Unknown Speaker
This is asked the mayor on Wi Fi you and for those of you who don't know we visit a mayor every month or every week. This week. It's Bloomington Mayor john Hamilton. We visit with Columbus Mayor Jim lindop. And Terre Haute, Mayor duque Bennett and municipal consultant in Nashville, DAX Norton. And Mayor Hamilton, thanks for joining us today.
Unknown Speaker
Nice to be with you again. Joe. Good to see you and everybody else. Thanks for joining
Unknown Speaker
Coronavirus cases going back up with IU students back Monroe County has an alert by the state as more cases are being added from the university positivity rate about 9.8% which is almost double of Marion County which is where Indianapolis is and I believe a city limit of no more than what 15 people
Unknown Speaker
there's a lot of things going On Joe. as you point out, you know the I know that county health director Penny coddle has has wanted to be cautious about the positivity rate. Obviously Indiana University is doing thousands and thousands of tests and there's a little concern about how the full range of positives and negatives are being entered in. So Penny coddles it encourages care about that. But that being said, we definitely are seeing more cases among IU students in particular, there's been a real resurgence numbers of cases in congregate living settings, primarily Greek houses, fraternities and sororities where there have been some really staggering numbers where infections can spread really fast if they get in there. It looks like the baseline of on campus students in the residence halls and off campus students who aren't related to congregate living are much more stable and lower. But you know, you got to look at The whole dynamic of the community, it is one reason that we've put in place in the city. And keep in place in the city, the limit on social gatherings, private social gatherings, to say we don't want more than 15 people gathering any place. Indeed, when you even do that, we want you under these rules, you need to be physically distanced and masked. And we're, we're, you know, we've seen around the country, some universities and university cities that have had to really go backwards and clamp down because of the spread. So we're very, very cautious and concerned about that and try to do all we can do to minimize that risk.
Unknown Speaker
You know, I kind of keep wondering what's the next step? It just feels like we've been in a rut, and we'll go to an email that Julie sent in. She's asked why is Monroe County, Indiana being held in a state of no progress of recovery for so long? What happened to two weeks to flatten the curve? But I mean, I this is probably something you can say not just in Monroe County, but in most places.
Unknown Speaker
Well, yeah, we I mean, there's a lot of things we could talk about how we should have had a national mask order, we should have had much more testing going on nationally. There's a lot of things that nationally should have happened and statewide. We do what we can locally but part of the reality too is when we have 35,000 students coming to town from all over the state in the country. We're gonna see changes in the numbers. We we know we have the hospitalizations continue to be stable. They have not we haven't seen dramatic changes in hospitalization. There's plenty of capacity now for that right now. We're not as high as we were in the spring. So we had a we had an improvement, but with the return of all these students and numbers of people, we are seeing a resurgence and I think Indiana University expected it. We expected it might happen they've got a you probably know they have a dorm that they've set aside with over 500 bedrooms for for isolation as needed. That's only about a third full right now. So they've got capacity there. We can beat the disease but we have to keep doing what we're doing which is really controlling the spread with with masking, distancing, good hygiene, don't gather in big groups and continue to take these smart steps until we get a you know, a that we can beat the virus with the vaccine that we hope will come sooner rather than later.
Unknown Speaker
There's been a lot of talk about and even today I saw a news ticker go by that big 10 football may make a decision today about coming back. I mean, that would be a boost for the economy then no doubt about that. But then you think about tailgating parties. fans. What are you Your thoughts about that?
Unknown Speaker
Well, that look these, you know, issues like that issues like, Should we open the schools? And how should we open the schools, you really need to combine the best science advice that you can, with with one I would then say is really weighing the risks and rewards. You know, the rewards of opening up schools and returning to education for our K through 12 is very, very real and big to be able to do that. It's a different calculation of rewards for for operating a football season. There are some economic benefits but it's also a real risk of as you mentioned, the kind of gatherings that can happen. I don't you know, I don't envy these are very complex decisions. I do appreciate in strongly hope that the focus is on science and health. Well then weighing the risks and rewards of various choices. I haven't heard about the next step on the on the football But, you know, the professional athletes have figured out some ways to do it in a bubble. But that's you can't do that with with college students and student athletes and multiple campuses and all that stuff. So it's a really difficult choice, I think.
