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Ask The Mayor: Bloomington's Hamilton On Traffic, Development

Country Club Road Bridge is open, I-69 is on schedule to be complete end of August, a new bike share program kicks off Wednesday, the next step for regulating substance use centers, downtown facade eyesores and more.

On this week's installment of Ask The Mayor, Bloomington Mayor John Hamilton addresses these issues and more. Listen to the full conversation with Indiana Newsdesk anchor Joe Hren by clicking on the play button above, or read some of the questions and answers below. A portion of this segment airs 6:45 and 8:45 a.m. Wednesday on WFIU.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

Hren: Candy from Twitter wants to know why with such a huge tax base why are so many streets holey, lumpy and bumpy?

Hamilton: It's a busy summer. We're catching up on a lot of infrastructure that needed it to be done. For example the Country Club Road Bridge project was not scheduled to be done, but an inspection disclosed this bridge wasn't safe.

We have a new data set we got through a high-tech Transmap system that scored every one of our roads and sidewalks to be able to identify the roads that need to be repaired the quickest. You can't get everything done at once. But if you do see a problem, please let us know. You can use uReport or call the city.

Hren: I just learned about the new tenants lining up to get into Dimension Mill scheduled to open end of October. How is the progress of Bloomington's new economic hub?

Hamilton: Yes, IU is going to have a presence there in particular, IU Philanthropy Alliance is going to be housed there. Also a relationship with Cowork which is existing co-work space and Dimension Mill signed an agreement to merge Cowork into the Mill which automatically scores a hundred people who will be using The Mill.

We drove over to Columbus to talk with Mayor Lienhoop to think that maybe Bloomington and Columbus, two small but very active and sophisticated cities might combine efforts in this new economy exploration including raising capital to help support small businesses, getting our cultures to interact and intersect more. Of course, they're a great manufacturing center - a lot of automobile related manufacturing. Our economy, creative, medical, health - the interaction will be really interesting.

Hren: I wanted to get more behind the reasoning of starting the moratorium on substance use centers and then scrapping the idea for now?

Hamilton: This is one of those examples where government is in the middle of a complicated moving picture and we're trying to find the right balance. On one hand, we in this community want to provide services to people who are suffering from substance abuse. On the other hand, we also know that the same stew of problems can attract, you might say, predatory service providers. So we're trying to figure out how to balance that.

This is one of those examples where government is in the middle of a complicated moving picture and we're trying to find the right balance.

For example, we heard some are paying people who are addicted to drugs to find more people who are addicted to drugs to come into the system almost brokering to find more victims if you will to come in. So we looked at a moratorium, decided that wasn't the right way to go, we are bringing in some outside expertise and try to figure out how to strike this balance.

Hren: I did have one more question from Ryne about downtown facades and how some are eyesores, particularly on Walnut above Trojan Horse. Does the city work with private owners on keeping those up to par?

Hamilton: Absolutely, we like many cities work with private property owners to help restore that. We do a lot of public art, we encourage private developers to use art in their projects like we'll see in The Graduate Hotel on Kirkwood, but that too is a mixture of public involvement and the private sector deciding to keep their properties up.

Hren: I try to follow the planning commission and notice the packet they send out every month is getting lighter, projects are being withdrawn and others keep getting tabled. Are developers being scared away at all from the Unified Development Ordinance that is being implemented and talked about a few months ago?

Hamilton: I really haven't seen a pattern, we do see rhythms in construction here. The hot building time right now isn't always the same as the hot planning and permitting time. We've seen a lot of activity - most recently for a major affordable housing complex that's underway. If you look around Bloomington, you see a lot of construction going on.

The UDO is under development and expect and hope it'll be done in early 2019.

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