In recent decades, Bloomington has been a virtual one-party city, dominated by its local Democratic Party. The city’s most recent administration expressed and made policy around a grandiose vision of Bloomington as a city several times its actual size, growing much more rapidly than it is, offering knowledge job opportunities that are not here, and drawing significant in-migration from southern Indiana, which it isn’t.
Popular criticism has been almost continuous — of the administration’s ideological rigidity and lack of transparency in pursuing controversial initiatives, such as the purchase of a $250,000 armored riot control vehicle, financing of a $30 million downtown parking garage, the attempted Local Income Tax increase, a deeply unpopular policy toward the city’s homeless population, the upzoning of the city’s core and annexation of the suburbs.
The administration never faced an opposing coalition. There is no viable Republican opposition at any level of Bloomington government, and an inbred coalition of Democrats has grown up around the Mayor. In November 2023, Bloomington held an election in which the Mayor and all but one member of the City Council ran unopposed.
Bloomington should never be subject to such inbred politics, and should never again hold an uncontested election. Now that the upzoning debate is concluded (for the moment), it is time to remind council members that the community has been watching and viewing their deliberations through a political lens.
We have a new Mayor and a new Council. We have reasons for optimism that we’ll see sounder, more thoughtful and more inclusive policy-making going forward. But we need to be vigilant in calling out and opposing new rounds of policies that benefit the city’s real estate profiteers at the expense of citizens.
Bloomington Needs a New Voice.
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