Unknown Speaker
And you know, this may sound a little early, but any thoughts the city even thinking about Halloween is not far away too.
Unknown Speaker
We are thinking about Halloween. I know there are groups and institutions and people who have events related to Halloween. We actually talked about it yet this week trying to think about that now. You know, the city has some involvement in Halloween, but of course individuals can choose what they think is right for them. But you know, one of the advantages of Halloween is it's mostly outdoors and small groups and can be traveling with your family and that's safer. On the other hand, we don't want to have a lot of germs passed back and forth at doorways and that kind of thing. So we're, we actually have started to think about Halloween like a lot of cities. around the country. So stay tuned for that.
Unknown Speaker
And for those of you listening, watching, we do have an email, you can send questions to news at Indiana public media.org, you can leave a comment here on Facebook. And if we don't get it to it today, I always save them. And some of these questions were from last month that we never got to. So and we'll get to some of those here in a bit. But I wanted to kind of turn corners and talk about the COVID recovery period with the campaign that you've called recover forward Bloomington economic projects for jobs, money for those to help those in need. And a lot of that has started with some of the city reserves. Can you tell us about some of those projects that are underway?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, Joe recover forward is really an effort that I've been working with the City Council and other partners to try to think about how do we as a community recover in the positive direction toward what we want to be not just looking backwards into Let's go back to what we were but how do we move forward and counsel has supported a couple million dollars of investments yet this year to help recover. It includes things like trying to make sure we keep our safety net strong. It's a it's a couple hundred thousand dollars that we're putting into a regular grant fund that we're expanding to help support our nonprofits and social service entities that are struggling so hard these days. It also includes some special investments to help people get back into the workplace. We've we've lent millions of dollars out. But another example is at the mill our co workspace, even next month, early in October and applications begin I think within a week, we're doing a code school that is it's actually a free school 10 weeks I think for people to build skills that can help them access some good paying jobs that can be done remotely. We're doing work to support people stress in all kinds of ways. And then looking forward, it's really how do we invest in the recovery, both economic, social, environmental, so that we're moving our community forward. And that's in the 2021 budget. And in even longer looking at how do we finance those kinds of investments because, like all communities around the country, we're struggling to get through this recession and climb out of this pandemic. We need to be thinking about what we want to look like a year down the road, five years down the road and begin that path now.
Unknown Speaker
So I'm guessing what might be an interesting meeting that people would want to keep track of tomorrow, Wednesday evening. is the point to five local income tax increase is that in front of the City Council for a vote?
Unknown Speaker
Yes, so Wednesday evening on the 16th. The city council should convene I expect around 6:30pm to consider a point to 5% increase in local income tax. That proposal as part of recover forward is really focused on these kinds of things. How does our community protect those who are most at risk now whether losing their houses out of work facing serious social challenges, as well as investing in energy efficiency, for example, to lower the cost of living for many people in the community and lower our carbon footprint, as well as dealing with economic inequality and how we help people get those better jobs. So on on Wednesday evening, the council is considering whether to add revenue to our city so that we can make those kind of forward looking investments.
Unknown Speaker
I've seen some reporting we've done some reporting, county officials, some ellisville officials, there have been letters to the editor in the paper that's calling this tax more money for the mayor's pet projects. You probably have heard worse Do you still Is this the time for attacks like this?
Unknown Speaker
Well, there are a lot of people with different comments. Let me look this. These are projects that are really important for the future of the people of Bloomington. And my job is to try to advocate for the, for the programs and the projects that will help our people thrive and climb out of this challenging time. It is important to note that both the county and the city would agree, we would prefer that the state legislature would give cities authority to manage our own finances and to impose our own taxes. We're not allowed to do that. We've been asking for many years in the state legislature has declined to do that. So the only way a city can generate more revenue is through a county wide tax and the state legislature sets up pretty complicated voting rules for that but when we will follow all those rules and if a majority of the votes are cast, then the county receives a new income tax. And it's surprising to many people that Monroe County has the lowest tax rate on income compared to all seven contiguous counties were significantly lower than Brown County and in Morgan County and lower than all of the Lawrence and Oakland and green Jackson, all those counties have higher income tax rates than we do. And even after this tax, if it goes through, we'll have the sixth lowest out of seven will still be very low. So it's important from my perspective to help us to chart the path for but I understand there, there's some different views on it. And that's what democracies are about.
