- Good evening, everybody. And good evening, everybody. We will go ahead. Thank you. We are going to go ahead and get started for the Monroe County Council meeting. Today is Tuesday, July 22nd, 2025, and the time is five o' four. And so here in the night, you will roam. We have counselors to my right here. Counselors David Henry,
- Peter Iverson, Kate Wilts, and Liz Vital. And joining us virtually, we have Council Member Decker that is online as well. I'm not seeing Councilor Marty Hawk here just yet, but we will make sure to announce whether she shows up virtually or in person as well. So we have a quorum, so we'll go ahead and get started. And all those that are able to stand, please stand with us to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
- Thank you. Next up is the adoption of tonight's agenda.
- We all got the packet and we all have the agenda here in front of us. Is there anyone that would like to make an amendment to tonight's agenda? So, because we have a member that is virtually, we will have to do a roll call to vote to approve tonight's agenda. May we please have a roll call vote?
- Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes.
- Motion passes unanimously. Thank you very much for that. Next up is the first time in a very long time that the NatU Hill Room has quite a few guests here, and we welcome all y'all. Thank y'all very much for coming. And so that is the other part that is up next is the public comment. So for items that are not on today's agenda, each member, whether you are on Teams or coming forward to the lectern here in the NatU Hill Room, we'll have up to three minutes. We will definitely
- at least stand by the three minutes. So if you are done and three minutes are over, politely take your seat and allow the next person to come up. And so again, if you would like to make a comment, you'll sign in here at the podium over here. And then if you are wanting to make a comment on Teams, I will acknowledge you, but you will need to raise your hand first.
- I will go ahead and start off. I'll start off with two members here and the public here in the Night U Hill Room. And then after that, I will alternate back and forth between teams and here in the lectern here. So whoever would like to go first here in the Night U Hill Room, please go ahead. And again, monitors are here to show you that you have up to three minutes. Yes. And yes, please state your name for the record.
- Before we start with public comment, we have just had Councilor Marty Hawk arrive in the NatU Hill Room, so welcome. Go ahead. Good evening. My name is Seth Mutchler. I'm a resident of Monroe County and a member of Care Not Cages. We are excited today
- to announce a new coalition of 12 local organizations that are all calling upon Monroe County to invest in expanded housing, mental health care, food security, and substance use treatment in the community instead of funding a 230 plus million dollar jail. In April of this year, New Leaf New Life published a position statement on this topic.
- Since then, 11 organizations have signed on as endorsing this statement with more to come. They have endorsed the statement because even though it speaks specifically about New Leaf New Life, they stand behind its message that our community is better served by social services than by incarceration. This is not a niche belief. This is a belief held by many people working in the social services and social support field.
- This is a belief held by many people who have lived experience of incarceration or who have been affected by the carceral system, by the incarceration of loved ones, or who interact with people every day who say jail doesn't work, but services do. Present today to read the position statement to the council and to the public is Stacy Flynn, New Leaf New Life's executive director.
- We will then have representatives from a number of the endorsing organizations who will share a bit more about the essential work that they do and the further impact that increased funding would allow their organizations to have on the entire Monroe County community. So I'd like to welcome to the podium, Stacey Flynn and members of the coalition in support of the message. Thank you. Thank you, Seth.
- state your name for the record, and then you will have up to three minutes here. We'll have TSD reset the clock back to three minutes. There you go. Thank you. My name is Stacey Flynn, and I am the director of New Leaf New Life. And I would like to read and present to you our latest position statement on a new jail for you this evening.
- New Leaf New Life remains opposed to the construction of a new jail facility in Monroe County. As an organization with over 15 years of direct service experience working alongside incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals in our community, we know that true public safety comes from investment in people, not larger jail facilities.
- Despite ongoing discussions about potential locations and the rising estimated cost of a new jail, now exceeding $200 million, compared with the $62 million cost to renovate the current facility, we believe these resources would be better invested in expanding housing, mental health care, and substance use treatment in the community.
- Evidence-based research has proven that new jails do not solve systemic issues driving incarceration in our area, including poverty, lack of affordable housing and untreated mental health or substance use disorders.
- Monroe County's own data shows most people in the jail are held pretrial, often for low level offenses or simply because they cannot afford bail. Expanding the jail will not reduce recidivism or improve community safety, but investing in services like ours does.
- New Leaf New Life provides effective low-cost support that helps people stay out of jail and successfully re-enter the community. Our re-entry mentorship program participants currently demonstrate a lower percentage of recidivism at 14.8% compared with the Indiana Department of Corrections Monroe County rate at 29.2%. We urge county leaders to prioritize repairing the existing jail to meet constitutional standards while committing
- committed remaining resources to evidence-based alternatives to incarceration. Building a larger, more expensive facility in a remote location is fiscally irresponsible, socially harmful, and out of step with the community's values. For more about our work and impact, you may visit newleafnewlife.org, and I really appreciate being able to be here and give a public comment this evening. Thank you. Thank you.
- All right, since we have the two already here for public comment, I want to look at I don't see any hands raised on teams. But again, if you are on teams and you would like to make a public comment, go ahead and raise your hand until then. Well, looks like we just got somebody. So again, if you are on teams, please.
- state your name and make public comment and you have up to two minutes. Or I'm sorry, three minutes. I saw that. And you can go ahead and unmute. Are you able to unmute?
- So while we're working on the personal line, which it looks like the screen name says, Kim Falk, we'll come back to you virtually. But now we'll go back to, just to kind of keep up with everything, we'll come back to the NatU Hill room. Again, state your name, and you have up to three minutes.
- My voice is kind of in and out, so I apologize. My name is Tracy. I'm the Assistant Director for Pantry 279. I want to start by listing the names of other organizations that are endorsing the New Leaf New Life outlook on this jail. Care Not Cages.
- Care Not Cuffs Hoosier Action Chapter Courage to Change Sober Living Democratic Socialists of America Bloomington Chapter Exodus Refugee Immigration Incorporated The Indiana Recovery Alliance Dr. Jeremy Voyles PhD
- Monroe County, N.O.W., Mother Hubbard's Cupboard, Opportunity House, and Pantry 279. I want to talk a little bit about Pantry 279 specific involvement and what we have seen within this community. We are serving right now almost 10,000 clients a month. That is
- we have ever seen. Resources are lower than they have ever been within this community. We run on a less than 500K a year budget. Within those
- People that we are serving in this community. We have now taken on courage to change sober living Kins or flats sober living Malibu house over living I want to share with you a story that we got from one of those houses We started delivering on a bi-weekly basis to them about three months ago They came to us to let us know that
- There's no longer violence inside the houses because people aren't assaulting each other over lack of resources and lack of food. You know, helping these people get back on their feet and trying to provide what they need without
- making it so much harder for them to get a leg up even just supplying a little bit of groceries every week is enough for them to be able to pay their rent and you know stay off the streets and try and make a better life. Another thing that we are lacking severely within this community is access to resources for mental health issues and I have seen a lot of incarcerations result because
- There just isn't enough resources for mental health problems within this community. I'm not going to take any more of your time. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. I am going to go back again to teams. Looks like you are unmuted, Mr. Falk. You have up to three minutes, and you can go ahead with your comment. Can you hear me OK? Yes. Good.
- My name is Ken Falk. I'm the legal director of the ACLU of Indiana. I am the lawyer who brought the lawsuit back in 2008, challenging the constitutional conditions at the jail. I'm from the ACLU. We are not necessarily a fan of putting people in jail, but we are a fan of constitutional standards. The existing jail simply cannot be rehabbed to meet constitutional standards.
- Every single person who has examined the jail, the sheriffs in the jail, you yourselves recognize that. You need a new jail. It's been almost 20 years since we filed our litigation. It's been almost 20 years since everyone agreed that the conditions in the jail violated the Eighth Amendment. This jail is way past its useful life. You all commissioned a study back in 2021 that
- said, quote, the jail facility is incapable of ensuring and sustaining constitutional levels of inmate security. I respect the efforts of everyone and the need to avoid excessive incarceration. But you need a new jail. And studying and re-studying it and approaching it from 1,000 different angles is not going to solve the problem. You, the county, you are facing liability. You are holding people
- in a jail that is sorely antiquated and that if something happens in that jail, you've been put on notice that the jail is deficient. I am not a jail expert, but I have litigated many of these cases and there are ways to build new facilities that incorporate
- current standards that allow for treatment space, that allow for ways of dealing with the high percentage of persons who are incarcerated, who are mentally ill and have substance abuse problems. But you can't do it in the facility that you have now. And you simply cannot pour money into something that is inadequate, whether it holds one person, a hundred people or 300 people, that facility simply is inadequate.
- And it's been recognized as such. You have spent an enormous amount of money on experts who told you that. And I think the time has come. And we did make progress. We reported to the court last year that the county was going ahead to build a new jail. And I think it's time to continue those efforts to get it done, because right now you have a jail that has long exceeded its useful life. Thank you.
- Thank you. Next up we'll come to the next public commenter here in the night you home again sign in and state your name. Hello, my name is Andrew Hodges. I am an IU student. I work at pantry 279 over Nellisville.
- and I am the secretary of the local chapter of the National Organization for Women. I'm here to talk about the issue of the jail and that as a feminist organization, we do not believe that funding this jail corresponds with our values. We believe in the core issues of ending violence and of economic justice, and we do not believe that spending this amount of money will end violence in our community or be just. We believe that
- supporting social services and devoting this funding at least some of it to social services will be a much better use of the money. I think a lot about how young people are in this community and I know that leaders such as yourselves have said that it's a goal to retain young people in this community but they won't stay unless there's housing and jobs and to spend such a vast amount of money
- on this project, I think goes against that goal. I think that there are young people like me who come here and they love it and they want to care for the community like I have, but I can't stay here if I get paid $10 an hour at a food pantry. And so I think that there are much better uses for our money. And I think, you know, we've gone on this long search for a location for the jail, but our community knows where we can end violence and that is on Washington Street.
- at the rise new wings that is on Kirkwood and the churches that house homeless in the winter. And that is an Alexville between El Ranchero and urban air at a pantry that feeds many, many of our neighbors. Thank you. Thank you. Look into teams to see if anybody has their hands up. Don't see any so.
- I will go ahead and go with the next speaker here. Again, come forward to the lectern and state your name, sign in, and you'll have up to three minutes. Hello, my name is Justin Booth, and I'm the men's house. With the mic down, so sorry. Hello, my name is Justin Booth. I'm the men's house and case manager for Courage to Change. We are in full support of New Leaf and New Life statements today. And that's all I got. Thank you.
- We will not see any on team, so go to the next person here in the net, you'll learn.
- Hi, everybody. My name is Erin Aquino, and I'm the director of Exodus Refugee here in Bloomington. We're an independent nonprofit refugee resettlement agency. We've operated in Bloomington since October 2021, and we started by welcoming the first Afghan refugees that fled during the Afghan evacuation in August 2021. Since our inception, we've welcomed close to 500 refugees from over 20 different countries. If you don't know, refugees are people who have fled their country based off persecution of race, nationality, religion, membership of a social group, or political opinion.
- unable to return to their home country for fear of death.
- or retaliation. Whether we are working with asylum seekers, parolees, or refugees, they are all immigrants of humanitarian concern. In short, they are people who need safe places to live. They're not coming here for economic gain. Our organization ensures that all of our clients are successfully housed, fed, employed, and overall thriving here in Bloomington. With recent national cuts to SNAP and Medicaid and other resources for immigrant populations, it's making our job even harder to do that. As Exodus represents,
- people who fled their countries for persecution it is only right that we stand here today along care not cages and new leaf new life and other organizations and oppose the construction of the new jail facility in Monroe County we believe that the 200 plus million dollars earmarked for this facility is more effective in investing in affordable housing mental health care and substance use treatment
- We call on county officials to make stronger, more comprehensive investment in the community by supporting these critical yet severely underfunded resources in Bloomington. My background is in mental health and addiction. I have experience working with people involved in the carceral system as well as provide mental health treatment to refugees in Bloomington. I have seen firsthand the insidious roles that poverty and trauma play in people's lives. Research tells us time and again that without comprehensive social services, poverty and trauma
- continue to compound over time. If, as a community, we work together to treat the problem rather than criminalize them, we would see less crime, less violence, less overdoses, and less death.
- This week, it has been announced that Camp Atterbury is being turned into a concentration camp for immigrants. Where it was once a safe haven and place of welcome for Afghan allies in 2021, it will soon be synonymous with the threats of detention and deportation. So many incredible people in our state welcomed people fleeing persecution, and we invested in the Afghan community that is now thriving in an integral part of our community and our country. Please, do not follow in the footsteps of our national government and replace
- a better future with one that is behind bars, the chance to heal with unaffordable bail or deny hope with the promise of cruelty. Thank you.
- Again, seeing no hands raised. And if you are on Teams, go ahead and raise your hand so we know that you're interested in making public comment. But since we don't see any, again, I'll go forward to the lectern here. And if you are here and you want to say something, go ahead and stand in line so that you can go ahead and sign in if you want. All right. Go ahead.
- Hey there. I will try not to take up much of your time. My name is Pat Wall. I am a co-chair of the Bloomington Democratic Socialists of America. We are an organization with dozens of dues paying official voting members and many, many more associated members. We were asked a while ago now what we thought of this letter, and we voted unanimously to endorse it. That's all I got. Thanks. Thank you.
- Next up. Hello, I'm Megan Betts, CEO and President of Mother Hubbard's Cupboard.
- The Hub is a community food resource center that has served the community since 1998, offering a food pantry, educational programming in our kitchen and gardens, and space to build nourishing relationships that help our community navigate the challenges that come with food insecurity. I wanted to come here tonight to thank New Leaf New Life for sharing their expertise and concerns with the council. And I also wanted to highlight how their argument for renovation over expansion aligns with the Hub's values. First, the Hub recognizes and invests in the power of good food to bring
- people together and support healthy communities. And we work actively to eliminate barriers to equitable food access by addressing both immediate needs and their root causes. We acknowledge that not being incarcerated will always be more nourishing, connective, and healing than being incarcerated. And we're thankful for the efforts of New Leaf New Life and all those that support alternatives to incarceration while seeking justice to keep our community connected and free. No garden, no treatment program, no social or educational program offered in a prison
- will ever be more connective and supportive than not being in prison.
- Second, community is the heart of our organization. Protective relationships and collective power are built when people come together over a meal, harvest from the garden, and share skills. An emphasis on investment in services that build such relationships, including expanding housing, mental health care, and substance use treatment in our community, what often returns the carceral system as incapable of matching. Finally, sustainability is vital to community health. We value building sustainable programming, equitably supporting people,
- and responsibly stewarding our environment. We strongly support stewarding our resources responsibly by renovating an existing site rather than prioritizing new and larger construction and by investing in services that could reduce engagement with the carceral system and build skills and connection in our community. We're thankful for the way that the county council has shown up for service providers like ourselves in the community and for your time listening this evening and we look forward to continuing to collaborate with you to build a county that centers on compassionate care and equitable
- of resources. Thank you. Thank you. Next up here in the Nattie Hill room. Hello. Hi. I am also a member of the Bloomington DSA, which supported this letter, but I want to speak as a citizen of the county who's represented by this body. What is your name? Oh, my name is Haley Tokes.
- And to just to acknowledge that we are limited in the resources that we have and how we prioritize them says a lot about our values. And so just to put it plainly, I think that I would like to see this body in the county invest in people and improving lives in supportive services and not in the new facility.
- With all due respect to Mr. Falk, as he said, he's not a jail expert. And I do believe that he's mischaracterized the research. And hopefully, someone here can speak to that. And also, I want to say on a personal note, as someone who's lost a loved one to incarceration, I want to speak to the way that this damages not just the person who's put away, but all of the lives that they leave behind and the people who have to work full time to support them and to lose that part of their support.
- And to just say when someone is removed from the community, it leaves a hole that we should be working to strengthen the fabric of our community and not tear it apart. And this is a huge amount of money that can make a big difference in a lot of lives. And I'd love to see it considered accordingly. Thank you.
- Welcome. My name is Nicole Siegel. I'm a resident, member of Careknot Cages, and a member of the faculty at the IU Bloomington History Department. And I'd like to start with a historical note. The Quakers who put up the very first jail, the innovation that took us from the stocks and the gallows into incarceration in 1790, came to rue the day
- that they proposed this modernization and punishment. And now comes the ACLU in the form of Ken Falk in Indiana to encourage greater and greater jail building with the same kind of humanitarian logic. But the logic is specious. Jail building is punitive. Carceral expansion is not what the ACLU's core values actually support. Ken Falk, I don't know you.
- But I hope that someday you equally come to rue the day you spearheaded so much jail building in Indiana. Shame on you.
- your extrapolation of facts far beyond the legal sphere. I want just to point out to you, council members, that Ken Falk is speaking not on legal matters when he says to you that the jail is not renovatable. Those are architectural questions. Those are questions about the building. And you have commissioned two reports which said some confusing things, but they concluded that the jail could be renovated and put dollar amounts on that jail. They also concluded that the pressure on the jail could be vastly reduced
- relieved by reducing the number of people in the jail and offered you a number of solutions that you could choose before building a new jail that would allow you to keep and renovate the existing jail. Before Seth Mutchler of Cairnot Cages spoke, he handed to you a legal memo drafted by some Maurer School of Law students whose conclusion I'm going to read into the record in my remaining minute.
