Mayor of Bloomington discusses community issues with students

Bloomington Mayor Mark Kruzan discussed the city's poverty problems and how students support local businesses while speaking to IU business school students about cultural relativism Monday.\nHe said while lower-income families are not featured on the city's tourism brochures, poverty is still prevalent and should be addressed. Illustrating an example of this, he pointed out that some of Bloomington's schools have large portions of their student bodies who qualify for state-subsidized lunches. \n"It's a big-city problem in a small town," Kruzan said. \nThough solutions were not discussed, Kruzan said the answer was not out of reach. He said, however, that ignoring the problem or seeking to just remove the city's homeless population would only inflame the situation. \nHe also discussed the city's traffic problems, saying they are not as bad as it seems. He said for the size of the town, it is relatively under control. \nThe speech primarily targeted the school's international students, said sophomore Adelaide McKinney, who is a teaching assistant for X100: Introduction to Business. \n"It allows (international students) to learn about others and be more open," McKinney said. \nShe added that by learning more about their new community, they could become more integrated into Bloomington's culture. \nConnecting the city's economy to the students, Bloomington relies heavily on the IU community for revenue and culture, Kruzan said. He said while Bloomington is the seventh largest city in Indiana, if the large amount of students who don't live here year-round were excluded, the city would not even rank in the state's top 20 most populated cities. \n"(It has) a small-town charm with inner-city amenities," Kruzan said. \nKruzan answered questions after the speech regarding local businesses on Kirkwood Avenue being forced to move from their current locations. Kruzan said the reason this seems like such a problem is that the businesses are prominent ones in the city. He stressed the city is not forcing the businesses to move as they are all private transactions. \n"It's the free market at play," Kruzan said. "It's part of the culture change in town"