City Council – The Dissident Democrat

A New Year, A New Focus: Bloomington vs. Its Neighborhoods

It’s official: Kerry Thomson will be Bloomington’s Mayor in January 2024. We get a new cast of characters in the serio-comic spectacle that is our City Council. John Hamilton will leave City Hall without having consummated his hostile takeover of the suburbs, closed the road through Lower Cascades Park or erected his aluminum cutta atContinue reading “A New Year, A New Focus: Bloomington vs. Its Neighborhoods”

CMs Volan, Flaherty and Rosenbarger: Do Your Job or Leave

You’re elected officials. I’m not aware of a mechanism for recall of a sitting CM in Indiana. The opportunity we have to remove you comes next spring, in the Democratic Primary. Actually, that’s ironic. Because your pigheaded, minoritarian obstructive tactics are far more characteristic of a Mitch McConnell or Kevin McCarthy than of any Democratic institution that comes to mind. If that’s the way things are done in Bloomington, we’re a pretty poor excuse for a Democratic Party town.

Try This Yourself: Impact of Upzoning Debate on Local Home Valuations

By Jean Simonian One of the enduring claims among upzoning proponents in Bloomington has been that adding more multiplex houses to neighborhoods will improve affordability by adding less expensive options to the housing supply. When we examine this claim pragmatically, it quickly falls apart. But it has never gone away. So here’s an experiment youContinue reading “Try This Yourself: Impact of Upzoning Debate on Local Home Valuations”