- So we will go ahead and get started. Today is Tuesday, October 28th, 2025. I apologize for the tardiness.
- And then at U Hill realm, we have all council members present. So although we'll go ahead and start
- the next item. So all those that are able to stand, please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.
- of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. Okay, thank you. Next up is
- the adoption of tonight's agenda.
- and does anybody wish to amend tonight's agenda? Yes. Madam President, I would like to make several
- amendments. I'll be making four. Number one, move item 6A, the health department's consent agenda item,
- to the first item under item seven, ongoing business. The second amendment is to move item 8D, health
- department's additional appropriation request to the first item under new business.
- The third amendment is to table item 8F, prosecutors hiring freeze request and item 8G, highways hiring
- freeze request to the November 10th meeting. And lastly, item number four, add item 10A request to amend
- resolution 2025-42 hiring freezes exemption list, correct account and position information and renumbering
- all items accordingly.
- any other? Yes, any other changes to tonight's agenda? Yes, yes, I would like to see the Sophia's Travis
- and I think it's eight. Be moved up and I don't know where that falls in line right now to put it. From
- all these others that were just made. Like that committee has done their work and I feel like that they
- need to. Be offered the opportunity not to sit through the whole meeting if they don't have to.
- So it's eight second B and I don't know where it would fall in at this point. I will take suggestions
- on that. I don't have a specific suggestion but I think it ought to be moved up. I just want to say
- that's the second item on new business unless you move it to ongoing business. So you know if you want
- to supersede that and move it just completely different on the agenda. So I need a
- know where you want to go. I want it moved up as far as it can go, whatever that is. OK, so how about
- after consent agenda items? Does that sound OK? That's right before we get into item seven, which is
- ongoing business. Yes, I think that's OK. Thank you. You're welcome.
- So we got a motion to move the Sophia Travis Grant Committee presentation to after the consent agenda
- items and right before we go into ongoing business. Did I hear a second on that? Okay. All right.
- Thank you. All right. So with all of the amendments that we have to tonight's agenda, is there anybody
- else that has any other amendments? Go once.
- Yes, Councillor Decker. I would like to offer a friendly amendment to Councillor Iverson's amendment
- to make the Sophia Travis, not pardon me, sorry, I'm confused myself, but to make the highway item moved
- until November 18th instead of the 10th. Okay. Consent. All right. Okay, so. And who seconded, sorry?
- Thank you. All right. Is there any other questions on all of the amendments or does anybody else have
- any other amendments to the amendments? No. Okay. So all those in favor of adopting today's agenda as
- much amended, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. All right. Motion carries.
- Thank you.
- Next up, we will move on to public comment. There's a lot of folks in this room, and so I will often
- say, as I've said several times, we have public comment for items not on tonight's agenda. So if you
- are speaking on something on tonight's agenda, you will kindly be interrupted if that is the case.
- So again, anybody that would like to make a comment on items not on today's agenda, if you are here,
- Publicly you can come to the lectern here in the night you hill room. You can sign your name at the
- sign it sheet there You'll have up to three minutes and if you are on teams, you can also raise your
- hand So if there is anybody that would like to make a public comment on items not on tonight's agenda
- This is your time to do so So I don't see any movements here
- OK, I see. All right, so please go ahead and come in. Again, sign your name and elect in here. State
- your name for the record. And the things here show that you'll have up to three minutes. And it looks
- like he needs a pin.
- You can go ahead and state your name for the record of up to three minutes. Hi, my name is Christopher
- Torre. I'm here to propose implementing community garden farms in the county. I know the YMCA has one
- called the Community Orchard. It's a great place to go. I encourage everyone to check it out in person
- if they haven't. But yeah, in brief, that's my proposal. Thank you. Yeah, thank you very much.
- Yes, sign in.
- Thank you for your service. I'm Reverend Susan Frederick-Gray. I'm the minister of the Unitarian Universalist
- Church of Bloomington. I'm new to the community, and I'm learning about the proposal for a jail expansion,
- and I want to just speak out against building a new jail. Three reasons. Excuse me. That's coming up
- at a later. That's an item that's on the agenda. You'll have to come back. Okay. This isn't about the
- land. It's just about building a new jail period.
- Okay, go ahead. Okay, three things. Number one, it doesn't make financial sense to spend money building
- a brand new jail, especially as the state and budgets are changing and our county and city are facing
- increasing pressures around budget. It doesn't make financial sense. Number two, it doesn't reflect
- the values of this community. We need to work on reducing incarceration, not
- creating beds for more incarceration, which could lead to ice beds being rented here. We need to invest
- our resources in the kinds of things that reduce incarceration because that helps our whole community.
- So values should come first in this decision. And number three, I'm thinking very much of Charlotte
- Zietlow as she nears the end of her life.
- I think that we need to restore that building anyway. We should invest in restoring the Zetlo Justice
- Center as a reflection of our community and as honoring Charlotte Zetlo and her work for this community.
- Thank you. Thank you. All right. So again,
- We can all cooperate together, but I'm going to ask for some assistance for those here. If you already
- are in the queue and you want to sign up and speak on items not on the agenda, please line up. Please sign in.
- monitors here, you will have up to three minutes. If you are on Teams, you can raise your hand. So I'll
- go to another person that's here. Again, please go ahead and sign up so that we can get through all
- of this, because we got a lot to cover today. So I appreciate your willingness and work with me. Thank you.
- Hi. Hi. Thank you, everyone. Thanks for your service. My name is Reed Hepburn, longtime resident of
- Bloomington, longtime former IU employee. I'm here also to speak on the concept broadly of a new jail,
- not on the purchase itself, although I am going to ask you to reject that request for funding.
- On the concept of a new jail itself, I also want to echo what the Reverend shared. At this time in our
- country, with the direction that our country and our state especially is going, the idea of expanding
- our carceral infrastructure is quite frankly terrifying and ludicrous. I'm thinking specifically of
- State Attorney General Todd Rokita's attempt to force this county to hold people kidnapped by ICE.
- We have every reason to believe that's what this will be used for. We know that the current facility has
- largely not been at capacity to begin with. We know that building new facilities will lead to pressure
- for our county to incarcerate people that are part of our community and to illegally incarcerate them
- by the fascist regime that the state attorney general is cooperating with. So while Sheriff Marte has
- so far stood up to the state, this will not be his jail, and there's no guarantee the next sheriff will
- be either inclined to resist the state or capable of doing so.
- few people in our community look at the state of our country and think that what we need are more cages.
- I ask you to listen to the voices of our constituents, many of whom you'll hear today, and who have
- been protesting all year long calling the county to resist Trump and resist ICE by not building this
- new jail. Thank you.
- My name is Julia Wilson. Thank you for your service. I'm asking you not to spend money on a new jail
- site because it is not necessary. Purchasing new property and building an entirely new jail is an extremely
- inefficient use of county funds because the county is nowhere required to build a new jail to address
- the concerns of the ACLU lawsuit. The ACLU lawsuit stipulates solely that steps be taken to keep the
- jail under capacity and that basic conditions be maintained. Building a new jail
- does not guarantee that either of these conditions will be met. As the example of other counties like
- Vigo County shows, larger new jails are often at capacity soon after they are built. As former jail
- commander Sam Crow said, if you build it, they will fill it. This is especially true in an era when
- ICE is commandeering local jail spaces.
- and a new jail will not guarantee improvements in programming. While there may be space for programming,
- assuming ICE does not turn it into additional bed space, will there be funding? Historically, funding
- has been as big of a hurdle for programming as space because Medicaid does not reimburse for services
- provided in a setting where people do not have freedom of movement. Funding is likely to be an even
- bigger issue in the future given the current political environment.
- What will keep the jail population under capacity is investment in services which keep people out of
- jail. Monroe County has a wealth of organizations doing incredible work but are unable to scale up their
- efforts due to a lack of funding. As I'm sure you are aware a coalition of such organizations has presented
- the county with a position statement urging you to invest in community resources rather than new walls.
- Please listen to the people doing the work and do not commit this county to a horrible new jail site.
- Thank you. Thank you. All right.
- I'm going to check to see if we have anybody that is on via Teams. Again, if you are on Teams, please
- raise your hand and you can speak on items not on the agenda. I don't see any so far, so we'll come
- back here to the lecture. I'm sorry, I'm trying to find it on my.
- Here we go. My name is Janice Welch. I've lived in Bloomington off and on for most of my life.
- I grew up here. I even worked here as an attorney for a period of time. And I was really pleased when
- they built the new
- the Justice Building and named it after Charlotte Zilow because it certainly replaced a very difficult
- jail that I remember. And I'm really surprised that you're considering scrapping that building and not
- trying to save it as a monument for this wonderful woman who helped us so much in our past. I think
- that it's difficult
- for me to understand how you can move all of the county offices that relate to the courts and so forth
- out into the country where it will be difficult for people to get to. It will remove a significant workforce
- from the courthouse area, which will certainly have an effect on downtown Bloomington. It will create
- so many different problems that I just don't understand the rationale for it.
- I think that it would be much better to renovate a building even if it costs up to $100 million because
- we're talking about a $300 million expenditure instead and we don't know how much that actually is going
- to cost by the time we get to bidding what was inflation and tariffs and everything going on. So I urge
- you to stop a little and think
- and perhaps reconsider this whole issue and look at options of building something downtown closer to
- the existing building while you're renovating it. Thank you.
- So thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. My name is Ben Atkinson. I've been a member of
- the Bloomington community for a while. And I used to work for the county government in the assessor's
- office. And I currently work as a software vendor for other counties across the state of Indiana. And
- I've seen issues arise from other counties moving at government centers outside of the city center.
- I'm thinking mostly about Jeffersonville and Clark County. A couple years ago, they moved their whole
- county government centers outside of the downtown area, which is much harder for a lot of the residents
- to get to. And it moves the whole business of government, which should be visible to everyone and easily
- accessible to a place that happens away from the spotlight. And I find that troubling.
- And I used before working for the county I worked with social services here in Bloomington helping care
- for homeless people and mentally ill. We have great service organizations here in town that can help
- deal with crime and deal with
- Defenders and I don't think we need to expand our jail system especially with the amount of control
- that the state government keeps taking away from Local governments like the Monroe County government
- in Bloomington City government Every year I see more and more issues with the state grabbing more and
- more control from local organizations and local elected officials and when we expand the ability for
- the states to incarcerate people, it's not going to stay in local control. Indianapolis is going to
- grab it, and they are going to do whatever they want with it. So thank you for my time. Thanks. Again,
- I'm going to pop back on Teams to see, but I still don't see any hands raised. So once we have a hand,
- you can, if you're on Teams and you want to raise your hand, go ahead and do so.
- Go ahead and come back again to the NETU Hill Room. Hi, everyone. My name is Evie Barbue. Good to be
- here tonight. I want to reiterate some of the things that have been said. You've heard it before. You've
- heard it for years now, and you're probably going to keep hearing it. I think we need to be focusing
- on renovating the existing jail instead of spending an exorbitant amount of funds rebuilding or
- building and all of the new infrastructure that would go into this new justice complex that y'all have
- been talking about and planning for years. I think particularly in this moment when we see federal resources
- and the state government absolutely gutting our social services, we're gonna see a lot more
- people struggling. And I wanna see this
- local government really focus on the social services and supporting our neighbors who are struggling
- rather than investing in this infrastructure project that prioritizes caging folks up even though that
- feels in some ways
- easier. And I want to see you guys get creative with the sort of solutions even though they're more
- complicated, you know, like making sure that folks are actually cared for, especially folks that have
- long-term mental health disorders or need that long-term support. I think that that's a huge gap in
- our current
- a landscape of social services, making sure that that sort of approach is totally severed from a carceral
- approach. I think we've talked about this before years ago, all of the potential alternatives to caging
- folks. And I want to see action on that in really tangible ways, especially through financial support
- for the organizations who are already doing this work. So yeah, you're probably going to hear a lot
- of that, and we'll just
- keep showing up to make sure that y'all are prioritizing that. So thank you. Thank you. Hello. Thank
- you for allowing me to speak. My name is Zach Amberman. I just want to say that this Jumbo Jail expansion
- manages to double down simultaneously on two failed policies. So congratulations on that. Essentially,
- you're doubling down on suburbanizing county government outside of the city, which I think is a horrible
- idea, both for accessibility reasons, because it means that a lot of people like me that get around
- primarily by bike or public transit would not be able to access county government, which means people
- are either going to delay accessing county government essential services from the county or are not
- going to get it at all. That would be a disaster for accessibility reasons. I also think suburbanizing
- county government
- is a failure on climate policy because it underlines, it forces people into car dependence in order
- to access county services because it's impossible, as far as I understand, to access this site without
- a car. So I think we can't make the same mistakes that the northern Indianapolis suburbs have made of
- just continuously expanding and sprawling out without limit. There needs to be limits to lateral growth.