- While a new jail would be a solution that would satisfy the ACLU, it is not the only option. As long as the current jail meets the standards of CREPA, a new jail is not necessary. In addition, the court could never order the county to build a new jail, so this would have to be on the county's own volition and a part of their settlement agreement. In some, Monroe County has options. Finally, the fear of Monroe County being pushed into building a new beep jail
- as claimed at a city council meeting does not seem to be rooted in facts. In fact, the process, whether with ACLU or DOJ involvement, seems to take at least a decade, which is more time than the county has claimed it would take to build a new jail without federal intervention. Therefore, the county should not fear a rushed build due to the federal government. In conclusion, the county should focus on following CREPA guidelines either before or after any warnings of the DOJ and finding more permanent solution to the constitutional violations claimed in the
- the ACLU suit. All of this can be done without building a new jail. Thank you. Next up in the Nightingale room.
- No, you're good. Still don't have any hands raised and they have reset the clock here. So again, just state your name and you have up to three minutes. Thank you. My name is Sarah Owen. I am the community engagement coordinator for Exodus Refugee Immigration here in Bloomington. I wanted to take a moment to expound further upon what our director said a few moments ago. The prospect of building a new jail is so reminiscent of the current
- presidential administration, which is running roughshod over this country, wanting to incarcerate so many more people. I understand that there are different circumstances he is looking to do away with due process of so many immigrants in this country, regardless of their status. However, you cannot incarcerate a society into healing and improving. And that is the bottom line of how we allocate this $230-plus million
- I understand the concerns about the current state of the jail. I would like to believe that we could improve upon it. However, as was alluded to by our director a few moments ago, representing our immigrant clients and the attacks under which they are currently facing with this current administration, HR 1 of the current session of Congress
- is doing away with their SNAP benefits and their Medicaid and Medicare with no recourse whatsoever. This is not about instilling extra arbitrary rules or extra work requirements. They are simply losing these resources, basic human rights of food and medical care, and that will have a devastating impact not only nationwide but here in the community. We are going to feel the strain within our local food pantries, food supplies,
- our local community health clinic, Health Net, which is a wonderful partner of ours. We are having to prepare our clients now with what is coming down the pike. And I don't know what to tell a client who currently takes seven medications because of chronic untreated health conditions that was no fault of her own while she was waiting to come to the US. Those resources are leaving. And where that $230 million can go into the Bloomington community to provide basic human rights should today
- tomorrow and for the future years, absolutely take precedent over a new jail facility. And so I would hope that the county council will reconsider their position if they have previously been in favor of building this new jail and that they will reallocate this money towards supporting people who are going to be suffering, if not already, in the very near future. We are going to see just profound impacts on this community and it's hard to stress that point enough.
- Just as a quick background, my personal history working in Bloomington, I've lived here most of my life. I have worked for the Hoosier Hills Food Bank. I've worked for Amethyst House in addiction treatment. I have worked as an emergency assistance caseworker for the trustee's office. And so I would hope that you would take heed to the people working in social services that this is where this money needs to be allocated and as soon as possible. Thank you. Thank you.
- Great. Still seeing no hands raised via Teams. So again, I'll keep going back here to the NetU Hill room. If there is somebody that wants to make public comment and hasn't done so for items not on the agenda, please go ahead and come to the lectern here, and you'll have up to three minutes. And now we've got a special guest in the audience here. And I was wondering if he was going to come up and say something as well, too. OK.
- look at teams again and not seeing any takers um so uh again i will okay go ahead it's okay don't be nervous uh okay my name is ian good and um i am a member of the aclu and i don't think everyone who is a member of the aclu agrees with the attorney um i don't think
- as a citizen of this county, that building a new jail is a good idea. Thank you. Anybody else? All right. Seeing none here in the NatU Hill room and seeing no more via teams here.
- I will go ahead and close up our portion of public comment for items that are not on tonight's agenda. I do want to take a point of privilege and say thank you to all those who took the time out today to come to us and make a public comment. I really appreciate that. We haven't had that in a while, so I appreciate every last one of your comments here. So thank you.
- Next up, we will go to item number five, which is department updates. This is for a chance for departments of Monroe County to provide a brief update on their department. Each department that wants to come up and provide us with an update will have up to 10 minutes. And so if you are a department here, you can come here to the table. Looks like we already have a taker here. And you'll have up to 10 minutes. And if you are online, go ahead and please raise your hand.
- So it looks like we got special guests here. So please go ahead. OK. Excuse me. I'm Carlos Laverty, director of the Monroe County Airport. And I'm here with Mr. Ken Ritchie, president of the Monroe County Board of Aviation Commissioners, and Colonel Alan Boyd, vice president of the Monroe County Board of Aviation Commissioners. And we are here to present a department update. Do we have slides? Yeah.
- While he's doing that, let me just say thank you. I spent the better part of 30 years in uniform, most of it overseas. I don't know how many thousands of government meetings I've been in, but this is the first county government meeting I've ever seen or been part of. All of the activity that I just saw made me realize that's why I served. And I want you to know that.
- It's this level of proactivity on the part of the community and the willingness of government to listen and elected officials to listen. That makes me feel good inside. So thank you. Thank you. I thank everybody who came today. Thank you. Okay, can we get in full screen mode? I am one of the aviation commissioners. Well, you can figure it out.
- We're working our way through an airport master plan, which may be a new concept to you. Um, and believe it would be worthwhile given where we are to come in here and give you an update and educate you on where we are and why we're doing it. Uh, and some of the emerging results that we're finding. Um, next slide or you got it. The purpose here today is to now go back.
- I'll say next slide when it's next slide. We want to update you on the process we're going through to develop the airport master plan, which the FAA asks us to do every 10 years. The fact is it's been a long time, much longer than 10 years since this airport had a master plan or went through a master plan process. And we believe as a relatively new board that we need to do, we want to do
- a more proactive job communicating what we're doing, why we're doing it, and how we're doing it to county leadership on a more regular basis. So we're launching that today and plan to come back when it's appropriate. So this is a major effort on our part and it's far enough along that we've got some insights to give you. It's an information briefing, there are no asks, not here with our hand out,
- Not here asking you to make any hard decisions. It's just to educate you today on airport operations and strategy. Next slide. Here we go. As an airport under FAA oversight, we're required to have a master plan periodically updated with a 20-year outlook. Most business and industry strategic plans have about a five-year look
- only the first year of which is really meaningful in most cases, but we're asked by the FAA to think 20 years out, four times as far as anyone else. It's a comprehensive look at airport infrastructure, assets, flight operations, and other business development potential and growth. The FAA funds us to do it, and they will not only review it, but also end on it. In it, we look at current to future airport use,
- aviation trends, community and regional trends, the right sizing of aircraft to runway and service capabilities and others. For that, we use a professional national aviation engineering firm with access to a variety of aviation data, as well as expertise with the FAA's competitive funding programs. We also include BEDC as an important resource, and we're actively engaged with them on a weekly basis.
- Central to it is an updated current to future airport layout plan, which is a sub element of it, but probably the biggest component of it that envisions any improvements and development we may see in the coming years or would like to see in the coming years. It requires community and other stakeholder engagement. It's typically a two year process. We're about two thirds complete, which means we've collected all needed information and are in the final stages of analysis.
- Our vision, this begs the question, so what is your vision? Where are you going? Our vision is to serve current community needs as best possible, make the airport a welcoming aviation portal to Bloomington and the area, and to drive growth consistent with community and regional business needs. With that, we take into consideration the ongoing support to IU Athletics, Crane's expanding research and development portfolio, Indiana's vision of an I-69 tech corridor,
- and local industry and business. Next slide. The slide coming up shows you a laid out of our stakeholders as we see them. So local and state organizations in the upper left, education and training with IU, Ivy Tech on the lower left. Defense is an increasing group of stakeholders with Crane Naval Surface Warfare Center. We host a civil air air patrol detachment and have for years
- We occasionally service the Indiana National Guard. I doubt you're aware, but earlier this spring, U.S. Special Operations Command used Monroe County Airport as a forward area refuel point for a major aviation exercise that went from Kentucky to Minnesota and back, all in the dark at night, right up my alley. And then other DOD entities.
- In local industries, defense contractors that are forming around Westgate and other places, IU Athletics is a large customer of ours. IU has a number of aviators who have their own planes flying here for football games, Indy 500, you name it. And then on base, on airport clients and operators that you see in the middle. So it's a fairly large stakeholder base. Next slide.
- Planning process that we go through is FAA mandated, and I know that's hard to read up there, but let me just tell you that in phase one is planning, phase two is data collection, phase three is analysis, phase four is implementation planning, and then phase five is approval to be followed by execution. We are today around the top of the horn there on the latter stage of analysis, actually a little bit ahead of the two-year norm,
- and anticipate being done with this early next or by next spring. Next slide. We have spent a fair amount of time on community outreach soliciting input. We formed a project advisory committee that's not just ourselves and on-site in-house people, but also reached out to local business industry, IU Ukraine,
- as many of those stakeholders as we could get to come. That was facilitated by a professional engineering firm that does this for a living and guided by the board. User tenant surveys, a lot of discussions, continuous collaboration with the FAA and Indiana Department of Transportation, and then public workshops. We held the first public workshop last spring, and from that we get the emerging results that I'll share with you in a few minutes.
- The plan is to conduct the second one this fall as we conclude analysis and do a better job of formalizing conclusions. Next slide. This one is more just a, it won't shock you, but I think most people here don't, in this community, don't understand the reach of this airport. It shocked me. I'm a two million miler guy on Delta.
- And I've been in a gazillion airports, but I had no idea when I moved here seven years ago that I knew, I knew there was an airport, but I had no clue that it had this kind of reach that you see on this chart here. We're all over the United States, Canada, Mexico, uh, without reaching even into Europe and Asia. Uh, if you count cook business flights, it's, it's not just the small little County airport with some
- guys with Cessnas and Beechcraft flying around on weekends. Next slide. Just a snapshot of the current state just to remind you what we do have and what we do. We have a full line of fixed base operator services and facilities between Cook Aviation and BMG jets. Those are the two large buildings you see when you come in out there. Aircraft rental, air traffic control,
- So many hours per day and then available after hours by appointment. Flight instruction, rental anger space, which is pretty busy. Charter services. We've got a barber shop and an Airbnb out there. Which is a nice Airbnb. Ivy Tech Auto Class, we've hosted for several years. My understanding is that's going to go away due to some cuts in Ivy Tech.
- But it's just provided as a reminder of what we offer and do. We've seen over $10 million in FAA investments over the past few years, all improving infrastructure for safe flight operations. For example, new runway lighting system is in the process of being installed as of today. And we're competing for FAA funding that would allow us to update, not replace the old air traffic control tower, which is about as old as I am.
- The radio's in there about as old as me. Carlos was in Washington just last week at the air traffic control tower symposium where FAA officials and folks of similar to us attend. And I tell you, based on what he,
- was engaged in it looks like we are very competitive for a new aircraft traffic control tower funding and the next to go around. So progress. You also use some of your ARPA money that you gladly gave us to to approve stormwater drainage which we needed this summer given all the rains we've had. So all that's going to good use. Next slide. This is where we talk about the future.
- and this comes out of the stakeholder meetings that we've had and the brainstorming that's going on in there. I paint the upper left box green. We have almost 200 acres of developable land on airport property that's inside the fence. Those conversations came a variety of ideas of what we might think to do
- with that acreage, who we might encourage, what we might seek to bring in here to spur some growth and development. So you see a number of things. Most are tech related or aviation related, but BMG Jets does an awful lot of aircraft maintenance. Ivy Tech could offer aircraft maintenance. There's a connection. There's a future potential, just as an example.
- avionics engineering RDT&E that aligns very closely with with the number of projects and programs at crane. Future advanced air mobility, vertiport, electric uber, aerial ubers are coming. They're happening on the East Coast and the West Coast today. They will find their way to the middle of the country, you know, however long that takes, but they're coming.
- And just think of it that way as an aerial uber. As an aerospace engineer, I'm excited about that and the prospects of that. That's like Jetsons becoming real. Unmanned aerial vehicle research and development at Crane. Crane is heavily involved in that. It is a major Defense Department initiative that's getting a ton of money. It would be beneficial to Crane to have an air corridor for UAV testing.
- Let's say it went from Bloomington to Tarahote, from Narrow County Airport to Holman Field and back. It's not on any major air traffic corridor. It's fairly open, it's controllable, it's safe. There's a lot of potential there in my mind. Increased flight training and just general engineering research and all that. I suppressed return of limited commercial air service and lodging in hotels and all that. That's premature, although there is
- When you talk to people around here, there is growing demand, consistent and growing demand for flights to a number of places, especially Washington DC. Yeah. So all of the ideas that you see here are realizable. And we're serious about trying to attract those, and we would like to be.
- Lafayette Airport recently initiated direct service from its airport to Chicago, but that's heavily subsidized by Purdue. So I don't envision any of that scenario happening here. I'm not bold enough to be there yet. And it's easier to get to Indianapolis with I-69 completed. So my hour drive to the airport's now 45, 50 minutes. So next slide.
- Almost done. Just some key pack ideas. I've already mentioned some of these. Foremost was preserve and improve current business and meet existing needs better. So better lighting, better runways, better air traffic control, safer, better, more all weather capability and increased community awareness of services. What was a resounding thing to us from every stakeholder was make developable land shovel ready.
- And it's not. And then everything else, I think I've talked about before, but enhance airport hospitality. If you saw Bloom magazine last year, you saw an article that had a rendering, an artist rendering of the terminal that we floated. It's an artist concept, but it's something that I think this community, we think this community could envision having it. Next slide.
- So three observations slash findings. One is that the operations that we're undertaking today with various improvements are doing everything we can within the funding that we have to make the airport as good as it can be. And I think Ken and I are both proud to sit here and say, Carlos is doing a magnificent job out there running the airport with his staff. We've got a retired Bloomington Fire Captain as his deputy, and he's got a handle on
- he's got to handle as a fire captain would. Future use projection with all of the surveying and the data national to regional to local data though suggests marginal operations growth continues unless we do something to develop property out there. Seems like common sense but that it's just a point to be made. Opportunities are regularly occurring and I'm going to talk to that on the last slide. Airport land is attractive
- The biggest limiting factor and challenge we have right now is sewer. Maybe you knew that was coming. We can't not deal with it from our perspective. So next slide. I lied a second on the last slide. You've seen this. I'll just pass right on by that and we'll get to the bottom line over here.
- You may have never seen this chart, but I had them color coded to show everyone available acreage, developable acreage that exists around the airport. So you've got the three parcels to the northeast of the airport. That's all looking north, that large parcel in the southwest of the main runway. That's all developable. Bloomington Sewer serves most of those white buildings you see
- to the right of the airstrip. What we lack is several hundred yards of extension to those developable plots up there to make them shovel ready. That's what we lack. And that's the most, that's the picture of thousand words thing right there, I think. And that leads me to the final one.
- So let's let me talk about opportunities that we have and have had. This is a BEDC provided some of this input. I branded as their slide, but I consolidated information in it. Over the last two years, we've been shortlisted by four businesses from out of town, out of state, interested in developing on airport property. That accounts for over $400 million worth of capital investment and over 500 jobs. Well-paying jobs.
- They like it because it's near Crane. It's near technology that they need to use or they need to bring here. It's convenient to Westgate. It's got easy access to an airport facility, easy access, ready access to education and training. And because people like Bloomington for the same reasons we all like Bloomington.
- those CEO halves or the decision makers have are twofold and I'm not qualified to talk to workforce that's that's more a BEDC thing but that that resonates in all of them that's that's a concern that they have our concern right now and I think we get them past that the one example I've personally been involved with the last several months it's a company about a 50 million dollar company
- that has an affiliation with a large subcontractor crane and wants a footprint here. They're in an airport elsewhere and the CEO likes that company and his employees to be in an aviation environment. And so he wants them to be on an airport. We tick all those blocks. We check everything on the list except when you go down to utilities, it's electricity, yes.
- Water, yes. Internet, yes. Sewer, oops, no. And that's where we are. We are working more closely with BEDC and other developers around here on our own to try to understand, better understand alternatives to Bloomington Sewer. But there are very few. You either get into industrial septic, which nobody really wants, or you get into packaged sewer plants, which I'm sure has come up here once in a while.
- We're not experts on packaged plants, but we just estimated one For this one one potential Builder here. That's a million and a half dollars. The guy wants to come spend ten million dollars on a building And we tell them well you got it We got to come up with a solution for a million and a half package sewer plant with a hundred thousand dollar a year operating costs That kind of makes them look elsewhere so that's what we're running into and I just want to paint that elephant
- Um, just to put it plainly, uh, for you, as we will with commissioners, um, we are trying our best to push development, urge development, uh, not, not, uh, not in a great way, but, but in a practical way. Uh, but people are coming to us and they're literally coming from out of state wanting to, to operate on our air, airfield. And we would like to be able to, uh, to satisfy them to get to a yes.
- that's all I have thank you thank you for that um because I think we were there might have been a little bit of a mix-up because we were department updates usually are only 10 minutes but we should have probably had y'all on the presentation portion I'm gonna look to council to see
- And that's nobody's fault. But thank you for that, because we definitely needed to hear that. Council, if anybody has, we'll entertain a couple of questions and then we'll go about our day here. So I'm going to look to my left and see if anybody has any questions. I'm going to look to my right and I'll start down the dais here. So Councilor Iverson and then Henry.
- Thank you all for being here. It's a pleasure to have you back. We look forward to future updates. As someone who flies pretty regularly for a day job, I look forward to commercial limited flights here in Bloomington. And having bumped up the list, although I'm not the decision maker there. We hear you 100% on sewer. We hear you 100% on development. We hear you on businesses wanting to come here. And I'm really glad that you're going to go talk to the commissioners about that because they need to hear it.
- Thank you madam president. Thank you. Just a refresh memory. I am the current council liaison to aviation. I am already council member Hawkins out there before as well. So I got a little bit of a preview of this from Carlos a few months back of what was coming. And I agree it's important for the community to really know what the airport is bringing to Monroe County. It's not just the touch and go sometimes we see the
- that's a lot of activity going on out there. And I thank you for the presentation. I'm also the council's representative on plan commission. And we've had a bit of a debate recently about what the council might fund in terms of infrastructure in the community if we had an appetite to be building out infrastructure to capture some of that economic development. I think you just painted a picture of what, at least I know from my seat, we would consider good risk tolerance to try to get those services out there to make those connections. I mean, it is remarkable when folks, if you have a chance
- out that way and kind of see the airport in action or just just seeing what what's potential uh we're on the knife edge of something i feel it too um i i've flown into huntsville before for work um and while that is a commercial based airport it's also an airport that services redstone and uh dod infrastructure down that way and i i don't want to say we're on our way to that but i kind of feel it you know you can see that infrastructure coming in to to be the basis or the
- airport that supports crane and just the remarkable opportunity we have here. So thank you for the presentation. I look forward to the strategic planning process and continue to make that case to include investments in the infrastructure we need to do out there. Thank you. Go look at the Columbus Airport. To me, that's a great example of what we could be and what we could look like.
- When you had on one year slide, you showed how close that sewer really is. And yet it's a little further than from you to me here. So much further to go. If we had interest from the city to work with us, do we have a price tag on what that would be?
- If we run some numbers on the different parcels, there was a proposal that we had, I believe, in 2019, 2020, to develop that 55-acre parcel on the northeast corner of our property. And so we do know what that figure is, and we've already done all of the drawings. So we know it's been presented. I recall that. We keep planning, and we're ready to move ahead, and then, oh,
- It seems like it's always has to do connection with the sewer connection. It might be a while before we can get people who are willing to work together with the airport, with county and the city and try to make this work. But with your enthusiasm,
- to bring that kind of success to Monroe County. Hopefully that will help make that happen. Thank you. No, we're not talking about the last mile. We're talking about the last quarter mile. I have a question and then we'll wrap it up here. You mentioned it's a shame to hear that IV techs due to budget cuts that got cut and obviously
- That seems to be the thing with the state, but that's a whole other conversation for another day. A couple of questions. Has that already, is that done as of now, or? No. OK. Do you know when? No, I have no knowledge of that at this time. And then just out of curiosity, because Ivy Tech was mentioned, and I don't know why this just kind of popped in my head. Do you all work with?
- the local school corporations like MCC and RBB? Is that something that you can do? That's something we could look into. We have not worked with the local school district as of yet outside of some periphery extracurricular extracurricular activities. Yeah. OK, thank you for your time. We do have hopes and I keep petitioning Ivy Tech to consider a UAS
- you know, technical course or something like that that we could host at the airport or aircraft, airframe and power plant course. They have that up north in northern Indiana. We would love to have that at our facility. And then to Councilmember Iverson's comment next week, I'll be sitting down with airlines at an air service development conference to see if we can face to face, generate some interest. I'm not going to have to find more people than just me.
- Yeah, 40,000 of your best friends. Well, we appreciate that. And I forgot to mention, thank you for your service. You mentioned earlier you served. So thank you for your service. And thank you all for the update. Thank you. Looks like we have another department update who has been patiently waiting. We appreciate your efforts here. Thank you very much. Thank you.
- Good afternoon council. Jordan Miller with the Monroe County Sheriff's Office, financial coordinator for the Correctional Center. I wanted to bring to your attention our semi-annual summary of the Monroe County Commissary Fund. I do believe it's worth noting that due to recent changes this will begin taking place quarterly so we'll be being able to meet more frequently and maybe address things in a better manner
- by doing that. I'll start off by mentioning the balance as of January 1st was $118,090.61. We had a total of $106,849.10 worth of receipts.
- seven hundred seventy dollars and eighteen cents worth of interest from January one through June thirtieth a total of ninety six thousand two hundred eighty two dollars and seventy nine cents for the expenditures with a remaining balance as of June thirtieth of twenty twenty five of one hundred twenty nine thousand four hundred twenty seven dollars and ten cents I provided you with approximately eight pages the first two are kind of what I'm explaining now pages three through
- are a line-by-line reflection of the receipts and expenditures that have taken place from January through June. As you can see on page two, approximately 82% of those expenditures come in our commissary inventory line, which is used for resale of commissary items, as well as our equipment line. As you know, equipment has been something that we've had to really
- to spend some money on to get things where we believe they need to be. I provide a list of expenditures below on page two. And again, worth noting, nicotine pouches, e-cigarettes, and beverages from PepsiCo are the top expenditures in our commissary inventory resale line. Equipment, we recently made some changes, a remodel to our inmate library.
- that we're going to be providing you with. Bookshelves desks and things of that sort- in addition to equipment for our C. tech team- taser cartridges of course are big cost in that equipment line- and uniforms- additional uniforms and such- I again I provided you with a reflection of the line by line. Receipts and expenditures and at this point I'll gladly answer any
- I see a hand waving. So, Councillor Hawke, go ahead. Yes. When I was reviewing that information you sent today, and I saw the thing about the nicotine pouches, et cetera, and it was just a few minutes before that, my daughter was pointing out to me, oh, did you see this? And having to do with the price of a pack of cigarettes here in Indiana versus right across the line in another state.
- Now I don't smoke, so it's not gonna cost me a penny. However, when you see the number of incarcerated people who have an addiction to nicotine, what do you, and this is probably not a question for you, but for jail management, but it just, you might share with them that I'm concerned about how the inmates are going to react
- when they're dealing with other addictions as well, and then the addiction of nicotine, and I don't know what the answer is. I'm just thinking that we're probably going to see some very upset people, and that will be up to jail management to decide what to do. But just wanted to share that concern. Absolutely.
- that we've been working on for a long time. As you'll notice in the notes that I provided on the second page, we did switch recently from an M con distributing to custom technologies LLC. One of many things that we're constantly doing on a daily basis is looking to see what we can do from a cost savings measure and perspective. So of course, there's not much you can do when prices increased to the extent that they have. And you know, that's a very
- It's a very big concern, of course, you know, how inmates are going to react to this and and kind of the aftermath of all this. So it's something certainly to keep our eyes on. All right, counselor Henry. Thank you. Thank you, Jordan. So I have one question on the contractual line item regarding the reimbursement for travel for jail transition team. Where where were they traveling in that six month time frame? So curiosity.
- They've made, I mean, without having it right in front of me. That's on the spot, I'm sorry. No, then that's quite all right. Let me see. Was there a specific month that you were referring to or just the general? It's just the window. It's like you got 1900 over the six month window. And you're speaking of the contractual. Yeah. And then the note mentions that's travel reimbursement. Correct. And so the main reimbursements from that contractual line are specific to the transition team director, as the contract states, the monthly portion that's paid.
- comes from ARPA funding currently. And so the additional expenses to travel to and from various facilities to discuss and discover opportunities for change, things of that sort, the travel to and from those destinations are per the contract. It's agreed that I pay that from our commissary. I'm kind of scratching an itch about trying to be prosecutorial. But just to say that, so you said it was multiple locations,
- It wasn't just like a one or it's you have it like itemized or was it something that was just a just part of the monthly disbursement of like a standard flat rate of disbursement. And as you can see, I believe on page two, I did reflect that these these purchases are for both our previous transition team director, Mr. Grass and our current Mr. Smith. These I know
- with our previous director, reimbursement took place I believe in March for a couple or a few months of travel. It's basically one of those things where I know they've made trips to neighboring states to visit jails to just one thing in particular is the material of beds and things of that sort. Just again, trying to do what we can to determine what is available to us and what changes we can make to better, you know,
- I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you so much for this level of detail.
- The month by month detail where you're giving us an expenditure line and an explanation beneath it is exactly what we love and how deep we like to dive. So thank you for providing that. I mean, we can even now tell everyone that we know that there's poetry going on in the jail and that they're eating Sam's Club food. So that's great. That's correct. So I just wanted to thank you for doing that. And we look forward to this quarterly report, particularly as I'm just really thankful for this level of detail.
- That's what we want. Thank you for your kind words. Yes, I do perceive, you know, these future quarterly meetings will be able to maybe have a be able to dive in even further than we are in a six month period. So very excited about that and the changes that are to come. Thanks. Councillor Woods. Yes. Actually, my comment is very similar to Councillor Iverson's in that I really appreciate
- the level of detail. Since it came today, I didn't get a chance to look at it. Just one of those days. And so I'll check it out. And if I have any questions, I'll reach out. But I do appreciate having it in front of us at this level. And the fact that, you know, a decent line item is the inmate workers and appreciation. And I think that's something that your office has
- I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point.
- positive behavior and things of that sort. So just some of the things that maybe the public or people aren't seeing, this is a great opportunity for us to show that we are rewarding and incentivizing inmates. And it's really, I think it's a win-win situation. Thank you. All right, I'll take one more and then we'll move on. Thank you, Madam President. In May and June,
- Todd Smith spent about a thousand dollars per month on travel. If you don't have it in front of you right now, can you let us know later what exactly that travel was as transition director?
- And again, I unfortunately, I'm very sorry. I don't have each of like the, you know, the specific receipts and such. He provides me with a mileage reimbursement for those different various needs and trainings that take place. I am not at this point in time. I don't have those specific
- I will gladly provide you a better reflection of those, but as you can imagine, he and our transition team are actually on their way to Georgia as we speak, again, to look at a facility there and discuss, again, continually working around the clock. And he, of all people, of course, is traveling more than any of them to make sure that we're doing what we can to be prepared for this transition and to just do our due diligence. But I can certainly give you a better reflection
- reflection of those exact locations if that would be really helpful because of where we are with the jail planning process. And that I think that would be really interesting to hear about as to why we're going to Georgia to figure out what we could do better on a site that is being planned out by architects right now. Please follow up. Absolutely. Thanks. I believe he's with one of our architects. That's great. That's great. OK.
- I am going to take one more, and anybody else that has already asked the question, no more. But I will go ahead and add Liz, or Counselor Feidl, go ahead.
- Thank you so much. You did mention something about the public, but I did see that this came in not in time for the packet. So I'm concerned about the public not being able to see it at this point. I do apologize. We were at conference last week. I've been, you know, we want to get this to you all as timely as possible. The opportunity was not available to reconcile June and be at the last month's meeting. We had spoken with members of council and I explained to them the desire
- to be on the 22nd uh and I certainly am not placing blame but uh I've just the it falls on on me for not having this time just thinking about the future how you might make this public right can we be maybe assured that the next time the general public can see this as well as the council that absolutely that'd be great my apologies again thank you okay no worries at all we appreciate that thank you and again thank you for your patience of course all right thank you all right
- there any other department heads I would like to make a 10 minute presentation go ahead and come to the lectern here or raise your hand via teams and we appreciate all the department updates because members of the public need to be informed as this council so we definitely appreciate that thank you all so much all right
- we are going to move on to item number six which is uh boards and commissions council i move to approve the citizen appointment of julie robertson to the sophia travis grant committee completing a two-year term to expire on july 22nd 2027 second all right we got a motion and a second um and those that were on the interview committee
- I would like to give an opportunity to make a brief comment. I'm going to look at Councilor Feidl. I can go. It was my pleasure to serve on the committee to choose someone. There were three applicants that attended the interview process. Based on everyone's participation in that process, it was my total thrill to vote in favor of Ms. Robertson. I look forward to working with her.
- Thank you. And I see Councilor Deckard's hand is up and then I'll go to Iverson. Thank you very much, Madam President. I hope you can hear me okay. We're driving through Maine right now and so I apologize. I had some technical issues. I'm now on my phone. But I just wanted to say I'm so excited for Julie's service and selection for this. I've known her for a good number of years and her public service.
- her tremendous commitment to the community and for this very special committee, which does so much with so many partner organizations, some of which were referred to in public comment earlier or the goods for the needs that they serve were referred to. I know that Julie will be a real boon in helping us do that very, very hard work, which is important to all of us. So forward to her appointment.
- And Councilor Iverson. And I'm just going to round things off by saying we had a really robust pool of candidates, and we're really happy to select Ms. Robertson to this role to the Sophia Travis Grant Committee. And boy, are we doing it just in the nick of time, because on July 29th at 5 p.m., there is the Sophia Travis Committee grant kickoff meeting. So we're happy to vote you in now so that you can be part of that. Yes, Councilor Haug.
- Yes, I'd like to welcome Ms. Ferguson to come to the podium so the public can see the person that we are going to put on this committee. And I know firsthand what a hard worker she is and beautiful spirit. And so I think she'll make a great addition. And welcome to Monroe County Government. Thank you, Councilman Hawk.
- already a part of Monroe County government. Absolutely. Would you like to say some remarks? Sure, so I was very excited for the opportunity to apply for this position. Several councilmen know me personally, know the hard work that I've done in the community. I think one of the things that I wanted to stress during my interview process is not only do I have a lot of experience with grants and
- I'm not giving out the grants, but I'm a boots on the ground volunteer. I every week my husband and I do something in the community to raise money we have a fundraiser coming up this Saturday actually for the American Legion. When I interviewed for this position, I got up at 530 went down to Stonecrest we, we did.
- fundraiser for the local fire protection department. And then I had to come back, get ready, and come back for the interview. So not only do I look forward to being part of the grant process, but I look forward to continuing to serve the community in a volunteer capacity. Thank you. And I had a pleasure of meeting you recently. Unfortunately, under some dire circumstances, but definitely had a pleasure of meeting you. So yeah.
- Anybody else have any questions or comments? All right. Because we do not take public comment on board and commission appointments, and because again, we have a member of council online, we will have to do a roll call vote. So may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Deckard? Yes.
- Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Hogg? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Motion passes unanimously. Thanks to the council. Thank you. All right, next up on the agenda is the item number seven, which are the consent agenda items. Council, I move to approve the following consent agenda items for July 22nd. The July 10th and 24th county council summary minutes as presented.
- second all right we got a motion and a second is there any questions or comments from council related to this particular item see no hands raised on teams and no movement here we will take public comment if you have a public comment on this item come forward to the lectern here in the Nattie Hill room or raise your hand via teams
- and seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hawk? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Thank you.
- Next up is item number eight, which are ongoing business. And this is eight, which is the overview. Or we will have Kim Falk, legal director of the ACLU here. And I will kick it over to Ms. Molly Turner King to give a brief introduction as to why we're having this conversation. And then go ahead.
- Well, I think Mr. Falk might have left the meeting after his public comment. Okay. Well, that was a doozy. But is there a way that we could maybe try to get him back?
- to email him I'm not sure that I have a contact number but I'll work on it okay so how about this we'll just kind of bump that to the last of the items for ongoing business too and I'll just kind of come back and look to see if we have him back on there so we can counsel with no objection I would like to move
- Um, Mr. Fox presentation as long as we can get him back to the end of the ongoing business portions. Um, so we can get through the rest of the agenda. All right. No objections. So order. All right. So we'll move on to item B, which is from the health department.
- Council, as a reminder, this item was tabled from the July 8th meeting. I move to approve the Health Department's request and fund 1161-0000 Local Public Health Services to deappropriate $422,761 in the personnel category. Second. Great. We got a motion and a second, and we see Ms. Lori Kelly come in here. Welcome. Thank you so much. Go ahead.
- Yes, welcome and thank you for being here. So this request was a made. Essentially, the mission of the Monroe County Health Department is to protect, promote and improve the health of all people in Monroe County. And so this request was made as a way to ensure that we could continue providing services due to these legislative changes. Thank you very much for that.
- And I'm going to look over here to my left to see if anybody has any questions for Miss Kelly. Okay looking over to my right and seeing if anybody else has any questions. Councilor Hawke. Yes I will just want to once again express my concern. We continue to move some expenses from the
- local public health services 1161 over to White is More in the general portion that's covered with local property taxes and a lot of those expenses I would assume had to do with some grant dollars that are not as we do not know.
- what the future holds for that. And so I do have concern about moving things around, especially salaries and so forth. But I wanted to say last meeting, I was saying, no, no, don't de-appropriate it because of course those people still need to receive a paycheck. And so we couldn't de-appropriate in that fund. So I'm glad that that part happened.
- but I just don't, I won't be supporting this movement of dollars around to avoid doing what the state has directed us to do with the grant dollars. Yes. Counselor Henry. Thank you, Madam President. Ms. Kelly, can you maybe once maybe clarify again what
- What is was funded under grants or reverse what we're what we're actually accomplishing with the movement here just decided so I have clarity to sure. So, the health first Indiana we will still be fulfilling all of our core service requirements they did eliminate tobacco cessation. So that is the purpose.
- primarily moving that position into a different fund will ensure that we can still provide those services. The services that we still in the programs that we will be providing under this funding include maternal and child health, trauma and injury prevention, chronic disease. So we're working on initiatives to address nutrition. We actually have a program that we're working on to be able to provide
- funding for fresh fruits and vegetables to qualified individuals, blood pressure monitoring to qualified individuals. So we'll still be performing those programs. We will just have to do it within the terms of these new requirements, which will include obtaining proof of Indiana residency in US citizenship. Thank you. Anybody else have any questions or comments?
- Go ahead, Councillor Wilks. I probably said something like this last week, but thank you for being attentive to this. As you know, I'm on the Monroe County Health Equity Council. I believe you're there frequently as well. And last night we discussed not only state legislation, but the big, beautiful bill impact on
- a lot of these related services. And the fact is that we might not be seeing these impacts right now, but they're coming and they're coming at us from multiple directions. And it's gonna be increasingly important that we facilitate these services locally.
- in as best we can and that's going to require some support from the council I think as we move forward so thank you I'm happy to to help you do that.
- without any other further questions or comments. I will go ahead to public comment. So if you have public comment on this particular item, please come forward to the lectern here in the Nattie Hill room or raise your hand via Teams. And seeing none, Michelle, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Hawk?
- Councillor Crossley? Yes. Councillor Deckard? Yes. Councillor Henry? Yes. Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes. Motion passes six to one majority. Thank you and next up we will go to item B.
- Oh, I'm sorry. Item C. Council, as a reminder, this is the second reading of this request due to the lack of unanimous vote at the July 8th meeting. I move to approve the health department's request to amend the salary ordinance in fund one one five nine dash zero zero zero zero health fund to add positions as outlined on the agenda and in fund one one six one dash zero zero zero zero local public health services to remove positions as outlined on the agenda.
- Second. All right, we got a motion and a second. Miss Kelly, anything you'd like to add? I don't really think so. I think it's challenging to kind of understand the depth of the impact of these changes and how not only it's going to be impacting our community, but the work that we're just trying to simply perform every day as public servants. So I do appreciate the support that we have received.
- looking to my right here, any questions or comments? Councillor Hawke. Yes, just once again, I think when we're looking at trying to work around what we're going to do if we are, as we anticipate seeing less revenue coming in there, the grant dollars from the state, we're going to be seeing that in a lot of departments. And so that's moving this over into that
- general fund which is a part of the frozen levy i keep calling it personally of all of those funds and so as we make decisions and i know you've already made your your decision but but let us remember that that's going to affect everybody and the ability to provide for county general because we're going to have to pull it from there so
- I'm hoping that as you're voting for this, you've already taken that in consideration. And if we run short, when we get ready to do the budgets to do raises that you will, you've made that decision that this is the better place to put it. So. Okay. Thank you. Councilor Decker has his hand up. Thank you very much. I just wanted to offer that I appreciate what Ms. Kelly said.
- always understands about these services or these things that are offered or what you all do or what this happens. And I couldn't agree more with that. I would encourage you, Ms. Kelly and the Board of Health and others, if you think about what these services do, what the needs are, to communicate as clear as possible to the public, this does this, this does that, because right now, there's a lot of theoretical governing going on.
- theoretical and hey, we might try cutting that, we might try adding that, we might try requiring that and really not seeing it. Sometimes that happens in a classroom, sometimes that happens in a national think tank, sometimes that happens in the halls of Congress or the legislature or when people are standing at bars coming up with really good or bad ideas to take your pick. And I think telling the story of this is about people being taken care of when they're sick and the health support
- health board did a tremendous job with that during the pandemic. I think sometimes telling that story as clear as possible starts to take that theoretical and makes it real. So I just encourage you to do it and you can. And as you have time, cause gosh knows there's 3 million things going on for you all. So thank you. Thank you. And looking over to my left here and seeing if anybody has anything. Nope. Okay. So again, just to,
- As a clarifying question for our staff, because this didn't have a unanimous vote the first time, because it's amended the salary ordinance, just for clarification, we just need majority of council to say yes to this to go. Is that correct?
- Yes, that is correct. Okay. I just wanted to make sure. And because we didn't have unanimous consent the last time, your staff, Ms. Kelly, had to go on pause for certain things. Is that correct?
- yes that is correct we did have to suspend services and again I appreciate what counselor Deckard said and we are working on communications that we can begin releasing to the public and very specific scenarios and situations that we run into with these changes to really help explain just the impact for example I mean we have individuals for real estate inspections who are not Indiana residents that they don't meet this qualification
- We have individuals who are born in Monroe County, but are no longer Indiana residents. We cannot provide them their birth certificates. This is impacting us on every single level. And I don't think that there's a clear understanding of that. What I had to do was try again to make the best decisions that we could to move around, to be able to sustain the services to the best of our ability that we can.
- there are still going to be some programs that do fall under Health First that were already established when we entered into Health First Indiana. The supplies were already purchased. Those programs were there. We have to continue on in that. And there will be individuals that we will have to turn down for those programs and those supplies. And that's unfortunate, but we're simply trying to navigate the situation the best that we can.
- Yeah. And I appreciate you saying that, because I know and understand. I emailed you afterwards to figure out what happens with all of that. And so I know you had mentioned, looks like maybe 11 maternal patients that were actively enrolled. But the truth of the matter is, you're trying to do everything that you can because of what you have been given. And so I appreciate that. And I keep reflecting on a lot of things that our public said during public comment of trying to invest
- in our community in different ways. And I think, again, this is another way of trying to invest and do what we can with the chips that we've been given, because we know that big, beautiful BS bill is going to directly impact those of us here in the county. So I appreciate your efforts. So without further ado, and I will support that, period.
- Next up, we'll go to public comment. If you have any public comment on this item, please come forward to the lectern here, the night, you know, room or raise your hand via teams. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Counselor Hawk. No. Counselor Crossley. Yes. Counselor Henry. Yes. Counselor Fiddle. Yes. Counselor Wilts.
- Yes. Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Deckard? Yes. Motion passes six to one majority. Thank you very much. Ms. Turner King, I know we said we were trying to move back. Is there any update on Mr. Falk? I'm still trying. Okay.
- I'm afraid to look up his number again, as my computer might make noise. All right. Thank you so much. We'll keep pushing that back. All right. So next up is item number nine under new business. And we still are with the health department. Council, I move to approve the health department's request and fund nine one one seven dash zero zero zero zero
- local grants, the creation of a count line to one zero five zero medical supplies and to simultaneously approve an additional appropriation of two thousand seven hundred twenty dollars and twenty six cents in the supplies category. Second. All right. Got a motion in a second. Miss Kelly.
- Yes, so the health department received grant funding for the 2021 and 2022 grant cycle, but all of these funds were not used. So we did receive approval from the CARES Board to extend the date of the funds so that we could finish utilizing all of the funds originally awarded. So we are just requesting approval to be able to purchase supplies before the end of the year. Thank you.
- pretty self explanatory here. And I'll look to my left here and see if y'all got any questions. Seeing none, to my right here, it looks like Councilor Hawk has one, go ahead. Yes, could you tell us what the medical supplies are? Yes, so the grant was awarded for sharps containers and or Narcan. The containers and where are those containers going to be placed?
- know there's some some folks who said we really don't want them in the township some of the people so just for the public to know in case they're interested where those containers might be found sure so with the amount of funding that's left the intention is to purchase the smaller units so we have those available at the health department that individuals can pick up okay so some and
- any group or individual who might be interested in obtaining one of these, they can go to the health department to find it. Yes, thank you. All right, any other questions from council? Seeing none, we'll go to public comment. If you have public comment on this item, please come forward to the lectern here in the Nattie Hill room or raise your hand via Teams. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote.
- Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Hawke? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. All right. Next up is item B. Council, I'm going to be grouping items, or nevermind. I will only be, well, I think I am. No, I'm not.
- Here we go. Council, I move to approve the health department's request and fund one one five nine dash zero zero zero zero health fund for the creation of account one zero one eight one environmental health specialist general and simultaneously approve additional appropriations of fifty one thousand seven hundred twenty eight dollars in the personnel category. Second. All right. Motion in a second, Miss Kelly.
- So I will say the purpose of this request, again, is due to these legislative changes and the requirements around obtaining a proof of Indiana residency and US citizenship. The reason that you are seeing these separately.
- from the other 15 positions, again, is because we were simply trying to look at all of the available options that we could to not make a request to move all of the positions. Upon guidance from legal, we then decided that the best decision was going to be to request to just move all of these positions to different funding. Thank you. And Councilor Hawke already has her hand up. Go ahead.
- I just wanted to say that when I heard you say due to legal citizens, how was it you put that? Because I don't think that's how the legislation was.
- for us citizenship so public law two one five is what i was provided with from our county legal team and i know that there's been a couple of different versions the original version of the changes that we received from the indiana department of health did have some changes what i saw when i was reviewing the legislation said that they needed to be here and
- you know, with a legal reason. In other words, they could be a student and not be a citizen here, but they have the authority to be here, the legal authority to be here. And so if that's not, I'm sure I'm not saying that exactly the way the legislation said, but I wouldn't want anyone listening here to think that they were here legally
- Even though they weren't a citizen, if they're here legally, they can still avail themselves of the services just the same as they could before. And if that's no longer the case, I ask our attorney to correct me. Governor King, please clarify.
- I think the confusion is there are multiple versions of that statute when we looked on LexisNexis. I know that Mr. Roddy in our office was working with Ms. Kelly. And so I could follow up with him, but at this moment, I don't know that I have exactly what Mr. Roddy supplied Ms. Kelly. And I'm not sure, just looking at it right now, I can differentiate why there are two versions of the statute in LexisNexis.
- I think that's essential that we find that out, because we have a lot of students here who are not residents, who are not citizens of the United States, and yet they have the right to avail themselves of services. So I just think that we have a lot of people who might be very interested to make sure if they can request services.
- I think that's something we need to be deciding and discussing before we put it out there that they can't. I'm looking at council to see if anybody has any. Council Henry. Thank you, Miss Kelly. Thank you for providing the Indiana Department of Health's memo on this and it's in the packet. So maybe I'll just go back to Ms. Turner, hang on the question. So when I'm looking at the backgrounder, like on the
- The document is dated April 28, 2025, first page, and it says background. And the sentence here says, and if I'm reading this right, I see 16-46-10-3, Section F. And it goes on to say, funds may only be used for Indiana residents who are lawfully present in the United States. But Indiana residents as a clause, right, and lawfully present in the United States, these are kind of two different things. Is that where, is that the confusion?
- Because indiana residency, especially if the student population right it means something very different, and I mean I don't want to muddy this anymore, but I appreciate that it's muddy how are you reading that sentence out of their own memo. or miss Kelly, do you have an interpretation of that, I mean so so part of our issue here is that it changed.
- And which further complicated this and then we were running into issues saying we have this huge student population, how are we going to provide for these students is how are we going to provide for all of these individuals and it was because there was a separate.
- information that came out that I did get from County Legal. Unfortunately, I don't have that document right here in front of me tonight. I certainly wish I did, but I can provide that. But that's the additional complexity that we've been just trying to simply navigate with how are we going to serve our community? You could be, I mean, because it's an ant, right? You could be lawfully present in the United States, but not an Indiana resident. Correct. When we start factoring in that student thing. OK.
- goodness okay thank you you need to interject from what counselor Henry just mentioned or say anything else I don't know I don't know I don't need to say anything I did find an email and
- that I had with Mr Roddy regarding Indiana code sixteen forty six ten three and we were comparing public law to thirteen and public law to thirty public law to thirty says citizens and it was approved by the governor on May sixth- public law to thirty says lawfully present it was likewise approved by the governor on May sixth but expressly strike citizens and if you go to the Indiana gov website though it says lawfully present so I think our
- And that's what the law is. Thank you. All right. So without further questions or comments about this item and I see counselor Decker just raised his hand.
- with Ms. Turner King was enough for me on this question, simply because it sounds to me, and who knows what happened with the legislative session, sounds like a technical correction bill or some other bill has superseded what has signed and perhaps in that order. I don't know. Greater minds will have to figure that out. I do know this, and this is a concern that I have
- overwhelmingly, much like someone said to me during the pandemic when I said, you know, you got to be careful in a big public setting or even in private settings about disease. They said, well, you know, a private thing, disease is not, disease does not welcome there. And I was like, that is absolutely ridiculous. Similarly in a community where we have so many people traveling through and it's not just students.
- Let me be clear. It's people that are driving semis. It's people that are coming to visit family. We have so many people traveling through. I worry that this multiple bills, multiple things, not really thinking about it, is actually going to put the public health in worse jeopardy. And so that's not the question for tonight, but actually it's the question for the entire population moving forward. What do you do in these settings where
- people go where people go and they come to our community and are welcome. So I just, I'm a little alarmed that there's multiple versions of things. I'm going to assume that's a technical correction, but these things don't stop. And it's not just students that travel and come to our community. Stan. All right. I'm going to
- Go ahead and go to public comment. So if you have a public comment on this item, please come forward to the lectern here, the NatU Hill Room, or raise your hand via Teams. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Feidl. Can I clarify what Molly just said first? So you said, because I'm confused about
- OK, so I'm not the only one. So I'm confused about there were three things that you referred to as far as the interpretation of the language. And so is it because two out of three are sort of the same or? I think it's because so public law 213 looks like it was first. And then public law 230, it specifically changed
- It says lawfully present and strikes the citizen language. And then when you go and look at the Indiana.gov website, it reflects lawfully present. So I think our thought process was that since 230 came later and that the Indiana.gov website is reflecting language consistent with lawfully present, that would be reflective of the law. So what we're voting on is lawfully present. Am I correct in that?
- I believe so unless Miss Kelly received other advice from Mr. Roddy. The last advice that I received when I was working on these documents was related to the 213 for the citizenship. Can I since there seems to be confusion and you know you guys are still seeking information you could table this item to the next meeting.
- So Mr. Roddy and I had the email exchange on July 10th. Did he provide the 213 language prior to July 10th? I don't remember the date. The date that he provided the paperwork was when we met in person in the conference room. That was prior to July 10th. Okay. So council, I'm going to look around to see what the temperature is for in terms of trying to interpret what's
- lawful status, what's not lawful status, and it seems like there is a confusion of some sort, and I wanna make sure that we are making the decision based upon what we all know and understand. Does everybody, and I'd like to have folks that have an opinion on this, state it soon, and make a comment of, do you understand, or what is the temperature of us needing to
- Maybe table this to the next meeting, which is August 12th. Councilor Iverson. I think we should not table this. I think we have clearly have, you've talked, the health department has talked with legal, legal's weighed in here. I don't think that the council needs to be weighing in on legal interpretations of recently passed code. I think that's beyond our purview. I think this move,
- makes sense to me and I'd like to move forward with the vote tonight okay anybody else that wants to clarify anything else so what's the motion again let's clarify the motion again what are we voting on would may I reread the motion please
- I move to approve the health department's request and fund one one five nine dash zero zero zero zero health fund for the creation of account one zero one eight one environmental health specialist general and simultaneously approve additional appropriations of fifty one thousand seven hundred twenty eight dollars in the personnel category. Thank you. Anybody else have any other clarifying questions or points to be made.
- Councilor Wilts. So not approving this, if we did not move these positions into 1159, then by the health department's interpretation via legal's advice, that you would not be able to offer certain services.
- correct without verifying and obtaining this information and documentation. So if that's the practice, then I think, okay, then I think I'm going for it. So then I will go ahead and proceed to ask Michelle, can we please move forward with the roll call vote? Councillor Feidl? Yes. Councillor Wilts? Yes.
- Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Hogg? Yes. Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Okay. Thank you for all the clarification. Okay. Okay. Item C. Council, I move to approve the Health Department's request and fund 1159-0000 Health Fund
- to amend the 2025 salary ordinance to add account line 1-0-1-1-3, environmental health specialist food, 35 hours, Pat B, non-exempt. And account line 1-0-1-8-1, environmental health specialist general, 35 hours, Pat B, non-exempt. Second? Second. All right, we got a motion and a second, Ms. Kelly.
- I think this is just standard housekeeping item. Okay. Again, because this is amended in the salary ordinance and we've gone down this rodeo several times. If we do not have a unanimous consent from this council, then Ms. Kelly has to come back in two weeks. That is correct. Okay. Council, I want us to understand and member of the public,
- If we want to keep playing the rodeo of going back and forth, we can do that. But we are wasting time of folks of keep having to come back and forth. So may I remind you that each and every one of us have an obligation to come here to vote in the way that we think we should. And so, of course, I was coming back now.
- So I don't like being chastised for voting the way that I must. However, I intend that now that this is going to move forward, that as long as we all understand what the legislation says, and I think we've had enough discussion about that, it's not just legal citizens, they have to have lawful status to be here, I'm going to vote in favor of this.
- Let's just move forward. But I really, from now on, my votes, I do not want to have to apologize for voting. I won't. Councilor Hawke, I don't think I was trying to chastise you, number one. Two, I don't think that I was also trying to have you apologize for your vote. None of us need to apologize for the votes or how we feel. We are all respected electeds and our own right, and we can agree to disagree. And that's fine. I just want to make sure that
- When we keep getting in the habit of doing this, this is the result of what's happening. That's all I'm saying. So I'm not taking a side swipe at you or any of the six other council members that have a vote. You vote how you feel. You vote how you will. And we know that you do that. And so does everybody else on here. So anybody else have any other questions or comments related to this item? OK. All right. So.
- Moving forward with public comment on this item, if you have public comment, please come forward to the lectern you hear in the Net-U-Hill room or raise your hand via Teams. And seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Henry is not present. Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes.
- Councillor Hogg? Yes. Councillor Crossley? Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes. Motion passes unanimous six to zero. Thank you. And thank you, Ms. Kelly. We appreciate that. All right. Next up is item D from the Sheriff's Office. Council, I move to approve the Sheriff's request in Fund 8103-0000, Operation Pullover.
