City Council - Regular Meeting

gentlemen we'll go ahead and call to order the city council meeting for of city of bloomington for monday july the 13th the hour of 6 p.m upon us and we will ask that all stand for the pledge of allegiance remain standing for a moment of silent prayer and or reflection pledge of allegiance to the flag of the united states of america

and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Clerk, could you please take the roll?

Council Member Mosley?

Here.

Council Member Montney? Here. Council Member Straza?

Here.

Council Member Hendricks?

Here.

Council Member Ward? Here. Council Member Lee?

Here.

Council Member Scott? Here. And Mayor Brady?

Here. Next, I need a motion to allow Council Member Kearns to attend the meeting tonight remotely due to her health reason. If there would be a motion by Member Montague?

I'd be happy to make that motion to allow Council Member Kearns to attend. Participate remotely due to a covered reason.

Thank you. Is there a second?

I'll second.

Second from Member Ward and Clerk.

Council Member Mosley?

Yes.

Council Member Motney?

Yes.

Council Member Straza?

Yes.

Council Member Hendrick?

Aye.

Council Member Ward? Aye. Council Member Lee?

Yes.

Council Member Scott? Yes. No nays to announce.

Thank you.

And Council Member Kearns, can you hear us?

Yes, I can, if you can hear me.

We can. Thanks.

Next, I believe we have a proclamation this evening, recognizing July the 18th, 2026, as Arts and Health Day. And proclamation before me, then I think we have some individuals here, recipients and representing the city. Whereas the National League of Cities recognizes that arts and culture have a tremendous impact on cities, towns, and villages across the country, the National League of Cities recognizes that the impact of arts and culture spans economic development, community and individual health, housing, and the built environment, workforce development, civic participation, education, activism, and social cohesion. Participation in arts experiences has been shown to reduce depression and anxiety, improve physical health outcomes, reduce social isolation, and build strong community networks. Through the Arts for Everybody, the National League of Cities has championed the work of cities of all sizes to increase community well-being through partnerships with the arts and artist employment. The City of Bloomington has is a proud member of the National League of Cities and has benefited from the organization's research, technical expertise, federal advocacy, and opportunities to learn from other local governments. The National Venture Venue Arts for Everybody is celebrating and amplifying the intrinsic health benefits of the arts and culture with more than 18 communities across the United States. And the City of Bloomington values the contributions of the arts and culture sector to the City of Bloomington, and how the arts make our community unique, engaging, and robust. Now, therefore, I, Dan Brady, Mayor of the City of Bloomington, hereby proclaim July the 18th, 2026, as Arts and Health Day in celebration of all that the arts and cultural contribute to the social cohesion and well-being of the City of Bloomington. And I believe we have Cecil and others. Oh, If you go right ahead and like to step to the microphone, identify yourself, and we'd like to present the resolution to you.

My name is Faisal Rashid, and I am the co-chair of the Cultural Commission.

My name is Anjali Gorachki. I am the co-chair of the Cultural Commission.

Dr. Tracy Gaston-Spears, member of the Cultural Commission.

Thank you. Are there any comments in particular you'd like to share?

I think you covered a significant amount in the proclamation.

That was a good one.

Yeah, it was a good one. It is extremely crucial that everyone understands the gravity of feeling free inside of an art form. And when you are looking at art is always going to be a different perspective from everyone around you. The next person next to you is going to see something completely different. And that is is what makes us human and that is what is going to get us through anything, is being able to express yourself freely, making sure that every youth specifically and anyone that feels like a child's ill inside has that freedom to express themselves the way that they need to. So things like arts and health day are absolutely critical for entities that are in the community, whether it's social services or like things like Carle Health and Chestnut, the social service agencies, WBRP, things like that, but also our local artists and entities like BCAI, Cultural Arts and Humanities that can come together for our community, with the community to ensure that these types of expressions are protected and not judged negatively so that we can actually move forward together. because that's the only way we are going to do this.

Thank you very much. If you'd like to come forward, we'd like to present the proclamation to you and ask that you acknowledge the council members and they acknowledge you and their deep appreciation for what you do. Thank you. Next, I believe we have a public comment, or do we have public comment?

We do. So we had several send emails in. We had Marguerite Cathy Crutcher, Will Gadgic, London Warholic, Gage Juarez, Vicki Eilers, and Mark Zablocki. And then after you read your public comment statement, we'll have two speak in person. We'll start with Justin Healy and then to follow Deb Halperin.

Thank you. The 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 listen and hear diverse points of view. To maximize the impact of public comment and show respect of the expression of all views, speakers should maintain civility and focus on city issues. Speakers must identify themselves for the record, but not required to give their address. Each speaker will be given the floor for three minutes and the council does not respond or engage in debate. Any speaker that engages in threatening or disorderly behavioral will be deemed out of order and their time ceased. Our first speaker.

