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I am running for Bloomington City Council

By Scott Tibbs, June 24, 2015

I issued this press release this past Friday, after I filed my papers.

Today, I filed as a write-in candidate for Bloomington City Council at-large. I believe it is important for people to have as much choice as possible in the election, so without three Republicans on the ballot I am providing my name as a choice for voters unsatisfied with the Democrats on the Bloomington City Council.

There is an obvious question that deserves an answer: I am a Republican, so why am I running as an independent write-in candidate, and not as a Republican?

The answer is that, as the father of a three year old and a one year old, I do not have the time to devote to a full-scale campaign for city council. My primary role right now is to be "daddy" to my sons and husband to my wife of fourteen years. It would not be fair to the Republican Party to have a candidate who is anything less than 100% committed to this race, which I expect would be a time commitment of at least twenty hours per week and probably more.

I am running purely to give voters an option on the November ballot that they would not have otherwise. If the Republican Party fields three at-large candidates in a caucus, or if the Republican and Libertarian parties combine for three or more at-large candidates, I will withdraw my candidacy.

If enough voters express confidence in me and place me on the city council, I will fully devote myself to my role as a city councilor.

A few points on my platform:

# - I will vigorously oppose funding for Planned Parenthood, as I have done as a non-candidate since 1999.

# - My automatic orientation toward allowing development is to vote "yes" by default and allow people to build on their property as they see fit. I assume that property owners know better than I do what is the best use of their land. However, if a development would cause harm, especially to neighbors, I may wind up voting "no" instead. As a city councilor, I may well vote against every rezone or variance request that comes to me depending on what the impact of that development would be. My default position, though, is a position that strongly favors private property rights.

# - I want to see a full and complete public accounting of all property taken by the city police via civil asset forfeiture powers. I believe in due process, and it is required by the constitution. No private property should ever be taken unless someone has been convicted of a crime.

# - I want to see a full and complete public review on the policy for deployment of the Critical Incident Response Team, which is Bloomington's version of a SWAT team. I am deeply concerned about the militarization of police, especially with the deployment of military-style weapons such as highly dangerous flash-bang grenades. The only real way to address this concern is to act locally.

# - The city has a number of boards and commissions that meet during the work day, which excludes working people from being able to fully monitor local government. As a city councilor, I will introduce legislation to mandate that all such meetings take place no earlier than 5:30 p.m.

More information will be coming in the weeks and months to come.