March 11, 2021 | Indiana Daily Student | idsnews.com
LETTER FROM THE EDITORS The Indiana Daily Student is taking a spring break next week. We will not print a paper on March 18 — this one will be on stands for an extra week. Breaking coverage will still be posted on idsnews.com. The IDS generally paus-
es publication over IU’s spring break, but the university did not give students a break this year because of COVID-19. Instead, IU added three wellness days on weekdays throughout the semester. Classes are canceled on
wellness days, but the IDS continues with nearly normal operations. We can’t pause for a day without adding extra work for our staff the rest of the week. We recognize it’s a huge luxury to be able to take time off. Members of our
staff are dealing with all of the stresses of being college students, including classes and part-time jobs during a pandemic. They deserve a break. Thank you for your continued loyal readership.
Caroline Anders, Co-Editor-in-Chief
Colin Kulpa, Managing Editor
Vivek Rao, Managing Editor of Digital
Emily Isaacman, Co-Editor-in-Chief
Jenna Williams, Managing Editor
Carson TerBush, Creative Director
IDS Anger, grief as city votes down protections for homeless camps City Council votes 4-4 against Fact-checking business owners' encampment protection proposal statements on the unhoused By David Wolfe Bender benderd@iu.edu | @dbenderpt
The Bloomington City Council struck down a proposed ordinance 4-4 that would protect homeless encampments March 4. The decision came after a ninehour meeting including public comment and debate, marking the longest council meeting since at least 2004. The ordinance would have required city officials to take a series of steps before the city could displace people experiencing homelessness from camps. Some of those steps include ensuring the displaced individual would be provided with transitional or permanent housing and the city providing storage for personal belongings. This ordinance was drafted in response to the city evicting people staying at Seminary Park twice since December. City officials began enforcing rules in December that require anyone setting up tents in a public space between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. to have a permit after having paused enforcement due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Final efforts from the legislation’s sponsors to tack amendments aiming to garner more support from members of the council failed. Some councilmembers believed the amendment was watered down, while others did not support it. The vote was held despite the absence of Council President Jims Sims, one of the council’s nine members and the only Black member on the council. Sims was not present due to a death in his family. During public comment, a few residents said the decision to move the vote forward without Sims was racist. “I can't believe that you are doing this as a council tonight while councilmember Sims is not present,” Cathi Crabtree, the former Vice President of the Monroe County chapter of the National Organization for Women, said. “That is completely disrespectful.” Councilmember Dave Rollo, apparently unaware that his mic was on, said he was receiving messages in the Zoom chat about Sims’s absence. “This is fucking ridiculous,” he said. “I'm being dog-piled by people calling me a racist for excluding Jim.” Rollo later apologized for his remark, calling it an “indiscretion.” The council had the opportunity to allow Sims to vote on this legislation by postponing the vote until a regular council meeting in April, but councilmembers Sue Sgambelluri, Susan Sandberg, Ron Smith and Rollo rejected that motion. Mayor John Hamilton’s administration opposed the ordinance. Multiple city officials attended the meeting to speak against the legislation. “It drives a wedge into the community, and for that, I’m profoundly sorry,” councilmember Ron Smith said. “We are dismayed that we who don’t support this ordinance are being vili-
fied, threatened, yelled at and called names.” Smith’s comment came after a heated period of public comment at last week’s council meeting. During the meeting, Deputy Mayor Mick Renneisen said finding shelter for people experiencing homelessnesss wasn’t part of the city’s “core service area.” Smith does not support the legislation, he said. It was struck down despite the support of multiple community organizations, such as the Bloomington Homeless Coalition. The vast majority of the dozens offering public comment at the meeting were in favor of the ordinance. Councilmembers Matt Flaherty, Kate Rosenbarger and Isabel Piedmont-Smith, the authors of the bill, were criticized by Sandberg and the other opponents on the council for not working closely with
officials in the mayor’s office when they crafted the legislation. “This has all been done without proper communication with or consideration of the employees of our city, who are going to be tasked with the execution of this,” Sandberg said. Representatives from Hamilton’s administration said at the Feb. 24 city council meeting it would be too difficult for the city to uphold the obligations of the ordinance because of financial costs and logistical issues. The councilmembers opposing the legislation have not proposed any alternative option to this ordinance and voted at the March 3 meeting against allowing the council to send the bill back to a committee. This could have allowed SEE COUNCIL, PAGE 6
By Phyllis Cha cha1@iu.edu | @phyllischa
The Bloomington City Council struck down a proposed ordinance that would protect homeless encampments by a vote of 4-4 March 4. Nine days earlier, the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce announced in a press release that it opposed the ordinance based on overwhelmingly negative survey feedback from more than 100 of its members. A 26-page document of anonymous excerpts from the survey is available on the Chamber’s website. The Indiana Daily Student fact-checked some of the claims made by members of the Chamber because their comments formed the basis of the organization’s opposition to the ordinance, ac-
cording to the press release. The Chamber is an organization that advocates for the interests of the business community, according to its website. Membership to the Chamber of Commerce can cost anywhere from $115 per year to $2,700 per year. Many members are local business owners. Erin Predmore, President of the Chamber of Commerce, wrote in an email, “I realize that some of the comments didn't align with the Chamber's position or with what we want our community to be.” Predmore said because the Chamber believes in transparency, they published all of the comments whether or not they supported the position of the Chamber. The Chamber’s Feb. 23 press release said the orga-
"We witness drug deals every day in our parks and in the park adjacent to our neighborhood. The people living in parks have no desire to be part of this community. If the city made them volunteer hours of cleaning up..."