Unknown Speaker
You know, when when you talk about the low tax rate, do you also take into consideration that Bloomington has one of the most or at least reported some of the most expensive places to live besides Indianapolis and housing is very expensive, and residents may want low taxes, so is saying, you know, hey, we're the lowest so we can raise them? Is that a compelling reason to do so?
Unknown Speaker
No, it's not the reason To raise the taxes, the reason to look at raising taxes is to provide services. And absolutely one of those services is to support affordable housing and to help people who are in housing to have lower cost of living by helping invest in solar panels and energy efficiency to lower their energy costs. And it's a high cost of living affects all of us in Bloomington for sure. And we're working hard on that. But I think it's important to note, for example, that the basic services of government are paid for through an income tax and if if if you have our income taxes really like half the level of broward county or Morgan County, that means government has much less revenue to provide the services to to sweep the streets and to pick up trash and to patrol the streets and to improve the parks and to you know, help stray animals and to watch the water quality. All those things depend upon revenue. And it depends on taxes and taxes are what give us the government services that we that we want and expect.
Unknown Speaker
There's an interesting wrinkle in this too, and that he you know it like you mentioned it's a county tax, but the city council makes up a majority of the vote and there's even some maybe some state legislation on the horizon that may change the priority of how the vote is cast for local income tax. Do you think the process to vote on the tax is fair as it is right now?
Unknown Speaker
Well, we've advocated I would advocate, as we have that the city ought to be able to impose a tax on the city's residents. City Council can and should be able to say we want and we need revenue to do the six things or approach these challenges and impose that tax the state does not let us do that we are a creature of state law. And we've advocated for that for a long time. The state has instead instead decided all income taxes are imposed at a county wide level. And they've bounced back and forth on how you impose those countywide taxes. And currently, it's a complicated formula of the different jurisdictions each each member of the different jurisdictions get a certain percentage of the vote, reflecting the population and the theory is that of people representing more than half the people in a community vote for it and the majority is in favor of it that should go into place. But it's not ideal. And we would absolutely support a change in that in the state legislature hope they'll do it.
Unknown Speaker
So but is that enough reason to wait on the tax then to vote on the tax or no? Well,
Unknown Speaker
I will tell you from my seat in Bloomington, I would rather not go hand in hand to the legislature and say please change as we've done for many years and they have declined to give that authority. It's not clear that there's anything different that would cause them to change their mind this coming year. I would prefer to go to the state legislature and say we have put this together. And place as you instructed us we can do. But we would be very happy to change it to a city wide tax city only tax if you would, if you would change the rules. So I, you know, I'll be working with the legislature to try to create more opportunity for that. But as you probably know, the state legislature tends to be, make it very difficult for revenue. I, for example, our community every seven years has to go through a very challenging and difficult school referendum, just from my perspective to get the basic funding that our public schools need. That shouldn't take a referendum to just do the basic main services that we want from public education. And that's because the state legislatures made it very difficult sometimes to get the revenue needed at the local government level.
Unknown Speaker
Okay, just one more quick question. I know we're kind of running out of time. I want to get to some other things but how do you feel about that vote tomorrow night if you talk to the council do did they have a better idea of where the funds are going? Are you confident that it will pass
Unknown Speaker
I don't know if it past I think it could be close it. If we if we had voted in in March or February it would have taken five votes to pass it. The state legislature in April in March changed the rules. So now it takes eight votes to pass it so it's harder to get eight volts and five volts but we'll find out tomorrow night how it is and I hope I hope that we'll move forward to this. It's it is quite important for the future of the city. I believe.
