Okay good evening everybody I would like to welcome everybody and call tonight's meeting
 of the Monroe County Council to order. Today is Tuesday May 27th 2025 and the time is 5.02
 and I'd like to say for the record those that are here council members that are here on the
 dais I'll start over here to my right we have councilors Henry Iverson, Deckard,
 Wilt, and Vital. And so now we will go ahead for all those that are able-bodied to do so
 to please stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
 To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation,
 one God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
 All right thank you very much. Next up,
 we are going to go to item number three which is adoption of the agenda. Looks like
 we do have an amendment for tonight. Auditor's office is asking for us to
 table item 8g which is the health department which was the additional appropriation.
 Before we do that just for sake of transparencies um because we and government like to throw that
 out there um I'm going to look at the auditor Ms. Gregory and say would you like to give an
 explanation as to why we are tabling this discussion tonight? Sure I'm happy to do so thank you.
 Um upon review of this item um it was determined that um it it seems the appropriation being
 requested is for several leftover awards throughout the years not just one so a full
 reconciliation needs to take place and permission from those granting agencies needs to be sought
 prior to moving forward. We also need a new fund number um this is a state fund number and we need
 local fund number for that. Okay and so because our understanding for those of us that serve on the
 Sophia Travis grant committee that that was like four hundred and some fifty dollars that was
 left over from 2020 so it sounds like there's more. Yes I believe um some of it Sophia Travis
 money some of it is CARES grant funding and there was one other grant award that is escaping me
 right
 now. Okay okay so we will go ahead okay so that is an amendment to tonight's agenda that is being
 offered is to table um item 8g and definitely to allow the auditor's office to work with the health
 department um to correct those findings. Is there anything else that anybody would like to amend
 for
 tonight's agenda? Okay and now I'd like to say for the record counselor hawk is joining us at the
 dais so we have all seven of us that are here to do good government work. So um all those that are
 in favor of adopting today's agenda as amended signify by saying aye aye all those opposed same
 sign. All right motion carries so we have table item 8g and definitely. Next up we will go to
 item number four which is public comment. This is where items that are not on the agenda so if you
 are here in the night you hill room you get to come up to the podium here um you speak for three
 minutes and you will have a timer that will tell you um how long you got so you can go ahead and
 speak to items not on the agenda we like to say here in county council that all public comment
 is welcome the good the bad the ugly of all comments so if you have something that you would
 like to say again for items not on the agenda you can come to the lectern here in the night you
 hill
 room or if you are virtual you can raise your hand via teams and you will also have up to three
 minutes so i'll go to the podium here and see if there's anybody that would like to come up
 please don't be shy
 and if you come up i believe there is a sign-in sheet you just go ahead and sign your name
 and you can state your name for the record and you'll have up to three minutes
 jay patel good evening council members thank you for the opportunity to speak today
 my name is jay patel and my wife pina have lived in bloomington for the last 39 years
 we have raised our three children here and all of them went to the elementary school
 and the university in this town for us bloomington is not just a place it's a home
 we are the owners of the economy and on the south side of bloomington tucked away past the croger
 and the high school it's a family-run business and it's been our children's home for the last
 20 odd years before they went on to make a career out of states for decades we've provided housing
 for bloomington residents via the trustee township not just the perry but also bloomington and
 other
 locations we've had construction workers working on major projects for bloomington and iu that have
 stayed for extended services and during the covet time many people had difficulties and that's the
 time when we took care of quite a few people which the township especially mr combs realizes
 on may 16th the tornado took most of our property damaged to the a frame the office and some side
 buildings and there some of them are irreparable but there are two three buildings that are still
 repairable and put back to condition we've heard several several losses from all kinds of personal
 property and vehicles and so on and this is the one business i depend on for my income
 more than 20 residents have been displaced due to the damage of the apartments that we have
 and the town trustee trustee has done all possible to house these people at many different
 facilities
 in town we are doing our best to recover but cannot do it alone today we're asking for help
 in two specific ways support to quickly reopen part reopen parts of the motel with minimal damage
 that is the back apartment building in order to get displaced residents back into housing
 assistance through grants and loans that would help us with repairs and damage of the property
 that would be fully appreciated we're incredibly grateful to the support of friends and neighbors
 in this past week now we're asking for support from our county to help us get back to our feet
 and continue serving the community thank you very much another note i thought i i already
 mentioned to you some council members but something surprising was we spent a day and a half
 gathering
 all the debris and many high school kids were my children's high school friends did all the
 necessary
 and the next morning we were exhausted waking up to say okay now to put it all into the dumpster
 went to do and a young man came by six foot tall and early in the morning and he called me hey hi
 uncle i said who are you and my son stepped out and so he was his best friend from elementary high
 school and everything else and he just said don't worry i'll take care of it next thing you know
 he has some massive equipment there and with grapplers spent a day and a half to two days
 with people and completely resolved all my problems in terms of debris of course now the
 new problems begin but no problem whatever you folks can do to assist not just me but there are
 many other people need help so thank you thank you we appreciate that thank you
 looks like we have another public commenter here go ahead and sign in
 state your name for the record again and you'll have up to three minutes
 my name is bhaveen patel good evening council members thank you for the opportunity to talk
 my father is jay patel and my mother is pina patel who owned the economy in on the south
 side of town i was actually born and raised there and grew up at the economy in in a small
 apartment
 in the in the back of the office so i was born and raised in bloomington went elementary school
 here in montessori uh tri north bloomington north and then eventually at iu and live elsewhere but
 anytime i come back bloomington is home and we've seen that more than ever from this last week and
 a half especially with friends and family coming from california friends who i haven't spoken to
 in many many years but have come out to support us my mother and father have always taught us to
 contribute to society we we do our own thing but contribute to society in the community and we've
 done that with my sisters as well through habitat for humanity through boy scouts girl scouts
 social activities throughout the community and you know serving others even at the motel
 working there when we were younger and growing up seeing the amount of support over this last week
 and a half especially for them seeing the amount of ex-tenants not even current tenants that have
 come by just to check on my father and mother to make sure that they're okay see the property and
 offer any support has been heartwarming we've been lucky enough to get by through friends and
 family
 and the support of the community in the city and now we're offering looking for you know ways to
 amplify that and see how we can have the guidance and support to move forward and open the motel
 and continue serving the community i think they've done a wonderful and amazing job for 39 plus
 years
 helping many people throughout the community i'm sure some of them will come to speak in the in the
 following weeks so we're just looking for support of the council of the city and county in the
 community to help this place get back up and running help my childhood home get back up and
 running and house as many people as we can in a safe and proper manner thank you very much
 good evening um my name is tamby weichel cassidy and i'm here kind of speaking about the clear
 creek
 area and i really appreciate your giving me the time at the microphone this evening to do this
 seeing the post office get just disintegrated has been a really tough journey for me personally
 since my husband and i own the llc that leases to the post office and so we're going through
 some really different types of approvals and things like that and having to you know hire
 professional engineers and architects to basically redraw that building and so those kind of
 additional
 expenses are going to make it tough for us to meet a recovery budget but i just want to bring those
 kind of things to your attention because boy i sure am not the only one i mean if you drive out on
 victor pike and stancifer lane and hide a lane um it's tough stuff to see so if there's any kind
 of um support that you guys can give it's greatly appreciated thank you thank you we appreciate
 that
 good evening good evening i actually already signed in sorry so um good evening my name is
 julie hartesty and i'm a resident of minero county and today i'm giving public comment as a county
 council appointed member of the minero county women's commission currently the women's
 commission's purpose states the commission shall serve in an advisory role to assist residents
 businesses and the government of minero county in addressing issues of gender equity in all aspects
 of society as planning moves forward for the new county jail facility i would like to comment on
 the minero county sheriff's office in jail and justice center pre-design report that was released
 on february 27th members of the women's commission have reviewed the space plans and while the
 decision to increase the overall number of beds to 500 is incompatible with stopping the trend of
 increased incarceration in our county and reducing recidivism of people penalized more for their
 circumstances than crimes committed we do want to acknowledge that this plan includes spaces
 designated
 separately for female inmates for detox bullpen video arraignment waiting medical and mental
 health holding cells and housing units and an inmate worker dormitory alongside that the plan
 also includes designated special housing units in both the male and female medical and mental
 health areas for housing marginalized genders we want to make notice of those plans and point
 them out to you all on the county council so that you can also keep an eye on those designated
 spaces to ensure that if there are budget cuts that require changes to this plan for a new jail
 facility those designated spaces are not part of any cuts and remain in place for the safety and
 dignity of all people incarcerated in our county jail the plan also identifies general population
 housing by number of rooms and beds but does not make note of any separation or designated areas
 for female inmates or other marginalized genders that is 384 of the 500 total beds planned for this
 facility and we would encourage more details be made available to ensure that people incarcerated
 in our county jail who are women and other marginalized genders are ensured the human
 dignity of being safe and who they are and not further punished for how they present
 themselves to the world thank you for your time and attention thank you
 i'm gonna look on teams and i don't see anybody's hands up currently on teams but again if you
 are on teams and you are a member of our public you also can make public comment
 and you can do so by raising your hands via teams um so looking to the audience here in the natu
 hill room if there's anybody else that would like to make public comment again you can come to the
 lectern here um and then last call for those that are online via teams i'll just wait a couple
 of more seconds and see and seeing none on teams um as well as seeing nobody else here in um the
 natu hill room i will say then that portion of public comment for items not on the agenda has
 ended and um as just a sidebar note we appreciate those that came out um to especially those that
 have been deeply affected by the recent tornado um to come out and and speak we greatly appreciate
 that as well as um Ms. Hardesty from the women's commission as well all public comment regardless
 whatever you think about public comment is welcome that is what good public servants do is we
 listen
 to the good the bad and the ugly of that so we appreciate that thank you next up we will move
 on to item number five which is department updates and departments um can give an update
 and you can do that up to 10 minutes so again if you are a department that is here in person you
 can come to the lectern or you can sit at the table here and you have 10 minutes and if you are
 online
 you can also raise your hand via teams so looking in here not seeing any movement
 and also not seeing any hands raised via teams as well um we will go ahead and move on to item
 number six which is the consent agenda items council i move to approve the following consent
 agenda item for may 27th a the highway department's request for a category transfer and fund one
 one
 six nine dash zero zero zero zero local road and street in the amount of two thousand two hundred
 thousand dollars from the supplies category to the services category and item b approval of council
 summary minutes for april 8th and april 22nd 2025 second okay we got a motion and a second are
 there
 any questions from council looking to my left and then look into my right yes councilor hawk
 not just a question but as a reminder the public that the transfer that the highway department is
 making uh is because of the harsh winter that they're putting that some of the projects on home
 and so this is for more funding for paving projects and the flashing and the trail projects
 and that's something i think the public would like to like to know that they're doing well thank
 you
 for noting that for the public okay anybody else have any other questions or comments on consent
 agenda items last call okay and um since we are all here we can do consent consent agenda items
 by voice vote and so all those that are in favor of approving consent agenda items signify by
 saying
 aye aye all those opposed same sign motion carries and consent agenda items are approved thank you
