February 2020 Newsletter

Friends,

Last month, I was in Washington DC for three days of meetings with hundreds of mayors – a diverse group from big and little cities, Democrats and Republicans, women and men, different races, from all around the country, all there. 

Two observations about that conference:

1. It’s SO DIFFERENT from Washington DC federal politics to be among mayors who have to get things done every day, and whose constituents know right where they live, and who just want their communities to succeed.  Mayors share ideas and focus on who is getting results and how we can all learn (steal) from each other. We don’t care where an idea came from, we care whether it’s making lives better. That’s what politics should be about. And it usually is in our cities.

2. It’s SO ENCOURAGING to realize the resilience in America that comes from our hundreds of metropolitan areas where millions of people share pride in their communities and work together to meet challenges. When America can seem hopelessly divided and angry, remember that in hundreds of cities people of all walks of life are working together to improve life for all. That’s true in Bloomington, and all around the country, and it is a source of tremendous strength and resilience for us all.

Thanks to all who every day keep making Bloomington more resilient and more just.

February is Black History Month, and I hope you’ll enjoy some of the great activities going on around Bloomington (see calendar). I hope you also had the chance to celebrate the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday with a day on not a day off, and to recommit to the racial justice and equity we need. 

I was reminded recently about Dr. King’s visit to India in 1959, where he honored his assassinated hero, Mahatma Gandhi. King quoted about Gandhi the words attributed to Secretary Stanton at President Lincoln’s deathbed, “Now he belongs to the ages.” That is so true too about Dr. King today – he belongs to the ages. How those three courageous leaders so helped better our world.

Please keep your hope alive, and your commitment to progress, which depends on each one of us to do our part. It’s happening all around us and, as another great leader once said, “Yes We Can!”

Democratically yours,

John

PS: Please join Dawn and me at 7pm Thursday, Feb 20th for the State of the City event at the Buskirk Chumley. Good music and spoken word, and good plans for Bloomington!  Doors open at 6:30pm. Be there!

January 2020 Newsletter

Friends,

Happy New Year!! It’s a big year ahead, this 2020. Let us hope this third decade of our third millennium will bring progress, peace and justice. 

In Bloomington, at noon on January 1st, our new city council, Clerk Bolden, and I took our oaths of office. In my inaugural speech (here) I shared pride in our past four years of progress and proposals to address some challenges ahead. 

The first term began with 2016 – seeing the historic Obama Presidency conclude with dignity and hope. And the trauma of seeing America elect the most ill-suited and corrupt person to the Presidency in our history. We’ve all been dealing with that since.

Summarizing four years in Bloomington City Hall isn’t easy, but things I’m proud of include:

• Making government more transparent, accountable, and innovative than ever

• Supporting hundreds of long-term affordable homes, to chip away at a daunting problem

• Supporting new jobs, at The Mill, at Cook, at Catalent, and dozens more employers

• Activating the String of Pearls along the B-Line, from our sparkling new Switchyard Park to the Trades District and more

• Empowering hundreds of city employees to innovate and deliver services better, from a re-engineered Sanitation Department, to newly equipped and staffed Police and Fire departments, to a revamped Housing Authority, to a modernized, forward-looking water utility, to the tripling of training budgets and the $15/hour minimum wage covering every city employee

Looking forward to term two, we have good momentum to continue in these and many other areas of focus. I highlighted two big challenges facing us head on, in Bloomington, and, frankly, around the world. They both derive from the climate emergency we are in.

First, we need to save the planet from calamitous climate change. We need a physical world in which we all can live, in Bloomington, and around the world.

Second, we need to create a society within that physical world that welcomes everyone, has a place for everyone, offers dignity and opportunity for everyone. That’s an economic challenge – jobs. That’s a social challenge – equity and fairness. That’s a moral challenge – really achieving an inclusive community where all belong. 

It’s about the planet. And the people.

In my January 1st remarks, I proposed two new major steps to address these challenges:

• A new Green Ribbon Panel of community leaders to come together around climate change and its challenges

• A new Sustainability Fund created by a 0.5% increase in our local option income tax, to generate enough revenue for serious progress on the major challenges ahead, like public transportation, affordable housing, clean energy, efficient buildings, green jobs, and climate justice.

I hope you’ll check out details in the speech (here). And I hope you know none of this could have happened or will happen without your support.  Dawn and I are so, so grateful for the friends and allies we have in our lives in Bloomington. Thank you.

