Former Bloomington mayor reflects on long career from D.C.

You can take the man out of Bloomington, but you can’t take the Bloomington out of the man.

At least this is true for John Fernandez, the Bloomington mayor from 1996 to 2003, who now lives in Washington, D.C. and works for the Obama administration.

Working as the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development.

Fernandez said his job is not that different from working as mayor of Bloomington.

“At the end of the day, both try to achieve the same goal to enhance quality of life,” he said.

Fernandez, however, said he misses Bloomington. Although, he was born in Canton, Ohio and grew up in Kokomo, he lived in Bloomington for many years — first as an IU student and then as a politician.

He received his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree in law from IU. In 1987, he was elected to the Bloomington City Council and served as its president in 1991.

“Bloomington in terms of size and university research is fairly innovative and has interesting issues compared to a similar size city,” Fernandez said. “Local and state government is less partisan. We still have an election where people run and roll up their sleeves, but the mayor can identify a problem and implement a solution, and then we can see a result in a short time period compared to Washington. D.C., where it is unbelievably partisan to the point where you can’t get anything done.”

Bloomington’s current mayor, Mark Kruzan, said one major obstacle Fernandez faced was the closure of one of Bloomington’s largest employers, the company RCA/Thomson. Abruptly, hundreds of people became unemployed, and a 200-acre hole was left in the middle of the city.

Indiana State Senator Vi Simpson said Fernandez was innovative when he dealt with the closing of the plant. Simpson said Fernandez rerouted traffic and renovated the property. She said Fernandez wanted to invest the money made from the new jobs and put it toward making community roads more attractive for businesses.

“The property was not usable, and any new jobs there were going to capture tax revenue for a specific time,” Simpson said. “The concept was to split it up and make it more useful for what the businesses of the future needed.”

Today, the site, situated past Patterson Drive, has multiple small and medium-sized businesses — and it continues to create jobs.  

James McNamara, Fernandez’s deputy mayor, said one of his most notable successes was the redesign and renovation of Miller-Showers Park on College Avenue.

“It was innovative, complex and extremely high profile,” McNamara said of the project in an e-mail. “It involved creative financing and just about every city department. And it had a lot of opposition and many critics. But he knew it was the right thing to do and made it happen.”

“At one point, there was $80 million of construction and investment going on in the city, simultaneously,” Kruzan said in an e-mail.

Fernandez said many experiences he had as mayor contributed to his success in his current position.

“It helps me bring practical experience and deeper appreciation facing people around the country,” Fernandez said. “Unless you’ve been in a room with 1,200 people, it’s hard to really appreciate the magnitude of some of the issues. It’s not macroeconomic — it’s personal.”

But Fernandez said he hasn’t always been so aware of what his goals are. He took two years off from school after his senior year of high school.

“I wasn’t ready after high school,” Fernandez said. “I came to Bloomington, candidly, not particularly focused on public environmental affairs.”

Charles Bonser, now dean emeritus of the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, pulled Fernandez aside during his junior year and provided him with guidance.

When Fernandez attended IU he was a frequent visitor of the Bluebird Nightclub and Nick’s English Hut. He is a self-described independent, who was an IU Student Association member (chairman of the off-campus student union), but his main gig, he said, was his rock ’n’ roll band.

“It was fun, but it impacted my GPA,” Fernandez said.

Unknowingly, he said his DNA drove him into the political arena. He said his family believed democracy mattered, and they were engaged in civic and political issues.

“I learned that our government only works if people participate in it,” Fernandez said. “Don’t complain unless you roll up your sleeves and do something about it.”