Our first speaker, Justin.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. I'll try and stay under three minutes this time. My name is Justin Helley. Council and Mayor, can any of you tell me if the city has a budget surplus or deficit, and are there any areas where we can trim back the budget? Records state that the three Bloomington golf courses lose money each year as they are expensive entities to maintain. Have we thought about maybe raising golf rates to chip away at that? The library also has an $8.2 million budget each year, and I'm pretty confident it could probably run on half of that. So if we could reevaluate that, I would recommend it. Does Connect Transit truly need all these large buses when I commonly see fewer than just five people riding those buses when I go around town each day? And lastly, when's the last time a city auditor was brought in from outside, maybe from the state, just to look at the books and see if there's any opportunities to cut out some waste? I think it would be an excellent idea. which could aid in helping our city be fiscally responsible with the tax revenue from its citizens. In many cases, as we know, local, state, and federal government, it gets too big for its own good, and it's hard to locate its own inefficiencies and sometimes needs a third-party point of view to point out some of those areas or opportunity to save that money. I like this town. I've been here seven years paying taxes, proud homeowner as well in Ward 2. where I now have a family, wife, and a newborn. And I just want to see the city improved. There's been a ton of improvements that I've seen. You know, GE Road, great improvement. That was like driving through an off-road course before that was redone. So I was really, really happy to see that. But I do like to see it continually be improved. but while being fiscally responsible. In the immediate future, I do pray that our city is keen on removal of wasteful spending and then continuing to make decisions like decisions revolving a budget with integrity. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Last up, we have Deborah Halperin.

Hello. Good evening. My name is Deborah Halperin. I'm speaking tonight. There is a part of the consent agenda about the West Bloomington Quality of Life Roadmap. And I was one of the original members of the task force way back in 2008. I was then a founding member of the West Bloomington Revitalization Project, and I actually served as president of that board from 2018 to 2020, so right into COVID. But my job is at Illinois Wesleyan University. And our partnership between Illinois Wesleyan and the WBRP has been really important and meaningful for us. A lot of the things that the programs that the WBRP runs actually started because of Wesleyan students, including the tool library was started by an accounting major from Naperville who just liked tools. The veggie oasis program that gleans produce from the farmer's market, the healthy eating program, All the murals that you see at the intersection of Washington and Allen, including the George Floyd mural. We wrote the grant that established the Rick Heiser Memorial Garden. We started the first walk-in, bike-out event that has now become the Bike Co-op that is based at the WBRP. We had an econ major do a study on foreclosures for us. We did an Earth Day cleanup, and we helped write the grant that established the West Bloomington Housing Collaborative and brought money to Habitat, MidCentral Community Action, and the WBRP. So we are really excited that a new quality of life roadmap can be happening, and again, with TSCA, who was our original partner all those years ago, and Illinois Wesleyan would Looks forward to partnering with the WBRP and the city and all of our nonprofit partners on the west side to continue working towards a revitalized neighborhood. Thank you.

Thank you.

There's no further public comment.

Thank you very much. Next, we'll go ahead and move to public hearings at this time. We have a public hearing for the program year 2025 Community Development Block Grant. We'll call the public hearing to order at 6.13 p.m. on today's date, Monday, July the 13th. And welcome to the podium, or at least table, Mr. William Besser of the Community Development Division and Director Patrick Cordero, gentlemen.

Thank you, Mayor, Council, City Manager, This evening, I want to go through a brief PowerPoint presentation on the Program Year 2025 Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report, or CAPER. I promise I didn't name that. That has HUD written all over it. Next slide, please. So just a little bit of basics about the CDBG program. CDBG program is a formula grant that is provided to municipalities and other governmental entities across the country. There are three national objectives that have to be met for this funding. One is to benefit low- to moderate-income persons, prevent or eliminate slum and blight conditions, or meet an urgent community need. The city is an entitlement grantee for this funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which oversees it, and the regulations that govern CDBG funding are found at 24 CFR Part 570. Next slide, please. The CAPER really is a report card on what the city did with the CDBG funds in the previous year. So this CAPER covers program year 2025, which is May 1st, 2025 to April 30, 2026. It's really just a report card, a snapshot on what we did to achieve the goals outlined in the consolidated plan, which the current consolidated plan is 2025 to 2029. This is the first year of that consolidated plan. Total spending within the program year was just over $600,000. Next slide, please. I won't go through each one of these bullet points, but as you can see, a strong majority of the funds are spent on housing related initiatives. And each activity that is within the CDBG annual action plan has to meet the consolidated plan goals. So it all connects within a five-year period. So as you can see, most of our funds go to housing, particularly housing rehabilitation activities within the city's regeneration and preservation areas. Next slide, please. Just wanted to go through a few key accomplishments from this year. We had 13 affordable housing units repaired or rehabilitated. So this could be anything from lead-based paint hazard removal to emergency repairs on water heater, AC, sewer laterals, to more generalized housing rehabilitation projects that I'll get into in a little bit. And then we had one housing unit that was provided an accessibility ramp through our partnership with the AMBUX Corn Belt Chapter. sidewalk improvement project was also completed near the newly named Kim Holman Short Towers or formerly known as Woodhill Towers. This project will serve over 3,000 residents, nearly 4,000 residents, and almost 3,000 of those residents being low to moderate income. Next slide, please. One of the critical aspects of CDBG funding is our public service dollars. Now, these are capped at 15% of our annual allocation, so we can't give that much money to nonprofits, but what we do give is very impactful, as you can see. So this past program year, we funded, helped fund the Home Sweet Home Ministries on House Street Outreach Program, where 177 community members were served. We provided funding to the West Bloomington Revitalization Project for community revitalization activities. And then we also provided funding to KTB Financial Services for their financial empowerment program. Next slide, please. Also within the program year, we had our administrative service sub awards. So this is funding that is provided to Prairie State Legal Services to run a self-sufficiency training for public housing residents and housing choice voucher In addition to those two items, we also provide funding to the McLean County Regional Planning Commission for their community planning activities, and they continue to organize the Regional Housing Initiative, which brings staff from various governmental entities within McLean County to discuss housing issues and to build solutions to pressing problems. Next slide, please. For our housing rehabilitation projects this year, of the 13 that were completed, 75% were completed within the regeneration or preservation area as defined by the comprehensive plan for the city. Over half of the projects completed were in the regeneration area. Really, the projects that are outside of those two areas are typically emergency repairs because that program is available to residents outside of those two areas. Obviously, It's limited funding and unfortunately has not gone up in quite a few years, so we do have to target our funding more geographically than in the past. Next slide, please. Rehabilitation work from the CDBG program makes a lot of repairs. We're very lucky to have a world-class team that is able to handle various rehabilitation projects, everything from windows to electrical, plumbing, roof, accessibility improvements, all things that are covered by our housing rehabilitation program with CDBG funds. And I just want to take a moment to thank my team for all their work that make these improvements possible for our community members. Next slide, please. So we have a before and after example picture of one of our projects from this previous program year. As you can see on the left, the kitchen was in a state of disrepair. It really wasn't functional for the community member. The flooring had issues. I believe this home also had a water heater that had automotive wiring. So in many ways, our housing rehabilitation program prevents fire department from having to respond and other emergency services. So it saves the city money in that respect. And on the right, you can see the finished product that our contractors provide and that the city oversees. Next slide, please. And then perhaps my favorite project of the program year was the Holton Home Tot Lot Improvement. So these playground equipment was rather old, not really in a functional condition for residents of Holton Homes. But as you can tell, we put in brand new playground equipment that the kids were extremely excited to get to use. We were told that they were watching the contractors put it in and waiting patiently to get to use it. So it was a great project to see have happen with CDBG funds. Next slide, please. So we do have a public comment period that has been open since July 6th. That'll be open until July 22nd. The draft CAPER is available on the city's website at the hub, the Bloomington Public Library and the Community Impact Enhancement Department office. And I have my contact information there if anyone has any questions and I will yield my time and happy to respond to any questions.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk, from the public portion of this. Is there any testimony or questions?

