Column: Bloomington desperately needs a leader who will listen to city residents
With the announcement from current Bloomington Mayor John Hamilton that he would not be seeking a third term in 2023, the field now has three candidates.
When I look at the past eight years under the Hamilton administration and how Bloomington has fared, one thing is sure: We need new voices in the mayor’s office.
Mayor Hamilton led the City of Bloomington like a bureaucrat. This can hardly be a surprise — after all, Hamilton’s big claims to fame were his tenures as commissioner of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management and secretary of the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration. And none of what I am going to say in this column should be construed as denigrating bureaucrats or public servants — they provide, to our gratitude, valuable work to our communities and state.
However, bureaucrats do not make the best politicians. Whereas politicians are elected by the voters and thus view voters with reverence, or should anyway, bureaucrats view the public as a nuisance. Whereas politicians are answerable to the public, bureaucrats are accountable to their bosses. Whereas politicians fear disappointing the public for fear of being replaced in the next election, bureaucrats do not have to fear facing reelection.
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John Hamilton has managed our city more like a bureaucrat would manage their department or agency than a politically elected mayor.
Hamilton’s top-down approach to governing, which has become quintessential of his tenure as mayor, has certainly spurned opposition from all corners of Monroe County. Whether it be unilaterally raising taxes on the entire county via the Bloomington City Council, forcing annexation upon county residents, the debacle with the convention center and the Food & Beverage Tax, struggles to pay city employees such as police officers and firefighters enough to keep them in Bloomington, or ballooning house unaffordability and homelessness, the Hamilton administration has failed to govern with the people in mind first and foremost.
One needn’t look much further than Hamilton’s attempts to amend the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) to find evidence of his bureaucratic mindset. His first attempt to amend the UDO in 2019 to allow for “plexes” in core neighborhoods failed to pass the City Council. Once the composition of the City Council changed after the 2019 elections, Hamilton pushed his proposal once again in 2021, this time winning incrementally in his attempts to expand "plex" zoning options.
After his 2019 reelection campaign, where he largely ran unopposed, Hamilton felt emboldened to pursue his policies without regard for the feelings of constituents, who consequently littered Bloomington with signs reading “Mayor Hamilton, we didn’t elect you to destroy our neighborhoods!”
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While I may support some limited changes to the UDO to allow for greater housing options in certain areas of our city (such as by the IU stadiums/bypass) I could see that Hamilton’s effort to cram his proposal through the City Council was a slap in the face to so many constituents who spent tiring hours at city council meetings.
A hallmark of the Hamilton administration has been to propose a plan with seemingly little to no public input or consideration, behold the public outcry/opposition to such a plan, then hold public input sessions, and push to proceed as originally intended. Look at, for example, his efforts to evict unhoused residents of Bloomington from public parks during the pandemic, which not only irritated and offended many Bloomington residents, but also violated recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control.
Thank you for your service, Mayor Hamilton, but Bloomington needs politicians accountable to the people and fewer bureaucrats with agendas they’ll push at any cost.
Andrew Guenther is a former member of the Bloomington and Monroe County environmental commissions and is a student at the IU Maurer School of Law.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Columnist writes Hamilton ignored residents when make decisions
