Speaker 1
Hello, and welcome to ask the mayor on WFIU. I'm Joe Hren. This week we're in Bloomington with Mayor Kerry Thomson at City Hall. Hello, welcome. How was your Thanksgiving?
Kerry Thomson
It was wonderful. Had a nice Bloomington Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1
Nice, nice. So I know schedules get crazy this time of year, so for those listening on the podcast online, we're taping this a week in advance, so thanks for still keeping us in the schedule so we can get in here today. I really appreciate
Kerry Thomson
it my delight, and thank you for making this work. Yeah, yeah, no
Speaker 1
problem. Let's start with something though, that will have had different reiterations by the time this airs, and that's the proposed city staff salary ordinances, which includes a raise for the mayor the clerk. But I think what really caught some of the public backlash and even a council member is that the more than double increase for city council members. And I know you've been fighting for higher pay for police firefighters, but this part we really haven't talked about on the show, is this part of your administration, as well as looking at salaries across the board? Well,
Kerry Thomson
my administration has been looking at salaries for all regular city staff, as well as our unions. And of course, we had the first unanimous votes for both fire and police union negotiations this year, and we're really proud of that. And we had allocated a total of $6 million to go over over 800 different employees, but it was not in my plans to do significant increases for the elected officials this year. The Council took that, took the code, which allows them to set Council and other elected salaries, and formed a committee, and that's where this proposal came from. Do
Speaker 1
you agree with what they've come up with, across the board, for city council members, for the mayor's position, for the clerk?
Kerry Thomson
I don't. I think when we look at it in the context of what others are making and both in the city and and our residents outside of city employment, it is, it's off scale, and it's also off scale with the proportion of the total allocated budget that we have for increases. So this will be more than $300,000 of increases just for 11 people. And when you look at that in proportion to what we allocated, which was 6 million over more than 800 employees, that's a significant chunk. And you know, I ran for office knowing that I was running as a public servant and, and I know Council is reconsidering these salaries. I think when you run for office, you are committing to to the the salary band that you have run under and, and anything very significant, I think should wait until an election year.
Speaker 1
Yeah, and you did mention the amendment that we hear is coming for Tuesday night. Of course, this guy said this airs a week later, so we're kind of talking ahead of schedule, and we'll see where this goes. But I think what I heard from you, which was maybe something everyone needs to take note of is that you said elected officials,
Kerry Thomson
that's right, yeah. So this is the city clerk, the council and the mayor. So that's 11 people out of more than 800
Unknown Speaker
I can you believe it's been one year since you've been mayor?
Unknown Speaker
Almost?
Speaker 1
I mean, almost, yeah. I mean, it's where this is our last show of the year. And can I tell everybody about this counter on your sure, I guess I already did. You have a countdown on your desk. That's right, a digital it looks like a clock. And can you tell everybody what that's for? Yes,
Kerry Thomson
that's how many days are left in this administration. And so I leave it facing out, because when cabinet comes in and others come in. I want us to remember we have a lot of work to do, and only so many days to get it done, and so we're down to about 1000 days and and every day, every hour that we get to be serving the city, is one that we should value, and we should get the most work done that we could possibly can. So
Speaker 1
one year, 11 months under your belt, what's, what's maybe your proudest moment so far? What's, what's the one thing that you're like, gosh, I'm so glad that we were able to get that through.
Kerry Thomson
I think in i. Won't take credit for this, but I'll take credit for convening conversations around homelessness, and the housing action plan really sets the stage for some really pivotal motion towards getting some serious housing done, I think on the on the administration side, we are showing real signs of valuing our public safety officers and firefighters, and that's that was really important to me. Everybody who works for the city does an important job, and for a long time, all of the salaries have been behind, but there were some critical things that really needed to happen with police and fire to let folks know that we value them and that this is a great place to work. You know,
Speaker 1
that was one of the first things that you had to do back in January, was moving encampments early winter, spring, and said the city needs to focus on recovery, care for mental health and substance use. Is there a metric that you can point us to, that that can show progress being made? We
Kerry Thomson
don't have metrics yet, because the first, I would say, the first count of that that's tangible to our community, which was the count that was done in May. Of course, we don't have an annual count for those who are living unsheltered in our community, in the in the non winter months, when it's pretty hard to find people so but, but there, there's anecdotal movement towards towards progress. And I think that the other thing that we did with with serving our unhoused neighbors was that the the faith communities came back together and are now providing an emergency extreme weather shelter that's still it's generous. They have expanded it, but we found ourselves scrambling on Friday night to find a sheltering space for seven additional people. So we we know we're still not there. We know there are shelter beds that are not filled in in at least one of our shelters, and my push is to get those filled and to get everybody under shelter. I think the other important thing and and I look at these things as going hand in hand, we we need to serve people who are in the highest need. We also need to focus on our economic development, and I'm really excited about what we'll be doing with that in the year year ahead. But we open the forge, and we now have with the CCC grant, we have a plan in place to transfer the property from our redevelopment commission over to to to the trades district, so that we can get really serious about developing the rest of the trades district. Yeah. And
Speaker 1
speaking of that, the city just released requests for proposals, I believe, for the Hopewell three lots. So you're looking for developers to come in to develop that area. That's
Kerry Thomson
right. And we're really hoping to to hit a good mark with Hopewell, we have the prospect of building more than 700 units there, of course, right downtown, walkable to the trades district, walkable to many of our big employers and to many of the resources that we need. So we're, we're really thrilled about that development and and I'm proud of city council, also for for approving and the plan commission did lots of heavy lifting the summit district, so the the development that's happening on the southwest side of town, so housing is coming, lots of details to be sorted out there, but there's been lots of movement on housing during this first year. I
Speaker 1
always like to look back at the first show of the year to see kind of where we started. And at the time, you announced a city review and said quote, unless you've been the mayor before, you're going to be surprised by what you find when you are the mayor, remember saying that or not, yes. So what were the several things that we didn't know about back then? Can you tell us now?
Kerry Thomson
Right? Well, I Yes, I encourage everyone to to read the report that we put out after about six months in office. So that was a mid year review, and many of those things are in there, but we, you know, we had a lot of catching up to do with our finances and getting those in order and audits back on track. We had several, several complexities in HR that i. Also were a surprise for us and and, you know, several other more minor things, but I want to give kudos, and it was not minor. What was going on with HUD in the hand department, but we have, really all of our department heads are incredible, but Comptroller, McClellan, Dr paycheck, who leads our HR and Anna Kelly and Hanson, in hand, have really done lion's share of the work to to sort of get us a new set point in those areas and get us moving forward in the right direction. And I, you know, I think one of the greatest things that any leader can do, and I probably talked about this in our first show, is to build a good team. And I came into a really good team, just really one of the one of the great learnings and one of the gratitudes I have for this year is to learn at every level how committed our city staff are to doing a great job and serving our public and the cabinet that we've built here together is phenomenal, and I'm hearing that from all over the community that that our team is is working really well with and responding to the community.
Speaker 1
How was the new downtown fire station?
Unknown Speaker
It's awesome.
Unknown Speaker
Are they loving it over there? Oh my
Kerry Thomson
gosh, the new downtown fire station. If you didn't get to come to the open house that we had there. It is. It's just an incredible place. It's everything is now up to code, and using the newest technologies I've learned a lot in the process of completing that building, the technology now creates air seals so the so our firefighters are not exposed to exhaust, which comes up from having those big engines parked right below your sleeping quarters. So now that's all air sealed. The alarms that go off in the middle of the night, they are targeted by the bedroom. So if the whole crew doesn't need to respond, their alarms don't go off. And of course, we know one of the keys to health is getting good sleep. And so so we're we've taken several steps to improve the health of our firefighters in that facility, and I know that the community is really happy to be having the fire station right back in the Kirk or corridor. It was already downtown, but that that office building is not really a firehouse. So, so we're glad to have it there, and the firefighters are really happy to be there. And
Speaker 1
then, how about a quick update, fire headquarters still moving here. It's
Kerry Thomson
here. It's here. The fire headquarters has moved west. The renovations are done, and they're really happy to be here. All of our mobile integrated health team is also here at showers West. And so we're thrilled that that that has worked out well and and we're happy to have them here, and that really needed to happen in tandem with moving out of that fourth in college property, because there's no office space in the in the headquarters for The whole administration.
Speaker 1
Any update on the police department,
Kerry Thomson
so we are holding a public information session on the police department and what considerations we're giving to that the first week of January. And so we will start moving with that next year. You know, we, we have already concluded that's not going to showers West, and we have known for a long time that the police need a headquarters that really is up to date.
Speaker 1
I wanted to mention to just really quick, I know, jumping back just a bit about the review that you said, that you did with, yeah, with the city, we have that link. So we'll link that on our website for people that that want to see more detail what you're we could sit here and talk an hour about that report. We don't have time for that, but I want people to know that we'll link to that.
Kerry Thomson
Yeah, and I, and I'm glad that you're going to do that. It's, there's a lot of information in there, and we've been asked, we've been answering some questions about it since it came out at town halls and other places, but happy to continue to answer those questions.
Speaker 1
Hey, did the downtown road construction that get done in time? Yay? Yeah, it's done. Well, Fourth Street still needs paid.
Kerry Thomson
Fourth Street is Well, part of Fourth Street still needs paid. Yeah, but the mass construction is done, and that's two and a half million dollars of investment in our downtown. I think it looks great. We do apologize for the inconvenience. Hopefully it's not an inconvenience that many of us will remember a year from now, when we're when we will have lived a full four seasons, walking and enjoying the new intersections and driving on those main roads are the asphalt
Speaker 1
plants closed now to those Fourth Street have to wait till spring.
Kerry Thomson
You know, I don't know the answer to that question, but I don't, I don't know that they are closed yet. So, so I don't know where we landed with that. Okay,
Speaker 1
we got to go, but I always like to leave the last minute to you, maybe even a holiday message to everyone listening right now.
Kerry Thomson
Yes. So we had a great lighting on the square the day after Thanksgiving, and it reminded me, really, that Bloomington is a treasure of a city where we care for one another and that we we see only a small piece of our community every day, but a coming together like the lighting on the square reminded me that that we are a community that can be a place where Everyone belongs, and as we move into a new year where where we have much to look forward to, and I know some are really fearful of what is to come, I just want to tell everybody, from my office to yours and From My Home to Yours, you're welcome in Bloomington, and we're really delighted to have you as residents, and we are continuing to find ways to create safety and belonging here.
Unknown Speaker
Thank you so much, and we'll see you next year.
Unknown Speaker
Thank you, Joe.
Hello, and welcome to ask the mayor on WFIU. I'm Joe Hren. This week we're in Bloomington with Mayor Kerry Thomson at City Hall. Hello, welcome. How was your Thanksgiving?
Kerry Thomson
It was wonderful. Had a nice Bloomington Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1
Nice, nice. So I know schedules get crazy this time of year, so for those listening on the podcast online, we're taping this a week in advance, so thanks for still keeping us in the schedule so we can get in here today. I really appreciate
Kerry Thomson
it my delight, and thank you for making this work. Yeah, yeah, no
Speaker 1
problem. Let's start with something though, that will have had different reiterations by the time this airs, and that's the proposed city staff salary ordinances, which includes a raise for the mayor the clerk. But I think what really caught some of the public backlash and even a council member is that the more than double increase for city council members. And I know you've been fighting for higher pay for police firefighters, but this part we really haven't talked about on the show, is this part of your administration, as well as looking at salaries across the board? Well,
Kerry Thomson
my administration has been looking at salaries for all regular city staff, as well as our unions. And of course, we had the first unanimous votes for both fire and police union negotiations this year, and we're really proud of that. And we had allocated a total of $6 million to go over over 800 different employees, but it was not in my plans to do significant increases for the elected officials this year. The Council took that, took the code, which allows them to set Council and other elected salaries, and formed a committee, and that's where this proposal came from. Do
Speaker 1
you agree with what they've come up with, across the board, for city council members, for the mayor's position, for the clerk?
Kerry Thomson
I don't. I think when we look at it in the context of what others are making and both in the city and and our residents outside of city employment, it is, it's off scale, and it's also off scale with the proportion of the total allocated budget that we have for increases. So this will be more than $300,000 of increases just for 11 people. And when you look at that in proportion to what we allocated, which was 6 million over more than 800 employees, that's a significant chunk. And you know, I ran for office knowing that I was running as a public servant and, and I know Council is reconsidering these salaries. I think when you run for office, you are committing to to the the salary band that you have run under and, and anything very significant, I think should wait until an election year.
Speaker 1
Yeah, and you did mention the amendment that we hear is coming for Tuesday night. Of course, this guy said this airs a week later, so we're kind of talking ahead of schedule, and we'll see where this goes. But I think what I heard from you, which was maybe something everyone needs to take note of is that you said elected officials,
Kerry Thomson
that's right, yeah. So this is the city clerk, the council and the mayor. So that's 11 people out of more than 800
Unknown Speaker
I can you believe it's been one year since you've been mayor?
Unknown Speaker
Almost?
Speaker 1
I mean, almost, yeah. I mean, it's where this is our last show of the year. And can I tell everybody about this counter on your sure, I guess I already did. You have a countdown on your desk. That's right, a digital it looks like a clock. And can you tell everybody what that's for? Yes,
Kerry Thomson
that's how many days are left in this administration. And so I leave it facing out, because when cabinet comes in and others come in. I want us to remember we have a lot of work to do, and only so many days to get it done, and so we're down to about 1000 days and and every day, every hour that we get to be serving the city, is one that we should value, and we should get the most work done that we could possibly can. So
Speaker 1
one year, 11 months under your belt, what's, what's maybe your proudest moment so far? What's, what's the one thing that you're like, gosh, I'm so glad that we were able to get that through.
Kerry Thomson
I think in i. Won't take credit for this, but I'll take credit for convening conversations around homelessness, and the housing action plan really sets the stage for some really pivotal motion towards getting some serious housing done, I think on the on the administration side, we are showing real signs of valuing our public safety officers and firefighters, and that's that was really important to me. Everybody who works for the city does an important job, and for a long time, all of the salaries have been behind, but there were some critical things that really needed to happen with police and fire to let folks know that we value them and that this is a great place to work. You know,
Speaker 1
that was one of the first things that you had to do back in January, was moving encampments early winter, spring, and said the city needs to focus on recovery, care for mental health and substance use. Is there a metric that you can point us to, that that can show progress being made? We
Kerry Thomson
don't have metrics yet, because the first, I would say, the first count of that that's tangible to our community, which was the count that was done in May. Of course, we don't have an annual count for those who are living unsheltered in our community, in the in the non winter months, when it's pretty hard to find people so but, but there, there's anecdotal movement towards towards progress. And I think that the other thing that we did with with serving our unhoused neighbors was that the the faith communities came back together and are now providing an emergency extreme weather shelter that's still it's generous. They have expanded it, but we found ourselves scrambling on Friday night to find a sheltering space for seven additional people. So we we know we're still not there. We know there are shelter beds that are not filled in in at least one of our shelters, and my push is to get those filled and to get everybody under shelter. I think the other important thing and and I look at these things as going hand in hand, we we need to serve people who are in the highest need. We also need to focus on our economic development, and I'm really excited about what we'll be doing with that in the year year ahead. But we open the forge, and we now have with the CCC grant, we have a plan in place to transfer the property from our redevelopment commission over to to to the trades district, so that we can get really serious about developing the rest of the trades district. Yeah. And
Speaker 1
speaking of that, the city just released requests for proposals, I believe, for the Hopewell three lots. So you're looking for developers to come in to develop that area. That's
Kerry Thomson
right. And we're really hoping to to hit a good mark with Hopewell, we have the prospect of building more than 700 units there, of course, right downtown, walkable to the trades district, walkable to many of our big employers and to many of the resources that we need. So we're, we're really thrilled about that development and and I'm proud of city council, also for for approving and the plan commission did lots of heavy lifting the summit district, so the the development that's happening on the southwest side of town, so housing is coming, lots of details to be sorted out there, but there's been lots of movement on housing during this first year. I
Speaker 1
always like to look back at the first show of the year to see kind of where we started. And at the time, you announced a city review and said quote, unless you've been the mayor before, you're going to be surprised by what you find when you are the mayor, remember saying that or not, yes. So what were the several things that we didn't know about back then? Can you tell us now?
Kerry Thomson
Right? Well, I Yes, I encourage everyone to to read the report that we put out after about six months in office. So that was a mid year review, and many of those things are in there, but we, you know, we had a lot of catching up to do with our finances and getting those in order and audits back on track. We had several, several complexities in HR that i. Also were a surprise for us and and, you know, several other more minor things, but I want to give kudos, and it was not minor. What was going on with HUD in the hand department, but we have, really all of our department heads are incredible, but Comptroller, McClellan, Dr paycheck, who leads our HR and Anna Kelly and Hanson, in hand, have really done lion's share of the work to to sort of get us a new set point in those areas and get us moving forward in the right direction. And I, you know, I think one of the greatest things that any leader can do, and I probably talked about this in our first show, is to build a good team. And I came into a really good team, just really one of the one of the great learnings and one of the gratitudes I have for this year is to learn at every level how committed our city staff are to doing a great job and serving our public and the cabinet that we've built here together is phenomenal, and I'm hearing that from all over the community that that our team is is working really well with and responding to the community.
Speaker 1
How was the new downtown fire station?
Unknown Speaker
It's awesome.
Unknown Speaker
Are they loving it over there? Oh my
Kerry Thomson
gosh, the new downtown fire station. If you didn't get to come to the open house that we had there. It is. It's just an incredible place. It's everything is now up to code, and using the newest technologies I've learned a lot in the process of completing that building, the technology now creates air seals so the so our firefighters are not exposed to exhaust, which comes up from having those big engines parked right below your sleeping quarters. So now that's all air sealed. The alarms that go off in the middle of the night, they are targeted by the bedroom. So if the whole crew doesn't need to respond, their alarms don't go off. And of course, we know one of the keys to health is getting good sleep. And so so we're we've taken several steps to improve the health of our firefighters in that facility, and I know that the community is really happy to be having the fire station right back in the Kirk or corridor. It was already downtown, but that that office building is not really a firehouse. So, so we're glad to have it there, and the firefighters are really happy to be there. And
Speaker 1
then, how about a quick update, fire headquarters still moving here. It's
Kerry Thomson
here. It's here. The fire headquarters has moved west. The renovations are done, and they're really happy to be here. All of our mobile integrated health team is also here at showers West. And so we're thrilled that that that has worked out well and and we're happy to have them here, and that really needed to happen in tandem with moving out of that fourth in college property, because there's no office space in the in the headquarters for The whole administration.
Speaker 1
Any update on the police department,
Kerry Thomson
so we are holding a public information session on the police department and what considerations we're giving to that the first week of January. And so we will start moving with that next year. You know, we, we have already concluded that's not going to showers West, and we have known for a long time that the police need a headquarters that really is up to date.
Speaker 1
I wanted to mention to just really quick, I know, jumping back just a bit about the review that you said, that you did with, yeah, with the city, we have that link. So we'll link that on our website for people that that want to see more detail what you're we could sit here and talk an hour about that report. We don't have time for that, but I want people to know that we'll link to that.
Kerry Thomson
Yeah, and I, and I'm glad that you're going to do that. It's, there's a lot of information in there, and we've been asked, we've been answering some questions about it since it came out at town halls and other places, but happy to continue to answer those questions.
Speaker 1
Hey, did the downtown road construction that get done in time? Yay? Yeah, it's done. Well, Fourth Street still needs paid.
Kerry Thomson
Fourth Street is Well, part of Fourth Street still needs paid. Yeah, but the mass construction is done, and that's two and a half million dollars of investment in our downtown. I think it looks great. We do apologize for the inconvenience. Hopefully it's not an inconvenience that many of us will remember a year from now, when we're when we will have lived a full four seasons, walking and enjoying the new intersections and driving on those main roads are the asphalt
Speaker 1
plants closed now to those Fourth Street have to wait till spring.
Kerry Thomson
You know, I don't know the answer to that question, but I don't, I don't know that they are closed yet. So, so I don't know where we landed with that. Okay,
Speaker 1
we got to go, but I always like to leave the last minute to you, maybe even a holiday message to everyone listening right now.
Kerry Thomson
Yes. So we had a great lighting on the square the day after Thanksgiving, and it reminded me, really, that Bloomington is a treasure of a city where we care for one another and that we we see only a small piece of our community every day, but a coming together like the lighting on the square reminded me that that we are a community that can be a place where Everyone belongs, and as we move into a new year where where we have much to look forward to, and I know some are really fearful of what is to come, I just want to tell everybody, from my office to yours and From My Home to Yours, you're welcome in Bloomington, and we're really delighted to have you as residents, and we are continuing to find ways to create safety and belonging here.
Unknown Speaker
Thank you so much, and we'll see you next year.
Unknown Speaker
Thank you, Joe.
