Current City Council Actions

Bloomington is run by a city charter, although it seems that when it comes to some city ordinances, the council doesn't always take the recommendation of the Charter Commission. The day to day functions are run by the City Manager and his staff who is responsible to the City Council.  It is the City Council who votes on the work and recommendations of the City Management and Commissions. We will attempt to keep you up to date on the actions of all here.  

Who Does the Current "Non-Partisan" Bloomington City Council Answer To?

It doesn't appear to be the citizens of Bloomington.

In light of the upcoming Bloomington City Council elections, it is worthwhile to remember who is supporting the campaigns of some of the current sitting council members running for re-election. In Nathan Coulter and Patrick Martin's case, it is a smorgasbord of political groups and organizations outside of Bloomington. Do not let Bloomington be turned into another Minneapolis by state-level interests!

With ranked-choice voting in place this year, it is important to NOT RANK Nathan Coulter, Patrick Martin or Lona Dallessandro. You do not have to rank all candidates - and leaving blanks by Coulter, Martin and Dallessandro will send a message to this incumbent city council that the residents of Bloomington are disappointed in their poor decisions and actions.

It is one more irony that ranked-choice voting itself is another measure rammed through by this City Council not based on the will of the citizens, but of special interest groups pushing an agenda to upheave the election process - namely FairVote MN.  FairVote MN (another interest group outside of Bloomington, and an arm of a national interest group) spent $130k to barely pass this "popular" initiative, even though the Bloomington Charter Commission recommended TWICE to the City Council that they NOT push RCV through as an initiative.

At-Large Candidate Nathan Coulter - DO NOT RANK

Will Nathan Coulter represent the citizens of Bloomington, or the organized state groups and interests who are funding his campaign?

Updated Oct 26 - Nathan Coulter 2021 Pre-General Campaign Finance Report Donors

• IUPAT DC 82 PAC, Little Canada, $300 - International Union of Painters and Allied Trades
• LIUNA, St. Paul, $250, infrastructure union Local 563
• Mpls Building & Construction Trades, Minneapolis, $600
• Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation, Minneapolis, $600
• North Central Regional Council of Carpenters, St. Paul, $600
• SEIU, Minneapolis, $200
• UNITE HERE Local 17, Minneapolis, $600 - hospitality union
• What appears to be mostly individuals who are NOT Bloomington residents

Nathan Coulter 2020 Annual Campaign Finance Report Donors

• North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters, St. Paul, $250
• SEIU Healthcare MN, Minneapolis, $250

Nathan Coulter 2017 Pre-General Campaign Finance Report Donors

• AFSCME Council 5, St. Paul, $600
• IBEW Local 292, Minneapolis, $250
• Little for Lakeville, campaign of Matt Little (DFL State Senator who was recently ousted by Zach Duckworth), $200
• Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors, $300
• Minneapolis Building and Construction Trades Council, $300
• Operating Engineers Local 49, Minneapolis, $500
• Sheet Metal Workers Local 10, St. Paul, $300

District 4 Candidate Patrick Martin - DO NOT RANK

Will Patrick Martin represent the citizens of Bloomington, or the agenda of his state cronies who are also funding his campaign?

Updated Oct 26 - Patrick Martin 2021 Pre-General Campaign Finance Report Donors

• NCSRCC, $600, St. Paul - North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters
• MRLF, $600, Minneapolis - Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation AFL-CIO
• Laborers District Council, $600, St. Paul - LIUNA
• Unite HERE, $500, Minneapolis - hospitality union
• IUPAT, Little Canada, $300 - International Union of Painters and Allied Trades

Patrick Martin 2020 Annual Campaign Finance Report Donors

• Lona Dallessandro, who also served as Martin's treasurer (currently running for Bloomington City Council in District 3), $100
• SEIU Local 113, Minneapolis, $250
• North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters, St. Paul, $250
• Lockridge Grindal Nauen PLLP PAC - Minneapolis lobbying firm, $250
• Jenna Carter, recently elected Bloomington City Council member, $100
• Steve Elkins, current DFL State House Rep, $100
• Shawn Nelson, current sitting Bloomington City Council member, $100

District 3 Candidate Lona Dallessandro - DO NOT RANK

In District 3, please note that Lona Dallessandro is running. Given that Lona has previously served as Patrick Martin’s and Jenna Carter’s campaign treasurer, would we expect any different from her compared to Martin and Coulter? Not a chance.