- We need to build up and not out.
- This would be a disaster, I think, for accessibility and climate reasons. The second reason, main reason,
- which I think is more important, is this jumbo jail expansion doubles down on the US's failed incarceration
- first policies of caging anyone who doesn't neatly fit into the holes that society tries to shove them
- into. We need to end incarceration first policies and move to incarceration last, if at all, policies.
- And those are, I'm sorry, but those are the values of the people that put you in those chairs. And you
- were elected to come, I understand this isn't necessarily an obvious
- There aren't obvious answers to this. But you were elected to come up with big ideas and have a spine.
- And I think there's too often Democrats across the country. I know not all of you are Democrats, most
- of you are. Democrats across the country have forgotten that you've been elected to have a spine and
- to have big ideas and to have an imagination. And quit saying, we can't think of solutions or thinking
- small. So I'm sorry for being passionate, but I feel very strongly about this.
- And that's it, that's all I have to say, thank you. Thanks. Hi. Hello council members, my name's Natasha
- Komoda and I'm just gonna read
- something short and sweet that Karen O'Cages posted earlier that I think pretty much summarizes it.
- In this time of fascism, when we have a housing crisis, when we lack essential mental health and substance
- use services, when food stamps won't go out next week, when ICE is kidnapping folks left and right,
- we must invest in our community, not in jails. We need a no vote tonight.
- Thank you. Hi, go ahead. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen of the Monroe County Council. My name is Sidney Zolek.
- And I am here before you today to read a letter on behalf of the Bloomington Common Council
- as the representative of District 6. This letter was passed unanimously at the last regular session
- of the Common Council on October 22nd. Dear Monroe County commissioners and council members, thank you
- to all who have been involved in the search for a new justice center, one that we all hope will better
- suit the needs of Monroe County residents as such.
- We submit this letter to express our concern about the purchase of the North Park site for the use of
- a new justice center. The current facility houses much more than the jail. People will go there for
- hearings, court cases, to meet with their legal defense, and much more.
- The proposed North Park site will transfer the justice center far outside of the scope of downtown.
- The site's location has no plans for public transportation and thus low income residents will be directly
- affected without alternative means of transportation. The criminal justice system is already difficult
- to navigate. It would be a step backwards to make it any harder for our residents to access justice.
- Our downtown businesses rely on revenue from the foot traffic generated by visitors and employees at
- the Justice Center, especially during the work week. Revenue from the food and beverage tax will also
- be impacted if the Justice Center is moved so far from the downtown area. Due to accessibility and economic
- concerns, the Bloomington Common Council respectfully request that county officials do not continue
- with the purchase of the North Park site as the location for a new Justice Center. Respectfully,
- City of Bloomington Common Council. Council members, when you hear these words, know that the Bloomington
- Common Council stands in solidarity with you should you choose to vote this down. I will work alongside
- you to develop a solution that is rooted in justice and meets the needs of every resident of Monroe
- County. Thank you all so much for your work on this and I look forward to hopefully carrying the burden
- with you moving forward. Thank you.
- Is there anybody else that would like to make public comment again on items not on the agenda? Whether
- you are in person or virtually last call. Okay, seeing none, we appreciate all the discussions and the
- public comments that have happened, and we will. I'm sure we will get into all of those things later
- on in the agenda, so thank you all for that.
- Next up is department updates. These are updates for the public and for councils to be updated on. These
- are also for items not on the agenda. So if you are a department head and you are here in person or
- you are virtually again, you can come to the or the lectern here, the night, you know, room.
- for your update, and you'll have 10 minutes max for your update. And then if you are virtually again,
- you can raise your hand and we will acknowledge you via teams. So is there any department that would
- like to make updates on items not on the agenda? Oh, I see our treasurer is coming. I was going to let
- somebody else go first, but.
- Good evening, Council, how are you guys doing tonight? Good. I'm Kathy Smith, the Treasurer's of Monroe
- County, and I wanted to remind the public and everyone in the room and of course on the media outlets
- that the second installment of our property taxes for Monroe County are due on Monday, November 10th.
- Taxes are for 2024.
- They're paid payable in 2025. We pay taxes a year in arrears. They can be mailed but must be postmarked
- by the end of the day on November 10th. The next day is Veterans Day, November 11th, and the county
- is actually closed. That's Tuesday.
- Property owners can also pay with credit card, debit card, cash, or check in our office. Also, we understand
- there are many taxpayers that have questions regarding the new property tax laws, which includes sweeping
- changes, of course, multiple tax credits, as well as property tax caps, in addition to changes in the
- homestead exemption computation. I will be having group meetings. Taxpayers can attend, like I did last
- time when Mitch Daniels changed things.
- the courthouse we're not exactly sure where that's out but we'll let people know and are also having
- appointment availability in my office for individuals to come in and ask taxpayer questions if you know
- they're too shy to ask in a group some people have multiple properties and that's just hard on them
- but I will happily explain all the details of that sweeping legislation to the taxpayers it is their
- money that we operate the county government on last time I sit down and I went through all the computations
- with them when they had questions from the how we get the AV all the way through how we make their bills.
- I will remind everyone that we do not we no longer have mortgage exemptions but that even happened last
- year so this is the first year that you pay that you don't have that. Times and exact locations for
- these meetings will be printed in tax bill inserts early next year. We'll also send the information
- out to media outlets, print, online and radio. I want
- everyone to have a chance to get their questions answered. So please, you can also call me on my cell
- phone, come by the office, make an appointment for me. It's really hard to ask those deep dive questions
- to the county council members or the commissioners or other people who don't kind of know this stuff.
- you know, off the top of their heads. So it won't have all the papers to show you all the details. So
- please remember to pay your taxes before Veterans Day, post-market before Veterans Day, and look for
- this stuff, the information for the new tax legislation in your tax bills. Thank you. Thank you very
- much. We appreciate that. Okay. Are there any other department updates or items not on the agenda?
- All right. Seeing none, the next item was consent agenda items. But since that was amended, we are going
- to go right ahead into the Sophia Travis Grant Committee conversation. I 20 this year's 2025 Grant Committee
- conversation or this committee rather. I've been on council since December 21, and I've had the pleasure
- and the honor of being on that and served with the late great Cheryl Munson. And this year I was chair.
- And then we also have committee members from the council, council members Liz Spital, Trent Decker,
- and then our community members. We had Janie Holmes Stevens and our newest community member, Julie Robinson.
- So we definitely
- appreciate all the hard work and dedication that went into that that also bumped up during the time
- frame of our budget season so that just made everything a little bit hectic but it still was rewarding
- in the end. We reviewed over 46 applications and this year our total that we were granted to give out
- to the community total 174
- So before I have the committee members, Jenny and Julie come up, I just wanted to say that again, our
- long-term Sophia Travis Grant committee chair and county council person, Cheryl Munson, as you all know,
- passed away last December. It's hard to think that that's been a whole year.
- Her family requested that in lieu of the flowers a donation fund be established in her memory and through
- resolution council we requested a donation fund to be established and any and all donations received
- would support the functions included but not limited to the community service grants. While we are definitely
- Again, did the work this year in honor and memory of Cheryl Munson. I'm pleased to announce that through
- the generosity that we received an additional $3,000 for the 2025 grant to remember our colleagues.
- So I just wanted to put that out there. So I will stop talking because again,
- I'm going to lose it all and I really got stuff to say tonight. So I will invite community members again,
- Jenny home Stevens and Julie Robertson to come up and present the awardees this evening. You can have
- a seat there. Just make sure you pull the mic close enough. Pull it over in front of you.
- There you go. Hi, my name is Jenny Olm-Stevens. I've been on this committee for two years and I'm concluding
- my work with the committee. I want to take the opportunity to thank Cheryl Munson for inviting me to
- participate and encouraging me because it's such a gift to learn about all the agencies that work in
- our community.
- what they do, it's hard work, and they really go at it all year long, and I have this opportunity to
- just once a year look at the needs of their agencies. They're profound this year, especially the need
- for food and assistance and shelter has been a little overwhelming due to the national climate that
- our agencies are trying to still do their work in.
- I would like to let Julie introduce herself and then we will read into the record the awards.
- Thank you, Jenny. My name is Julie Robertson. I'm a lifelong resident of Monroe County. I am the newest
- community member on the Sophia
- Travis Grant Committee, and it's been a pleasure and an honor to work with everybody in reviewing all
- the applications. I was astounded. I'm a very active volunteer in the community, and I myself was astounded
- at how many applicants that we had and their presentations were astounding. So I'm very happy to be
- part of this committee this year and again next year. And it's been a pleasure working with you, Jenny,
- as well. Thank you. So for the 2025 Sophia Travis Service Grant Awards,
- We are awarding 4200 to Amethyst House for residential food. We are awarding 4505 to Beacon for dignity
- in emergency. We are awarding 4100 to Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Ohio for a one-on-one plus
- digital initiative which is dealing with advanced mentoring and technology.
- We are giving Bloomington Food Policy Council 3890 for a People's United Garden. It's a unique project
- which is going to help with fresh food. Bloomington Meals on Wheels is getting awarded $5,445 for hot
- boxes for Monroe County expansion of their services. We thank them for that.
- Boys and Girls Clubs of Bloomington is getting an award of $6,200 for replacing the cameras at the Ellisville
- Boys and Girls Club. This was somewhat of a federal requirement that they would do this upgrade. Cancer
- Support Community South Central Indiana is getting an award of $3,480 for food and transportation assistance
- for cancer patients in our community.
- Catholic Charities Bloomington Counseling Services works with low income children and youth, and they
- are receiving an award of $3,420 for affordable therapy. Community Culture is getting an award for Bob's
- Garden. Again, this is about fresh food in our community, and their award is $2,666. Community Kitchen,
- in cooperation with, I believe, some other agencies,
- is receiving an award of $3,660 for nonprofit CPR training project. This is a community project that
- several agencies bond together and they make sure that their staff members are receiving CPR and we
- give them a little bit of funding to help with that initiative. They did mention in their presentation
- that the results of doing this last year resulted in two life saving events. So we appreciate the work that they
- do in this idea. Community Kitchen also is awarded $5,600 for essential programs food purchase. Constellation
- Stage and Screen is awarded $1,300 for their schools and student matinee program. Courage to Change
- Sober Living is awarded $2,400 for the wraparound move in move out help for their residents.
- Exodus Refugee Immigration is awarded 2,800 for food and living assistance for refugees. Girls Incorporated
- of Monroe County is awarded 4,450 for mind and body building resilience and wellness with girls. It's
- a targeted program for girls within a vulnerable age bracket. Grace Center Incorporated
- is awarded $4,600 for food purchases. Grace sits down in Harrodsburg, and you might hear more about
- that later. Hands Full of Hope Incorporated is awarded $800 for boutique, clothing, shopping, stocking
- of items that they needed the funding for. Harrodsburg Heritage Days Incorporated is awarded $1,000
- to help with in
- expanding their festival and offering a fun, I believe it was some kind of a game or a bouncy house
- for the participants, which they maybe have not done in the past. Hoosier Hills Food Bank is awarded
- $6,400 for their fall and holiday food purchasing.
- Ivy Tech Community College has started up a food pantry at their location. They are awarded $3,350 for
- that initiative. Middle Way House is receiving $2,000 for their program supporting survivors by providing
- comprehensive resources and support. I believe it was for materials that they would be using with their
- constituents there.
- Monroe County Humane Association is receiving $3,350 for critical pet care for vulnerable Monroe County
- families. And I'm turning it over to Julie. Thank you. Next up we have My Sister's Closet. They're being
- awarded $3,462 to help them provide secure resources for women in the community. New Hope for Families.
- is receiving $7,800 for their initiative for making homelessness brief for children. This is a direct
- intervention for children who are experiencing homelessness. New Leaf New Life is receiving $3,210 for
- the reentry transportation support system. Pantry 279, this is to help them increase food assistance,
- which is very much in need.
- $13,800. Pathways is receiving $3,500 supporting national or nutritional access for Compass Early Learning
- Center families. People and Animal Learning Services PALS is receiving $5,280 to help with their equine
- assisted learning program for youth and for families. Planned Parenthood is receiving $3,600 to help
- with their center operations in Bloomington.
