City Vehicle #689 has a headlight out. When will the city have its employees make sure their vehicles are in working order. This has been about the 5th time I’ve reported city owned vehicles not in working order.
Please share with council ahead of tonight’s budget hearing: The “updated” budget released by administration does nothing for non-unionized, regular employees. These are the people who rely on council to advocate for them because they are not protected and eligible to negotiate via a representative. Instead they have to silently watch their continual fate because their bosses are in control of their pay without discussion every year via the administration’s budget. For a quarter of a billion dollar budget, the focus is not on the regular citizen or employee who in turn is the backbone of the local economy. In order for the budget to be as “progressive” as the administration claims, why do we not see a 9% minimum wage bump for those below pay grade 9 to adequately address stagnant wage growth. If you make what the mayor and his department heads make, 5% is great because they’re at almost 6-figures and above in pay. This information is public and is continually ignored by all hiring processes and “initiatives” by admin to recruit and retain employees. When you keep the majority of employees in low pay grades and will not adjust wages accordingly in times of high inflation or value education and experience, your administration keeps cycles of poverty ongoing. Questions have been raised that need addressed: what is the difference between the highest paid full-time salary worker and the lowest paid full-time salary worker?, how many employees live within city limits versus outside of city limits? How many employees in city limits have ownership of their home versus how many who live in city limits are renting? These questions provide information that shed light on the lack of wage to keep up with the cost of living in this city. The highest paid workers, including the mayor, are the only ones afforded the ability to own a home in city limits and utilize all services fully. This budget is tone-deaf and shows how only unionized worker groups and sections of city workers are valued - why do all employees not have access to assistance with home ownership or rent? Our neighbors in the county still are working for better wages, however they also have the privilege of more holidays per year, a clinic, and most employees work an hour less per day as the county closes at 4pm. Why does the city think it is acceptable to tell folks that one should accept a low wage because ‘benefits’ when the benefits aren’t reflective of “an employer of choice”? Bloomington should be more than matching the county but now you cannot keep up. Citizens and workers are asking of council to uphold our worth and advocate for actual, beneficial change. No one questions the ordinances for council and admin’s wage growth but the regular employee is forgotten.
There is a City bus stop shelter just north of Thorton Drive on Henderson (across the street from Black Lumber). The last few evenings, it looks like someone is staying in there overnight. Is this allowed? Also, there is a lot of trash in the area. Can the city clean this up and monitor the area for illicit activity?
We have significant concerns with N. Smith just being repaved in that we just want to confirm the striping is not done. Bike lanes are not painted, which not only help bikes but slow traffic by narrowing the street. And even more importantly the dangerous Greenway intersection at N. Smith and Morningside is not repainted with crosswalks. Ideally we'd like to see crosswalk enhancements for bike/pedestrian traffic there, as currently many cars pose danger by Zooming through the stop signs currently there from N. Smith's side.
I am routinely seeing cars parked in front of the fire hydrant at 525 E. University St. Twice I've called the BPD to report it (other times I've left notes on cars or spoken directly to the car owners) and twice I've watched BPD drive by and do nothing. Each time BPD drove by about 10 minutes after my call which makes me think they got the call and just chose not to take action. In the very least the yellow paint in front of the fire hydrant needs to be redone, as it is very faint. I think it would be helpful if they painted the fire hydrant as well.
Zillow says they can have 7 people? Is that true? What a mess for a neighborhood - for 119 s bryan
Overoccupancy rental 119 S Bryan rented to at least 6.
