Hello, and welcome to Cats Week. I'm Annalise Poorman. The Monroe County Council met on May 12th, and
most of the meeting focused on the debate over the proposed new county jail and justice center at the
North Park site. County commissioners brought the North Park proposal back before the council for a
first reading, with the final vote delayed until the next council meeting. During discussion, Sheriff
Ruben Marte stressed the urgency of moving forward. But I can tell you this.
Every day, every hour, there are people in that facility. But not everybody in this room sees except
for me and my staff. And I'm telling you, it's very difficult. I'm telling you, it's getting worse.
It is getting worse. I can't tell you anymore about the elevator breaking down. I just can't. I don't
know what else to say about that. Down because of the mold. The mold.
me to clean the windows, the bag that I showed some of you three years ago with the filth in there that
some of you didn't want to touch. Those windows now have to be cleaned professionally, which is going
to cost $30,000. I can't save money now doing it myself because of the moment. So when people say you
could go ahead and remodel that place and no,
During discussion, councilmembers questioned commissioners about long-term planning, public transparency,
and whether the county is moving too quickly because of pressure tied to the ACLU lawsuit.
County Commissioner Julie Thomas argued county leaders are balancing both financial concerns and legal
deadlines. I've consistently heard that it's too much money. And it is a lot of money. It makes my eyes
water to think about how much money this is. And that's a huge commitment.
This is a big decision, probably the biggest you'll make as a council member. It's huge. I respect the
gravity of that decision. But we right now are thinking about time. Near the end of the meeting, council
members debated whether to vote that night or wait until all council members could be present for a
final decision.
A motion to approve the North Park purchase failed in a one-to-five vote with council member Pete Iverson
casting the lone vote in favor. The Monroe County Council will cast its final vote on the North Park
proposal at its next meeting on May 26th. The Ellisville Town Council met on May 11th and heard estimates
for resurfacing town streets. Town attorney Darla Brown presented the bids. The first bid is from Lent's page
And the bid is, the total bid for South Deer Run, East Benjamin Street, South Lantern Lane, East Appomattox
Court and North Daisy Drive is $142,515.56. 142-519-56.
The next bid is from Milestone Contractors. Total bid for all five streets is $139,775.03. Final bid
is from E&B Paving, LLC.
Total bid for all five streets is $141,952.25. Councilmembers approved tabling the bids for further
legal review. Next up was discussion on the town's purchases of a street sweeper, dump truck, and pickup
truck for town needs. So the purpose of resolution 07-2026 is simply to state that you're purchasing
the equipment from Sourcewell because doing so offers a substantial savings to the town instead of
soliciting three quotes for each particular piece of equipment. And then resolution 08-2026 is a resolution
to amend the master lease agreement with the People's State Bank to approve the financing of the DPW
equipment. So the town has already entered into the master lease agreement with People's State Bank
on at least a couple of occasions for different equipment. This would simply be an amendment of the
master lease agreement to purchase the equipment and the
Global M4 street sweeper is $382,072. The Kenworth single axle dump truck is $213,272. And the Ford
F-550 cab and chassis is $87,480. The purchase prices of the vehicles was discussed with council member
Scott Oldham, clarifying that the city is taking out loans to purchase the equipment, not lease it.
The council approved both resolutions.
that the global sweeper will be purchased solely out of stormwater utility. And then the two trucks
will be within the DPW split up with the utilities as well. And the money is in the budget lines.
Next, the council discussed repairs to an aerial fire truck, which will cost slightly under $300,000.
Fire Chief Kevin Patton said that the repairs are relatively inexpensive since replacing the truck would
cost around $3 million. He said the repair will take the truck out of service for about six months.
The council approved a loan agreement to pay for the repair. The next Ellitsville Town Council meeting
will be on May 25th.
The Bloomington Commission on Sustainability met on May 12th. During public comment, former commission
member Matthew Austin spoke about composting efforts at the Wonder Lab Museum and upcoming workshops
focused on food waste reduction. Wonder Lab is already starting Bokashi, and they're gonna start teaching
Bokashi. In September, we're gonna be doing a training around Bokashi food-based fermentation. Garden
Quest just had one out at Will Detmer Community Gardens, had I think 11 or 12 households.
And nine of them adopted, or at least started the TRY IT program around that food waste. And then there's
a workshop on June 6th, July 12th, August 8th, I don't know when the September one is, and October on
that. So I'd encourage anybody that wants to be responsible fully for their food waste and to learn
how to turn it into soil quickly to look on either Garden Quest's website, gardenquest.org, or the Community
Orchards website. That's typically one of them.