Updated Oct 26 - Lona Dallessandro 2021 Pre-General Campaign Finance Donors

• Minneapolis Building & Construction Trades Council #30012, $600, Minneapolis
• Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation, $600, Minneapolis - AFL-CIO
• LIUNA Minnesota and North Dakota, $600, St. Paul - infrastructure union
• What appears to be significant funding from individuals who are NOT Bloomington residents

Images can be seen on Facebook (see below) of Lona campaigning side by side with Coulter and Martin, supported by Mayor Busse, Councilmember Jenna Carter and State House Rep Steve Elkins. She DOES NOT REPRESENT diversity of thought for Bloomington residents!  

It is not proper for the Mayor and other elected Councilmembers to continue to pack the Council with cronies who will vote lock-step with their partisan agenda.  Nor is it acceptable for our Bloomington Councilmembers to have the majority of their election campaigns funded by interest groups outside of the city!

RFABB's recommended candidates have committed to transparency and being responsive to the residents of Bloomington - not partisan, organized interests in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Circled below: Mayor Tim Busse, Patrick Martin, DFL House Rep Steve Elkins, Lona Dallessandro, Nathan Coulter, Jenna Carter (and in back, Anita Smithson, the Human Rights Commissioner selected by this council who called a fundraiser for a cancer-stricken Bloomington police officer “fascistic indoctrination”).  

Why is the outside interest group funding important?

It's reflected in the agenda being promoted by the cast of characters above.  Coulter, Martin and Lona have made "housing" (read: higher-density, multi-family), earned sick and safe leave (ESSL) and other small business regulations, and "sustainability" (read: contracts to these Minneapolis-St. Paul "infrastructure" and construction organizations) key pillars of their campaigns and talking points.

Many of the same interest groups supporting Coulter, Martin and Lona are responsible for funding Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey's campaign (see Frey's 2021 Pre-General Election Campaign Finance Donors):

• AFSCME
• IBEW Local 292
• Lockridge Grindal Nauen PLLP
• IUPAT Council 82
• Minneapolis Building & Construction Trades Council
• North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters
• SEIU Local 113

DO NOT LET THESE SAME ACTORS TURN BLOOMINGTON INTO MINNEAPOLIS!

And below is the same cast of characters attempting to stack the School Board with their fellow committed political ideologues.  DO NOT VOTE for Tom Bennett, Dawn Steigauf, Dani Cawley or Matt Dymoke for School Board.  See here for RFABB's recommended School Board candidates.

Why is the Elkins tie important?  

Because Steve Elkins is working on a bill in the MN House that will eliminate single-family zoning restrictions across the state.  The bill exempts low-income, high-density housing from "impact fees" (see Art I Bill Sec. 8).

This appears to direct the impact fees across the remaining single-family residents to pay for municipal utility upgrades needed to support multi-family housing (it is transparent from reading Elkins' op-eds promoting this bill that this is needed in the name of "equity").

E.g. your next-door lot could be knocked down to build high-density apartments, and the cost for increased sewer, water and road infrastructure needs would be paid by YOU and other neighbors, not the new multi-family development.  

Coulter, Martin, Lona, et al obviously support this line of thinking given the support they receive from Elkins, as well as construction and trade organizations.  DO NOT let them turn Bloomington into another Minneapolis!

Elkins was also a key proponent in pushing ranked-choice voting through, and continues to stump for the FairVote MN outside interest group, as he admits to hoping Bloomington RCV will pave the way for him to implement RCV in school board elections and state-wide under legislation he has sponsored.

So what can YOU do about it?  

Use your voice and VOTE to take back your city on November 2 - make sure Nathan Coulter and Patrick Martin do not stay on this Council and that Lona Dallessandro never makes it on!  See here for more voting information and sample ballots.

Share this information with your friends throughout Bloomington.  Spread the word.