Unknown Speaker
Dan writes in this going back to the Coronavirus. He's read many articles about Hoosiers disregarding state county City Campus company COVID-19 policies but no consequences. Why not? So what what's your take from the city side on that?
Unknown Speaker
Well, these public health orders are meant to protect the public health. They are not meant to be punitive or criminal statutes that are meant to catch people not doing the right thing. They're meant. They're designed to encourage compliance and to protect public health there There are consequences if people violate orders. We've had institutions like restaurants and bars that have not complied with the orders and they've had been cracked down on and made clear if you do not comply immediately, you you risk closure and we would close them down. We haven't had to, but we've had some very serious conversations. There individuals who work for the city, we have rules on mask wearing and on distancing, and we have very strong compliance overall, but occasionally we'll have an individual or a circumstance where there's not compliance and we we make clear to that person or in that circumstance that that needs to get better and it will. But so there are cons I know Indiana University has had some very direct consequences to students who didn't comply with rules. So so that does happen, but I think it is important also to note these are these are not meant to be gotcha rules. These are meant to be the behaviors or we're encouraging and requiring these behaviors. To protect public health, and so the full balance is on what do we need to do to make sure we're protecting public health and that'll continue to be the focus. And
Unknown Speaker
Mark wants to know, can you get a test if you're not from Indiana?
Unknown Speaker
a covid test. There are lots of different tests. There's, there's a virus test for being a current infection. There's antibody tests for showing that you've had an infection there private providers, their public providers. So the short answer is, you can be a as a resident of Indiana or a resident of Monroe County or Bloomington, yes, there are many options. If you're purely a visitor coming through, there are not nearly as many options but there may be some still available but the testing protocols really focus on people who are in the community who were trying to to identify if there's been a an infection and therefore do the contact tracing to find out where who else might have been exposed. But there's a you know, there's so many different ways to get testing it's hard to ensure that you can you can donate blood and as you donate blood, you can have an antibody test. It's automatically given to you so that you can do anybody can can go and donate blood and do that.
Unknown Speaker
quick follow up on the convention center. It's still on hold. I think last time we talked that that's just on hold till the end of the year. What the money that's coming in from the food and beverage tax is that just being collected right now.
Unknown Speaker
So the 1% tax on purchases of consumables of food and beverage that you consume when right when you buy them is in effect its course gone down quite a bit as we've seen during the pandemic, and that money is just being reserved if you will for for the future use we'll be talking to the county and other partners about the convention center plans at the end of the year. It's a very as you might expect, it's a pretty uncertain future on windows are going to rebound and how and if and, and and so will be will Looking at that, but in the meantime, what lower revenues there are, are being reserved in a special account to be used for that, or they actually have millions of dollars have been lent out in the last six months to support the food and beverage industry to get them through this to this, this challenge, too.
Unknown Speaker
And I know we only have a couple more minutes of your time. So I'd like to ask if you have any announcements, any things that you'd like to say right now, I know you mentioned earlier about there's something going on at switch art Park.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, well, a couple couple important months. So one is Suicide Prevention Month. And in Look, there's a lot of stress going around and it's a really good month to remind ourselves and our families and our friends. Keep an eye out. For those who are really struggling with this. It's it's there's more mental health challenges that we're seeing. So this is a really good time to reach out and if you need help, be sure you do reach out through Nami or some other places. It's also the Start of Latinx Heritage Month. So mid September to mid October. There's a lot of activities kicking off for that. So look for that. And then is, as you mentioned, Joe, our famous Lotus World Music Festival is different this year but Saturday September 26. In switchyard Park, there is going to be a appropriately distanced and careful celebration with some music so folks can look for that on Saturday the 26th.
Unknown Speaker
All right, again, appreciate your time.
Unknown Speaker
Thanks so much, Joe. Good to see you.
Unknown Speaker
Same here and those watching, you can still submit a question news at Indiana public media.org and next week, we'll be in Nashville with town consultant, municipal consultant DAX Norton. Thanks for watching.
