this endmass public surveillance is the total disregard for people. The total disregard for the people that we owe the most to which are our children. [snorts] Our children deserve their alone time. They deserve to be invisible sometimes. They deserve to sing, dance, run, drive, smoke pot if they want to. They shouldn't have to look over their backs. [snorts] They deserve to not be prayed upon by hackers with ill intent or even cops who have a grudge. They [snorts] deserve space from observation and criticism. And the more that we strip them from that, the more that we strip them of their humanity. [snorts] In the words of Alexis Detokville, subjection in minor affairs breaks out every day and it's felt by the whole community indiscriminately. It does not drive men into resistance, however, but it crosses them at every turn until they are led to surrender the exercise of their will [snorts] and thus gradually falling below the level of humanity. We need to turn this around. The greatest abuse that we can do onto our children is to sell out their future humanity for the future of the inhumity of AI.

I'm sorry. here. We need to stop this waste of money and it's abuse on children and we need to back out of these contracts right away. Thank you. Thank you. That's all we have for public comment. Okay. Thank you very much. Next is uh item would be number seven on our agenda tonight, which is the consent agenda. Consent agenda is approved normally with one motion. Uh unless there are members of the council that has one of the consent agenda items that they wish to pull from the agenda. I'll move approval unless someone has anything to pull.

Motion by member Ward, seconded by member Hendris. Um and we go ahead and take a vote electronically, please, Madam Clerk. The item passes. There are no need to announce. Thank you. Next then we will move to our regular agenda items which is uh in the packet number eight [clears throat] uh tonight. Mayor 8A. Yes,

I need to recuse myself. Okay, let the record reflect that member Ward recused herself from item and I member Ward, if you're going out that way, would you turn that microphone off at the podium? Thank you. We'll keep you working right out to the very end. Thank you. [clears throat]

Next, uh we'll move to um item A under uh number eight of the regular agenda, which is consideration and action on an ordinance uh approving a triparty development agreement by and between the city of Bloomington, the Carl Foundation, and the Denine Brothers Farm LLC. Um and at this point, uh we will ask our deputy city manager, Mr. Dr. Billy Tyus, if you would go ahead and explain further along with, I believe also our director, uh, Kelly Feifer is here as well. Thank you, Mayor Tus.

Thank you, Mayor. Uh, mayor and council members, uh, we're excited tonight. Uh, we understand that there's a conversation to be had, but this agreement, if it's approved, is the next step in Carl choosing to grow its footprint in central Illinois, right here in Bloomington. Um, and we're happy to have them. We also think it's it's it's the next step in Bloomington continuing to become a health care destination. I mean, we're growing in that area considerably and there's more to come, more to be announced. Um, it doesn't happen by accident. It's happening because you are creating an environment where people want to build you as a council and you as a mayor. Um, where people are choosing to come here. You're giving us the tools to be able to also negotiate agreements like this. And it matters. Um time is money and you know when you make it easy for us as you have easier um it makes it this h it makes these kinds of things happen. Um as I said this is a big deal and um I especially want to thank the Carl team and many of whom are here tonight uh who who have come if there are questions um and especially Nick Crompton who has done a lot of work on this agreement. Also Neil Finland whom a lot of you know. Uh Neil's everywhere for being part engineer and part uh wrangler for all of us. Honestly, it was a lot of work. And Elizabeth Megley for her work as well and the the Denine family. There was a lot of work that happened over the holidays and into the the months coming up to today that goes unseen which should be recognized. And especially I really want to speak to the work of Kelly Feifer and Samantha Malot for all they did to to bring this together. So, Kelly's really going to drive tonight. Um, I just wanted to make sure that I thanked you. I know there's more conversation to be had and I thank the f folks who have who have been involved. So, thank you, Mayor Kelly.

Thanks, Billy. Um, mayor, council members, I get to talk with you about more of the details. Uh, so this development is going to be kind of inspired uh like you see Carl at the Fields development in Southwest Champagne, uh, though slightly smaller in scale. So, it is still a regional healthc care hub with a whole lot of commercial uh components. There'll be a nice walking trail um connecting to our constitution trail. Um and there'll be an opportunity for some residential um development. Next slide, please. So, this is the preliminary plan. The official preliminary plan without the buildings um was approved uh in January 26 um by you. So, this gives you a little bit more flavor of how that is going to look potentially. Again, these are just concept buildings. That's to be determined. You can see from this basically they're planning around three medical buildings. There'll be room for a multif family potentially um off of Cornelius in the northeast corner. The extensions of Cornelius Drive, New Denine Road, and Magie Drive um are formulated in here. Again, very consistent with the preliminary plan. This is privately built roads that we will take over as public. Um, as well as a trail that we will take over as well, but the site mix could change. This gives you a good concept. You can see that the Nines are keeping a large portion of the commercial um along Merary Drive. Next slide, please. So, this shows you the new trail. So this is actually when we talk about a trip party, everybody has a role here. So this actually splits the responsibility for the construction of this trail um between Denines and Carl and then we ultimately will be taking that over um and our parks and wreck will be um managing that. Next slide please. So the

general uh gist of the agreement is the Denines are going to do part of Megary Drive. They'll do the Halls Ferry road extension to Cornelius. They'll share in that public trail. They'll be making some basin repairs um in preparation for us to take over. So, we did evaluate that basin. We looked at volume. We looked at the grading. We looked at the shoreline. Um we looked at the um basically the dam, the spillway. Um and assessed some things that we need to have repaired before we take it. And they've agreed to do that. and provisions are made in the agreement for that. Carl um will be developing um its campus. They'll be doing the Cornelius Drive extension and meeting the existing payment of Cornelius. Uh they'll take their share of the public trail. They'll extend the sidewalk and the trail all along Cornelius and they'll be ultimately responsible for Denine Drive um all the way through its intersection with Empire. That investment is about $4.9 million. So, we're looking at $6 million worth of public infrastructure that will be um created. Next slide, please. So, for the city, um we're going to take ownership of the Central Basin in that public trail. We've agreed to wave 50% of the development fees with a cap of 600,000. We will pay for the oversizing cost of Cornelius's Northern Sidewalk. This is customary with our policy is we pay for the extra widening. So we will also have to pay for a portion of Cornelius that was not constructed on that east side for whatever reason there is a gap. Um we will take and pay that full cost in the reimburseable scenario to Carl. Um we will also wave the parkland dedication should there be an element of residential in this development. We will wave that parkland. We are getting a basin with an active

