There are only two Bloomington City Council seats that have contested races in the April 1 election.
Ward 9, covering a good part of the northeast side, is one of them. The seat became vacant when current council member Tom Crumpler decided not to run again.
Abby Scott is a data scientist and model architect at State Farm, who has lived in Bloomington-Normal since 2012. She grew up in the Peoria area, adding she has a background in statistics and economics.
Roger Bedeker is originally from Pontiac, but has lived in Bloomington since 2001. He has spent almost 20 years at State Farm and before that, spent a decade in retail. Bedeker said he is a "product owner" at State Farm, but also has worked in "design thinking."
Bedeker and Scott both said they want the job of council member to be one of giving back to the community and to make it better. Scott said she has done a lot of volunteering at places like Heartland Theatre, a volunteer tax association, as a foster parent, and with the Boy Scouts. Scott said she's said yes to every questionnaire and forum request.
“One concern that I have heard is that I am the only one on the ballot that has voted in municipal elections, and I think it's important to go ahead and commit to and to care about our mayor, our tax referendums, our wards, before asking for the top spot,” said Scott.
Bedeker said it is unfair to judge him on whether he has voted in a municipal election. Bedeker said he has helped manage his kids’ sports teams, and has spent 13 years involved in a Special Olympics fundraiser. He helped State Farm get involved with Special Olympics and with Youth Build, helping kids learn job interviewing skills.
“So, if you want to stack up whether or not I'm invested in the community, please do,” said Bedeker.
What are the issues that got Bedeker and Scott to run? Bedeker said he was raised to think that if you don’t like something the way it is, fix it.
“The genesis of this is when I got my tax bill. I don't know, sometime over the summer you may have gotten one, too, and I got it and I opened it up and I saw the double digit increase. I just sat it down,” he said.
Now, the biggest chunk of the property tax bill is for schools, not the city. Bedeker said the opportunity to run was with the city, adding "if the city leads by example, perhaps the school board could pick up on it."
Scott agrees rising property tax is a big issue in Ward 9. Her bills have popped 30% in five years.
“And that's really hitting us hard, but we still want to make sure that we have access to the city services that we need,” she said.
Property taxes
Both candidates don't think the two-year strategy of cutting the city property tax rate by holding the tax levy flat is sustainable as costs continue to rise. Bedeker said the city needs to be transparent on where it spends money, where to spend in the future, and for the council to review spending.
“Do we have consulting services that we no longer need? Do we have computer licenses that we do not need? Are there any capital expenditures that we could push into the future to help us get through now?” he asked.
The city already has embarked on a process improvement plan to look for efficiencies and has delayed some capital projects. Both candidates like that, and said their leadership and professional backgrounds make them good choices to assist in that dialogue.
Scott quipped she "doesn’t want to let a good crisis go to waste."
If elected, both candidates said they want to have the conversation about examining city goals and making sure the city hits those targets. Scott said that’s short term.
“Medium term, I want to talk about predictive analytics, something certainly that all companies are using; our city uses it now. Other cities and municipalities are leaning into AI, and I work with AI every day. I work with predictive analytics every day,” she said, adding she is not not talking about replacing city employees with robots, simply about models to improve efficiency.
Housing
Both candidates said they would work hard to address the housing shortage. There is some question whether offering even 100% waivers of city fees to extend utilities and for building permits would make enough of a difference to overcome high construction costs, high interest rates, and bank reticence to loan money for mixed-use apartment complexes.
Scott thinks it would.
“I think it's not just the fee waiver, but it's actively participating in the process," he said. "It's making sure that developers and builders know that if there is an issue, if there is something, we are not going to say, 'Hey, there's an issue, kind of leave you hanging for six weeks and then come back to it, but we will help you work through that.'”
Bedeker said the level of incentive the city should offer depends.
“I would think that number would vary upon the dollar amount that's being invested. If you're going to bring in $5 million which is a good amount of money, or $50 million I think we should probably look at, the sliding scale on each of those, and what is the cost, what is the benefit to the city,” said Bedeker.
Water quality
Both candidates said the city needs to do more on the water quality issue than simply boost carbon filtering of the water coming from lakes Bloomington and Evergreen.
Both want more study on developing groundwater sources instead of continuing to rely on surface water from the lakes. An effort to do just that failed about two decades ago when various municipalities west of Bloomington could not agree on cost sharing to build a water treatment plant west of town.
Bedeker and Scott said it's time to revisit that approach.
School tax referendum
And even though taxation is an issue both candidates said they want to work on, neither is taking a firm position on the sales tax referendum to fund school facilities and mental health services. Both said they like the school districts' promise to reduce property taxes if the sales tax referendum passes.
They’re still looking at the proposal.