Unknown Speaker
Thank you again, Mayor. Take care bye bye
This is asked the mayor on Wi Fi you and for those of you who don't know we visit a mayor every month or every week. This week. It's Bloomington Mayor john Hamilton. We visit with Columbus Mayor Jim lindop. And Terre Haute, Mayor duque Bennett and municipal consultant in Nashville, DAX Norton. And Mayor Hamilton, thanks for joining us today.
Unknown Speaker
Nice to be with you again. Joe. Good to see you and everybody else. Thanks for joining
Unknown Speaker
Coronavirus cases going back up with IU students back Monroe County has an alert by the state as more cases are being added from the university positivity rate about 9.8% which is almost double of Marion County which is where Indianapolis is and I believe a city limit of no more than what 15 people
Unknown Speaker
there's a lot of things going On Joe. as you point out, you know the I know that county health director Penny coddle has has wanted to be cautious about the positivity rate. Obviously Indiana University is doing thousands and thousands of tests and there's a little concern about how the full range of positives and negatives are being entered in. So Penny coddles it encourages care about that. But that being said, we definitely are seeing more cases among IU students in particular, there's been a real resurgence numbers of cases in congregate living settings, primarily Greek houses, fraternities and sororities where there have been some really staggering numbers where infections can spread really fast if they get in there. It looks like the baseline of on campus students in the residence halls and off campus students who aren't related to congregate living are much more stable and lower. But you know, you got to look at The whole dynamic of the community, it is one reason that we've put in place in the city. And keep in place in the city, the limit on social gatherings, private social gatherings, to say we don't want more than 15 people gathering any place. Indeed, when you even do that, we want you under these rules, you need to be physically distanced and masked. And we're, we're, you know, we've seen around the country, some universities and university cities that have had to really go backwards and clamp down because of the spread. So we're very, very cautious and concerned about that and try to do all we can do to minimize that risk.
Unknown Speaker
You know, I kind of keep wondering what's the next step? It just feels like we've been in a rut, and we'll go to an email that Julie sent in. She's asked why is Monroe County, Indiana being held in a state of no progress of recovery for so long? What happened to two weeks to flatten the curve? But I mean, I this is probably something you can say not just in Monroe County, but in most places.
Unknown Speaker
Well, yeah, we I mean, there's a lot of things we could talk about how we should have had a national mask order, we should have had much more testing going on nationally. There's a lot of things that nationally should have happened and statewide. We do what we can locally but part of the reality too is when we have 35,000 students coming to town from all over the state in the country. We're gonna see changes in the numbers. We we know we have the hospitalizations continue to be stable. They have not we haven't seen dramatic changes in hospitalization. There's plenty of capacity now for that right now. We're not as high as we were in the spring. So we had a we had an improvement, but with the return of all these students and numbers of people, we are seeing a resurgence and I think Indiana University expected it. We expected it might happen they've got a you probably know they have a dorm that they've set aside with over 500 bedrooms for for isolation as needed. That's only about a third full right now. So they've got capacity there. We can beat the disease but we have to keep doing what we're doing which is really controlling the spread with with masking, distancing, good hygiene, don't gather in big groups and continue to take these smart steps until we get a you know, a that we can beat the virus with the vaccine that we hope will come sooner rather than later.
Unknown Speaker
There's been a lot of talk about and even today I saw a news ticker go by that big 10 football may make a decision today about coming back. I mean, that would be a boost for the economy then no doubt about that. But then you think about tailgating parties. fans. What are you Your thoughts about that?
Unknown Speaker
Well, that look these, you know, issues like that issues like, Should we open the schools? And how should we open the schools, you really need to combine the best science advice that you can, with with one I would then say is really weighing the risks and rewards. You know, the rewards of opening up schools and returning to education for our K through 12 is very, very real and big to be able to do that. It's a different calculation of rewards for for operating a football season. There are some economic benefits but it's also a real risk of as you mentioned, the kind of gatherings that can happen. I don't you know, I don't envy these are very complex decisions. I do appreciate in strongly hope that the focus is on science and health. Well then weighing the risks and rewards of various choices. I haven't heard about the next step on the on the football But, you know, the professional athletes have figured out some ways to do it in a bubble. But that's you can't do that with with college students and student athletes and multiple campuses and all that stuff. So it's a really difficult choice, I think.