- Protect Our People Connect Limited is receiving $2,100 with their front door 2026 pop-up events to get
- their name out there in the community to provide resources for their clients. Restore the Habitat for
- Humanity of Monroe County is receiving $2,236 to help feed their volunteer program, people who come
- out and help build the houses. South Central Community Action Center
- We were awarding them $6,300 for their covering kids and families winter resource fair and community
- outreach program. Second Baptist Church for their program to help feed the needy is receiving $4,700.
- Seven Oaks Classic School for their student priority needs. They requested $1,800 which we agreed to grant.
- Sober Mesa Foundation Incorporated, $2,700 for their Increasing Access to Nutritious Foods program.
- St. Vincent DePaul of Bloomington, $5,200 for their Solving a Bed Frame Storage project. Steinsville
- Community Library, $1,400. This is for their library website and youth program expansion project.
- Stone Belt, the Milestones Division, $2,300 for their Milestone Play Therapy. Tandem Community Birth
- Center and Postpartum House, $9,640 for their Essential Funding Project. The Project School, we awarded
- them $5,400 for their Emergency Shorted for their Special Education Services. Wheeler Mission in Bloomington,
- $3,236 for their building community within Wheeler Mission. It's for their day room program to help
- supply them. Wonder Lab Museum of Science, Health and Technology, $5,500 to help support their social
- service organization and their accessibility to the Wonder Lab. Writers Guild of Bloomington, $420 for
- their first Sunday prose reading series project. The Writing for a Change project,
- $800 for their Friday night rights. The last thing that we have here is from what Councilmember Crossley
- has talked about, the Cheryl Munson Memorial Donation Fund Awards. Again, that was a $3,000 source that
- we received that we gave $1,000
- like she had said to the Girls Inc for their mind and body building resilience project, to the Grace
- Center for their food purchase for their services, and the Heritage Day's project of $1,000, which is
- something that we discussed at length as being something very close to Cheryl Munson's heart was Harrisburg.
- So thank you. Thank you all for that. And again, we'll get to the $3,000
- That's a different part of the agenda, but we'll take care of the hundred and seventy four thousand
- part first so Council I move to approve resolution 2025 45 adopting the committee of recommendations
- to award the 2025 Sophia Travis Community Service grants as presented for a total award distribution
- of one hundred and seventy four thousand dollars
- I would like to separate the question. And separate the question for Planned Parenthood for 3600 in
- order to enable me to vote for all these other wonderful projects, and that's not something that I can
- support, so I would appreciate very much if we could separate the
- That's your amendment. Does anybody wish to second that? I'll second that. Okay. So is there any other
- conversation related to this motion made by Councilor Hawk? I'll just say I'm not in favor of it. I
- think if we're going to approve one, we'll approve all, but I understand.
- I can certainly understand where she's coming from, but I do not support that. So that is just me. So
- is there anybody else that has any questions or comments related to that? Seeing none. Can we please
- have a roll call? This is a motion to separate
- Planned Parenthood out of the Sophia Travis Grant amounts. Councillor Deckard. Yes. Councillor Wilz.
- Yes. Councillor Iverson. Yes. Councillor Crossley. No. Councillor Henry. Yes. Councillor Hawke. Yes.
- Councillor Feidl. Yes. Motion passes six to one. I do not have it.
- Do you need to make an amendment to the exhibit that's attached to resolution 2025 45 and 46
- when appropriate? Okay So we'll just come back to the topic at hand right now Is there any further discussion
- from council related to the presentations? That we have and I'll look over here to my right. I'll just
- go ahead and go council Iverson
- Thank you so much for your service on this committee. We really appreciate it. And as in past years,
- the amount of dollars that are going to help those who are experiencing food insecurity in our community
- is just staggering. So thank you for helping to make those decisions. And as you know, we are just days
- away from important benefits like SNAP not being delivered to thousands of Hoosiers. And so the timeliness
- of the decisions that not only you're making this year, but you made last
- year are going to be really helpful in the coming weeks as there's a lot of people that are going to
- be going to some of these places for assistance with their food. So thank you for doing that. I also
- wanted to thank you for the focus on Councilmember Munson and her desire. This was really important
- to her, as you all know. And so it's really wonderful to be able to support Harrodsburg in this way,
- as well as a lot of the food insecurity issues that you all
- while we're touching on, those were really important to her. So again, thank you to my colleagues who
- served on this as well. Councilor Henry, and then I'll go hop. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you,
- Peter, sentiments about the hard work here. It's no easy task to try to divvy up a small pie. Maybe
- just to be clear one more time, what was the total amount requested by all parties again? How much was
- that amount? Did we have that?
- I just want to make sure we say it out loud. It was 328,561, is that? Yes. I was going to say I had
- it in the notes somewhere. I would make a note, again, as we just went through.
- You know very long budget process in the county and we did manage to hit a surplus and the managed by
- manner by which we Budgeted using the economic development lit that I have no doubt We could have plus
- up the fund this year and I really encourage my colleagues next year to really look at that as an opportunity
- I agree with counselor Iverson's concerns about the snap program. I mean the
- The money that's been presented here will be burned through pretty quickly in terms of food benefit
- in the community. Half the kids in our community are eligible for free and reduced lunch in the public
- schools, and it's always on my mind. My only question is how soon do the checks get in hand after the
- vote? I think that's really what I'm concerned about tonight. The procedure that we're doing this year
- is that if council approves tonight, I will add this to the commissioner's agenda for the 13th.
- then any agency that has signed their contract on the 13th would be eligible to receive their check
- on the 13th contingent on commissioner approval of the contracts. So. So fast. Yes. November 13th. The
- speed of government. But we'll get there. It should be very soon. Okay. November 13th is the goal. That's
- good. Thank you again for your service on that. Thank you, Madam President. Council Hall. Right. Just
- as a little history reminder here.
- These decisions used to be made in the commissioner's office. And when Sophia Travis was here with us,
- she thought that it was more appropriate to bring it out to the council and to have it in an organized
- fashion and be decided in a public meeting and have a committee to help decide that. And I was privileged
- to serve on that committee
- think it was a couple of years. And let me tell you, I know it's a lot of work. And it's heart-wrenching
- because you have to remember we're using the people's money. The right is coming right out of that tax
- money that helps support county government. So you can't really
- do all perhaps you would like to do. But I appreciate the hours and hours that you have spent on trying
- to decide how to as fairly as possible split these dollars around to all these different units. And
- in the past there's been times when I've just let that vote go through and I didn't ask for a separation.
- But I really appreciate my council colleagues allowing me to support these other
- Areas that it just is near and dear to my heart. So thank you for your service To my laughs anybody
- got something to say I'll go counselor vital It's been my pleasure to serve with all of us on this committee
- community and counselors alike and I just want to say the requests that we got were practically double
- what we were able to hand out and that's the disappointing part, but I am
- I'm delighted that we're able to be able to support many of the organizations, at least to some level,
- and I think we tried to be as fair as we could about all of them, and I'm proud of that as well. So
- thank you for all serving, and I'm happy that we will proceed with enriching some of the agencies with
- at least a few things they can work with.
- I also want to thank everybody, particularly our community members who come into a strange place that
- is the courthouse and try to figure out all of our stuff while we're all cranky about budgets and trying
- to figure things out. And these are awful times right now. We're in difficult times. And I think the
- amount of requests that we received are indicative of a lot of that. The one comment I will have is
- that much like our budget,
- We, it looks like we're heading towards quick passage of this, but I suspect given everything going
- on with Saturday and everything else. And it seems like right now in public service, what's up is now
- down. What was down is now up. And I feel like sometimes I'm on Mars. I can't recognize what the heck's
- going on. I suspect we will be back in talking about other
- food, not-for-profit needs at a level much higher than we were during the pandemic, which I never thought
- I'd say. I can remember then the council had to move alongside the commissioners to get dollars for
- Hoosier Hills Food Bank and many other things for local businesses, grants for not for, we had to do
- a lot of different things. I suspect we're heading into a period where that's gonna be worse.
- And so when sometimes when people talk about the county doing alternatives, particularly about five
- years ago, people were like, you all need to get into this due to the leadership of people like Sophia
- Travis. We have been into it for a while. And beyond this in the commissioner's budget with health net
- dollars and rural transit, additional dollars for Stone Belt. I wish more counties were doing things
- like that. When people talk about why do people come to this area, et cetera, well, people go
- to go get help where they would go get help. I mean, that's, it doesn't take a wise person to know that.
- So other people that tend to mock this community, well, they can go somewhere else. They need to take
- a page from this because this is what it looks like to try to figure out taking care of your people.
- And I'm sure the minute we pass this, our not-for-profits and the rest of us will be figuring out the
- rest of this. So thank you.
- Yes, Councilor. I have a question for the committee on this list. There are two schools in the past.
- We have traditionally not funded. We've been funding only nonprofit organizations that address a community
- need. And I'm wondering why this body decided that two schools should be included. What is the rationale
- there? Seven Oaks, I believe, was a food award. I think that they're trying to build that resource in.
- And, you know, we're hoping they'll be encouraged to work with Community Kitchen to get set up on some
- programming that I just think that they don't know that they have access to. So we're hoping in the
- future. Or Pantry 279, which is right down the road. Right. Yes. OK. And then the project school. The
- project school, my understanding of this is they have
- don't have the funding for their special needs, part of their special needs program. So they were looking
- at alternative funding sources to keep that program going for their special needs students. So it didn't
- fall into anything where they could get other funding for. And we gave them a very small portion of
- their request. We were sympathetic, and it was for children. And we realized that the children are very
- vulnerable in terms of food and also some educational stuff.
- But it is a thing that the committee is maybe going to talk about more next year because we were surprised
- by the applications and we just wanted to try to kind of help a little bit what they're pressing needs. Okay.
- My concern is that as charter schools and the way that Indiana approaches charter schools They
- are increasingly have access to state funding. So for future Iterations of this I'd want to be careful
- with that Thank you, thank you Are both of those entities 501 c3s or 501
- see some things. Yes. Molly checked all that out for us. Perfect. Okay. Thank you. I was going to say
- as the applications come in, we go to a website or that kind of thing and check out their number and
- then we verify it against the federal number. Yes, Councillor Henry. Thank you. I seem to recall we
- used to keep a historical punch list of how
- how often organizations have received the grant over the years. I can't remember where that is, but
- maybe the question tonight is how many new organizations did we award this year? We had several. We
- had several. We had several, probably 10, 15 maybe. Maybe more. Yeah, and it was really interesting
- because those were applications we had questions on because we don't know those agencies, but we looked
- at just the integrity of the idea.
- the fact that some of the people that were proposing it had done other things in the community, and
- we wanted to encourage it, especially the fresh food applications, which we were like, that's a novel
- idea, we know we do a little bit, but we're gonna be doing it in more areas, and so we tried to encourage
- the new applicants. There was definitely a few new ones that were gardens, food sources. Yeah, so more
- than we expected, and some of the
- Agencies that didn't come back this year had been agencies that we'd had questions about last year.
- There was a place that was going to grind food and we were like, are you grinding beef from Monroe County
- and delivering to Monroe County? And they assured us they would, but they did not apply this year. And
- so maybe that was a difficulty for them in their mission. Thank you. And to answer that question, she
- hit it right on the head. There were about 10.
- Any other questions for the committee related to this item? Yes, Councilor Williams. This is more of
- a housekeeping issue. Yes, thank you. There was just one word misspeaking when it was being read out
- loud. So big brothers, big sisters.
- in South Central Indiana, not South Central Ohio. And I just wanted to make sure for the record,
- it was right. It probably doesn't matter that much. Thank you. My mother lives in Ohio and on her power
- of attorney. And so Southwestern Ohio is right there. We got it. We got it. And again, before we go
- on a public comment, I thank the committee for all of their hard work and dedication to this. We knew
- going into this, if this was going to be a very challenging year, obviously with the November 1st deadline
- snap benefits that is rapidly approaching what Saturday that is a major concern. And also, again, to
- clarify for me, you know, the idea that we have, you know, people on here that we we all were kind of
- you know, as we went through the process, it was more of, at least for me, there were some things that
- I wanted to fund more than others. But again, you know, the big priority was the food, food justice,
- and also healthcare justice, which is why I like the idea of funding Planned Parenthood, because they
- just do more, and they also do healthcare benefits too.
- So and I definitely have benefited from that. So that being said, we will move on to public comment.