FILE PHOTO BY CARL COTE | IDS
A protester holds a sign that says "Support the Homeless" Dec. 11, 2020 at the Monroe County Courthouse.
BPD video shows hours before unhoused man's death By Kaitlyn Radde kradde@iu.edu | @kaityradde
The Bloomington Police Department released body camera footage of welfare checks in the hours before the Dec. 24, 2020, death of JT Vanderburg, a 51-year-old man experiencing homelessness whose death shook Bloomington’s unhoused community. The release came in response to a records request filed by the B Square Beacon, which published the footage March 2. According to a BPD press release on Dec. 24, 2020, BPD officers had checked his welfare and offered assistance three times over the course of that night. The press release stated Vanderburg refused assistance. The body camera footage shows two of those checks, in which officers contacted two men lying on the ground and asked if
they were alive. The videos do not show Vanderburg refusing assistance. In the first video, the BPD officer does not offer assistance. In the second video, the BPD officer asks, “Can I help you with anything?” but Vanderburg is not responsive at all throughout the second video. The mayor’s office and BPD told the B Square Beacon that nothing in the footage was out of the ordinary for a welfare check and did not cause them any concern. Yael Ksander, communications director for the City of Bloomington, said the police had been regularly monitoring the condition of people in and around Seminary Park, and the body camera footage are only snapshots of the broader situation. “Police are not EMTs, and they are not designated as health care givers,”
nization’s opposition to the ordinance was based on feedback from its members. Predmore did not respond when asked which comments did not align with the Chamber’s position if the Chamber’s opposition to the ordinance was based on the comments. Marc Teller, a board member of Bloomington Homeless Coalition, said the comments from the Chamber were detrimental to the unhoused community and reverted to dehumanizing and demeaning stereotypes of those experiencing homelessness. He said many of the comments from the Chamber showed how little some members of the Bloomington community understand the struggle of what it's like to be unhoused. “It really points to the bigotry and the classism that we have in this community and all over the nation, really,” Teller said. A statement from Predmore in the press release said members of the Chamber expressed “genuine concern for the plight of people who have no place to go.” Of more than 170 public comments made by Chamber members, only three comments used the word “concern” in relation to the safety or welfare of the unhoused. Two members said they “sympathize” and are “not unsympathetic” to the unhoused. The IDS chose seven claims to fact check. Specific wording varied, but the substance of each claim below was repeated more than once by different members of the Chamber.
Ksander said. She said directing calls of this nature to a different agency from dispatch may be explored in the future, but that police are not going to administer emergency medical attention. BPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Indiana Daily Student. In the first video from the evening of Dec. 23, it was raining, and Vanderburg was covered by blankets. A BPD officer told him and the other, unidentified person in the video that BPD received calls about them and he just needed “to make sure you’re alive.” When Vanderburg asked why, the BPD officer said, “Because they, they think that you’re hurt or something. But I’m, I’m just making sure that you’re breathing. You’re good, man. Relax.” In the second video
from early morning Dec. 24, when the temperature had dropped to 24 degrees, according to the B Square Beacon, Vanderburg had no covering other than his clothes and did not respond when the BPD officer asked if he could help with anything. Monroe County coroner Joanie Shields told the B Square Beacon hypothermia was a contributory cause of his death. Bloomington Homeless Coalition founder Harry Collins declined to comment on the footage. Marc Teller, a board member of the Bloomington Homeless Coalition, told the IDS at the time of Vanderburg’s death that he held the city responsible due to evictions of overnight encampments. On March 2, Teller told the B Square Beacon, “This SEE VANDERBURG, PAGE 6
Teller said the Bloomington Homeless Coalition, by virtue of its existence, disproves this statement. The coalition was founded by two members of the unhoused community who wanted to educate the Bloomington community and help break down stereotypes of the way they were viewed, he said. “When you talk to these people and they talk with you,” Teller said, “you will find that they are full of love for this community.” "They should not be allowed to camp or sleep or store their crap in any park even. These are tax payer supported parks and will not be used by taxpayers if occupied by homeless, NON tax payers...Allowing people to camp in any City park at any time is just wrong." Teller said many members of the unhoused SEE FACT-CHECK, PAGE 6