Speaker 1
Joe, hello and welcome to ask the mayor on WFIU. I'm Joe Hren this week, we're joined by Bloomington Mayor Kerry Thomson on Zoom, because she's in Chicago for the Democratic National Convention. How's it going? What's going on over there?
Speaker 2
What a privilege to be part of this historic moment. It's it's incredibly exciting to be here. We had vice president Harris on the stage to surprise us last night, of course, as well as many others, and the energy is just really high here. And of course, President Biden was our close out speech last night. I think there were a lot of tears in the room last night as we thanked him and really, you know, tried to honor him for this incredible final act of service to our country by allowing allowing somebody else to run for president at this point.
Speaker 1
Now, what's your role there? What are you doing?
Speaker 2
I'm a delegate, and so we will officially nominate Walt's tomorrow night and then Harris on Thursday night. There are lots of caucuses and committee meetings happening as well as it's a great opportunity for me to be in the room with other mayors talk about best practices. There are several Mayor specific events happening here, so when I'm not in the hotel room trying to put final touches on our budget, I am. I'm at committees and caucuses, and then, of course, from four to 10, or as is more realistic, four to midnight, we're over at the convention. Work
Speaker 1
still goes on, doesn't it? It does. It does. I saw a photo I believe on Twitter was in the newsroom yesterday, was that you Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Terre Haute mayor, Brandon sackbun,
Speaker 2
yes, and the mayor of Michigan City as well, may have been in that in that photo That was at a mayor's luncheon yesterday, the Democratic mayors Association held a press conference and a luncheon afterwards, and so Secretary Buttigieg was there, and we were able to connect with
Speaker 1
him. What are you guys so you talk about the issues that other mayors are facing? Are you do you see a similar theme, or is it all over the place? It's
Speaker 2
not all over the place. The US Conference of Mayors this year for 2425 has set their priority as housing, and so we're working together on a pretty significant housing bill that we will propose no matter who is the next president. We want this to go through homelessness and housing is on everybody's radar, almost everybody's but it's, it's definitely the prevailing theme. Infrastructure, of course, has been a real theme of our mayor's conversations in the past. And of course, the bipartisan infrastructure bill now is, is really creating a decade of infrastructure that that we are already implementing, and we'll look forward to continue implementing,
Speaker 1
yeah, city rolling out a plan for unsheltered homelessness press conference that you headed. Can you help define this for us? You know, when we talk about people who are experiencing homelessness. There's unsheltered emergency housing, they're short, short term, long term. How are you tackling this?
Speaker 2
So I know all the terms are very confusing, and we do have many people who are living in shelters or in somehow unstable housing we're looking at this from many lenses, and the plan that we just launched really focuses on unsheltered homelessness. So these are people really who are literally living on the streets. They don't have a couch to stay on. They're not in one of our emergency shelters. That number has grown drastically in Bloomington. It's grown throughout Indiana over the past year, but Bloomington has has really seen more than its share of growth in unsheltered homelessness lately, and so heading home, put together a housing action plan that really focuses on that, on that street homelessness, or unsheltered homelessness, and the key to that is getting them into some kind of shelter along with the services that they need. And so I think lots of times we can get lost in a lot of different terminology. People need unique things, right? And so there's no one size fits all, depending on your health needs. And other needs you may and your family makeup, you may be well suited to one type of shelter and not another, but so our goal really is to provide a spectrum of housing from shelter all the way through permanent housing.
Speaker 1
I believe the report says the county needs about almost 10,000 more affordable units to just close the gap. So how do you help with that? How does the city help with that?
