right over there yes okay very good so I will call this listening session of Bloomington city council to order it's Monday February 24th thanks everybody for being here uh Rob why don't you start us off come on up and I don't mind deferring to someone else if they want to go
first how youd like to do it I'll let the next person go feel free so that would be John John come on up and as we always do it you got to state your name if you could please so we have it officially on the record you can sign in afterward as you wrap up sure uh John ho marcker uh been a
resident since 1992 so um I just wanted to follow up from last time I was in front of the city council which was at the truth and tax taxation meeting and I have unfortunately not been able to make the
tit and an email out to you so I figured this would be as good a place as any to just ask just follow up in what I had read in my statement so to speak to you guys was some things that I thought were areas at the city council
that we could do better we could eliminate some positions we could make our budget skinnier Less impactful on the residents but you know I just get to make a statement it's not a Q&A at that time so I just you know I'll just throw up the first one that was on my list
which is as far as I know unless it's been eliminated the the city still has its own earn sick and safe belief staff and policy so again to the council why do we have that in this city and why has it not been eliminated as soon as the
state put it in place okay so if for some reason down the road things change and they get really the ESL at a Statewide level it's still here so it still hurts Bloomington businesses it makes them report extra and I I don't
understand why wasn't looked at as an opportunity and what I worry about is what I see way too many times and I'm continue to see it like I said in my statement here School Board the county the Met Council level the state level and the federal level and we're seeing
it a lot right now because there's all this doging things going on nobody wants to cut anything nobody Minds having $36 trillion of debt now I know we don't necessar have debt here but we also have savings that we could use for other things so that was one of my things one
of my questions that really you know again it wasn't a Q&A so why have we not looked at eliminating that like yesterday one why have we not looked at eliminating smoking smoking legislation in the city like yesterday we have a Statewide smoking B now I know that's
been going on a long time but again we're double dipping on things and we're adding Personnel in my opinion okay we're adding Personnel we're adding regulations we're adding things that businesses like I said my statement the guy that owns the tobacco shop down by
Dairy Queen his business is worthless with what you did it's completely worthless he can't sell it to anybody he can't get a new smoking license nothing so I think and I know I remember Mr Mayor I saw you said something that it was going to have some impact well it
that's a real impact on on that business owner and and I think we need to as a council you guys as a council need to do in my opinion a better job of sharpening your pencil and squeezing
it down and I don't remember the woman's name that's the controller I want to say she was at the meeting it's pretty hard to look at her with her friends that she works with in the city hall and say you figure out which one of her friends you want to eliminate because she's not going to be able to do that that's
supposed to be your job so I'm just trying to understand when are we going to put the Thunderbird property back on the market so we can get some tax dollars on when are you going to develop the old Med Center space are we going are we spending money on a world world
fair bid again that we didn't get those are my questions and I'll leave it at that I've gone too far already all right and and I'm happy to answer all the questions your first question is why we haven't looked at that position within earn second safety the truth is we have
we had that discussion as a council whether or not we wanted to keep that position and there was people on one side there was people on the other side ultimately we made the decision to keep that position because while the state certainly has that program in place the
the Staffing that the state has does not meet the levels that we discussed that we wanted to see enforced here in the city we want to make sure that it actually has some teeth and the people who are uh we hope that it benefits actually benefit from it they're not an afterthought they're not being inspected
once every two years by a limited number of State inspectors we have we have our our own uh we have our own priorities and this is is one of those and we were looking to uh to continue that so that's the answer to that question uh what was
the second one tobacco tobacco oh tobacco uh again same thing I mean they blon started passing tobacco ordinances long before anybody in this room was on the council I know that they were the second one in the state for the reason for for the reason that public health is a priority within the city of blon it
has been stated that way uh we've heard that we have not I I have not heard push back from anybody saying you shouldn't restrict smoking as much you should let people smoke more I haven't heard that from anyone and our our work to eliminate tobacco Licensing in the city is just steps in that direction again a
decision that the Council made was a priority a policy decision that the that the the city council made uh the Thunderbird site is a valuable piece of property without question we're working to develop it in a lot of different the city is or are you're going to let private investment well yes of course
we're we're looking for a developer to to work with us to try and develop it it's not like we're sitting on that ignoring all offers we've heard from a number of folks we got a number of different possibilities it's just a matter of the the package and the deal coming together was there or was there not Mr Mayor somebody that was going to buy it when we bought it off from them
yes I think it was actually Mall of America and we decided that we could probably uh look for better and more exclusive ways to use it or better ways to use it m of America owns a lot of that land around there they own the old met Stadium site they owed the land next door and it's been vacant for 25 years hasn't
it yep so we're looking for an opportunity to develop the Thunder Bru site in a lot of creative ways and that's what I'll that's what I'll leave it with because there's a lot of things that I can't talk about in terms of how we're looking at and the folks that we are talking to uh no we're not looking at a new Worlds Fair I know there's
they're talking about an egg World's Fair down in is it Dakota or sou one of the Southern counties they're talking about that the city of Bloomington has no connection with that at all none at all so uh your and your point about we need to sharpen our pencils we agree with you
completely we agree with you completely and that's been the discussion of this Council we head into the this budget season this budget session how do we look for ways to improve efficiency and Effectiveness within our city operations and I mean you mentioned Doge doge is
great we've been doing that type of work but we've actually have accountability with the work that we've been doing we've actually put some thought into some of the work that we've been doing when uh We've done our service assessments to review what's going on within the city and to try and decide whether or not we need to keep them or
how to refine them we completely redid redid our Fleet Services after a monthlong service assessment to try and figure out the best way to do that we restructured our uh uh Park maintenance in such a way to save money and to save
efficiencies with people after a long look at things about how best to do that and how to do it most effectively uh we we transferred Highland Green Golf Course to Three Rivers Park District we closed the DMV I still get calls from people about that
it saved $300,000 a year at a time when we really needed it during the the pandemic we've been doing that and we haven't been doing it with a guy standing on stage with the chainsaw in his hand we've been doing it thoughtfully openly okay and carefully yeah and I don't know if I necessarily
need you know your political statement about that you don't like Elon MOS but you know there there's I I just don't think you guys do enough I'm sorry I just don't think you know that decision in my opinion just one guy's opinion I appreciate that and one guy's opinion and there's other that can have other
talk about to make a decision to keep something just because you want to spend more time regulating the people in the city when we have the state that's supposed to do the regulation I think is wrong that's all I'm saying I think it's wrong I think it's a bad direction for this city to take and I think you really
need to think differently about doing it and yeah you Clos a DMV that allegedly I'm going to go with you with what you said it saved us 300,000 but did we add more engagement people did we add more Personnel that maybe we don't need now that was a big discussion at that
meeting that I was at where council member reos brought it up and then you guys had a little bit of a tur argument amongst yourselves but you know every we're all looking at it and I'm looking at 99.1% which like I said is at least now three times what inflation is and
you said it at I believe you said it Mr Mayor that you guys are talking about an 18% increase for this year I think you better get and I not to screen that you're not ahead of the game because you're only telling it's 18% I sure hope you can get that back down to where it needs to be like three and that's going
to take a lot of hard work by you people not by the finance department that's by you people to make those decisions so that we don't have another I don't have another 11% increase in my property taxes now that's overall but I don't have another 11%
you have savings I remember councilman here talked about how we the citizens want more investment well we have invested you have you have savings you have savings account use that it's all I we are over time I appreciate it I appreciate your comments y thank you very much
thanks uh rob you want in now or should we go to Pam or or Sheila uh actually I see Sheila is here you want to why don't we go with Sheila next hello my name is my name is Sheila Barry and for most of you you know what's going on and what's been
happening for years to me last time we were here February 10th you told me that I was being investigated for something separate from what had happened and that you would get back to me with that week or the following next
week and you never did I did I don't think I told you you were being investigated I think I said we couldn't comment because of an ongoing investigation something separate yeah I I think I said it was an ongoing investigation which is true but it wasn't an investigation about you oh okay that's what it was but
either way you didn't get back to me when I asked you for the last two weeks I've been emailing you and calling you and you never even bothered to get back to me I I apologize I haven't I haven't seen a call come through from you you left M I left the message several messages actually it was kind of weird that the you guys didn't answer the
phone anymore I thought you were screening the calls you're like oh yep she was calling we're not just gonna we're just not going to you call my sell or my office phone the office I call here okay well usually the lady picks up first ring second ring and I never got anything back from you
so am I being investigated and I told you that no you are not being investigated I'm not being inves that doesn't mean there isn't an ongoing investigation has nothing to do with me I will tell you the police chief told me that you are not being investigated but there is an ongoing investigation okay
so I just figured you did that to try to make me look bad to everybody as as you have done for the last couple of years by saying that I told you that my gun had been everything had my case had been resolved and what my issue was so I thought you were going to fix it and actually it was kind of strange because
the next day after 3 weeks of trying to get my firearms back from the police department I never I all of a sudden the next day after you say that I get a call from the police department I know longer need to give them a copy of my carrying conceal I can come in there I can get my
weapons I bring at home and what's very strange to me is that there was an extra gun inside the box that didn't belong to me it didn't have red tape on it all my stuff had red evidence tape on it this gun had clear tape on it no evidence
tape whatsoever and that should be investigated and you guys can keep these pictures so that makes me think oh no it it am I supposed to to just keep saying oh that's a coincidence that happened to
me then I've had a lot of uh events happen that are just a coincidence and and you've reported that this gun to them oh to the council no to the police department absolutely okay great absolutely I turned the gun back in they looked white as ghost when I
returned a gun that did not belong to me thanks for getting it back to them y yeah absolutely that should worry you that that's happening here with your department department but everything else I told you too should worry you too it actually reminds me a lot of
Baltimore what happened in Baltimore do you guys know what happened in Baltimore yes with the gun task force planting evidence on people and people going to jail for things they didn't do and then now they're all in jail it's kind of what my scenario reminds me of for the
past 10 years what we've been going through with your officers and then I bring it to your attention hoping to get some help from you and I get absolutely nothing nothing uh well you got your weapon back after being here did you get your weapon back I got my yeah so what they planted
a a gun that didn't belong to me in a box in my box in my stuff with my number on do you think perhaps it could have been a mistake no no okay was it a mistake when the garbage man showed up at my daughter's bus stop that morning wanting
to fight me was that that a mistake I have no idea what connection that might be but I'm I'm not sure well that's the same garbage B that was stealing taking my garbage that was on my property back in June of 2023 and was also taking garbage from that other house that was 2
miles from me the known drug house they were taking garbage from that person as well so yeah there's there's a concern there and there's even more of a concern that after that happens to me my daughter hops on the bus and I whip around who the next person you think I
saw that day not a clue police officer next person I saw yeah driving nice and slow staring me down because I did not get out of the car and go at this garbage man didn't give him what he wanted he wanted a fight for me I wasn't going to fight some garbage man I at my
daughter's bust up are you kidding me and I called actually here when that happened I called the water department or the garbage department here and they're the ones who referred me to Jake the supervisor for for the garbage man for ry's well they're actually it's not
called ry's but he drives a ry's truck but now he's driving a Republic's truck okay so that doesn't concern you that the garbage man of Bloomington is trying to fight me at my daughter's bus stop the one who is taking my
garbage and somebody else's garbage of a known drug house and in that other drug house there was like 30 guns taken from that home and a plate of meth but do you think the homeowner got arrested no but I bet you that gun belongs to
them well I you know what I'll a lot of moving pieces here this is the first I've heard of the garbage man this is the first I've heard of the random gun showing up at and and I'll talk to the police chief about this this isn't the first time you heard about the garbage man because I told you about the garbage man has anybody else heard about the
garbage man yeah she mentioned it the last time yep not not in the context of fighting I don't think I think you mentioned something about being at the bus stop yeah my friend did but I also called here and then I mentioned back in 2024
when I did a city council meeting here or whatever that about this garbage man so he's been mentioned quite a few times you just were never listening I I I just I guess I'm not seeing the connection between the garbage collector for whoever it is now well the connection is
that the Bloomington Police went to the garbage man telling them to take garbage from a family's home home and also take garbage from a known addict I don't know that to be the case I mean I appreciate your opinion on it I don't know that to be the case oh that is the case and I will bring that up with the
chief's it absolutely is the case and then I get arrested for legally owned Firearms that's the case so you should be investigating how a gun would get out of your station how would that ever happen that is definitely something I could have just ruined somebody's life
that could be evidence for somebody else that could have just ruined my life even if it wasn't accident that's one that should never happen I would agree with that completely that's awful that's awful and it shouldn't happen and these are the things that have been happening to me for the last couple years that I've tried to bring to
your attention but you've been able to shut me down in front of everybody and try to make me look bad you have by saying oh there's an active investigation and you didn't even ever want to hear a word I had to say and yet you say you're for the people that's completely false uh I'm I'm going to cut
