Unknown Speaker 0:04
Okay, it's been a while since we've done Facebook Live. Welcome everyone on WFIU, Facebook page to WFIU News Live with the mayor of Bloomington, John Hamilton. Hello, Mayor Hamilton, thanks for being with us.
Unknown Speaker 0:20
Hi, Joe. Good to be with you. And everyone again,
Unknown Speaker 0:24
boy packed, show lots lots to talk about lots in the news. Let's just start with heat indexes reaching 105 degrees, I think just have to remind everyone be careful Weather officials naming an air quality Action Day today. So stay healthy. And I believe the city has some cooling spots too.
Unknown Speaker 0:43
You know, we do have that at fire stations. And of course, we've got public pools open and a splash pad and other places, if you have any concerns, you know, reach out to either neighborhood contacts or our office or, you know, if it's a dire emergency call 911. These are, heat is serious. You know, climate change is real. And we continue to make sure we're doing all we can to keep everybody safe and healthy.
Unknown Speaker 1:11
So let's talk about gun control legislation. There's some bipartisan agreement, Senator Young supporting some of it. Something I've been asking all the mayors on the show since the recent school shooting or the recent shootings in general, you know, how safe are Monroe County Schools? What needs to be done? And you're just your take on on this tragedy that's going on right now?
Unknown Speaker 1:36
Well, Joe, the gun violence is heartbreaking. You know, we we hear of the extraordinary mass shootings, whether it's buffalo or wild a and of course, there's a whole string of names, we can rattle off that echo in our minds and break our hearts. And that's really terrible and frustrating. In Indiana, we have very, very lacks gun control laws, and they're actually going to be made looser in a few weeks. Basically, from my perspective, very ill advised view of not thinking about guns as a health issue, public health issue. And indeed, We have incredibly punitive laws against local officials, like myself or our city council about stopping us from doing what many of us would think are very sensible things to help protect our public. So it's very frustrating the legal regime we live in. Now, I do you know, I, I believe there are many things underway and more we can do, to keep trying to keep each other safe with education and health care and mental health and connections and watching out for each other. I don't want to live in a siege mentality or a fortress state, whether it's in our city hall or in our public schools. I do think we need to focus on this as a public health issue and how to keep everybody safe. And I'm going to continue to urge that I'm wearing my, you know, common sense gun control and gun anti gun violence button because we're part of a whole network of cities that care about this. It's very frustrating. I'm glad there's some progress nationally, we have a lot more that needs to be done.
Unknown Speaker 3:28
How safe are Monroe County Schools? And how much does the schools work with the city police?
Unknown Speaker 3:35
Well, look, we work together very well. But I can't give you a between zero and 100. How safe are Monroe County Schools. I mean, they're very safe. We you know, we all are living in a community that's quite safe, which does not mean that tomorrow or in one week, or in a year, something terrible could happen because we do have, we see that that that's a scary and frustrating aspect of our lives that we have so many weapons. We've had a lot of gun incidents in our community over the last year more than we did five years ago. Significantly more they're more people with guns. They're more guns that get pulled out and used in circumstances that can of course cause wreak terrible havoc. And that can happen at any time. I think, again, I don't think the appropriate response is to decide we're living in an unsafe way. It's it's the decide what are the steps that we can take to improve safety. And I know our schools do a lot on that we do we work together we train, we plan, we prepare, and that's all really important. But we also need to invest we need to invest in you know, good jobs and good health care and good social services and housing. And so those kinds of things to that I think are all very important.
Unknown Speaker 4:58
So our federal and state Officials doing their part to keep people safe from violent gun use from your perspective as mayor.
Unknown Speaker 5:05
No, not enough. I think in fact, they're not doing nearly enough to address some of these issues that are very clear about guns. We have too many guns, it's too easy to get a gun too many people who shouldn't have a gun have them their guns that are too many different places. There is no reasons to have protections from my perspective to not allow, for example, a city hall or a city council meeting to say we don't want weapons in here. private employers are allowed to set rules in their places of employment, but public and public sector should be allowed to do the same.