Speaker 2
So the city is going to help in a number of ways. You will see in our upcoming budget, some points to that, some nods to that, which I hope are more significant than just a nod. We'll be looking at our permitting process and our zoning process to see how are we accommodating housing for people who need it most, as well as housing for people who may be ready to move out of the homes that they're in, either to downsize as an empty nester or into into something else that is more suited to their family. What we have right now, because of the interest rates and because of the supply, is that many people who are in their houses are staying in their houses. And so the only solution, then, is new housing. The other thing is, of course, that our housing costs are so high that we need to find ways to either generate housing that is at the at the lower end of the spectrum, or to subsidize housing so that people who are very low income can afford to live in Bloomington and and, and this is a, it's really an all hands on deck kind of approach, not only to to the unhoused problem, but also to housing, because housing, in the end, is the major part of that solution. And I'll just say finally, that we have a significant focus on what we call diversion, which doesn't mean anything to the general public, but all that means is working on plans so that people who are housed can remain housed, things like evictions, if they you know, once you're evicted, once it goes on your record, and it's very, very hard to secure housing again, and so working with families before they're really in Crisis or at the first sign of crisis, can be one of the most important things that we do. And so in the community meeting that we had last Tuesday, there were a lot of community ideas about this, including some community navigators that could do some some more intensive support when families come for for instance, for some utility assistance. If you're coming for utility assistance, you probably have a few other dominoes that could fall very quickly. And so if we can get a navigator to help you at that point, before those dominoes fall, perhaps you can remain stably housed.
Speaker 1
And there are forms scheduled to help determine some housing needs, gather public input one Wednesday, I think at noon, Public Library, September 3, what? What are you? What date are you looking for from the public?
Speaker 2
Yes, so the those meetings are all there's a series of meetings, and they cover many different topics, and you can go to the meetings, or you can provide information on input form online, which is on the housing and Neighborhood Development website right now, but that all feeds into our consolidated plan, not to be confused with our comprehensive plan, which many of us get confused of about. Our Consolidated Plan is what we look at for what housing and infrastructure needs we have in order to provide adequate housing and shelter for our community. And so this is the moment, and it provides a 10 year plan that we do submit to HUD. In tandem with that, Bloomington is going to do a targeted housing action plan for specifically acts that we need to do within the city of Bloomington in order to ensure adequate housing.
Speaker 1
Makes sense. Makes sense. I We did get an email in from Amanda. She was curious where the data is coming from to to determine housing needs. You may have addressed some of this already. She wants to help advocate to see if there's a way to bridge the gap provide current, accurate data to research.
Speaker 2
Yes. So the numbers that you cited in the original part of the interview are from the ROI housing study that was done in late 2023 that's where that figure of 9000 units comes from. In those data, source. Are all cited in that report. So I encourage her to read that report. The unsheltered homelessness members are two different two different figures. One is the official Point in Time Count that we do in January. That's part of the national coordinated Point in Time Count. However, what we see is that things really rise in Bloomington in the summers, and so we wanted to have a more accurate picture of unsheltered homelessness. And so our housing providers and outreach workers did a survey available on the heading home website, that was done in May. And that data, again, is posted, and there's actually a whole dashboard on the heading home website that's quite interesting, and can and can provide that resident some some further data.
Speaker 1
Okay, thank you. Let's get just an update on that, the water treatment plant, sand spill Friday evening, it caused a county wide boil order for a couple days. We got a couple emails from concerned residents wondering just what's going on. Can you give us maybe a little bit of a better insight of what happened, and then an update today? Yes,
Speaker 2
so it was actually a precautionary boil warning. And to be clear, restaurants have a different standard than residences do in items, in items rulings, but there there was sand that got into that tank on Friday night, and what that causes is the possibility that some of the bacteria may not be filtered as well. The counts, frankly, were, were never at alarming levels. So we did put out an alert on on the county emergency alert system. I'm encouraging residents, if they're if you're not signed up for that system, that is our really only way to get information to you reliably when these kinds of things happen, which we hope they'll never happen again. But do sign up for those warnings. Item was just waiting. We had multiple tests over the weekend, which were all coming back well within the safe range, but item needed to process some things in their in their labs on Monday morning, and so we couldn't lift the ban or the precaution until Monday morning.
Speaker 1
Is this part of any larger concern that you have of the water treatment plant facility?