 very much um before we get into our business i'd also like to note we've also if you've paid
 attention to our packet tonight um we've kind of changed it up a little bit to just kind of
 have a better flow of the meeting i know a couple of weeks ago we had a a little bit of a marathon
 meeting here but in order for us to make sure that we are staying to task council member iverson
 and
 myself will try to do a really good job and making sure that we are timing ourselves accordingly we
 are sticking to the items and asking the questions um that are pertaining to the items that are
 presented to us during that time that that particular item is presented and so again each
 department will get 10 minutes to give an update or i'm sorry um to give their presentation and so
 your item or your timer will be listed thanks to tst on the screens here um and once that timer
 is done in 10 minutes we will kindly remind you or we'll give you a warning um and then after it's
 all said and done in the 10 minutes are exhausted um we will definitely let you know and then for
 council colleagues here um we will have about five minutes for a q a and i know we do a good
 job of trying to do a lot of our research ahead of time um but if there's anything that goes
 beyond that time frame then i will look to council members to see if this is an item that should be
 tabled um considering the topic that's at hand again not really trying to tell anybody not
 what to do here because i know all seven of us are all elected um but again it's to help with the
 flow of trying to make the meeting more efficiently and those that are here we can really do the
 business and do it in a timely manner so is there anybody that has any questions regarding this new
 procedure no okay seeing none we will move forward um and then we will go on to item number seven
 which is an ongoing matter that was an item that was tabled from our last meeting council as a
 reminder uh this item was tabled from the april 22nd and may 13th council meetings i move to
 approve
 the board of commissioner's request and fund 4914-0000 showers building operating fund
 the creation of account line 30006 contractual and simultaneously approve an additional appropriation
 of 2500 in the services category second we got a motion and a second i see mr jeff cockrell is here
 and again um lots of conversation that was had at the previous meeting where you sent all of us
 some information related to what some of us were really asking and i hope we've all kind of taken
 the time to digest that over the past couple of weeks but mr cockrell would you like to add
 anything else not not much i think i used my 10 minutes last week and so or two weeks ago and so
 i don't know if there's a whole lot to add other than yes for the the council asked for some
 information about the corporation which i believe i sent that night there are questions about you
 know kind of the statutory framework for how building corporations are formed so i forward
 the memo from a bond council who handles these kind of things routinely so hopefully that
 would address those questions i have not heard any questions that come back through the council
 office so hopefully everybody has a better understanding of what's going on all right thank
 you and i'm looking over here to my left of first to see if anybody has any other additional
 questions from mr cockerel related to this item no i don't have any questions i am looking i think
 everything is included in the packet everything that you sent to us so i would just um note that
 should anybody want to understand the answers to the questions we had that's where they should
 take a look i'll be quick i appreciate very much the additional information that was sent i think
 this item has been well looked at and reviewed per what the council is tasked with doing but see no
 reason that we should delay any longer on the matter simply because i think we got a lot of other
 things pressing on our agenda other than something that has been in place for some time now looking
 over here to my right and counselors have anything to add council hawk yes i did send a question in
 to the council office and they might have tried to answer this and i'm not seeing it though they
 might have i'm seeing that in the balance cash balance available is over 20 000 and so i'm trying
 to figure out why why they don't just pay for this out of the fund dollars that they have rather
 than
 do an additional is there a reason behind that i'm i don't handle this funding so i don't have the
 answer to that question and kim i think you were maybe a part of that discussion or heard it so
 yeah maybe you sent me the answer and i missed it i was busy working on cola stuff and didn't see
 it
 to last um this is a budget that has not been budgeted so this is the first and only item to
 be appropriated so that's why there's nothing in there and the cash balance is 20 000 so it's not
 it doesn't have any other appropriations okay thank you okay anybody else have any other questions
 all right and seeing none um we'll go to public comment if you have a public comment on this item
 please come forward to the lectern here and then that you hill room or you can raise your hand via
 teams and seeing none michelle may we please have oh um okay uh now we have a hand and if you are
 able to unmute please go ahead and do so and you'll have up to three minutes
 hey good evening council uh this is steph muchler a resident of Monroe county um i
 hesitated to make public comment because actually i had been looking at this item in the packet
 ahead
 of time and i admittedly had missed that it was discussed in a previous meeting so i'm kind of
 playing from behind here um but in reviewing the packet uh i had some sort of troubles just sort of
 understanding the function of this corporation and how it sort of all tied in so my original
 plan was to ask for some clarification as to the function but i hear that it may have been
 discussed in a previous meeting um i did review the information that i guess i'm understanding
 that mr cockerell sent in and that information did not really provide the clarification i was
 looking for but you may just say that his statement from a few weeks ago may provide the
 clarification
 that i was looking for and that could help resolve the confusion so thank you so much for your time
 and i appreciate all of you thanks bye thank you all right if there are no other comment
 or public comments then michelle can we please have a roll call vote
 yes yes thank you very much thank you and i would just tell the gentleman who had public
 comment i did not see the memo from the bond council in this packet so maybe if you reach
 out to the council office they could forward to that and i think that would answer his question
 okay duly noted thank you so much mr cockerel thank you all right now we are moving on to
 item eight which is the new business of council and this is coming from the highway department
 council i move to approve the highway department's request and fund nine one zero six dash zero
 zero
 zero zero ccmg or community crossing matching grant the creation of account line two three four
 zero
 zero bituminous and to simultaneously approve an additional appropriation of one million four
 hundred and eleven thousand five hundred dollars in the supplies category second all right miss
 ridge
 welcome good evening um this is basically and dot uh provided us the funds through the po and now
 we just need to appropriate it um because the roads are being paved um as we speak so we just
 want to make sure that the funds are allocated so we can pay the invoices all right anybody that
 has
 any questions or comments from mr ridge mr decker i just want to always take an opportunity when
 lisa ridge is here to praise her ability to have the hot hand with the state in bringing these
 dollars home and they do so much towards those the paving and other projects and it's just huge so
 thank you so much appreciate that and i'm sure we'll be asking for the help and the assistance
 in 2026 so remember that at budget time we could not actually participate in this program without
 that assistance we would not have the budget to be able to match these funds so we appreciate it
 i will just go down the line and i'll go down to um mr iverson uh i ask this question uh sometimes
 and so for the public that wants to know when their road or their street is going to be paved
 where would they find that information um they can contact us at any time we um usually list our
 roads
 sometimes our paving program gets adjusted and it did this year um basically after the harsh winter
 we had to eliminate some roads uh and then we had to add some roads that were completely demolished
 in the winter months um we don't ever promise that anybody's going to get the road paved until we
 have it awarded and done because of those circumstances we keep a list of every request
 we for paving we wish we could pave more but they can contact us we put all the requests into the
 list and then we evaluate them each year for the paving program again it's subject to change
 depending on the weather tornadoes uh it all comes out of one budget um so um yeah they can reach
 out
 to the highway department anytime i see if they're on the list um see if they're on our we've
 already
 started our 2026 list um but we're yeah we're happy to help inform the public anytime great i
 would say that's the number one one of the top requests i get is uh how do i get my street on
 the list absolutely it is yeah i it's yeah it's hard to explain um i usually give some examples
 of roads that we've chosen to be paved so they could go and look at the condition of those and
 we also have to follow an asset management plan that's submitted to LTAP and it's guided by the
 state where all the roads are graded a certain number one through ten um so and we have to go
 through a training now for that um so that's coming up but i think we do a good job of justifying
 what
 we choose to pave has nothing to do with property taxes or what you pay with property taxes it has
 nothing to do with petitions it's the need of the road and the the condition of the road at the
 time
 well said counselor henry you madam president thank you lisa as always i had a chance to speak
 with the steinsville town council president richie last week richie carter and they're very excited
 about the roads being under construction and torn up today so i look forward to seeing all the good
 work up there and uh i mean it's it's putting a whole new grid down it's really great so
 it's uh it matters very much for our rural spaces so thank you for that oh no problem glad to help
 them i'm glad they got their award and everything so counselor hawk yes can you tell us where they
 might look to see what roads are going to be included in this particular one i think we have
 that online we have a different procedure right now for posting on the website and we go through
 the it department it might list community crossing roads we also have a second list out right now
 that
 we're actually open bids on this thursday so we have some more roads to add to it but i'll make
 sure all those roads that are awarded are listed on on the website thank you all right and again
 just want to say thank you or thank you for all the work that you all are doing in the light of
 the recent tornado cleanup as well that should definitely go without mention because you all put
 some major hours in so just want to make sure that i know i said it at the department head meeting
 last week but there's nothing also wrong with saying that publicly so we appreciate all the
 work that you and your staff are doing with that and congratulations on being awarded the grant
 you're very welcome all right uh anybody that wants to make public comment on this particular
 item you can raise your hand via teams or you can come forward to the election here
 and then at you hillbrow and seeing none maybe please have a roll call vote
 councillor hawke yes councillor iverson yes councillor henry yes councillor fiddle
 yes councillor wilts yes councillor crossley yes councillor dekker yes motion passes unanimous
 thank you now we move on to item b emergency management council i move to approve the
 emergency management department's request and fund not 4938-9624 emergency management duke
 grant the creation of account line 22630 supplies and to simultaneously approve an additional
 appropriation of fifteen dollars and 40 cents in the supplies category second all right we got a
 motion and a second i see mr justin baker is on virtually hello good evening council good evening
 yes uh so in 2023 the council uh approved and uh this it was for 5500 um so and it was to purchase
 letter radios for the residents who needed uh working source um so currently we have 15 dollars
 and 40 cents left over for this grant and we are just requesting the approval of appropriation to
 close up this grant for 2023 thank you and looking over here to my right and seeing if
 anybody has any questions on this item for mr baker seeing none and then looking over here
 to my left yes councillor waltz uh yes i think this might just be a quick question for the
 auditor but what's involved in an appropriation to close out a grant what is that translate that
 please i didn't work directly with um mr baker on this however um it sounds like he's just trying
 to utilize the remaining um little bit of grant funding um and so appropriation will allow that
 permission to spend on something besides what we said we would spend it on before right if the
 granting agency has to approve right okay all right thank you okay anybody else anymore all right
 all right and so if anybody has any public comment on this item again please come forward
 to the lectern here in the night you hill room or raise your hand via teams seeing none
 maybe please have a roll call vote
 yes councilor hawk councilor crossley yes councilor deckard yes councilor henry
 councilor iverson yes councilor fein yes motion passes unanimous thank you and now we will move
 on um to item c council i move to approve the emergency management department's request and
 fund 4938-9624 emergency management duke grant the creation of account line 22630 supplies
 and to simultaneously approve an additional appropriation of fifteen dollars and 40 cents
 in the supplies category second all right we got a motion and a second mr baker anything to add to
 this no this was uh just the the 2024 grant and it was for a total of four thousand so we just
 had the six star 45 cents left all right and i'll look over here to my left and see if anybody has
 any questions on this item and looking over here to my right mr iverson uh yeah uh i believe that i
 misread the motion and it looks like item c the additional appropriation is not fifteen dollars
 and 40 cents but it is six dollars and 45 cents uh and i believe the account line should be two
 zero zero one one should i just reread the motion here i'm going to reread the motion council i
 move
 to approve the emergency management department's request and fund 4938-0000 uh emergency management
 duke grant the creation of account line two zero zero one one other supplies and to simultaneously
 approve an additional appropriation of six dollars and 45 cents i see that as a friendly