you off because we're at T time now you've always had your say you just haven't had us responding because of an active investigation you've not heard his responding you've had your say have you not I've had my say but have you
actually been listening yes you have then that incident right there would have never happened and you would have made sure of it or are you part of it at this point I don't know thank you for coming tonight thank you thank you so very much been wonderful let me know when you want in Rob you're
on the list I appreciate that else well on a lighter note I want to talk about the animal shelter P long time resident ofton
um I okay I agree Cuts need to be made we can't have everything oh I want to ask I for the future like tonight you're going to talk about the community center but it's the sustainability stuff which goes over my
head um could I have asked questions tonight about the community center we we generally try not to do that we don't want to double up this meeting with that meeting so even if it's not a public forum you you prefer not well I think especially because it's it's not a
public forum because if we're going to do question and answer if we're going to do if we're going to hear public comment on that we want to make sure that it's it's posted it's advertised and people who want to talk on it have the opportunity not just if if you're here at the listening session and we say okay go ahead and talk about it you know I just want to make sure it's an equity
and the fairness wasn't on tonight I could have talked about it I wasn't sure so I have other things like I say okay the animal shelter curious does anybody know what that building was built
for it is so so depressing I do know I mean I you to store my lawn everywhere you know Little Critters and you know how I feel about Critters so here's another thing my bet tends to help with them and
I was concerned that they are like disposal fees and stuff like that she tended to assure me that it's said there's no hope for them or whatever but it's grossly staffed have you guys ever
considered I know it's under the police department letting people volunteer to help I've been told that that can be dangerous you know however we all signed little releases for the police academy and if you know it an animals in
kind of a grouchy mood maybe not have a volunteer do it I just want that out there there are a bunch of us who a lot of people write to me what do you know about so I know the city a lot but a lot of people ask me questions could you look into this you know about that so I
am asking questions for those who are more Shine That's one thought do you have any idea what the DMV and public health buildings will be in the fut I mean you're going to tear those
down uh in before they get torn down in anyway they're going to be used as uh swing activity space during the construction of the Health and Wellness Center no that longer term I'm not sure what the plan is over there okay so that's still kind of farther on and I'm sure
you all got my email did you fall asleep rting anyway those were a lot of my questions I wasn't sure if I could talk about the community center tonight but I don't use creek side except for the senior driving
stuff um I just feel really bad seniors who won't be able to do they going to evened Prairie for The Woodworking Shop so one of my suggestions it's could be really off the wall is I really hope you guys
don't buy those a properties that list of money disrupting a lot of people and taking them off the tax but two at the very North End are rental properties that that doesn't disrupt people
but on the past of course so we've been going back and forth with some of this stuff couldn't you use one of those houses to put in like the quilting The Woodworking The Rock Shop stuff like that you know I mean
doesn't have to be fancy and then have the other lot for their parking so just try to help those I also realized from talking with get who theity they only need like four 20 hours a week so I
realize you need to have a permanent room and an expensive news center but I'm hoping to find a cheaper alternative even though I don't use it and that's really I guess my name thing right
now and the boutique they at least I think deserve their own buer room not a kiosk the you're done move out of the way and display thing and now I see the display down here City
Hall so that's usually only up during the uh the Christmas or the winter farmers markets is when they're here no I mean the window that the veterans and all that stuff were that one I think it's for the bathrooms yep yep yep so yes all for cutting expensive
I think this whole Creek Side our community center is way too elaborate no ch thank you much for being here thanks Rob it's now or never let's do it thank you for your time and appreciate
you guys uh there was three council members that reached out to us uh in the last week about the parking issue so um real quick we're obviously I've got a map here that's probably easier to understand but basically long Fremont here and this is
82 we are getting a lot of excess parking from the apartment building here that is emptied out in the street nightly part of this uh you had mentioned uh was it anything to do with the construction on the freeway and no uh we think it had a lot to do with the last two of the last four Summers
they've had construction on their parking structure and so everybody's had to park in the residential and the property manager seems to be know at least in good faith trying to get folks to not Park out the street so in talk the city staff um one of the ideas they
proposed and just to bring staff our Council on to the date it's 24-hour no parking all the way down the street and has been for years to keep back when it was seate and spare unac and those Control Data companies now it's G and refound from turning that into a parking lot and then we have rush hour traffic