trail system and our estimated then out-ofpocket cost is 165,000. Next slide please. So this is really a summary. So they're going to invest 6 million in public infrastructure. Um Carl will be solely responsible for whatever happens at the intersection at Empire Street. Cornelius Drive. One of the concerns was is they're not going to build this all at once, but they have agreed to build Cornelius extension within three years. That means generally substantial completion uh two years from this fall. Uh this is a very important connection that is well long overdue. The first time you actually saw Empire Business Park was in ' 06. Okay. So this is this has taken a while to develop but they are willing to build uh that entire connection even if they don't develop immediately against it. So, we will be investing 165,000 basically for those the missing section of Cornelius and the oversizing for the trail. We will accept the basin um for maintenance, but they'll be paying us $100,000 that we can put into an account towards future maintenance. We do have those fee waiverss. Again, we can handle that in engineering and building safety as far as income during regular annual budget processing. and we have agreed to a 9-year term uh for this. So, those are some of the particulars. I love this. This is really a wonderful strong bookend for the Empire Street commercial corridor um to really be able to finish out what was envisioned even 20 years ago. Um with this flavor of development is really exciting. It'll support those businesses that are already in the area um and provide some really critical circulation that we have long needed. So, happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Um, so let's go to questions from members of council. Member Matney.

Well, I just want to start with a thank you to you and to the staff for working on this project and keeping the Cornelius extension top of mind in that conversation. I'd like to thank also the Denine family, Carl and Neil Finland for personally meeting with me and reviewing all of these details. I'm excited for this opportunity and I'd like to motion that we approve.

Second motion approved by there I'm sorry there any individual have questions? Motion was uh made by member Montany approved by member Dannenburgger I believe or Strazza sorry could it was a tie anybody want to be the tiebreaker. Okay. All right then we will ask the clerk to take the electronic vote please. Council member Hendricks, how do you vote? I item passes. There we go.

Okay. And member Ward was not voting, right? No, but council member Very good.

Ward was abstained. Thank you very much. And we'll ask member Ward to come back in. Thank you to the parties that are in the audience tonight. It's always [snorts] nice to have a small Denine family reunion. So, thank you all for for being here. Thank you. Thank you. Member Ward then is rejoining us for the next item under the regular agenda which is item B, consideration and action on [clears throat] an ordinance approving a redevelopment agreement between the city of Bloomington and Lifelong Access for downtown parking in support of the redevelopment of the former Panagraph building. And we will ask that um Mr. Tus our deputy city manager uh again for the way of introductions and background.

Okay. That's what I'm sorry. Was that supposed to be our city manager here? Okay. If you guys want to split that would be great. Thank you. All right.

Feels like we've been talking about this for so long and it's to have it before you is is really exciting. Uh if you could pull the Thank you very much. Um if you'll go to the first slide. Um, we have been trying to work out the parking situation in downtown Bloomington for some time now, especially because it's ever changing and with the closure of the Market Street garage and with some of the needs for Connect Transit, etc., etc. Uh, you know, we've been working with Connect for a while now. Uh, we had been working to design a transfer station and parking structure. Ultimately, we got to the point where the design was too costly, frankly, with what with what with the estimates of cost. Uh the the estimates came back to build the transportation to get 205 parking spaces at roughly $36 million. Of that, $12.6 million was going to be the cost to the city. Honestly, it wasn't something that we could afford and it wasn't something that we could responsibly bring to you. So, we had to pivot and we did. We and connect went back to the drawing board and are redesigning the facility. I think they're at 30% design now with designs coming forward soon for the new design. Next slide, please. Part of what is being proposed is we've changed from a sales agreement to we're going to transfer the garage. The garage would be torn down by Connect Transit. There would be some of the parking added on site at Market Street. the city would retain all parking revenues and then um the city would find a way to find parking in other areas. Um which brings us to tonight and the part in the partnership potential partnership with lifelong access. Um those agreements with connect transit are currently under FTA review. U we're expecting them soon but we're expecting them soon. Uh next slide please. So, as we started to talk about this, we we started to think about how do we find parking in the area that

could both accomplish our overall parking needs that could help lifelong access with their their project which is going to create a services campus uh in partnership with Chestnut Health Systems and the regional alternative alternative school and I believe there will be other partners to create a services campus. How could we both win? As part of that, we knew that they would have to redevelop a parking lot to the north of the former Panagraph building. We also knew that we needed parking. Um, we also knew that when the Market Street garage closed that people had started to park in that lot anyway. So, it was had become familiar to people and it was something that was comfortable to them. So, we started to have a conversation with Lifelong Access about could we enter into agreement where we would purchase that northern lot and an additional lot to the north of it to get some on some surface parking again build some of the necessary parking at Market Street and then in exchange because their development will need parking allow for as was mentioned tonight earlier a longer term lease in the newly developed Elk lot. Um, and we were able to come to a tenative agreement that we think works. we think works. We end up getting to more overall parking spaces with this agreement than were designed in the original connect transit design. We get to 213 spaces. Understanding that some of those spaces will be designated for lifelong access and connect. So there's a some of those will be unavailable at different times. Um, when you add the front and center property, you're at 310 parking spaces in and around the area. Here's why that's important. I know that over the years, the bulk of the parking along that corridor was at the Market Street garage. There were 500 spaces or were 500 spaces in the parking market street garage. That entire top level was never used. It was always vacant. So, we knew

that there was a need to relocate some of the parking in and around the downtown. So, when you add up the front and center parking that is coming in this agreement and the 96 spaces at the Market Street garage, we believe that we've been able to we will be able to accommodate the parking needs, but also in an area where some of the growth is happening. When you talk about some of the activity at the arena, some of the growth there, we need parking. And so, being able to relocate some of it is going to be good versus having it in one place. Here's the big thing for us, a big thing. I talked about it being 12 plus million at Market Street. It's 1.1 to 1.5 million as an estimate at with with this plan to build the surface parking lots that we're talking about. I know there are questions often about surface parking, but it's a balance. Like we have to find a way to balance what we can afford with what what works and what our needs are. So, we think that this works. Uh, again, estimates in late fall, early winter were 1.1 million or $ 1.5 million to do this and again to get the parking we needed. Next slide, please. As part of this agreement, the city would take ownership of the lot north of the former Panagramraph building. Um, we would not lease it. We would take ownership of it. Again, as I said, there would be 77 spaces in this lot. and then another 40 to the north of it adjacent to it. This isn't just about parking numbers. It would also add a green space park space that would be used primarily by lifelong access during the day, but it also becomes a green space for people downtown during other times. And as as you know, downtown doesn't have a lot of green space. And so it solves that need as well where people who reside downtown

