Bloomington's city manager says the newly-passed massage business ordinance will do more than help shut down illicit businesses.
"We're also going to be helping the people within that establishment and there are groups out there that are willing to do that and want to do that, and so that's going to be a great thing for the community," Jeff Jurgens said on WGLT's Sound Ideas.
Jurgens said it is heartwarming to see the community focus on helping people who are being exploited.
"Seeing some of the organizations within our community step forward and they want to help these women and the people being trafficked, so they don't get moved to another situation, or just moved to another community if we can go in and shut down an illicit establishment," he said.
Jurgens said all inspections staff will be trained to recognize human trafficking as they enforce the new ordinance covering massage businesses.
Jurgens said he believes the ordinance may still need to be fine tuned to prevent unintended consequences for solo practitioners. Some individual massage practitioners said before passage on Monday that they still feel stigmatized and not heard.
Jurgens said the city is addressing that.
This week, the city council approved the ordinance that includes text amendments removing requirements related to dress code, individual therapists’ personal information and physical characteristics, and adds some exemptions for sole proprietor massage operations.
Businesses will still have a one-time application fee of $100, but there is no annual $250 license fee or any investigation fee included as part of the application. The city said the initial application fee covers the city’s $75 cost for performing background checks.
Connect Transit
Jurgens said coming changes to the planned bus transfer center downtown will not result in a "lesser" project, just a different one.
"The original plan that was prepared, with today's skyrocketing costs, I think is just not feasible. So, we're going back and looking to see what can be built with the money we have and can potentially get, to that scale," said Jurgens.
He said the station planned for the site of the Market Street parking deck to be re-imagined.
"Hopefully within this next week we'll have some new design ideas from the consultant that's working on it. It may just not be quite as grand as originally had been proposed," said Jurgens.
He thinks existing funding is secure and the project will eventually happen, they just have to find a path forward.
He anticipates the city and Connect Transit might have something to announce publicly in the next three months, adding they are trying to figure out what parking will look like and how much can fit into the station.
Jurgens said the city still believes in the project and its benefits.