And can I ask a favor in 2020? Please take time, sometime, to thank one or more of the 800+ employees of the City of Bloomington. They are a dedicated, hard-working bunch, and a word of appreciation for their public service can really make their day.  Thanks, and onward to 2020!!

Democratically yours,

John

PS: Mark your calendar for Thursday, February 20th at 7pm for the State of the City event at the Buskirk Chumley. I hope you can join for a fun and informative evening about all things Bloomington! 

December 2019 Newsletter

Friends,

I hope you all had a fine Thanksgiving with family and friends. Thanks to all who voted several weeks ago, and congratulations to our four new city council Democrats: Matt Flaherty, Kate Rosenbarger, Sue Sgambelluri, and Ron Smith, who will join five returning members and Clerk Bolden and me for the next four-year term of office.

Please do mark Inauguration Day on your calendar, Wednesday, January 1st, 2020. At noon, we’ll have a big swearing in ceremony for all the just-elected local officials, some remarks, and then a nice social gathering, all at City Hall. Please join us and help your local Democratic officials commence our terms of public service. We’re all in this together.

One more local event I want to bring to your attention: this coming Friday, December 6th, Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s husband Chasten, and his national campaign manager, Mike Schmuhl, are going to be in Bloomington for a fundraiser for Mayor Pete. This is a big deal, to have one of our four leading current national presidential candidate’s team in town.

Event sponsorships for attendance are $250 and up, and I hope some of you will consider attending.

 Let me say that every one of our Democratic presidential candidates would be better by a country mile than current #45. And I’ll work my tail off to help elect whomever we nominate at our convention. I hope you will too, because it’s critical we salvage our country from the debacle we’re seeing now

That said, I have personally endorsed Mayor Pete for president, as a fellow Hoosier mayor, and as a friend of mine. I’m not against any of the other fine candidates. I just know Pete personally and have such great respect for him and his talent, message and leadership, that when he asked me to endorse him, I said yes.  You can see the letter I signed with 50 other mayors here. 

Wherever you are on the presidential race, do consider showing up for an event for one of the leading candidates to show them Bloomington matters! And that we appreciate them showing up in our community, and helping our party find the right candidate to lead us out of this national nightmare.

Have a great holiday season, and get ready for 2020!!

Democratically yours,

John

Ps: Remember to join us for Inauguration Day and Ceremony, at Noon on Wednesday, January 1st, at City Hall.  Free parking!  Free refreshments!!  Free democracy!!!

November 2019 Newsletter

Friends,

Three Things this month:

One. Remember we have a municipal election!!
Please vote tomorrow, Tuesday, November 5th for Democrats Sue Sgambelluri and Ron Smith if you live in Districts 2 and 3, respectively. It’s unusual—and unfortunate—that for nine of eleven of us running for municipal positions, there is no election tomorrow. (I urged we have vote centers that could save money and still allow everyone in the city to vote, but alas the county election board declined.) So please those of you who live in Districts 2 and 3, do get out and vote, and let’s all tell our friends, and volunteer to help Sue and Ron get over the finish line. We have a lot of good work ahead of us!

Two. Remember that really important things are happening all around us, often swamped in the media by the craziness in DC. For example, did you see last week’s report that the gold-standard, national evaluations of reading and math skills (NAEP scores) showed Indiana among the 3 states in the nation with the biggest drop in reading scores? (See summary here) Is this connected to the fact that our state has been worst in the nation for supporting our public school teachers with salary increases? And that our state leaders seem always plotting to underfund and weaken traditional public schools? Where is the accountability for that!!?? Be ready for 2020 state elections, in addition to the momentous national ones…

Three. Help us plan our local future, as I’ll prepare to begin a second mayoral term on January 1, 2020. We’ll have five returning and four new city council members, a second term with Clerk Nicole Bolden, and four years of challenge in front of us. Please share your ideas and hopes for our next chapter together here. I’m very proud of all the work we’ve done together since 2016 to address housing affordability, jobs, the environment, our quality of life, public safety, infrastructure, and more. But we’re only just getting started, and I’m excited to hear your thoughts!

It is so good to be on a team together, to make our community and our country better. Let’s keep at it!!

