By: Diane Benjamin

Last night’s meeting lasted 2 hours, not including an Executive Session to discuss a raise for Jeff Jurgens and a land purchase. No details were given on either. Since Jeff Jurgens is not only City Manager but also a lawyer, one would think he cares about sitting Council members violating City Code. He said nothing. https://blnnews.com/2025/04/15/too-chicken-mboka/

Is he too chicken too? Is he waiting until after his raise gets passed?

Items of note from the 2 hours:

The City thinks the water quality is improving. Lake Bloomington has been treated for algae, Evergreen is being treated now. It will take time for better water to go throughout the system. Is anyone planning to break up the ice next year if snow doesn’t cover it so this never happens again? In case you didn’t hear, they claimed the algae grew because the ice acted as a greenhouse without snow.

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Finance Director, Scott Rathbun, gave an update on the billing snafu. The City has separate programs for billing and collecting payments. They do talk to each other. One of the programs did an update that resulted in the wrong information transferred between the programs. You probably know software updates frequently wreak havoc on systems.

Scott claimed the problems should be fixed by next Tuesday. If anyone incurred overdraft charges because they signed up for automatic payments, the City will reimburse them. Phone number in this story: https://blnnews.com/2025/04/14/you-had-one-job/

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Next year’s budget passed unanimously. Total budget is $317,854,336. That amounts to $4,040 for every man, women, and child in Bloomington. (population estimated at 78,680)

The Bison’s first session is over. City Manager Jurgens reported over 100,000 people attended games. He was asked how many attendees were from out of town. I don’t know how that would be determined, but he claimed they are investigating. Are they using credit card information?

Of course both development plans passed, the people who showed up at Public Comment didn’t need to. The far left had to praise the cap on rent increases at the old State Farm headquarters to 2.5% a year for 10 years. See all Public Comments beginning at 38:40. The business part of the meeting didn’t start until 54:00.

Kevin Kothe was honored for his decades of service to the City. The mayor read a LONG list of his accomplishments. Just hit Play to hear them. He will be missed, he received a standing ovation. Rev. Frank L. McSwain, Sr. was also honored posthumously for his contributions to the community. Both received honorary streets named for them.