Speaker 2
So the water treatment plant does need some significant updates, but this was not related to those
Speaker 1
use and what was interesting that I just heard too about restaurants having maybe a different level about this. I did see the Bloomington bagel posted. We don't have coffee today. We're bagging in ice. I was thinking about breweries or maybe production plants in town. Did this have a big ripple effect across the city?
Speaker 2
It did have an impact on those restaurants, especially because it was move in weekend, and I just want to express my deep apologies to those restaurants. This, you know, accidents happen, but this could, it could have been timed better. And Jane Cooper Smith, our economic and sustainable development director, was on the phone this weekend doing outreach to restaurants to see how we can support and and help them understand, you know, what the precaution was, but I just want to send out my apologies for any business interruption that happened on move in weekends. We We really value those restaurants, and I know coffee boiling, and some things like that were interrupted and and so my apologies for that.
Speaker 1
Okay, so let's get to annexation. The city decided to appeal the latest ruling that blocks annexation areas one A and 1b What? Just curious. What key elements do you think that the judge didn't weigh enough that that merits annexation.
Speaker 2
Yeah, so you know the I'll let the legal team respond to legal issues, but we, of course, were really disappointed in the ruling and and feel that there are elements that need to be considered and so And frankly, the annexation is really key to our economic development and our prosperity as an entire region. What the what the studies in the history clearly show is that cities with zero leftists. The the entire region starts to go into economic decline. And so this is, it's not just a city issue. It is a it is a county issue. And indeed it is, it's a regional issue as well. And so we are, we are appealing, and I have been talking to some of the residents who have reached out to me in the annexation areas, and have had really good conversations. And I just want to express again, that should these areas be annexed? I want to be a mayor that welcomes residents, that lets them know that they belong and really is eager to serve them. This is, in my mind, not A, not an issue of trying to land grab. It is a it's a conversation that we need to continue about how we can offer services and impact in the in the county areas and to those residents who are really concerned. Yeah,
Speaker 1
you said you were talking with people that were intended for annexation right now. What are those conversations like? What? What are they saying? And how are you responding?
Speaker 2
You know, a lot of what I'm hearing is that people didn't feel listened to the first time, and that, you know, the message they were getting is that the city could annex because it was their right and they didn't owe them anything as resident, as new residents of the city. I disagree. As as the mayor, I take it very seriously. The service that I provide in our team provides to residents who are within the city limits and and I take their input very seriously. There's also some myths out there about what annexation really means, I've had residents tell me, residents in the areas intended for annexation, that their understanding is that they will have to pay to put sidewalks in front of their house as soon as it's annexed. This is simply not true. The city will look at a sidewalk plan and and many of many areas that do get sidewalks will be in our sidewalk plan at the city's cost, but there will be no order to put in sidewalks on your property, especially if you're not developing anything on it.
Speaker 1
I wanted to one more quick question, because the judge stated that your testimony included the need for affordable housing, saying it undermines the city's policy of refusing to extend sewer service outside its boundaries for housing. So how do you respond to that?
Unknown Speaker
I'm not sure I understood the question, Joe,
Speaker 1
what in the in the judges ruling? He stated your testimony that the city needs affordable housing and but then his in his ruling, he said that undermines the city's policy of refusing to extend water service outside of its boundary for for housing projects. So he was using that as a way of saying the city to deny the city annexation. So my question to you is, how do you respond to that statement from the judge?
