Remarks by Tim Busse
120 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 5
Good evening, everyone, and welcome. I will call our Bloomington City Council meeting to order this evening. It is Monday, October 26. Thank you to everyone joining us here in the council chambers. Thanks to everybody watching online this evening. We will begin our meeting as we always do. If you are able in the chambers, if you could please stand, remove any head coverings, and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one liberty and justice for all. Once again, thanks to everybody for…
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
So did you intern in environmental health as well?
Welcome to both of you. Thank you for being here. I'll give you my speech that I give all of our new employees, the fact that you now basically are the face of Bloomington for a lot of people. They may know who we are, but you're the ones that people will be interacting with and working with on a daily basis in the city. And so it's a big responsibility, and I have no doubt that you'll be able to meet that responsibility and be able to provide the service and the empathy and the work that the residents of Bloomington have come to expect and do it in an outstanding way. So thank you so very…
Motion by Council Member Lohman, second by Council Member D'Alessandro to accept consent business as stated, items 3.1 to 3.10. Is that correct? Am I saying that right? Any further council discussion on this? No discussion. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 7-0.
All right, thank you for pulling that aside then. Council Member D'Alessandro?
Motion by Council Member D'Alessandro, second by Council Member Carter to accept item 3.11 under consent business tonight. No further council discussion on this. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Nay. Motion carries 6-1 with Council Member Lohman in opposition. Thank you much, Council Member Lohman, for taking care of our consent business tonight. With that, we are going to double back in the agenda to item 2.2, an update from our Hennepin County Commissioner, Debbie Gattel. I'm assuming traffic on 494 must have been a bear. That's all I'm going to figure out.
Commissioner, welcome. Thanks for joining us tonight.
Well, first of all, thank you, Commissioner, for being with us this evening. It's always a pleasure to have you here. It's always a pleasure to have you in Bloomington for whatever reason, but I'd really appreciate it when you're able to give us an update. And I know it's been a challenge to get you on the schedule and make sure we get you here, but it's always helpful. It's always informative. And I will say the one statistic you brought forward was eye-popping, the notion that there will be a decrease in the budget but an increase in the levy. I mean, that's stunning. It's debt service. The…
Yes. Council, any questions or comments for the Commissioner? Council Member Nelson and then Council Member D'Alessandro.
I'm full of good news, yes. I'm full of good news, yes.
Council, if there's nothing else, I'd like to move on with our agenda, if we could, please. Well, very good. Commissioner, thank you so very much for being here, and thanks for the great work that the county does. It's a massive organization, a massive operation. Even setting Minneapolis aside, just the fact that Bloomington and Edina and Richfield have absolutely nothing in common with St. Bonifacius and Independence. And you've got to basically span that gap and figure out how to best serve all of those folks and all those communities. And so it's a big job, and I appreciate the work that…
Thanks for coming tonight. Council, as I mentioned when we adopted our agenda, we have nothing under item four, hearings, resolutions, and ordinances. And so we are going to move on to item five, our organizational business. And our only item there is item 5.1. This is a study item. No decisions to be made tonight, but plenty of questions and conversation regarding a sports, health, and recreation use review. And Emily Hespeck from our planning staff is here. Good evening and welcome.
Looking at that these facilities may include food and beverage service, and I'm curious as to what that means. And for this reason, as I look at these, when I consider these fitness and sports facilities that we have in town and that we've seen around, I've seen the ones that are most successful either have something adjacent to or very close or even built in that could offer food and beverage. So for example, if you're at a volleyball tournament and the kid, your kid plays a 10 again, and then they get it too. I mean, there's a place to go to, to have lunch, to, to have coffee, to have a…
Thank you, Councilmember. Other thoughts on this part of it, Council? Council member Nelson? Or excuse me, loman. Council member loman?
Council, any other inquiries regarding question one here?
Thank you, Councilmember. And I don't disagree with you. I'm remembering the proposal was actually for a church, a place of worship, wasn't it? I think it was both, yeah. And that was especially, yeah, I agree with you completely, and we did vote it down, the fact that there was just too many safety issues. My thought, and would appreciate your thoughts as well, something along these lines, I think the market will take care of it. I mean, if you're putting in a volleyball training facility right next to a You know, a smelting, you know, operation probably not going to work and you won't be in…
That's a good point, Councilmember. It might be worth investigating a bit on that one. Other thoughts, Council? Question three. Mr. johnson, good evening.
Thank you for that clarification. That's helpful information. Thank you much.
Well, I would say all the things that you just said. Okay.
Lighting, parking, pedestrian routes, entrances and so on. I think that should be at least considered as we talk about all this. Councilmember Nelson, you were going to say the same thing?
Thank you. So I know we're focusing on the practical things, parking and safety in particular, which we definitely should. But in answer to this question, I hope we also leave room to consider flexible and creative uses and putting together what otherwise we might not, something we might not think would work together, but to find a way to make it work together. The example that we just saw, I think, last month was Augustana University opened a graduate health program just literally down the alley from Hero heating and air conditioning. And so to see those two totally disparate uses together,…
Well, thank you. I hope you got the information that you need, and we will look forward to keep moving this forward.
Thank you. Well, that council, we are on to council policy and issues update. I will kick us off. I will get to the listening session. I do want to point out that in reading the proclamation tonight, when I did mention the native peoples who used to live here, including Dakota, Ojibwe, And Iowa, I did not throw the joke out about the Iowa peoples, especially after the past weekend where the Gophers, you know. I did not take that opportunity. I know. I know. Good for me. Yes, I know. At our listening session this evening, we had... Six speakers, one, two, three, four, five speakers who came…
We can laud him more than once. You're exactly right. 50 years. That's pretty impressive. Council, any questions and anything to add to this week's council policy and issue update? Seeing none, council, we've reached the end of our agenda. I would entertain a motion to adjourn this evening.