or who are spending time downtown as well will have a park/green space uh in this area. Next slide, please. As part of the agreement, as has been mentioned tonight, it would be a 99-year lease for the former for the former Elks building where we've built a parking lot. Um the arena would continue to have access to the lot, the new lot after hours. Um, as has been mentioned, there would be 20 spaces designated along Roosevelt and then there would be TIFF funding available and then Lifelong will pursue the Jefferson closure. And I want I want to speak to one of those items. The Jefferson closure still has to get ID do approval and it still has to come back for consideration. There's a process for that, but it it it we needed to see if there was a conversation or an appetite to be had for that. So there's still a step for that. Um the other thing is that I know that it's been mentioned about we had talked about the front and center or some of the bu parking we're building now being temporary. That's true. A large part of that conversation was for the front and center lots. If there is something built there, it's going to need parking. A and B. The fact that we're taking on a larger parcel to the north of the Panagraph building means that if there is development to come, we can we could do it there. So doing this doesn't preclude our doing development down the road if there is something that needs to happen. But we also know that there's a there's a need for parking for this project. There's a need for parking in and around the arena as I talked about. there's a need for parking for our downtown patrons because doing it the way that it had been proposed at Market Street just wasn't something that was affordable. Um, be happy to answer any questions if I can.

Oh, I'm sorry, mayor. I believe there are Carl is here from Lifelong. Yes. Hi, Carl who is the CEO I believe of Lifelong Access and he is here if there are any questions for him as well. Thank you very much for being here. Carl,

city manager, thank uh thank you deputy city manager Tyus for that. Um I just want to add a couple quick things. First, uh lifelong access has been has really been fantastic to work with and as we try to figure out what we're going to do with parking, this became a viable option and they have they have really worked with us so that this will work with both parties. Also, just want to speak to this and and Billy spoke to this a little bit. Even though this is a hundred-year lease, um there is certainly a from the parties that if something needs to switch or if we need to adjust if if we get somebody interested in a development here, Lifelong is not married to just having the parking spaces at the Elks building. We if we can come up with another parking option, you know, we're there's going to be flexibility there. So, we certainly, you know, we hope to see this area develop more, but we've got to have the parking and that's likely going to include building a parking garage at some time, which then could accommodate everybody in this area of the downtown. So, I just wanted to say I really appreciate staff and Billy has worked very hard on this and Lifelong Access who has worked very hard as well and appreciate their efforts.

Thank you. Members from council with questions. Yeah, thank you both. I think you answered the main questions that I had. Could you speak though to kind of the one other thing that was brought up related to Roosevelt Street with the oneway the angled parking there? I assume that part of that is for buses to lifelong access for regional alternative school and those sorts of needs, but if you could speak more to it. No, go ahead, Billy.

No, I'm sorry. partly definitely you're gonna have buses going um one way and it's it's it's safety related to that but also to accommodate angle parking which and got ended up which allows for more parking in the area. So when you're doing it at angle versus parallel you're able to do you're able to do more with angled but it was safer if we were going to do that to have it as a oneway. Here's the other thing that I want to make sure I speak to is that during all this parking conversation over the last several months, we have created free all day parking in and around the area. Um, and so to there will still be an accommodation for parking for others, other businesses, other buildings in the area as well. And that was a part of our conversation as it relates to this.

Just one followup. Could could I don't know if you have this answer now, but one of the public commenters brought up the sidewalk on that particular side with the angled parking. Do you have information related to sidewalk size and the use of that or is that a conversation you could have with the public commenter or andor me? I to facilitate that. I keep doing that. I'm sorry. I absolutely could have that conversation. I do not have it, but I do know that our internal teams did look at this plan. Um, some of the public works folks in engineering recently. Thanks to Sue for that and um they didn't have any concerns about safety questions or or issues or they did not come forward with any. So we have looked at that but I would be glad to have that conversation.

Other members with question or comment. Yeah I I know you just answered this and it's not my ward. I'm just looking for some clarity regarding where you just said 100 yearly 99 right 99. Um, but can you tell me I mean because I don't think that we want that to be a norm, but can you I know there may be opportunities for flexibility there, but how do we get to that number, right? What five and 99?

Absolutely. Part of it was there is lifelong access is building this development for the long haul and so they will have parking needs for the long haul. they already had land available to build their parking in the lot that we're going to be taking on. So, we needed to give some level of commitment. So, some of it is related to that. Some of it is also wanting to as it being a lease, some of it being and I don't know if this was part of your question, it being a lease, wanting to maintain and not sell the city asset. So, we're trying to find a way to do something longterm that met their needs because they plan to be there for a while that wasn't five or 10 years. And again, the lease itself still needs to be drafted. And so, there's I won't say that it can address a 99-year issue because we're voting on that tonight. But perhaps there are ways to address some of the other concerns as part of the lease that still has to be drafted and agreed to. I I don't know if I answered your question.

No, you did. I mean, you provided me some at least guidance that Right. There'll be some technical language both ways that are going to be absolutely that you're going to continue to work together. So, I was just thinking I hope to be flying in 99 years. [laughter] Other members, member Hendricks, I just make a motion to approve. It's a motion. I'll second. Seconded by member Ward. If the clerk would take the vote electronically, please. Motion passes. No needs to announce.

