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New Bloomington City Council members take oath of office

Philip Walker
/
WGLT
Bloomington City Clerk Leslie Yocum, left, swears in new Ward 1 council member Jenna Kearns Monday night.

Four new Bloomington City Council members were sworn in Monday night at the Government Center.

They are: Jenna Kearns, Ward 1; John Wyatt Danenberger, Ward 4; Cody Hendricks, Ward 6; and Kent Lee, Ward 8. Ward 2 incumbent Donna Boelen also was sworn in following her reelection. All won election on April 4.

The ceremony was brief and lighthearted, with Mayor Mboka Mwilambwe cracking jokes throughout. He gave the oath-takers nicknames: Jenna from the Block, Donna Summer, J-Money, and Cody “Don’t call me Jimi” Hendricks. Mwilambwe did not give Lee a nickname because he said he looked nervous.

Lee, who has worked as an analyst at State Farm for 22 years, ran unopposed in Ward 8 and made limited campaign appearances aside from a formal statement announcing his candidacy, where he said his key issues were “safety, economic opportunity, and infrastructure.”

“Honestly, the opportunity (to serve) came up kind of unexpectedly," he said. "I’m really new to this, so I’ll just have to lean on my work experience and working with people and projects and things to get my work done here,” Lee said after the ceremony.

Lee said his primary goals are to focus on learning the role of a council member and the fundamentals of running a city.

“I want people to be able to turn on the water and get clean, fresh drinking water, and if you hit the light switch, the lights come on,” Lee said. “I think if we focus on those kinds of things, the bigger things will come naturally.”

Danenberger said one of his primary goals while serving on the council is to develop a culture of knocking stuff off the city’s to-do list: the library, the arena, the Market Street parking garage, O’Neil Park.

In Ward 4, he wants to make sure the sewer system gets fixed so the area doesn’t experience a repeat of the 2021 floods.

“They call it the hundred-year floods, but I don’t think it’s going to be the hundred-year floods,” Danenberger said. “I think there were hints before, but we didn’t pay as close attention as we should have.”

Hendricks was excited by big Ward 6 projects like the downtown streetscape project and Connect Transit hub that were initiated by the previous council.

“We’re the core of the city. There’s been so much sprawl out to the edges of our community, which is important because obviously we have shortages with housing,” Hendricks said, “but at some point we have to look back at the heart of our city, which is Ward 6.”

Kearns’s top priorities are housing and infrastructure.

“I am really passionate about housing, so I want to help create opportunities to address the affordable housing shortage,” she said.

Philip Walker is a correspondent for WGLT. He joined the station in 2022.
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