The City of Bloomington is taking a more proactive approach to property maintenance enforcement, shifting away from the current model that primarily works off complaints from residents.
City Council members heard a presentation on the upcoming transition that began this week during Monday night’s 75-minute regular meeting.
“We’ve got to have strong communication and education about what we’re doing, as well as making sure that property owners understand what the issue is, what needs to be corrected, when it needs to be corrected by, and do that in a clear and respectful way that folks understand,” said Cordaryl Patrick, the city's community impact and enhancement director.
The intent of the new approach is to strengthen partnerships with residents and property owners in working to maintain property values and reduce neighborhood blight. Examples of property maintenance code violations shown in Patrick’s presentation include overgrown vegetation, inoperable vehicles stored on lawns, and improper placement of garbage and recycling containers.
“This is not about punishment. This is not about writing citations,” said Patrick, noting his department has seven inspectors covering Bloomington’s nine wards. “As a department, we don’t write citations to begin with. We don’t write any citations for violations. In fact, what we write is a compliance letter and give residents at least seven days to comply with the city rules.”
The new policy will give inspectors the ability to address maintenance issues as they observe them in the field, as the city strives to maintain clean and safe neighborhoods while pursuing broad revitalization goals.
Patrick said he hopes to implement a second phase of the new approach to address abatement of violations.
“As a city, we don’t have an abatement process,” he said. “There are internal conversations happening now with administration, as well as cross-departmental with some of the other departments, to talk through how we get to a point where we can actually do abatement for some of these violations that we’re just not getting compliance for.”
Responding to a question from council member Cody Hendricks, Patrick said his department is working on putting together a list of community resources available to help residents who may face financial hurdles to complying with the property maintenance codes.
Bulk waste pickup to resume
In the only voting item on the regular agenda, the council approved returning to regular curbside collection of residential bulk waste, looking to overcome abuse of Bloomington’s drop-off site by landlords and contractors.
The suggestion was first discussed during a Committee of the Whole meeting in October. The council’s lengthy discussion Monday in part dealt with why public works wanted to make the change now, seven years after establishing the current policy.
“In 2018, the hypothesis associated for the citizen convenience center, at least as it relates to the meeting minutes, was to address abuse from landlords and contractors curbside,” said council member Sheila Montney, who was the only one to vote against the switch.
“What concerns me is that we continue to have initiatives brought forward that don’t include a rigorous financial analysis of the implications of that.”
The free curbside collection will occur every other week, beginning in January. Additional bulk waste would cost an extra $30 per bucket.
The public Citizen’s Convenience Center on East Street will continue to only accept yard waste and electronics, but it will be closed January through March.
Council member Mollie Ward pushed to amend the presented ordinance to include a directive for the city staff to track and gauge the success of the curbside pickup program.
“It seems fairly essential [that] if we’re going to make a change like this, and we’re essentially going back to something that we used to do, then let’s at least monitor and evaluate so we can tweak along the way if we need to make other changes,” she said.
The return to bulk waste collection also is expected to benefit seniors, individuals with disabilities, and those who lack transportation and are unable to utilize the drop-off site.
A small bit of confusion arose around the order of procedure, with Ward making her motion for the amendment before there was a motion to approve the measure itself. City attorney Chris Spanos advised that the council’s vote could stand as an approval “as amended.”
Other business
Items approved as part of the consent agenda included:
- A new collective bargaining agreement with AFSCME Local 699 for certain public employees, with a 3.5% across-the-board pay raise retroactive to May 1, 2025, and additional increases of 3.5% on May 1, 2026, and 3.25% on May 1, 2027;
- An amendment to an existing agreement with Front and Center Property for construction of a downtown parking complex, pushing the targeted completion date to the end of May following project delays;
- A $500,000 intergovernmental agreement with Bloomington District 87 for construction, maintenance and use of the high school tennis courts;
- An intergovernmental agreement with the City of Lexington for use of the police department’s shooting range;
- A $12,000 change order with Spheros Environmental for algaecide treatment at Evergreen Lake;
- A final plat for a resubdivision of the Eastland Mall lot at 1515 E. Empire St., where Talbot’s is located;
- An updated plat and addition to the Hawthorne Commercial Subdivision for an OSF HealthCare facility at 1305 Leslie Drive, west of Towanda Barnes Road;
- A text amendment clarifying the city’s recently enacted grocery tax, to avoid ambiguity; and
- A liquor license for bar service at Illinois Wesleyan University’s Memorial Center.
The council also recognized two appointments each to the Citizens’ Beautification Committee and the Cultural Commission.
With no Committee of the Whole meeting scheduled in December, the final regular meeting of the calendar year is moved up a week to next Monday.