Thank you. Motion carries. Then we'll move on to the next item uh under letter C, which is the fiscal year 2027 proposed budget presentation um and be presented by our city manager, Mr. Jurgens and our director of finance, Mr. Wthburn. Mr. Jurgens,

thank you very much, mayor and councel. Um, so we spent I don't know 30 or or 45 minutes going over the the preview at the last meeting going into a number of the details and and some of the exhibits that that Scott put together. Uh, that was the preview. The the the proposal has not changed from the preview. Um, this is uh by city code. I am to propo to provide a formal proposed budget uh by the middle of March. So this is that formal proposed budget that we are presenting tonight. Uh we are uh shifting the schedule a little bit tonight. We were going to have all of the directors come and present on their capital projects. We're shifting that to next week. Uh so tonight we're just going to kind of focus high level uh and uh talk a little bit about uh more of the proposal and then we'll have an opportunity at the next meeting uh to get into the capital projects and some more of the specifics uh of of some of the spending. Next slide. So, speaking of specifics, there are two budget books that city staff and our finance department put together and they are filled with information and they are now available online. Uh, again, these have not changed since uh what I sent out to the council uh I think last Thursday. But in total, there's about 600 pages of information within these budget books. And I'm going to let Scott speak to anything that I miss here. But basically within this first budget book which is really focused on the general fund, not only are you going to see a lot of information, a lot of background about the city, but you're also going to see a line item accounting for every department and you're going to see what the proposed spending is and and what the narrative of the department and other factual and other information about the departments. So a lot of information within budget book one which is focused primarily on the general fund. One of the things, and we'll talk about this more in a minute, you're

going to see a lot of the focus uh again uh being on public safety with uh approximately almost 58% of salaries and focused on the public safety with fire and PD and over 52% of the benefits uh uh for uh fire and PD. So, a big focus on public safety. Scott, anything else you want to reference on budget book one before we go to the second?

Yeah, just real brief. It provides a pretty extensive background just on the city, the history of the city, you know, when it was incorporated. Um, some demographics. It provides uh rate so like sales tax, municipal rate comparisons to our peers. So, some information related to how we compare to our peers. I mean, it has our full-time positions by by department across all funds. So, not just the general fund. So, and there I think it shows five four to five years of that data. So you can, you know, you can see the changes um that have gone from year to year. Um and then as as the city manager mentioned, um there's also a narrative for all the general fund departments. A narrative being an explanation as to the focus of that department. Excuse me. And then there's a line item detailed budget for every one of the uh the departments within the general fund.

Next slide. And then the second book which is equally as thick uh is focused more on our capital improvements in our enterprise funds. Um and so uh this uh really focuses and you can get a lot of information on the diff different capital projects that we're going to be uh proposing or that are proposed in this FY27 budget. again at the next meeting a week from tonight, you'll have an opportunity to ask the experts, the directors about these capital projects and and the other, you know, other items that that are being proposed in here. Uh again, the big focus uh that we talked about at the last meeting and that continues to be the focus of of this budget and specifically of these capital projects is the water fund. And we'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute, but um just with it being a a primary driver of the capital spending um I think almost uh 74%. Um so a lot of a lot of money going uh to water in this proposed budget. Again, anything else, Scott, on that budget book? Sure, I'll make a couple more comments. So um the they're kind of categorized uh from an audit standard standpoint. So we have our special revenue funds. It includes the library. So there's information, there's a narrative on the library. uh park dedication. Some of the funds we don't do a lot of discussion about that, but that do impact a lot of residents in our community. Uh there's debt service funds. So there's a debt service schedules for all of our bond debt. So if you want to see the payments going out through the maturity of the debt, there's an individual schedule for each one of those. And then there's one exhibit that captures uh principal and interest uh for each uh debt uh for each bond that we have out through the end of the maturity. So, uh, information on that. We have a peer comparison for debt that gets a little, you know, like with our water plan, you know, that isn't like a normal borrowing kind of situation for us. We're we're basically

revamping that distribution system. So, we may skew higher than other peers, but right now we're still uh right in in line with a lot of our peers on a per capita debt basis. But if you're interested in our debt, that's in there as well. List on the capital equipment by fund. So all the equipment that we're going to be buying and specific lists on the capital projects as the city manager mentioned and detail project sheets for every capital project. So a detail sheet is like a picture of the issue or issues that are being addressed from the pro for the project information on the cost and a little narrative for each of the projects. And I would just also add, I know there's a lot of information within these books, but they're also hyperl so you can go to the table of contents. You can click on something and go directly, you know, if you're specifically interested in one area, you can go and specifically look at that. And I also want to shout out Chris Tarland, our our budget director, our budget manager, uh who's uh with us here today, who has really helped add over the last couple of years information and make this even more complete as as we continue to try and put as much transparency uh behind our budget as possible. Next slide. This is a slide we went over at the last meeting just showing, you know, overview of of what the budget looks like. uh the general fund is up compared to what was approved at the last uh in FY26 but if you go to the actual revised it's it's not even up a percent. The capital projects is where we are really seeing a a very large increase of 38% and again that stems from the water capital plan and we'll talk more about that. And so when you look at the the overall total budget is up about um uh uh 16.6% 6% or a little under 7% if you're looking at the revised numbers. Next slide. Again, we talked about last week or at the last meeting why the big increase and the primary factor in that is uh the

water. And so I think everybody remembers a couple of years ago we put into place a new water rate structure. We had planned we knew we needed to do about $400 million worth of uh capital work with our water. So, we put this new rate structure into place and this is us for the first year really starting to see us get to utilize that money. And so, with the proposed FY27 budget, we have almost $82 million in water capital projects. A lot of this is mandated. Uh so, you know, uh we talked last week about the leadline replacement that we'll be doing in some of the census tracks and some of the other uh water projects that are making up that $82 million. Uh that's an increase in our wa water capital investment by 281%. And again, just would remind the council and the community this we knew that we needed to do this work. That's why we did put in place the new rate structure. Uh uh Scott and the finance team and the water team have been working with financial advisors uh with our the the individuals that work on our bonds making sure that we can start to do this work and get ahead of it. and the rate structure that's put in place will help us pay for these bonds and they have all of that scheduled out. Next slide. Again, a major cost driver, water. Uh but there are other cost drivers. We've seen very large utility increases. Uh we have seen health insurance increases. Um that number is is in excess of $2.2 million. And I know in speaking with a lot of other government agencies and and I think private employers, everybody is seeing large health insurance increases and we are working to see what we can do to address that. And then also just a general inflationary number. Um as Scott would tell you, if if you know if we've got a budget of three mil $300 million and you're just doing a general 3% inflation and inflation has been even

