Whereas the National Association of Town Watch is sponsoring a unique nationwide crime and drug prevention program on August 4th, 2026 called National Night Out. And whereas the 43rd annual National Night Out provides a unique opportunity for the Bloomington Police Department to join forces with thousands of other communities across the country in a community building campaign that promotes police community partnerships and neighborhood camaraderie to make neighborhoods a safer, better place to live.

I would just encourage everyone to get out, enjoy your neighbors. Uh I know we'll be out there, but uh Bloomington continues to be a growing community. Uh we continue to be a community that is welcoming a lot of people into it. So, every year there's probably somebody new on your block. So, let's get out, meet them.

So, the decision at the time was to terminate environmental review, which then allows the project to proceed towards permitting, submitting applications, further agency review. um because while it's in review, no decisions can be made on the project.

So, so and and um to just make sure I understand when you say understanding, you're saying that the information that we have is worth us knowing about, but in your estimation, it doesn't change the outcome of the EAW work that we conducted in October. There's nothing materially different that would have had you say there's a whole section of this thing that needs to be relooked at because it's materially different.

Yes, I would say that all of the the topics that are required to be addressed were addressed and all of the subjects that were brought up in the petition were discussed to some degree. There is nothing that I would say is a complete omission or something that we would significantly look at as something we would need to revise and put out again for public review.

But I would want us to feel confident that substantially the conversations that are that are that proceed when we do an environmental impact assessment are things that we would have included in this conversation when we're doing something as substantial as this kind of renewal. And I don't know the answer to that question. So it might be worth it for us to to think about and consider uh as we think uh you know I mean obviously between climate change and other things like that this is not the last of the environmental type situations will be in here and so I I could defer to uh obviously our experts on this but I you know if it if it makes it sense for us to do it proactively to ensure that substantially we feel we have the information we we would get from something like this um maybe it's something we would do anyway because it rises to that level of importance and certainly it would help with with communication to our our residents.

What we're talking about tonight, what the decision we're making tonight whether is whether to award the contract to begin the work to continue the work on on this section of the project. And so that is officially what we're making a decision on tonight. It's not uh it's not, you know, revisiting the merits of the project as as a whole whether or not we should do it at all.

This is not a debate about shady walks or individual preferences. It is a choice between superficial control and a legacy of life.

I kind of feel like we're blindsided with this with this Oak Savannah thing. ... the magnitude of it to me is just it seems like it's overwhelming and I just think it's too much.

Less than 1% of critical endangered beautiful environmentally important Midwest oak savanas are still intact and remain. ... Oak Savylvanas is Bloomington. Look at the name of our landmarks and look at the landmarks that still stand.

The issue is to is the plan to cut down over 40 acres of mature woodland and convert it to an oak savannah. Many of us believe this project would restore the woods to a state of health by removing invasive species and improving the existing forest. Instead, it has become a proposal to remove hundreds of mature non- oak trees and fundamentally transform one of the park's most treasured features.

It's not what you or I want. It's already written in the banks. It's what's live. It's what the living beings who have been here longer than any of us tell us with their wide reaching spaced out limbs. If we really want to do save our woods, we need to listen to them.

The shade in the wilderness enchants me. It's why I go there. Furthermore, I'm certain that as long as you and the council are in charge, you will make it a priority to find the money to chop down the trees, mow and and burn the savannah as needed because this is your legacy. However, when you're no longer mayor, no disrespect. Um, will the oak savannah continue to be a priority? Maybe yes, maybe no.

My personal opinion is these oaks, some of them being more than 250 years old, have seen a lot of change already and they're still persevering in a very stressed environment with climate change, all the competition that they're occurring and being in a fraction of their former self. So in my opinion to address that is not to kind of take it as the inevitable that well it's going to happen anyway, so why do we put the effort into trying to protect these? I would say they've demonstrated that the right species in the right location with the right mimicking of natural processes [...] If we do all of those things and we improve that resiliency, I can't tell you that those trees are going to make it if we see a lot of change in climate, but I can tell you they won't make it if we don't do anything. And the odds of them making it are going to go up if we intervene and try to keep them as healthy as possible.