No, we've had no one register to provide testimony.

Okay. So from the council.

Yeah, thanks for this. It's always exciting to hear what you all have been doing with the funds. I am curious to know, can you give us any comparison to the previous year? Remind us. How many rehabs there were last year? I noticed 13 this year. How does that compare to the previous year?

I don't know. I don't remember last year's total. I believe it's close. I will say, however, though, historically we have seen an increase in the number of housing rehabilitation projects that we've been able to complete because we have increased funding over the past few years towards that line item. But I can get you a specific number.

Thank you. And just one demolition? Is that right?

Completed with CDBG funds. There were other demolitions that were completed using state funds or general fund dollars.

Okay. Okay. Thank you for that clarification.

Other members?

Member Lee? Just curious, what is the process for, like, applying for these help or for assistance? And, you know, how do you prioritize, like, you know, who gets the assistance? So if you could speak on that.

Yeah. So for housing rehabilitation funds, that application is continually open. It's available on the city's website. We also have paper copies for folks that need it. It's first come, first serve. We go through, unfortunately, it's federal funds. So we have to go through a rather rigorous evaluation and intake process. But we do have staff that helps folks every step of the way through that. So they can continue to apply for these funds on the city's website. For the nonprofit funding, we hold annual competitions towards the end of a calendar year. We're nonprofits can apply for the funding. They're ranked using a standardized scoring tool, and then we announce the funding with the annual action plan. Other members?

Member Kearns?

No, thank you.

Thank you.

Mayor, if I could, I was just going to say it's not too late if somebody did want to come forward and testify, they could, but I didn't have anyone register.

Thank you. There's no further comment then or discussion. We'll go ahead and close the public hearing at 6.22 p.m. on July the 13th. And next we will move to, thank you, gentlemen, next we will move to the consent agenda and the items under number eight listed on the consent agenda. And we'd like to ask members of the council if there are items on that consent agenda that anyone would wish to have polled for further discussion or further action.

Mayor, I'd like to thank you. I'd like to pull 8J.

8J? Okay. So first, with that, is there any other comments? Okay. Next, we'll then go ahead and I'll ask for a motion for the other items on the consent agenda first.

I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda with the exception of item J.

Motion by Member Hendricks, seconded by Member Straza. And if the clerk would take the roll, please.

Not displaying 8J on there, but it is displaying online and I have it taped. So with the exception of 8J.

I'm going to go roll call.

All right. The item passes. No needs to announce her item.

Oh, there we go. Okay. Thank you very much. Next, we'll go back to then 8J to Member Ward.

Yes, thanks. Yeah, I would like to pull this one or ask to pull this one because I'd like to actually see us table it until August 24th. There are a number of questions that people seem to have about this item. And there are some folks who are absent today or not able to be as fully present perhaps as they would like to be. And so it just seems like it would be a better opportunity for us to get more information from city staff if we waited until later in August. I'm not opposed to this item. I'm just wanting to table it to get a little more information. and give people an opportunity to contribute.

Okay, thank you. I would second that motion. I'll second it. There you go. Thank you. We'll go ahead then and ask for a roll call vote on that motion that was seconded.

Yes. Okay. That's okay. Council Member Straza, how would you like to vote?

Yes.

Thank you. The motion passes. No nays to announce.

Thank you. Next, we'll move on to the regular agenda for tonight's meeting under number 900. is a regular agenda and update on housing rehabilitation and consideration and action. And our city manager, Mr. Juergens, for further introduction.

