03/27/2020
After technical difficulties, Bloomington City Council finally held a meeting this week to address the COVID-19 pandemic. The council unanimously approved a formal Emergency Declaration for the City of Bloomington regarding the novel coronavirus.
“The declaration is aimed at providing relief to residents and business owners, and provides flexibility in payment of bills such as food and beverage taxes, parking and ordinance fines, and utility payments. The order does not allow Bloomington to enact curfews, prohibit liquor, ration gas, or stop the sale of firearms and ammunition. The emergency declaration reaffirms the city manager’s authority to act and ensures the continuity of city government. ‘We’re still fully operational (and) the continuity of government is a critical function that we want our residents to rest assured is continuing,’ said City Manager Tim Gleason. ‘We’ve got 80,000 residents that look to us for calm and at the very least direction, communicating exactly what the city is doing.’
“The ordinance puts a hold on late fees, interest and fines for nonpayment as long as the balance is paid within 30 days after the end of Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s emergency declaration. Additionally, a moratorium has been placed on utility shutoffs. The declaration will be in effect for 28 days unless the council revokes or amends it before then, and will renew for 28-day periods if necessary.”1 These actions will go along way in easing residents minds especially on utility payments & fines. Bloomington is following steps put in place by multiple Central Illinois municipalities including Normal, Peoria, Decatur, Champaign, Pekin, Mclean County, and more.
However, the council failed to act or even discuss a number of important measures that had been requested of them. Local groups like Illinois Peoples Actions, DSA BloNo, and Black Lives Matter BloNo are calling on both the Town of Normal & the City of Bloomington to utilize whatever space available (empty hotels, publicly owned vacant properties, government space) to provide housing and assistance to the homeless residents, housing insecure residents (people who frequently must couch-surf to find shelter), and domestic abuse survivors. Furthermore, the city failed to act on requiring paid sick leave for essential businesses like grocery stores and restaurants still serving take-out, delivery, and drive-thru service. (You can see the full list of demands here.)
Both housing assistance and paid sick leave are necessary to lower the curve on new infections. Because of complete incompetence at the national level, tests are still not widely available for the COVID-19 virus, and the amount of currently infected people is significantly higher than the 8 cases in Mclean County currently confirmed. We’re flying blind in our quest to lower the curve because we don’t even know where the curve is right now. Hospitals across the country are already overwhelmed, and failure to lower the curve would result in far more devastating effects long-term both economically and socially. Finding alternatives to the current homeless shelters in existence, where cramped and limited spaces make social distancing nearly impossible, is essential. If these people get infected, they could easily spread the virus merely because the lack of hygiene essentials available to them. It will cost far more to the average tax payer if large amounts of homeless people (who often have pre-existing conditions) require hospitalization. The money they can’t pay for emergency procedures will get passed on to the rest of consumers, along with the bill for increased police and safety to manage this vulnerable population. Providing spaces for homeless, housing insecure residents, and domestic abuse survivors would cost the city far less because the city already owns these spaces, while sparing residents of the exponential growth of bills which would occur if an outbreak occurred with these populations.
Perhaps even more important is paid sick leave for essential workers. Most restaurants still open do not provide paid sick leave to their employees. This presents serious health risks. We know workers of these jobs already make poverty wages, nor are they receiving hazard pay; we know if these people have to choose between losing a check to self-isolate and going to work sick, they’re going to probably go to work because rent and other bills are still due and food has to be put on the table. Not only could these workers (who operate in spaces that limit social distancing and handle cash & credit) unknowingly spread COVID-19, but also other diseases that would exacerbate the health epidemic. These workers are essential because thousands of people need their service everyday; but, this also increases the danger of them being sick cause they could infect thousands of people everyday. In the Mclean County area: Mcdonald’s, Subway, Cracker Barrel, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC, Domino’s Pizza, Dunkin Donuts, Buffalo Wild Wings, Chipotle and the food delivery service Grub Hub DO NOT offer paid sick leave to their employees.2 The elderly, disabled, immune-compromised, pregnant, and those with pre-existing conditions should consult their physician before eating food from any of these restaurants for the remainder of the pandemic. These companies are putting peoples lives at risk for profit during the worst health crisis the globe has faced in over 100 hundred years. Local & state governments should do everything in their power to require a paid sick leave program from large corporations3 selling food for the duration of the pandemic. Enacting this requirement is exactly the action necessary for our community to successfully lower the curve.
Other demands include regulations addressing how grocery stores operate concerning rationing, special times for high-risk individuals to shop, and anti-price gouging rules. Whether the local governments could enact these is not clear. However, these stores appear to be self-regulating along these issues, and the Illinois Attorney General has made it clear they will aggressively target price gouging.
Not only did Bloomington City Council fail to even discuss the above concerns, but they also approved the purchase of a number of non-essential items including the purchase of eight Ford police patrol vehicles ($393,000), five specialized dump trucks/snow plows ($910,000), a Ford Escape Hybrid for the Public Works Department ($29,600), demolition of an unused Police Training Facility4 ($43,675.50), and the purchase of new software package for the City’s Camera Inspection Equipment ($49,970). The bulk of city council meeting was spent debating these issues. Ward 1 Alderperson Mathy and Ward 6 Alderperson Carrillo removed multiple items from the consent agenda for discussion, including those listed above and the following:
Alderperson Carrillo argued, “Any constituents I’m talking to right now aren’t talking about buying new cars. They are talking about how they can set money aside to make sure they can make rent this month. I think that the city has a responsibility – whether these were accounted for in our current budget or not – to think about all the possible ways that we can preserve any money that’s not being spent on the core essential services like public safety.” Carrillo advocated tabling these items for a later date.
However, Ward 9 Alderperson Bray retorted, “We’re charged with the roles and responsibilities of running the city government. It is our responsibility to carry on, keep calm and act in a professional manner. Abdicating that responsibility is not something we should do.”
Carrillo’s strategy ultimately failed, with even Alderperson Mathy voting in favor of all the items. When Carrillo called for these items to be post-poned, she did so in an overly broad matter, lumping in long-term infrastructure projects with wasteful spending. Ward 7 Alderperson Scott Black made a similar argument before voting to approve every item. Carrillo was right to calling for City Council to tread carefully in its spending now that we face a global pandemic. But, infrastructure projects are not only very popular among residents but also create important jobs and are much needed.
The City spent $1,322,600 to buy all of these vehicles to replace currently working vehicles that have around 100,000 miles on them. City staff mentioned that the cost of repairing the existing vehicles would be about $666,300 and that these items were not essential right now. This means we would have had an additional $666,300 saved to put towards the City’s pandemic response, if the City had done the responsible thing and just used the vehicles slightly longer. On top of that pork is money to tear down an old public building and to update the City’s surveillance capabilities. Carrillo (or any council member) should have asked for these specific items be voted against, and the City would have an additional $1,405,8575 in City coffers to put towards pandemic relief (or anything else for that matter).
But, Bloomington didn’t do these things. Unless some of these important issues are addressed, I fear McLean County in general could suffer greatly during this crisis. Compound inaction at the local level with brutal competition at the state level and complete ineptitude at the national level, and we’re in for a rough couple months. Stay isolated folks.
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