Candidates for Bloomington mayor discussed their views on housing, water, taxes, downtown and other issues during an hour-long forum Tuesday at Illinois State University.
The forum in the Brown Ballroom was sponsored by WGLT, the Vidette, the ISU Center for Civic Engagement, the ISU Student Government Association, the McLean County League of Women Voters, and the Bloomington Normal NAACP.
Mboka Mwilambwe is seeking a second term as mayor. He’s the assistant director of the Office of Equal Opportunity and Access at ISU and previously served 10 years on the city council.
Mwilambwe touted several major developments during his first term, including the opening of the O’Neil Aquatic Center, the Bloomington Public Library expansion and preliminary stages of the downtown streetscape project.
“But there’s more work to do,” Mwilambwe said. “To keep Bloomington moving forward, we must tackle our most pressing challenges, including housing and infrastructure.”
City council member Cody Hendricks, who teaches government at Olympia High School, cites housing economic development and infrastructure as his top priorities.
“We need new, fresh leadership,” Hendricks said to make progress on those issues.
Hendricks was first elected to the city council in 2023 and previously served one term on the Pekin City Council.
Dan Brady, a funeral home operator and former state legislator who served two decades in the Illinois House of Representatives, is making public safety, infrastructure and water as top areas of focus in his campaign.
“If you don’t have a safe community, people aren’t going to want to come here,” Brady said.
Housing shortage
Mwilambwe said the city council has explored a standardized incentive package for developers and more relaxed zoning rules to encourage higher density housing.
“We are getting there. We have a plan,” Mwilambwe said.
But Hendricks said the city has moved too slowly to address what he calls a crisis.
“I think we need to be taking much quicker action,” said Hendricks, adding the city should explore zoning changes and more incentives for housing rehabilitation and adaptive re-use of properties for housing.
Brady said while the city has made some attempts to address the housing shortage, too much red tape has slowed developments.
“Little things can cause great delays if you are a builder," he said.
Hendricks fully supports the city waving all fees for housing developments, saying, “These developments aren’t happening, so we’re not getting those fees right now anyway.”
Mwilambwe said he’d like to start by cutting fees in half.
“I think it’s going to depend on the developers and all the things that they have to do [to consider] whether or not it’s going to make their project work,” he said.
Brady said he’d also want input from developers before deciding how much to waive fees.
“We give them as much as we can from municipal government, and that is what’s going to spur the development that we need,” he said.
Homelessness
All three candidates said they supported a proposed shelter village that Home Sweet Home Ministries wants to build near its shelter south of downtown. The project does not call for city funding.
Brady referenced plans he raised last summer calling for a McLean County emergency declaration due to the extreme heat for residents of a tent encampment that has since been dispersed — though many unhoused people are now scattered at multiple locations throughout Bloomington-Normal.
Last fall, he urged the city to use vacant buildings that could provide shelter for the unhoused.
“Any kind of discussion on it? No. All kinds of discussion around the peripheral,” Brady said.
Mwilambwe referenced the emergency order the city adopted to allow the Salvation Army to temporarily expand its shelter.
“The city has done this not only with compassion, but also by investing some funds,” said Mwilambwe, adding the city used federal American Rescue Plan Act [ARPA] funding to assist Home Sweet Home Ministries.
Hendricks said the lack of affordable housing is a contributing factor and he would like to work with McLean County to secure sales tax money devoted to mental health to pay for additional housing.
“We need to find ways to work through this, and I think we have started to have those conversations,” he said.
Water quality
Brady said he would take several steps to address complaints about the taste and odor of the city’s drinking water, which city officials blame on a recent switch in water sources.
Brady called for public hearings for residents to voice their concerns and the blending of sources from lakes Bloomington and Evergreen to prevent either from getting too low.
“You need someone that’s going to lead, especially on this issue,” he said.
Mwilambwe said city staff has taken steps to address water quality, including more filtration, but said more aggressive treatment, such as the use of ultraviolet light, would be “incredibly expensive.”
“Nature is something that you can’t always control and the staff has done the best that they can do,” Mwilambe said.
Hendricks said the city’s water supply will likely remain an ongoing problem due to the effects of climate change.
“We are dealing with the fact that our lakes are not filling up the way that they should be. We are dealing with algae in those lakes as a result,” he said, adding the city may need to explore additional water sources in the future.
Downtown
Hendricks, who represents parts of downtown and west Bloomington in Ward 6, said he looks forward to reviewing initial designs in the first stage of the city’s downtown streetscape plan. He said the city could use tax incentives to help downtown property owners build more upstairs housing units in spaces that are currently abandoned.
“I think the downtown TIF is really going to help with that,” Hendricks said.
When asked about the potential for downtown housing, and in particular senior housing, Mwilambwe said the city is exploring some options with developers.
“We have some developments that might occur, but it’s not a given,” he said
Brady said he supports the streetscape plan and the planned Connect Transit transfer center, but added the city must improve public safety and its accessibility for seniors who have mobility issues.
“They want to be safe. They want to be secure, and they want a downtown Bloomington that reflects that. They are concerned about that and rightfully so,” Brady said.
Tax levy
The city council has kept its property tax levy flat the last two years even as community growth has caused substantial increases in taxable land values. Mwilambwe said residents might begin to see some negative impacts since the city has made plans to cut some jobs through attrition.
“Because we are getting away from several positions, we are cutting some FTEs [full-time employees], I do think that we might see some changes there,” Mwilambwe said.
Brady suggested the city explore merging city departments and offering early retirement for staff as a way to trim its budget while still addressing infrastructure and other city services.
“You’re not going to be able to have that, money directed to those areas if it’s in layers of bureaucracy, so we have to guard against that,” Brady said.
Hendricks said he made the motion to keep the 2025 tax levy flat after hearing from constituents.
“I did not think that we as a community from what I heard from constituents were in the right economic state at home to increase that levy,” he said, adding budget cuts have not yet hurt city services.
School sales tax
Brady said he was still researching the proposed 1% school sales tax to support McLean County schools and was not prepared to say how he would vote.
“I don’t know that the electorate out there wants to know exactly what Dan Brady would or wouldn’t do, but he hasn’t finished his research,” Brady said.
Mwilambwe and Hendricks both said they support the tax.
Election day is April 1. Early voting is underway.
Video: Watch WGLT's Facebook Live video of the event below:
