Washington & Cottage Grove -- Miller Pipeline construction crew left their equipment blocking the sidewalk after they left for the day on Friday afternoon. This will probably remain on the sidewalk until they return on Monday morning. This seems like a substantial safety hazard, and extremely inconsiderate since they have the sidewalk on the other side of the street all torn up.
Dear Mayor Hamilton and the city of Bloomington, I am contacting you and your office regarding the problem with the deer in our neighborhood. Once again, the deer are a problem for us and they are outright dangerous. I am not sure what the city is planning on doing with the problem, but I almost feel like I want to hire a sniper (and I am an animal lover) to get them off of our property or now purchase a BB gun. I am not a violent person, but I am at my wits end regarding this issue. Will the city only do something once a deer kills a child? I have heard of stories of dogs being killed by deer as well as homes being trashed by deer who have somehow gotten into somebody's home. The latest is that my wife got a broken ankle because of a deer and it required a trip to the ER at Bloomington hospital along with missed work for both of us. Luckily we have health insurance, but for those who don't...it is a very expensive endeavor that could have been avoided if the city would do something to cull these animals. Lately we have seen a herd of 8 deer roaming around Somax. I would like your opinion on how you plan to fix this problem because I do see this as a problem in our city and especially our neighborhood. Also, I heard that the city has a 2 million dollar surplus this year and wondered if that meant we would finally get the sidewalk and repair of the dangerous culvert that has been promised to the former owners of our house as well as to us. Our taxes go up every year (Judy Sharp just assessed another increas of $50,000 to our home value which raised our taxes again quite drastically). We can't seem to ever get a break from her with her assessments every year and it is quite frustrating. Every year we pay more and more taxes and get absolutely nothing for it. Again, I would appreciate your thoughts on this matter. Thanks. Best, Ingrid Faber 1104 S. Covenanter Drive Bloomington, IN 47401
2 Bird scooter, parallel to each other, taking up half of sidewalk, south side Hunter at Woodlawn. The companies want them convenient for pickup? (Could be worse since there is room still to walk
I was a bit disappointed with the dangerous traffic situation I had to navigate on Monday morning due to the City of Bloomington's careless job site. Grimes is being resurfaced it looks like. I was heading north on Dunn and came to the intersection with Grimes. There was no sign to indicate the road was closed. I could not go straight on Dunn across Grimes because a City dump truck and other vehicles had the road entirely blocked. I could not see traffic to the west on Grimes because a City street sweeper was parked right at the intersection blocking the view (and there was another piece of equipment behind it). I could just barely see the intersection at Grimes & Henderson to try to guess if traffic was coming from my east. The City had a big machine parked just east of Dunn on Grimes that had a dump truck backed up to it for tearing up the road surface. I made a decision to go for it, and turned out onto the wrong lane of traffic to go around the construction. There were 5 city employees in bright colors standing on the sidewalk chatting, just watching this traffic hazard. Other people were driving through trying to navigate the broken up road and the blocked streets, intersections, and egress without any assistance from the City employees on the job. This is dangerous. Just close the road! Or put some people in charge of directing traffic so we know when it is safe to proceed and not risk hitting another citizen or getting run over by the various machinery moving about. This was pretty ridiculous even by Bloomington standards (which, are actually quite low it turns out!).
Why don't all bad sidewalks or poor people at least get to use the city sidewalk fund? I'm not sure how it works but doesn't seem many people get access. And the zones they talk about are years old. Pretty sure there was a recent study that has new zones. Parts of the east side have horribly deteriorated sidewalk infrastructure and is already too reliant on cars; they should be eligible too. Please talk to whoever does poor areas of town to confirm areas of eligibilty. This should be citwide.