Kruzan’s city address faces criticism from Sabbagh

Tuesday afternoon in Bloomington City Hall, Mayor Mark Kruzan gave the final State of the City address of his four year term, which centered on the relationship between quality of life and economic development. \nThe main focus of Kruzan’s speech was the introduction of a $2.1 million public safety and community improvement plan. Part of this appropriation – defined as an authorized expenditure of public funds for a designated purpose – will include an increase in enforcement to battle noise pollution.\n“Noise is a tremendous public nuisance,” Kruzan said in his speech. “We need to be and we are going to be more aggressive in abating the problem.” \nNot only will there be a continued focus on noise from house parties – part of the Quiet Nights initiative begun in 2001 – but there will also be a strict enforcement of controlling the blast from “boom cars.” This enhanced level of enforcement will be the responsibility of police officers every shift when they are not engaged in other duties.\nIn addition to the Quiet Nights program, the Mayor unveiled a new noise pollution prevention campaign titled “Lower the Boooom!” Part of this program will include a Safe and Civil City hotline, which will allow for citizens to call in with the location, make and model of any car violating the new ordinance.\nWarnings will be issued first, followed by increasing fines of $50 to $100 to $500 for repeat offenders within a 12-month time frame.\nThe mayor said this new ordinance is a response to the many people in the Bloomington community who have complained to him about noise pollution.\nAnother part of the proposal is a new firefighter training facility and an indoor firing range for the police department.\nKruzan said the firefighter training facility would allow new firefighters to get real fire and smoke training rather than having to learn on the job in someone’s living room. The facility will be a four-story building with burn rooms made of metal and equipped with special burn panels that are designed to handle repeated heat exposure from training fires.\n“This will allow for firefighters to be challenged with new configurations rather than having only one room where the fire is always located,” Kruzan said in his speech.\nThe police facility will not only include an indoor firing range, but will also be equipped with a secure evidence room, vehicle evidence bay, secure parking spaces for the force’s motorcycles and classroom space for instruction.\nThe firing range will be open to other agencies in the area, from which the city plans to recoup some of the facility expenses. However, Kruzan said this is not a profit-making venture, and the city will not count on these fees.\nThe new facilities sit atop the mayor’s list of priorities for Bloomington. They are the biggest projects in terms of scope and cost, a reported $1.2 million dollars of the appropriation.\nThe city will also introduce a Language Services contract for Central Dispatch to assist the increasing population of non-English speakers in the community. \n“Dispatch has been experiencing an increased need for interpretive services,” Kruzan said in his speech. “Language Line Services offers interpreters for a minimum of 19 different languages.”\nThe mayor said he also hopes to add a downtown specialist in the Department of Public Works to focus on the cleanliness and customer friendliness of downtown Bloomington.\nThis position would be responsible for supervising litter removal, working with merchants on graffiti eradication, ensuring that signal posts and switch boxes are free of attachments, monitoring People’s Park at Kirkwood Avenue and Dunn Street, power-washing alleys and garages and generally taking care of downtown.\n“Downtown is especially important with the huge demographic change with students moving into the area,” Kruzan said in an interview. “We want to make sure (downtown) is kept safe and clean.”\nOther areas of interest for students are a proposed increase in bike lanes and bike racks in the city, along with an increase in the Sidewalk Fund dedicated to sidewalk construction in the community, and a pedestrian crosswalk over Indiana Avenue between Dunn Meadow and the Von Lee parking lot.\nRepublican mayoral candidate and city councilman David Sabbagh had a front row seat for the mayor’s address.\nSabbagh said he agreed with Kruzan’s support of the police and fire departments, but he questioned the time it has taken for this proposal to come forward. \n“It is the government’s responsibility to protect citizens, and to do that there needs to be a strong support of the fire and police departments,” Sabbagh said. “But why has this taken so long? This idea has been out there for several years.”\nOne of Sabbagh’s biggest concerns was what he called the mayor’s lack of action and inability to produce progress.\n“(Mayor Kruzan) is a good public speaker and has a great sense of humor, but that is not how leaders are measured,” Sabbagh said. “The mayor presented good ideas, but using history as a measuring stick, I am very concerned with his ability to deliver.”