Speaker 2
It's true. It's very hard to develop with any density if you don't have water and sewer. So if I'm understanding your question correctly, and it is our policy that we are not going to extend water and sewer any further outside of the municipal boundary unless there's already a will serve letter. That's because we now see there is no way in the future then to annex those properties and one and voluntary annexation necessitates contiguous landmass. And so if, if the city's here, and we, and we have an island with water and sewer here that is not in the annexation area, the people on the other side have no way to annex in. And so that, in fact, locks up the boundaries of the city and and frankly, our utility is not structured to serve outside of the city boundaries. All of the areas that are currently served by the city of Bloomington utilities had waivers on them, and they were in areas that were intended to be annexed. And so essentially, a redrawing of the plans, a redo of the plans that happened because of the State Legislature's ruling on those waivers and then the constitutional case. What that means is that that it really puts us all between a rock and a hard place with. With sewer and water
Speaker 1
before we go. I just wanted to quickly address this mid year transition report you released highlighting discoveries made since you took over. Asked about this back in, I think, February, and you said something about, you know, being a little surprised that had a few things once you actually took office, but you needed to wait until you had all the information before you could comment more. And maybe this is something we could talk about more the next couple of months. But could you maybe just highlight a couple things that became more evident once you took office that needs attention?
Speaker 2
Yeah, so you know, I'm really proud of our teams. First, I'll just mention sharp paycheck. The new director of HR at the city has really done a lot of work to professionalize our HR policies and and practices, and there were a number of oversights there that that really needed to be straightened out. They're highlighted in that report. And then the Anna Killian Hansen at the housing and Neighborhood Development Department has has really been a real champion, enduring several HUD audits and those, those were concerning. And we have, we have completed those and and so we'll, we'll get back back on track. And then, you know, the the accounting systems really needed to be tightened up, and some procedures in there. So so those are three main areas that we have really been working hard on, and and I think our team has some great systems in place, and I think we inherited a lot of good things from the last the last administration, and so I'm, I'm really thrilled that, for instance, the convention center is now moving and and Hopewell is the park is set to open very soon.
Speaker 1
Wow, can't wait. Hey, thank you so much. I know you're busy, you've got so much going on, you're really distracted over there, but enjoy the rest of the week, safe travels. Anything else you want to say 30 seconds my
Speaker 2
my plea to everyone in the region is, please vote this November. This is a critical election, both at the state level and at the federal level, and your voices matter and and those votes really do count. The elections now are won or lost sometimes with 30 votes.
Unknown Speaker
That's for sure. Thank you. We'll see you next month.
Unknown Speaker
Thanks, Joe.
Joe, hello and welcome to ask the mayor on WFIU. I'm Joe Hren this week, we're joined by Bloomington Mayor Kerry Thomson on Zoom, because she's in Chicago for the Democratic National Convention. How's it going? What's going on over there?
Speaker 2
What a privilege to be part of this historic moment. It's it's incredibly exciting to be here. We had vice president Harris on the stage to surprise us last night, of course, as well as many others, and the energy is just really high here. And of course, President Biden was our close out speech last night. I think there were a lot of tears in the room last night as we thanked him and really, you know, tried to honor him for this incredible final act of service to our country by allowing allowing somebody else to run for president at this point.
Speaker 1
Now, what's your role there? What are you doing?
Speaker 2
I'm a delegate, and so we will officially nominate Walt's tomorrow night and then Harris on Thursday night. There are lots of caucuses and committee meetings happening as well as it's a great opportunity for me to be in the room with other mayors talk about best practices. There are several Mayor specific events happening here, so when I'm not in the hotel room trying to put final touches on our budget, I am. I'm at committees and caucuses, and then, of course, from four to 10, or as is more realistic, four to midnight, we're over at the convention. Work
Speaker 1
still goes on, doesn't it? It does. It does. I saw a photo I believe on Twitter was in the newsroom yesterday, was that you Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Terre Haute mayor, Brandon sackbun,
Speaker 2
yes, and the mayor of Michigan City as well, may have been in that in that photo That was at a mayor's luncheon yesterday, the Democratic mayors Association held a press conference and a luncheon afterwards, and so Secretary Buttigieg was there, and we were able to connect with
Speaker 1
him. What are you guys so you talk about the issues that other mayors are facing? Are you do you see a similar theme, or is it all over the place? It's
Speaker 2
not all over the place. The US Conference of Mayors this year for 2425 has set their priority as housing, and so we're working together on a pretty significant housing bill that we will propose no matter who is the next president. We want this to go through homelessness and housing is on everybody's radar, almost everybody's but it's, it's definitely the prevailing theme. Infrastructure, of course, has been a real theme of our mayor's conversations in the past. And of course, the bipartisan infrastructure bill now is, is really creating a decade of infrastructure that that we are already implementing, and we'll look forward to continue implementing,
Speaker 1
yeah, city rolling out a plan for unsheltered homelessness press conference that you headed. Can you help define this for us? You know, when we talk about people who are experiencing homelessness. There's unsheltered emergency housing, they're short, short term, long term. How are you tackling this?