worse than that, you're you're already at at $6 million. So we have to account there is some inflation uh that impacts all all of our budget and we are also uh this year we are catching up on equipment. I'll I'll give some more explanation to that in a minute. Uh last year we had uh pulled back on on quite a few equipment purchases. Uh this year we're going to try and catch up a little bit. Next slide. uh wanted to again address and I mentioned this at the last meeting uh before when we had had talked about some of keeping some of the revenues uh some of the property tax we had talked about the potential to put ourselves in a position to potentially do a bond in FY27 to do the uh public works campus and maybe address some of our other capital needs as we put the budget together. uh finance recommended that we not do that bond yet, that we wait and make sure we're going to get the revenues that we think we're going to get. And so instead of jumping into that bond in FY27, um that we wait and revisit that in FY27 or in FY28. As part of that, uh we will be um you know, that money is is is not going to go to waste uh per uh per this budget. We are going to catch up on some equipment purchases. Equipment another item that the more you delay it sometimes the more expensive it can get. So if we can get caught up on that, uh we think we're going to be making good strides there. Next slide. Again, just before I turn this over to Scott, um want to just talk a little bit about how we've tried to focus this FY27 budget on the strategic priorities uh that this council has adopted in terms of infrastructure, public safety, housing, and economic vitality. Next slide. And that leads us to just some of the main points that we've talked about with um asphalt and [snorts] concrete and roads. We hear all the time uh about

the roads in this community and the need to improve them. This budget has a 25 in increase 25% increase in asphalt and concrete spending as well as a proposal to add a a fourperson crew to public works so we can be operating the PA. Uh this budget has an investment in neighborhood revitalization of nearly a million dollars in programs for housing to demo those homes that are are not subject to rehab and to rehab those ones that are abandoned and and need to get back on the market. Again, we talked about the water capital plan that really makes this a historic budget. Uh we talked about strategic decisions uh with overtime and with staffing that is allowing us to add uh some necessary positions while limiting our overall salary increase to just 2.6% 6% and keeping our spend on those back-end departments kind of the what I call the supporting departments of admin, HR, legal, city clerk, and IT to just uh under just a little bit about 4.2% of the total budget. And that's that's uh increasing from last year just 37%. And then finally, uh, keeping this council's commitment to public safety, uh, with almost, uh, a little over $76 million being allocated to fire and police services. Next slide. And with that, I'll turn it over to Scott to go over a couple more slides. Thank you, city manager Jurgens. Um, during the preview on the 23rd, we went through a lot of financial exhibits. Um, they get a little long and tedious. Tonight we're going to keep it at a little higher level, but I wanted to remind um the community that the exhibit from the 23rd is online. As city manager mentioned, the budget books are online. So, uh any information that anyone is looking uh to review is available and and I'm glad the city manager remembered that within those budget books, there's hyperlinks uh in the table of contents. So just you know I would recommend the

community look through this table of contents see what's interest you click on it and there's there's a lot of good information to really dig in and hopefully uh the community finds it that you know we are being transparent and showing the impact of their dollars at use. So next slide please. So this is the budget growth exhibit that we um created a few years ago. I'm going to recap on the structure of this exhibit. It's it's top line is a total citywide budget. We're trying to show basically essentially what is our growth in government. Um so there's a couple different perspectives that can be taken on this. My perspective is if if there's a lot of variance within the activity like for instance capital projects. You can see in 2018 we only had $25 million in capital projects. In 2027 we've been talking about this number. It's a large number now. It's $111 million. Uh next year it's going to be very large again because we're we're frontending that that water infrastructure plan. But that's then it's going to go down. So is that really showing kind of like a growth in government that can vary from year to year. Do we do a pool? Do we do a library? So we're kind of backing out some of those non-recurring uh items that don't really in my opinion uh indicate a growth in government. So the net operating uh backing that down. So right now we're showing about a 3.39% uh annualized growth rate since 2018. If you look at the total uh it is 7.3%. I mentioned this during the preview. I'm going to mention it one more time. A significant I think about 40% we'll get to that slide next of our citywide budget is is um due to water, sewer, storm, and solid waste. And um those funds with the water rate increase we've incorporated, you know, for water, it'll start in 28 um an annual increase related to a CPI that's based on the costs with for water, sewer, and trash. Um, and so that's been about 4% over the

last three to four years. So when you compare that to 3.39%, we're pretty pretty much in line there. There's some other items or different ways of looking at this. We have it by population on the net. And then there was a question earlier today or later today um you know about where do we compare, where are we coming in versus our budgets. And so we have had this actual plus encumbrances. Encumbrances are uh when council approves a contract um for a project, we encumber, we put a PO in the system, we basically reflect that as being spent um from a budgetary standpoint, but we have to add those numbers together within our system to get kind of our total commitment. So we show the actual plus encumbrances and those numbers are gener have generally been lower than our total citywide budget and that has typically um been caused from ro projects that have rolled. So I picked one year just to provide as an example. So so FY2025 we budgeted 331.7 million total. Um the actual plus encumbrances is 283.8 million. So that's about a $48 million. We came in lower than budget. So of that in FY25, we rolled $25 million in MFT, state motor fuel tax projects related to Fox Creek and Hamilton. Um we had FA Locus Colton phase 8 budgeted, but we rolled that another year. Um and that was $21 million against across three funds. And then we at that point in time, we thought we might be ready to to do um some fire a new fire station review. So we included some land acquis acquisition and architectural fees of about 2 million. So that's $48 million in projects that rolled uh to the next year. So that significantly caused a variance between our total citywide budget and our actual plus incumbrances. And then there's there's some other nuances like we to balance our budget

some non-cash budgetary items. We put in use of reserves to show that we're going to use savings to balance our budget. that's not actual revenues in that current year. And then some funds we know we just want to say we want to save cash because we're going to address projects in the future. So we actually actually budget a contribution to savings. It's not a real expense though. We just that's the way we show our budget being balanced. Otherwise we'd show a profit so to speak. So that year we're going to budget you know we budget $5 million in contribution to reserves. We don't really spend that. So, we're going to have a variance to budget of $5 million. Next slide, please. Uh, this is a total citywide budget um by fund for the most part. There are some funds that have been consolidated just for efficiency of presentation here. We have 28 funds um across the city. Most of them are self-explanatory. the general general fund. We spent a lot of time on that because uh that that term that name does not lend itself to understanding exactly what it does, but that's public safety, parks, economic development, etc. A general fund is 40% approximately of the entire budget. It has gone up $11 million. We we're doing the $3 million equipment catchup 3.5 inflation, etc. You can see there um the projects capital improvements funds through the solid waste fund. I'm kind of considering those as almost direct impact. I mean all these hopefully all these funds have direct impact on our residents but these are capital projects and services that totals about 163 million that's 44% of our total citywide budget. So um at the bottom you can see you know 318 up to 370 city manager went over these increases um that third slideish you know $53 million increase over prior year but you can see that the water fund is a $64 million uh portion of that. Without the water fund increase, we'd be uh reducing the the

year-over-year budget. Next slide, please. And you know, not to lot to explain here, just a reminder uh to the community, we're going to be going through the directors and uh department head as are going to be going through all the projects uh next week. So this $111.7 million, $112 million worth of capital projects, reviewing each of the projects one at a time, you know, to demonstrate to the community where those dollars going. Um where the dollars go at work for the community. The city manager spent time talking about the water fund. I just want I I did um want to reflect back on when we did the bond last year. We did a $33 million bond showed five years of activity or projections for the water fund and it incorporated you know this target you know so it was even going back to the rate increases we were looking at frontending I'll call it frontloading a lot of this infrastructure buildout and leveraging the revenues from the rate increase to borrow so that we could um address those needs now versus having to wait. Next slide please. again uh appreciate uh the review tonight. We did update the timeline for this and so next week we will have more discussion on the budget. Obviously happy to answer any questions tonight and then the public hearing is scheduled for March 23rd and then adoption as early as April 13th. Next slide please. And finally, just want to again remind the community that all of these documents, the presentations, the budget books are available on our website and we've got a banner which I think is the very first thing you see. So when you go on to our website, you can just click that banner and it's going to take you directly to the finance page and you can see all of the budget information there. And with that, we're happy to answer any questions.

Are there questions from members of the council [clears throat] comments? member MN. [snorts] Um, thank you for adding the what we budgeted what we spent. Um, so if I'm understanding, last year we spent about $48 million less than what we budgeted. Is that correct? This what you just showed on the slide? Yes.

Okay. So, um, a few comments and and then some some questions. Um, first of all, just a comment, and this is redundant with something that I've said before, so please forgive me, but when we say peer communities, I think we should be including where people are actually moving to as they leave Bloomington. As I saw yet another moving truck drive out of my neighborhood today with people who were not moving to Peoria, Springfield, Champagne or Decatur, but rather across the border into Indiana where the state is requiring significant year-over-year constraint of revenue growth upon their localities. Um, I think it's important for us to know if we were a product company and we were benchmarking against our competitors, that'd be who we're competing with. Um, so, um, just a recommendation there. Um, so I I'd like to know how much of this increased cost is addressed with the rate increases that we're imposing.

Bear with me one moment. Um, I'm going to say for the citywide revenues exhibit that we went through on the 23rd, um, charges for services citywide are going up 10.8 million. Um, water increase is over 8 million of that. Just a little over 8 million. Okay. And so I'd like to pivot from that and talk about our current debt for for a minute. And just for illustration, let's use the arena because it's something everyone can relate to. The arena was built in approximately 200 two or so

six [laughter] 2006 forever. How much did we buy it for? How much do we still owe? And how much have we paid in debt service? I can tell you I have an exhibit that I brought that shows how much we owe. Um I did not bring how much we've paid so far.

We can we can get that information though. So the reason that I I would like this to be discussed in a forum where because people can relate to that and you know my my point is anytime we're borrowing money and in this case I think the last number that you shared is I believe we still owed in the neighborhood of 1920 million on it and the original purchase was in the 38 million range and you know that's 20 years later. I mean it's just something that we should all be aware of like how much we are actually saddling the future of this community for a second component to that is something that we discussed in our offsite many months ago and that is the documented accumulated balance of what we believe our deferred maintenance to be. Um, I know we're seeing a big example of deferred maintenance here with this water proposal, but how are we doing on that? Is that document under development? I think we should know what that um cost is so that we have a better picture and aren't surprised by a 16 17% budget increase into the future. How's that going?

Yeah, I can speak on that. We are working on that. I'm not sure how how soon we will have that, but I can if if it's not ready by the next meeting, um we can at least give an update on it.

So, even if we just looked at one piece and the the piece that I've mentioned before are these clap storm in storm inlets, you know, we're going to have weather events continuing this week. You know, we had some weather over the weekend. um it's my impression that that's going to accumulate to be alone a pretty significant number. I hope I'm surprised and that's not the case. But even if we just took what we could on very specific known gaps such as that, that would be helpful because at least we would have some directional understanding of what the trajectory is of that deferred maintenance cost. Does that make sense? So, I'm not asking, you know, that you find everywhere that we have one piece of deferred maintenance before coming to us with an update. Um, so concern again about taking on more debt and uh again, appreciate um the request to catch up on equipment. You mentioned the paper. I don't know if that's good or bad because I don't know what the math is behind our analysis of what our return on investment of using that paper will be. And as we continue to build um capabilities and scientific thinking that would be helpful to know so that we know if we're catching up on equipment that it's a good deal for the people whose money we use to pay for this stuff. Um the last thing I would say um with regard to use of serves and reserves and kind of re reflecting that as quote savings, you know, just again with humility, recognizing that that's money that we're charging our residents for primarily. Um, what conversations have there been about buying down some of this debt that we already have so that we can get some of that cleaned up before we continue to take on more debt

here in the coming months or years?

Well, there's there's some complexities related to that. I mean um increasing the water rates and utilizing water revenue to pay down debt from other funds would not be appropriate. So we can't do that. We we were in con not I would say constant um discussions um we discussed with our financial advisors um whether or not it it's efficient to refinance. Now there's there's dollars that come forward to council, you know, for use of reserves such as downtown streetscape. There could be alternate uses of that of paying down the debt. Um, but that is kind of like a prioritization situations, but we can't use, you know, revenues. The general fund has subsidized other funds. Um, and that's allowable, but using water rate u water revenues to pay down other debt would not be allowable.

Sure. I I understand that it has to be within the confines of what we can use it for, but um you know, I just think again as a matter of um good practices rather than refinancing and then just further extending terms even when the math might make sense in a short term. It'd be great to see some of these things like a 20-year-old building not still have, you know, half of its principal still yet to be paid. So, thank you. Other members question or comment. I just have one more question

and it's kind of building on what you just said, Scott, and it's just asking more than anything for some clarity um regarding the decision to um kind of delay the bond approach, you know, do do factors like that come into play when you think about that? Is those recommendations based on what we perceive the market may be down the road or anticipations? Or do we think that we can manage our our projects based on the cost right now and we don't anticipate that they're going to rise substantially that we can wait that additional year? Well, um, waiting the additional year for addressing the public works campus or fire or police, uh, was more a matter of

the revenues revenues available for the debt service. So I mean you know we could have discussions where you know about finding the debt service revenues but um we have built in some assumptions related to the changes in in the legislation for the online that we think is going to um include another bump in home rule and state sales tax. So as the city manager referenced

and I'm sorry I'm I'm being repeating myself from last time. instead of saying, "Hey, you know, we're going to have the dollars available for debt service to a $30 million bond and, you know, build out Owens nursery or, you know, look at a fire station." Um, let's pause a year, get caught up in equipment because we kicked out about $3.9 million. We delayed $3.9 million last year. We got some other capital expenditures, maintenance. We have some, you know, the parking deck at the at the police department is is a large dollar amount. It's 750,000 I believe. Um so let's address some of those issues and make sure those revenues are coming in. We won't put ourselves tremendously at risk related to that. We understand council member Mosley and you brought this up last time but yeah costs related to doing a capital project waiting year. We're going to bear additional costs but a riskreward kind of situation. And that's the only reason I wanted to ask you again again just because obviously some factors have changed in our market right now and I just wanted to ask if anything changed right when we consider cost and other things over I mean obviously it's only two weeks but what you just said makes sense as factors that you drive

I'm sorry I interrupted you when you say market you you mean like interest rates interest rates and yeah and so those you know in the bond market I mean when you're talking about a 30-year bond um a an interest reduction that occurs now may not have an impact on you know what's going to be offered you know out 30 years there's going to be assumptions put into place but yes you know we're hoping that the delay will actually assist us related to that as well so we have a lower cost of of carrying that debt you know and maybe that's what I should have asked this time because that's what I was getting back

that was part of the consideration too it's kind of like a side benefit you know like let's make sure the revenues come in make sure we have the dollars available for debt service and then you know while costs may be going up or completing the project costs may come down as far as like the debt service goes from an interest standpoint and we can target we can buy down some things that we complete and hopefully that additional revenue will come available. Okay, thanks again. I appreciate it. I'm not going to ask you about bonds anymore next week. Other members do that

comments? uh director on one of those slides there was at the very bottom [clears throat] um a correlation of what was the 2016 uh mental health sales tax side of things. Can you explain what what you were trying to articulate there for us? So that's you know a policy decision related to what we're going to do with revenues. So it it's impacting our expenses. So, as revenues go up, we're peeling off 10% to the county mental health. So, we're just we're backing that out of our total gross budget to show it as kind of like it was like a strategic decision. It's really not a growth in government because um that's kind of the idea behind that exhibit is to show what our growth in government is. So, as those home rule sales taxes go up, we're not adding people, we're not adding departments, um but we're having to pay the county in addition, you know, the 10% on that. Our expenditures are gone. So, we're backing that out as an one of the line items. Does that answer your question, sir? Mayor,

I think so. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? If not, then I believe March 16th we're back here for a special meeting regarding capital side of things and the directors explaining their budgets from that standpoint. Absolutely. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Uh since there's no motion needed on that, we're going to move then to I believe the uh city manager discussion at this stage.

Thank you very much. If you could pull my report up, uh go to the next slide. Wanted to give an update on the uh drought and our water conservation efforts. Um so the map up there uh was effective March 3rd. So it's a little bit it it really has not changed that much since the last map I showed. We'll see if if these the rain we received the last couple of days maybe changes that in the next couple of weeks. Uh but we are still again very much in that red zone. Uh which is is not the zone you want to be in. The chart on the left I guess depending on which way you're looking at it. I guess right maybe um shows when we hit the 10- foot deficit on March or on February 6, I think. Um what just some random dates in there, what that those lake levels and what that deficit has looked like up until today. So what that shows is that on February 6, you know, when we came out with the additional water conservation efforts, we were at about 10.1. Uh we came up and we were hovering about the 10.6 six level for quite a while and then um early last week we kind of spiked up to 11 uh a deficit of 11 ft and we did not like to see that and we all you know we look at these numbers every day and we're what's going on here is this rain going to come the rain did come and and so instead of continuing to go up we started to go down a little bit and the most recent reading today was 10.7 and so there is still water that's coming in from our wershed into the lakes. There is still more rain in the forecast. So, we'll continue to see what this does, but this kind of just gives you a snapshot as there's there's not a lot of giant leaps and bounds. Um, but we we monitor this very closely and we

still need the rain. There's rain in the forecast, but again, you never know what mother nature's going to do. So, we continue to ask the residents uh to conserve uh water as much as as they can and we will keep tracking this and and hopefully we're out of this here in another couple of months. But until then, uh keep up the water conservation efforts. Next slide. As the mayor said, um next week instead of having the committee the whole we are going to change that to a special meeting. Uh we have at least one item we need to uh vote on. So, we're going to have that as a special meeting and then we will also have the C capital projects outlined. Uh, so, uh, just giving kind of some advanced warning. It'll be at the same time, same location, but instead of being a committee of the whole, it'll be a special meeting. Next slide. Again, want to encourage anybody that wants more information about the budget to go to our website. Next slide. And, uh, there was a a slide in there missing. Um, and I just real quick before we go to the mayor, uh, wanted to, um, uh, mention that, uh, Council Member Ward called a neighborhood meeting a couple of Saturdays ago. Uh, Mayor Brady was there, uh, Deputy City Manager Sue Mclofflin, Police Chief Jamal Simington to talk about just some of the recent, uh, incidents in the neighborhood and some of the gun violence. And, uh, just wanted to express my appreciation. There was 30 to 40 people, I think, from the neighborhood that showed up. and we had a really really good conversation with the neighbors. I think some some good ideas and some good things, you know, to come out of that. Uh but wanted to share my appreciation for Council Member Ward and and for those who attended. Um as as we said at the meeting, we we take those issues very seriously and we continue to want to make a difference in all of the wards, but specifically where there become hot spots like that, we're certainly going to do everything we can to to calm the situation there. So, just wanted to share my appreciation on that. And that's all I have. Mayor,

thank you. And with that for council reports, we'll go to member Ward. Thank you. I guess she saw that I was going to press that button. Um, getting good.