- So if there is public comment that would like to make comment on these items here, please go ahead and
- come to the podium here in the NetU Hill Room. Again, you'll raise your hand via Teams. You'll have
- up to three minutes. After your three minutes are done, that's it. Nothing else. So please.
- Come forward to the lectern here in the Nattie Hill room and state your name for the record. You have
- up to three minutes. Hello, my name is Scott Tibbs and I have been lobbying you for a number of years
- against funding for Planned Parenthood, which is America's number one abortion provider. The abortion
- is now illegal in the state of Indiana, but no organization that has spilled
- the blood of several thousand babies a few blocks south of here should ever get money from the county
- council. The local Planned Parenthood is part of a multi-state organization with a huge budget. The
- National Planned Parenthood plus all affiliates nationwide consistently take in revenue of over $1 billion.
- They do not need this money.
- and the money that could go to truly local charities is instead going to a multinational corporation.
- This is not a request for help. This is a request for a political endorsement from the county council,
- and before that, the city council. At the city council level, they've requested money for gender-affirming
- hormones, which is very unfortunate. We should instead help people
- accept their God-given sex and body and not spend taxpayer money to help them deny their God-given sex.
- And I wanted to thank Marty Hawk, long-time friend, for voting no year after year. And I would encourage
- the rest of you to not approve this wasteful and unnecessary corporate welfare
- to a multinational corporation. Thank you. Thank you. It's nice to officially meet you in person. I
- know we've met through the Herald Times. So nice to officially meet you. All right. Next up. Hi.
- Good evening. Thank you. I'm sorry. My name is Courtney Daly. I am actually a representative on Bloomington
- Common Council. I represent District 5. First, I want to thank the committee.
- further work with the Sophia Travis. It's very, very important work considering everything that is happening,
- especially nationally right now. And I know we're going to need it more and more. So thank you very
- much. I just want to clarify, rebut a statement that was just made. City Council never requested any
- funding for gender affirming care hormones. We've not requested any money for any of that. So just to
- set that record straight. Thank you.
- Thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak. My name is Nancy Goswami. I am many of you know me
- through other activities but I'm a registered nurse married to a physician and I'm very aware of the
- intricacies of the shortages of access to healthcare in our area and there are many
- reasons why that's happening. I do have to say that I am in support of Planned Parenthood because they
- provide mammograms, pap smears, I'm not sure if the mammograms, but the pap smears, other health benefits.
- They see patients for a variety of things.
- not just abortions. And I just want to say that our daughter is included because it can take months
- to see a gynecologist in this area. In the meantime, people can get sicker because they don't have access
- to a physician. They may not have insurance. Maybe they can't have access to
- a physician that will accept their particular insurance, and Planned Parenthood accepts everyone. I
- don't understand this hatred on an entity that provides healthcare to people in need. If it was you,
- you would want that entity to be funded. And God forbid if you need a pap smear,
- You have or do not access to it and, you know, because somebody doesn't want to plan parenthood or fund
- it. Thank you. Hello again. My name is Natasha Komoda, and I just want to echo the sentiment that I am for
- support to fund Planned Parenthood. Recently, I tried to make an appointment with IU Health to have
- a consultation for birth control options. And they didn't have any availability for months. And I was
- able to call Planned Parenthood, and they had availability within that month. So that is very important to me.
- I also want to say I don't agree with funding for the charter schools. It doesn't seem fair. Thank you.
- All right. Is there anybody else that would like to make public comment on this item?
- Good evening, Seth Mutchler, resident of Monroe County. I want to start by saying that I echo most of
- the people who preceded me in giving my full support of providing funding for Planned Parenthood for
- the essential services they provide. I do want to just note, for the record, for the public, I know
- that this was a notably challenging budget season. I have great empathy for the position that all seven
- of you are in in balancing this year's budget.
- it's on me for not having caught this until this moment. But I remember in July when the New
- Life organization with the 12 organizations that endorsed their position statement came and I remember
- being overjoyed as many were that the Sophia Travis allotment was increased from 181,000.
- proposed to be increased 250,000. And I was not aware until sort of just today's meeting that it had
- been brought down to the 190 number. And again, I have the greatest empathy that you had to make extremely
- difficult choices, but I just wanna voice my disappointment that that full 250, because that felt like
- a big win, but it also felt like a small drop in the bucket compared to what we're up against. And I
- just wanted to share that with
- balanced against the understanding of the position you all ran. Thank you. OK, last call for public
- comment on this particular item. Again, if you're in person or you can come to the lectern near the
- night, you know, room or you can raise your hand via teams. And OK, and we got one more. Hello.
- Hi, everybody. I'm back. I wasn't planning to I didn't come here to talk about this, but I'm just excuse
- me. Can you please state your name? Yes. Sorry. Sorry. Yep. I'm back. My name is Reed Hepburn. I just
- wanted to say how shocked I am that in 2025 in the United States of America, we still have people that
- are trying to push back against women's health funding for women's health.
- I know, I understand that there are a lot of people see moral complexities around abortion itself, but
- I think ultimately that should be a woman's choice and the government should have nothing to do with
- that choice. But beyond that, if abortion is your hang up, the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that
- Planned Parenthood's funding only spends about 4%. Only about 4% of that goes toward abortions. The
- rest goes toward things like Nancy mentioned, like gynecological health, preventative health, STD testing,
- STI testing, pregnancy tests. It's not just women that use it as well. I, as a man, have benefited from
- using Planned Parenthood's services. And I just really, really am ashamed that people that
- claim to represent my county would find fault with that and would try to take that money away, so please
- I implore you don't take this money away from women's health and from all of our health in this time.
- Thank you.
- call again for public comment on these items. And seeing. One more. If there is more, please go ahead
- and line up so you can make your voice heard on these items. Yes.
- And state your name for the record and you'll have up to three minutes. Hope I don't take that long.
- My name is Philip Emerson. I'm a pastor. I've been a clergy person for goodness, nearly 60 years. I've
- worked with dozens and dozens and dozens of women and men who have struggled with some very difficult
- health issues. Personally, I have never counseled anyone to have an abortion.
- That doesn't mean that I disagreed with some that made that difficult choice. Most often, the choice
- is made around some very troubling issues that are never addressed when we break this into these simplistic
- arguments. If we're pro-life, we ought to be supporting food and housing for the people just down the
- block in Seminary Park.
- I support funding for women's health, for men's health, for the health of all people, those that are
- unborn, yes, but don't turn this into something it's not. Anyone that talks about late-term abortions
- is just playing games with us. We're dealing with serious health issues for women, and I encourage you
- to support
- Thank you. Okay, now really this time, last call. All right, thank you all so much. And so I know that
- Ms. Turner King had something else that she needed to add. So I'm gonna kick it back to Ms. Turner King.
- So I needed to amend exhibit A
- that is included in resolution 2025 and 2545. I've actually amended it to separate the question. So
- now Exhibit A within 2025-45A is the exact same spreadsheet that was included originally but removes
- Planned Parenthood. And it also strikes language in the
- Second column under people and animal learning services. It should be equipped equine assistant learning
- program and removed YSB because they amended their application so that it wasn't specific to assisting
- YSB clients. It's all youth. And so that is exhibit A for 2025 45 A and then exhibit A for 2025 45 B
- just as the Planned Parenthood Award. And I can display those if you really want to see them. Yeah. OK.
- Before we take the vote here. I'm gonna go back to council to see if anybody has any other Final comment
- before we take the vote Okay Well, I have a comment on the on one of the votes the second one I guess
- if it's now it's the right time. I just wanted to
- and I'll keep it very brief. I seconded Councilor Hawke's motion to split the issue, not because I support
- the vote that she will likely take. It is 100% because I feel like when a Councilor asks for consideration
- in good faith, it's incumbent upon us to at least consider that. So just wanted to put that out there,
- thank you.
- give Ms. Turner King a second so she can display. So in case anybody has any questions before we take our vote.
- So you can.
- technical difficulties apparently opening the item to display it so if you want to wait for us to fix
- it that I don't know how long that will take I mean I think common courtesy if we were doing the separation
- I would hope that people would think that if we're doing the common courtesy of separating this and
- we can have the common courtesy to wait but if council members feel like they are good to go
- Then I think we can move on. What is the temperature? Do folks need to see the display? What's the estimated?
- Oh, there it is. Yes, we do. Got it. Thank you. OK, so what you're seeing is a.
- You pinch in for old eyes, please. I'm working on it. And you'll want to scroll down to page two because
- that's where Planned Parenthood would have been before it was removed and put an exhibit or 2025,
- 45 B. So Planned Parenthood would have been at the top of page two. As you can see, it's no longer there.
- And then the second what's on the screen right now is the exhibit for twenty twenty five forty five
- B which is just the Planned Parenthood award. OK. OK. So. Maybe please have a roll call vote on exhibit a.
- and exhibit A is everything excluded, Planned Parenthood. Okay. Okay, so for resolution 2025, 45A, which
- excludes Planned Parenthood. Councilor Iverson. Yes. Councilor Decker. Yes. Councilor Feidl. Yes. Councilor
- Wilts. Yes. Councilor Henry. Yes. Councilor Hawk. Yes.
- Councilor Crossley. Yes. Motion passes unanimous. OK. And can we have a roll call vote on Exhibit B?
- This is for Resolution 2025-45B, which is planned parenthood only. Councilor Deckard. Yes. Councilor
- Feidl. Yes.
- Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Hawk? No. Councilor Crossley? Absolutely, yes.
- Councilor Iverson? Yes. Motion passes 6-1. All right, and next up, we will move to the, hold tight,
- because we'll move to the,
- next items for the 2025 Cheryl Munson's donation fund. So for the record, the committee had a discussion
- about Cheryl Munson and everything that she had done to our community. She was not only a woman scientist,
- she was community leader, a volunteer. She did a lot to bring into the community view and she advocated
- fiercely for a lot of these social service agencies. But in her heart, she was a Harrodsburg
- girl. That's where she grew up. That's where she lived. And so to honor her, we picked three agencies
- that were near and dear to her heart in a very special way. And we are recommending that $1,000 each
- be awarded to Girls Incorporated, Grace Center that is in Harrodsburg, and Harrodsburg Heritage Days
- Incorporated for their festival.
- Council I move to approve resolution 2025-46 adopting the committee recommendations to award the 2025
- Cheryl Munson donation funds as presented for a total award distribution of $174,000. Second. I think
- that it should have been $177,000. It should have been $3,000.
- I move to amend my motion to be $3,000. Okay. Are there any questions or comments from council on this
- item? Yes, council? How does this donation fund work? Will there be additional dollars next year and
- into perpetuity or is this the only year these dollars exist? That's a good question. My understanding
- this is the only time because this was collected by the community foundation.
- The donation fund will exist if other donations are received, the resolution that the council passed
- to establish the fund would govern. Wonderful. Thank you. Right. So and that's what I was going to say.
- So this is how it started. But unless we have somebody that wants to come in and make donations,
- you know, we'll just move forward with whatever we collect.
- Councilor Decker, did you want to add something to that? I did. I just want to reiterate, as I have
- in a couple of the committee meetings, gratitude to both the family for remembering this in a time of
- grief. They came to us kind of in the middle of the night when I was in Councilor Crosley's, President
- Crosley's chair, and wanted to do something in the community foundation
- within hours in the middle of the night did what government could not do quickly. We had people on a
- text chain trying to figure out how the county could take a donation in and believe it or not, you cannot
- donate money to the county and not that any taxpayer or anybody else necessarily wants to but
- We couldn't do it and the community foundation never said no. They had that ready to go by. I think
- the request went in around 10 at night by nine a.m. They had that ability and they were sending us things.
- And I think that's just awesome on their part and was just so helpful. So thanks for all those things
- that lead us to this kind of concluding moment. All right. Is there any other comments related to this item?
- I think my question's already been answered, but since I had it, maybe others did too. These entities
- are also on the Sophia Travis list that we just approved, so this is an additional allocation
- or appropriation for some of these agencies to maybe round out what they didn't get in their original
- request and award. Correct. Okay. Well, thank you.
- For clarity, the resolution delineates that they're each receiving $1,000, but the distribution of that
- $1,000 is included within the award amounts contained in the exhibit. So for girls, the total is $5,450,
- and that includes the $1,000 donation. It's not $1,000 in addition to that. Got it. Thank you. That
- was my question. Got it. All right.
- And seeing no more questions or comments from council, this is public comment time. So if you have public
- comment on this particular item, you could come forward to the lectern here at the NATU Hill Room or
- you can raise your hand via Teams. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote.
- Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
- Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
- This, we will go to the ongoing business, which is from the Health Department. Council, as a reminder,
- this item, which is 6A, was tabled from the October 14th meeting. So, Council, I move to open for discussion
- and possible approval of the Health Department's request in Fund 1159-0000 Health Fund.
- for category transfer of $500,000 from the supplies category to the capital category and simultaneously
- create a count line for 0001 equipment in the capital category. Second. All right. And it looks like
- we have members of the health board here with Ms. Kelly. So please go ahead and proceed.
- So I think this is just an ongoing discussion of our request to utilize some of these funds to purchase
- a mobile unit. Some information was submitted to the county council about some of the ways that we plan
- to use this unit. So I think that I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have or let any members
- of the board, of course, speak. Okay.
- Yes, I see your hand waving at me. Councilor, please go ahead. A couple of questions. The group that
- we contracted with in the past, did they have a mobile unit? Not to my knowledge. I've been in contact,
- I think I might have sent you a message about this, I'm not sure, with several other people in the community.
- about different ways that we can provide the same service and I applaud you for trying to reach out
- to folks that maybe are not receiving the kind of service you'd like for them to. But we have so many
- places and of course I have memorized more and more it's in my district because you know I know that
- we have a Steinsville
- a community center in Ellsville. We have more than one place where we could provide spaces for you folks
- to come and whatever your schedule was. We know that in Van Buren we have a new community center which would
- beautifully and I talked with that trustee there and she said of course that would work out great and
- then if you go on down and you're looking at Indian Creek and they have a spot and and so you can just
- go around the county and we know that there are places that that you could go at where
- the community in that local community, they're used to going there. They're not afraid to go there.
- That's just like a part of what they do normally. And so they would feel very comfortable walking in
- there to get their blood pressure or get a vaccine or something of the sort. And so while that maybe
- is lovely to think about having a separate
- vehicle to drive around to meet with these people, is there some specific reason why you need this?
- When you go in and you meet with an individual who needs their blood pressure or they need some, what
- else do you have to have that you would need that mobile unit for? Because if we've been doing well
- with the IU contract and they didn't have one,
- Why should we have one? So a couple things, I guess. I think accessibility, and I think as far as equipment.
- So all of the outreach that has been performed and is still being performed through IU Health Community
- Health, we actually had a medical extern who did a project on this.
- There's a lot of outreach, but it's carrying supplies and using personal vehicles. So loading, unloading
- those supplies everywhere you go. So that would be one difference. Additionally, I think really having
- this unit is exciting for a lot of our employees. It gives them something to think about and have some
- creativity and new places that they could
- to reach the public that hasn't been, maybe, aware of these services before. Does that help, I guess,
- answer some of your questions? Councilwoman, may I address that as well, please? I've spoken to a number
- of areas. Cass County is one of the counties that has a mobile unit and has found it incredibly useful.
- It's not the only county in the state that uses a mobile unit.
- one of the advantages of a mobile unit is that we would have a refrigerator with actually the temperature
- control that we need for the vaccines that we are offering around the county. We would have actual exam
- room should anyone need to be examined by a nurse. But this proposal, 7A, no, is that right?
- that we could put in a mobile van and that a van might be very useful. Not only for public health
- this county as a place where people can get services, where other parts of our public health department
- would be able to serve the public. But this proposal 6A simply asks to move our COVID funding from one
- line to another, not to purchase a van.
- Did you have anything else to add to that, Councillor Hawke? Well, it's just really confusing because,
- of course, they've been saying it was for a mobile unit. Now, it's not. Well, I mean, and it was like
- a half a million dollars, and that's a lot of money when we need to be watching every penny that we're
- spending. And I would just like to see it, try it using
- all of the available areas throughout this county and see what kind of response they get before the
- county would invest in this kind of a unit that might not be as usable as one might think. And remember,
- any time you buy a vehicle
- whether it's at your home or if it's in the county, there's upkeep, there's repairs. What if you have
- an accident? I mean, you know, the roads could be bad, whatever. I'm just saying a half a million dollars,
- when we could use that for providing the services that they're talking about. And I do have a concern
- about having it,
- physical space at the health building, even though I know that's a space that is available for health
- use, it is difficult to find parking there, and I would just like to encourage the commissioners. I'm
- looking at Angie, and Angie's not looking back.
- I would like to encourage the commissioners to consider if there's a spot nearby where the health clinic
- is for the county employees so that it would be all on one level so that whatever. That's just a thought.
- I'm just trying to think about who is it that's going to need these services if you live in town Bloomington,
- if you want to get there by using a bus or something and you want to use that
- permanent spot that we would have these employees in, it would seem to me we need to make sure we've
- got space for them. But I think it's a very interesting proposal to take it out to the county, to take
- it where people could access these services.
- I just don't think it takes a special vehicle to do it. And if you need something that's at temperature
- control, we all know how that works. It's, you know, can work just fine. You don't have to have a big
- vehicle for it. Councilor Henry? Thank you, Madam President. I'll be very brief because I know that
- we have a very large agenda. And I know folks that are not always with us are getting quite a taste
- of government tonight. This is how we make the sausage in Monroe County.
- I had just the lingering question that I do. I appreciate the emails, exchanges from the Department
- of Health to the Indiana Department of Health regarding the way to use the funds, because that's been
- the question for the past few weeks about whether or not the COVID funds that were provided to the county
- were eligible for use for this. And as I have the October 3rd email from Indiana Department of Health
- that the Health Department shared here, that it looks like
- The State Department of Health is saying
- Yeah, they support the purchase of the vehicle. I mean, it's an allowable use in their view. But the
- lingering question still remains that the county received COVID dollars during the pandemic for the
- purpose of reimbursement. And we've asked, I think this is the third time in a public meeting, if we
- have verified for sure that the dollars the county got were to reimburse the county during its response
- period, meaning it's probably been expended, or if these dollars are in fact free to use for future
- programming like this.
- still don't have the clarity if we need to reimburse rainy day, other funds in the county as the disbursement
- was made, which means the money's not real, or if it is real, then we can put it forward. Do we have
- an answer on that yet? The letter here says yes, you can, but it doesn't explain if this money is still
- real and actually it needs to go anywhere. Can we get that answer tonight? That'd be great.
- Okay, so it's hard to determine. The health department handled the funding as they were directed to
- do so, but it is co-mingled with other health department funds in 1159, the health general levy fund.
- So whether or not it's been used previously,
- It's it's hard to say. I mean, it's it's sitting there. It was deposited there. It's just been commingled
- So, I mean there are certainly expenses in the past that have occurred that would probably You know
- fit the criteria, but was that what the intention or was it used for that? I can't tell you that's like
- the worst analogy I can come up with tonight is you know money comes in a checking account money goes
- out of a checking account if you didn't like
- to create a sub account to stick it in, then we don't know, right? It's just money in, money out at
- this point. And that's the best we can do with that. Is that the best way to put it? That is accurate.
- I mean, I can tell you we were able to account for the funding going in. So I just can't account for
- it going out. Does the board have any additional thoughts on that? Because that's really been the blocker
- in my mind for the questions before us is transferring funds, not necessarily the merit of it. But is
- there any additional thought on this from the board?
- The board has no idea in 2020 what was spent by the county on COVID. If the auditor doesn't know, we
- certainly wouldn't know.
- Really? I'll just say I do appreciate the level of effort going into the document. I know we got caught
- around the axle about business plans. I'm not an MBA by any means. Maybe Councillor Deckard can speak
- to what they do at Kelly School. I don't. But I will say that for my end, I really appreciate the detail.
- It helps us understand
- where you want to go with it. I will share Councillor Hawke's concerns that we do have township boards
- that have put a lot of money into community centers that could be tried out as the way the Red Cross
- does its blood drive type clinics. I appreciate the comments about putting to work facilities in the
- community as a trial run, but if that's where we are with that money and we feel confident that it went
- where it needed to and wasn't really dedicated for reimbursement during those times, I'm good.
- Thank you, Madam President.
- At the risk of belaboring any of this, would you mind introducing who you have at the table today? Sure.
- So to my left here is Dr. Higgerman. We have our health officer, Dr. Sarah Ryderband, our board chair,
- Aurora Diorio, and our new board member, Dr. Teague.
- So, again, I want to, as your liaison, echo what my co-liason just said. The level of communication
- has bumped up. I feel like we've gotten a lot of work done here. I'm not going to make any jokes about
- being caught around the axle, although that was pretty funny. But I do want to, before I kick it down
- the line, just come back to the
- purpose of moving these funds from supplies to equipment from the twos to the fours, I also thought
- that this was for the purchase of a vehicle. And if it's not going to be purchased for a vehicle,
- I guess, are there other thoughts as to what it would be the money used for in the 400s in the equipment lines?
- Yes. So the request is to move this funding into the equipment line because we have been exploring purchasing
- a mobile unit. So an alternative could be purchase of a vehicle that nurses or one of our staff members
- could use. But ideally really it is to be able to
- to utilize these funds to purchase a mobile unit. These funds, again, I provided the letter from Dr.
- Box. So really the intention is one-time use to invest in public health. We've been discussing this
- for a really long time. We really felt like this was a good use of these dollars rather than just spending
- them on miscellaneous maybe supplies or services over time, but really to be able to invest in area
- of focus of how we could expand our service
- for the community. I did also want to note that when I've looked back through some of the documents,
- I wonder if some of these funds were used to kind of pay back if you'll see in the packet I provided
- documentation where funding was provided to Indiana University and to IU Health. So I think that was
- around $500,000 kind of from this same pot of money. So I guess my question is,
- What kind of tracing was done with that before those funds were dispersed versus now how we're trying
- to figure out.
- where these funds were used. I would imagine that a lot of the expenses in COVID were being supported
- through grant funding that was coming into the health department. I don't know and I don't know what
- dollars may have been spent from the county general fund. All I know is the information that I've been
- able to capture in ways that we think that using these funds would be valuable to the community and
- would again really be exciting for our employees.
- All right, and a benefit to the community in terms of public health, so thank you. All right, anybody
- over here to my left? Councilor Wilts. I appreciate the information that you've provided both in the
- packet and in a separate email. I think it's very clear that this type of vehicle or mobile unit or
- whatever we call it
- would be an amazing asset for our community and would just augment the opportunities that we already
- have in terms of locations around the county that we could do some other things. So I'm very much for
- this. I appreciate your patience and I also appreciate your efforts in kind of making us feel okay about
- this level of expense, because it's a lot.
- and sometimes we do need to be brought along. So appreciate it and you have my vote for it. Thanks also
- for the detail. And as we work through this, one thing that is coming to my mind, and I hope we've had
- a couple of weeks to think about this process. I would really like on behalf of just people out there
- who don't think about mobile health units or what the heck goes on in this building or anything else,
- because they don't have time for that. Life's busy.
- headaches are there, they need access to things. I would like to see this have just an ability to get
- very familiar to the public so that they know this is a good thing and not necessarily just something
- they can't figure out. I mean, I always think about if somebody today were proposing the bookmobile
- that we all now commonly see, would it pass or not? And I suspect in a hard day of budgeting,
- And electronic this and that wouldn't pass, but yet every Saturday, the one thing that gives me peace
- in life in a difficult world is looking out my back window at the apartment complex behind and seeing
- the kids running in and out of that bookmobile. Now, I'm not suggesting you'll have that overnight,
- but that thing's been going since I was a kid.
- And there's something to that. And I'd love to see in a Steinsville, in a Sanders, in the Smithvilles,
- the Harrodsburgs that we've been talking about tonight. I'd love to see something like that happen,
- but we'll have to make that familiar to people. And it may have to wait for better budget times to let
- more people know about it when we have different dollars. I don't know if that'll come, and I don't
- know if I'll be here then.
- We'll have to do that. The last thing I just generally would say on it is as that is done, it's going
- to take time for people to understand what that is, to know what that is, and then how that kind of
- fits in. And I would never assume what people know and understand about any of this in this function.
- We are probably going to have an intense discussion tonight of some sort. We already have in some ways
- about things being downtown or elsewhere and all that.
- And it is getting harder and harder to be downtown. I mean, I was late to our meeting tonight. Not everything
- happens on this block. And so where health is, where people are at in busy lives and otherwise, there's
- a lot going on outside this Bloomington township in the city of Bloomington. So I just with that in
- mind, I hope that that kind of helps to match what you're saying.
