Scott Tibbs
We should not allow Bloomington to become San Francisco
By Scott Tibbs, September 12, 2022
On December 10, 2020, the
Herald Times reported that City of Bloomington parks maintenance staff had "picked up 1,796 needles in the park and collected 675 that had been properly discarded in the sharps container." One can only imagine how many used needles were discarded on the ground in Seminary Square Park in 2021 or thus far in 2022. Businesses surrounding the park have expressed fear for the safety of their employees and customers.
Seminary Square Park used to be somewhere that families could visit, but has become a no-go zone as Mayor John Hamilton allowed it to become a shantytown for the homeless. Sure, Mayor Hamilton actually allowed the police to enforce the law and remove the encampment, but did not bother actually keeping it clean. I recently drove by Seminary Square only to see a naked man standing at the corner. He then bent over with his rear toward traffic. Lovely.
It is also not unusual for the homeless to sleep in People's Park in violation of city code. Mayor Kruzan, who actually looks competent compared to Hamilton, allowed a shantyown to grow in People's Park during the "Occupy" protests in 2011, complete with people urinating and defecating in public. It was not uncommon to see discarded needles on the iconic Kirkwood Avenue in 2016 after Hamilton took office, as the homeless camped along the iconic entrance to the Indiana University campus.
Now, violent crime is rising and it is clear that Hamilton's incompetence and negligence have made it unsafe for women to be alone downtown. We have a good police force, but it does not matter when so-called "judges" release violent criminals who then proceed to rape and murder college students. This soft-on-crime mentality is worse than incompetence and negligence. It is malice toward law abiding citizens.
It is time for a change. Hamilton will almost certainly lose if Susan Sandberg challenges him in 2023. Sandberg might turn out to be better than Hamilton on public safety, but that is not saying much. Instead of replacing one Democrat with another Democrat, Bloomington needs a real change. We need to break the monopoly Democrats have had on the Mayor's office for 50 years and elect someone who puts the safety of law-abiding citizens over "compassion" for the mentally ill, drug addicts and criminals. We need a Republican mayor.
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