Unknown Speaker 5:41
Alright, let's move on. And news just yesterday, Sarah dye back in the news. She's suddenly in coffee. Now schooner Creek farms, understand she doesn't have a contract to sell at the city farmers market but as listed as a vendor, prompting Black Lives Matter Bloomington in a social media post today blaming the city and Mayor due to failure to act because of her ties to white supremacy groups. Do you have a response to that?
Unknown Speaker 6:08
Well, I do have several responses first. I think a lot of this, I don't I don't want to give more oxygen to a hateful and atrocious kind of marketing effort that does seem to emphasize white supremacy. And I just I would, I'm not going to talk about that. I think that's the whole goal is to try to get more people talking about a particular institution, I will say the city has consistently and I personally have consistently continued to emphasize our hatred of white supremacy as a doctrine, our sensitivity and awareness that racism still exists, we have to be ever vigilant and energetic about trying to identify ways that the persistence and legacies of racism are still with us. There's a lot of work to be done at the city level about that. And we do that. And we need to keep doing that we need to work together on that, whether it's in housing, or an education, or the economy or our healthcare system or our criminal justice system. And that's where we should be focused, I will continue to do that and encourage that work with Black Lives Matter and many other organizations that are helping move us forward. You know that as a as a, as a public official, I am not allowed to punish someone, as a government, we can't punish people for what they believe. And that's an important concept. But I also don't have to promote anything or talk about any people who are trying to promote a product related to a hateful ideology. And I'm, I'm not going to do that.
Unknown Speaker 7:45
All right. Let's move on to annexation news. More coming out about last I've heard reminds traitors saying that they don't have enough time to collect signatures citing the COVID pandemic. Now, of course, this is all tied up in litigation. But I thought it was a fair question. You know, should people that were going door to door during a pandemic, you know, be allowed more time?
Unknown Speaker 8:07
Well, you're right there is litigation going on. So I have to be a little cautious about how we talk about it. We got a couple of different court cases going on. But I will say, you know, generally, there were lots of things going on. We had elections during this time we had, we had many, many things going on during a pandemic, of course, we learned how to do that. And it's also a little tricky. It's kind of like going through an election or having a period and it doesn't come out the way somebody wants. And after they find that out or after somebody says, hey, that process didn't work the way I want. I didn't protest it during the process. But after the process, and it turned out the way I didn't want it. I'm going to say that process wasn't right. I guess my general view is if there's a view that the process wasn't appropriate or shouldn't have been should have been done differently. It could have been asked at the right at a different time. But this will all get decided in a court. It's a very orderly process to evaluate to annexation, and we hope it gets resolved pretty quickly.
Unknown Speaker 9:04
Nothing else new on that front, correct?
Unknown Speaker 9:06
No, it's just it's just through the litigation and they're speaking back and forth. And we'll we'll wait to see how that comes out.
Unknown Speaker 9:14
We heard in the newsroom city taking out a homeless camp, I believe behind the at home store last week was wondering if you could confirm that did any of those folks get housing and why was the camp taken down?
Unknown Speaker 9:28
No. You know Joe The only thing I saw on the news was actually a county action that that removed a homeless camp i You may be right I just don't I haven't heard about that. Our general pattern in the city is that we if we do need to remove people from camping in either a public right of way public park etc We work very closely we give notice we give time I'm not aware of of that. Inside the city. I know there's a major effort outside the city but Uh, if if sometimes, you know, we do work very closely with folks, and typically, the very first thing that's done is offering people a chance to get a to get a bed in a shelter or or in housing directly. And it's a it's a very deliberate and extensive process typically.
Unknown Speaker 10:21
Okay, so that's some, perhaps that was done through county officials.
Unknown Speaker 10:26
I know there was a major encampment outside the city that was cleared and removed by the county. And I don't know the process that was followed for that. Okay. No, but I did read about that in the paper a week or
Unknown Speaker 10:39
two ago. All right, I did see the city launching a new project identify active lead and water services lines i Is this an EPA mandate? And how does this work?