 amendment second thank you mr decker thank you very much for that just doing a little cleanup there
 all right any other or any questions here from right all right seeing none we will go to public
 comment again if you have public comment on this item you can raise your hand via teams or you can
 come to the lectern here in the night you hillbrow and seeing none may we please have a roll call
 vote
 vote
 councillor hawke yes councillor crossley yes councillor henry yes councillor fiddle yes
 councillor wilts yes councillor iverson yes councillor decker yes motion passes unanimous
 thank you and again just like we told the highway department you all have been in the thick of it
 with emergency management since almost two weeks ago so we appreciate all the work that you're
 doing you and jamie both and trying to clean up in the aftermath of the recent tornado so
 we appreciate that thank you very much thank you all right now we will move on to item d which is
 from the probation department council i move to approve the probation department's request and
 fund nine one four three dash zero zero zero zero jdai coordination the create uh creation of new
 account lines as outlined on the agenda and to simultaneously approve additional appropriations
 of five thousand one hundred fifty dollars in the supplies category and nine thousand eight
 hundred fifty dollars in the services category for a total appropriation of fifteen thousand
 dollars
 second thank you and now we have mr anthony williams here to give his presentation welcome
 thank you thank you back for our annual grant from the doc for our jdi or juvenile detention
 alternatives initiative so one of three grants that we received this one in particular is going
 to focus on office supplies licensing for our computer systems every juvenile that we have
 contact with gets a survey sent afterwards to them where they can provide feedback that allows us
 to
 work with iu on that um and then just committee and work group meetings for this one
 thank you and looking over here to my left to see if anybody has any questions for mr williams
 no looking all right anybody uh just big thank you for taking time to talk with me today i
 appreciate it very much absolutely thank you all right um i guess i did have one quick question
 so i know this is for 25 26 um is there any word that fund and beyond after this will continue to
 get cut a word at this point okay fingers crossed that will not happen okay thank you very much for
 that um and congratulations anybody that has public comment on this item you can come forward to
 the
 lectern here in the natu hillbroom or raise your hand via teams and seeing none may we please have
 a roll call vote counselor crossley yes counselor iverson yes counselor henry yes counselor hawk
 yes counselor wilts yes counselor fiddle yes counselor decker motion passes unanimous
 and we will go to item e council i move to approve the probation department's request and fund nine
 one four five dash zero zero zero zero jdai programming the creation of new account lines
 is outlined on the agenda and to simultaneously approve additional appropriations of eighteen
 thousand eight hundred forty dollars in the supplies category and thirty one thousand one
 hundred sixty dollars in the services category for a total appropriation of fifty thousand dollars
 second all right and same thing here but this is where the bulk of our community work comes in
 you'll see that we have partnerships with uh pals the parent project uh through family solutions
 our truancy termination program at ysb and the warehouse um as well so a lot of great
 work that we're doing in the community with these grant dollars very good thank you um yes
 counselor
 hawk yes uh regarding the the money for pals and do you know how that's going to work out now that
 they've uh don't have a great answer at this point i think it's kind of a wait and see as to how
 they
 repair um and we might have to make some adjustments to the mou and how that hopefully we'll be
 able to
 go on carry forward at some point during the year so the public will know what we're talking about
 you want to describe what pals is yeah so it's the people and animals learning services i had to
 look
 down to make sure i get the acronym right but we um send youth involved uh individuals and non-youth
 involved individuals um to their programming and they provide services to any of the referrals
 that we make um to kind of help youth some families that are struggling um at home
 okay anybody over here to my left got any questions council welch um you've got three
 agenda items here so on one of these i just have to say that um it's a pleasure to see this type
 of funding continue and i really um appreciate all the work that you're doing um in not only
 getting
 the money and continuing that um funding into our county and doing such good work but also the
 reporting that i know that goes along with it it's a lot and it's important and i noticed that you
 shared an annual report of all kinds of things um so we have our reading here um for the next
 few days anyway it looks like but i just wanted to say thanks and and let you know that we do
 appreciate it thank you as many of you probably already know christine mcafee she does all the
 work behind this i'm just the face up here today i did have a quick question so in the spirit of
 collaboration and being the the cats tv nerd that i am i like to watch other government meetings
 um and i noticed um one of the city commissions had said that they partnered with um you all and
 were supported by the jdai grants but i was actually surprised to hear them say that that
 was no longer a thing do you know anything about that i don't i know that we've had partnerships
 but i can't speak as to why they're not a part of it this time that would be a question for
 christine okay but i can try and get you an answer okay i appreciate that thank you all right
 seeing no other questions or comments from mr williams i will ask if there are any um public
 comment that would like to make public comment on this item please come forward to the lectern here
 in the night you hill room or you can raise your hand via teams
 oh and i see a hand raised via teams
 and it looks like it's from miss linda brady
 um we can't hear you
 uh almost
 oh no it's it sounds like we can hear you because the caption is picking it up but it's very faint
 maybe try again
 it's still a little wonky on our end
 miss brady we still can't hear you tst is there anything we can do to help miss brady on her end
 i actually just want to be a cheering section for her team yeah i wanted to give her an
 opportunity to do that so okay all right well we will move on i see fingers waving and hands
 waving so i'm going to take that as a good hurrah that's the new emoji um she's the live emoji for
 her team so we appreciate that all right with all the spirits that we have here michelle can we
 please
 have a roll call vote counselor hawk yes counselor dekert yes counselor crossley yes counselor fiddle
 yes counselor wilts yes counselor henry yes counselor iverson yes and passes unanimous great
 and again we got one more item with the probation department which is item f council i move to
 approve the probation department's request and fund nine one seven six dash zero zero zero zero
 jdai data analysis the creation of account line three zero zero zero six contractual
 and simultaneously approve an additional appropriation of ten thousand dollars
 in the services category second all right mr williams anything to add here
 no counselor or i guess yes counselor wilts commented about our annual report
 for those that didn't get a copy that's always on our website for access but these ten thousand
 dollars directly go to help in that data analysis of that annual report to give you the data that
 we
 do thank you for that explanation seeing looking over here to my right to see if anybody has any
 other questions or comments and seeing none and looking to my left and seeing none all right if
 you public have anything to say about this particular item again you can come forward
 to the lectern here in the night you hillbill room or raise your hand via teams
 seeing none may we please have a roll call vote counselor fiddle yes counselor iverson yes
 counselor henry yes counselor deckard yes counselor wilts yes counselor hawke
 yes counselor crossley yes motion passes unanimous thank you thank you miss james we appreciate it
 absolutely all right since item 8g again was tabled indefinitely um we will move on to the
 courts uh item h council i move to approve the court's request and fund four zero one eight dash
 zero zero zero zero court interpreters the creation of account line three three dash excuse me
 three
 three zero five two certified interpreters and simultaneously approve an additional appropriation
 of six thousand five hundred dollars in this services category second all right we got a
 motion in a second i see miss lisa abraham is here welcome um every year i get a court
 interpreter grant and our time frame now goes july 1st to june 30th i received last year and
 came before you to appropriate a ten thousand dollar grant unfortunately that only lasted me
 three months so i have to wait till three quarters of that time is done so once april i very
 quickly
 i think on day one applied for an emergency grant they approved me for an additional six thousand
 five hundred dollars which is for basically for may and june and then i'm waiting to find
 yeah you have to keep turning okay so i'm here tonight for the six thousand five hundred dollars
 to appropriate and i have an invoice ready to be submitted for half of that just for the month of
 may okay thank you um i'll ask a quick question since you just mentioned it and then i'll look to
 council colleagues here do you know when you will know if you'll be awarded they usually give it to
 me about the middle of june because it goes into effect july 1st so and i applied for that one on
 the first day it became available so i'm impatiently waiting fingers crossed hopefully mid-june you'll
 have some good news for us should be back before you hopefully in july yeah appreciate that yes
 counselor hawk yes the grant normally comes from the state yes and is that a part of the money they
 get from the feds or you don't know i don't think it has anything to do with the feds but who knows
 what if they're going to cut that drastically but they still allowed us to apply for it this
 next time so right i don't know what's going to happen there yeah last year i asked for i think
 25 000 and i got 10 this year because of how much i've spent i've asked for about 45 000 so i have
 three jury trials coming up and each one will be about eight thousand dollars for just interpreter
 bills so i am that and see if you need an additional along the way at what you've had to do right
 exactly so i did on day one so all right any other colleagues over here that have any questions or
 comments from miss abraham okay look to my left anybody all right uh again we will go to the public
 for this particular item any comments to be made on this please come forward to the lectern here
 in the night you hill room or you can raise your hand via teams all right and seeing none maybe
 please have a roll call vote councillor fiddle yes councillor henry yes councillor dekert yes
 councillor iverson yes councillor wilts yes councillor crossley yes councillor hawk
 yes motion passes unanimous thank you all right um and just a point of clarification i think that
 mr dekert has something to say um go ahead thank you madam president i just wanted to really
 quickly point of uh clarification for council linda brady i had a chance to reach out to her
 briefly and she simply wanted to thank christine mcafee who does all that hard work on that jdai
 efforts so joyfully if anyone's ever sat through a presentation she wanted to thank her for that so
 thanks christine mcafee on behalf of linda brady and of course all of us
 thank you for that clarification all right next we will move on to county council business um and
 that is item a looks like we have some unfinished business from two weeks ago that we need to clear
 up council as a reminder this is the second reading of ordinance 2025-14 due to the lack of a
 unanimous vote at the may 13th council meeting i move to approve ordinance 2025-14 readopting
 procedures for awarding community service grants second all right we got a motion and a second
 and i'm gonna look over to miss molly turner king for her insight so i wasn't going to display the
 ordinance unless you would like me to but um this ordinance was presented to sophia travis um we
 talked through it actually this ordinance was not presented sophia travis we talked at the sophia
 travis meeting about what they would like to see as criteria for a citizen appointment and it also
 adds um how the appointment process would occur okay anybody have any questions or comments related
 to this item and i'm looking over here to my left no quiet tonight all right uh looking over here
 to
 my right counselor hawk yes uh while i appreciate that this is a very important thing to many
 people
 in the community uh something that once happened without all of the staff time we seem to have
 tried
 to make a book out of trying to figure out how to make it harder to get through this and i don't
 think it should be this difficult but if you all like all these rules go for it i guess my question
 you would be because i'm confused as to why you mentioned a book um can you clarify what you mean
 by that right i sure can thanks you know in the past this used to be done actually in the
 commissioner's office yours keesling did most of it and it was just boom and we all looked at it we
 said yes or no and now it's like set up and with meetings after meetings and staff time and staff
 time and more staff time and it's right in the middle of budget session and it's like well they
 couldn't get the budget stuff down because they were spending all this time on the sofia travis
 grant things and so i think it should be easier for the public to apply and easier for this council
 to make a decision and just not drag this on forever i mean it is but like i said if you all
 feel better about a zillion rules for it go for it but i just think it should be easier to do
 okay um and as a point of clarification um it is i would think that it is easier for us to do
 because
 we a have not ever been in the history in my four years and maybe i'm a novice but i've only been
 here for four years um the idea of this is a history that we've had 11 people to apply to being
 on a really good social service committee uh to to do this work and so i think we on sofia travis
 myself mr decker and miss vital are trying to make sure that we are doing things and a more
 transformative and uh transparency kind of matter because again we've not had this not trying to
 add
 on anything and of course in our sofia travis meetings if you watch those and you can go back
 and watch those via cats um and look at our notes we are trying to make sure that we're doing this
 in all ways possible and it doesn't seem to take up the time of council staff at least i don't want
 to put the words in the mouth of council staff um and i'm sure like as chair of that committee
 we make sure and i definitely make sure that we are not spending extra time on that and they will