Residents for a Better Bloomington (RFABB) is a non-partisan, grassroots movement of Bloomington residents concerned with the current direction of City Council and School Board governance.  Join us!

Tobacco Ordinance / Flavor Ban

On April 26, 2021, the Bloomington City Council voted 4-2 in favor of a new tobacco-related ordinance. The 4 in favor were Tim Busse, Nathan Coulter, Jenna Carter, and Dwayne Lowman.

DO NOT RANK Nathan Coulter for At-Large Councilmember this election!

https://www.startribune.com/bloomington-sets-sunset-on-all-tobacco-licenses/600051389

The key pillars of the new ordinance include:

• Eliminating flavored tobacco and vaping products, including menthol cigarettes
• Sunsetting tobacco licenses in the city of Bloomington
  • o This effectively wipes out the equity small business owners built up, over decades in some instances, by mandating that if they sold the business to another entity, the tobacco license would not be renewed
  • o This includes convenience stores, gas stations, etc. where a significant portion of revenue and profit comes from the sale of tobacco products

This is a "solution" in search of a problem. The Minnesota Department of Health's 2020 Youth Tobacco Survey [https://www.health.state.mn.us/communities/tobacco/data/docs/2020mytsreport.pdf] states "Minnesota teens are overwhelmingly rejecting cigarettes, cigars, and smokeless tobacco." Prevalence of tobacco use among high school students across the state is at an all-time low (3.2% prevalence of cigarette use, and even lower for smokeless tobacco products).

Notably, across the United States only two cities outside of San Francisco have implemented a similar measure. This is a clear example of an extreme agenda being pushed and promoted by the incumbent Bloomington City Council.

“Green” Initiatives - Time of Sale Audits and Fees

Bloomington has inserted itself into residents’ home selling process with mandatory pre-sale inspections of homes by city inspectors. Apparently, the home inspection normally conducted by an independent inspector hired by a home buyer to represent the buyer’s interests isn’t good enough. Now the additional cost of a city inspection is added into the sales equation.

Just recently, Bloomington added a new “energy” component to the required Time of Sale home inspection citing Portland, OR and Minneapolis as the two (notably poorly managed) cities Bloomington desires to emulate. The justification for adding the evaluation of the the energy efficiency of a home was to somehow improve “equity” – a vague, immeasurable goal.

Ranked Choice Voting

Against the recommendation of the Bloomington citizens sitting on the Charter Commission, the City Council responded instead to the wishes of an outside political activist group FairVote MN to place Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) on the 2020 ballot.

Barely approved by largely uninformed voters, Bloomington now has the same convoluted system for electing city officials as do Minneapolis and St. Paul – two cities who are known for their unaccountable city administrators, all elected by Ranked Choice Voting.

Other Minnesota cities have tried RCV and scrapped it afterwards. Walter Mondale spoke out against RCV and Duluth voters turned it down. But despite these experiences, Bloomington’s City Council overrode the recommendation of its own Charter Commission and instead acted to the benefit of their own personal political agendas.

Notably, like the funding of the incumbent Council’s election campaigns, the pro-RCV campaign was driven by a partisan national interest group (FairVote), raising and spending nearly $100,000 to push RCV in Bloomington. The Bloomington anti-RCV effort was able to raise ~$6,000 in comparison, and nearly defeated the initiative.

Budget Concerns

At least annually, the Bloomington monthly newspaper repeats the claim (true but misleading) that property taxes on a median value Bloomington home are lower than the property taxes for a median value home in just about any other surrounding city.

HOWEVER, the median value home in Eden Prairie is ~50% higher than Bloomington’s median value home. In Edina, the median value home is ~double Bloomington’s median value home. So comparing the taxes on median value homes from one city to another is an apples and oranges comparison.

And it’s still not that simple. Other sources of revenue like fees, government subsidies and commercial property taxes will reduce the share of city government expenses that homeowners pay. A true analysis of a city’s financial performance compared to other cities is much more complicated than simply comparing the taxes on median value homes.