Unknown Speaker 10:52
Well, I'm really glad our utility department's doing this, I actually went out and piloted the effort, I learned how to do it a little bit last week. So we're actually jumping ahead of what will eventually be an EPA national mandate that all lead service lines. So these are the lines that go from the main water system into your meter and then from the meter to your house or to your building, to identify where any of those service lines are still LED. And we have now a big process underway locally to find those lead lines, because we want to replace them eventually. Now replacing them is pretty expensive, it's pretty big quarter, we do think there will be very substantial federal money to help pay for that through the infrastructure bill. So what we're doing is kind of jumpstarting the mandate, we're going ahead of the mandate to just find out where our lead service lines are. And that process has begun it actually involves digging down, you know, two or three feet, a couple different holes in a yard or next to a building to to visit, visually inspect and chemically test the lines. We do expect to find some lead service lines. And I will say also, this two things, one, just because you have a service line that is led does not mean that lead gets into the water, we actually work very hard to create a an alkaline a pH status of the water that encourages and causes scaling inside the pipe that then creates a scale to protect from the lead surface. So So that's typically pretty effective. Second, if anybody's concerned about that, we offer free lead testing for the water in your house, if you ever have concerns about that, we can get us a tap water sample and run run it through our own system. We do that at the city of Bloomington utilities. So that's that's all good. Our water is very clean and safe. We're just trying to make sure those pipes that we can find them over the next year or so. And then hopefully get funding to replace them. So if you see a fancy vacuum truck and some some people that are digging holes in yards around the city, that's what's going on.
Unknown Speaker 13:06
Okay, very, very interesting. And you took my follow up questions too, though about, we've always talked about EPA and unfunded mandates. And this is something you said you hope that you'll see funding for down the road. We do
Unknown Speaker 13:20
that the mandate is right now the mandate is to find the lead lines by 2024. And we're going to be well I've had to that pace because we want to be ready because there is some funding, we believe we want to get it we haven't gotten it yet, but some funding to do those replacements. Because it's it's a bit expensive to replace that that service line can be, you know, 1000s of dollars. And we want to help get that done, which would be great for the future of the city to get rid of all those lead lines. The one that I did at our test site, by the way was copper. So that was good. But if we do find a lead line, we notify the homeowner and we can make sure we watch that carefully.
Unknown Speaker 14:01
So much going on with the Johnson Creamery smokestack and the development is supposed to go there now Council plans to decide more Wednesday night, we know the stack has to come down waiting on a TN T to take down the cell phone items that are up up on the smokestack. But now there's a public alley that's unclear if it's been vacated. If not, the developer said that they would just sell the property and cause us a very disturbing project. Councilmember Piedmontese Smith saying this is why Bloomington is seen as unfriendly to businesses. I guess I just kind of want to get your take. I know that a lot of this is up with city council, but I thought it'd be good to get your your response to what's going on here. Sure.
Unknown Speaker 14:44
Well, look, you know, people get different different views from different viewpoints on particular projects. This is a this is a major Chicago developer who wants to build some high end apartments downtown in Bloomington right next to City Hall. Bye bye By the Beeline and the they've bought the Johnson Creamery and the smokestack to put that in. And we welcome that. We do they are asking to vacate public property vacate a public alley to be able to use that privately to do this. And I think very appropriately, the city, our planning department and the city council, I hope we're saying, Well, if you want public property to put this private development in what what are you giving to the public? They do need to deal with the unsafe smokestack, which they will do. And I think there's some very good and legitimate back and forth about what if you're asking for public property? What do you want to give for the public and I think there's some consideration of public art, maybe some commemoration of the of the smokestack historic smokestack probably won't get rebuilt, that's a very difficult thing to rebuild that smokestack is just unsafe and leaning. But I think it's very appropriate to ask a private developer like that to make a contribution, if you will, to the public, in in exchange for the releasing of that public alley to be turned into private housing.
Unknown Speaker 16:12
Okay, we'll find out more Wednesday night. Yeah. We've done about nine minutes. I you know, I do have to ask, I mean, some big news, I believe last week to local woman taking first steps to run for mayor Susan Sandberg, Carrie Thompson. They want your job. Your your your response and thoughts about that.