 definitely tell us if we are um so again i definitely with everything happening at the
 state house and how everybody is having to shake up things and spend extra time looking at things
 um i think this is a time where this is okay so that's all i got to say on that um the other
 aspect to this is at the last particular meeting that we had on this since this was an item that
 didn't get unanimous consent and that's why it's back again um we talked about having a committee
 to interview because there are lots of people that are um have applied again and need to be
 interviewed so i think from my understanding at the last meeting miss turner king can you
 refresh our brain and of what we did there that was many moments ago it feels like
 so if the ordinance passes it calls for um three volunteers to conduct the interviews
 so it's not a formal committee but it would be three volunteers so if the ordinance passes then
 the president would request three volunteers to begin um the interviewing process of the 11
 maybe 10 applicants i think one person might have withdrew her application
 yeah i do recall seeing that okay and so i also believe that you councilor iverson that said that
 you volunteered yourself to the tribune for this i feel like i readily volunteered myself
 appreciate that and then i think our other two sofia travis grant committee people are
 people uh members uh councilor decker and vital are you all still good to go with doing this
 good to go okay again once we are done with this we can move on and appoint and do the business
 of sophia travis and and go forth and do good work in the county councilor wilts um i just the
 way i read this it means that every person who submits an application will get an interview is
 that correct um there is no language in here that specifies whether all applicants would be
 interviewed or if the three volunteers would um select a number of applicants to volunteer or to
 interview um the only language is that the president of the county council will select
 three volunteers to conduct the interviews
 so who decides who gets interviewed
 that would be right now it just says conduct interviews um if you'd like to add language
 to allow the volunteers to select who gets interviewed or if all volunteers
 or if all applicants are going to be interviewed i can add that language
 wilson other people if you have any questions i got some hands raised over here
 um i'll go to councillor iverson and then um councillor henry next i want to note that per
 council rules the time has now gone to zero so i want to encourage us to be uh as short as possible
 in the remainder of the conversation or i think that we'll be introducing another tabling vote
 okay and i would not be interested in table in this because we got some work to do so um councillor
 henry uh thank you madam president um i'm overall i'm supportive of what we've done here i think
 that
 um as i as i survey other boards and commissions in the county and how people find their way to
 them in terms of appointments is opaque um and this is while um seven pages uh thorough and a
 good starting block for us to to funnel into you know how we um uh add members of the community to
 this uh board i will say i i am a little lost in how we did the appointment process last week i
 think my name was evoked last week as one of the interviewees but i'm totally fine with passing
 that back to um the the other council members there um as we're sorting through that my only
 question is uh one that i i thought that um maybe councillor wilson i shared about the the document
 about um assuring or reviewing uh for the diversity of the board i think it's not lost on us in the
 county that um the overall diversity of our boards and commissions um is is not as um robust to say
 in the city limits when we compare our partners in the city limits or boards and commissions and so
 i know miss turner king you had mentioned some reticence when we talked about last week have
 you found anything in the past two weeks to add that would allow us to put language in here to
 encourage the committee to appoint folks from our diversity of backgrounds
 i still have legal pause i guess on adding any diversity language but i guess that pause is
 somewhat fact dependent on what language you specifically want to add if it's just an
 encouragement to the apple the individuals conducting the interviews to consider diversity
 factors i think that's fine but if you want to get into defining what factors what what diversity
 looks like on this committee that's where i began to have pause because i think one it's going to
 limit your applicant pool what if we have only one applicant and they don't meet the diversity
 requirements um and then i think they're once we get into defining like you have to be within this
 age or this gender or race that's where i seriously pull back on a legal pause i'll just say i'll
 defer my other colleagues uh that had a question about this that um while i'm sure that that some
 may feel the zeitgeist has changed on encouraging diversity equity inclusion in our boards and
 commissions outside of this county i don't think that's a line that we've crossed here in minero
 county anyway um and so to the extent that we can encourage that in the in the resolution i'm
 for it i just don't have those words tonight but i would defer to my colleagues that might have
 some different ideas about it um thank you madam president thank you looking over here as we wrap
 up
 the conversation counselor decker i don't have a comment on that other than to say um i think
 if i remember recall the list of applicants that had come in uh i did see uh a breath of uh
 different life experiences here in the community and certainly if i were an interviewer i'm looking
 at that in addition to the qualifications that uh have been listed in this resolution i did want
 to say really quickly i think it's very important for us to adopt this resolution because many of
 these recommendations came from discussions with current citizen appointees as part of that
 discussion and i think tonight we saw a really good example of another commission of the women's
 commission appointee coming in to offer expertise and thoughts on a procedure that the county is
 undergoing with our judicial and justice center and that is precisely the kind of thing that you
 want to see happening in a community like this um i think that the fact that we have so many
 applicants for this current year also is a healthy sign and that we're turning the course these
 boards and commissions can't just be things that people run on and then we forget about that they
 have to be things that have true citizen input like what you saw up at the podium like what you're
 seeing with this resolution etc and i think that we're starting to get there
 thank you councillor wilt would you like to share your thoughts i think that um
 i'll be very quick because i know we're over time i i'm probably not going to support this just
 because it doesn't address the concerns that were expressed at the last meeting and by me
 and um i think it if we're going to put something together um it should try to reflect the um the
 need for you know considering diverse points of view and um you know that's it i understand
 where you're coming from um i guess the only thing i'll say as we wrap up on this particular item
 here
 is um in terms of if people are going i would just say as council president and as chair of the
 count
 or of the sofia travis grant committee if we can um do interviews for folks and i would assume that
 that would be up to the interview committee to figure out if you know it's in order if they
 people can do it in a hybrid approach where people could come either in person or um virtually to
 make sure because if folks have taken the time to fill out an application i just want to make sure
 that we are taking the time to interview and look at those qualifications and not saying that those
 interviews have to do or be a long time i myself and my other day job do this on a regular basis
 and i know it can be done in a three-person committee with a lot of applicants so it can
 be done so i just i thank those that are volunteering to the tribune to help with this
 but that would just be my only word of advice to my colleagues here and also to take into
 consideration the different viewpoints that we have because there is a vast majority of people
 that are highly qualified to do this so yeah so i'm good on that all right so if anybody has any
 public comment on this particular item you can raise your hand via teams or you can come forward
 to the natu hill broom here at the lectern here and seeing no movement in the room and looking
 at teams and not seeing any hands raised um may we please have a roll call vote
 counselor iverson yes counselor fiddle yes counselor hawke no
 counselor will now counselor henry counselor crossley yes counselor dekler yes motion passes
 majority five to two thank you very much um now we will move on to another item that was tabled
 regarding the ksa conversation which is item b council as a reminder this item was tabled from
 the may 13th council meeting so i today move to approve resolution 2025-24 regarding a pause of
 the knowledge skills and abilities procedures okay we got a second and i'm gonna look at the
 dream team table over here um michelle and miss molly turner king would you like to add anything
 to this conversation um all i will add is as a reminder this resolution um ultimately if passed
 will temporarily suspend the knowledge skills and abilities practice or policy so that department
 heads can may no longer submit for consideration a request to hire applicants at the three or eight
 year level um salary level um it will make it so that any applicant hired is going to be hired at
 the minimum base salary as identified in the salary ordinance okay and i know we had a lot of
 conversation um about this and we got some items that were sent to us um via staff so i'm going to
 look over here to my left to see if anybody has any questions or comments looking over here to my
 right counsel iverson i remain in favor of this resolution uh i think that this is something that
 we've discussed at length uh to signal to our colleagues and partners in county government
 that we are facing incredibly strong fiscal headwinds and that we are taking this very
 seriously i also think that this resolution is uh written in such a way that uh the temporary
 nature of it uh signals that we will get through this and that we're going to get through this
 together uh and uh that's those for those two reasons uh i am in support of this resolution
 okay councilor henry i think councilor hawk had her hand up both of you raised it up at the same
 time
 all right i'm sorry oh no we're just going to my tunnel vision today um i guess my only follow-up
 question from commentary last week is we we had some discussion back and forth about some
 additional
 column or data about um some of the uh specifically some of the ksa positions that um
 if people had come in at a higher level and then had left county service and i i'm sorry
 they're just all escaping me right now but mr king you had my questions from last week
 did you have additional data points to share on this from our due outs from the last meeting
 i've requested michelle to share data that um our employee services put together and i think all
 council members um received in advance of tonight's meeting and i think that might address your
 questions um we'll check for it given we had a tornado between the meeting and last time but
 yeah i'm not blaming the tornado but i may have missed it right let me take a look thanks
 okay councillor hawk i know you had your hand up would you like to add to the discussion
 well i just wanted to reiterate uh something that you know we're paying for for financial advice
 and his his advice was to put things on pause and so that's why i support let's pause this and see
 where we're going to be because we still don't know what our projected revenue is going to be
 for next year so okay councillor wilts by that by that logic would
 it seems as though we would consider a hiring freeze entirely but we're not doing that right
 correct councillor henry yeah thank you um michelle are you able to put the the excel up the of the
 the excel that has the extra data on it on that's the ksa employment data just so we can take a
 look
 at that and while that's coming up i agree with um you know the sentiments of councillor hawk and
 councillor iverson that that you know i'm in favor of the resolution i just think that having the
 data
 and the public eye here will help to make that case clear for folks um as i'm looking at that top
 where the hires per year i think that tab
 yeah there's per year okay maybe i have a different if you scroll down to the employment data is a
 5 20 to 20 25 that one yeah so like we're on pace right now we're um 2025 the number of ksa's
 percentage of hires is 38 i mean this will definitely throttle um where we are for the
 remainder of the year it seems like there there seems to be a trend line here of um
 quite a few ksa hires um in this year versus previous um i think it's just worth taking a
 look at there as we're um taking a vote but thank you madam president okay anybody else have
 anything
 else to add to this discussion regarding ksa's michelle miss turner king would you like to add
 anything okay consular decker i i've remained still a little skeptical that this is the fruit that
 we're looking for in in our dilemma and i also worry a little bit i appreciate this data very
 much i also worry a little bit that a high number on that 38 percent is indicative of a high need
 and i always go back through the history and context that come from past service but i can
 remember a time during the pandemic when we struggled mightily around retention the word
 retention bonus was literally a thing that came out of this council we were in here and they were
 trying to take down the tree i think for the year and we were still trying to figure out how to
 keep
 employees and i i i don't know anything solidly but i worry just a little bit that that we may
 not get the fruit that we need and we may start cutting as we used to say when i was a kid we're
 cutting the fingernails to the quick around the wrong area to cut so i i appreciate the sentiment
 of trying to figure it out i'm just not sure i'm a yes on this one okay
 okay anybody else have any last comments regarding this item so just to ask a question then for
 councilman dekard would you be then in favor of keeping the ksa so that people could get higher
 hiring in higher wages i'm bringing in what are you saying well what i'm i'm saying is when i see
 that number they're using it for a reason i mean we had how many do we have last time last meeting
 three to four ksa's and i'm not saying that's indicative that of anything other than they're
 using this to attract people i mean last literally in the last budget year what we heard from our
 prosecutor and beth hamlin's here so correct me if i got it wrong shake your head vigorously
 know if it's the case but she essentially said she can't get she can't hire an attorney to
 prosecute the cases before the community uh the sheriff often is in here on various things saying
 he's trying to find the the best deputy um i just i i worry i worry that this ksa is not going to