Unknown Speaker
And you know, this may sound a little early, but any thoughts the city even thinking about Halloween is not far away too.
Unknown Speaker
We are thinking about Halloween. I know there are groups and institutions and people who have events related to Halloween. We actually talked about it yet this week trying to think about that now. You know, the city has some involvement in Halloween, but of course individuals can choose what they think is right for them. But you know, one of the advantages of Halloween is it's mostly outdoors and small groups and can be traveling with your family and that's safer. On the other hand, we don't want to have a lot of germs passed back and forth at doorways and that kind of thing. So we're, we actually have started to think about Halloween like a lot of cities. around the country. So stay tuned for that.
Unknown Speaker
And for those of you listening, watching, we do have an email, you can send questions to news at Indiana public media.org, you can leave a comment here on Facebook. And if we don't get it to it today, I always save them. And some of these questions were from last month that we never got to. So and we'll get to some of those here in a bit. But I wanted to kind of turn corners and talk about the COVID recovery period with the campaign that you've called recover forward Bloomington economic projects for jobs, money for those to help those in need. And a lot of that has started with some of the city reserves. Can you tell us about some of those projects that are underway?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, Joe recover forward is really an effort that I've been working with the City Council and other partners to try to think about how do we as a community recover in the positive direction toward what we want to be not just looking backwards into Let's go back to what we were but how do we move forward and counsel has supported a couple million dollars of investments yet this year to help recover. It includes things like trying to make sure we keep our safety net strong. It's a it's a couple hundred thousand dollars that we're putting into a regular grant fund that we're expanding to help support our nonprofits and social service entities that are struggling so hard these days. It also includes some special investments to help people get back into the workplace. We've we've lent millions of dollars out. But another example is at the mill our co workspace, even next month, early in October and applications begin I think within a week, we're doing a code school that is it's actually a free school 10 weeks I think for people to build skills that can help them access some good paying jobs that can be done remotely. We're doing work to support people stress in all kinds of ways. And then looking forward, it's really how do we invest in the recovery, both economic, social, environmental, so that we're moving our community forward. And that's in the 2021 budget. And in even longer looking at how do we finance those kinds of investments because, like all communities around the country, we're struggling to get through this recession and climb out of this pandemic. We need to be thinking about what we want to look like a year down the road, five years down the road and begin that path now.
Unknown Speaker
So I'm guessing what might be an interesting meeting that people would want to keep track of tomorrow, Wednesday evening. is the point to five local income tax increase is that in front of the City Council for a vote?
Unknown Speaker
Yes, so Wednesday evening on the 16th. The city council should convene I expect around 6:30pm to consider a point to 5% increase in local income tax. That proposal as part of recover forward is really focused on these kinds of things. How does our community protect those who are most at risk now whether losing their houses out of work facing serious social challenges, as well as investing in energy efficiency, for example, to lower the cost of living for many people in the community and lower our carbon footprint, as well as dealing with economic inequality and how we help people get those better jobs. So on on Wednesday evening, the council is considering whether to add revenue to our city so that we can make those kind of forward looking investments.
Unknown Speaker
I've seen some reporting we've done some reporting, county officials, some ellisville officials, there have been letters to the editor in the paper that's calling this tax more money for the mayor's pet projects. You probably have heard worse Do you still Is this the time for attacks like this?
Unknown Speaker
Well, there are a lot of people with different comments. Let me look this. These are projects that are really important for the future of the people of Bloomington. And my job is to try to advocate for the, for the programs and the projects that will help our people thrive and climb out of this challenging time. It is important to note that both the county and the city would agree, we would prefer that the state legislature would give cities authority to manage our own finances and to impose our own taxes. We're not allowed to do that. We've been asking for many years in the state legislature has declined to do that. So the only way a city can generate more revenue is through a county wide tax and the state legislature sets up pretty complicated voting rules for that but when we will follow all those rules and if a majority of the votes are cast, then the county receives a new income tax. And it's surprising to many people that Monroe County has the lowest tax rate on income compared to all seven contiguous counties were significantly lower than Brown County and in Morgan County and lower than all of the Lawrence and Oakland and green Jackson, all those counties have higher income tax rates than we do. And even after this tax, if it goes through, we'll have the sixth lowest out of seven will still be very low. So it's important from my perspective to help us to chart the path for but I understand there, there's some different views on it. And that's what democracies are about.
Unknown Speaker
You know, when when you talk about the low tax rate, do you also take into consideration that Bloomington has one of the most or at least reported some of the most expensive places to live besides Indianapolis and housing is very expensive, and residents may want low taxes, so is saying, you know, hey, we're the lowest so we can raise them? Is that a compelling reason to do so?
Unknown Speaker
No, it's not the reason To raise the taxes, the reason to look at raising taxes is to provide services. And absolutely one of those services is to support affordable housing and to help people who are in housing to have lower cost of living by helping invest in solar panels and energy efficiency to lower their energy costs. And it's a high cost of living affects all of us in Bloomington for sure. And we're working hard on that. But I think it's important to note, for example, that the basic services of government are paid for through an income tax and if if if you have our income taxes really like half the level of broward county or Morgan County, that means government has much less revenue to provide the services to to sweep the streets and to pick up trash and to patrol the streets and to improve the parks and to you know, help stray animals and to watch the water quality. All those things depend upon revenue. And it depends on taxes and taxes are what give us the government services that we that we want and expect.
Unknown Speaker
There's an interesting wrinkle in this too, and that he you know it like you mentioned it's a county tax, but the city council makes up a majority of the vote and there's even some maybe some state legislation on the horizon that may change the priority of how the vote is cast for local income tax. Do you think the process to vote on the tax is fair as it is right now?
Unknown Speaker
Well, we've advocated I would advocate, as we have that the city ought to be able to impose a tax on the city's residents. City Council can and should be able to say we want and we need revenue to do the six things or approach these challenges and impose that tax the state does not let us do that we are a creature of state law. And we've advocated for that for a long time. The state has instead instead decided all income taxes are imposed at a county wide level. And they've bounced back and forth on how you impose those countywide taxes. And currently, it's a complicated formula of the different jurisdictions each each member of the different jurisdictions get a certain percentage of the vote, reflecting the population and the theory is that of people representing more than half the people in a community vote for it and the majority is in favor of it that should go into place. But it's not ideal. And we would absolutely support a change in that in the state legislature hope they'll do it.
Unknown Speaker
So but is that enough reason to wait on the tax then to vote on the tax or no? Well,
Unknown Speaker
I will tell you from my seat in Bloomington, I would rather not go hand in hand to the legislature and say please change as we've done for many years and they have declined to give that authority. It's not clear that there's anything different that would cause them to change their mind this coming year. I would prefer to go to the state legislature and say we have put this together. And place as you instructed us we can do. But we would be very happy to change it to a city wide tax city only tax if you would, if you would change the rules. So I, you know, I'll be working with the legislature to try to create more opportunity for that. But as you probably know, the state legislature tends to be, make it very difficult for revenue. I, for example, our community every seven years has to go through a very challenging and difficult school referendum, just from my perspective to get the basic funding that our public schools need. That shouldn't take a referendum to just do the basic main services that we want from public education. And that's because the state legislatures made it very difficult sometimes to get the revenue needed at the local government level.
Unknown Speaker
Okay, just one more quick question. I know we're kind of running out of time. I want to get to some other things but how do you feel about that vote tomorrow night if you talk to the council do did they have a better idea of where the funds are going? Are you confident that it will pass
Unknown Speaker
I don't know if it past I think it could be close it. If we if we had voted in in March or February it would have taken five votes to pass it. The state legislature in April in March changed the rules. So now it takes eight votes to pass it so it's harder to get eight volts and five volts but we'll find out tomorrow night how it is and I hope I hope that we'll move forward to this. It's it is quite important for the future of the city. I believe.
Unknown Speaker
Dan writes in this going back to the Coronavirus. He's read many articles about Hoosiers disregarding state county City Campus company COVID-19 policies but no consequences. Why not? So what what's your take from the city side on that?
Unknown Speaker
Well, these public health orders are meant to protect the public health. They are not meant to be punitive or criminal statutes that are meant to catch people not doing the right thing. They're meant. They're designed to encourage compliance and to protect public health there There are consequences if people violate orders. We've had institutions like restaurants and bars that have not complied with the orders and they've had been cracked down on and made clear if you do not comply immediately, you you risk closure and we would close them down. We haven't had to, but we've had some very serious conversations. There individuals who work for the city, we have rules on mask wearing and on distancing, and we have very strong compliance overall, but occasionally we'll have an individual or a circumstance where there's not compliance and we we make clear to that person or in that circumstance that that needs to get better and it will. But so there are cons I know Indiana University has had some very direct consequences to students who didn't comply with rules. So so that does happen, but I think it is important also to note these are these are not meant to be gotcha rules. These are meant to be the behaviors or we're encouraging and requiring these behaviors. To protect public health, and so the full balance is on what do we need to do to make sure we're protecting public health and that'll continue to be the focus. And
Unknown Speaker
Mark wants to know, can you get a test if you're not from Indiana?
Unknown Speaker
a covid test. There are lots of different tests. There's, there's a virus test for being a current infection. There's antibody tests for showing that you've had an infection there private providers, their public providers. So the short answer is, you can be a as a resident of Indiana or a resident of Monroe County or Bloomington, yes, there are many options. If you're purely a visitor coming through, there are not nearly as many options but there may be some still available but the testing protocols really focus on people who are in the community who were trying to to identify if there's been a an infection and therefore do the contact tracing to find out where who else might have been exposed. But there's a you know, there's so many different ways to get testing it's hard to ensure that you can you can donate blood and as you donate blood, you can have an antibody test. It's automatically given to you so that you can do anybody can can go and donate blood and do that.
Unknown Speaker
quick follow up on the convention center. It's still on hold. I think last time we talked that that's just on hold till the end of the year. What the money that's coming in from the food and beverage tax is that just being collected right now.
Unknown Speaker
So the 1% tax on purchases of consumables of food and beverage that you consume when right when you buy them is in effect its course gone down quite a bit as we've seen during the pandemic, and that money is just being reserved if you will for for the future use we'll be talking to the county and other partners about the convention center plans at the end of the year. It's a very as you might expect, it's a pretty uncertain future on windows are going to rebound and how and if and, and and so will be will Looking at that, but in the meantime, what lower revenues there are, are being reserved in a special account to be used for that, or they actually have millions of dollars have been lent out in the last six months to support the food and beverage industry to get them through this to this, this challenge, too.
Unknown Speaker
And I know we only have a couple more minutes of your time. So I'd like to ask if you have any announcements, any things that you'd like to say right now, I know you mentioned earlier about there's something going on at switch art Park.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, well, a couple couple important months. So one is Suicide Prevention Month. And in Look, there's a lot of stress going around and it's a really good month to remind ourselves and our families and our friends. Keep an eye out. For those who are really struggling with this. It's it's there's more mental health challenges that we're seeing. So this is a really good time to reach out and if you need help, be sure you do reach out through Nami or some other places. It's also the Start of Latinx Heritage Month. So mid September to mid October. There's a lot of activities kicking off for that. So look for that. And then is, as you mentioned, Joe, our famous Lotus World Music Festival is different this year but Saturday September 26. In switchyard Park, there is going to be a appropriately distanced and careful celebration with some music so folks can look for that on Saturday the 26th.
Unknown Speaker
All right, again, appreciate your time.
Unknown Speaker
Thanks so much, Joe. Good to see you.
Unknown Speaker
Same here and those watching, you can still submit a question news at Indiana public media.org and next week, we'll be in Nashville with town consultant, municipal consultant DAX Norton. Thanks for watching.
Unknown Speaker
Thank you again, Mayor. Take care bye bye