Unknown Speaker 16:31
Well, look, it's it's it's not our election season yet. But elections are good choices. Good. I think having people make cases for where they think this idiotic Go is a good thing. I've certainly done that myself a few times. And, and welcome that. I will say, Look, I'm energized and excited about what we're doing here. I'm very proud of the progress we're making in Bloomington, I'm very proud of where the city is, I'm excited about what we have ahead of us. I'll say that. However, I will also say there's another election that we have this fall that I'm focused on trying to do all I can to help our local Democrats, county and state and national get elected. And so right now I'm focused on doing this job that's, that's energizing and exciting and full of challenges every day, after the coming elections in November, I think it'll be time to turn to kind of the municipal local elections, but certainly look forward to people bringing ideas about how the city can get better. And I'm happy to talk about what we've done over the last six and a half years to move Bloomington forward in ways that I think are very exciting. We, you know, we have 1100 new units of affordable housing. The top tier of, of Indiana counties now for wages, which we haven't been in, we have, you know, outstanding public safety. There's no city in Indiana, that has a public safety record, like we do with a police force. It's nationally accredited, and a fire department's top rated. But anyway, that's all the stuff we can talk about. But let's let's focus on doing our work right now and getting through the upcoming elections, and then it'll be time to turn to municipal elections.
Unknown Speaker 18:11
And I believe that's when you said you wouldn't comment on whether you would run again, would be after the fall election. Is that correct?
Unknown Speaker 18:18
Yes. You know, that's really a kind of a pattern in the city. And I think it's very appropriate to keep our focus on each cycle of elections. And typically, after the midterms coming this fall, then the municipal calendar kicks in. And that's when those of us who are candidates or potential candidates on the municipal calendar kind of start, in my view, start engaging and letting them try to get the public to engage right now. I really want the public to engage on the upcoming 2022 elections in November and not distracted with anything beyond that. Okay. I
Unknown Speaker 18:51
do have to ask some sources told us in the newsroom that you've been having some campaign fundraisers quietly. So would that indicate that you're running again or maybe for a different office?
Unknown Speaker 19:02
Well, thanks for asking. One of the one of the things that candidate or mayor does is is I do I do political fundraising. And I've done that every year and I'm continuing to do it this year. Not not major ways, but that helps me support local candidates. It's helped me support local organizations that work on behalf of the party and helps me support we have a big picnic every fall for all the Democrats. I'll be doing that again in September. So I do. I do that, but I'm gonna wait to talk about next year till the end of this year.
Unknown Speaker 19:36
So Juneteenth holiday is Monday. What are some of the things people can do on now we have the day off.
Unknown Speaker 19:44
Well, that's right. It's now a city holiday and a national holiday, thankfully Juneteenth and that's exciting thinking about how we celebrate and commemorate and observe Emancipation Day. And that important step in our country's history. We we do have a big event happening at switchyard. Park Saturday the 18th from two to seven, anyone's welcome to come. It'll be a fun free music free food from again, from two to seven. I think it's supposed to be a pretty nice day. And if anybody wants to come out there, we would very much welcome them on as to what you do on your day off, I'll have to let people decide what they want to do for that on their own.
Unknown Speaker 20:23
Well, we got through everything. I don't know how we did it. But we did we do have one minute left. So I will ask you, as always any big announcements or last word that you'd like everyone to know? Well,
Unknown Speaker 20:34
thanks, Joe. One other thing that's in front of the council that I'm very proud and excited about is the opportunity for a new digital infrastructure to come to town. We've talked about it I think before meridiem, an international company is ready to invest $50 million in Bloomington to build city wide to every premise, a fiber network, that will be a net neutral, open design with a focus on saying we want to create a digital infrastructure that will be available to everyone. It's got an it's got the best digital equity program in the country that we know of that would make 1000s of our households essentially have free high speed internet, kids in school seniors needing it people in house public housing, people on food stamps, just trying to make sure look, you still belong and it should have access to this Digital Highway. So it's kind of like electricity for the 20th century digital access for the 21st century. I'm very pleased and hopeful that the city council and everyone will support this. It's a great move forward for the city.
Unknown Speaker 21:42
Yeah, huge story something I think we'll do a lot more on here as well. Thank you again for your time and hope to see you in July.