 give us the budgetary fruit and it's going to hurt the hiring ability leverage that our department
 heads have and we've spent so much time around that over the year since at least 2019 me sitting
 here that i worry that this is not quite the the fruit i'll follow as councilor hawkoffin says i'll
 follow the will of the council but i'm not i'm probably a no on this resolution although i
 appreciate the sentiment sorry to go so long oh but it is temporary and have i got that right
 this resolution is a temporary resolution yes so it could be brought back right so maybe there
 might be value in thinking about um doing it and then if you have trouble then bring it back and
 try to do something else or is there not value in that i would be in favor of again kind of going
 back and and listening to a lot of different things and it looks like our council attorney had
 her hand up i was just going to say that the resolution does automatically expire expired
 um the end of december of 2025 unless amended prior to that date by the council
 so basically what we're saying is if there is a vote today that expresses that we will pause ksa
 the resolution is set just like other resolutions that we've done earlier this year
 will set to expire at the end of this year unless we bring if we you know do this we pause it
 and we find that departments are having issues with trying to hire people we can revive this
 and bring this back you could either amend it to end it earlier you can extend it or just leave
 it to sunset in 2025 okay councillor henry thank you madam president i i i appreciate
 where this conversation is going because ultimately uh one variable here is if we um in a few weeks
 once we start taking a look at the local income tax uh from the state and how we're going to be
 able to use that or not in the next year that may give us the the strategic pause to get over uh to
 say look you know based on forecasting we might actually be in better shape than what we thought
 we were going to be in in january and so i don't i mean passing of this today does not in my mind
 mean that it is the rest of the year it means that we're buying some time until we really
 understand our our fiscal forecast which i know is going to require at least some uh adjustments
 from the state house to fix anyway before we get into what we think the lip is going to provide us
 locally so i'm okay with buying time and very okay with revisiting this resolution once we have
 more
 clarity so thank you madam president yeah thank you and the only thing that i would add to that
 before we move on a public comment is the fact that again in the long-term finance committee
 he did express the concern of us continuing on to do this again this isn't something that is set in
 stone if that is the will of the council that we do this and this gets passed where we pause this
 but if we again the state is leaving us no choice to figure out what we can do and we might do this
 and we might say hey this isn't something that is working um and again as it was discussed we can
 you know possibly bring this back for an amendment again we got to figure out stuff
 because the state is basically leaving us alone um at this point so that's all i would say to that
 so all right so i'm going to go to public comments so and we got a hand that is already
 raised so again if you have a public comment on this particular item you can come forward to the
 lectern here in the night you hill room or you can raise your hand via teams and since we already
 have a hand raised via team and i see it is our prosecutor that has her hand up i'll have you
 unmute and you can go ahead and speak thank you so much erica elephant prosecuting attorney um i
 you
 know i really appreciate the council um being good stewards of our public funds i don't envy the
 positions that you're placed in right now um but i really would bc to to reconsider um getting
 rid of the ksa i understand this is a pause i understand that you mean for it to be temporary
 but this ability has allowed me to hire deputy prosecutors with experience they don't often need
 to be trained in the law but they just have to be trained in the local culture and policies um you
 know the person that you approved for me two weeks ago has already demonstrated an abundance of
 skill
 in trial with jury selection is already serving as a mentor to younger prosecutors in my office and
 that's this is week three of that person's employment um this is not a dollar for dollar value i
 mean i
 just can't um i can't get by with paying people less than their worth and unfortunately i'm still
 doing that even when i do get approved for ksas because state attorneys are paid much more than
 county attorneys unfortunately and i understand that's just because they're in a different fiscal
 position counsel's been really generous to me to hear me out um but it it's just so difficult
 to prosecute a very complicated sex case very complicated drug case homicide crime of violence
 anything like that um when you're straight out of law school and you've never seen the
 inside of a courtroom and so um it really puts a huge burden on those of us who do have experience
 when we have so many newer people trying to handle these caseloads um you know i've had a lot of
 experienced attorneys apply in bulk at the entry level salary i just will you know we will have
 less experienced folks working in the office if if we're stuck and i'm kind of panicking at the
 moment because i have a deputy prosecutor leaving her last day is june 13th i've got to replace her
 and i'm not gonna be able to offer a ksa it sounds like and um you know that person's in a very
 important caseload the juvenile delinquency caseload that really works hard with the juvenile
 detention alternatives initiative to make sure that we're using restorative justice and
 alternatives
 to juvenile incarceration and it just takes somebody who knows something about the system
 and the and the law to really um do that effectively and to implement the sort of policy that i
 think we
 want to see in this county um and you know it's just going to take a lot more um supervision and
 hand holding if i can't offer a higher salary to somebody with more experience but i appreciate
 your time you listened to me a lot last week and i'm almost out of my public comment time so thank
 you so much and good luck with the coming year i'm sorry thank you um anybody else that would like
 to
 make a public comment on this again you can raise your hand via teams or you can come to the lectern
 here and then at uville room can i still speak or our time up here um i'll allow as long as we don't
 have anybody else i will default to you and then we'll move on to a roll call vote i know erica
 mentioned or the prosecutor mentioned that she's wanting to hire one it seems with that ability i
 wondered if there was a way to get any clarification of any more needs that she thinks she might
 have
 upcoming
 and i guess that other question um to council staff is do we have any more people in the pipeline
 asking for ksa request no we do not
 okay
 right well now that we've heard all that we've heard and exhausted conversations regarding this
 we got a hard decision to make so can we make uh can we please have a roll call vote
 councillor iverson yes councillor crossley
 yes councillor deckard no councillor fiddle yes councillor wilts no councillor hawke yes
 councillor henry yes motion passes a majority five to seven or five to two sorry five to two
 okay so that means that we are officially in a ksa pause unless we find it a need
 for the council to bring it back for an amendment okay thank you all right um moving on to item c
 this was uh this is the cola conversation that we tabled at our last meeting and this was a time
 for
 council staff to prepare the percentage versus the flat rate data that we all have been given in
 front
 of us uh today and so i'm going to pass it over to michelle to see if she would like to provide
 uh a brief overview of what we have in front of us
 packet, the fiscal impact estimates. Council approved for 2025, 41,155,881 in salaries.
 If Council goes with a percentage of 3% and this is based on our CPI from December, that
 would cost $41,969,095 or a difference of $813,214.
 If you did a flat rate of $2.28, it would cost $42,153,329, which is a difference of
 $997,448. The fiscal impact, which is what I -- let me pull that up. What I did was I
 went through all of our personnel, found out where they're at currently, where they're
 being paid, and then I attached them to the classification with regards to their step
 increase for next year. So, as you can see, this is a 35-hour grid, and I'm looking at
 the Comet Bs. We have 10 people at the one year, 16 at the three year, six at the eight
 year, two at the 14, and four at the 20 year. And then it's going to cost, just for that
 one classification, right there is $1,737,636. If you slide over with the same numbers, here's
 the flat rate at a 35-hour, which is $1,827,000. So, I tried to give you the best guess based
 on the information that I currently have of how many people we have where, and what it
 will cost overall. Based on last year, what we budgeted for salaries only, this does not
 include PERF, and it does not include FICA. This is just straight salaries.
 Okay. Thank you to council staff for doing all of that. That's a lot of work to put together.
 So, we definitely needed that. So, thank you, Michelle and Ms. Moser for putting that all
 together. Looking to the gallery here, and trying to look at my colleagues to see if
 anybody has any questions. I'm going to start over here with Councilor Iverson.
 My first question after seeing the spreadsheet that was sent out, which again, thank you,
 that's a lot of work that you and Courtney Moser put into it, was this concept of compression.
 How do we tell whether or not, if we've been doing flat rate, flat rate, flat rate, flat
 rate for years and years and years, the difference between what a Comet and a PAT makes gets
 to be very, very close, reducing the incentive for someone to take a job, a Comet job, because
 they could make the same amount, or vice versa, excuse me. So, that's one end of the spectrum.
 The other end of the spectrum is low compression, where the difference between a Comet and
 a PAT is wide apart. And my question to council office was, how do we tell? What are the metrics
 that we use to tell how compressed we are, and could that give us an indication of whether
 we should lean towards flat or we should lean towards percentage? And Michelle, I think
 you distributed this list, and I was wondering if I could ask you to walk us through that.
 No? Okay. No. Or I could. That's okay. I'm just trying to find it so that I can. Okay.
 This is me eating up all five minutes so no one else can talk.
 I think another topic, as long as she doesn't have to look up anything.
 So this afternoon, I just quickly tried to put something together just to show where
 we're at currently with regards to the percentages between the Comet and, as you can see, like
 a Comet and a Pact, it seems like there's a lot of concern. What I hear is that, you
 know, a high Comet person, you know, paying person, is maybe making almost as much as
 a Pact. And as you can see, right now, the current compression is at 79%. And so if you
 do a 3%, it's going to keep that compression the same, but if you do a flat rate, it's
 going to raise that to 81%, which means when you reach one, or, you know, like a total
 of one or 100, the Comets and the Pacts are going to be paid exactly the same. There's
 going to be no difference in that. So, and like I said, I just kind of threw this together
 just because of, you know, there's talk of the compression. So between a Comet and an
 EXE, you can see that there is a definite difference in this kind of thing. It's if
 you start adding the flats and you do a flat, you know, for over several years, which Council
 in prior years had done that, and that caused some compression, and then that's when we
 had to have WISC come in and do a salary evaluation as well as the job descriptions. And so that's
 when we came up with the new grids back in 2021 for 2022. So we've since 2021 have stayed
 with a percentage moving forward, except for a few classifications that you've given a
 little bit of an additional flat rate too. So that's why you can see just a wee bit of
 some compression with regards to the comets versus the Pats, and a little bit with the
 LTC versus the Pats. Everybody else is, in my opinion, is okay. If you go with the flat
 which, you know, and I don't know how, you know, FSG feels about that or anything. But
 if you go with the flat, I wouldn't do that again for at least several years, you know,
 just just so that we don't get into that mess where we're going to have to do another salary
 review again. Because again last year we did the flat. You did a flat to the comet section
 only. Got it. Got it. We did a percentage. You did a percentage and then on top of that
 percentage you gave the comet an additional flat amount. Got it. On the hour. The bottom
 line. Got it. Okay. That answered my question. Okay. Thank you. Did that answer your question?
 I don't have any further follow up. I want to hear what other counsels have to say. I
 have a question about the wage compression. So when I think of wage compression, I look
 at a classification and the range that classification pays. Is that fair analysis? Okay. So I guess
 I'm not sure. I mean, I've seen lots of salary ranges in my dealings with things. And I know
 that there's some overlap, right? So I guess I'm more interested in what the wage compression
 will do with each individual range, if that makes any sense. So is that what this tells
 me, this chart you gave me? Yeah. Okay. This is the percentage versus the flat.
 Yeah. Okay. Do you understand kind of what I'm saying?
 Yes. Okay. So if, so if you have, let's say for round number purposes, let's say you have
 20 employees in, let's just call them numbers, level one, you have level pay range one, you
 have 20 employees in level one. And so now if you give the flat rate raise, then that
 is bound, depending on where everybody falls in that range of their salary range for that
 level one, it very well could put many of them very close to people at the top and skew
 that whole range off a lot of where they fall in the range. So that's what I'm trying to
 get at here. That make any sense to everybody? Yeah, I guess so. So this is my grids that
 I had and for Comet B, for the 2026, and this is the 3%, that amount, just we're saying
 one person across, okay? So that is the total across, if you had one person in each one
 of these categories, that's it. And then so then I took and divided, you know, put all
 those together and divided out and came up with, it would be a 13.8% for that whole classification
 right there. I don't know if I'm actually getting what you're, you know, trying to say,
 that there would be a, if it's equal across, I mean, you're not going to have much of a
 compression if you, if everybody gets the same thing across in a classification, if
 they get it equally.
 So then do, let's say there's a salary range in a classification, so then do the salary
 ranges go up along with the percentage or the flat rate?
 Yes.
 They do.
 Okay.
 Yeah, everything goes up.
 So like those years-
 The whole grid goes up.
 Yeah, the whole grid goes up.
 Okay.
 So if everybody gets 3%, the whole grid goes up 3%.
 If we're going to do $2.28 on the hour, the whole grid goes $2.28 on the hour.
 So it's not just an individual classification, so I don't see that a lot within the classification.
 What I see is when the compression is between the classifications themselves.
 So I think I'm with you now, but I think for me, and I'm ready to switch topics if I can,
 I'm interested in what it's actually going to cost, and so from what I can tell the $2.28
 an hour for everyone will be more cost to the county than the 3%, is that right?
 Yes.
 I've got that figured out, okay.
 So I think this is a tough year for a lot of reasons, and we just lessened the KSA ability,
 and so I feel funny about doing that and then going ahead and paying more actually at the
 flat rate.
 I understand.
 Councilor Wilts.
 I guess that kind of begs the question for me of why we have this dichotomy of 3% and
 $2.28 when the world is our oyster to some extent on we could say a flat rate of $1,
 we could say a percentage of 2%, or I mean, we could do other things, I guess, and basing
 it a little bit on what we feel is coming in, which I know we don't have a lot of very
 specific information yet, but this is typically why in the past we've left it at zero and
 then made the decision later, which I get is what we're trying to avoid because that
 makes it hard on folks doing the math, but I don't think we have to necessarily limit
 ourselves to just these two numbers.
 Where did the $2.28 come from?
 I don't think I know that.
 What I had to do is I took a payroll report and I had to dissect it down into how many
 employees, how many hours and the hourly rates and then I had to take it and do all of this
 math and everything to come up with the average hourly rate, multiply that against the percentage
 and then that's how I came up with the dollar amount that would equal a 3%.
 So it's the equivalent.
 The numbers don't work out if you multiply it out what it's going to cost though, right?
 No, and they won't.
 They never do.
 Okay.
 A percentage is always going to be different than the flat amount when you add it specifically
 to each hourly rate or the 3% to each hourly rate.
 I see a hand over waving at me here, so Councilor Henry.
 Thank you.
 So I agree with Councilor Wilson.
 The world is our oyster.
 I think there's a few different oysters to take a look at, and I've kind of taken this
 as sort of a sketch of where we can go, but I was kind of side barring with Councilor
 Hawke here, but isn't this fund dependent as well, depending on what revenues we're
 going to see in different funds?
 So there may be departments that are going to feel really stressed with this percentage
 point versus other, can you maybe give me a sketch of what you think the fund impact
 would be?
 I can't do that right now.
 That's fair.
 I mean, yeah, just ballparking.
 No, I can't, because then I would have to go back in and figure all of that out, but
 I don't have that in front of me, but I can get it, but it's just a different look.
 It's a little more granular, but it may help us see that.
 I can't say that any department heads have reached out to me, but I'm aware that some
 department heads have started to show some concern about the funds and how this may be
 a bit of a challenge for them versus other departments.
 Thank you.
 Yeah, I think departments that are heavy in employees and not many other expenses will
 find this difficult, in my opinion.
 Councillor Hawke?
 Yes, I think the original question was, what is this going to cost?
 I think that's what I heard in that last meeting.
 And so, it's pretty easy for us to think it would be easy until we have to really work
 the numbers.
 But what I'd like to see is, this is how many employees that we pay for out of the general
 fund, okay, and then how many in the healthy part, all the ones that are inside the frozen
 living, because we know that our increase is going to be tied to all five of those units
 inside that frozen living.
 And that's where we're talking about what it's going to cost us for the raises for everybody
 inside the frozen living.
 We know the highway department is not paid within that frozen living.
 So it would only make sense, let's say, if you've got 450 people that's inside that frozen
 living, then you figure out what that percentage is.
 Now I get it that the whole compression thing, but if we're just, if we're saying we're going
 to give everybody a $800 one year raise, go ahead and laugh, but we've done that before.
 Whatever it is, then you take the $800 times out for many people and you kind of get an
 idea of what you're going to do.
 Now maybe that's where the whole compression thing causes a problem, but there's got to
 be some way, I mean, we're sitting here saying yes or no, and we really don't know what it's
 going to cost us to do yes or no.
 You know, the highway is not funded with property tax, but with gas tax, et cetera.
 And normally, the domain has to always do the way we've always done because, you know,
 it's a whole different method of doing it, but it has been in the past that if we couldn't
 afford to give the rest of the people a raise in county general or wherever, then we couldn't
 afford to give the highway raise, or if what we could do for the county general, we can
 give them a 3% raise, 2% whatever it was, that's sort of what we brought along the highway
 with as well.
 I'm not saying that was the right way, but, you know, but at some point in the other,
 we don't need to know what the dollar amount is, and I don't see it.
 Yeah, I want to bring this back to the reason why we're discussing this tonight is because
 there is a budget letter from the president that goes out every single year to the departments
 telling departments what to expect.
 That letter has not gone out yet.
 We are three months away from our first budget hearing, almost to the day, and we also know
 that departments are going to be looking at Form 144s and the personnel workbooks becoming
 available in just three days.
 So we, if we're going to, the reason why I think it's important to have these conversations
 tonight is we do need to come to some type of a consensus this evening so that the president
 can send that letter out to the departments telling them what to expect as they're completing
 their budgets.
 And so there is, I think, a little bit of an urgency to come up with some type of a
 decision before we leave this evening.
 Okay.
 Councilor Decker.
 Thank you very much.
 I have heard some comments from folks that appreciate the effort to kind of get ahead
 of this now versus the fall, figure it out.
 And then we have the intense COLA debates that we've had in the past, and I kind of
 appreciate thinking outside the box, Madam President.
 When I have looked at this, and I also kind of have the, where's the 228 versus the 3%
 come from?
 And I understand that's an effort to try to make those on par with each other.
 I am worried that despite Michelle's good answer, I am worried a little bit about the
 flat rate getting us into some long-term compression issues that sort of manifest.
 I remember Margie Rice when she was working for us and not the city just saying over and
 over about the WISP process, how that emerged.
 And I remember, my gosh, how much we spent on that, both time and treasure to try to
 get it right.
 So the flat rate makes me a little bit cautious.
 Even as Michelle said, you don't want to do that then for several years, well, it tells
 me that it might be doing a little bit more.
 I wonder on this percentage option, if we were left with that, because the president does
 need to issue a letter and give guidance.
 That must happen.
 Having been in that role, that's got to happen because that's given her stress, them stress
 and everybody else.
 I'm wondering if the percentage role is where we get a chance to get a little bit to some
 of the fruit that helps us prepare potentially for the end of this, if that percentage came
 down just a little bit and if that percentage gave advice to departments to plan on that
 at a lower rate so that they weren't so stretched on the back end, trying to figure out how
 they were going to cover things.
 I also offer this.
 In my head, two to two and a half maybe starts to do something there and I'm just throwing
 that out.
 Given that, I will say this, I don't believe that because there are so many unknowns, I
 don't believe we'll have a number and then that ends percentage calculations because
 we have had to go back to the mat for less of good reasons and I think because so many
 things are unknown and the president's letter does need to go out and we do need to not
 be in the past of what we've done among all the change, I throw all those out.
 If a smaller percentage gives departments flexibility to work within this figured out,
 nothing we do here anyway until that budget is adopted means 3, 2, 2.5 or beyond, none
 of it means it because we could get into a drastic situation anyway and still be adjusting
 that but the president does have to issue a letter, they've got to go figure out what
 they need to figure out and that gives them the ability to do that, come back in here
 and say council, if you lost your mind, council you're doing a marvelous job, council we need
 to move this, that or the other and I kind of throw that out for some entertained thought.
 No, that was a perfect segue to what is the will of the council because again working
 with council staff we just thought that this would be a good idea to do this in a different
 type of way, again whoever sits in this president seat next year can do it completely different
 but and it's a challenge, I'll tell you that much, it's a whole lot of personalities and
 a whole lot of conflict to say the least and we're only month almost six into this.
 So anyways, because I can say I could write a whole book or Mr. Askins write an article
 about it.
 So that being said, again, just trying to think outside the box of what it is that we can
 do so we can give guidance to department heads, you know, do what is the will of this particular
 seven body member right now so that we can move forward with this particular letter.
 I would be interested in doing a percentage at or below 3%.
 I would, my understanding is that it's not any easier for our office.
 If we don't stick with what we pick, right, so no matter what we pick if we change it
 at all, they still have to go back and do all the math.
 That is why I just always went with let's keep it flat so that we don't, it's just
 easy to see what changes there are, and that was also my, you know, my own convenience
 too.
 So I'm not advocating that necessarily.
 I'm just saying that whatever we pick, if we change it, it still makes it, it hasn't
 saved them any time.
 I feel that 3% is a little high.
 I am very concerned about our ability to do this.
 You hear me on almost all of these types of discussions.
 I'm always a little, you know, more conservative on the spendy things.
 So you know, I think a 2.5 would be reasonable.
 Okay.
 Councilor Wilts has spoken and I see the right side of me is jumping over here.
 So I will go with Council Iverson and then I'll go down the line here.
 Madam President, I would join Councilor Wilts in a recommendation for percentage increase.
 I would recommend a 3% because I believe that our staff deserves to have meaningful compensation
 to fight against the inflationary pressures that people are feeling every single day,
 whether it's the grocery store or in other areas of their lives.
 And I think that is a useful benchmark that we can give folks.
 It's really clear.
 And I also think that the way that we've set this up, where we're going to departments
 and saying we're setting it at three, that's the benchmark.
 Now let's work together with your liaisons to get your budgets in right order.
 I think that makes a lot of sense to me.
 So I join Councilor Wilts in a percent.
 Okay.
 Councilor Henry, did you have anything to add?
 I mean, based on the draft letter, I have no changes to that document.
 I would accept it as is.
 Okay.
 Thank you.
 Out of curiosity, does anyone recall what the state, I see a hand over there.
 I received notification from the court's administrator that the judges and the prosecutor elected
 officials are going to be at zero.
 I have not heard anything yet as of for probation officers.
 So I'm still waiting on that information.
 But the judges and prosecutor who we have tied our, our sheriff as well as our public
 defender people will receive zero for 25 to 26 fiscal year.
 Wow.
 That should tell us something, folks.
 The other thing that I would add to that is we did hear again, we have FSG, we have a
 long-term finance committee meeting for, and committee members for a reason, and we did
 hear Mr. Garrett to say at the last part of that meeting back in April that the average
 in what he's telling people is the 3%.
 I agree with Councilor Iverson that I think we've already heard and we've known that government
 and Monroe County government employees, former employees have left to go to other places
 and are competitive with the city.
 So I think that, again, while we are still playing ping pong of guess what number we'll
 play today, I think I would be comfortable with doing the 3%, the 3% to just kind of
 go from there.
 So...
 Yes, Michelle.
 I just want to say in the past we've always said a flat rate with regards to when you
 budget, you know, you tell everyone budget flat, budget flat, well, when we put those
 numbers into LOW and we give them back to you, it does not show what our actual budget
 is because it's not including any COLA.
 If you do set a percentage now, at least you can see this might be how much it's going
 to cost our budget.
 And so, you know, to me, that's going to give you a lot better number than in the middle
 of budget sessions, you're looking at it and going, hey, oh, you know, hey, we've met our
 amount, but no, not really because you haven't included the COLA in those amounts, which
 then if you include the COLA, it's going to change your PERF and your FICA.
 So to me, putting something at the beginning, like I'm requesting you guys are talking about,
 I think is going to actually give you better numbers when we get into the budget sessions.
 My opinion.
 And I appreciate that.
 Again, this is just what we're doing right now is not set in stone.
 There's no resolution, no ordinance that says that this day moving forward, that's how every
 single council president beyond me will continue to have to do this.
 This is just a way of us trying to stay ahead of that eight ball and just trying to be a
 little bit more transformative in our thinking when it comes to a budget cycle.
 Councilor Decker.
 Madam President, with that in mind, I'd move that the council support a president's letter
 with a 3% COLA to be prepared and sent so departments may begin.
 All right, we got a motion and a second.
 Any final discussion on this?
 Councilor Hawke.
 Yes, I support us moving forward with something because staff needs it, the people out there,
 all the departments are sitting there and they have theirs up against it trying to put
 this together.
 We do a lot of this work, each department.
 So I think we should move forward with something.
 I'm not sure we can do the 3%, I mean, I'd like to say 5% if we got, but at any rate,
 let's get some numbers together.
 Let's get the departments putting their requests together and see where we are on it.
 So will the letter say something about the fact of 3% initially or 3% subject to change
 or something like that?
 It's always a proposed, and so it's never set in stone until after we get to our last
 budget session.
 Love it.
 Correct.
 Yes.
 So anybody watching, this is not set in stone at all.
 This is just a proposed thing for us to give department heads to go ahead to get the ball
 rolling and numbers out.
 All right.
 Any other questions or comments?
 And I, again, just appreciate us moving forward with this.
 So maybe please have a-- do we have to do public comment?
 All right.
 Maybe-- And you can do a voice vote.
 Oh, OK.
 All those in favor of the president's letter to go out with a proposed 3% for the 2026
 budget letter signify by saying aye.
 Aye.
 All those opposed, same sign.
 All right.
 So ordered.
 So Michelle will send that out to department heads.
 And again, this is where I think Council Iverson said this, and it also talks about this.
 We talked about this in the department head meeting last week, is trying to work with
 your liaisons.
 We have done this before.
 Again, I know everybody can reach out and touch everybody's hand as much as you can.
 But again, we can all do, like I said, the good book says we can do all good things.
 But I would really ask for us this particular year, if you've not heard me beg and plead
 enough, is to work with your department, with liaisons, and two liaisons really working
 together to make this work, because again, we're out here fending for our lives.
 So with that being said, I appreciate all the questions, comments, concerns that I heard
 tonight from council colleagues and looking to have any particular feedback from any department
 or any employee that wants to give that.
 So we appreciate that.
 We have moved along a lot this evening, and we are at the end of the meeting where we
 have council liaison updates and comments.
 And I know we got some, so I'm going to start all the way over here to my left, because
 I see Liz with her colored paper and highlights, and she is going to go to town.
 So Councilor Feidl, take it away.
 Well, as I remember, we didn't do this on the 13th, so I think we have like four weeks
 to summarize here, right?
 So a lot can happen in four weeks.
 So I'll start with my 13th report.
 So I'll just summarize the things that I was a part of.
 I won't go into a whole lot of discussion because I don't think it merits it.
 I just want to know people to know that we're involved in things.
 And I've been working with the Sophia Travis Grant Committee, employee services, numerous
 discussions about a multitude of topics there, attended the Booth Center meeting where that
 was not finally passed on the 19th of May.
 Been involved with the Monroe County Fair Board Association at their meeting, long-term
 finance committee, went to the health department open house, did a downtown Bloomington meeting
 where they gave updates on a lot of projects they're doing downtown.
 I did a podcast with the 812 show.
 Yes you did.
 Thank you.
 I attended the 50 Plants Expo event, went to an AIC budget finance meeting conference
 in the last couple of weeks, DBI had a lot of updates.
 The most fascinating thing I found out at their last DBI meeting was this blink microtransit
 opportunity.
 It begins June 2nd, it's free and it's basically between 10th Street and 1st Street and Rogers
 and Indiana and it's Monday through Friday 11 to 2 and 5 to 9.
 This was done in an attempt to help people downtown with accessibility to restaurants
 and a multitude of other issues with downtown traversing.
 I was happy to see the Monroe County Women's Commission meeting representative here tonight
 and there was some good data.
 I suggest people look at that meeting, for instance, in 2023, 20% living in poverty in
 the county, half were female.
 They're working on getting, Juneteenth is coming up, June 13th, where they'll at the
 switch yard, they'll have blood pressure A1C and cholesterol from 2 to 9 that day.
 Then the last thing I participated in before the holiday was a redevelopment commission
 and the Westside TIF, the State Road 46 quarter TIF, Fullerton Pike TIF, and the Curry Profile
 TIF were all updated and approved.
 That's mine.
 You can always count on you.
 Now Councilor Wilts, you've got to follow that.
 No thank you.
 Just skip me.
 I don't have anything.
 I'm looking up Blink because I want to find out more about it.
 Yeah.
 Yes.
 All right.
 Councilor Decker.
 Thank you very much, Madam President.
 First, I do want to say thank you, Madam President, for all your leadership.
 You have a hard job here and you do it very, very well in managing all of us.
 And our uniqueness and strangeness.
 And thank you because it's not lost on me.
 I also want to point out just a few things that I've been up to taking inspiration from
 Councilor Feidl trying to keep up just a wee bit to our new members who are doing such
 a great job is that in the last couple of weeks, I've been able to do a few different
 things.
 Number one, I was able to attend Mother Hubbard's Cupboard annual breakfast and to hear the
 tremendous work that they are doing.
 We have so many organizations that are fulfilling hunger needs and Mother Hubbard's Cupboard
 is extremely strong in so many different ways, whether it's helping people with cooking classes,
 providing direct support through goods, but also through things like tool rental that
 folks can take advantage of.
 And if you don't know what Mother Hubbard's Cupboard, hardest name to pronounce, if you
 don't know what that is, why don't you give them a look?
 Because particularly for folks that are having some hunger, shortage, hunger issues, it's
 one of the many miracle workers out there in this community making it happen.
 I also had the immense pleasure to join other counselors this weekend at the dedication
 of the Monroe County Fire District's new station up in Washington Township.
 For those that have been following that discussion for some time, it is finally there giving
 a lot of relief to folks in Washington Township where we have many friends and neighbors.
 And I just want to compliment something, Chief Dillard and that Fire District in coordination
 with the other units in this county are taking every day, it seems, a more holistic approach
 to the fact that if you get something happens to you or your family, God forbid, on Kirkwood
 or it is out on Denver Road, your odds, your response time are better than they have ever
 been.
 And that is growth.
 And I always say this, the county can't continue to think about how things were in 1982.
 We've got folks that are demanding 82 different things to happen for them and their families.
 And Chief Dillard and the folks are doing such a good job.
 Also this Memorial Day weekend, I was able to attend, along with other counselors, two
 tremendous services in the community.
 One, it's the quieter one up at Rose Hill Cemetery on Memorial Day and it's led by the
 American Legion.
 And one thing that the commander of the honor guard said that I want to pass along to amplify
 his voice.
 There was a crowd there, but I think this should be heard.
 We have a lot of service members in this community.
 My rough estimate is of our 139,000 folks in the county, based on about 5.1% of them
 or so being veterans according to state statistics, that's 7,106 souls that have served this
 country when called to do so.
 The commander of the honor guard said something very interesting.
 He said a lot of times at the end of life, veterans will say, "You know, I really shouldn't
 have an honor guard send off when I have departed."
 And he said something.
 He said, "Whether you're a veteran or you're a widow, know that you took the oath that
 service is for you."
 So for all the veterans listening out there in this community, that honor guard's an awesome
 thing that we have, and that is for you.
 So I want to amplify the commander's voice on that beautiful ceremony also at Valhalla.
 I also want to point out one thing that can sometimes get lost.
 Here at the county, we have a beautiful Veterans Affairs office, two individuals that are always
 working hard to deliver results for veterans here with us, and that is Stephen Miller,
 Andrew Blake.
 If you're a veteran out there, and they come here all the time and talk to us, but if you're
 a veteran out there and you need help with the VA or other resources, this is a good
 plug-in that the county is proud to support, and I urge you to check that out.
 So there's a lot of good folks doing a lot of good things, a lot of heroes making things
 happen, and I appreciate all their hard work this post-Memorial Day weekend.
 Thank you very much.
 All right, Counselor Henry, you ready?
 Sure.
 Thank you, Madam President.
 I just want to limit my comments to some of the things we've heard tonight from public
 comment and maybe put a coda on the KSA discussion.
 I think I appreciate the discussion we had on the KSAs this evening.
 I think the data that the staff is able to pull together in the past two weeks gave me
 a different insight into what I was looking for, and I think the thing that jumps out
 at me is when we look at departments that have frequently used KSAs as a hiring practice
 to bring people into the county, that that's a signal to me there may be something wrong
 with the bans that we have and not so much the KSAs that keep being offered.
 So it gives me pause when I see a department or department heads come to say, look, we
 really use this, but if they're using it all the time and they're hiring, we may need to
 really take that back to PAC once we open up the shutters on PAC and revisiting that.
 We shouldn't be in a case where people have to bring a KSA every time they want to hire
 a position.
 And so that has my attention a lot of times when they want to hire a position.
 So I just want to maybe put an end point on that discussion tonight from my seat.
 There are so many people to thank in the community for our tornado response that we had over
 this past week.
 I was about a quarter mile from the touchdown location and it was not lost.
 I mean, just how incredibly close.
 If that tornado was a quarter mile north, we wouldn't be talking about modest damage
 in our community.
 But for those families that did experience damage, it's very important I think for us
 as elected officials to keep the story in the media.
 The headlines are going to change very quickly in our community over the summer, but these
 families are going to be facing four, six years worth of months and year worth of rebuilding.
 We heard from, of course, folks that own the economy in this evening.
 So if I become a bit of a, you know, if I keep beating this drum every other week here,
 I may be doing that for the rest of the year until we know that these folks have been made
 whole or whatever their new normal is going to be in our community.
 That's 80 properties that were affected in this way, it's not a small number.
 So of course, I know I occupy the Planning Commission seat for the council, and I'll
 just share with you all that I have an increasing concern.
 I've heard a lot from homeowners in the community who are affected to make sure that our new
 county development organs does not get in the way of recovery, that it is a tool and
 not an impediment.
 And so if there are people listening to this, which I know the whole community tunes in,
 if there are issues that you're experiencing in your rebuild, and if we have corners of
 our county government that you feel are not being as efficient about building permits
 and coding issues, do let me know, and of course let our Planning Commission partners
 know that we need to make sure we rebuild as swiftly as we can within the footprints
 that are available to the current footprints of those properties that were lost.
 I would also say that I want to give credit to Perry Township.
 I spent most of that weekend off and on with Perry Township Trustee Dan Combs as we were
 constantly texting each other and roving around our two townships trying to figure out what
 was going on in the community.
 Dan and his team have really lifted a lot of people during the crisis point, and I would
 just say it's something that I teach in my Emergency Management class that natural hazards
 are not disasters.
 What makes disasters are human choices about where we build and how we zone and how we
 respond and recover to things, and for some folks who are already on township assistance
 that have now been displaced again and spent time in a Red Cross shelter and are now staying
 in other housing in the community, I do believe that we sometimes look at our townships as
 Emergency Management.
 They're not FEMA.
 They provide a very specific service for our community, and we need to think through that
 in the future on how a lot of our township trustees carry this burden in a time of crisis.
 Lastly I want to just make one more highlight or comment.
