By Howard Packowitz
BLOOMINGTON – Bloomington aldermen created a task force Monday night to come up with top priorities for the downtown the next three to five years.
The nine member panel of community leaders will be led by council member Amelia Buragas. Aldermen Jamie Mathy and Kimberly Bray will also be on the task force, which is to submit a preliminary report at the end of August, and a final report by year’s end.
On Mathy’s priority list is replacement or repair of the downtown’s century-old water and sewer mains. Mathy urged the commission to develop a plan to help downtown businesses who face decreased customer traffic while crews dig up streets for months at a time.
“We haven’t done anything for 100 years,” Mathy said. “Hopefully if we do it right we won’t have to do anything for 50 or 60 years in the future, but how do we get through this one-time, Herculean event.”
Aldermen David Sage recommended the committee conduct its work with more transparency than the recent budget task force. He would like to see the downtown task force meetings streamed online so that businesses owners are not kept in the dark about the city’s downtown plans.
“It allows our stakeholders who would I think be comprised a lot of downtown business owners who may not have the opportunities to attend these meetings to be able to get online, follow what’s being said and understand what’s being said,” Sage said.
Howard Packowitz can be reached at [email protected].