- And if I could just say something, thank you. What you describe is exactly where we're trying to go
- with this. We're trying to make health more accessible so that people don't have to just come right
- downtown. And your analogy of the bookmobile, in my mind, it was the ice cream man. I was thinking the
- mobile unit would be like, you know, like everybody gets excited when the ice cream truck comes through.
- That's how we envision.
- the mobile unit going out and you'll have a freezer. Health departments do outreach. That's what we
- do. So we need to do a better job reaching the people where they are and this is a tool that will allow
- us to do that. So I'm interested in it but I would like to know and maybe you could evaluate or not
- evaluate but tell us what
- are the hours that you're potentially wanting to service the county with all this. Do you have some
- idea of that you could elaborate for the public? At this point we don't know. We would imagine as a
- first step meeting with some of those township officials and some of those community members, community
- centers that Councilor Hawk mentioned to find out what they think would be beneficial for their residents
- and then structuring some kind of schedule.
- So there'd be a schedule eventually. But at this point, we don't even have the money, let alone the
- units, so. Much less the nurses. Yeah, much less the staff. I didn't hear what she said. I'm sorry.
- Much less the nurses. We still haven't approved the nurses. Yes, yes, yes. So there's nobody in the
- van. Right. I just didn't know what the plan was for availability hours-wise for people to access it,
- that kind of thing. We don't either. We'll figure that out.
- Only other thing that I'll add to the conversation is I did watch the health board meeting I had some
- notes and I know council Henry made a comment about that. So that one Satisfies the the question I had
- I Again, I think people were very hung up on the business plan and it was mentioned by some of the board
- members that you're not for profit and I think we get that I think
- the language of us being hung up on business plan versus actual plan, I think that was the difference.
- I think we have to, I know people get frustrated with council asking all the questions, but that's our
- job and we have to do that because we have to make sure that we are being fiscal stewards with the funds
- that you all are asking for us to approve.
- I just wanted to put that out there that it's not like we're trying to be petty and ask all the annoying
- questions. But the first time that this was presented, it didn't feel like there was a concrete plan,
- so to speak, for me personally. And that's what I'll say about that. But it sounds like there is now,
- and I appreciate the feedback and the follow-ups that we received.
- So if there is any yes counselor hop sorry to ask I should have asked this before so if Perhaps if this
- does pass, can you tell me? What kind of fuel this vehicle will use I? Mean is it gonna be gas is it
- going to be electric? My assumption is gas not electric And the reason why I'm asking is because
- Uh, we know that in the past we've had, uh, problems with storage. Uh, you know, you have to have a
- special, you know, I, I don't know. I don't have electric vehicle. I have a 20 year old car. Uh, but
- I have storage for it. I have a garage. So where will this, where will this vehicle be stored?
- Will it be, it will be taking up what little bitty bit of space we have behind the health building or
- will it be,
- Well, so I've been communicating with Ivy Tech about storing the location at Ivy Tech. OK, so it would
- just be sitting there and and it's really not going to be in a secure area. I mean, because I'm just
- saying there's a lot of people might think, well, it's a mobile health. They might think.
- there's drugs in there or whatever. So if it's not going to be in some kind of protected spot so that
- it'll be ready for you to use, that's just some of the questions I've had. But I'm ready to vote any
- time you folks are. We've got lots of things to talk about. I mean, you have the questions, so I was
- just trying to make sure you
- had your question answered. So in order for us to do that, we got all questions answered. You're good.
- Does it seem like we got any? We've got to practice patience, y'all, tonight. So we can move on to public
- comment. If you have public comment on this item, you can come forward to the lectern here in the NatU
- Hill Room, or you can raise your hand via Teams. Looks like there's already one hand that's raised via
- Teams. So I'll go to Teams first. And again, if you have public comment on this item,
- please go ahead and line up to speak. So it looks like Ashley Craner has her hand up. So you can unmute
- yourself and each commenter will have up to three minutes. And TSD, please make sure you have the timer
- displayed. So if you can unmute yourself, Ashley, again, you can state your name for the record and
- you'll have up to three minutes.
- TSD, can we help her? Can we have her or have help assist him with her being able to unmute, please?
- He has the correct permissions. Okay. So Ms. Craner, you have the ability to unmute. Please unmute.
- While we wait for her to be able to unmute again, I'll come back. I'll look again to anybody here and
- then at you Hill room who wants to make a comment on this or anybody else that has their hand raised
- via teams to raise your hand. Please. Yes, we can hear you again for the record. You have three minutes.
- OK, hi guys. I'm Ashley Craner.
- Yeah, I wanted to comment on this as a former board member of the Board of Health for like 10 years.
- You know, I want to. Comment and support Marty and acknowledging that I feel like. This group and what
- their ask is to the County Council. It just keeps moving the goalpost thought we were getting a vehicle
- and now we're not getting a vehicle or maybe we're getting a vehicle.
- I'm really confused and I'm not very supportive of the leadership that's going on right now because
- there's not a good stream of communication and planning going on here. The Board of Health, absolutely,
- that's their main job is to know what money we spent on COVID. Bree in the auditor's office,
- can tell us what we spent out. It is the responsibility of the Board of Health and Lori for picking
- it up to understand what we spent these dollars on. And I'm sitting here as somebody who has been very
- committed to the community and has served on this board for many years, and I'm perplexed. You need
- to provide a service, right?
- we lost futures that provided a service. The county council tonight gave I don't know how many dollars
- to Planned Parenthood in order to supplement the services that we lost, which still hasn't been fully
- explained. I'm just incredibly
- disappointed I'm going to say in the leadership right now when they're coming to the Council when we
- are under really tight. Budgetary restrictions based on the changes at the state asking to do asking
- for $500,000 for they don't know what I am not supportive of that as a taxpayer and I'm not supportive
- of that as somebody that's been on this team.
- We should know better and we should do better. We lost services, we gave it up, we can't hire a nurse.
- You don't have the services in order to, you know, provide employment for the van. This is chaos to
- me. Right now, I think that
- The Health Department should focus on advertising where people can get free free vaccinations, free
- blood pressure checks, because it's welcomed all across this county. You can go to Kroger, you can go
- to CVS. Ms. Craner, your time is up. Thank you. Okay, that's all I really wanted to say. We can do better.
- Is there anybody else that has public comment again via teams last call or in the night you know Okay,
- so seeing not maybe please have a roll call vote I
- Just to reiterate, this is for a category transfer from the supplies to the equipment line or capital
- line. Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes. Councillor Henry? Yes. Councillor Crossley? Yes.
- Councillor Hawke?
- Yes. And counselor Deckard. Yes. Motion passes six to one. Okay. And next up is item B. As a reminder,
- this item was tabled from the October 14th meeting. Council, I move to open for discussion and possible
- approval of the health department's request to create one new position and revise three current job
- descriptions. Second. All right. Ms. Kelly, please proceed.
- I'm actually going to follow and I'm going to since things seem very confusing to people I thought perhaps
- I could go from the bottom up. The change in the job description from the health services director.
- So I've given us a visual. We have a health services director here.
- This health services director is a position you have already given us the go ahead for. We are in the
- process of hiring this individual. If you look at the org chart, you will see that this individual covers
- many areas. Now, the reason we need to come back to you for a change in that description is because
- our public health nurses were not part of the department. They are now going to fall under the health
- services director as well. And the health services director will need to be able to back up our nurses,
- one in case of any emergencies, also because they will take vacations
- They will be out for whatever reason. So we need for this individual to be able to cover all of the
- services that our nurses will cover. So we are asking for a modification of that job description for
- the health director position. May I ask a question? Do you want to go through these job descriptions
- and vote on them individually or are you going to do them
- all together so that we should continue explaining how they fit together or do you want to stop right
- here. Do you have any questions about the health services director position. No but I think you can
- proceed to go forward. But initially when I first said I wanted to make sure I actually said Lori Kelly.
- So I wanted to see if she wanted to present. I want to or if you had anything to add first before the
- health board took over and did their presentation.
- I'm not saying that you can't speak, but she's the department head, so I called her first. So, Ms. Kelly,
- did you have anything to add first, or can we proceed? I'm happy to answer any questions, of course,
- that you have. I know that there were some questions that came up the last time in exploring different
- opportunities and how we could provide these services.
- I hope that I've provided some information that helps to explain some of those options and some of the
- different services that these nurses would be providing. But happy to answer any questions. Okay.
- And again, just because we have a lot of stuff to cover on the agenda, I don't think we need to stop
- and ask questions. I think you just can proceed to go. Thank you. We have three nurses.
- the department. One is a school liaison position. It's being modified to become a nurse. The other one
- is a health and wellness. Position coordinator position. It also is being changed to
- nurse position. That's what makes them different. The two positions already exist within the department.
- One is paid for already. The school liaison position is already under the local coag funding. And that
- coag funding is already
- The school grant coag funding is a $700,000 grant that we already have. That covers our school liaison.
- Our behavioral health and wellness coordinator is a position that is covered by HFI funding, so that
- one is already covered as well. The third position is the new one, and that is the public health nurse
- communicable disease.
- of the public health department and public health nursing. It is a linchpin. All of these people will
- all cross train. They will all be able to cover one another, be able to go out
- cover communicable disease, back up our disease intervention specialists. They'll be able to do many
- things. But the outbreak investigations are really essential. That's communicable disease, and that
- is what keeps all of us safe. There is now, again, another measles in the state of Indiana, another case.
- It's being taken care of, and it's a singular case this time, which is very fortunate. But we have to
- be able to monitor our communicable diseases, get that information to the state, get whatever backing
- we need. But we have to control health and well-being in this community. So all three positions are
- essential. The only new position we're asking you to take
- through your massive process really is this single communicable disease process, these others
- are modifications of existing positions. And this one is the one that's legally mandated because it's
- got the communicable disease case investigation requirement under state law and the funding for this
- comes from the contract that we previously for 60 years had with IU Health
- and before that Bloomington Health Community Health. So we also have funds for this because we're not
- paying for that contract. All right, if that concludes your presentation, then I will go back to council
- here and I'm gonna look to my left first to see if anybody has any questions or comments. Councilor
- Wilts. Thank you.
- Health Services Director the only change that you're asking for is the supervisory and the RN qualification
- or was the RN was already there. It was already there. So it's just really the supervisory capacity
- and it already had supervisory roles right or role. It would just be to update the additional
- responsibilities that we would be taking on and that position would be covering.
- I see, so the backup, yeah, okay. And just to make sure that the job description clearly outlines overseeing
- immunizations, communicable disease investigations, those additional services. How much of an expansion
- of responsibility is that on this position? I would say as far as the oversight and making sure that
- everything is in compliance with local, state, and federal is pretty significant. So we can expect that
- this might then change the classification of the position as well? I mean, I know we don't know. It's
- a black box. I get that. But if it's a substantial change to the responsibilities? Yes, I think potentially.
- My understanding could be wrong, but I think since it was a recently approved position, I don't think
- that it can go back for that. I think it would just be updating the job description, no classification
- change. When the job description changes, I think that triggers a re-review. Correct. And that's what
- I was going to say. If they are amending, adding new duties and that kind of thing, that triggers a,
- it has to go back to WIS for re-evaluation.
- Yes. So the school liaison position is that currently a nurse. No. No. So that's the kind of the difference.
- So the same the person is got to be a different person. Suppose I shouldn't even ask that. It doesn't
- matter. But we're adding a qualification that's pretty significant. But that position is funded by a
- grant. Is that correct.
- and that grant will cover that position even with changes to the duties. Is that correct? That's correct.
- OK. I forget the guy with the beard. He's the new boy. No, the other guy. So that is the health and
- behavioral wellness coordinator. OK. And that already exists. Both of these are vacant. They're vacant
- right now. They're vacant right now. OK.
- But how is that one funded? Health First Indiana currently funds behavioral health and wellness. That's
- what it's in for the budget. OK. So we've got grant funding for one of these. HFI for the other two.
- Currently in the budget, HFI for the health services director, for the behavioral health and wellness
- coordinator.
- And then the new position, and this is one that's the statutorily mandated one, is that, I'm sorry,
- I know you've told me this, but I'm just trying to get it all in one compartment in my brain, because
- currently it's all over. But this one, is that necessary because of the closing of the clinic?
- Is that, I mean, is that why we need to have that? Because it was being done by the clinic first? There
- isn't a clinic closed. IU Health is still, they still have a clinic. It's, they will no longer be doing
- communicable disease case investigation on our behalf under the contract. Ah, and that's the statutory
- thing that we have to cover. Yes, yes. They're still also going to be running their vaccination clinic.