More importantly, Bloomington has been trending in recent years (until COVID) with roughly an annual 5% budget increase despite very low economic inflation (how much are you earning in your savings account?). Bloomington city government has been steadily growing in size and scope by adding staff for new functions while Bloomington’s population has been relatively stagnant.

Single-Family Residential Zoning Concerns

DFL State Rep. Steve Elkins has been vocal about needing to eliminate single-family housing in the name of “equity”.

https://www.startribune.com/how-twin-cities-housing-rules-keep-the-metro-segregated/600081529/?refresh=true

“Rep. Steve Elkins, D-Bloomington, wants the House to consider a similar bill requiring cities to allow duplexes in any residential area. Other parts of their bills are aimed at reducing the regulatory approval processes that a builders coalition claims is making it impossible for them to build entry-level-priced homes.”

https://www.startribune.com/twin-cities-housing-the-flaming-hoops-separating-builders-and-cities/567890982/?refresh=true

Elkins is working on a bill in the House that will eliminate single-family zoning across the state, while assessing "impact fees" on the remaining single-family residents to pay for municipal upgrades needed to support multi-family housing (in the name of "equity"). E.g.: your next-door neighboring lots could be knocked down to build an apartment complex, and the cost for increased sewer and water infrastructure needs would be paid by YOU, not the new multi-family development.

Martin, Coulter, Lona, et al obviously support this line of thinking, as Elkins is actively supporting their campaigns. It’s also key to note that Martin, Coulter and Lona have made “housing” a key pillar of their campaigns across various public forums. DO NOT let them turn Bloomington into another Minneapolis!

For a summary of the Budget and future council meeting discussion, click here.

MAYOR/CITY COUNCIL MAY SHUT DOWN PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD   -  KEEP YOUR VOICE AND SAY NO!

September 8, 2021

During the August 30 Bloomington City Council meeting, in addressing the previous meeting's public comment period, beginning at 2:19, Mayor Tim Busse admonished concerned citizens who have been voicing displeasure at many of this Council's recent decisions and initiatives.

After chiding these concerned residents for their "bad behavior" and warning future commenters to be on their "best behavior", at the 3:32 mark, Busse stated "I will also say, Council, if we're not able to achieve that over the next few meetings, I would like to open up the discussion about how we can achieve that through our Rules of Procedure."

Section 4.1 Response to Prior Meeting's Public Comments (2:19 - 3:45)

City Council Video

It's clear that the Mayor and this City Council do not care about your input as residents and taxpayers in Bloomington.

Tell Mayor Busse and the rest of the City Council that they should be ashamed of themselves for even suggesting stifling the speech of residents who are not onboard with this Council's agenda.

Tim Busse - tbusse@BloomingtonMN.gov

Nathan Coulter - ncoulter@bloomingtonmn.gov

Patrick Martin - pmartin@bloomingtonmn.gov

Dwayne Lowman - dlowman@BloomingtonMN.gov

Shawn Nelson - snelson@bloomingtonmn.gov

Jenna Carter - jcarter@bloomingtonmn.gov

Jack Baloga - jbaloga@BloomingtonMN.gov

Council Member At-Large Nathan Coulter and Council Member Ward 4 Patrick Martin both nodded their heads in agreement with Mayor Busse's comments regarding rules and procedures.  

Why would anyone want to maintain to re-elect and  council member who clearly is in favor of disregarding residents he represents?

BLOOMINGTON'S NEW NORMAL - EQUITY, EQUITY AND MORE EQUITY BRINGS YOU THE FIRST PRIDE EVENT WITH DRAG QUEENS

September 8, 2021

At what point do we draw a line when funding projects with our tax dollars?  The City's first foray into the Pride movement was prompted by one of the key players in our Human Rights Commission.  The city spent roughly $4000 to fund this event with council members Coulter, Carter and Martin all attended and courtesy of Nathan Coulter - Bloomington City Council facebook page, proudly brought his children to the event.  Unfortunately, Alpha News which has become a National News source captured Bloomington in an interesting light.  Drag Queens twerking for dollars from children. Is this making Bloomington Better?  You be the judge. Get ready for Pride 2 for next year and hope it shows up in the 2022 budget.  Oh, and would they appear and spare one dime for backing our police force?