This is the WFHB Local News for Wednesday, April 21st, 2021.

Later in the program, we have an excerpt from our public affairs program, Interchange, a show that questions how we understand ourselves. Today’s excerpt comes from last week’s show, “Mr. Trotter, the President, and the Klan with Kerri Greenidge.” More in today’s feature report.

Also coming up in the next half hour, we have Better Beware - your weekly consumer-watchdog program hosted and produced by Richard Fish.

Your Local News Brief

The WFHB Local News Brief breaks down the daily local news cycle into 2-3 minutes of what you need to know each day. Listen live Monday through Thursday at 1:30 p.m. on WFHB Community Radio. Visual broadcasts of the news briefs are available on our Youtube channel, WFHB-TV.

The Kohr building, on Rogers Street, in between First Street and Second Street, just moved closer in the process to be redeveloped into, what the City of Bloomington calls, affordable housing.

The City of Bloomington bought the building as a part of a deal which saw the City buy the old Bloomington Hospital site on Second Street from the IU Health.

Next year the IU health is slated to move from the site to their new location, which is currently under construction, on the 45/46 bypass.

Earlier this year, the Bloomington City Council voted unanimously to give the one-hundred-and-twenty year-old Kohr building an historic status. The developers who won the bidding process, submitted a proposal that would set aside a number of permanent supportive housing units for the unhoused.

Since the beginning of the pandemic last March, Bloomington Transit has offered its public bus services free of charge. The decision to do so was motivated in large part by safety and distancing precautions which would make it difficult to take fares.

Yesterday however, Doug Horn, one of the Bloomington Transit board members considered reinstating the bus fares at the Transit board meeting. Lew May, Bloomington Transit’s General Manager said that drivers support a return to fares because they have seen an increase in disruptions on buses caused by people experiencing homelessness.

In an opinion piece in the B-Square Beacon, Dave Askins, wrote, “Surely the disruptive behavior on buses of some individuals experiencing homelessness should not guide our policy choices on bus fares.”

Askins went on to note that fares account for only about four percent of last year’s Bloomington Transit budget. Another seven percent or so of the the budget came from Indiana University’s contribution to Bloomington Transit.

After some public comment, the Board ultimately voted to extend the free rides until at least May 18th.

Board of Public Safety 

The Bloomington Board of Public Safety talked about new hires at the Bloomington Police Department. Bloomington Police Chief Michael Diekhoff announced that the BPD had hired its second social worker at the April 20th meeting. He revealed that a third social worker will join the police department in May.

Board member Luis Fuentes-Rohwer was surprised BPD had made two new hires without presenting them to the board. Diekhoff clarified the board only needs to approve the hiring of sworn officers, not civilian positions. The next Board of Public Safety meeting is on May 18th.

263 Cases of the B117 Variant in Indiana

Health officials are warning of the highly transmissible B117 variant of Covid-19. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Indiana has seen 269 Covid-19 variant cases. The CDC says that 263 of those cases are the B117 variant,