By Peter Dorfman
The Bloomington Economic Development Corporation is launching an initiative to involve citizens in the formulation of ways to promote “economic vitality” in the region. “The Economic Vitality Project (EVP) convenes partners across sectors to prioritize and collaboratively address shared economic development challenges,” the BEDC website declares.
They’ve created a survey to invite people to be part of this. The survey is here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe7vr3ln81DUpuZJuEXXygmjzaJbxtFf7N8hDI2NGjQ6gEUwA/viewform
I filled it out on behalf of Bloomington Dissident Democrats, and I wanted to share my (typically verbose) response:
“I propose recognition of Wealth Inequality and the destructive potential of predatory rental real estate investment as an existential risk to the community, alongside Climate Change and Racial Justice concerns. I believe the community urgently needs a reset of the relationship between the City of Bloomington and Indiana University; IU is our largest employer and the source of the cultural resources that bring people to Bloomington, but its (tax-exempt) growth is consuming the city and it needs to take responsibility for the consequences of that growth — current city government is not pushing back hard enough on IU, which is acting more like a for-profit corporation than an institution of higher learning. I believe the increasingly painful scarcity of primary care resources locally is exposing the risks in IU Health’s local monopoly in health care. I believe the current administration’s vision for Bloomington as a micro-Silicon Valley is unrealistic, and that the city is neglecting its Arts community as a cultural asset and as an engine of employment. I think it’s time to scale back infrastructure improvements and amenity spending, especially on parks, and to scale back the burdening of city taxpayers with new bond issues. I strongly support preservation of the city’s core neighborhoods and respect for Bloomington’s 2018 Comprehensive Plan, which emphasized protection of the core as a priority and promoted a multi-nodal development strategy that the current administration has abandoned. I support investment in much greater transparency of policy information and especially the data driving development assumptions; the city’s data portal is woefully inadequate. I oppose the aggressive uglification of the city’s skyline, which is increasingly blighted with characterless apartment Rubik’s Cubes. And I oppose the use of taxpayer funds to pursue litigation to enforce the mayor’s unrealistically aggressive annexation plan.”
Thoughts of your own to share?
The Dissident Democrat 