The Bloomington City Council Monday evening expressed an appetite to expedite the next two phases of the Locust-Colton sewer separation project and other measures in the wake of record flooding and sewage backups during heavy rainfall in late June.
Bloomington City Council member Jenn Carrillo plans to resign at the end of August.
Carrillo said in a message posted on social media that they have purchased a house outside of Ward 6 that they represent. That will make Carrillo ineligible to serve on the council. Ward 6 covers much of downtown and areas south and west of downtown.
Carrillo said they tried to find a new place to live in Ward 6 after their apartment lease ended, but couldn t find another place to stay.
“Never could I have imagined what I ended up finding, once I actually started looking, which was a housing crisis in every sense of the word,” Carrillo said in a Sound Ideas interview. “I found a house I am absolutely crazy about, so all-in-all this is a really good thing for me and my family, but the circumstances that got me here are pretty messed up.
A basement flooded with 4 inches of water in the Founders Grove neighborhood of Bloomington.
Bloomington Mayor Mboka Mwilambwe said he empathizes with residents who have spent weeks cleaning out flooded basements following heavy storms that damaged more than 1,000 homes and businesses in McLean County last month.
Many residents have expressed frustration to the city council about raw sewage backing up into their homes because of combined water and sewer lines, or sump pumps that illegally discharge into sewers instead of a yard.
City of Bloomington Mboka Mwilambwe
The council has several meetings planned with public works staff to address the city’s response and how to prevent the problem from resurfacing again. The council plans to discuss the issue at its Committee of the Whole meetings on July 19 and Aug. 16.
WGLT
Bloomington resident Gary Donohue addresses the Bloomington City Council at its meeting Monday, July 12, 2021, at the Government Center.
Nearly a dozen residents of a neighborhood hit hard during last month’s flooding addressed the Bloomington City Council on Monday, with many emotionally recounting the impact of sewers backing up. Several blamed the city for not fixing that area’s combined sewer system before other parts of town.
A multi-agency resource center will be set up this weekend to help McLean County residents struggling with the June 24-25 flood’s aftermath, City Manager Tim Gleason told the council.
During public comments, 10 speakers said they wanted the Eastgate neighborhood, which stretches west of Regency from Washington Street to Oakland Avenue, to be a higher priority for Bloomington’s public works department addressing the combined sewer overflow (CSO) issue.
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