Unknown Speaker 21:50
Good to see you Joe and thanks for everybody who paid attention to this and everybody have a good June
Okay, it's been a while since we've done Facebook Live. Welcome everyone on WFIU, Facebook page to WFIU News Live with the mayor of Bloomington, John Hamilton. Hello, Mayor Hamilton, thanks for being with us.
Unknown Speaker 0:20
Hi, Joe. Good to be with you. And everyone again,
Unknown Speaker 0:24
boy packed, show lots lots to talk about lots in the news. Let's just start with heat indexes reaching 105 degrees, I think just have to remind everyone be careful Weather officials naming an air quality Action Day today. So stay healthy. And I believe the city has some cooling spots too.
Unknown Speaker 0:43
You know, we do have that at fire stations. And of course, we've got public pools open and a splash pad and other places, if you have any concerns, you know, reach out to either neighborhood contacts or our office or, you know, if it's a dire emergency call 911. These are, heat is serious. You know, climate change is real. And we continue to make sure we're doing all we can to keep everybody safe and healthy.
Unknown Speaker 1:11
So let's talk about gun control legislation. There's some bipartisan agreement, Senator Young supporting some of it. Something I've been asking all the mayors on the show since the recent school shooting or the recent shootings in general, you know, how safe are Monroe County Schools? What needs to be done? And you're just your take on on this tragedy that's going on right now?
Unknown Speaker 1:36
Well, Joe, the gun violence is heartbreaking. You know, we we hear of the extraordinary mass shootings, whether it's buffalo or wild a and of course, there's a whole string of names, we can rattle off that echo in our minds and break our hearts. And that's really terrible and frustrating. In Indiana, we have very, very lacks gun control laws, and they're actually going to be made looser in a few weeks. Basically, from my perspective, very ill advised view of not thinking about guns as a health issue, public health issue. And indeed, We have incredibly punitive laws against local officials, like myself or our city council about stopping us from doing what many of us would think are very sensible things to help protect our public. So it's very frustrating the legal regime we live in. Now, I do you know, I, I believe there are many things underway and more we can do, to keep trying to keep each other safe with education and health care and mental health and connections and watching out for each other. I don't want to live in a siege mentality or a fortress state, whether it's in our city hall or in our public schools. I do think we need to focus on this as a public health issue and how to keep everybody safe. And I'm going to continue to urge that I'm wearing my, you know, common sense gun control and gun anti gun violence button because we're part of a whole network of cities that care about this. It's very frustrating. I'm glad there's some progress nationally, we have a lot more that needs to be done.
Unknown Speaker 3:28
How safe are Monroe County Schools? And how much does the schools work with the city police?
Unknown Speaker 3:35
Well, look, we work together very well. But I can't give you a between zero and 100. How safe are Monroe County Schools. I mean, they're very safe. We you know, we all are living in a community that's quite safe, which does not mean that tomorrow or in one week, or in a year, something terrible could happen because we do have, we see that that that's a scary and frustrating aspect of our lives that we have so many weapons. We've had a lot of gun incidents in our community over the last year more than we did five years ago. Significantly more they're more people with guns. They're more guns that get pulled out and used in circumstances that can of course cause wreak terrible havoc. And that can happen at any time. I think, again, I don't think the appropriate response is to decide we're living in an unsafe way. It's it's the decide what are the steps that we can take to improve safety. And I know our schools do a lot on that we do we work together we train, we plan, we prepare, and that's all really important. But we also need to invest we need to invest in you know, good jobs and good health care and good social services and housing. And so those kinds of things to that I think are all very important.
Unknown Speaker 4:58
So our federal and state Officials doing their part to keep people safe from violent gun use from your perspective as mayor.
Unknown Speaker 5:05
No, not enough. I think in fact, they're not doing nearly enough to address some of these issues that are very clear about guns. We have too many guns, it's too easy to get a gun too many people who shouldn't have a gun have them their guns that are too many different places. There is no reasons to have protections from my perspective to not allow, for example, a city hall or a city council meeting to say we don't want weapons in here. private employers are allowed to set rules in their places of employment, but public and public sector should be allowed to do the same.