Thank you very much, Mayor and Council. Tonight, this is a good news item where we are actually going to be getting a little bit more money from the state to do some of the rehab work that we had planned. So I'm going to let our Director of Community Impact and Enhancement, Cordero Patrick talk about that as well as William Bessler. But we thought at the same time, it might be good to just give a brief update of how our neighborhood revitalization efforts are going. As you recall, we put a significant amount of effort in this in the budget. And again, we're only a couple of months into this fiscal year, but we wanted to provide the council with an update. So with that, I'll turn it over to you.

Thanks, Jeff. Good evening, Mayor, Council. Again, just want to take about five minutes or so here just to kind of give an update on where we are currently as it relates to community revitalization, specifically talking about housing. But then also kind of give you a preview of where we're going as well with four or five other programs that we're going to be doing this spring, fall. So to begin with housing demolitions, so we have five in progress right now. One demolition has started. We have two demolitions on the contract getting ready to start. And then we have three that's being reviewed by the Historic Preservation Commission. So again, very excited about removing blight out of our neighborhoods at the same time while we're also trying to rehab homes in those same neighborhoods as well as build more affordable housing. So five of those are in progress. As it relates to housing rehabilitation itself, and again, this is not calendar year. This is since May 1st of this year. We have rehabbed 10 properties thus far. Then we have another 10 properties that are in progress to be rehabbed, meaning that they are either in pre-construction phase or they're actually under construction. And so that would be a total of 20 once those 10 are done in this fiscal year. And I also just provided, you know, sort of a breakdown of where the funding is coming from as it relates to community revitalization for housing, particularly CDBG dollars. HRAP is what we call it. Some people call it HRAP dollars, but I call it HRAP dollars, which is those are state. That's a state grant, which we're going to be talking about the item on the agenda tonight as it relates to that particular grant of getting additional dollars. And I will say, and William said it earlier, but kudos to the Community Development Division. They're doing a really good job of not only receiving grant funds for this critical work, but also making sure those funds get out the door quickly. In fact, that is one of the reasons why we're getting additional dollars from Illinois Housing Development Authority of the HROP dollars to do more rehabs. It's because we push the dollars out of doors so quickly and get rehabs done here in the city of Bloomington. So very, very proud of William and his team for that in that regard. We also receive strong community dollars through Illinois Housing Development Authority to do specific to do demolitions. And so that is one of the funding opportunities items as it relates to housing as well. We also just applied for additional funding from Illinois Housing Development Authority for Strong Communities through the Strong Communities Program for an additional $350,000 to do demolitions over the next two years. And so hopefully we're here, I think in the fall of this year, if we're gonna be successful receiving those dollars so we can continue to remove blight from our neighborhoods. Reblooming the block was also a general fund budget item. And I'll talk more about that one in a second here, as well as the small home improvement program and the beautify your block. And then Council also, to your credit, also approved a general fund line item of $250,000 to do addition demolitions as well. I will note that our CDBG funds have not been released to us yet. by HUD. I mean, that is not necessarily abnormal. So it's going to be okay. We're going to get the dollars, okay? Scott, our finance director, is doing a great job working with us to make sure that we can continue these projects while that funding has not come in yet. Next slide. So that's what we've done. So let me just talk a little bit about kind of where we're going and anticipate a timeline for some of this. Re-bloom the block, and I'm just going to provide some details. This one is going to actually come back to you all, Mayor and Council, for consideration. The intent is to bring a resolution back to you all to do a partnership with Habitat for Humanity. So Habitat for Humanity has four vacant parcels out on Trailside Court that they anticipate of doing four new affordable housing units, brand new affordable housing units. They have funding. And again, I won't get into detail because I don't know if they announced this, but I will say they have a private donor that they're working with to build two new parcels out there for sure. And so we've had conversations with them about the two other two vacant parcels they have. And, you know, allocating some of our rebounding block funds that's been allocated again through you for this fiscal year to build the other two on the other two lots. This will be a total of four new affordable homes in our community out on Trailside Court adjacent to each other. Now, let me put that into perspective. Council, you provided $100,000 on this line item budget for this fiscal year for this brand new program, and we're using it as a pilot. And I would say that to build two new affordable houses in partnership with Habitat, it will only cost us $80,000. I thought I'd pause it for a second and let that resonate. So two new units, brand new homes, $80,000. when we are in a world where we can't be a one for that amount, right? And so again, kudos to the team for really seeking those partnerships to be able to make the dollar stretch to the point where we are indeed, and in fact, getting the best bang of our buck for our taxpayers. So each one of these units would cost, the city cost would be somewhere around $40,000 for a total of $80,000 again, to build two new affordable homes. I don't trust our court. So again, a resolution will be coming back to this body to consider that partnership with Habitat for Humanity. The Small Home Improvement Program. Oh, also, I want to say that we are anticipating that should you are approved, that resolution will come back to you to do a groundbreaking on those parcels this fall. So this is not a two years later type of deal that we're going to get two more affordable homes. We're going to break around this year should you all pass that resolution when it comes back to you. The Small Home Improvement Program is also a pilot program, a new program that was budgeted in this fiscal year at $130,000. And this program is really designed to provide assistance to homeowners that don't necessarily need an entire four rehab, but They may need a new roof on a home. And without the new roof, it may cause other issues to their home that five years from now, we find ourselves either being a demolition candidate or we're displacing those individuals out of the community because they just don't have the resources to be able to do that. And so we anticipate of doing, I think, about 10 of these this year against the pilot. The projects that may be included for this include roof replacements, radon mitigation, HVAC repairs or replacements, ADA accommodations, Or some combination of, right? So the whole goal here is that how do we also preserve the existing housing stock that we have here in Bloomington as well? How do we add to that housing stock, but then how we also remove blight from the neighborhoods to increase property values? I just always tell my staff, I just believe the most affordable home is the home that the individual lives in today, right? And so how do we keep them in the homes that they're in today? And so that is budgeted at $130,000 and we anticipate launching that program this fall. Next slide. Beautify Your Block, this is one that I'm really excited about. This is one that we anticipate coming online in the next month or so. And so this program will provide aesthetics, you know, curbside appeal to homes. And so again, We only budget $20,000 this year for this program. It's a pilot. Again, when it uses a pilot, see how well it does, see how much interest there is for this program. This program will provide up to $1,200 in landscaping, curb repeal, exterior property cleanup, and those types of things for our residents. The unique thing about this is that this is not your typical cleanup, go in and just clean up some of the property type of deal. This is really designed to make sure that we can build capacity in those residents to be able to continue those things long term. One of the requirements as part of the program is going to be that if you are a well-able-bodied person or you have a well-able-bodied person living in your home, they must commit at least one hour to the project itself. And again, it is designed to help educate residents as well on how to best maintain their homes as part of our community revitalization effort, particularly around property maintenance. So we anticipate doing about 10, between 10 and 15 of these projects this fall. And the last one is the vacant and foreclosure ordinance. We have some conversations about that. We're working with our legal team and hopefully we'll have that before council for consideration as well by September. It's our goal. Again, this ordinance is designed to make sure that, you know, Folks are not leaving their bad properties in our neighborhood, and then they poof and go away. Or they are in another state and just decide that they're going to leave their derelict properties here for all tax bodies to be able to take care of. or they decide that, you know, for some reason the house is going to stay vacant, and then when the police have to show up, they're not sure if they should go in the home because they're not sure if it's vacant, should it be vacant, who lives there, or what's going on with it. Or our fire department shows up because mysteriously this catch is on fire, right? And so should we be sending our personnel into buildings that we know should be vacant and putting them in harm's way? So we'll have more conversation about that ordinance as well. But that ordinance is designed to send a message that you will not be able to just have a derelict building here in the city of Bloomington without paying a cost to be able to do that so they can stay maintained. The last thing I have is just a flyer. Next slide. A flyer that you've seen before. Again, I just want to highlight this is our second year of doing this. community event, snow cones with community enhancement. Our community enhancement team, again, that's fancy for our property management team, who's doing a fantastic job of really trying to educate the community about what type of property management challenges that we have in our community, what you should be doing, what you shouldn't be doing, when should you put bulk items out on the curb and those type of things. And the next one would be July 16th, which is this Thursday. between 4 and 6 at Eleanor Park. We did have it last week at Miller Park. We had about 130 folks that come through that event. So again, excited about not just carrying a stick as it relates to property maintenance, but also how do we carry the care? How do we make sure that we are educating folks about property maintenance at the same time? Because just because we know doesn't necessarily mean that our residents know what they should or shouldn't be doing as it relates to property maintenance. So with that, I yield back to you, Jeff.