- So, which is why we believe
- We don't need as many nurses as they have been doing because we think most people who have been going
- there for their vaccines will continue to go there. And we will just have to pick up probably some new
- folks we get through the outreach to those other areas. Maybe people new to the community that don't
- know about IU Health and have never been there. What is it that you just said that this person is doing
- case investigation?
- Unicable disease case investigation. It's a unique entity. Yeah. It sounds pretty important. It's really
- important if you don't want to have E. coli or hepatitis A. Yeah. Right. Is there nobody else doing
- this in the health department. Every no no because we had always contracted out for it for the past
- 60 years because Bloomington back when it was Bloomington Health they had a group of
- community health nurses, there used to be this model called visiting nurses, and they would go into
- people's homes. It made sense years ago for the health department, since they had those folks anyway,
- and they were doing this anyway, to contract with them. That option is no longer available to us. Now
- we have to do what every other county health department in Indiana does and do it ourselves.
- For this year's budget, that would be under contracting and services because you were paying IU Health
- to take care of this duty. For the future, that money then would be redirected to a personnel line to
- pay for a position. How does that compare financially? What's the difference fiscally? The estimate,
- it's a few hundred thousand dollars.
- It's a few hundred thousand dollars less expenses. Yes, so we would be saving, the county would be saving
- money. Okay, thank you. Can I also?
- If I can just clarify something, because I think we're talking about a couple different things. So definitely
- the communicable disease, we do have to do that. Of course, every local health department does. But
- I don't want to distract from the core services that we are required to provide under Health First Indiana.
- And I feel like that is sometimes getting lost.
- as we discuss things. So we are required to still provide those core services under Health First Indiana
- as a part of receiving those additional funds. So all of those services that you see laid out here in
- the agenda request, a lot of those are directly aligned to Health First Indiana. I'm going to keep the
- train moving along here. Did you have any? Password now. Yes, Councilor Iverson. All right. I'm going
- to be the nuts and bolts guy.
- So I'm going to this is going to be the same thing that we talked about last time you were here in the
- packet last week you had red line job descriptions which means simply you just went through the job
- description and redlined out things we're going to change. That hasn't changed right. There's been no
- changes from last council meeting to this council meeting in terms of those red line job descriptions.
- Same is true for, we ask when you are creating a new job or editing a new job, you go through a quick
- little questionnaire to rate how important is this job or what are the duties and all that. That was
- also in the packet last time. Anything changed between last council meeting and this council meeting?
- Okay, so the reason I ask this is because should we move forward with this, those are gonna be really
- important documents to expedite the process. We already have those.
- So each one of these four caricatures that we have in front of us, we've got good job descriptions that
- haven't changed in a couple weeks. The WISC questionnaires are good to go. So in my mind, the next step
- is we need to talk about the hiring freeze and how the hiring freeze impacts all of this. And I think
- I wanted to broach that topic because that is the next hurdle. And last council meeting,
- I offered an amendment to move it forward, and then there was an amendment to my amendment. And so we're
- back at that place again, where we have everything we need to move forward. We've got this hiring freeze,
- and then we've got this idea of a contract and all that jazz. So any new thoughts in the past when you've
- had a board meeting,
- I wanted to offer that to you before we start launching into those other topics No, okay President I'll
- focus my attention on the contract discussion because at the last meeting we had kind of a two-track
- process We're gonna pursue how to create these positions through the wisp process which is I believe
- as you said mammoth but also
- our data-driven process to figure out how to fit these positions in new county government. So I know
- it's arduous, but I trust the PAC president's fidelity there in trying to get that through. But I want
- to talk about the contracts. So it's my understanding that you have looked out for quotes for potential
- or have started to look at quotes for vendors that could provide a similar service to what IU Health
- did for 60 years.
- process started, I believe it was discussed at the last Board of Health meeting. I'm not clear what's
- been going on with that. Have you been looking at quotes for providers? Yes. So I submitted two different
- vendors, I think, to Molly. Molly should have that, I believe, that she could provide. And so that's
- something that we've been, yes, looking into. But other than using a staffing agency, there's not anything
- that we could move forward with tonight.
- OK, so because again, just for our understanding, we're up against a timeline. So that's what we're
- aiming for. How do we get the coverage, understanding we have to do this due diligence? There is that.
- Has there been any communication from IU Health about extending or going to a month-to-month relationship
- while we close this gap? Have you heard anything back from our partners there? Yes, so there was a discussion
- that they could extend an additional month in exchange for the equipment.
- for some of the equipment. So I guess that brings us back to a question we had a few weeks ago about
- the closure of the clinic and what's ours versus theirs. And so are they getting a in-kind payment to
- continue services using our equipment? Is that your understanding? I have very little understanding
- at this time. I believe it's something that the legal department at IU Health was going to work on drafting.
- So it sounds like there's some conversation going on to get coverage
- while we figure out the nursing, the structure, and the positions? Are you still pursuing a way to get
- coverage while we're doing that? I guess that's really my question. Through a contract or some arrangement
- through IU Health or another vendor? So we're exploring that additional month extension to the current
- contract. All right. Well, I very much look forward to hearing if there are more months available.
- I mean, one month buys us a month.
- there could be a scenario, it seems like we don't have coverage, but we don't have positions either
- if we're leaning on IU Health, right? So does the board have additional or Lori, do you have additional
- thoughts on this? The only other thing I would add is that I contacted the Association of Public Health
- Nurses and asked specifically whether there were any, they were aware of any contract public health
- nurses. And essentially I was told,
- No. And they guided me to the director of public health nursing for Purdue and for IU. So this is not
- contract public health nurses is not a thing. We can get a nurse and then that nurse will be trained,
- but that doesn't get us down the road.
- actually. Well it's interesting to say it that way because neither are apparently county employee public
- health nurses either because you're hiring an RN or an LPN or somebody to come in and we're doing additional
- training around it so I just it's an interesting comment to make because that's what you're marketing
- right our nurses that are. But when we hire we would put it out as that and there may be public health
- nurses in the community in the state or around the country
- who are interested in coming here to work as public health nurses who may already have some background.
- But that's different. And indeed, what I heard from the head of nursing at Purdue and the head of nursing
- at IU Health was they were going to be looking for who is interested specifically and who is ready to
- take a position.
- So that's very different from just saying, we'll pick a random nurse and start treating them, and then
- they'll go away. I feel like we're still on the same path of trying to get coverage and be lawful and
- meet it. It sounds like there's some conversation about IU Health helping us there for a little bit
- longer, or some quotes have been passed to county legal that we need to evaluate. But I'm going to continue
- to assume we're trying for coverage of some sort while we're trying to figure out the WIS process. But
- that's it, Madam President.
- I think we are on that dual track because we only have two months. At this point, even if we hired nurses
- tomorrow, they would not be trained January 1st. So we have to be doing both at the same time. And I
- think that. And I was going to add like contract nursing is also substantially much more expensive than
- hiring our own and training our own. You know, I when we
- approached IU Health, it was more a, hey, it's gonna take, we've been delayed, can we get another month
- so that we can maybe hire these folks, get them trained, get them going so we can be in compliance with
- the law. Okay, thank you. Does anybody else have any questions or comments? Yes, Councilor Decker. I
- would just say that additionally, and I'm sure this is factoring in, and far be it from me to tell anybody
- how to run
- their department, but when you leave the contract system, there's now a management component of that,
- right? There's accountability of people in-house and knowing what they're doing so that we can say to
- the public,
- here's what happens for every square inch of their day. I mean, everybody in this building has to answer
- that question. If they can't answer it or it's alleged something else, it gets them in serious ramifications.
- So that now all moves in house. I throw that out because I think that's going to add other complexities
- that we've not had for 60, 70, 900 years or so. And it's forever. And I, you know, I don't want to demean
- that or you or anything, but
- That's a lot. I think that that's an important point. The good news is every other county in the state
- has been doing it. So we have a lot of people that we can go ask, hey, what were you doing? Because
- we in Monroe County were the exception to the rule. So I think it's a good point to think of, though.
- OK. Yes, Councilor Williams. Just to be clear, because I've looked at the information that
- Molly Turner King forwarded on to us about the staffing options from these other companies.
- And my understanding is that they're not just going to grab a random RN off the street and hand that
- to you. They do work with you a little bit, but they balance that with the fact that we're asking them
- to do something quickly.
- They'll try to find someone who has an interest in public health nursing and has you know and you don't
- have to take the first person that they throw at you either. So I mean I think I mentioned the last
- meeting my husband has worked in this type of position before and you know they match you to what their
- needs are and then you become embedded in the the host agency and
- I am even seeing in one of these communications, they're talking about temporary to permanent options
- and things like that. So I hope that we're not just throwing that out because, yeah, it's expensive.
- It's not the first choice. But if IU Health can't help us out for another couple of months, this might
- be what we have to do just to meet the mandate, right?
- I guess I don't want it to sound as though it's not the first choice. I'm totally, I get that. But at
- the same time, I don't think it's necessarily undermining your statutory obligation to hire someone
- through this, I guess. I think everything you said, we agree with. Okay, okay. I just want to clarify
- in my head. I mean, under a great scenario, we would get a wonderful candidate who loves the job and
- then wants to take a position and stay.
- Our concern, of course, is that we get someone who does it for a month and we put in all that training
- and they say, I hate this and we're back in the same old boat. But we're not discounting contracting
- as an option. And Kate, the other part is that people who do locum tenants, which is basically what
- this is, actually like to move around. They like
- to stay on the road. They like to investigate different areas of the country, but they don't have any
- intention of staying there. They really like that sort of mobile life. So it's six of one, 12 of the
- other. Travel nurse lifestyle kind of thing. Yes. I hear you. Okay. Thank you.
- Council, I would like to move approval of the Health Department's request. I already read this, but
- what I'd like to do is move into the next step to send these four positions to WIS. We've had a motion
- in a second, so I think I'm calling the question. Okay. All right. Well, we do need to take public comment
- first before we do that.
- I'm going to go to public comment. I already see a hand raised. And so again, if you have public comment
- on this item, you can come forward to the lectern here in the NetYale room. Or do you like the person
- that has a hand raised, raise your hand via Teams. So I don't see any takers here. But again, I'll go
- back to it looks like Ashley Crainer has her hand raised. Again, state your name for the record, and
- you have up to three minutes. Please unmute.
- Miss Crater, you can unmute. DSD, I'm assuming she has abilities to unmute. She does. Give it another
- shot. George.
- that work? Yes. Okay. All right. Three minutes. Okay. So as I mentioned, my name is Ashley Craner and
- I served on the Board of Health and I've worked for Monroe County for over 10 years now. George, babe,
- it's time for you to go. I don't understand why you're up here. This new leadership has done nothing
- but rewrite
- job descriptions, and I'm really confused as to why they're presenting them to you tonight during budget
- hearings. This is not the time or the place for this. Secondly, I am just incredibly overwhelmed and
- embarrassed by the paper dolls that are
- in front of us to make an argument about nurses that we need. Guys, I served with you for 10 years.
- Sarah, what is the paper dolls? I don't understand this. It's time to just stop rewriting the
- job descriptions and you guys need to figure out
- how we recover as a community post-COVID. The money's there. We don't need to rewrite everything. I'm
- frustrated. I'm frustrated with the time spent arguing with council about job descriptions and the need
- of the community when you guys literally have lost a service, a big service, and you can't account for your
- budget. You don't know where your money's gone. I am frustrated. I think the council needs to hold the
- Board of Health accountable as I would hope to be when I was on the Board of Health to answer to these
- questions. We do not need four nurses. We do not need to provide all these services that you guys are
- saying that we need to.
- I'm frustrated. I am an upset citizen. As a former, like I said, as a former Board of Health member,
- I'm really disappointed. George, you've been sitting there all night and you haven't said a word. It's
- time for you to step down. We need new leadership on this board. Thank you.
- Thank you. Also, the level of decorum with public comment, we need to make sure that we are very respectful.
- Nobody should be referred to as babe. And I think that is just a little disrespectful there. So I apologize
- for the conversation that just ensued there that is not reflective of
- that is a public commenter that I do not agree with how she presented herself. So I just will say that.
- So if there are no other public comments, may, yes, Ms. Turner-Key. I think before we move, I think
- you're getting ready to ask for a roll call. And before we move to a roll call, we need some clarification.
- I believe Council Member Iverson made a motion to send the four job positions to WIS.
- Was there a second? I was the motion on the floor is what I read at the very beginning. I was trying
- to clarify what that would entail as to so it wasn't a motion to send it to us. It was that approving
- this tonight would send it to us. OK. OK. That's what we were trying to make. Yeah. Yeah. OK. So now
- I'm going to call ask for a roll call vote please.