Unknown Speaker 5:41
Alright, let's move on. And news just yesterday, Sarah dye back in the news. She's suddenly in coffee. Now schooner Creek farms, understand she doesn't have a contract to sell at the city farmers market but as listed as a vendor, prompting Black Lives Matter Bloomington in a social media post today blaming the city and Mayor due to failure to act because of her ties to white supremacy groups. Do you have a response to that?
Unknown Speaker 6:08
Well, I do have several responses first. I think a lot of this, I don't I don't want to give more oxygen to a hateful and atrocious kind of marketing effort that does seem to emphasize white supremacy. And I just I would, I'm not going to talk about that. I think that's the whole goal is to try to get more people talking about a particular institution, I will say the city has consistently and I personally have consistently continued to emphasize our hatred of white supremacy as a doctrine, our sensitivity and awareness that racism still exists, we have to be ever vigilant and energetic about trying to identify ways that the persistence and legacies of racism are still with us. There's a lot of work to be done at the city level about that. And we do that. And we need to keep doing that we need to work together on that, whether it's in housing, or an education, or the economy or our healthcare system or our criminal justice system. And that's where we should be focused, I will continue to do that and encourage that work with Black Lives Matter and many other organizations that are helping move us forward. You know that as a as a, as a public official, I am not allowed to punish someone, as a government, we can't punish people for what they believe. And that's an important concept. But I also don't have to promote anything or talk about any people who are trying to promote a product related to a hateful ideology. And I'm, I'm not going to do that.
Unknown Speaker 7:45
All right. Let's move on to annexation news. More coming out about last I've heard reminds traitors saying that they don't have enough time to collect signatures citing the COVID pandemic. Now, of course, this is all tied up in litigation. But I thought it was a fair question. You know, should people that were going door to door during a pandemic, you know, be allowed more time?
Unknown Speaker 8:07
Well, you're right there is litigation going on. So I have to be a little cautious about how we talk about it. We got a couple of different court cases going on. But I will say, you know, generally, there were lots of things going on. We had elections during this time we had, we had many, many things going on during a pandemic, of course, we learned how to do that. And it's also a little tricky. It's kind of like going through an election or having a period and it doesn't come out the way somebody wants. And after they find that out or after somebody says, hey, that process didn't work the way I want. I didn't protest it during the process. But after the process, and it turned out the way I didn't want it. I'm going to say that process wasn't right. I guess my general view is if there's a view that the process wasn't appropriate or shouldn't have been should have been done differently. It could have been asked at the right at a different time. But this will all get decided in a court. It's a very orderly process to evaluate to annexation, and we hope it gets resolved pretty quickly.
Unknown Speaker 9:04
Nothing else new on that front, correct?
Unknown Speaker 9:06
No, it's just it's just through the litigation and they're speaking back and forth. And we'll we'll wait to see how that comes out.
Unknown Speaker 9:14
We heard in the newsroom city taking out a homeless camp, I believe behind the at home store last week was wondering if you could confirm that did any of those folks get housing and why was the camp taken down?
Unknown Speaker 9:28
No. You know Joe The only thing I saw on the news was actually a county action that that removed a homeless camp i You may be right I just don't I haven't heard about that. Our general pattern in the city is that we if we do need to remove people from camping in either a public right of way public park etc We work very closely we give notice we give time I'm not aware of of that. Inside the city. I know there's a major effort outside the city but Uh, if if sometimes, you know, we do work very closely with folks, and typically, the very first thing that's done is offering people a chance to get a to get a bed in a shelter or or in housing directly. And it's a it's a very deliberate and extensive process typically.
Unknown Speaker 10:21
Okay, so that's some, perhaps that was done through county officials.
Unknown Speaker 10:26
I know there was a major encampment outside the city that was cleared and removed by the county. And I don't know the process that was followed for that. Okay. No, but I did read about that in the paper a week or
Unknown Speaker 10:39
two ago. All right, I did see the city launching a new project identify active lead and water services lines i Is this an EPA mandate? And how does this work?