Thank you. So the next item is just a resolution that's going to accept the funding of the $200,000. Is that accurate?

Yeah, I could speak to that for a second. So the Illinois Housing Development Authority, or IDA, reached out to the city due to our high performance with the Round 2 HRAP award. They were asked if we were interested in additional money, and we said we sure are. So we accepted, or, you know, assuming council accepts this resolution, we'll get the extra $200,000. It'll be able to allow rehabilitation on three to four additional housing units for our community members. And just want to take a second to brag on my team. As of last month, we were the number one grantee in the entire state of Illinois for this program.

Congratulations. Thank you for that and to all your departments. Are there questions from members of the council?

Yeah, I have a question. I just want to say thank you for this work. That's pretty exciting that, one, that we are being so proactive to get this money out that folks are saying, great, here's some more. Do this good work. I'm very excited about that. Very excited about these new initiatives and seem pretty creative. I'm looking forward to that. And they also seem reasonably reasonable budget-wise. There'll be a lot of learning for a little bang for our buck. And then finally, I really enjoy those community engagement events. I went last year and there was a good crowd. It was a good time. And I also hear from our Ward 1 representative that there's a quiz. So I'm really looking forward to passing that. But just thank you for this work.

Thank you. Other members? Member Mosley.

Yeah. Um, I just want to say thank you as well. I know we had some conversations last year and I just want to go back to, cause you kind of mentioned the vacant and foreclosure ordinance. You and I have worked on some things last year with this new ordinance kind of address some of those abandonment or the owner just is not present, not living there, using it more as a dumping ground. Would there be like fines or something or what would that look like?

