Bloomington city councilmember Dave Rollo. (April 12, 2023)
Bloomington traffic commissioner Greg Alexander (April 12, 2023)
An expected up-down vote on the question of Greg Alexander’s removal from Bloomington’s traffic commission did not take place at Wednesday night’s city council meeting.
The motion for Alexander’s removal—because of Tweets he posted late last year—had been postponed from the council’s March 29 meeting. That postponement had unanimous support from the council, in order to give Alexander at least five business days to respond in writing to the specific reasons listed out in the motion.
On Wednesday, councilmember Dave Rollo wound up withdrawing his motion to remove Alexander.
Bloomington city councilmember Dave Rollo at a September 2022 city council meeting. (B Square file photo)
Bloomington resident Greg Alexander addressing city council on Nov. 2, 2022. (B Square file photo)
A possible vote on the removal of Greg Alexander from Bloomington’s traffic commission is now set for the city council’s April 12 meeting.
At Wednesday’s council meeting, Dave Rollo made a motion for Alexander’s removal, because of three posts on Twitter.com that Alexander made in November 2022.
The Tweets cited in Rollo’s motion read as follows:
“with all due respect, taking things away from elm heights *IS* exactly how the rest of the city gets help.”
“i would really like to know. it sounds like they are going to savagely penetrate your neighborhood and I want to know what they’re going to use to do that?”
“haters gonna hate and bloomington democrats gonna lick the shit out from between elm heights’ neighbors ass cheeks”
As a traffic commissioner, Alexander had opposed installation of the sign. The traffic commission as a group had recommended against the stop sign’s installation. Alexander sees the city council’s decision, which was contrary to the commission’s recommendation, as showing undue deference to the Elm Heights neighborhood.
The traffic commission is an advisory board that, among other things, recommends to the city council and other city officials ways to improve traffic conditions and the enforcement of traffic regulations.
On Wednesday, the council postponed Rollo’s motion until April 12, in order to allow at least five business days for Alexander to respond in writing.
The latest Centers for Disease Control guidance on the topic supports wearing cloth face masks by members of the general public to help prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
Kelly Clark, co-organizer of the Bloomington Indiana Fabric Mask Drive, at the city’s Allison-Jukebox Community Center, where the drive is now headquartered. (Dave Askins/Square Beacon)
That endorsement from the top health protection agency in the country squares up with local efforts in Bloomington and Monroe County to make and distribute such masks to people in non-health care settings.
Those efforts started a few weeks ago, before the more supportive recommendations from the CDC were released.
Christina Kempf, who’s the county’s public health coordinator, told The Square Beacon on Tuesday that the county’s program has now produced 1,095 homemade masks. The county is publicizing its mask making effort with a .pdf file that contains instructions for sewing masks and drop-off locations at four different fire stations around the county.
“We are still in need for more masks,” Kempf said.
