This is the WFHB Local News for Monday, August 10th, 2026.

In today’s newscast, Correspondent Elena Bai speaks with the owner of a new boba shop that opened up on Kirkwood Avenue – Window 85. More in today’s feature report.

You’ll also hear local writer Brittany Talissa King, from Bloomington’s Doctor Martin Luther King Junior Birthday Celebration Commission. Learn how this small group of dedicated volunteers work year-round to build what Doctor King called the “beloved community” later in the show on a new episode of Activate!

Monroe County election board sets hearing on Davis write-in bid, delays on Trimble complaint

By Dave Askins

Monroe County election board from left: Nicole Browne, Danny Shields, and Penny Githens. (Dave Askins, Aug. 6, 2026)The Monroe County election board will hold a hearing next Wednesday (Aug. 12) on the question: Is Joe Davis legally eligible to remain a declared write-in candidate on Nov. 3 for county clerk?

The issue arose after five people challenged his candidacy under Indiana’s so-called “sore loser” law. Davis lost the Democratic Party primary race for clerk.

The decision to set a hearing on the challenges to Davis for this coming Wednesday, Aug. 12 at 9 a.m. was made at the board’s regular meeting last Thursday (Aug. 6).

Also on Thursday, the board delayed until its Sept. 3 meeting a decision about whether to hold a separate hearing on an election-law complaint against independent county assessor candidate Lisa Jeneé Trimble.

The two proceedings have different stakes and timelines. The challenges to Davis could disqualify his write-in candidacy and have to be resolved by Aug. 14, according to county attorney Molly Turner-King. If Davis is determined not to be eligible, no blank line would appear on the ballot for a voter to fill in.

The complaint against Trimble would not remove her name from the ballot and does not face the same short-term deadline.

Davis has previously acknowledged the so-called “sore-loser ” statute, but said he wants to challenge its constitutionality. He has referred to the provision as the “sore winner” law rather than the “sore loser” law.

During Thursday’s election board meeting, Shields said the label Davis uses for the statute is beside the point.

“He can call this law whatever he wants to call it,” Shields said. “Is he eligible? The question is: Is he eligible to run as a write-in under that law?”

That was 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 and look for the headline: “Monroe County election board sets hearing on Davis write-in bid, delays on Trimble complaint.”

Bloomington City Council criticizes community survey for leaving out student voices

(Photo by Kade Young).By Kade Young

The city’s latest community survey drew criticism from the Bloomington City Council during its regular meeting on August 5th.

Several council members and local residents say the survey intentionally excluded Indiana University students in an effort to focus on year-round residents.

Jeff Andreasen, president of aQuity Research who conducted the survey, says they purposely designed it to reflect the views of what she calls “permanent residents” rather than the city’s student population.

“We were designing our sample to be more representative of year-round residents outside of the significant IU population, since those residents are obviously taxpayers, and are probably more engaged in the community, more familiar with city services and city issues than the IU population,” said Andreasen.

Councilmember Hopi Stosberg says the decision to exclude students overlooks a substantial population in Bloomington.

“As somebody who represents District Three, which is a huge part of campus and is represents a lot of students, I find that pretty disappointing,” said Stosberg. ”

Councilmember Sydney Zulich echoed those concerns, calling the reasoning behind the exclusion of students offensive to the thousands of students she represents.

“As someone who was very recently a student herself, but also represents 10,000 plus young people. That is a stunningly insulting answer,” she said.

Zulich asked how the firm was selected. Communications Director Desiree DeMolina says the city changed its approach after receiving backlash from the 2023 survey.

“The questionnaire had some critiques with residents feeling that the questions were lengthy and maybe did not capture some of the concerns and considerations for the larger community,” said DeMolina.

Zulich maintained the city left out about half of its population in the survey – questioning the use of taxpayer dollars to fund it.

“This community has a crisis in workforce retention, and yet we have just eliminated 40,000 potential future long-term residents from participating in shaping the future of our city. I don’t know why any young person would want to stay here when we’re so blatantly disrespectful towards them,” said Zulich.

During public comment, local resident Paul Rousseau questioned whether excluding students’ perspective weakens the usefulness of the survey. He recalled the tragedy of Nathaniel Stratton, an IU student who was killed by a drunk driver in a scooter accident in 2022.

“Nathan and his family and friends were obviously negatively impacted by 1) the public safety failure to intercept impaired drivers; 2) the condition of sidewalks that Nathan chose not to use that night, and 3) the safety of bicycle lanes that are protected by nothing more than a painted white line,” said Rousseau.

Council members took no action on the survey during their Wednesday meeting. However, several signaled they would continue discussing how future community surveys can better capture the voices of all Bloomington residents.

Starting next week, the city council begins its 2027 budget hearings. The council’s next regular session is September 2nd.

Featured Segments:

WFHB News Correspondent Elena Bai visits Window 85, a new boba shop on Kirkwood Avenue. Bai speaks with the shop’s owner about her decision to open a business in Bloomington, her experiences as a recent IU graduate and her hopes for building connections with the community through the shop.

The annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. birthday celebration happens in January, but in Bloomington a small group of dedicated volunteers work year-round to build what King called the “beloved community.” The Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday Celebration Commission is an official City of Bloomington board promoting justice, racial harmony, and equal opportunity. Brittany Talissa King is a writer who is passionate about exploring American racial issues – you can read her latest piece in yesterday’s Sunday edition of The Herald-Times. As a King Commission member Brittany is now working with the Monroe County NAACP to launch a education project to cultivate understanding and leadership among local students, inspired by the Freedom Schools of the 1960s. Brittany invites you to support the board’s work on a new episode of Activate!, coming your way right now on the WFHB Local News.

Credits:

Today’s headlines were written by Kade Young, in partnership with Cats – Community Access Television Services.
Our feature was produced by Elena Bai.
This week’s episode of Activate! was produced by high school students Juliet Mueller, Virginia Balkcom, Holly Mullins, Matt Fonseca and Cameron Lincoln as part of the IU High School Journalism Institute, where WFHB is proud to be the service learning partner for the Audio Storytelling workshop.
Our theme music is provided by Mark Bingham and the Social Climbers.
Engineer and Executive producer is Kade Young.
Anchors are Andrew Miller and Elena Bai.