Speaker 2
So I know all the terms are very confusing, and we do have many people who are living in shelters or in somehow unstable housing we're looking at this from many lenses, and the plan that we just launched really focuses on unsheltered homelessness. So these are people really who are literally living on the streets. They don't have a couch to stay on. They're not in one of our emergency shelters. That number has grown drastically in Bloomington. It's grown throughout Indiana over the past year, but Bloomington has has really seen more than its share of growth in unsheltered homelessness lately, and so heading home, put together a housing action plan that really focuses on that, on that street homelessness, or unsheltered homelessness, and the key to that is getting them into some kind of shelter along with the services that they need. And so I think lots of times we can get lost in a lot of different terminology. People need unique things, right? And so there's no one size fits all, depending on your health needs. And other needs you may and your family makeup, you may be well suited to one type of shelter and not another, but so our goal really is to provide a spectrum of housing from shelter all the way through permanent housing.
Speaker 1
I believe the report says the county needs about almost 10,000 more affordable units to just close the gap. So how do you help with that? How does the city help with that?
Speaker 2
So the city is going to help in a number of ways. You will see in our upcoming budget, some points to that, some nods to that, which I hope are more significant than just a nod. We'll be looking at our permitting process and our zoning process to see how are we accommodating housing for people who need it most, as well as housing for people who may be ready to move out of the homes that they're in, either to downsize as an empty nester or into into something else that is more suited to their family. What we have right now, because of the interest rates and because of the supply, is that many people who are in their houses are staying in their houses. And so the only solution, then, is new housing. The other thing is, of course, that our housing costs are so high that we need to find ways to either generate housing that is at the at the lower end of the spectrum, or to subsidize housing so that people who are very low income can afford to live in Bloomington and and, and this is a, it's really an all hands on deck kind of approach, not only to to the unhoused problem, but also to housing, because housing, in the end, is the major part of that solution. And I'll just say finally, that we have a significant focus on what we call diversion, which doesn't mean anything to the general public, but all that means is working on plans so that people who are housed can remain housed, things like evictions, if they you know, once you're evicted, once it goes on your record, and it's very, very hard to secure housing again, and so working with families before they're really in Crisis or at the first sign of crisis, can be one of the most important things that we do. And so in the community meeting that we had last Tuesday, there were a lot of community ideas about this, including some community navigators that could do some some more intensive support when families come for for instance, for some utility assistance. If you're coming for utility assistance, you probably have a few other dominoes that could fall very quickly. And so if we can get a navigator to help you at that point, before those dominoes fall, perhaps you can remain stably housed.
Speaker 1
And there are forms scheduled to help determine some housing needs, gather public input one Wednesday, I think at noon, Public Library, September 3, what? What are you? What date are you looking for from the public?
Speaker 2
Yes, so the those meetings are all there's a series of meetings, and they cover many different topics, and you can go to the meetings, or you can provide information on input form online, which is on the housing and Neighborhood Development website right now, but that all feeds into our consolidated plan, not to be confused with our comprehensive plan, which many of us get confused of about. Our Consolidated Plan is what we look at for what housing and infrastructure needs we have in order to provide adequate housing and shelter for our community. And so this is the moment, and it provides a 10 year plan that we do submit to HUD. In tandem with that, Bloomington is going to do a targeted housing action plan for specifically acts that we need to do within the city of Bloomington in order to ensure adequate housing.