Democratically yours,

John

Ps: Election Night, please join the Monroe County Democratic Party at our headquarters to celebrate the next terms of office for nine City Council members, the City Clerk, and your Mayor. Join us at 116 S. Madison St. starting at 6:30 p.m.!

October 2019 Newsletter

Friends,

Did you get the chance to hear Dolores Huerta a couple weeks ago – the civil rights and labor leader extraordinaire still organizing and advocating at age 89?! She wowed an overflow crowd at IU during Hispanic Heritage Month.

Huerta co-founded the United Farm Workers with Cesar Chavez. He got more of the national attention, but she was at least the equal in impact and energy. (And btw it was she who made “Si se puede” the famous rallying cry – despite its connections to two other men.) I still remember as a kid my family supporting the grape boycott, and how it raised national awareness (and won positive results for workers).

Huerta began as a school teacher in the 1950s, but said “I couldn't tolerate seeing kids come to class hungry and needing shoes. I thought I could do more by organizing farm workers than by trying to teach their hungry children.” And she did. Look her up – she’s an inspiration.

You feel Huerta’s moral condemnation against national trends today: attacks on immigrants and assaults on programs that help hungry families; cutting health care to poor women and families and loosening protections against environmental toxins; giant tax cuts to the privileged, and a criminally low minimum wage.

Huerta knows that as a country we’re lately becoming desensitized, and we need to wake up. I can hear her call for leadership to reclaim our country from the gangster at the top and all those who accommodate him. These past couple of weeks have shown how off the rails our national government has fallen. It’s come back time. Listen, Dolores Huerta is calling us.

Si se puede. SI SE PUEDE!!!!

Democratically yours,
John

P.S. Democracy Lab is one local effort to re-sensitize and re-organize. Our campaign supports eleven local organizations, thru the county Democratic Party, who all work for justice and opportunity. They are part of the Si se puede gang. Please consider helping us support them with a small donation; check out the details here.
Democracy Lab organizations:
Democracy for Monroe County
Democratic Women's Caucus
Indiana Latino Democratic Caucus--9th District
Indiana Young Democrats of Monroe County
Indivisible
Monroe County Black Democratic Caucus
Monroe County NOW
Ninth District Disability Caucus
No Space for Hate
Planned Parenthood
Stonewall Democrats of South Central Indiana

September 2019 Newsletter

Friends,

It’s easy to get caught up in frustrations and disappointments of the frantic, 24/7 news cycle. It can be difficult to keep our balance and perspective.

Last Saturday in Bloomington was a great day for restoration. Our fair city’s downtown was abuzz with some of what makes Bloomington life rich.

I hope you got to join tens of thousands of people and sample some of what went on within about a half-mile square downtown:

• PrideFest: The sixth annual local celebration of LGBTQ culture, ranked by Thrillist as the nation’s best college town pride, full of music and food and fun cranking up Kirkwood Avenue.

• Fourth Street Art Fair: The 43rd edition of this annual festival that makes Labor Day weekend a stunning display of juried art from local artists, and those around the Midwest and beyond.

• Bloomington Community Farmers’ Market: The 45-year tradition continues, of local food and growers, in a treasured and award-winning gathering of our community.

• GarlicFEST and Community Art Fair: This all-ages celebration at the Waldron Hill Buskirk (Third Street) Park supports local artists and musicians. healthy lifestyle choices, and, well, all things garlic.

• BubbleFest 2019: WonderLab hosted a weekend of all kinds of bubble blowing, bouncing and building, for families with curiosity and gusto—who learn while playing.

• BTown Jazz Fest: The Convention Center where BTown Jazz hosted 10 hours of free hot jazz, from the incredible musicians of Bloomington and beyond, sharing their talents and lifting all spirits.

That was quite a Saturday, and of course beyond just those six events, many other things were going on too. Art and music and food and science and socializing made community happen. Not everything is sweetness and light. We continue to face challenges in our farmers’ market (referenced in last month’s column and the city website), and elsewhere. But let’s cherish the richness of life in Bloomington and keep making it better.

Labor Day traditionally starts the fall political season, so don’t forget the Hamilton Family Picnic coming up this Sunday afternoon!!

Join us Sunday, Sept. 8th in Bryan Park (Henderson St. side) from 4 to 7pm. We’ll kick off the fall municipal election season in style with great music, barbecue, and Democrats, including brief remarks from our two contested city council candidates, and some of next year’s governor candidates!