Unknown Speaker 10:52
Well, I'm really glad our utility department's doing this, I actually went out and piloted the effort, I learned how to do it a little bit last week. So we're actually jumping ahead of what will eventually be an EPA national mandate that all lead service lines. So these are the lines that go from the main water system into your meter and then from the meter to your house or to your building, to identify where any of those service lines are still LED. And we have now a big process underway locally to find those lead lines, because we want to replace them eventually. Now replacing them is pretty expensive, it's pretty big quarter, we do think there will be very substantial federal money to help pay for that through the infrastructure bill. So what we're doing is kind of jumpstarting the mandate, we're going ahead of the mandate to just find out where our lead service lines are. And that process has begun it actually involves digging down, you know, two or three feet, a couple different holes in a yard or next to a building to to visit, visually inspect and chemically test the lines. We do expect to find some lead service lines. And I will say also, this two things, one, just because you have a service line that is led does not mean that lead gets into the water, we actually work very hard to create a an alkaline a pH status of the water that encourages and causes scaling inside the pipe that then creates a scale to protect from the lead surface. So So that's typically pretty effective. Second, if anybody's concerned about that, we offer free lead testing for the water in your house, if you ever have concerns about that, we can get us a tap water sample and run run it through our own system. We do that at the city of Bloomington utilities. So that's that's all good. Our water is very clean and safe. We're just trying to make sure those pipes that we can find them over the next year or so. And then hopefully get funding to replace them. So if you see a fancy vacuum truck and some some people that are digging holes in yards around the city, that's what's going on.
Unknown Speaker 13:06
Okay, very, very interesting. And you took my follow up questions too, though about, we've always talked about EPA and unfunded mandates. And this is something you said you hope that you'll see funding for down the road. We do
Unknown Speaker 13:20
that the mandate is right now the mandate is to find the lead lines by 2024. And we're going to be well I've had to that pace because we want to be ready because there is some funding, we believe we want to get it we haven't gotten it yet, but some funding to do those replacements. Because it's it's a bit expensive to replace that that service line can be, you know, 1000s of dollars. And we want to help get that done, which would be great for the future of the city to get rid of all those lead lines. The one that I did at our test site, by the way was copper. So that was good. But if we do find a lead line, we notify the homeowner and we can make sure we watch that carefully.
Unknown Speaker 14:01
So much going on with the Johnson Creamery smokestack and the development is supposed to go there now Council plans to decide more Wednesday night, we know the stack has to come down waiting on a TN T to take down the cell phone items that are up up on the smokestack. But now there's a public alley that's unclear if it's been vacated. If not, the developer said that they would just sell the property and cause us a very disturbing project. Councilmember Piedmontese Smith saying this is why Bloomington is seen as unfriendly to businesses. I guess I just kind of want to get your take. I know that a lot of this is up with city council, but I thought it'd be good to get your your response to what's going on here. Sure.
Unknown Speaker 14:44
Well, look, you know, people get different different views from different viewpoints on particular projects. This is a this is a major Chicago developer who wants to build some high end apartments downtown in Bloomington right next to City Hall. Bye bye By the Beeline and the they've bought the Johnson Creamery and the smokestack to put that in. And we welcome that. We do they are asking to vacate public property vacate a public alley to be able to use that privately to do this. And I think very appropriately, the city, our planning department and the city council, I hope we're saying, Well, if you want public property to put this private development in what what are you giving to the public? They do need to deal with the unsafe smokestack, which they will do. And I think there's some very good and legitimate back and forth about what if you're asking for public property? What do you want to give for the public and I think there's some consideration of public art, maybe some commemoration of the of the smokestack historic smokestack probably won't get rebuilt, that's a very difficult thing to rebuild that smokestack is just unsafe and leaning. But I think it's very appropriate to ask a private developer like that to make a contribution, if you will, to the public, in in exchange for the releasing of that public alley to be turned into private housing.
Unknown Speaker 16:12
Okay, we'll find out more Wednesday night. Yeah. We've done about nine minutes. I you know, I do have to ask, I mean, some big news, I believe last week to local woman taking first steps to run for mayor Susan Sandberg, Carrie Thompson. They want your job. Your your your response and thoughts about that.