Speaker 1
Makes sense. Makes sense. I We did get an email in from Amanda. She was curious where the data is coming from to to determine housing needs. You may have addressed some of this already. She wants to help advocate to see if there's a way to bridge the gap provide current, accurate data to research.
Speaker 2
Yes. So the numbers that you cited in the original part of the interview are from the ROI housing study that was done in late 2023 that's where that figure of 9000 units comes from. In those data, source. Are all cited in that report. So I encourage her to read that report. The unsheltered homelessness members are two different two different figures. One is the official Point in Time Count that we do in January. That's part of the national coordinated Point in Time Count. However, what we see is that things really rise in Bloomington in the summers, and so we wanted to have a more accurate picture of unsheltered homelessness. And so our housing providers and outreach workers did a survey available on the heading home website, that was done in May. And that data, again, is posted, and there's actually a whole dashboard on the heading home website that's quite interesting, and can and can provide that resident some some further data.
Speaker 1
Okay, thank you. Let's get just an update on that, the water treatment plant, sand spill Friday evening, it caused a county wide boil order for a couple days. We got a couple emails from concerned residents wondering just what's going on. Can you give us maybe a little bit of a better insight of what happened, and then an update today? Yes,
Speaker 2
so it was actually a precautionary boil warning. And to be clear, restaurants have a different standard than residences do in items, in items rulings, but there there was sand that got into that tank on Friday night, and what that causes is the possibility that some of the bacteria may not be filtered as well. The counts, frankly, were, were never at alarming levels. So we did put out an alert on on the county emergency alert system. I'm encouraging residents, if they're if you're not signed up for that system, that is our really only way to get information to you reliably when these kinds of things happen, which we hope they'll never happen again. But do sign up for those warnings. Item was just waiting. We had multiple tests over the weekend, which were all coming back well within the safe range, but item needed to process some things in their in their labs on Monday morning, and so we couldn't lift the ban or the precaution until Monday morning.
Speaker 1
Is this part of any larger concern that you have of the water treatment plant facility?
Speaker 2
So the water treatment plant does need some significant updates, but this was not related to those
Speaker 1
use and what was interesting that I just heard too about restaurants having maybe a different level about this. I did see the Bloomington bagel posted. We don't have coffee today. We're bagging in ice. I was thinking about breweries or maybe production plants in town. Did this have a big ripple effect across the city?
Speaker 2
It did have an impact on those restaurants, especially because it was move in weekend, and I just want to express my deep apologies to those restaurants. This, you know, accidents happen, but this could, it could have been timed better. And Jane Cooper Smith, our economic and sustainable development director, was on the phone this weekend doing outreach to restaurants to see how we can support and and help them understand, you know, what the precaution was, but I just want to send out my apologies for any business interruption that happened on move in weekends. We We really value those restaurants, and I know coffee boiling, and some things like that were interrupted and and so my apologies for that.
Speaker 1
Okay, so let's get to annexation. The city decided to appeal the latest ruling that blocks annexation areas one A and 1b What? Just curious. What key elements do you think that the judge didn't weigh enough that that merits annexation.
Speaker 2
Yeah, so you know the I'll let the legal team respond to legal issues, but we, of course, were really disappointed in the ruling and and feel that there are elements that need to be considered and so And frankly, the annexation is really key to our economic development and our prosperity as an entire region. What the what the studies in the history clearly show is that cities with zero leftists. The the entire region starts to go into economic decline. And so this is, it's not just a city issue. It is a it is a county issue. And indeed it is, it's a regional issue as well. And so we are, we are appealing, and I have been talking to some of the residents who have reached out to me in the annexation areas, and have had really good conversations. And I just want to express again, that should these areas be annexed? I want to be a mayor that welcomes residents, that lets them know that they belong and really is eager to serve them. This is, in my mind, not A, not an issue of trying to land grab. It is a it's a conversation that we need to continue about how we can offer services and impact in the in the county areas and to those residents who are really concerned. Yeah,
Speaker 1
you said you were talking with people that were intended for annexation right now. What are those conversations like? What? What are they saying? And how are you responding?
