By Howard Packowitz

BLOOMINGTON – If Monday night’s Bloomington City Council meeting is any indication, debates may become heated in the coming weeks whether to allow marijuana sales in the city.

The council voted 7-2 to approve Mayor Tari Renner’s slate of 10 cannabis task force members, including a Bloomington assistant police chief and sergeant, an addiction counselor, business people and a Black Lives Matter activist.

Opponents Donna Boelen and Kimberly Bray were not happy when Renner allowed some audience members to applaud a pair of speakers favoring the task force. Bray said the council is not supposed to conduct pep rallies.

“Will this meeting become a time when Ward 9 needs to bring their pep rally people, and Ward 1 needs to bring all their pep rally (people)? Certain persons here have brought along their advocates,” said Bray.

Directing her comments to the mayor, Bray said, “My question is that you fulfill your role, and you take order over this business meeting, and you don’t let it degrade into a pep rally.”

Renner said the applause lasted only seconds and did not disrupt the meeting.

Task force members seem to have a pre-set inclination on cannabis, according to Bray.

Boelen said her position against the task force is nothing personal against the members or an indication of how she’ll eventually vote on marijuana sales.

“I respect the decision of the council majority to form a task force, but I do not feel that I need a task force to advise me on the decisions that will be made that affect the community,” Boelen said.

“I, in no way, see a task force as abdicating any of the homework, the conversations, the research that I’ll be doing,” said Council member Jamie Mathy, who voted with the majority.

“I just see it as a public conversation to hear from a lot of diverse people and backgrounds,” Mathy added.

Julie Emig, one of two council representatives on the task force, pledged an “even-handed” approach on the contentious issue.

Howard Packowitz can be reached at [email protected]