Unknown Speaker 16:31
Well, look, it's it's it's not our election season yet. But elections are good choices. Good. I think having people make cases for where they think this idiotic Go is a good thing. I've certainly done that myself a few times. And, and welcome that. I will say, Look, I'm energized and excited about what we're doing here. I'm very proud of the progress we're making in Bloomington, I'm very proud of where the city is, I'm excited about what we have ahead of us. I'll say that. However, I will also say there's another election that we have this fall that I'm focused on trying to do all I can to help our local Democrats, county and state and national get elected. And so right now I'm focused on doing this job that's, that's energizing and exciting and full of challenges every day, after the coming elections in November, I think it'll be time to turn to kind of the municipal local elections, but certainly look forward to people bringing ideas about how the city can get better. And I'm happy to talk about what we've done over the last six and a half years to move Bloomington forward in ways that I think are very exciting. We, you know, we have 1100 new units of affordable housing. The top tier of, of Indiana counties now for wages, which we haven't been in, we have, you know, outstanding public safety. There's no city in Indiana, that has a public safety record, like we do with a police force. It's nationally accredited, and a fire department's top rated. But anyway, that's all the stuff we can talk about. But let's let's focus on doing our work right now and getting through the upcoming elections, and then it'll be time to turn to municipal elections.
Unknown Speaker 18:11
And I believe that's when you said you wouldn't comment on whether you would run again, would be after the fall election. Is that correct?
Unknown Speaker 18:18
Yes. You know, that's really a kind of a pattern in the city. And I think it's very appropriate to keep our focus on each cycle of elections. And typically, after the midterms coming this fall, then the municipal calendar kicks in. And that's when those of us who are candidates or potential candidates on the municipal calendar kind of start, in my view, start engaging and letting them try to get the public to engage right now. I really want the public to engage on the upcoming 2022 elections in November and not distracted with anything beyond that. Okay. I
Unknown Speaker 18:51
do have to ask some sources told us in the newsroom that you've been having some campaign fundraisers quietly. So would that indicate that you're running again or maybe for a different office?
Unknown Speaker 19:02
Well, thanks for asking. One of the one of the things that candidate or mayor does is is I do I do political fundraising. And I've done that every year and I'm continuing to do it this year. Not not major ways, but that helps me support local candidates. It's helped me support local organizations that work on behalf of the party and helps me support we have a big picnic every fall for all the Democrats. I'll be doing that again in September. So I do. I do that, but I'm gonna wait to talk about next year till the end of this year.
Unknown Speaker 19:36
So Juneteenth holiday is Monday. What are some of the things people can do on now we have the day off.
Unknown Speaker 19:44
Well, that's right. It's now a city holiday and a national holiday, thankfully Juneteenth and that's exciting thinking about how we celebrate and commemorate and observe Emancipation Day. And that important step in our country's history. We we do have a big event happening at switchyard. Park Saturday the 18th from two to seven, anyone's welcome to come. It'll be a fun free music free food from again, from two to seven. I think it's supposed to be a pretty nice day. And if anybody wants to come out there, we would very much welcome them on as to what you do on your day off, I'll have to let people decide what they want to do for that on their own.
Unknown Speaker 20:23
Well, we got through everything. I don't know how we did it. But we did we do have one minute left. So I will ask you, as always any big announcements or last word that you'd like everyone to know? Well,
Unknown Speaker 20:34
thanks, Joe. One other thing that's in front of the council that I'm very proud and excited about is the opportunity for a new digital infrastructure to come to town. We've talked about it I think before meridiem, an international company is ready to invest $50 million in Bloomington to build city wide to every premise, a fiber network, that will be a net neutral, open design with a focus on saying we want to create a digital infrastructure that will be available to everyone. It's got an it's got the best digital equity program in the country that we know of that would make 1000s of our households essentially have free high speed internet, kids in school seniors needing it people in house public housing, people on food stamps, just trying to make sure look, you still belong and it should have access to this Digital Highway. So it's kind of like electricity for the 20th century digital access for the 21st century. I'm very pleased and hopeful that the city council and everyone will support this. It's a great move forward for the city.
Unknown Speaker 21:42
Yeah, huge story something I think we'll do a lot more on here as well. Thank you again for your time and hope to see you in July.
Unknown Speaker 21:50
Good to see you Joe and thanks for everybody who paid attention to this and everybody have a good June