Austin encouraged residents interested in composting to attend upcoming workshops and learn how they
can turn food waste into soil. During council reports, Dave Rallo explained that the county's moratorium
on AI data centers will expire in July and encouraged local officials to make it permanent based on
environmental concerns. He said no data center projects are currently planned for Bloomington. They
use tremendous amounts of water.
for cooling because any sort of computational process produces a lot of heat. It uses tremendous amounts
of electricity, which drive up rates and so forth. And ironically, most of this is going toward development
of generative AI, LLMs, and eventually AGI, which is artificial general intelligence, which is meant
to replace people.
The commission went on to discuss whether the group should hold more meetings or create additional strategy
sessions because of the growing number of resolutions and agenda items. Some members said one monthly
meeting may not be enough to address the commission's workload. I would like to see us move to two meetings
a month. Maybe we could do like every other month, one's an extra actual business meeting and then the
next month it's a working meeting or something like that, I don't know.
I think we've got an ambitious agenda of stuff and that is good. We should be doing that and we just
don't have time to do it in an hour and a half a month right now. We need more time to work. The commission
also approved a second reading of resolution 2026-03 concerning the pedestrianization of Kirkwood Avenue
and sustainable transportation. The resolution recommends closing Kirkwood Avenue to vehicle traffic
and prioritizing pedestrian access.
It's not an economic development issue. It's a public space and pedestrian and sustainable transportation
issue. So the planning and transportation are better equipped to handle it. And that's the next one.
The resolution passed unanimously. The next meeting of the Bloomington Commission on Sustainability
will be on June 9th.
The Bloomington Arts Commission met on May 13th. Director of the city's economic and sustainability
department, Jane Cooper-Smith, said the city made a new hire for the assistant director of the arts
position, replacing former assistant arts director Holly Warren. Cooper-Smith says that the city cannot
officially announce the name of the new hire, but the expected start date is May 26th.
that we have an accepted offer and potentially a start date of 526, but HR doesn't want us to announce
until it's official. So we'll wait, but we're really excited and looking forward to onboarding that
person and introducing them to you all.
Yeah, I think it'll be good. Vice Chair of the Arts Commission, Christina Elam, provided an update on
Bloomington Convention Center artwork. Elam said the Capital Improvement Board will review recommendations
from the Public Arts Subcommittee before selecting a final piece. The Public Arts Subcommittee met yesterday
and we kind of deliberate and give our recommendation to the CIB and we, it seemed like, not me, but
It seemed like it was unanimous around the same, the Benjamin Ball wisteria installation. The commission
welcomed new members Austin White and Becca Keough. Keough expressed interest in taking over as public
art subcommittee chair and explained why she's interested in the position. I have an art administration
background so I'm working on getting my art degree.
I also have a studio art background and photography. So I love art, love being around public art. So
I would love to just kind of be more around public art and just kind of steering the committee, if you
would let me. So that would be my first time doing it. And yeah, I would just love the opportunity to
kind of get my feet wet on that in front of it. So. So what do you currently do? Oh yeah, I work at IU.
Right now, I'm an assistant director of on-campus recruitment for the O'Neill School, which is SPIA.
And I'm working on hopefully getting a job either at the museum or I just recently applied to the Eskenazi
School, which is where I graduated from with my undergrad. So we'll see if I get a call back for an
interview next week.
The board unanimously voted for Keough to be the new subcommittee chair. The board also approved White
as a member of the grants subcommittee. The Bloomington Arts Commission will meet again on May 27th.
The Bloomington City Council focused on improving pedestrian and public safety during snowstorms during
its deliberation session on May 13th.
Councilmember Dave Rallo said that residents frequently complain about plows driving snow onto already
cleared sidewalks. I get complaints quite often about, especially where people have monolithic sidewalks,
that is, you know, they meet the street at the curb, so there's no grass plot, that when a plow comes
by, it pushes the snow back on the sidewalk where they've already, you know, so it's a constant struggle.
And they feel defeated by the city coming by, especially during large snow events. And I know just from
experience in some states, some municipalities, they have different types of equipment where it's more
like a snow blower type of equipment where they actually lift the snow, put it into a truck side.
Expense and you know, but it might just to have that in mind when we replace equipment It might be a
good direction to go in just to alleviate this. I think this chronic problem Council president Hopi
Stasberg said some constituents believe city fines are too low to encourage apartment complexes and
businesses to adequately clear the snow from the sidewalks
They questioned whether we should increase fines because only having a fine of $50 so that even if somebody
gets fined They wouldn't necessarily get get it a second time and so then that's $50 and especially
a commercial Outfit that's cheaper to pay the fine then it is to hire somebody to actually do the work and
That's like absolutely facts. It's definitely cheaper to pay the fine than to hire somebody to do the
work and So I they found that very problematic and similarly problematic The process of giving a warning
first before the fine and how that resets every year and especially for commercial frequent offenders that
the suggestion that maybe it shouldn't reset every year because it is frequently the same people over
and over and over, or the same companies over and over and over, who never deal with their snow. And
personally, I also see that happening. And it was especially, I think that there are some places that
have done a lot better this last year. I know the administration and the departments have been working hard
advertising, making sure people are aware of their responsibility. And so I've definitely seen some
improvements, but it's still kind of like scattershot. A representative from the Council on Community
Accessibility said that the city often pushes snow into accessible parking spaces during winter storms.
