Bloomington Mayor Dan Brady thinks there is a need for more regulation of massage businesses to prevent sex trafficking, and agrees the city council did the right thing in postponing consideration of an ordinance to achieve that.
Brady said the city needs to do more work to see how local regulation fits with existing state rules governing such businesses.
"There has been movement in Peoria, Springfield — when I say movement, I mean ordinances similar to what Bloomington is trying to do. And I think there is a need for it," Brady said in an interview on WGLT's Sound Ideas.
Brady said he agreed with massage therapy business owners who complained at Monday’s council meeting that a $250 licensing fee is too high, though he declined to specify what fee he'd prefer.
"I think we have to be more careful about trying to unduly burden those businesses that are there, doing things correctly by the book," said Brady, who noted state laws also require licenses, education, and certification.
Brady said Bloomington’s existing ordinance on the subject has gone unenforced for many years and he thinks there is a sex trafficking issue that needs to be addressed. After the Town of Normal has cracked down on suspicious activity in the sector, he said some of it may have "drifted" into Bloomington over the years.
“Some say [it's] significant. Law enforcement says [it's] significant. This was an attempt for city government to catch up,” said Brady. “I don't have stats to share for you, exactly, but I think it's risen to a point where community individuals, as well as other groups, for instance, led by Carol Merna out of Peoria [with the Center for Prevention of Abuse], that has had a history and knowledge of being an activist in this area to prevent what's going on, have been in contact with the city.”
He thinks the way forward is to beef up city inspections of massage facilities and to strengthen communication between the inspections and police departments, and by extension, the McLean County States’ Attorney’s office.
Meanwhile, Brady said business owners also need to be consulted — a defect of the original proposal.
“Some of the stakeholders in legitimate massage operating businesses, therapy businesses, were not part of the discussion,” he said.
Downtown progress
Brady and city council member Cody Hendricks, whose ward includes downtown Bloomington, recently held a listening session with downtown stakeholders to talk about progress on the streetscape plan. Brady said more than 50 people turned out.
He said he and Hendricks would like to see robust communication from the city with downtown residents, business operators and building owners as the north end of Main Street gets infrastructure modernization in phase one of the multi-stage project.
“Making sure that, for maybe lack of better word, an advisory committee is not only put in place to advise, but to help us have best communication with individuals. So, when a street is going to be closed, they know about it. When a sidewalk is going to start getting torn up in front of their businesses, they know about it. And when they have those problems, who is best suited within the city, to not only take the complaint, does something about the complaint,” said Brady.
The city is negotiating with bidders on the project to lower the cost after bids came in significantly higher than projected.
“One of the things that's out of the council's control is the economic climate, of which it costs for materials contractors and individuals that would be responsible for the building and bidding on these phases," he said. "What's different, I feel, is the support from not only the downtown, support from the council and I as mayor, very much are going to be probably the biggest cheerleaders you've seen for this project.”
The mayor said he is "very much optimistic" that the vision for downtown laid out in the streetscape plan will move forward.
