This is the WFHB Local News for Thursday, June 4th, 2026.

In today’s newscast, Bloomington’s Juneteenth celebration returns to Switchyard Park on June 19th. The hosts of our public affairs program, Bring It On, discuss the significance of the holiday and what community members can expect at this year’s event.

You’ll also hear from Christina, an IU student who didn’t know where her next meal was coming from. She’s one of thousands of food-insecure students right here in Bloomington. Learn about a little-known campus food pantry later in the show in a feature report.

The tension between developing a host hotel for Bloomington’s expanded convention center and the city’s affordable housing goals got more airtime Wednesday night (June 3). The city council unanimously approved a new, revised letter to Bloomington’s redevelopment commission (RDC).

The council’s revised letter explicitly gives the council’s support to a less-than-equal land swap on College Square (aka the former Bunger & Robertson lot), in order to preserve the current affordable housing on the Seminary Pointe block. The Seminary Pointe block, south of the current convention center facility, was recently transferred at no cost to the Monroe County capital improvement board (CIB) by the Monroe County government, which purchased the property for around $3.2 million in 2010 with proceeds from the 5% countywide innkeeper’s tax.

The land swap, which is supported by the CIB, which is overseeing the convention center expansion, would involve transfer of the Seminary Pointe block to the RDC in exchange for the College Square lot. In that scenario, the RDC would immediately transfer the Seminary Pointe block to a community land trust.

Wednesday’s vote to approve the new letter was 8–0. Kate Rosenbarger was not present for the vote.

Councilmember Isabel Piedmont-Smith used her report time at the start of the meeting to read the letter into the record. It marks a shift from an earlier council position statement issued two years ago, in May 2024, that effectively told the RDC not to part with College Square for less than the $6.9 million it spent to acquire the site.

The CIB has identified the College Square site, at 4th Street and College Avenue, just north of the current convention center, as the preferred location for a convention center host hotel. There’s a broad consensus that the College Square location is the best suited one for a convention center host hotel.

The new letter mentions the May 6, 2024 letter, signed by eight councilmembers and another letter from Dec. 15, 2025 signed by four councilmembers, that says the RDC College Square property should only be used for the convention center project, including a new hotel, if the RDC recouped the amount it spent to acquire the site, which was about $6.9 million in two separate transactions—one in 2019 and the other in 2023.

The new letter walks that back:

“We wish to state clearly that we are not opposed to the RDC’s disposition of the site for an amount less than the purchase price, if significant public benefit can be gained, such as the preservation and/or provision of low-income housing.”

This is the latest edition of B Square Bites – a collaboration between B Square Bulletin and WFHB. To read the full article, you can visit B Square Bulletin dot com and look for the headline: “Land swap to save Seminary Pointe housing now backed by Bloomington city council.”

Featured Segments:

As many as 41% of U.S. college students may be food insecure. That means their access to adequate amounts of nutrition is limited or uncertain. On the Bloomington campus there’s a little-known student-only food pantry called Crimson Cupboard, and 7,000 local students rely on it. Correspondent Jack Muniz has that story in a feature report produced in partnership with The Media School at Indiana University.

Bloomington’s Juneteenth celebration returns to Switchyard Park on June 19th. On this week’s edition of Bring It On, hosts Clarence Boone and Gloria Howell spoke with Shatoyia Moss, Director of Bloomington’s Community and Family Resources Department, about the significance of the holiday and what community members can expect at this year’s event. Here’s an excerpt from that conversation.

The Bloomington Redevelopment Commission took one more step toward the construction of the Hopewell South neighborhood, which the city hopes will introduce more affordable housing to Bloomington. In today’s feature report, WFHB Correspondent Ben Sharpe took to the B-line trail to ask residents for their thoughts.

Credits: