Remarks by Tim Busse
120 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 2 of 5
Motion by Councilmember Roberts and second by Councilmember Carter to adjourn this evening. No further Council discussion on this. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 7-0. Thanks much for the conversation tonight, Council. Thanks to everybody who participated. Thank you, staff. Everybody have a good rest of your week.
Good evening, everyone, and welcome. I will call our Bloomington City Council study meeting to order. Tonight is Monday, October 19th, 2026. Thanks to everybody joining us here in the chambers and to everybody watching online tonight. Council, we have two items on our agenda, both under organizational business. Our first item is item 3.1, which is a review of the draft 2027 through 2036 capital improvement plan. And item 3.2, we will go through a bevy, a flurry, a gaggle of budget possibilities. Exactly. These are all of our external services teams. We're going to go through those department…
Motion and a second by Council Member Carter to accept tonight's agenda as stated. No further Council discussion on this. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye.
Opposed? Motion carries 7-0, and we have an agenda. And we will dive right into it. 3.1 this is a review of our draft 2027 2036 capital improvement plan. Laurie economy shoulder is here. Good evening and welcome.
Thank you. Thanks for the information. And thank you for the work that goes into this. I know this is not a small task especially as you're looking out a decade and what possible projects there might be and knowing that there are plenty of unknowns as well that will really determine how that how that list ultimately does look. I appreciate it. The couple of questions that I had were more along the lines of the economies of scale. There's a lot of city facilities in there, and I'm just looking out and knowing that we have a number of additional fire stations that we still have to do. Is there…
UNDERSTOOD. Okay. Thank you. Council, questions on this? Council Member del
Very good. Thank you. Other council questions? All right. I won't make the statement, but I always do, and I think it's always important because we always have this conversation because we talk about this 10-year plan, and somebody without the full context could look at it and think, oh, my God, they're going to spend a jillion dollars. And that is not the case. The CIP is a planning document. There is no guarantee that anything in this will be built. It's contingent on council approval. It's contingent on funding availability. It is a planning document. And it actually includes things as…
Thank you so very much. Council Item 3.2 on our agenda is our budget discussion on the external services team departments. Last week we talked to the internal operations services teams. I'm not getting that correct, and I apologize for that. But this is the external-facing departments within the city of Bloomington that fall under the auspices of our Deputy City Manager, Kathy Hedin, who is going to kick this off, and then we're going to have a number of folks make presentations based specifically on their department. So thank you for joining us, and thanks for being part of this.
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Only questions of clarity and then we'll dig into it at the end.
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Why did you choose Bloomington and not a city closer to home over there?
Oh, okay. Yeah. Well, good. Well, good. Well, welcome. We're glad you're here. Hope you learned something. Thank you. It gets really exciting later, so stick around. It gets really exciting. But welcome. Glad you guys are here. Thanks for being here. Thank you. Yeah, exactly. Thanks, Council, for indulging me for just a moment there. Next up, Bloomington Police Department, Chief Hodges.
Sorry about that. You're sliding behind Deputy Chief.
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Clarity. I will ask one for clarity. So I'm under cost recovery and, and, that type of thing. I know there's a lot of moving pieces here, and as diverse as the center for the Arts all the way over to the ice garden, the community health and wellness center, and I know you're looking at each of those individually, are we going to have the conversation about how it all works together? And all the different pieces come together to increase this financial sustainability that you talked about that, frankly, we don't ask any other department to do.
That's a lengthy question for clarity. I'm sorry. But no, I appreciate the question.
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Thank you, Councilmember. Other thoughts or comments, Council? Oh, all right. House Member Lohman, do you want in?
And I agree with you completely, Councilmember. Thank you for your comments, especially as you talk about cost recovery, and in particular in park and recreation. And I do know that they have a sliding scale. They have assistance for folks who might need it. But, yes, sometimes you do wonder if we push so hard toward cost recovery, whether it's in the pool or in the parks or at the ice garden, are some people being left out because of that? And you're right, it's a balancing act. Anything else, council? If not, I want to say thank you to the staff and for everybody who pulled the information…
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I will call our City Council meeting to order. Tonight is Monday, October 12, 2026. Thank you all for joining us here in the Council Chambers, and thanks to everybody watching online. We will begin our meeting as we always do. If you are able, please stand, remove any head covering, 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 nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Once again, welcome to everybody. Council, good to see you all. Thanks for being here tonight.…
Motion and a second by Council Member Robertson to accept tonight's agenda as stated. Any further council discussion on this? Hearing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying all.