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This is the WFHB Local News for Thursday, September 2nd, 2021.
Later in the program, the 4th Street Festival of the Arts and Crafts will take place over Labor Day Weekend. WFHB News spoke with President of the Festival Committee Sidney Bolam about what the festival will entail. More coming up during today’s headlines.
Also coming up in the next half hour, the Buskirk Chumley Theater will require vaccination or a negative Covid-19 test ahead of its fall season. We spoke with Executive Director Jonah Crismore about what led to that decision.
But first, Emily McCoy has your Statehouse Roundup:
On Tuesday this week Mark Figg discussed in an interview, the ongoing annexation process in Monroe County and its correlation with housing development. Figg served as a Chairman of the Bloomington Economic Development Incorporation in 2019 and 2020. Figg also partook in the committee that overlooked the recent housing study completed in 2020.
According to Figg, the outcome of the housing study showed strong housing scarcity that has caused housing prices to increase. Figg commented that the annexation of Monroe County will be beneficial to the city’s housing development in the long run, by decreasing housing scarcity. The newly annexation areas would be held under the city’s recent Unified Development Ordinance which looks into land use and Bloomington city development.
Figg continued on to address concerns on rising taxes from county residents living in the proposed annexation zones. Advising that while there will be a tax increase, the long term benefit of that would be a decrease in housing scarcity and housing prices overall. Allowing for more urban economic development in the county.
“The Board of Bloomington Economic Development incorporation actually made housing scarcity our number one economic development,” said Figg.
Monroe County Board of Zoning Appeals
The Monroe County Board of Zoning Appeals considered granting a variance retroactively. At the September 1st meeting, County Planner Anna Crecelius discussed a slope variance at South Oak Ridge Drive. She pointed out that the petitioner had already started working on the land, and that the petitioner was pushing the debris off their property.
Board member Skip Daley wondered why staff had presented a variance instead of moving to enforcement. He questioned Crecelius on why the planning department had not gone straight to mediation.
Daley suggested the board continue the variance for 30 days to give the petitioner time to create a remediation plan. Board member Margaret Clemens commented on the importance of discouraging actions like this from happening again. She added her surprise that someone would take these actions without consulting the county first.
An initial vote to continue the variance failed. Clemens moved to deny the request along staff recommendations. This motion passed 3 to 2, with board members Skip Daley and Bernie Guerrettaz dissenting.
4th Street Art Festival Returns After Covid Hiatus
The 4th Street Art Festival will return this weekend after its cancellation last year due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.
The event will run from 10 AM to 6 PM Saturday and 10 AM to 5 PM Sunday, featuring 80 artists working in a wide range of mediums.
Sidney Bolam, president of the 4th Street Arts Festival Committee, described the festival’s offerings this year.
The festival will return with new measures in place to protect against the transmission of COVID-19.
The past year has been a difficult one for artists, according to Bolam, because of the absence of art fairs and public shows.
Bolam encouraged Bloomington residents to support local art organizations, as artists recover from income shortages incurred during the COVID-19 pandemic.
For more information on the upcoming arts festival, visit 4thstreet.org.
The Buskirk Chumley Requires Vaccination or Negative Covid Test Ahead of Fall Season
The Buskirk Chumley Theater announced this week that it will require Covid-19 vaccination or a negative Covid-19 test for all of its shows.
In a press release, a spokesperson said that safety remains a priority for Bloomington’s community theater. Executive Director Jonah Crismore explained what led to the decision.
“For us specifically, it came from a few different angles that we were working. We recently surveyed our audiences, our patrons, and it overwhelmingly showed support for a vaccine requirement or negative COVID test,” said Crismore.
Early on in the pandemic, many shows were canceled due to Covid-19. Meanwhile, this affected touring artists, the venue and livelihood of theater staff. Crismore touched on the push and pull of wanting to remain open while trying to protect theater goers.
“Safety is our first priority, always. We want to make sure that when we have events here that people remain safe and may remain healthy,” he said.
The Buskirk Chumley is the first venue of its size to enact this policy. Crismore says he believes it will soon become the industry standard.