Essentially, there's way more regular spots, yet somehow the snow always ends up in the accessible ones.
And those are already extremely limited. So I feel like we need to come up with a different solution
for that. And also on the street when because they often push the snow into the parking that the accessible
parking is prioritized to be clear before the regular parking. Because again there's a lot less of it.
Parks director Tim Street said that every winter storm brings a different set of challenges for snow
removal crews.
It's very hard to know what to prepare for in Indiana. You know, are we going to get a year where we
have two inches of light slush for the whole winter, or are we going to get what we've had the last
two years where not only does it snow heavily, but the temp drops. And if removal isn't done quickly,
that stuff hardens into something very difficult to remove, which I think has been the situation both
of the last years.
As this was a deliberation session, the council did not actually vote on any items. The Bloomington
City Council will meet for its next regular session on May 20th.
The Monroe County Commissioners met on May 14. Acting Director of the Planning Department, Tammy Bierman,
presented a series of updates to the County Unified Development Ordinance, or UDO. Among these changes
are allowing for schools to be placed in any zone, including industrial and mineral extraction zones.
Another UDO updates aims to add to restrictions on the building of data centers by prohibiting the use
of small modular nuclear reactors in Monroe County. Commissioner Julie Thomas supported this push against
data centers, citing recent stories of data centers introduced into Indiana towns. Obviously, small
nuclear reactors are pretty frightening things.
especially when you take into account not just waste and accidents, but also decommissioning and what
happens if the company goes up and who pays for it and how is it done. There's a lot to it. And so those
are banned or not permitted. And then the data center part that Ms. Bierman raised is really important
because I've
Just this week, I've read two more articles about how a small city lost about half of their water pressure
because they added a data center in their vicinity. And another one, which is tracking the amount of
PFOAs, or forever chemicals, as they're often called, and how the data centers are leaching the stuff
into the environment, which no one really thought about before. The commissioners also voted to approve
a series of contracts for paving projects. Representative of the Monroe County Highway Department,
Lisa Ridge, said that the moratorium on the gas tax has not yet affected the paving program. We might
not see that deduction for a couple of months. So we're just moving forward as is. We haven't cut anything
from our paving program.
And if we have to go in for an additional from our cash, that's what we anticipate. Right. Or something
has to get postponed potentially. Correct. And these contracts allow you to do that if it comes down
to it. Okay. Perfect. The commissioners also voted for an ordinance that would allow the Monroe County
Sheriff to appoint up to three deputies under the emergency appointment statute.
Monroe County staff attorney Justin Roady stated that use of the statute would be aimed at training
correctional staff in the police academy. The statute is admittedly much more designed for what I considered
like the Wild West and the Old West posse. Special deputy and those kind of things, which is not the
intent of what we're using this for. We're using this for the ability to get our correctional staff
trained better.
Even if these correctional staff never utilize it as a merit deputy, there is a value to the jail to
have members of the jail trained through the Law Enforcement Academy, either help the conversations
between EPD, IUPD, merit deputies, and the jail staff to help understand what's going on and what some
of the concerns are. And so that's a benefit even if
this emergency situation where they need to be actually used as mayor and deputies does not exist. So
there is benefit no matter what. The ordinance passed three to zero. The next Monroe County Commissioner's
meeting will be on May 21st. And that is all for Cats Week. Thank you for joining us. For Cats and WFHB,
I'm Annalise Poorman.
for hurting families in Monroe County. A contribution to children who are vulnerable and in need of
an advocate. A staff that goes above and beyond to support and advocate for children in need of services.
The web of remarkable people who are dealing with difficult situations. So many young people that are
in need of help and trying to find a stable family
stable place to live. Without the CASAs, to make that happen, many of them would be unable to find a
good home. I love being that voice for the child who can't speak for themselves in court. It takes me
out of my comfort zone and it also helps others. CASA means supporting our community. Being a CASA is
making sure that your village is healthy and whole and that the children in your village will someday
be able to help the village as well.
A child who doesn't have a voice maybe in their family situation or school situation now has a voice
that can advocate for them. I really enjoy working with children that are going through difficult times
and letting them know that I care about their future. We are privileged with our charge of representing
the best interest of children. And so therefore we can advocate for exactly what they need
without restriction, focusing on their best interest.
I want to repair the world one child at a time.