- for an additional appropriation of $1,853.78 in the personnel category. Second. All right, we got a motion and a second. Mr. Miller is back. Hello. Hello again. Jordan Miller, financial coordinator, Monroe County Sheriff's Office. I'm filling in for my colleague, Ms. Yonkey. This is, as you can see, back-to-back items, housekeeping, operation pullover is an overtime line that is paid.
- initially from county general and once the funds are received after the fact after the quarter has ended uh those funds are essentially moved over to the appropriate uh in this case operation pullover fund so we are requesting um the appropriation in this and the de-appropriation in county general thank you and looking over here to my right anybody got any questions or comments
- I just wanted to say that I saw much of this happening, and I appreciate it because I think this saves lives. Absolutely. So thank you. Anybody else over here to the right have any questions or comments? No. Looking to my left? No. OK. Public comment time. Please come forward to the lectern here in the NetYahoo room or raise your hand via Teams. And seeing none.
- May we please help? Oh, sorry, Ms. Turner-King. I can do the roll call. Okay. Can you please do a roll call though? Councillor Deckard. Yes. Councillor Hoppe. Yes. Councillor Henry. Yes. Councillor Iverson. Yes. Councillor Wilts. Yes. Councillor Feidl. Yes. Councillor Crossley. Yes. Motion passes unanimously. All right.
- Thank you very much and we'll move on to item e also from the sheriff's office council I move to approve the sheriff's request and fund 1000 dash 0005 county general sheriff the deappropriation of 1853 dollars and 78 cents in the personnel category All right, mr. Miller, thanks again, uh, as I just stated this is the other half of the the appropriation of
- funds and the appropriation of county general funds where they originated thank you looking to my left anybody got questions for mr. Miller looking to my right anybody no okay so public comment time again please come forward to the lectern here the night you know room or raise your hand via teams and seeing none maybe please have a roll call vote counselor Iverson yes
- Councilor Feidl. Yes. Councilor Hawk. Yes. Councilor Wilts. Yes. Councilor Decker. Yes. Councilor Crosley. Yes. Councilor Henry. Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next up is item F from the aviation department.
- Council, I move to approve the aviation department's request and fund 4801-0000 aviation construction and additional appropriation of $20,000 in the services category. Second.
- I got a motion and a second. Mr. Laverty, hello again. Hey, good evening. Yes, we're requesting appropriation from the aviation construction fund into our contractual line to support a contract that the board of commissioners, the Monroe County Board of Aviation Commissioners entered into with CTL engineering to perform some geotechnical surveys on the west side of the airport property. All right, looking over here to
- I'll start online just to see if Mr. Decker doesn't have his hand up. No. OK. He's shaking head. No. All right. Looking over to my right, does anybody have any questions or comments from Mr. Laverty? No. And then looking to my left. OK. Sounds like we're all good, but we won't know until we take a vote. All right. Anybody that has public comment on this item, please come forward to the lectern here in the Nightie Hill room or raise your hand via Teams.
- and seeing none may please have a roll call vote. Councilor Feidl. Yes. Councilor Henry. Yes. Councilor Wilts. Yes. Councilor Hawk. Yes. Councilor Iverson. Yes. Councilor Crossley. Yes. Councilor Decker. Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Thank you. Thank you. Moving along on the agenda is item G from the probation department.
- Council I move to approve the Probation Department's request and fund 1000-0226 County General Probation for the creation of new account lines as set out on the agenda. Second. All right. We got a motion and a second and Mr. Williams is here from the Probation Department. Hello.
- Before I begin with that, I do want to take just a moment to recognize that this week is pre-trial probation and parole recognition week. It's a national observation that highlights the critical role that we serve in community corrections. And so I just want to personally thank all of our staff for the work that they do and thank you for the support that you give our department. Now, with that being said, I'm here to request approval of
- account line creations in county general. I think our department has been advising the council for quite some time that our project income our community corrections user fees fund is dwindling quickly and in fact it would go into the negative before the end of the year if we didn't take some critical steps. Some of that was receiving the opiate grant to cover some positions. Additionally we have
- quite a bit of money left in our county general appropriation from the retirement of a very longtime employee and then some other positions. And so we'd like to use that money that's remaining to pay some of the staff that would normally be paid out of project income and use that money up to help save some of the funds in project income. And that's why we're here tonight. All right. Thank you for that.
- Looking over here to my left, does anybody have any questions or comments? Councilor Wilts? Yeah, I have gone over this with you and it's a really responsible way to go about managing this year's budget. I just wondered if you wanted to take this opportunity to give us a little bit of a peek at the next year's budget because obviously,
- something's going to have to change. It's the shortfall in the fees. Just giving you the opportunity. Sure. Yeah.
- The project income, I mean, we're working internally to get fees raised, collecting from clients. We don't want to seem like bill collectors to our clients, but we want to collect as much money as we can. In addition to that, a lot of the project income expenses in the 100s are picking up expenses from grants.
- And we have talked about that. I will tell you that our community corrections grant was flatline. That's the good news. Unfortunately, our drug court grant lost over $20,000 coming next year from last year. And then in addition,
- I wrote down the numbers, over $6,000 for our mental health court. And then our pre-trial services program was completely defunded in the community corrections grant for next year. When I say that it's coming from all directions, and I don't know how we're going to address some of these things, this is exactly what I'm
- referring to you because you know there's a lot of important work that's done to keep people out of our out of our jail and this is a really key component and we're losing a lot of money so I just thank you for sharing that. Absolutely. Councilor Decker and then I'll go down the dais here.
- Thank you very much. I appreciate a couple of things here. Number one, money management alongside the council and in conjunction with the council where department has looked at what it could do based on the real circumstances they see around who's there, who's retired, who's not, and what do we need to do now to kind of take care of this. To go to Councilor Wilts's greater point, we've said for years that for the
- County taxpayers to replicate everything that our grants and other good programs that these folks bring home to do that would be almost impossible. And what's saddest about that, particularly is that Anthony read that list, is that the drug court recidivism numbers alone that I can't do the stat right now are huge. So as I listen to people today come in and talk to us about doing alternatives, doing other things, this really, really, really
- keys in with me is we have done those things for a number of years, much like we funded, Health Net was mentioned earlier, the county funds Health Net. We do a lot of alternatives period in the community and we do have it coming at every side. So I wanna offer that. I also wanna thank Anthony and Ms. Brady for thinking through how we might get through this. Thank you. Councilor Hock and then I'll go to Iverson.
- Yes, and of course I'm not at all surprised that the pro-date probation department is looking under every stone you can to try to continue the services that you've had in the past. I personally think that we should do this all, all of these
- movements of dollars should be a part of our budget preparation and decisions for next year because if we're doing it like one at a time then when the people who've been patient and wait to come to us for their loss of grants and trying to figure out what they're going to do we will have already made these decisions in advance and there will be not enough money left to do all that we would like.
- So I really don't think it's a good idea to piecemeal it like this. I don't think it's a good idea. On the other hand, I want the services to go forward. But folks, we've got some tough decisions to make and what we're doing right now is making the easy ones because we can just keep saying yes until
- we look at the bottom line and then we know that we should have said no to some of this and cut it back by half or cut it back by whatever. And bigger picture when we finally get all of the numbers turned into the auditor's office and they turn it into us, we will see where we are. But to do something that might make us say
- to all the people that thought they were gonna get a raise. I'm sorry, we just sort of gave that away because we can't cover all the grant losses, so we're gonna make it up with the people who are still here. It would be so much easier if I just sat here and shut up and just say no, but it's not. I mean, we have to make tough decisions. Indeed. Anybody else have any questions or comments over here?
- Do you have one? I'll keep it brief. Thank you for bringing this to us. I agree with Councillor Wilts. You're doing the best with what you have and I think this is a sound decision to be making. I sat in a couple of these meetings as well and clearly this has been talked about a lot and this is a preview of what's to come.
- We've got departments losing grants due to ineptitude and then we've got the state government telling us that they're gonna be cutting our property tax revenue and so we this council and councils all over in Indiana are stuck between a rock and a hard place and it's just gonna it's really gonna be tough in the next couple of years and and this is the tip of the iceberg so
- I guess I'm thanking you for bringing this to us, but at the same time, uh, this is what budget season is going to look like for the next couple of years. All right. Anybody that has public comment on this item, please come forward to the election here in the night. You Hill room or raise your hand via teams and seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. I don't see a fiscal on this.
- Councilor Henry. Sorry, it's not the point of information that you asked, Marty. I don't see the fiscal on this. So, you know, I see on this next one, is the next item, is it to cover that? And if so, where's the fiscal information? Okay, my understanding with working with Anthony is they've got enough money in their current budget
- to handle this change for this year. Right. Yeah, but what's it do for next year? And this is item G and H go hand in hand. Yeah, they kind of go together. This is creating the account line and then H is what we are about to do next. Right. Okay. Right. And so like he stated, they've got some people that have retired, so they're not asking for any additional appropriations for the remainder of this year.
- So I did not do a fiscal impact. Right. I think what counselor hawk is asking about is just when you typically put the fund cash balance and the remaining balance available after the items for us and this one just doesn't have it. Well, that's because there wasn't any fiscal impact and I don't I personally don't do that. That's an auditor auditor office item. So okay.
- I thought we typically did it. Just so we would know, but. I can get that information. I'm happy to vote on this, knowing that I think you know we've all had the agenda and everything long enough and so we've all seen it and we had any questions. Could have asked that. So again, I appreciate the clarification, but again, I'm going to continue with the roll call vote.
- and I do apologize for that. It's okay. It's okay. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Hawk? No. Councilor Deckard? We may have lost him. Yeah. Okay. Councilor Deckard is not present. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes.
- Councillor Iverson. Yes. Motion passes five to one. And next up is item H. This is a long one. Council, I move to approve the Probation Department's request and fund 1000-226 County General Probation to amend the 2025 salary ordinance to add account lines as follows. 10555 Probation Officer Suss Case Manager
- 35 hours SOPO non-exempt 11422 probation officer CASP pretrial 35 hours SOPO non-exempt 11470 CASP director 35 hours SOPO exempt 11492 pretrial services program director
- 35 hours SOPO exempt 14236 probation officer CASP pretrial 35 hours SOPO non-exempt and finally 14300 probation officer slash CASP pretrial 35 hours SOPO non-exempt.
- All right, we got a motion and a second, Mr. Williams. Yeah, just to answer a question, we're looking at about $80,000 that would be spent or moved around the category or in within the category to cover these expenses, to kind of go down that route for you for the fiscal impact. I also just wanted to say that the request that we're making tonight is outside of the grant thing. This is kind of just to keep us
- project income afloat we were planning on making this request to the council regardless of the grant announcements that we got in the last 30 days so kind of just to hit on that as well for your counselor hawk all right thank you
- To my left, Councillor Faito. So I see in Section G and Section 8, there seems to be a disparity of numbers. One is 10055 and one is 10555. And I just want that clarified, whichever that is. It would be 10055. Thank you. Thank you.
- then I would like to make that as a friendly amendment to my motion to change the probation officer case manager which is 35 hours SOPO not exempt that should be a count line 10055 all right thank you councillor Fido for catching that okay
- Anybody else have any other questions over here? Looking to my right. Anybody have any questions? Councillor Hawke. The $80,000, are you suggesting that's the difference it would be to finish out the year? Is that correct? Because when I see
- this list of employees that are being moved to county general I know it's not 80,000 yes for next year so when you prepare the fiscal for us I hope somebody will let us know what the what the difference is going to be when you come to us with your budget saying this is how much how many employees you're moving into county general and and believe me this will not be the only department who will need to be doing this and so we need to look at
- not just what we're going to do for this year, because once we've moved them over there, then they're there. Then we have an obligation to do something with them. So I appreciate it. And I hate being the only person who's going to be difficult, but that's Marty Hawk. I ask questions and I make decisions. And pleasant ones. All right. Anybody have any other? OK.
- Moving forward to public comment. If you'd like to make a public comment on this item, please come forward to the lectern here in the Nightingale room or raise your hand via Teams. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Sorry, yes. Thank you. Councilor Deckard is not present. Councilor Feidl?
- Councilor Wilts? I'm here, I'm here. Oh, he's here. Oh, your camera's turned off. There he is. Oh, there you are. Okay, so Councilor Decker? I say yes. Thank you. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Hawk? No. Councilor Henry? Yes. Motion passes six to one. This will require a second reading.
- And this will. Oh, you don't have to apologize. Oh, sure. So this will come back to our August 12th meeting. OK, we will see you in two weeks. All right. Thank you. I am going to take a moment and take a five minute break. So six minutes. So.
- I'm going to ask every last one of us to be here back on the dais by seven thirty so that we can resume and finish the business. Thank you. All right. We are going to go ahead and jump back into the agenda. Mr. King had just mentioned before we took recess or right at recess to me that Mr. Falk has left
- the office and is unable to join us virtually. So we are going to work to get him back on the August 12th agenda. So I apologize for people that were here or waiting on line. We thought that we would have them too. And so I'm not sure what happened, but we will work to get him on the agenda for August 12th. So
- now we go back to county council business which is item number 11 and we will start off at item a with the border commissioners council i would like to open a discussion regarding a letter to the legislature all right and so i will look to miss turner king um to put up the letter here if if i might sure and i was going to say um
- to or we have two of our commissioners here. Commissioners Julie Thomas and Commissioner Jody Madeira. So we have that. And for anybody that is paying attention to over the past couple of weeks, this is an ongoing conversation that stemmed from July 8th. And I know there's a revision from
- to bring any things that we would like to have, um, to in terms of edits, anybody that has edits to come prepared for that. And so now commissioners, please proceed. Thank you so much. This is all part of the process of getting, uh, the justice, um, center built, including the new jail.
- that. Um where we left off in 2024 is, um. The county council had approved the jail tax, which should raise. An estimated $225 million. Um, Justice Center design is proceeding and some of you on the council have been meeting with us and
- that we have to make changes and trying to make it fit this budget based on the jail tax that's already been established. And we've been just moving forward based on that agreement and that outline of where we're at, that we have to build a justice facility. We have property selected. We have not purchased yet, but there's a purchase agreement. That purchase is not done yet, and you will be seeing that in the future.
- And what I've heard most recently are rumors and discussions and whatnot about, you know, there are questions from the council about the size of the facility and where the facility is and all of those kinds of things. And so I'm just putting it out there that I acknowledge that I've heard that there are concerns and questions. However, this
- What we're here today for is this particular letter, because as we were plugging along, our plan was to bring the bond issue to the council early in 2026, but the legislature has had other ideas.
- one of which just for the public's identification you all are aware of this is a limitation on how much of the lit tax can be dedicated to a bond and the requirement that the council re-appropriate reauthorize local income tax annually which makes a bond very difficult to sell. So we came up with this while we're working on speaking with key
- legislation. We're working through this letter, um, to provide sort of an introduction to the issue to legislators, um, in various key committees and positions at the state house. Now, if you all want to have a
- those kinds of things. President Crossley and myself had a conversation today. We can convene a joint meeting to have that discussion so that we're all back on the same page. We're just here for the latter because we would like the legislature to restore those options that they've recently taken away from us. And if you want to have that discussion
- I think we could have that joint meeting and President Crossley was in agreement. But we should have it very soon because we do have a scheduled meeting August 19th with DLZ to move on to the next phase of design. And it would be better if we can to address these core questions or concerns before we meet with DLZ.
- So I'm not discouraging those questions. I'm not taking anything away from anybody's concerns, but today we are here to listen to any revisions you may have on the letter. As you've noticed, we've already revised it. There are some other linguistic revisions that have not been reflected yet, but it's down to one page. It's going to be down to one page.
- that was one thing that the Tam Capital Group had recommended we do, just to keep it brief so people read it in the legislature. But we also removed the special tax because it seemed to raise some concerns among council members, and that's fine. So we're here to hear any other revisions you may have.
- Um, Ms. Turner King has graciously agreed to make those edits, um, based on, um, whatever we're hearing from council, but we'd really like to focus on the letter sort of small picture. And if we want to have a joint meeting, big picture, I think we should do so. Yeah.
- I appreciate you clarifying because I think this could easily get into a much bigger discussion and we should stay focused. So I did want to though ask April, I mean August, what, at what time meeting? Cause I don't have an invitation or anything and I did hear, I did hear about it. Like I did see something in an email about it, maybe being in, and I just don't, I want to be there for it.
- anybody know nobody. So that was OK. No, no, no. And I just want to clarify, Commissioner Thomas and Madeira, you and I, like we spoke on the phone about having another meeting in addition to because I was confused about I know we got the email about August 19th, which actually is our meeting of the common or common council. Whoa. Wrong place of the county council. And so
- If you can't clarify that. Yes, I have been advised that that is the earliest meeting time we could set, but we need to meet as soon as we can with DLZ because any delay in meeting with DLZ delays our project further out than we'd like, obviously. So it's not been set yet. I am sorry about that. I've mistaken. It is not set yet. It was the earliest available time.
- Okay. But we are going to be meeting soon. Okay. Got it. With CLZ. Okay. And so get him back to the project at hand here, which is the letter. I'm going to start down to my right here to see if I'm just going to kind of go down the line here. So I'm going to start with Councilor Hawk to see if you have any edits or anything that you'd like to add to this. Yes.
- I will try to get them all in now. Hopefully we got. Go ahead. But I'll just start. OK, there's some things in the letter that I find to be factually incorrect when it says for the federal order requiring timely construction of a constitutional jail and justice complex. I do not believe that you're going to see that the agreement, which is really
- can you tell us where you're at in the letter can you go like first second third paragraph where is okay it's uh in that first paragraph i'm sorry we should really have it up there uh it's in the first paragraph yeah okay she's got it and we acknowledge that we need to rewrite that for clarity okay because uh there's nothing in any kind of order that says
- that we are to be required to do a justice complex. Actually the order has only to do with the number of beds. It doesn't say that we have to build a new facility. It just says there's talking about the beds. Now perhaps there is a more recent agreement. The agreement that I asked to see was not even signed and
- we'll revise that for clarity and accuracy okay and because the agreement that that i'm speaking of that wasn't signed was like what back in 2012 or something and county was the defendant they were supposed to provide
- what they what their plan was to the people of the class and the classes all of the people that were in the jail at the time and they were supposed to be posted in different areas of the jail and then those comments were supposed to come back
- to the circuit court. And the circuit court was going to be, or maybe it might have said the criminal court of circuit court. But then they were going to look at that and review it. And then they would make a decision on that. And that then would establish the effective date of the original one, of which we don't have any of that information or signed copy. So that, to begin with, was a little bit of concern because I think we should know what the signed copy
- we're not going to be able to do that. Uh, tiles ties us to however. The extension is. Over at what is it like January or December of this year? I mean, it's just a few months and then we're
- At any rate, so there's no place in the order that says that we must build a new facility and certainly none that says we have to have a justice complex and.
- It could be perhaps just adding on more beds or having a separate facility or for a few more beds or something. Now, I'm not saying that's what I'm in favor of, but I don't want to send a letter to the state where we're saying things that aren't even true. Further, when it talks about the authorization to use the certain percent of the lit revenue,
- remember that along with that, that legislation said that if a debt was put on the income to be paid for with this income tax before 2028, that and if the county council didn't put a lit rate in place, the state would do it for us.
- So the whole thing of saying we have to redo it annually, that's just factually incorrect. I mean, I know that it says we have to redo the lit rate annually, but that is not true when it comes to a debt. Because the state made it clear, you put a debt in place, we will put in place a rate to cover that debt. And so that part
- would make no sense i would just like for us to make sure that when we send a letter to the state at least we're sustaining with correction correct information and then further i keep hearing somebody say well the jail tax well there's a correctional tax but that correctional tax right now only brings in and i should say only i think it's about eight million and the uh
- of economic development tax is bringing in what, about 11 million, 12 million, something like that. So between the two, it's under 20 million. And it's important, I think, for us to look at what our income tax revenue is expected to be, and we'll see that about mid-August.
- And we know we're going to know about that about mid August. And so for us to say that we want to move forward with this. And yes, we can.
- make this all work with the dollars we have, we really need to know what the dollars are going to be coming in. Now, we also know the city has plenty of time, not plenty of time, but a little bit of time to go ahead and raise the economic development tax. I'll be shocked if they don't. It'll bring them in a little extra money for next year and the year thereafter, and then they'll go away because there won't be an economic development tax. But it won't surprise me at all if they do that for a two-year revenue boost.
- So that might change some of the dollars that we would receive as well. But I mean, it is our job to look at the revenue and the expenses and so forth. And so that's the reason why I think it's important for us to look at this and to look at the bed count. We have not, I do not believe that we've seen that we've hit that
- 240 what is it 244 mark that they have to the the sheriff's department has to notify us as well as the courts and then at if they've hit the 244 which I do not believe they have and then 248 for them to go ahead and start moving people
- of the jail into another facility now remember that that upper number does not include that number for the detox so if you subtract when you look at the numbers and you subtract the detox just for today and recently you'll get your new number but we're not at that number so the
- the consent decree has to do with if we've hit that number as well so how we plan to move forward and that's fine but if we're talking about we've been told by the state we've got to do x y and z we ought to at least know what we're talking about sure thank you counselor hawk counselor henry
- Thank you, Madam President. I think I'll pass. I'm kind of eager to hear what my colleagues have for edits at this point. Thank you. Okay. Councilor Everson.
- Let me start out on the positive. I really like the edits have been made that takes away out language that seems to make our colleagues in the state government as other than this seems to be much more collaborative. So I think that's a very positive development. And I also think that, you know, I think the changes that council member Hawk pointed out, I also wanted, you know, I had some of those changes as well.
- Mr. King, could you scroll down to the recommended. There were four recommended. There we go. Yep. ABC and D.
- I'm gonna get back to something that I said earlier. I'm fine outlining possible actions, particularly four possible actions, but I do think that this is going to require us working with our colleagues at the Association of Indiana Counties so that they can have a look at this, because I do think that this is gonna impact other counties, which we indicate in this letter, and I think that they're going to have
- additional options that could be available to to counties and I think that's going to be important to bring in partners I'm going I think I wouldn't ask to be brief
- which is hard for me, so I'll try and adhere to that. I am not ready to sign on this letter. I am very eager to hear what long-term finance is going to hear on August the 1st. Do I have that date correct? On August the 1st, which is next week. And I think that's going to give us even more information that we can have a better idea of where we're going to
- land on some of these revenues. So I think that's that's one of the things I'm waiting on. Thank you. Thank you. Going down the line here. Councilor Wolz. I would like to throw it back to the commissioners. Sure. Sorry. I didn't hear what they had to say in response to what's been said so far. Thank you.
- I will be brief. I've had a conversation with Mr. Barroff, with Association of Indiana Counties, and he said, well, why wouldn't you put in the letter that a special
- tax could be assessed. I laughed. I said, well, that's been an issue, so we had to take it out. But I don't want to send him this letter until you all are comfortable with it. So egg and chicken, I don't know when to do that. So if you all are right with me sending a draft to him, I will do that. But I haven't even done that. But we did have a conversation on the phone about this
- these issues and that was his suggestion. He could have seen it in the he should have seen it in the public it was in the public packet today. He could have accessed it that way. I'm sure I'm sure but I yeah but I don't want to make his life different I would just send it to him on email right I'm just I but I also don't want him to run with something that's not been approved so I haven't I haven't sent it to him yet but we discussed the parameters. Thank you.
- do you have anything to add before I continue to keep going with Councilor Wilts? No, I think I'm just taking notes and I'm in agreement with everything that I'm hearing so far. Okay. All right. Councilor Wilts, if you want to proceed. So I agree with my colleagues' comments so far and
- particular, I'm curious about the renewal thing. So I hope that we're checking, we're verifying that because I took it at face value, which maybe I shouldn't have, but if we could definitely figure that part out, that would be great. Yeah. And, um,
- I think it's a big improvement. I have the same timing concerns, letting people hear what we're saying, not just AIC, although I definitely think that talking with them is important. But some of these other counties, we work better together, I think, on some of these things.
- At the risk of sounding facetious, I'm not, I would probably not say that they are unforeseen effects because I think that, and honestly, I think they were very foreseeable. So it's almost insulting to say, but that's just mine. That's good. Thank you. That's all I have right now. Thank you.
- Councilor Vidal. So I think I would like to see when the letter starts out or somewhere pretty close, I'd like it in the beginning where you're talking about because SEA-1's unforeseen effects. Okay, fine. But what is the language in SEA-1 specifically that you're referring to that you want to
- work with them on. You know what I mean? What is it that needs to be corrected or addressed with that language in SEA 1? And I know it's hundreds of pages long. So that language, I think the specific language that's at fault here, that this all needs to be addressed, it's very important to me to put in the letter. OK. So to that end, by making this letter one page, we're going to include attachments.
- So we can include that as an attachment with a highlight over the specific parts of the bill that are in question for us. And it's interesting because TAM Capital Group, our lobbyists, and AIC both see annual reauthorization needed for the lit. So I'm not sure how we're all reading that same bill differently, but we will verify that. But we can add that as an attachment if that would be sufficient.
- I don't want to add more to the letter because we're trying to keep it under one page. How much is it that needs to be added? I mean, is it like three paragraphs or something? How much is the language that's the problem? Well, I would rather take their language and highlight the sections that we have concerns with and make that an attachment because we also have
- what were the other attachments now i'm it's i've slept once since then uh a schematic of some sort yeah we're gonna talk about the jail site we are gonna the order thank you yes uh so we have a number of attachments for those who are interested in looking beyond the one page that's what was recommended to us instead of trying to add more language to the letter make the letter brief but include attachments for anybody that says
- what's the issue here. And so I like that idea. And if that's OK with you, we'll make a link. It'll be a digital letter. So we'll make a link. If they open that link, they can see what that language is. So I guess I'm interested in having it be clear. So I'm unclear as to if you go to a link
- Would it just list just the language that you're concerned about that makes you come to this letter? Or is it going to be the whole bill and you have to find it in there? We'll figure that out. But worst case scenario, it's the whole bill with big orange highlight that'll just point out, here's an issue, here's an issue. So do you think that the language? We just take sections of it and put it together. I don't know how we're going to do it, but we'll do it.
- So do you think the language that we're addressing here that caused all the problems is in more than one place? Let me just ask that. So how many multiple places do we think it occurs in? Any idea? Two. Two. Up to five or six, because it's incorporated by reference to other sections. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. At least two could be half a dozen. How about that? But once you actually have that text,
- you only need to change it one or two places, because it's incorporated by reference other places. So you wouldn't need to change those places. And the question is whether or not you'd need to change other mechanics of the bill if these provisions were changed. Because lots of times, a bill is like a series of gears. And if you change one series of gears, you need to change other series of gears, because you need to make sure that everything fits together. That's exactly right. And so that's why we are not
- about proposing language, necessarily. We could have some options for language that might work. But ultimately, legislative services, for example, would propose language that they think is to define the problem. Exactly. And so we could highlight the language that is problematic and say, we know that this is problematic for the following reasons. And it could be fixed very simply, for example, for ABCD, Peter's
- that would be an excellent way of solving the problem. I mean, the other option is to just present the problem, tell them the problem we're having, and not propose a solution. In some ways, we already had a plan, right? And so this whole SEA 1 just messed with everything that we had going. Right.
- So in my mind, a lot of ways, I think in some ways it is up to them to correct the problem because it's created a huge problem for us. And I don't know that we're the only ones. I'm sure we're not, but we have to be, how am I, I need to put this very tactfully. We have to be careful about finding sort of other counties that have projects because they may not be,
- as fundamental as this project is, we have to be careful. And we're not just going to go out and say, hey, any county, let's join together. That's why we're using our lobbyist group, TAM Capital, and also AIC. And they recognize that that's an issue as well. We're not building a casino in one county and a jail in another. I know that's not what's going on.
- But we have to make sure that we find the right partners as we proceed. But in the interim, we're just going to go ahead and start having these conversations. So I think my question then would be, and I think we're open to either going either direction, is do we want to remove the options from the letter and just say, hey, here's our problem? I would like to hear about that idea, honestly. Oh, just remove it.
- I mean, are you open to that? Yes, that's what I was. Absolutely. Yes. And two out of three of us are here. So we can talk about that. I'm sure Commissioner Jones will be on board. She was going to try to join us today and could not obviously do so. But she's like, because we talked about that as an option earlier as well. So we're fine with that if that's what the council prefers. So that's why we're here. We just want to get your revisions. I'd like to hear from my colleagues on that idea because I like that.
- I'll go to Iverson next. Thank you. I think that brings me to the very next sentence. And so it starts with we'd be happy to meet with interest in interest legislation. I think that's great. This is on Commissioner Litterhead right now. And I just want to make sure that council is involved in these fiscal conversations. We can create
- Monroe County Government letterhead and on the left-hand side of the page, very small print because we're trying to keep this one page, we can list all of the offices of everyone that's signing on. Okay? That's great. I just... And then it goes back in my mind to the timing issue, right? Right. Yeah. So let me... Are you done with your edits? I am done. I think we just needed to say that very publicly that
- the we is, is Monroe County government's interested parties, auditor's office, or whomever is going to be there. Along those lines here, and then I'm going to go to you, Council Henry, and looking at it. Yes, I definitely agree with Councilor Hawk, because my understanding, and it looked like
- to get an update of when this was extended. It looks like the last extension that I saw that I was able to see was January 15th, 2024. So there's a hand raise. Ms. Turner-King. So there's an extension signed on December 30th of 2024 that extended it to January 15th of 2026. It's almost right around the corner again. OK. So now we got the answer on that.
- And then the other thing is, you know, if we're going to be doing this a little bit, like in a collaborative way, I think I would like to see, I know it lists, you know, commissioners office, I would also like to see it list council office as well. And so from Commissioner President Julie Thomas to myself,
- I would like to see that as a collaborative effort in that regard, too. Are you speaking specifically on the contact? Yes, that would be the same. The other thing that I wanted to say as another member of the long term finance committee meeting is when we're sticking to this letter here, I guess
- The one thing that I want to kind of piggyback on what Councilor Hawk was saying is that we really do not know our numbers right now. So my concern in thinking about this letter is could we be putting something out into the universe prematurely before we know what is happening with the numbers? And because, one second, and then
- Because we have that long-term finance here on the 1st, and we're hopefully supposed to get it by the 1st, maybe by the middle of the month here. I think I personally would like to see and wait what those numbers are.
- and see what our numbers are, what is projected, and then implement where we would become in shortfall in regards to this. So that's where I am with the letter. And I know Commissioner Thomas, you've got something to say. Yeah. And that was a question I actually had for all of you because it was mentioned before. But it's not. So we had a plan. We were moving forward. Sure. Right.
- The legislature acted. And they set up two obstacles, essentially, to continue with our plan progressing. And so whatever those numbers are, those two obstacles exist. So I hear that you want to have numbers, but I think
- I think we may want to be more general about here's the problem with the legislation versus here's how we're going to attack it. Here's our numbers. You may want to have the numbers before you OK this letter. That's fine. But I'm not sure we want to include numbers in that letter. I think what we're saying is you have erected two obstacles in our path. Here they are. Here's the issue for us.
- And we would like you to address this as early as possible in the 2026 legislative session. Whatever our numbers are, they don't need to worry about that. They've set up obstacles that we need to get corrected. Does that make sense? It does. But I think it could be a yes and. Like a yes and, we could highlight. Obviously, the moral of the story is it sounds like we just want to go back
- what it was pre all of SB1 conversations so that we would be able to do what we need to do. But I do think that there is, at least for me personally, is something to say of here's our shortfalls. We don't have to, I guess, like an estimated amount of shortfalls and then highlight the problem that they have caused with this and how we can proceed to go forward. That's kind of what I was looking at.
- that's fine. We're good. We're good with whatever. It's fine. Or we could, if you don't feel like you can estimate the shortfall, we can leave things as they are. Obviously, you all have your own information seeking you wish to do. And I get that. And that's a very difficult task in this environment, legislative environment.
- It may be that I would be fearful of not getting this letter done because we don't have enough data. And that data may be something that doesn't address that obstacle anyway. And so I'm certainly not suggesting, hey, let's vote on this tonight. I'm not asking for that. We're not asking for that.
- I fear that if we continue to say, oh, we need this information, we need that, we'll never get the letter done. We need to move forward as quickly as we can, given the parameters of when you have public meetings. Right. Got it. So I'm just throwing that out. No, I appreciate that. Thank you. Councilor Henry. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, commissioners, for your time again.
- I think that's where I want to drill into is on the process piece, because I'm looking at a calendar. I'm trying to figure out the sequence of meetings. And what I'm hearing here is we don't have an iteration still, which means we'd have to come back and talk about an iteration of the letter again at some point for council's consideration. Our next meeting is the 12th, right? So there's 28 days between the DLZ meeting on the 19th and where we are right now.
- So I just looked at the calendar here. The long-term government finance meets August 1st. We meet again on the 12th. DLZ is the 19th. Maybe the 19th. One would help. That's a good amount of time to work through wherever we are in iterations. So I'm kind of concerned about a process of how we get there so we don't have to kind of keep doing this version of it where things are sort of
- you know, I don't want to treat you all like it almost looks like short order cooks at this point, like we've ordered up a lot here. Maybe we can kind of nail this down on a working group meeting of a core of us to get this addressed. And the reason why I think that maybe a working group scenario is maybe best between now and that 28 days is I agree with Councilor Wilson being triggered by unforeseen effects, but I heard it differently and I heard it
- I would like to hear how Tam thinks about that because I'm not sure they are unforeseen effects. The legislature's will was to really emphasize an SB1 tax reform. It may be belt tightening that they were sending the message out on. I'm not sure of that, but I'd really like to hear a lobbyist view on that if they feel that
- or however Tam is interpreting it. Yeah. Kirsten Madure, do you have a view on that, if it's very intentional? I mean, I'm happy to stop my poll here if you have a comment. Yeah. That's a yes and question, as Councilor Crossley mentioned before. And what we had from the lobbyist was that absolutely yes, Tam said, the effects were to absolutely force local governments to
- to belt tighten and perhaps in very uncomfortable ways and perhaps in ways that are unrealistic because very few legislators have had local government experience, unfortunately. And I do think that they recommended, they did not say, oh, yes, include unforeseen in the letter, but they thought that this particular type of project was unforeseen because they didn't intend to trip up compliance with federal orders.
- In other words, they didn't intend to trip up compliance with counties trying to build jails. And I think the state government would actually love for more counties to build jails, provided that they could do so on a budget. And that seems to be something that Indiana state wants to encourage counties to do in general.
- that's not something that our county is particularly enthusiastic about doing for a number of reasons as we heard earlier tonight. That doesn't mean that our county doesn't need to do it for a variety of reasons to protect our staff and to comply with the federal order and frankly to take care of our inmates in a constitutional fashion. But I think that you know in terms of this particular consequence you know to trip up
- we're not the only county under a federal order. Allen County was, I believe, as well. They're just one step ahead of us. They bonded in November of 2024. And so I don't think that's, I think, what was unforeseen. The other thing that our lobbyists advised was to sort of have a soft intro that
- we don't really want to accuse them of purposefully inserting purposefully difficult things for local governments. Belt tightening is one thing, but sort of obstructing the processes of government might be another. And so maybe a different wording might be there, but I think that the tone is what we were trying to get at. But I think we can absolutely massage that into the letter in a different way.
- Yeah, Mr. Thomas. I just want to add that in my conversation with David Bowroff at the AIC, Association of Indiana Counties, he essentially said the same thing. So.
- Well, I guess my point on this is that we're kind of relaying things. It's like a little shuttle diplomacy here, where I really feel like sticking all the partners at a table on a work group, including bringing Tam in the room, or if we could get Garetas here, it might be helpful. And I feel like there's time in our calendar. I'm going to just maybe wrap up my thought on this to say, one of the challenges I have, and I think something a work group could work on,
- and this is not anyone's fault, I don't fault DLZ for what I'm gonna say here, is that in the project management world, this has been overcome by events. That's the term we would use to describe what a council previously decided a year ago, how the election hit, how SCA-1 hit. Some of this has been overcome by events. We're trying to figure that out. I think, again, we could do this every Tuesday, every other Tuesday, but I feel at this point, again, my focus is on process and if we can maybe,
- to get a working group in a public space, bring Tam in, bring whoever we think needs to be in the room to really go line by line on this. It might be a better use of our time in the next 28 days. Yeah, I mean, we're amenable with that. I'm going to be, I'll be available. Thank you, Madam President. OK, I appreciate that. Should I make a motion to that? So do you all want to care to elaborate, or is there any? OK.
- So, you know, Madam President, I have a motion to form a working group of members of county council, county commission, if the council commissions are amenable and relevant partners to meet in the next 28 days to iron out the to amend the language of the letter in a public space for date and time to be determined by a mutual agreement. Second.
- Okay we got a motion and a second and to clarify that is to create a working group of council commissioners and other partners which such as tam and others so any might that include a ic would other partners be sufficient or do we need to do memory i don't know i don't want to leave anybody out that would be relevant so relevant is kind of vague to me
- I agree. So maybe other signers as well is because, you know, it could be inviting the signers. Yeah, sure. This motion is getting along and I would just ask that we do this so that you all have something to vote on on the 12th because I don't really want to wait past that meeting if that's all right with all of you. We have two weeks to pull it together.
- I was going to point out that the creation of commissions is generally a commissioners. This wouldn't be a commission. It's a working group and that's. Thank you. Committee. You can call it a committee if that works. Excellent. We don't want to do that. No. Because if we call it a committee, it's almost like, it's kind of like what we did with JFAC and CJRC and those things where we have to do a resolution. Can we call it a working group?
- a temporary working group. I don't think the name is what matters. If you're being appointed, if we're formally forming that group, which since that motion did, I think we're applicable to open door. I'm not worried about open door. I'm just worried about holding up this process. I don't want us to get mired down in who's appointed and who's not. And we can't appoint until your next meeting on August 12th. And how do we proceed?
- expeditiously and legally well since it's an actual group there's a core um open door and if you're going to communicate um with more than a quorum of how many people are on this committee then it's going to be done in public and so i i don't my suggestion would be i understand that you want to have this conversation with relevant um stakeholders
- but they shouldn't be on the committee, because then you're gonna have a giant committee and quorum issues and everything that goes along with large committees. I think it should be a committee of council and commissioners with the invitation to those stakeholders to participate in the conversation. Okay. As a point of order then, I'm happy to rescind by motion and allow council to maybe state in a manner in which would be acceptable and accept that
- verbage as so moved. Does that make sense? I can do that, I think. Can you say it in a manner by which I can say so moved? Before I get there, I do want to add one statement to this timeline conversation. I did have a conversation with the presiding judge earlier today who did
- state that the board of judges had discussed the possibility of signing on to this letter and they're open to the idea, they would just need to have the final draft to send to their judicial council in Indianapolis to see if they can sign on to it ethically. So the letter has to go to Indianapolis for judges consideration for signature.
- I appreciate that the commissioner has an urgency, but I think that's part of this. If we want to be one voice, we really need to use the full 20 of days, Madam President. So I'm happy to rescind my motion if the county attorney has a more grammatically appropriate way to put it. So I think the language would be you propose to
- a motion to create a work group of commissioners and council members to formulate or edit the letter that will be sent to the legislation and encourage participation from interested stakeholders. Legislature, but so moved. And I still second my question. Yes, this is so now we're talking about this working group.
- So let's say two of the three commissioners attend. Does that have an open does that have a quorum issue? I think once the committee is formed, which it sounds like it just happened, that that committee itself now is must comply with open door is its own. So the yes, our our group, however many there would be. It's similar to like LTF. So when there's an LTF meeting,
- The quorum is two, because LTF is a body of three. OK. All right. So it wouldn't matter how many are coming from each group that attends and their own quorum issues, right? That's my question. What we could do is what we do frequently on LTF, which also denotes that it's possible quorum of council or commissioners will be present. OK. I would like to amend. And Peter, is that amenable to you? That is amenable to me. OK.
- I don't think I have any more questions. Okay. So I'm gonna call the question in. Was that a motion? I'm over here typing and I'm really confused. I'm sorry. Yes. So would you, Councilor Henry, like to restate your motion for clarification again? I have a motion, Madam President. The motion is to convene a working group of a
- a number of commissioners and counselors to draft this letter to the legislature on the effects of SCA one on the justice center projects. It will model the way we do the Long-Term Government Finance Committee in terms of form and structure to meet in public in the next 28 days with additional signatories such as the Board of Judges for the completion of this letter. And I seconded. OK. And the second remains.
- There was some discussion about August 12th. Is that 28 days? If we get the Board of Judges, we can't. We just heard that their timeline is going to take a bit. But for you all to vote on it,
- on August 12th would be ideal because then they can make their decisions, right? Let's get the committee. Let's get the working group. So ideally for all of this to happen, that's a, that's a lot of work in a short timeframe. Um, and therefore in order for all of this to happen, then we need to convene this, make it move, make it happen so that we can
- have them discuss, have them send it to their prospective people, and then come back to August 12th meeting with anticipation of being able to all be on board. Got it. I'm just going to say that your decision as a council to support the letter or not may or may not impact the board of judges decision, but I would hate for you all to wait on them and them to wait on you and nothing gets done.
- about the sheriff's department. Yes, and I said that's the biggest thing. And that's part of the defendant. And the sheriff is on that list. Right. And so, yes. So we would basically go the same way of, you know, that's just trying to invite them not be a part of it again to make the quorum issues and whatnot. We just want to have a working group between our bodies and then invitations extended so we don't get into committees of the past with quorum issues. So.
- Yes, council, oh boy. I have not promoted. Ms. Turner-King. So for, I guess, a clarifying question, I think it would be beneficial to identify who is in this working group. And my clarifying question is, is there any one on council who's not going to be in this working group? So rather than form the separate committee, is it just a special joint session of the two bodies to work on it?
- I need your emotion. I'm just trying to get it out of this meeting and into another space. It sounds like you just need to have my recommendation would be a special joint session of the two bodies, because I don't imagine anyone in the commissioners is not going to be in the working group and vice versa for counsel. So you're forming a special committee of yourselves. So a working group of ourselves. OK, all right.
- So then if that is the case, then we have to look at schedules. If the idea is that we want to do this by the 12th of August, then that doesn't give us a short time frame. My time is actually going to be limited because I'm going to be available for a number of things that I have going on. But I'm just one of seven. So if it is the will of the council to try to convene, have a special session, I really was trying
- not have another meeting to go over something like this. But again, and if that's the will of the council and the commissioners, then that's what we will do. Then that's what happens. Send your motion. We would need to have a rescind of motion because we don't want to do the working group and instead just call a special session.
- I mean, I'm happy to withdraw the motion. I'm just, again, the spirit of this is trying to get it into a space where we're only doing this and we bring in the expertise and we're not shuttling between the lobbyists and AIC and everybody else. And coming back in meetings. Yeah, because we're not there yet, so. So we also, again, when we're doing this, we also have to think of, we have staff that we have to include in the mix in terms of
- time frame in this too so we need to make sure staff would be available to staff these meetings so there's a lot of shuffling a lot of schedule looking um that will need to happen as a result of this so so i'm gonna say i'm just keeping this train rolling here that we will work with the commissioners and council office and all the powers that be to have a special session
- of this conversation so we can kind of, and obviously invite, you know, the signatories such as the board of judges and the sheriff's office or the sheriff as well to keep this going. Commissioner Thomas. And we will make anything work to make this work. My, I had also at the outset asked if we all wanted to have
- time to get together to reestablish where we are on this project as a whole, separate from the letter. So it would be the same meeting, hopefully, but in two very distinct parts.
- my if that's what you all want to do i think that would be ideal um for us to do that because we have budget coming up on the horizon and august will be here before we know it and it will zoom through so again i'm also i know that you know we're needing to do what we can and y'all are needing to do what we can for collaboration or whatnot but i'm looking to staff
- as well, because they're going to have to be a part of these meetings. And that's another added meeting to a lot of things. So just want to make sure that we are using our time wisely when it comes to that. So I would be in agreement with having a special session and then the other meeting to talk about the scope of the project. So that was a long way about going about that. But it was a conversation that needed to be had, and we appreciate that.
- So for clarity, you're looking to schedule a meeting to discuss the Senate letter and the scope of the jail project, right? Can you all receive a doodle poll in the next five minutes? And so we need to have a timeline on the doodle poll. And so that staff is not trying to.
- to hunt down everybody to figure that out. Let us make sure that we are being attentive to that doodle poll. Let us commit to doing that as soon as it comes out so that we can schedule this stuff accordingly. All right. That is all I have to say about that. Thank you for your time today. Thank you. We appreciate it. Thank you. Have a good night. Thanks. That also gives us time to check out important answers on the questions you raised, Councilor Hawke. Thanks.
- Thank you. All right. Still moving on the train of the agenda here. We are going to go to item B from the legal department. Council, I move to approve resolution 2025-30 authorizing payment for council member training from the elected officials training fund. Second. All right. We got a motion and a second and a yes. And a vote. Counselor.
- Oh, it's okay. All right. Ms. Turner King, we are looking to you for item B. So this is a resolution that we have similarly approved in the past to allow payment for attendance at AIC conferences by council counselors and council staff out of the elected officials training fund. Um, the,
- I did, I'm trying to display it, but I'm switching gears. I changed the resolution slightly from the one in the packet because I failed to accurately reflect a number in words. And so now it says 577, which is what it's supposed to say. Thank you. All right. Any questions from council related to this item?
- Look into my left, look into my right. See who's naughty or nice. All right. We'll take public comment. If you have, if you've saved the course here and have public comment on this item, please come forward to the lectern here in the Night Ye Hill Room or graciously raise your hand via Teams. And seeing none.
- we would need to have a, can we do this by voice vote or no? Cause Trent is, he's left the building. It's the resolution. I apologize. We need a roll call vote. Okay. Well, in that case, can we please have a roll call vote? Councillor Fiddle. Yes. Councillor Wilts. Yes. Councillor Hawk.
- yes oh okay sorry counselor henry yes counselor crossley yes counselor iverson yes motion passes six to zero thank you and then um nearing the end of this uh we are going to go to the 2026 council um budget review it is just a review and so i want to give miss kim schill an opportunity
- to go over that. Obviously, this is not the final budget, but this is what we usually do on an annual basis. So, Ms. Shell, take it away. Share my screen.
- is the request that I am making for 2026 and this is just to give you a heads up this is what we're doing this is what you're going to see and then if you want to make any requests to like lower you know raise whatever but this is your opportunity for me to make these edits on your behalf before we go to budget sessions so so
- You will see that the increase of the salaries is due to the COLA that council approved earlier this year. And so with that, there is the new hire transfer and you'll see that is because that's due to
- the current person that we have, Ms. Lehua here, is at the one year or at the minimum. And so for next year, she'll be moving to the one year. So that's why there is a jump that you will see because of that. Also, you'll see, you see a decrease in the longevity. That is also because of, we have a policy in place where a person
- that is hired after I believe it's November 1st of 2023 is no longer eligible for longevity. So she is not eligible for that. And so this is just my longevity amount that you'll see here. The office supplies and printing copies, as you can see,
- For 2024, I've already hit, at June 30th, this amount right here is $542. That is due to, we've had two new counselors come on, so I've had to purchase new name plates and tags and this kind of thing. I also have a new person as well in the office and this kind of thing. So we've had to do more office supplies and this kind of thing.
- I have yet to spend the printing and copying supplies. I normally do a, it's just fallen this way where after June we buy paper for the office, that kind of thing. So the dues.
- We've only done $300 out of the dues for this year. I'm still expecting an invoice later this year, so that's why we still have an amount there. I kept that the same. I don't anticipate any increases in those dues. The contractual amounts, you will see a drop with regards to WIS at the end of this year, and that's because we have a pause in the pack.
- but I went ahead for 2026, kept the contract amounts for WIS at 30,000 and FSG at 30,000. Professional services, we've only just barely spent just a little bit out of those.
- We didn't spend any this year. I would have normally, but that would have been with Kip May taking pictures for the council. We didn't do that this year because the commissioner's office covered that entire amount. Trading and travel, I think we're doing pretty good. That is the June 30th, and it doesn't include the June totals for the state called meeting. So you'll see an increase in that.
- but it looks like 3500 will be fine. Depending on what's going on, since we have Ms. Alehua here, she's gonna be attending a lot more conferences, so I'm gonna be getting her out there and doing that kind of stuff. Office expenses, that's where it's the services for anything that we have, which would be the services for, for an example, when we do the
- name place and stuff they charge us labor you know so that's where that stuff comes from. Community services so that is our Sophia Travis grant we received information from the state that the maximum levy growth quotient will be four percent so I took the 174 for this year and multiplied by four percent and then rounded it up to the nearest thousand dollars so that's an increase of 181
- $181,000. I'm increasing the postage this year, and that's due to the higher amount of the postage line, postage increase for first class mail. Legal notices, I kept it at $100. We've been a hit and miss with regards to legal notices for Sophia Travis. Sometimes we do a public announcement, sometimes we don't. So we've
- you know, kind of thing. So one year with Cheryl, we did it. And one year we chose to try and do an email blast. Well, you know, so we're just kind of still kind of a hit and miss with that. And then with the BEDC, I left it at 35,750. That's what we budgeted for this year.
- And then that ARPA, Rural Housing Repair, that was that incident where at the beginning of the year, the commissioners wanted us to fund the repairs that they could not get contracts on. So, of course, I left that one blank. Okay. Thanks, Michelle, for that. Does anybody have any questions or comments? Councilor Everson. Oh, you took it away.
- I think, I've said this before, but I do think that professional services and contractual are redundant categories. We could probably get rid of one. I think most departments don't have both. That is correct. But we're talking about a difference of $400. So I don't know if that's really that important. I can add and forward it'll just always be contractual. Okay. And then if we find out we don't use it, it'll
- Of course it'll revert, but if it's something we're not going to be using moving forward, if the commissioners are going to continue to cover the costs of elected official pictures, then we may not need it moving forward. Yeah, yeah. Or Mr. May can give us a one paragraph contract and whatever. The other thing is I'm going to channel our dearly departed council member, and I think that community services could go higher
- I don't have a number in my head, but I just think it could go higher. And then the last thing is I'm just gonna say, I don't think we're really gonna do this, but I think that we get paid too much. I'd like to see our amount of pay go down, but we'd have to adjust the elected official salary, so. It was very painful to set an elected officials grid.
- And so I personally do not want to see any changes to that. I am not advocating we change the elected officials grid. I just I know that number is just I just want that number to go down. OK, anybody over here? Go ahead, Councilor Wilkes.
- We don't really need any pictures next year. So can we just get rid of it? We can get rid of it. I like having my younger picture anyway. I've noticed I haven't changed a bit. Did you know how that happened? I even had on the same outfit, same hairdo. Amazing.
- I don't know what else to add to that. Anybody else? Yeah, I would like to. I'm concerned about Sophia Travis this year, and I think because of much of the public comment that we heard today about funding and people and grants and all of these things getting cut, I think
- We're going to see a need increase for that greatly, especially this. Our job for Sophia Travis is going to be real hard this year. I'm just going to be honest. And for the following year, because of all the aftermath that will come from that, that's a concern for me as well.
- um where we might have to tell agencies no and we might have to be very meticulous and very careful of who we give money to and that will be the first time in a while again i know we can do hard things but this obviously speaks to you know how we fund our values and so i definitely would like to see how we could
- it's food for thought to think about. But I would like to see that increase. I know, you know, Councilor Munson, when she was a part of it last year, I made a comment about how we could increase that. But again, like Councilor Iverson said, I would like to see how we could do that. So just putting that out there. Well, we can, I mean, if somebody wants to give me a number, I mean, this is not set in stone. So if you put the number on there,
- You can always change it during budget sessions. So this is your recommendations for your budget. Madam President? Yes. If memory serves, Councilman Munson often talks about how this fund should start to approach 250, if I remember right. Given the circumstances at the state and federal level, inappropriate to suggest that number for this year, given what's going on in the community? I support that.
- So 250,000. Okay. So Councilor Henry has said 250,000. Iverson has supported that. Looking at other council members to see their thoughts on that. Again, it's not set in stone, but it is a number that we can put out there and roll with and then come budget time after we've digested a lot of things, that's something that we could talk about as well. I think it expresses the clear intention. Right.
- and I think it's important to do that. Sure. I understand. Anybody? Bueller? I agree. I mean, it's not committing, and I don't know if we can do it, but heck, I'd throw everything in there if I could. I do have a question, though. Yes. No, go ahead. I mean, it says community services on it, and I know that's embedded in the grant, but is that
- Is there a reason it's called that? That was the line that was committed a long time ago before the fund was changed to Sophia Travis. What I can do is run a report to see if anybody else is using that line, which I doubt very much. And if there isn't, I can make a request to the auditor's office to have that name changed. Only if my colleagues feel like it. And that's an easy thing to do. I just think for clarity, it would
- I would agree. I support that. I would agree. And I also support the intent of going forward with the 250,000 again, not sitting that in stone, but definitely something that we can start to look at and think about and have a taste for. So I appreciate that. All right. Any other questions or comments related to the council budget as presented by Michelle?
- And this is also a good shameless plug to say, for anybody who needs to have their budget turned in, Monday the 28th is when everything needs to be turned in. So staff is working really hard to make sure that we got all things done. So any departments that are still watching or will watch this on replay, please make sure that you have your budgets in as of Monday, July 28th, so that we can proceed to move forward.
- budget season is upon us. So thank you. All right. It is the favorite time of the night, which me. All right. Go ahead. I need to make a request. Yes. Um, I need to make a request with regards to, uh, the Sophia Travis committee. Okay. And this is,
- So we can change the calendar. And so I'm going to pass this down. This, sorry. So what it is, currently the calendar reflects, and let me see if I can find it.
- The Sophia Travis calendar timeline reflects October 28th, the council will approve, you know, see and approve recommendations. On the 29th, we prepare and forward contracts to the agencies. On the 14th, November the 14th is the deadline to submit those contracts to the council office. December 4th, then those contracts are submitted to
- commissioners for approval and then after that date, which I'm, you know, I'm guessing on one part, December 10th-ish, we submit those claims to be processed and the distribution of those checks will happen in the middle of December. Molly Turner King said
- This is not the process that the commissioners use with regards to the CARES grant recipients. So if we change to how the commissioners do their grant recipients for their grant awards, what would happen is the checks would be out and to the recipients by the middle of November rather than the middle of December. So, which means,
- The we would submit the contracts and the claims simultaneously to the commissioners for approval.
- At the November 13th, we advise the recipients to attend that meeting. When they attend that meeting, they would sign the contract and pick up a check at the same time. And that's what they do for the CARES people. And then on November the 20th, following that, once the commissioners have signed off on the contracts, award recipients would receive an executed contract. So this will give them their checks way ahead of time.
- Councilor Wills, how's the question? How many CARES grant recipients are there? Oh, approximate, relative to Sophia Travis. About workload and number of people in a meeting.
- So I just looked at the two thousand and twenty three recipients because it couldn't find the twenty four one and it looks like there's of course they're all individual. The agenda request is like eleven pages so there's quite quite a few recipients. Oh okay.
- I think the way that cares works is that they collectively approve the contracts as a group. So it's not like they read the list similar to like we do in Sophia Travis, where it's like agency such and such will receive this amount. They collectively approve the agreements. I don't have any questions or comments related to what was just presented. Okay.
- I assume that we have a meeting on November. When is our meeting relative to this? Because they usually come to our meeting. Are we saying they're not doing that? No, they would still come to the council meeting on October 28. 28. That's when Sophia Travis will present their recommendations to you for approval. And then after that, it's out of your hands. It all goes to the commissioners. Thank you.
- Okay so I see this is a better smooth line and process to help try to get everything done in one swoop. Do we so it sounds like we need to have a motion. Okay and I see it not hit and I'm looking to us to see somebody pulling a mic. Council I move to approve the amendments to Sophia Travis grant committee calendar as
- trade on the screen. Second. Okay we have a motion and a second any additional questions related to the motion? I have something so now that it's going to the commissioners are they aware of this? We have spoken with Angie about Angie Purdy the commissioner's administrator and she was for it she said this is a good idea. Thank you.
- I'm looking at everybody collaborating. OK. Any other questions? OK. Is this is a well, we should just do a roll call vote. Actually, you're just amending a calendar. It doesn't. We can't do a voice vote. Oh, hey. So all those in favor of the motion as presented signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Great.
- Motion has moved and been approved. All right. Now we are to the greatest part of the evening, which is coordinated paper and and all that other good stuff. So because it has been a long meeting, I ask for us to be short, sweet and to the point. And I'm going to table mine to the next one. Oh, OK.
- So I'm gonna set the stage. Okay. So Councilor Feidl, are you passing on anything that you need to say tonight? I'll come in here, but I'll read it next time. Okay. Hopefully it won't be an almost a five hour meeting next time. So Councilor Wilts, do you have anything to add? Yes. Go for it. I am glad that we will be having a meeting to
- about the jail project in not just the letter, the actual scope. And because I have no update on that, and I know that's how it's working, but I am very uncomfortable, and I've said this
- I'll just keep saying the same thing. I'm very uncomfortable with the amount of money that we're budgeting. I'm very uncomfortable with not knowing what the size is of the jail. And I'm uncomfortable that there seems to be just repeated calls for change in how we're thinking about funding mental health versus
- incarceration and while increasing the Sophia Travis budget is something that is 100% good. I mean, if we can do that, let's do it. It's not funding mental health services. It is not a substitute for doing that. And increasingly, I just, I think we need to
- steps back and look at what we're doing. Big picture. That's it. Thanks. Appreciate that.
- I'm going to talk about four meetings. First of all, I attended the health department board. I'm going to start attending those regularly. I really think the increased communication between the health department leadership and the liaisons has led to some really positive outcomes. I'm really excited about improving that communication,
- the way that our granting organizations or departments are now up against it with the grants being pulled back, which means an interruption of services to Mineral County residents. It stinks. The second thing, the meeting that I went to was I had a coffee with folks from Care Not Cages, and Council Member Wilts, you had just talked about some of these things. That conversation centered heavily on what exactly are we doing in terms of preventing
- prevention and treatment, given the fact that if you look at our pop sheets coming out of the jail,
- It's just it's a lot of methamphetamine. It's a lot of fentanyl. And we know there's emergent forms of fentanyl out on the street right now. And there's just so much substance use disorder happening right now that it's it's just it's it's amazing to see how much of those pop sheets is taken over by meth. And I think to Councillor Wilts's points, we are not thinking or talking about a holistic way to address substance use disorder. I will point out that
- that Centerstone has taken on an increased role with their funding mechanism has changed, and they're taking on additional counties. I think that's helpful, but there is a gap, and county government can help fill that gap. And so I was really encouraged by my coffee with the Care Not Cages folks to talk about substance use disorder treatment.
- The third meeting I attended was the CIB. That was such a great meeting where they announced that the different bids that had gone out were awarded to labor organizations. About half of the bids were awarded to labor organizations. That is fantastic. I grew up in a labor household.
- We need to be using our brothers and sisters in labor to be building these projects, whether it's the Convention Center, whether it's the jail, whether it's anything related to county government. We need to be reducing barriers to labor, being able to bid for these contracts. We saw it happen with Convention Center.
- Huge thumbs up. Local businesses were also chosen. I think that's great. And then we just got an email today that demolition of the old Napa building is happening tomorrow at 8 AM. So as you're driving around downtown, they're going to be closing off lanes. They've already started closing off lanes. Slow down and give the workers a break because, as I just iterated, the folks out there doing the work are local and their labor. So give them a break.
- The fourth and final meeting that I attended was a substance use disorder de-stigma and Narcan training event at St. Thomas Lutheran Church. That was fantastic to talk about ways that faith communities can play an active role in talking about de-stigmatizing harm reduction, which includes needle exchanges and things like that that's happening in this community. And so it's really great to see that
- Houses of worship are gonna be stocking Narcan in public places so that as you walk in to these places that it does portray the fact that we are a welcoming community and that we see substance use disorder as something that's not a choice. The next training will be on trauma-informed care. That's gonna be on August 3rd at 1.30 p.m. again at St. Thomas Lutheran Church. So lots of good things happening in the community. This is a great community
- to be a part of, and those are my meetings. Can I clarify the labor organization phrase? Because the contracts were not awarded to the labor organization. They were awarded to the labor representative workplaces. I stand corrected. You are entirely correct. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President. Just a few notes for this evening. I want to reflect a little on
- I counselor Wilson's comments about the Justice Center facility. And I know that maybe there's some frustration when we go really long in a meeting and we're kind of driving toward transparent conversations. I'm tired, but I'm also thankful for the work we put in on this letter. Second round. We have to have these conversations out loud. We need things brought into this fishbowl and not kind of revealed. And I agree with the counselor that I feel like once we get a better accounting of things, this will
- with a lot of the questions we're hearing. So thank you for that patience with everybody, but that's what we signed up to do around here. In terms of other transparency, I think I wanna pick up on Councilor Iverson's comment about the Board of Health, and I agree that I think we've hit some breakthroughs on how we're communicating and getting good information out of the Board of Health. And I do look forward to the Board of Health's final conclusion and public reporting on the closure of the Futures Clinic that they've obligated to us. One of the outputs of that meeting that,
- Councillor Iverson, Councillor Crossley and I were able to attend was a way to receive that report at some point. And I think we need to bring to council an idea about if we need kind of a fiscal oversight committee or something to catch reports from groups that are kind of telling us the things that went wrong and how we're going to improve them. And also provide an opportunity for us to conduct that work of transparency and oversight in other parts of government.
- I pivot to say this and it brings me no joy that we're at the one year and one week mark since the county government had to close for a week due to a cybersecurity incident a year ago. That's another report we've never seen and I've requested that documentation frequently since sitting in this chair and we've yet to have a public accounting of that when we look across the street on Indiana Avenue and know that the university went through something very similar and had their consequences. There are some real-world consequences for our staff in the county and I want to say them out loud. You know one is
- is that with that incident, we never really had a teleworking policy after that for our knowledge workers, which meant that if it's a benefit to our community or as an HR practice to have teleworking as an opportunity for some of our departments, that hasn't been on the table since that incident occurred. It was basically a return to work policy six months before the federal government. We need to be more accountable to our workforce on what happened there. Secondly is the decision making that went into that. It's not whether or not the insurance company wants to share details. It's how did we get to a conclusion
- We've closed the government.
- for a cyber incident or a loss of Wi-Fi? What is the impact on the board of judges, on people waiting trial, on the backlog that occurs every time we do that? We need to have that reporting as well. We need to have an ability to catch it and surface it. It's not trying to catch people doing stuff wrong. It's just good government to govern transparently. And I look forward to continuing to make a case to get the full accounting on what happened a year ago. We really need to know this in the community. On some positive notes, I did meet with the United Way and Habitat for Humanity this past week with Commissioner Madeira.
- as they've been carrying the water on the last tornado victims. This is still a story going on in our community. Of the 22 people who were unhoused due to the tornado, four are only in permanent housing at this point, and five were made homeless. And we don't really have a plan for when people become homeless due to disaster in the community. Groups like Heading Home have done great work on how to think through homelessness planning in the community. But this niche thing, where we suffered an acute incident that has left people still stranded months beyond, has fallen to our social service community to answer.
- I've of course encouraged him to apply for Sophia Travis, but that's not an answer for when we see something, hopefully not at the size of a Texas type disaster in our community. The good news is that the United Way Habitat Commissioner, the Montgomery County EMA,
- the health department myself have committed to forming a long-term recovery group, which is really the last step in a disaster like this. It's informal for this one, but it's something we're going to have to learn from to prepare for the next one. So I think that's a good step forward. There's more information coming out on that. Lastly, as maybe just to end on an absolute positive note, last week I had a chance to attend WFHB's 50th anniversary gala event at the Bluebird. It was during the day, which I've never been at the Bluebird during sunlight before. That was kind of entertaining, but it was really
- great to see people who have been involved with WFHB going back 50 years in the community, gathering for concert there, led by former city council member Steve Volin as MC. And they too, as an independent media, have suffered huge cuts from the federal government and are also on the ropes as our public broadcasting is in the community. And so, I mean, if you're somebody that turns into independent radio, if you're getting your Democracy Now broadcast there, if you're listening to all the great community programming, they need our help just as well. But it was a really great evening with Spot the Dog and all the good stuff
- for the firehouse. So it's also a good example of what Bloomington really is. You can't pay a consultant to brand a community when you have an institution like WFHB out there really defining what our community is. And it's a good example, one of many. But that's my comments tonight, Madam President. Thank you. I'm not speechless often, but that
- OK. I just like that. I mean, you did it. And the kids say you read it. OK. Last but not least, I just wanted to also just as a welcome boy, was this a good meeting for your first meeting? Welcome. Our counselor, administrative assistant. Welcome to the team. We appreciate you. You are learning a lot. You learned a lot tonight. Expect more of it.
- so welcome maybe in smaller doses most of the time yes yes but it's okay this is a good time for all to learn so we appreciate that um council iverson and i met um with the commissioner's office to go over budget speaking of budget um and so that was one thing you did not mention um
- budget that I budget or departmental budget update that I met with was the auditor. And so we went over when I got a chance to go over her budget as well. And so looking forward to, you know, budget season again that is upon us. Again, we had an
- As people know, and I'd said this to a couple of people before, because I know people are like, what are y'all doodling when people are coming up for public comment? I counted 13 people that came in for public comment today. And I have every last one of the public commenters name. And so all the way down from the very
- first person that came in to the very last person that was very short and brief and to the point. I just want to say thank you because whether we agreed or disagree,
- Again, and I said this before a couple of weeks ago, I think there is beauty in listening to problems that the community has and for us to be active listeners. I always tell my children, I know you hear the words and all the noise that your mother is saying, if you all are watching this, probably not, but I'm going to make you watch it later. But you hear the noise that I'm saying, however,
- When I, after I hear it, I can do one or two things, either listen to it and be able to process or listen to it and just move on. And tonight,
- All 13 of y'all that said something to us has been a constant thought and a playback in my brain from the very beginning of this meeting. I know Karen Arcage's representatives met with us individually last week. And I just wanted to be able to say thank y'all for those conversations. And I hope you all heard something from us. And I want you to continue to make sure that we
- are listening and to put heat on us. I know as activists, that is your job and that's your role. And again, whether we agree to disagree or not, I think there's things that we heard tonight and I think we also heard.
- there is a serious problem when it comes to funding. Funding, funding, funding. That is the biggest thing. And we already have seen from federal government all the way down to state. And now we are starting to feel that heat on a local level. And so community members are starting to really express concern. And it's now the drum that is sounding very loud. And I want us to continue to listen to those things and figure out how we can be the change agents for
- figuring stuff out in Monroe County without having to go to town on rebranding efforts because I think money can be better used wisely but that's not my business. My business is Monroe County and so I appreciate that. Last thing that I will also say in terms of people that are hurting right now is the fact that
- federal government and state government has also defunded public broadcasting television, which is also known as PBS. I had my Arthur Fist t-shirt on, but was told
- I should probably change that. So I'm glad I did. But I just want y'all to know I stand in solidarity with public broadcasting for a multitude of reasons. That's how I grew up. That's how I was raised. WTTW in Chicago was able to watch all the from Julia Childs to
- Burton Ernie on Sesame Street and listening to all of those things. And as an adult, as a 42-year-old adult, I find myself really aging, as you can see all my gray hair, but also going to watch public broadcasting. And that's something that's near and dear to me personally, because as I was an intern there, I met a really cute dude that turned out to be my husband in college there. So that has a lot of history. I was able to have my first jobs there as
- college graduate and so they're really going to be some consequences from this government and their failure to
- And so, again, tonight, to me, this means community, community, community, and community has given us a lot of food for thought. I appreciate that. We do not have long meetings as often, but when we do, I find that they're meaningful, even if I go home with a splitting head, much so as I'm going to go home tonight with that.
- still not longer than the city council. So with that being said, I appreciate every single person, and that was Shaythra. I appreciate everybody being able to come in, appreciate the deadlines and the updates. Oh, and the last thing on a positive note is Tessa Bloomington is coming back. So in about another week,
- So thank you so much. From 2019 the taste of Bloomington is coming back. So again, participate locally. Hopefully there is no rain or inclement weather that comes our way. It is going to be extremely warm, so those be paying attention. And I am getting a card. This is breaking news. There is blink micro transit. So it's blink from the Bloomington Transit. It's Bloomington Transit, new downtown shuttle service.
- work. It does. That's what Councillor Fiddle is saying. So yes. DBI action group, downtown action group got to ride it. We were out touring downtown and the
- Blink thing was going by, and there were four of us, I think. And so we said, are you going back to the convention center? And they said, yes. And so we got on, and we got to tour it. And he wrote down all of us and got to record our usage. So they're interested in getting people on it and using it. There were, I think, four or five other people on there at the time. So it was being used. It was lovely to see. That's good. And just like that, Blink is come and gone. And just like that, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you all.