restrictions from 7: to 9 and 300 to 6 and that tends to keep the work traffic from the park there um what we're running into now is all the overnight parking and so talking with the property manager just since January if you guys want to pass that around that's every
vehicle that I've Just Seen parking on the residential the check marks are the cars that have been ticketed as you can see one of them has been ticketed six times in February um and it could have been a seventh to Mercedes yeah they can afford it right I want to say it um but to be
honest it's a lack of respect and so I started a petition to hopefully get no parking on both sides of the street City staff came back with an idea to say let's make the West Side along the apartment open and restrict your side and I didn't even go back to neighbors
with that because that would have been a no based off of what we saw happening the previous couple Summers um they did return with an idea to do no parking overnight on the east side where the houses are but they want to take away the morning restrictions and all that
does is just open up the east side of Fremont then to all the commercial traffic because as some of you might know there's median that runs in front of the Gan resell building which has been wonderful it has kept traffic and that was one of the things the council voted 7 nothing on back five 20 years
ago um so real quick trying to be mindful of the time here um if this petition goes forward obviously we've got almost every signature here if there's any dissent um one neighbor let's say does that have to
come back to a council meeting because at this point it looks like we have like 80 or 90% based off of this I understand the survey has to go out we don't want to waste your time with this I I don't think one can derail things I think I don't think so I think there's a certain percentage but off the top of my
head I'm not sure exactly and we've got the 50% threshold U we even got the property manager at the office condo who spilled out a letter for us um so then the other question would be and again if we go 24-hour no side that is really restrictive the city did offer no overnight parking but wanted to take
away the day parking and I kind of wondered why or can they just throw that other sign up there so now we have you know that 2 hours in the morning the 3:00 to 6:00 at night and then it's open from 6:00 to 10: p.m. but then 10:00 to 6:00 it's closed again does can that be
done without a council meeting yeah well I think I think everything in this discussion I think will will'll ultimately come before the council I mean Julie can tell me one way or another here but I do think it's coming back we'll have that conversation at a meeting if if there are parking restrictions or changes that take place in a neighborhood would come back to
your Council okay cuz it sounded like it wouldn't if they were willing to just put the nightl up that's what it sounded like it wouldn't and that's far it's kind of like where's the where's the yeah it has to go to you and where it does not because the sense I got was hey if you'll take this deal yeah I honestly
I'm not sure exactly if engineering is cutting deals well but again it you know and that's kind of where we're at with it so um and I guess that would be so so let me ask you yeah so when uh I don't know if they're out yet but I know GN ReSound is
going yeah how will that affecting well at this point because the meeting is half gone they're totally and I haven't bothered staff about it because I knew they would just drive around they ran over cones they're destroyed and whatever once they leave it who knows who comes in um but the bottom line is
they were supposed to only run a couple ships a day they had traffic from 5:00 a.m. till midnight I was out there filming it back at the council meeting you can look find that so they weren't very good neighbors they said they wouldn't do anything to help the issue unless the city helped them and I was in that meeting back in 2005 when they said
it they were supposed to be out of there five years and they're still there so who comes in what they're going to do that's the tough part um the key is is you know we want to be able to have a quiet neighborhood obviously I don't want every neighbor complaining so I'm kind of the designated idiot that runs
out knocks on the doors at 10 below and I'm doing all that footwork um but that's kind of where we're at so we're just curious you know where is this line with can staff just throw a sign up that says no overnight parking 10 to 6 and we don't have to go and we can see if it
works and if it does then we don't have to worry about 24-hour no parking because this is where it's headed based off of just today if you drive down the street all the garbage alone is just litter from all the vehicles over the weekend and to the point um and I'll
leave it at this the all the vehicles that were up above that black line were all basically people that the property manager designated as unauthorized occupants more than three consecutive days without being on the lease they don't have a parking permit and that's what we mentioned that that's kind of
some of this so uh I don't want to try and answer it in the questions would be wrong so let us let us get have this conversation with engineering uh she's heard your questions that you have was uh this Julie you know Julie I'm sure yeah no he's spoken with uh Amy and ah okay yes she's our city engineer she's
city engineer she's here she's heard all the questions I think we let's let's try and figure out the correct answers to them and get back to you work great thank you thanks guys appreciate what you do thank you we're at 6:15 Council we have to get downstairs for our meeting I would look
for a motion to adjourn tonight so second Motion in a second all in favor please signify by saying I oppos we are adjourned thank you much thanks to everybody for being here tonight thank you Council we will see you downstairs for