 Dr. Deckard already talked a little bit about our Monroe Fire Protection District.
 By the next morning I was in Harrodsburg for their festival and was speaking with Monroe
 Fire District personnel, and they had already had within 12 hours 150 homes adjudicated
 in an app that they use when they go out to a property to take a look at the property
 and start to adjudicate the damage to it.
 That app was brought by Chief Dillard from Indiana Task Force 1, which is an urban search
 and rescue task force that he's a part of that's FEMA funded in the state of Indiana.
 He had the foresight to bring the app into our county and start using that on deployment
 that night to capture really great data on what homes were really damaged and what ones
 were not damaged.
 That is a FEMA funded program that directly impacted our community yet again.
 So again, if I become the emergency management drum beat down here, there's a reason for
 it.
 There are a lot of really good tools that come into our community and a lot of great
 folks that were working that issue.
 Let's keep all those folks in our thoughts in the next weeks and months ahead as this
 is not over for them.
 Thank you, Madam President.
 Councillor Iverson.
 Thank you, Madam President.
 You know, Monroe County really is a special place.
 Just hearing from the folks that came tonight to talk so passionately about their businesses
 that were destroyed by the tornado reminds us all that this is a community that comes
 together and I'm looking forward to continuing to work together to bring people together.
 One of the commissions that I attended over the past four weeks was the Resilience Commission
 where we heard from Maggie Sullivan from the Friends of Lake Monroe about some of the efforts
 that they're making this summer and into the fall to make sure that our source of drinking
 water and recreation remains resilient in the face of climate change.
 We looked at the updates to the climate plan and we added some extra items there that the
 county is going to be working on.
 I'm hearing my voice or someone calling my name right now.
 I muted him.
 Alright thank you, the voice of God coming down.
 So the Resilience Commission continue to look at their website.
 They're going to be updating that very quickly.
 The next meeting that I think I want to bring to people's attention is the Substance Use
 Disorder Advisory Commission.
 We were really heartened by federal data that in the year 2024 we had a 26% drop in fatalities
 due to substance use disorder.
 That's nationwide data, but we saw that same drop here in Monroe County, but we need federal
 funding to make sure that we have resources from SAMHSA to continue doing the harm reduction
 work that we're doing.
 The federal cuts are not helping.
 They will lead to an increased number of deaths in our community as an increased number of
 cocktails in the form of illicit drugs come into this community.
 We're very concerned about that.
 We also convened the Opioid Settlement Body.
 That group recommended that the commissioners tackle three different appropriations from
 those funds that we kind of kept from previous workings.
 So keep in touch with the commissioners meeting as those three items come up.
 I was also there at the Fire Protection District.
 This is Station 26 in Washington Township, and I'm really excited about that new station
 coming on board because my district includes some of those northern communities like Dolan
 and Hindustan that need this fire protection, and of course this benefits folks as their
 insurance rates are going to be helped by having this additional fire protection up
 there.
 We're really excited by that.
 I want to echo my colleagues' statements that the Monroe County Fire Protection District
 was on top of the response during the storm.
 In an email sent out on the 20th of this month, Chief Dustin Dillard wrote his initial response
 in how they tackled the tornado, and it was just a reminder of how our first responders
 were there on the scene doing what they needed to do to keep the residents safe.
 Again, zero fatalities, so we're really encouraged by that, particularly as we look to the warmer
 months of this year as the potential for additional storms is in their forecast potentially.
 I also attended Memorial Day festivities, and I want to particularly thank Steve Miller
 and Andrew Blake for their services to our veterans in our community.
 I also want to highlight Brad Thompson.
 He's the head of the Civil Air Patrol.
 His youth came to the council to give a presentation not too long ago, and they were there doing
 color guard activities on that Memorial Day service.
 That was really meaningful to be able to talk to some of those youth again, and it was just
 a really great day to be out there with all of our veterans with us.
 The last thing that I will mention is that it is time for folks to start calling your
 U.S. senators.
 The budget bomb that came out of the U.S. House is making significant cuts to Medicaid.
 The only reason I'm bringing this up is because it is personal for me.
 My family would not have resources to continue to be in this community if it were not for
 Medicaid waivers.
 The cuts in this bill will significantly impact people's lives.
 Call your senators.
 This is a budget bomb that will increase our debt for the next 10 years to the tunes of
 not millions, not billions, but trillions on the backs of the poor and the disabled.
 This is unconscionable, and we have to do something to stop this.
 Thank you.
 Now I get to follow you.
 That's hard.
 So I appreciate that.
 Thank you.
 And I will say, and reflecting on tonight's conversation, there's obviously, like, hard
 decisions that we all had to make today, and there were a lot of different opinions, but
 I think we do those with heavy hearts because of what we have up against us right now.
 So I just want to say to all of the colleagues, thank you very, very much for all of the debates.
 Even those debates that we have that are disagreements, you know, we did some good stuff.
 I will tell you, it is very stressful sitting in this role as president, but I'm new to
 this, but I'm also true to this.
 Under all these beautiful extensions, there's a lot of gray hair, but I'm up for the challenge.
 So there you go.
 Like to hear it.
 Here it goes.
 What has happened over the past several weeks, but I will keep my comments somewhat brief.
 I will express that we learned in a tornado briefing with emergency management, I think
 we heard 22 structures were destroyed, 33 were completely destroyed.
 This is also personal for me because I live on the south side near the Clear Creek area
 where it literally jumped over our neighborhood where our household saw it, and then it went
 down the road.
 So while I don't know why we were spared, I can say two minutes down the road because
 it don't stay very far from Economy Inn and some of the Cardinal Glen area.
 They were not spared.
 And I just want to say that I appreciate the public comment that came in to talk very passionately.
 The pictures that we've seen of the post office and the damage driven around in the neighborhoods
 and in that particular area and seen it.
 I just want to give also a special shout out to Perry Clear Creek Station 22 Fire Department
 and Fire Station because they were also definitely in the thick of it.
 So any type of department in Monroe County that had something to do with that.
 Also the assessor's office had to go out and assess the damage.
 We say thank you because those are long hours that you clocked and will continue to do so.
 So we definitely appreciate that.
 Some other things that I wanted to say and I lost my page.
 Some fun things that we have that are coming up on the horizon is next Tuesday at 330 is
 the moment that we all, maybe some, have been waiting for and it is the groundbreaking of
 the convention center that I just, you know, former council member Jeff McKim and our beloved
 former council member, the late and great Cheryl Munson worked really hard in making
 sure this day has come and it will be here next Tuesday at 330.
 I will be giving some brief remarks.
 I believe Commissioner Julie Thomas will also be giving some remarks as well as some of
 our city elected officials as well.
 So I'm looking forward to this day.
 I'm looking forward to all the headache, all the blood, sweat and tears that will come
 and have come beforehand will finally pay off and we will really see this come to light.
 So I'm looking forward to that.
 The other thing that I will, vote center, I'm not even going to go there with that.
 So we know what happened and that's, it's a shame.
 The other part is I was a little dismayed and hearing some conversations in one of our
 recent meetings and something I heard that I didn't think that was true that I really
 wanted to make sure that it has been said, I know somebody at the health board meeting
 had mentioned that the county is under a higher end freeze and we are not.
 So I just really want to make sure that it is known that we are not under a higher end
 freeze.
 The KSA that we did today is not also a higher end freeze.
 These are simply tactics that the council are doing because again, our friends up in
 Indianapolis on Capitol Avenue has decided to make sure that we do this.
 So we are trying to do this as much as we can.
 I guess whether we like it or not, we're doing it.
 But I just want to make sure that we are talking about that we don't have a higher end freeze.
 So I just want to make sure because I got a couple of people that reached out and asked
 what was this.
 So to be clear, there is no higher end freeze.
 The other aspect is whether we like public comment, whether that's the good, the bad,
 the ugly with that and if you've probably heard me say that this evening, I say that
 for a reason because we know sometimes people come in and we'll have, we've seen a whole
 play of public comment and whether we liked it or not in the middle of a storm, we got
 it.
 However, we didn't dispel that and we didn't just dismiss it and try to figure out a way
 not to stop people from coming in.
 That is what democracy looks like and we should be making sure that every single person that
 wants to come into any type of government meeting, whether it's a board or commission,
 whether it's our particular meetings, will be heard.
 So I will never, ever, ever, somebody could come in today and say, "Jennifer, I don't
 like your hair today," and that's fine.
 And as long as we are not personally being attacked, but there are things that we've
 heard in public comment, and I think all of us can attest to this, where we might not
 know what is happening until that public comment has said it.
 So I appreciate public comment, and I caution anybody that wants to try to change that to
 think twice before you do something that you will deeply regret.
 So that's my comment on that.
 My last comment, since I love talking about governor's office so much, is the fact that
 I went to the Beckwith Town Hall, Lieutenant Governor Beckwith Town Hall, and it did not
 disappoint at all.
 I got exactly what I thought I was going to get, which was a lot of chaos.
 I personally had a conversation very briefly with the lieutenant governor, and as a black
 individual, I just want to say I am not reasoning or siding with anybody that thinks that people
 that look like me are three-fifths of a person, period.
 I cannot deal with that at all.
 I know that we've had some colleagues in the city that have said that they are very grateful
 for that conversation.
 I'm not certain what I heard that was grateful, because I also know that I didn't hear anything
 that basically said this is what I'm going to do here from Monroe County.
 I just heard chaos, and I heard I'm doubling down.
 I also heard the fact that I challenged him in addition to his three-fifths compromise
 or compliment, because it's definitely not a dang-on compliment.
 I said, because I don't know if any of y'all have realized, I've not seen the lieutenant
 governor, nor have I seen the governor come down and assess the damage, and I also talked
 to emergency management and thought we heard anything from them.
 They look at all the news, and they get all the news sources.
 My response that I got back is when I asked the question of, "Where are you?
 Where were you?
 Where are you coming?" is I've never been invited to come down.
 Now, again, I know my role on here is I'm just four years old on this county council,
 but I do know that natural disasters have happened, and I've never heard of people who
 are in the thick of cleanup have to stop what they're doing and go call somebody and say,
 "Can you come down?
 Can you go take a look?"
 So I am not going to be the person that talks in the hot air, I'm going to say, "Hey, guess
 what?
 Well, consider yourself invited."
 So I invited him last week, I invited him with an email, and I still have yet to hear
 from Mr. Beckwith or Mr. Braun.
 So if anybody knows and anybody looks at this meeting, please know that the invitation is
 out there.
 I will continue to follow up.
 Our constituents are looking for this, my constituents are looking for this.
 You want to talk about that, you want to come down and look at things and do things together,
 let's talk, let's go to work.
 So I just want to just put that out there.
 So again, I'm not saying I'm grateful for the conversation, however, I guess I am thankful
 I had the courage to go up to somebody with wild beliefs to say, "This is what we need."
 So if we're going to work together on that, let's do that and let's talk.
 So that's all I got to say about that.
 I could say a lot more, but my mom used to say if I don't have anything nice to say,
 don't say it at all.
 So I'm not.
 So with that being said, oh yeah, one last thing is, it's graduation this upcoming weekend,
 North and South graduates and all graduates of MCCSE.
 So I just want to say thank you to all the teachers that are dealing with a lot of stuff,
 school just ended, graduating seniors, you are about to go out into the world and unknown
 and it's crazy, but I just want to say thank you.
 And I take that as a privilege because I have a graduating senior that's going to happen.
 So with that being said, congratulations to everybody.
 And with that, we did a good job with our meeting tonight.
 It wasn't four hours and we are adjourned.
 Thank you.
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