In response to uReport case # 181637: "Greetings. We need moving violation enforcement and an increase in people who can do traffic law enforcement. Can someone in BPD as well as OOTM please read this article and consider how the City of Bloomington may work to make their streets actually safe and civil... Please take note of the quote about their goal. I think Bloomington needs to make the goal of public safety a top and most important priority! This is what the city of New Orleans is doing to help their police department with their staff shortages. 'They will have duties such as monitoring phone and online reports, issuing traffic citations, surveying major events like Mardi Gras and the Essence Festival and even doing some investigative work. Civilians would additionally be dispatched to calls that may not require an officer, such as collecting preliminary evidence, securing loose pets and responding to forgery, certain medical episodes and some thefts, New Orleans Police Superintendent Shaun Ferguson said last Thursday. 'The goal of all of this is to make our officers feel safe so that they can make our citizens and visitors feel safe,' Ferguson said. 'This is also to reduce some of the workload currently placed on our patrol and district personnel. But more importantly this is designed to reduce response time and address the backlogs in which we have in some of our districts.'" Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/09/26/1125055305/new-orleans-police-civilians" RESPONSE: "BPD already has a program such as this in place in an effort to lessen the workload on sworn officers so they can focus their efforts on criminal behavior. MY REPLY: Thank you very much for the information. I was aware that there were Community Service Specialists but since I have still been told repeatedly over the past three years that BPD does not have the staffing to do traffic detail or do much work outside of responding to 9/11 calls, then I respectfully suggest COB budgets for and approves several more CSSs. Also, admittedly I had a poor opinion to the CSS position due to a car collision at a bad intersection that was attended to by a CSS and not a sworn officer and was never included in the official stats for that intersection. When I requested a four way stop from P & T, they cited there had never been a collision there when that is blatantly false. Please consider checking the protocol on how collisions attended to by CSSs are handled for reporting purposes as well as increase the head count, please. There is a problem with public safety in this town that the current business as usual is not curbing. Thank you for your time.
The park at 2nd and Walnut and the Kroger behind it are becoming a great concern to many people in the neighborhood off of 2nd street. In the last 3 weeks at Kroger I have witnessed a violent incident and been aggressively approached by many people from the park for money, food, and other things. Even in Indianapolis where there are 10x the amount of homeless persons, I have never been approached so aggressively and violently. It is the opinion of many people on this campus that this park and the people in it represent a huge liability for the city. There is a campus of 55,000+ students of which half are young women. Walking in this area at night is not safe and there is open drug use everywhere in the park and surrounding corners. Of the 55,000+ students of which half are female this is a frightening area to be in and the city needs to ensure the safety of its citizens in this area.
In regards to resolved uReport# 181500: Reply from City: Up until recently, we've been relying on the scooter companies to enforce their users behaviors with illegally parking of the scooters. We have two positions that we are currently hiring for that are funded with fees from the scooter companies that will focus on moving into a system where fines will be issued for improper parking. My reply with two (2) questions: I do not understand Adam Wason's reply in light of what was stated by City Attorney, Mike Rourker, in 2019 (please see below for quote). Additionally, I worked from March 2019 until October 2021 as the main point-of-contact (POC) working with the entities licensed by the City for providing the service and product of motorized scooters, and neither was I informed of any efforts to ticket the companies nor the users of the scooters. Can someone please explain to me what the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for holding the licensed entities accountable for the stipulations in the ordinance governing use and management of the scooters was prior to the recent creation and hiring of a new staff position? Also, why were no violations issued and no fines collected in over three years? Thank you for your time. "At its July 31, 2019 meeting, city attorney Mike Rouker told the city council that scooter companies would be fined if their users violated the parking restrictions. Rouker put it this way: “So just to be clear, at the same time, that Bird or Lime or another scooter company may be taking those additional steps against their own users, the city, if this is an issue, will be fining them every single time we see a parking issue.” Rouker continued, “I suppose if the company wants to move very slowly and pay lots and lots of fines to the city, until we’re fed up enough that we either revoke their license or geo-fence an area, that’s a business decision. But I don’t know if it’s a sound business decision.” For an improperly parked scooter, the fine called for in the city’s ordinance runs $30. The fee connected to impoundment is $100, plus $10 per day storage, and another $150 for disposal. As it turns out, the only payments the scooter companies have had to make to the city of Bloomington are the $10,000 annual licensing fees and the 15 cents a ride. The three companies now operating in Bloomington are Lime, Veo, and Bird." Source: https://bsquarebulletin.com/2021/11/22/electric-scooter-parking-violations-zero-citations-in-over-2-years-since-local-bloomington-law-was-passed/ Additional source: https://otter.ai/s/56nnFv2HQX2elRJ40z1X8A?snpt=true