Speaker 2
You know, a lot of what I'm hearing is that people didn't feel listened to the first time, and that, you know, the message they were getting is that the city could annex because it was their right and they didn't owe them anything as resident, as new residents of the city. I disagree. As as the mayor, I take it very seriously. The service that I provide in our team provides to residents who are within the city limits and and I take their input very seriously. There's also some myths out there about what annexation really means, I've had residents tell me, residents in the areas intended for annexation, that their understanding is that they will have to pay to put sidewalks in front of their house as soon as it's annexed. This is simply not true. The city will look at a sidewalk plan and and many of many areas that do get sidewalks will be in our sidewalk plan at the city's cost, but there will be no order to put in sidewalks on your property, especially if you're not developing anything on it.
Speaker 1
I wanted to one more quick question, because the judge stated that your testimony included the need for affordable housing, saying it undermines the city's policy of refusing to extend sewer service outside its boundaries for housing. So how do you respond to that?
Unknown Speaker
I'm not sure I understood the question, Joe,
Speaker 1
what in the in the judges ruling? He stated your testimony that the city needs affordable housing and but then his in his ruling, he said that undermines the city's policy of refusing to extend water service outside of its boundary for for housing projects. So he was using that as a way of saying the city to deny the city annexation. So my question to you is, how do you respond to that statement from the judge?
Speaker 2
It's true. It's very hard to develop with any density if you don't have water and sewer. So if I'm understanding your question correctly, and it is our policy that we are not going to extend water and sewer any further outside of the municipal boundary unless there's already a will serve letter. That's because we now see there is no way in the future then to annex those properties and one and voluntary annexation necessitates contiguous landmass. And so if, if the city's here, and we, and we have an island with water and sewer here that is not in the annexation area, the people on the other side have no way to annex in. And so that, in fact, locks up the boundaries of the city and and frankly, our utility is not structured to serve outside of the city boundaries. All of the areas that are currently served by the city of Bloomington utilities had waivers on them, and they were in areas that were intended to be annexed. And so essentially, a redrawing of the plans, a redo of the plans that happened because of the State Legislature's ruling on those waivers and then the constitutional case. What that means is that that it really puts us all between a rock and a hard place with. With sewer and water
Speaker 1
before we go. I just wanted to quickly address this mid year transition report you released highlighting discoveries made since you took over. Asked about this back in, I think, February, and you said something about, you know, being a little surprised that had a few things once you actually took office, but you needed to wait until you had all the information before you could comment more. And maybe this is something we could talk about more the next couple of months. But could you maybe just highlight a couple things that became more evident once you took office that needs attention?
Speaker 2
Yeah, so you know, I'm really proud of our teams. First, I'll just mention sharp paycheck. The new director of HR at the city has really done a lot of work to professionalize our HR policies and and practices, and there were a number of oversights there that that really needed to be straightened out. They're highlighted in that report. And then the Anna Killian Hansen at the housing and Neighborhood Development Department has has really been a real champion, enduring several HUD audits and those, those were concerning. And we have, we have completed those and and so we'll, we'll get back back on track. And then, you know, the the accounting systems really needed to be tightened up, and some procedures in there. So so those are three main areas that we have really been working hard on, and and I think our team has some great systems in place, and I think we inherited a lot of good things from the last the last administration, and so I'm, I'm really thrilled that, for instance, the convention center is now moving and and Hopewell is the park is set to open very soon.
Speaker 1
Wow, can't wait. Hey, thank you so much. I know you're busy, you've got so much going on, you're really distracted over there, but enjoy the rest of the week, safe travels. Anything else you want to say 30 seconds my
Speaker 2
my plea to everyone in the region is, please vote this November. This is a critical election, both at the state level and at the federal level, and your voices matter and and those votes really do count. The elections now are won or lost sometimes with 30 votes.
Unknown Speaker
That's for sure. Thank you. We'll see you next month.
Unknown Speaker
Thanks, Joe.
