Column: Will Bloomington’s new city council continue a culture of secrecy or chart a different course?

The Bloomington city council members who were sworn in on Jan. 1 have a chance to chart a course for transparency that could distinguish them from the group who were sworn in four years ago.

If the 2024 edition of the city council managed to get through the first two days of the year without violating Indiana’s Open Door Law, then they have already improved on the previous group’s performance.

But there’s more to transparency than just resisting any urge to meet outside of public view to discuss the people’s business.

Transparency is about a cultural norm—an expectation that any information accessible to councilmembers is also accessible to the public.

Ideally, the public should not have to ask to see the same information that is provided to councilmembers. That information should be pushed to the public, by posting it on the city’s website.

But when a member of the public does ask to see the same information that has been provided to councilmembers, it should be provided without delay and without redaction.

The Bloomington city council that was sworn into office in 2020 fell dramatically short of that basic cultural norm of transparency.

The new city council could make a good start towards establishing better cultural norms, by directing the council staff to start posting, a matter of routine, one category of document that has previously been shielded from public view—meeting memos.

A “meeting memo” is a memo composed by council staff and sent to councilmembers on the day of a meeting. Such memos could, as a matter of standard procedure, be posted in the same place on the website as a meeting information packet. Continue reading “Column: Will Bloomington’s new city council continue a culture of secrecy or chart a different course?” →

Bloomington econ dev commission to ‘re-Zoom’ meeting efforts in time for review of tax abatements

Screenshot of the message that popped up for the Zoom access to Bloomington’s economic development commission meeting for May 30, 2023.

Gathered for the BEDC meeting on May 30, 2023 were, clockwise from the bottom corner of the table: Alex Crowley, Larry Allen, Andrea de la Rosa (city staff); and BEDC members Matt Flaherty, Vanessa McClary, and Kurt Zorn.

On Tuesday, Bloomington’s five-member economic development commission (BEDC) tried to meet for the first time since October of last year.

All the pieces for a meeting appeared to be in place. Three of the five BEDC members were physically present in the McCloskey Room at city hall.

The majority attendance meant the group had the required minimum number to meet—a quorum. That number also satisfied Indiana’s Open Door Law which has a 50-percent in-person requirement for electronic meetings—in case any BEDC members had wished to attend by using the Zoom video conferencing platform.

But the Zoom link that had been provided in the official public notice of the meeting did not work. When an attempt was made to launch the Zoom interface for the meeting, an error message was delivered, which read: “This meeting ID is not valid.”

Assistant city attorney Larry Allen told those who had assembled for the meeting that because Zoom access had been advertised to the public under a specific link, but could not, in fact, be made available, his advice was to not hold the meeting. Continue reading “Bloomington econ dev commission to ‘re-Zoom’ meeting efforts in time for review of tax abatements” →

Hey, Wait a Minute | Milking meeting minutes from 2017 for all they’re worth—sounds like fun

Note: “Hey, Wait a Minute” is an occasional B Square Beacon series that highlights meeting minutes and other documentation of local government meetings in the Bloomington, Indiana area.

Image links to audio with transcript. (Click on the blue arrow at the bottom of the screen to play the audio.)

At last Wednesday’s Bloomington city council meeting, city clerk Nicole Bolden got a thank-you from councilmember Susan Sandberg.

Sandberg had asked at the council’s Friday work session if councilmembers could be provided with the minutes for some meetings that took place in 2017.

It was in 2017 when the council took up the question of annexations, a process that was stopped by the state legislature that year.

After a Supreme Court decision in Bloomington’s favor late last year, on Wednesday, the council re-started the annexation process.

Bolden forwarded to councilmembers the 2017 meeting minutes. And on Wednesday, Sandberg said, “I found [the meeting minutes] to be very helpful, just kind of bringing my memory back to where we were in the process.”

How does a Zoom video conference auto-transcript stack up against the clerk’s meeting minutes? Continue reading “Hey, Wait a Minute | Milking meeting minutes from 2017 for all they’re worth—sounds like fun” →

Opinion: Preserving live closed captions for post-pandemic times should get focus now

Screenshot of Dec. 30, 2020 video conferenced press event on COVID-19 response.

Screen shot of Dec. 21, 2020 Bloomington redevelopment commission Zoom video conference meeting.

Monday of Christmas week was the last meeting of 2020 for Bloomington’s redevelopment commission (RDC).

It was a landmark event for a city of Bloomington government meeting.

It was not special because the meeting was held using Zoom’s video-conferencing platform. Video-conferenced public meetings have been standard since the spring. That’s when Indiana governor Eric Holcomb’s emergency health order made remote participation legal for government officials.

What made the RDC meeting special was the automatic closed captioning and live transcription function for the Zoom video-conferencing software, which had been activated for the first time.

The following week, the regular press conference of local leaders about COVID-19 pandemic response also featured Zoom’s automatic closed captioning and transcription.

The improved accessibility of meetings to the Deaf, or people who are hearing impaired, is an obvious benefit.

It’s a benefit for everyone. Continue reading “Opinion: Preserving live closed captions for post-pandemic times should get focus now” →

Hey, Wait a Minute | Is Bloomington’s annual budget process like slaughtering chickens?

Note: “Hey, Wait a Minute” is an occasional B Square Beacon series that highlights meeting minutes and other documentation of local government meetings in the Bloomington, Indiana area.

The Bloomington city council’s information packet for its Oct. 7 meeting includes some meeting minutes with dates from 2011.

A failed amendment to Bloomington’s chicken keeping ordinance as recorded in the meeting minutes of Dec. 21, 2011. The amendment that was eventually approved struck outright the prohibition against slaughtering a chicken.

Why are the meeting minutes from nine years ago just now in front of the city council for approval? That’s an interesting story, too. More on that later.

Maybe a little more interesting is the range of topics reflected in those 2011 meeting minutes.

Slaughtering chickens.

Approval of the 2012 budget.

And more.

On Dec. 21 of that year, the council eliminated a prohibition in city code against the slaughter of a chicken by someone who has a permit to keep a chicken flock under the city’s ordinance.

During the same meeting, an earlier version of the code amendment failed. That version would have added the stipulation that the killing of any chickens be accomplished in a humane manner and that the event be kept out of public view. Continue reading “Hey, Wait a Minute | Is Bloomington’s annual budget process like slaughtering chickens?” →

Hey, Wait a Minute | Is Bloomington in southern Indiana?

Note: “Hey Wait a Minute” is an occasional B Square Beacon series that highlights meeting minutes and other documentation of local government group meetings in the Bloomington, Indiana area. Sometimes, arriving at the connection to meeting minutes takes a long walk around the block.

The online world is a mostly a peaceful place where people share facts and thank each other for the useful information. But yesterday someone was wrong on the internet. So a mild fracas broke out.

Here’s the kerfuffle-inducing question: Is Bloomington considered southern Indiana? (Yes.) Continue reading “Hey, Wait a Minute | Is Bloomington in southern Indiana?” →