Democratically yours,

John

August 2019 Newsletter

Friends,

On a Tuesday morning in late July, several of us talked on my office phone with my friend Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley. Nan was helping us think through options for our Farmers’ Market, where white supremacists were active. She shared Dayton’s experience dealing with a KKK rally and march in May that brought scores of assault weapons and white supremacists to town. “We got through it all with no injuries and no arrests, but did spend over $600,000,” Nan said, as she shared some advice about our market.

In part based on her advice, and other information, we announced suspension of our Farmers’ Market for two weeks. Just four days later, Nan’s own city was ripped apart with the latest mass shooting, with 9 killed and dozens injured, in 30 seconds of mayhem. That just hours after a white racist killed 22 in an El Paso store, aiming to kill people from Mexico.

Our hearts go out to victims of such violence, and to the families and communities that bear the loss. America has seen more than one mass shooting incident per day this year. Every mayor worries about whose community is next. We need to do more than worry.

I’ve joined hundreds of other US Mayors calling on the Senate immediately to join the House in passing common sense background check laws. [see letter] I plan to meet personally with our two U.S. Senators and our Representative, to share how misguided our gun laws are and to explain the need for new federal legislation. I’ve communicated with the Governor and the Attorney General to urge improvements in Indiana’s radical gun rights regime that prohibits local governments from taking common sense actions to protect public safety. I plan to connect with state legislative leaders as well.

In a democracy, politics is supposed to deliver the communities and country that we collectively desire. But on guns, our politics is completely wrecked. Many of our legislators and leaders have lost their way, and for that we need to show them the door. Thanks to Mom’s Demand Action and other advocates for keeping up the pressure, including at rallies across the country this past weekend.

And let’s remember that politics is what we need every day and during the next 15 months, to get to November 2020 and reclaim our country. Be ready. Be involved. Be steady.

Democratically yours,

John

PS: Remember to mark the Sunday after Labor Day for our 5th Annual Hamilton Family Picnic – Sunday, September 8th in Bryan Park from 4 to 7pm. We’ll kick off the fall municipal election season in style with music, barbecue, and Democrats, including governor candidates for 2020!

July 2019 Newsletter

Friends,

“Our diversity is our strength. Our unity is our power.” Those words from Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi ignited the room of 1,400 Young Democrats of America who gathered in Indianapolis this month. Pelosi noted that 60% of the current Democrats in the House were female, people of color, or LGBTQ. That’s what 2018 elections did.

The young Democrats were fired up to build on that momentum. It was inspiring. As Pelosi also said to that diverse gathering of young leaders from across the country (which our campaign helped support, thanks to your support), “You’re not just our future, you are our present.” Pelosi spoke of the past too, noting the day was 171 years after the Seneca Falls Declaration of 1848, when brave women (and men) proudly affirmed that women and men are equal and should have equal rights. Progress is long and hard fought. 

Dawn and I recently had the chance to celebrate our 25th anniversary on a trip to Hawaii, where there is today no majority ethnicity or race. All are minorities. That’s the future of our country. That diversity is our strength, as a country and a community. And as a political party. 

It’s agonizing and infuriating to hear the outrageous, shameful racist calls to “go back to where you came from.” It’s heartbreaking and painful to realize that one of our country’s major political parties is so full of leaders who won’t call out racism or bigotry, who are content to allow fear-mongering and divisive rhetoric stream on and on. We have to do so much better as a country and community.

We’ve got local elections coming in less than four months and national ones in sixteen months. It’s imperative that we keep up the progress begun in 2018. 

Our diversity is our strength: let’s celebrate the most diverse set of Congresspeople, and Presidential and other candidates, ever. Let’s celebrate the growing diversity in local offices. 

Our unity is our power: Let’s remember after the primaries are done, we Democrats need to come together to power the change so desperately needed. That’s what it will take to meet the challenges of climate disruption and economic dislocation. To make sure every person in Bloomington has an affordable, decent home. Feels safe and welcome. Has a bright future.

Thanks for all you do and thank goodness for Speaker Pelosi, the House Democrats, the Young Democrats of America, and the Democrats of Bloomington!

Democratically yours,
John

PS: Remember to hold the Sunday after Labor Day for our 5th Annual Hamilton Family Picnic – Sunday, Sept. 8th in Bryan Park from 4 to 7. We’ll kick off the fall municipal election season in style with music, barbecue, and Democrats!