“I believe it’s the only way forward, at least for the foreseeable future, to do this in a safe, responsible manner,” said Crismore.
All in all, Crismore says he doesn’t want to face another shutdown. He believes requiring vaccination or a negative test along with the mask mandate would help provide the safest theater experience.
“We just don’t know what the future would hold for the performing arts in not just Bloomington, Indiana, but the whole region and even on a national scale, if a shutdown starts to occur again,” he said.
To find out more on the upcoming fall schedule, you can visit buskirkchumley.org.
Bloomington Board of Public Works
On August 31st the Bloomington Board of Public Works approved construction on East 14th Street. According to board member Dana Henke, the entire project will take place from Sept. 23, 2021 to August 11th, 2023. The construction will be broken up into four phases.
Attorney William Beggs expressed concern in public comment on behalf of his client. He wanted to ensure that his client’s employees and customers would be able to get in and out 14th street, and that their trash would be able to be collected.
The Board of Public Works looked to the Landmark Construction to answer his question. Their representative, Eric Schulte responded saying that he wasn’t sure it would be possible to accommodate them, but that they would do their best.
Another public comment asked to clarify when the Terra Trace apartments would be affected by the construction. Shulte answered that the construction would take place from October 18th to November 25th. The board motioned to approve the East street closures 3-0. Bird and lime scooters will be discussed at the next meeting.
Monroe County Council Work Session
The Monroe County Council held a special work session to continue discussion on Monroe County’s job classifications and compensations. At the August 31st work session, council member Eric Spoonmore proposed that the county council decide whether to adopt the findings from the commissioned Waggoner, Irwin, Scheele, and Associates report for the 2022 budget. County Counsel Margie Rice cautioned council members to implement salary increases equitably. She said this would avoid situations where employees are upset that they only make a bit more money than employees who work under them.
Highway Director Lisa Ridge spoke against adopting the findings. She said that WIS admitted their report contained errors, and that adopting the report as-is meant department heads would have to comb through the results and make sure there weren’t additional errors.
Council members agreed to budget one million dollars for partial implementation of the WIS findings in the 2022 budget. The Monroe County Council will discuss how to spend the budgeted money and what aspects of the WIS findings to adopt at a later date.
Environmental News Brief
Hurricane Ida, now classified as a tropical storm, recently made landfall in Louisiana as a Category 4 hurricane with winds reaching 150 miles per hour. The U.S Geological Survey has announced that the force of the winds and the storm stopped and reversed the flow of the Mississippi River. The river’s flow went from two feet per second south to half a foot per second north. This is an extremely rare occurrence, as the last time it occurred was during Hurricane Katrina. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other researchers have found that climate change has increased the amount of natural disasters per year and has also increased the intensity, thus making them more deadly.
Residents of Tell City Indiana living near a former General Electric factory have recently filed a lawsuit against General Electric citing the effects of the contaminants that the plant released into the environment on the property values and human health in the area. The contaminant trichloroethylene was found on 76 properties. Researchers believe that there is a connection between this contaminant and an increase in Parkinson’s disease. General Electric has stated that they are fully committed to working with Tell City to complete an assessment of the damage and fix the situation.
A federal judge has recently struck down a Trump-era environmental rule that removed federal restrictions against pollution of the nation’s waterways. The policy had allowed farmers, real estate developers, and others to discharge pollutants such as fertilizers, pesticides, industrial chemicals, and other harmful substances into streams and wetlands. The Biden administration was firmly against this policy due to the possibility of serious environmental harm that would result from a continuation of the Trump-era policy. Environmental groups celebrated the decision as a victory for clean water and scientific integrity.
Credits:
You’ve been listening to the WFHB Local News,
Today’s headlines were written by Noelle Herhusky-Schneider, Robert Robinson, Kade Young and Jake Jacobson, in partnership with Cats – Community Access Television Services.
The Statehouse Roundup was produced by Emily McCoy.
Our Environmental News Brief was produced by Nathaniel Weinzapfel.
Our theme music is provided by Mark Bingham and the Social Climbers.
Engineer and Executive producer is Kade Young.
Anchors are Benedict Jones and Noelle Herhusky-Schneider.