Yes, absolutely. Right. And so generally speaking is structured in a way that, um, owners of vacant properties will have to register those properties every six months as well as pay a registration fee to have those vacant properties in our community. And the idea is it's not a revenue generating type of thing. The idea is to encourage them to do something with the properties by having a registration, right? So either you are fixing up the property or you're actively selling the property or you're demolishing the property because it is a demo candidate. Again, it puts the city in a position to where we're not finding ourselves having to demolish every single property that becomes a derelict property without some sort of revenue to be able to do that. Again, it's not generated for that, but it does help as it relates to making sure that private demo is not 100% on the shoulders of our

our taxpayers and with those like those those not necessarily revenues those type of impacts from the ordinance be used for things like legal fees if we have to do like mowing and other things like that okay yes awesome number one yeah thanks for this it's it

again, it's very exciting to hear what is in the works and to get the specifics about what we're working on and what we're accomplishing. So thank you and congratulations to your team on that. I do just have one request. Would it be possible to please get some social media ready stuff that can easily be posted that directs people with a live link to the application. If you could email that to us on council, then we can post that as we need to. I think that would make it really much easier to find the information and be able to answer questions when people come to us.

Absolutely. We will do that. In fact, with some of these programs, we are going to step further. We're doing what we call walking talks. And so we're going to actually be hitting the pavement. The team will be. I'm happy to walk with you.

I'm always happy to take you around.

Absolutely. We'll make sure that when we're doing those things to join us. We kind of stole that from the police department. Don't tell them, but we kind of stole a little bit of that from them.

And then I don't know if it's possible, but when the time comes, I will move that we accept the money.

Thank you. Member Montney?

I'd be happy to second Molly's motion. I just have Councilmember Ward's motion. Sorry about that. I do have just one question, if you don't mind. So historically, have we directly funded habitat houses in the past? I'm just curious about that. And given the fact that we've exceeded perhaps more than that in getting private donors to support a drone show, what are we doing to collaborate with potential fundraising for the nonprofits that we're supporting directly with taxpayer dollars? Thanks.

Yeah, so I can speak on the Habitat question. The city has partnered with Habitat for many years. Traditionally, we've used CDBG funding to add new water and sewer service for new affordable housing units. Obviously, CDBG, it's a tighter regulatory environment, so there's limitations. I think that's the advantage of having this funding available is it allows us to be way more flexible and be a better partner with Habitat in a way that CDBG can't be used. So we've partnered with Habitat for many, many years. It's been a great partnership that's added dozens of affordable housing units into our community, and we're really excited about the potential about expanding that partnership.

So just to clarify then, I was aware that we were previously using CDBG grant money to do so. Will this be our first time to actually directly contribute with taxpayer funding?

I can only speak from my knowledge since I've been with the city, but as far as I know from the last five years, this would be the first time, yes.

Other members? Members Kerns? I'm sorry. Nope.

Yes, yes. I just want to add briefly to the thank yous and the congratulations. I was able to attend the event at Miller Park and thought it was a great opportunity, like you've mentioned, to educate the community and give them an interesting event that's also educational with the fire and police and your staff. I really enjoyed talking with everyone and picking up on the way that that event works. I'm very excited to see some of these new initiatives. I know that you and your team are doing great work, you know, kind of based on that as an example. And I do challenge all of our council members to attend one of these events and pass that quiz. Thanks.

Thank you, Member Hendricks. Yeah, I would just jump on the bandwagon as well and just say I appreciate the work that you guys are doing. This has been something that council has talked about for a while. And I think it came down to having, again, the right people in the right seats making these decisions. So I appreciate you both for that. I would also encourage the community to just reach out if you have questions or if you need help with anything. Sometimes you get those letters in the mail and it can be a little scary of a violation you might have. But I've had Pat on speed dial lately, annoying him with different questions and things that have come up. And I've really appreciated that. his help with that and am very much looking forward to the vacant and abandoned properties ordinance because Ward 6 has quite a few of those that we would like to see addressed.

Member Lee?

Yeah, a couple questions. One was we had some discussions and had discovered a more exact number of how many properties are truly vacant. Do we have any updates on those numbers?

So we're still kind of operating within the original draft planning document that we have that we started with about a year or so ago, which that number was about 147. Right. And so we're still working off of that sheet itself. We have not added new ones to that list. partially because we were wanting to get the vacant and foreclosure ordinance done and get that out there, and we anticipate that that will either reveal new ones or take the ones off the list because owners decide that they want to get them rehabbed and back into good standing. I do want to mention one thing because I don't want to set off a bomb here with the public. As it relates to the vacant and foreclosure ordinance, that ordinance will be designed only for those properties that are vacant and derelict, right? This is not for properties that are actively for sale or for rent and those type of things, right? We're not going after, you know, good property ownership. I can say it that way. This is about properties that are vacant and derelict. They're creating a hazard to our nuisance to the neighborhood. And those that are in foreclosure, to be quite honest. So I did want to note that, but we're still working off the original list that we have. Okay, thank you.

And the other thing is, so $40,000 for a home, that's a great price. I don't know if you can share the secret sauce on how you accomplished that. Not yet. Okay.

um great partnership so uh can you go into maybe the specs on that house or like are they two bedroom homes single family what like what can we expect yeah so so they're typically three bedrooms two bath homes um and so again um we hope to bring these back actually at the next meeting uh for you all to consider and also bring habitat to that meeting as well to kind of talk through um you know, what that looks like. But their new affordable homes are typically three bedrooms, two baths.

That's awesome for $40,000. And then the other thing is, you know, my request is that if you have tiger blood flavoring on the ice cones, you know, help me out. We do. Thank you.

Any other members? If not, Thank you again, gentlemen, for your presentation and all your work, that of your department. We have a motion on the floor that was made by Member Ward and seconded by Member Montney. So at this time, we'd ask the clerk to take a vote for the amendment to the agreement with the Illinois Housing Development Authority. If you would take the roll.

