Bloomington City Council

The Bloomington City Council voted Monday to approve a one-year pause on contributing revenue to the McLean County mental health and public safety sales tax fund, following last week’s matching action by the Town of Normal.

McLean County Board chair Elizabeth Johnston said she made no assumptions about whether the city and town would still push the suspension after the county tried to let the idea die, but she said she supports the audit and hopes it can provide a new framework “so that we were all beginning the negotiations again from a shared financial footing.”

A modified plan for the first phase of Bloomington’s downtown streetscape project sparked a lengthy discussion during Monday’s city council meeting.

The city council is scheduled to vote on the $13.2 million agreement on Monday that the city reworked after the only bid came in substantially higher than the city has planned to spend on the 300-600 blocks of North Main Street.

The Bloomington Planning Commission on Wednesday recommended designating the former Pantagraph building at 301 W. Washington St. as a historical landmark.

For the first time, the City of Bloomington is regulating an industry that it says has been a source for sex trafficking and other illicit behavior. Two massage therapists share their views on the new regulations.

Bloomington city leaders remain optimistic a modified plan to regulate massage businesses will still strengthen efforts to prevent human trafficking, despite the removal of an annual fee intended to fund investigations.

Bloomington is dropping the proposed licensing fees that massage establishments would have to pay to operate in the city. City staff had proposed a $250 annual fee to cover the cost of investigating the businesses to address concerns about sex trafficking.

Bloomington city leaders plan to implement a multi-faceted strategy aimed at addressing vacant properties throughout the city over the next several years.

The mayor 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 do that.