Yeah. [laughter] No, I I do want to express my own thanks to um city manager Jurgens, to Mayor Brady, to Chief Simington, to Assistant Chief Williams, and to Deputy City Manager Mclofflin for taking the time on their Saturday afternoon to show up and be a presence in Ward 7. Um and also I want to thank Loving Missionary Baptist Church on North Roosevelt Avenue for hosting the meeting. there were about 32 or so residents there in addition to the the city staff um and elected who were were there. Um I yet again right this is the third time since I've been a been in the last six years um my little block has um been the subject of gun violence and this time sadly again um somebody was actually injured and um and that's that's too frequent for my comfort level. I don't know about anybody else, but um I'm really grateful that you all took the time to come to the to the meeting. Um it was kind of called on a pretty quick turnaround and people showed up. Um I am happy and thankful that there's been some progress. I mean obviously the big progress was um was the arrest of two two suspects related to that and that happened even before the meeting. But but that was that was really wonderful work on the part of the police department and I'm very grateful for their their speedy work on that and I'm hopeful that that will lead to a a good resolution um at least for the community. Um, since the meeting, um, I' I'm happy to, um, to tell anybody in the neighborhood who's listening, we've had some progress on the the question of the the surveillance camera that was put in

place, and there were some some issues around that. Really happy to to see those resolved. Um, and happy to hear that there's there the the issue of the burnedout house across the street um, is also something that's being addressed already. and and um is in the works. So, I'm I'm excited about that progress. I'm excited about people showing up and showing an interest for even letting me, you know, speak right now to the issue. What I I need to emphasize is that one of the things Oh, and the last thing that that came out of the meeting was that a good 20 out of the 30 people signed up to be a part of a neighborhood association. I'm totally psyched about that. And people have taken on, you know, getting in contact with each other and so on. That's wonderful. The the message that I think my neighborhood was sending though is that it is wonderful to react after a crime, after a shooting, and to do all these good things to catch people, but what are we doing as a community to prevent the crime in the first place? I don't want to have to have neighborhood meetings for this kind of thing. and and so what are we doing? Where are we putting our money for that? Um a few weeks ago we decided that we were going to spend $120,000 out of current funds to buy new guns. One of the arguments made for that that purchase was that those guns were getting pretty close to needing to be replaced. which

means they're not going we're not going to have to spend that $120,000 next year or the following year. So what are we doing with that? Is it going toward prevention or is it simply going to react? I challenge my colleagues and I challenge the city staff to let's at least come up with with that little bit out of this whole right almost $400 million budget. Can we come up with $120,000 to put toward some prevention? Unfortunately, I'm not going to be here next week. I'm I already had out of town travel plans. All right, I've been saying some of this next week, but can we please think proactively? I don't want somebody killed the next time. And you know, it's it's kind of scary when 11 shots are fired and to wake you up and then another four out of your driveway. It's scary. And to know that people actually are like bleeding in front of your house in those moments. Can we try to prevent that? $120,000. We already said it. We're not going to have to spend it next time.

Thank you, Member Hendricks. Member Lee, member Scott. The only thing I'll say is uh we've got early voting um still uh 8:30 to 7 o'clock this week um and Saturday and Sunday. I know that that probably anybody that's that's paid attention to the meeting until now is probably a wonk enough that they know that voting is happening, but let's just get on the record. Go vote. Thank you. Member Strazza, member Dannenburg, me member Matney.

I just have a thank you that I didn't get a chance to share last week because I was on remote. Um, so I just would like to say to Kelly, to um, Billy, to your staff, Kelly, thank you guys for the work you did in support of rightzoning the Old Farm Lakes 375 homes. Um, I just can't tell you how much that meant to those residents to give them um some assurances against what they're seeing with regard to um corporate uh purchases of homes in their neighborhood. Thank you very much for all the hard work and the multiple meetings that you endured with me along in that. So, thank you very much to you all.

Member Mosley. Yeah, I just want to um give an acknowledgement to um Sergeant Nau and the Bloomington Police Department. I was um fortunate to enough to do my first um the first of this year and my first um neighborhood walk in Oakwood Oakwood subdivision last week. And so it was rewarding and and and and we were able to knock on some doors and get to meet some people just to understand and it wasn't just a police department for all city services and and so just had an enjoyable time. I know you guys were stranded um or you would have been with us, but um we had a good time and I realized that I chose the wrong field because when you knock on doors and you're a police officer, kids always ask you for photos and so I'm like, "What about me? What about me?" But that's it. Thank you.

Thank you very much to all of you. And a couple comments from uh from myself uh in regards to one was uh recently member Strazza and uh our city manager Mr. [snorts] Jurgens joined uh several others on a trip to Washington DC when uh by not only the economic development council's one voice trip but we had some uh side trips and some side visits uh and those I think were very fruitful hopefully with Senator Durban, Senator Duckworth, uh our representatives uh Sorenson and the Hood and um while we we worked in unity in some areas, we also advocated obviously on behalf strongly for Bloomington and capital needs and projects that they have. And I think for most situations, we saw everybody personally uh from the senators to the representatives, which was which was very nice uh just strictly on behalf of Bloomington uh which was uh what we're all about here with Bloomington um and those projects. Um so we also had the opportunity to visit with uh our lobbyist the Thorn Run Group and individuals and talk about some uh projects in some direction and that particular area. So I was appreciative of that. Thank you. And on a much lighter note once we got back um I started the uh zoo stampede race on Saturday. I did not run but um I think over 300 participants were out there at the zoo and that's obviously for those who don't know the zoological society the foundation of our zoo and the many many many good things that occur at that zoo and it was just fun to see a lot of people out there that particular day and families and supporting the zoo. So with that, um I appreciate everyone's comments and uh offers of help and look forward to um a motion uh to adjurnn if we have one.

I'll move to ajourn. Hendricks and a second. Second. Seconded by Dannenburgger and member Dannenburgger. And I believe we could take a voice. All in favor say I. I. Thank you very much. and March 16th, same time, same