Vermontani, would you like to vote? I figure since you're the seconder.

I vote yes. Thank you. I don't know. It didn't come up on my.

Sorry about that. Thank you. The item passes. No nays to announce. Thank you. She's voting remotely. Yeah.

Thank you all. Next, that is the last item on, first and last item on the committee. regular agenda. So next we'll move to the city manager's report.

All right. Thank you again, mayor and council. A few things to go over tonight. If you could go to the next slide. First, just want to say one, thank you to the council. You approved the drone contract on the assumption that we would go out there and get support and sponsors. And we did. And I think we put on a really great show. We believe we had over 18,000 people at the drone show. I know the mayor will speak a little bit about this in his report as well. Just also wanted to share, we had over 11,000 people at Miller Park for the fireworks. And if you were there, they were absolutely amazing. And then even that morning at the farmer's market, we had over 1,800 people there. So a giant crowd there. So a lot of stuff going on on the 4th of July. And just want to say thank you to all the staff who make that happen and Really appreciate all the effort that went into that. Next slide. Wanted to give an update on the pack silo that's going up at Lake Bloomington. As you can see on the slides, it is now standing. It's probably a little bigger than maybe what people anticipated. It is a big thing, but it is now up. We anticipate it will be in operation in the middle of August. Fortunately, right now we're not having any taste and odor issues because of all of the rain we're getting and the water going over the spillways. And if we had to, we still have the temporary system, but very soon we will have a new automated system as well. Next slide. Give a quick update on the streetscape. Again, we're currently in the 400 block. This is July or June was just an incredibly... We went obviously from a drought early on this year to, you know, it just would not stop raining in July. So fortunately, we've got a little break in the weather and we've got sidewalks now going up. My hope is by the end of this week, we'll at least have one layer of sidewalk on both sides of the 400 block. You can still get down there. You can still get to the businesses. And we're obviously encouraging the community to continue to support those businesses during this time. But that work is continuing and the other areas look great that have been completed. Next slide. Just wanted to share a lot of small details on this, but we currently have over $125 million in road work, bridges, sidewalks, utility improvements going on within the community and quite or underway or programmed. And quite honestly, I'm not sure anybody in our engineering department is sleeping. these days. This is an incredible amount of work, and we'll provide more details, but obviously everywhere you go within the city, you're seeing different work going on, and it's going to continue for a while, and we're very excited about that. But just want to give a shout out to our engineering team and others that are working on this. You can also find all of these updates on our infrastructure dashboard, which is heavily used, but you can get specifics about the projects, find out Cost, details, plan, when they're going to be done, those kinds of things. But just wanted to share all that work that's going on. Next slide. And then moving over to public works. We have our paver in full operation as well. So you can see a few examples up here. So far they've used over 350 tons of asphalt. That's over 3,000 square yards that they have put down. You can see some examples here. They will be going on both sides of these streets. So it's not just going to look like there's a random patch down one side. Their next phase will be going on the other side of that. And it's in different areas of the community too. So going out and taking a look at that work, they're doing a really great job with that. And we will continue to keep the community updated. Next slide. Wanted to share some next steps on the data centers. We are planning on holding a few different meetings with the Planning Commission. Their first meeting likely going to be August 26 at the BCPA, likely at 5 p.m. This will be the meeting where we have a panel of different people, different viewpoints, different experiences, come and talk to the Planning Commission, talk to the community. We will get more information out about that as we get closer. After that, we'll likely be drafting the regulations, looking at models like Aurora in the county and other best practice examples. Then we'll likely have the public hearing on those regulations on October 1st, and then a second public hearing on them November 5th. We've also gotten questions about whether the city can just prohibit outright data centers. So that's something we're looking at legally as well. And we'll provide that information to the planning commission and then we'll see what they recommend back to the city council. But just wanted to share that update that we are still working on that and moving those public hearings forward. Next slide. And then finally, I'll embarrass Council Member Straza, who attended the bookmobile tour and just wanted to highlight that this is going on throughout the different wards. I think except for Ward 6 because the library is in close proximity to everybody else. But these are some of the normal stops of the bookmobile in the different wards, and the library has invited the different council members out, and I think everybody signed up for that to get information and just learn about what the library is doing and what that bookmobile is doing. But obviously seeing a lot of use over the summer, and we're really excited about that. And that's all I have.

Thank you. Very much. Next, we'll go to council member discussion, and we'll start with Member Kearns.

I don't have anything else to add. Thank you so much.

Member Mosley. No, I'll just add, last night I was able to attend at the BCPA a event with Henry Cho, and it was amazing last night, and so just want to give A shout out to the BCPA for them having the ability to draw a traction like that, who I kind of grew up with. And Henry Cho kind of hits on every generation. And so it was just an amazing performance. So kudos to him at the event last night.

And a sellout show at that, is my understanding. Great. Member Montney.

Well, I'd just like to recognize the parks and rec area for the tremendous amount of energy and time they put in all of these events that were including the drone show, including the really nice event at Miller Park, which was just wonderful. The parks that we have in this community are such an asset. And I think it's something that we don't talk about a whole lot. but no one takes it for granted, certainly not me. I mean, it's just remarkable to see how distributed they are across the community and how meaningful they are, including the programs at places like the Olsen Ice Arena and so forth. So thank you guys so much.

Thank you. Next, Member Straza. Yes. As City Manager Juergens said, it was a pleasure to go to the bookmobile. I have not been to it before here locally. I was able to go last Wednesday and it was a great experience. It's amazing what it does, how long it's been around. So a quick couple of facts that gave me the fun facts. So in 2025, they had 12,667 patrons visit the bookmobile stops. It's been going on since 1930. Currently the bookmobile visits 50 stops across 49 locations and a three week rotating schedule. It holds approximately 3,000 items spanning from children to teen to adult items. They have eight bookmobile drivers, which they have to have a CDL license. So just in case anybody's interested, you have to be licensed to drive that big bus. It was a great time. I got to meet a lot of kids. I met some parents in the North Point area. So it was nice to do that. It's a great experience. I think it's important because just because some people can't make it to the library. And this is a place if they can make it to the library, but they need to bring their books back or they just can get from the bookmobile. It is something that is able to be able to do things and be able to be part of the reading program and part of just the community itself. So we encourage everybody and exciting that everyone is going to be partaking in it in the next couple of weeks.

Thank you, Member Ward. Member Hendricks.

Yeah, just briefly got to go to the Saturdays on the Square event this weekend, which was yet again packed. So kudos to everybody who had a hand in that. And I get to be at the farmer's market for the bookmobile on the go because our wonderful library is within my ward. So I look forward to being able to go to that event as well and experience what Council Member Straza did.

Thank you, Member Lee.

Yeah, I'd also like to thank all the people that helped to put on the 4th of July events or the 250th celebration events. The drone show was amazing. A true collaboration between Bloomington, Town of Normal, the county, and all the sponsors to see the community come together to put on a show like that, which was free for The people, the people appreciated that it was a free event and a place where people can come together with families and enjoy a family friendly event. I think it was a huge success and look forward to future possibilities. So thanks for everyone for putting that on.

Thank you, Member Scott.

Yes, thank you. City Manager, I want to say I appreciate you giving that update on the data center situation, the next steps for us, and grateful that you called out specifically Aurora and the county to underline that these are not forums to just kind of like, hey, let's just kind of shovel them in here. But if folks are interested, please take a look at those regulations in Aurora and the county and provide feedback to that. And the second thing I want to call out is McLean County's household hazardous waste collection event, Saturday, August 22nd, involving all sorts of cities and governments around here. So if you've got that stuff that really shouldn't be in your garage, now's the time to set an appointment and get rid of it. HHWMcLean.org.

Thank you. And just a couple of comments, uh, From me this evening, one echoing what everyone has just said about the Parks and Rec and our police departments and our fire departments and all those that were involved within arts and entertainment with all the activities that went on. One in particular, I wanted to certainly thank Member Ward for the reading of the Declaration of Independence on July 4th down at the Museum of History. It was very nice attendance for that. And it was it was well received, I think. Next, we had a number of little neighborhoods parades. But one of the ones that I was at on Fourth of July was Grove Street Parade. Might be one of the if not the longest, but there were 255 kids on their bikes and it was refreshing and nobody got hurt. The other is also we talked just briefly about the drone show into member Lee's comments. It was a great event. and jointly shared by McLean County, the city and the town. And if I'm not mistaken, I don't think out of close to 18,000 people that there were any major problems. Chief, am I right on that? Might've been some minor ones, but not major. All right, good. Thank you again to all your team. And the same goes towards the fireworks that 4th of July at Miller Park. I know we had an extra great show from the standpoint of what was set off and what was experienced, and just heard a lot of great, great comments. And I know I'm missing something, but out of respect of time, since we're going to talk about executive session here, just thank you to all. I don't know really how there could have been much of a greater coming together to celebrate the country's 250th. It was, I think, was warmly received by all. And of course, the usual comments that people have for Next time and I said, well, if you're here for the next 250th, it's all yours. So with that, I will ask for a motion after we get ready to enter into the city council will enter into executive session per section 2C21 of the Illinois compiled statutes for the review of the content of executive session minutes and the semi-annual review of historical executive session minutes. At this point, I'd ask for a motion to enter into executive session. Is there a motion?

I'll make that motion.

I will second. Motion by Member Hendricks, seconded by Member Ward. Excuse me, Member Scott. And do a quick roll call. We'll call the roll call vote.

Thank you. Council Member Curran. Yes. Council Member Mosley.

Yes.

Council Member Montanay. Yes. Council Member Straza.

Yes.

Council Member Hendrick.

Yes.

Council Member Ward. Aye. Council Member Lee. Yes. Council Member Scott. Yes. Thank you.

As the room clears then, we will, if anyone needs to take a minute or two break, otherwise we'll proceed here in a minute.

Yeah. And just for the record, there'll be no additional action that'll be taken after executive session.

Thank you. Thank you. At this time, I'll need a motion to come out of executive session and go back into our regular session. Is there a motion?

I'll make that motion to return to regular session from executive session.

Motion by member Montney, seconded by? I'll second it. Thank you very much. For Scott. All in favor? Okay. Thank you. Now we're going back into regular session briefly just to say, I'm sorry. Oh, we got to take your vote.

Did he say adjournment?

I didn't say adjourn yet.

We're just doing all kinds of extra and I'm all over.

Before we do that, I just simply, I made an error by not acknowledging that also Senator Sally Turner from the Illinois State Senate acknowledged Bloomington for all the things that they did for the celebration of our 250th as well. She was here today. So i failed to mention that so with that now could we take a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn by member hendricks second all in favor yeah hi mostly thank you very much