- Councillor Decker. Yes. Councillor Fiddle. Yes. Councillor Wilts. Yes. Councillor Henry. Yes. Councillor
- Hawke. No. Councillor Crossley. Yes. Councillor Iverson. Yes. Motion passes six to one. Okay. All right.
- Thank you.
- I want to review some of the stuff with you before it's sent on. Okay. All right. Thank you. And again,
- apologies for that. All right. Next up, we will go to item C, which is from the Board of Commissioners.
- As a reminder, the first reading of these ordinances took place at the September 23rd council meeting
- with the second reading and discussion at the October 14th council meeting.
- Council I move to approve ordinance 2025-30 an ordinance authorizing the issuance of general obligation
- bonds and ordination excuse me ordinance 2025-31 an ordinance appropriating the general obligation bond
- projects which include but are not limited to there are ten of these one design plans for improvements
- at the Monroe County Airport
- two remodeling of the showers building justice building repairs primarily for renovations for voter
- election services three vehicles for street sweeper five highway vehicles and equipment six software
- computers and computer equipment seven facility improvements at the Youth Services Bureau courthouse
- courthouse grounds eight body cameras nine equipment for the sheriff's department ten airport furniture
- tools and equipment eleven emergency management sirens and equipment and all related improvements and
- the incidental expenses in connection with these
- projects. Second, thank you for being here. Do you want to walk us through kind of what we talked about
- last time and any updates this time? Well, you don't have to walk us through last meeting, but yeah,
- I wasn't at the last meeting, so it'd be hard for me to walk you through. If TSD can give me the ability
- to share my screen. You should have the ability now.
- There we go. All right.
- I did forward this to council last Friday so that you could have this in advance of this evening's meeting.
- I'm just gonna go through these slides and if you have questions, don't hesitate to ask. But these projects,
- if you will, came about as a result of the board of commissioners hearing from maintenance, hearing
- from department heads and other elected officials about needs
- specific to their departments. The board of commissioners approved a resolution allowing bonding up
- to $6 million. That's providing the council with the flexibility to approve a bond that contains a project
- list in excess of the normal $3.1 million.
- This next slide basically just talking about how the geo bonding is is handled and geo bonds are issued
- for a short-term Period that's what we have done up until this time Not more than five years, so that's
- important as to why we are talking about a six-year bond So Senate and what happened is the reason we're
- talking about a Senate
- year bond is because the Senate enrolled at one imposed a one year cooling off period after a short
- term bond expires. We just identified that short term term bond is from one to five years. That's why
- we have the six. We currently have a twenty twenty four three point one million dollar bond. That bond
- expires in December of this year.
- And the one year cooling off period would be 2026, which means that we would not be able to bond again
- until 2027. That is why we have presented the bond at this point in time at up to $6 million. This is
- just a slide of the actual statute regarding the small division bonds. The bond that we're presenting
- to you this evening has been modified.
- Sorry. I was just trying to see the slides better, so I'm sorry. No problem. Yeah, so the project list
- has been modified. There was a reduction, a large reduction of $800,000 that we were able to put into
- play because the bids came in on the North Showers project, much lower than what had been expressed
- to us by the architect.
- the board of commissioners is going to move the nature preserve to the food and beverage funding, which
- is the savings of $905,000. The YSB projects, I think there was some understanding at the last meeting
- that that was going to go back into the juvenile special lit. I've taken it out for all purposes here.
- It's 55,000. It can go back in if that's what you want to do. I do know that at the last meeting, the sheriff
- I think they spoke about the Guardian RFID software. We had already been in conversation about that
- prior and we're just, that's something that would come out of CUME. It's not that expensive and it is
- something that we're going to have to take on for the rest of the ownership of that particular software
- program. I've talked with the sheriff and he had indicated that he's comfortable with that way of supporting
- that project.
- So as a result of moving various projects around, what they did do is they also added the two jail transport
- vehicles, one body scanner and increased the amount of funding that's going to be made accessible for
- the justice building repair. And that's to cover those costs associated with the ongoing proactive
- testing, remediation, creation of a long-term stewardship plan, and departmental HVAC controller programming.
- So once all that has been added, we've resulted in a new total bond. It's less than $6 million, and
- the new total project list is $4,667,775. So the bond number's down.
- Next slide is just a picture of the new nature park for you to kind of see. That's been removed. These
- are the items for the YSB. It's the card swipe blocks. I don't have a picture of that because y'all,
- you know what a card swipe block looks like. The other is the tamper resistant light fixtures, which
- those kiddos need.
- and the other is a dishwasher, and if you want to know more about the dishwasher, I know that Mr. Kreider
- can give you that information if you like, but I believe it just does a blast sanitization, and it's
- a wonderful thing for ensuring that the dishes are clean. This is an itemized list of the projects.
- Again, it's including the sheriff's request of two jail transport vans, one body scanner,
- And it does not include the nature preserve, and it also does not include the YSB projects. There are
- 55,000. Those can go back in if that's what you want. Administrative costs. So we actually have, this has been,
- I believe it's $120,000. Do you remember, Jeff? I guess if we're at the 4.7 level. Yeah. In discussions
- with Jeff Cockrell, County Legal Department, in discussions with our financial advisor, this would be
- what he would believe would be kind of a worst case scenario. And worst case scenario would include
- underwriting fees as well as a bond rating cost.
- If it gets placed at a bank, local bank, which historically we've done, those costs aren't as high,
- but this would be a worst case scenario of 120,000. Thank you. Just also for your information, this
- is over six year periods. We can get a bond, we're going to need to get a bond or you guys are going
- to have to find another way to support the tasers, body camera and in-car.
- their body camera and the in-car cameras because that is a 2.2 million dollar project that they are
- splitting over five years. So that's at $440,000 a year. So that is, and that's a full refresh and I'm
- sure the sheriff would be happy to talk to you about those items. I know that they were in conversation
- with Mr. Cron and prior to
- all of this, and so I know that they were working together and trying to get the best deal, but this
- does include also the in-car body cameras. Let's see here. Going in alphabetical order, the airport,
- this was actually something the council had requested be put into the bond during the budget process.
- This is $185,439 for the air traffic control design project. That's required for their FAA grant eligibility.
- And if you have questions, again, those would be best presented to Carlos. There was 102,000 that you
- actually moved into or somebody asked to be put into the bond.
- And they were able to reduce that to $101,431. And that gets them two breathing apparatuses, four radios,
- no, two radios, four chairs, and two Polaris vehicle type things.
- The justification is in the packet, but I can read it for you. The vehicles will replace two UTVs disposed
- under a prior grant, essential for airfield operations, no removal and emergency response. The ARF equipment,
- which I believe is the breathing apparatus, replaces aging units nearing end of life, ensures some kind
- of compliance and firefighter safety. Again, if you need to know more directly what that is, that is
- specifically to Carlos.
- Finally the radios are for the airfield coordination tower chairs Are just clearly replacement of chairs
- that are in the tower that are desperately in need of repair I included some one schematic of the proposed
- draft design of the new a TCT air traffic control tower. Yes
- I included some pictures of the things that they are requesting. These are them, the chairs, the radios.
- There's also the invoices that they've presented as what meets those particular expenses. The board
- of commissioners, the list specific to the board of commissioners is obviously the North Showers Early
- Voting and Voter Registration Project.
- Clearly the early voting is the priority. My understanding is we've already been in communication with
- the clerk's office and they understand that the movement of voter registration in itself would occur
- after the primary, but well before the general. In 2016? Yeah, next year. Yeah. Yeah. The next one is
- the sprinkler system. That's repairs for this historic courthouse grounds.
- increase the amount for the justice building repair to $418,987. That meets the ongoing mold inspections
- and remediation and sampling that's at $134,987 not to exceed for the year. And then the individual
- department HVAC software control repairs, that's
- $284,000, that's based on estimates that were given to us by HFI, by department in the justice building.
- $50,000 for the steps, but that's actually being supplemented by the foundational funding that we, I
- do believe you guys approved, be appropriated. And 160,000 for four trucks.
- Two for the building department and two for our county maintenance. These are some pictures. I believe
- that the sprinkler and the little controller thing on the bottom right is the actual items that we're
- looking at. Trucks up there and then below is the schematic design for the new voter registration and
- early voting.
- And I believe all of these people are actually in attendance. If not in person, they're online. And
- if you have questions, they're there. Emergency management has seven siren replacements, $324,141. And
- an encoder, which is a programming and installation item, which is $11,379.94.
- I'm not gonna go through it all, but Ms. Nibel has provided her information regarding the replacement
- of current sirens and also the list as to who's going to be replaced. And then we also included the
- proposal from ERS regarding these particular expenses. Highway, they,
- have a total of $861,000. They want seven spreader boxes and stands. They need to replace an old John
- Deere boom mower. They need to pay to repair their own highway parking lot. They need to replace a bridge
- or not a bridge, a truck for the bridge crew. And they
- I also included in this as part of our ADA plan that we submit for the county and for continued funding
- to do $80,000 in sidewalk repairs around the county. And we've also added, and I believe this was also
- requested as per council, the $450,000 for the street sweeper, and that had originally been in Stormwater's
- budget. These are pictures of the,
- spreader in the stand. And Lisa laughed at me when I asked her for pictures, but she did get them for
- me. And so that's the spreader in the stands, but right below that is the street sweeper, and the other
- is clearly a John Deere tractor. The sheriff, so the sheriff, $440,000 for the tasers, body cameras,
- and vehicle cameras, and that's a full refresh.
- And that's the thing that requires continued funding at $440,000 for a total of five years, unless you
- want to pay $2.2 million now. It also includes $500,000 for the in-car rugged laptops. That's also a
- full fleet renewal. And again, those are questions for the sheriff. We have added
- because before that had not been in this particular list, we added the body scanner, and we posted that
- at about $180,000. I believe I was given a range of 150 to 180. Nothing's getting cheaper, so we went
- with the higher one. Two jail transport vehicles, and those total $160,397. Here's some kind of cool
- pictures of your tasers, of your view, of your in-car camera, of your rugged laptop, and your body cam.
- This is a view of jail transport vehicles and the two really geometric kind of looking things. Those
- are the body scanners. And these are the quotes on the vans. Those were provided to me. And so that's
- kind of it. We're at the end. Thank you.
- Right. The things that you added in there toward the last having to do with the jail, was that a part
- of the total that you'd originally given us? The 4.6. Yes. Because I thought, of course, I'm not going
- to support the scripting bond. I said that from the beginning. But there's also the jail fund that
- these expenses for the jail could come out of because that revenue is like about $8 million a year.
- And I don't think we've budgeted so much that we couldn't cover that because this will be just a one
- time spend out of money. It's just a thought. I didn't know whether anybody wanted to consider doing
- that with cash we have on hand rather than putting it in a bond that we're paying interest on instead of
- paying for it with money we already have in hand. But I did send out that email. I forget who I sent
- it to, probably just the sheriff's department. But I hadn't heard back. Anybody would think that was
- a good idea. But it was something they could move forward and go ahead and purchase those items now
- because the cash is sitting there. And I believe it would work.
- I mean, we'd have to look at all those numbers, but it would save paying interest when we already have
- cash there. And it wouldn't spend it down to where we can't use it for employee expenses the following
- year, because it would just be a one-time spend down. Councillor Iverson. Thank you so much for moving
- the park to food and beverage.
- Wonderful, it's gonna be a wonderful park and we're just I'm so excited that we found a place for it.
- So, thank you Thank you, I'll keep it brief because I did have another item this evening that I wanted
- to use to talk about How we talk about bonds in the future I may move the table that until another week
- so we can give it its full course but I appreciate the effort put into this you know 150 slides helps to
- Illustrate I think the granularity similar to what the health department gave us about what we're after
- when we asked for these bonds I appreciate the effort to reduce the cost down In there, but I'll just
- acknowledge where I think at our fourth meeting about the bond at this point where it took to get to
- this level And I think this part of the new normal after this budget and what's coming that we really
- do need to start getting this level to understand how we
- use those resources in the community and how they're getting used. I mean, we've moved a long way from
- just the line items themselves. I appreciate the effort. I'm going to withhold the rest until we can
- get a better conversation time about how we memorialize this process so it looks like this for the first
- time and not the fourth time. And I think that's really it. But thank you, Madam President. Over here,
- it's so my love to see if anybody has counselor vital.
- And I'll just kind of go up the line. Thank you. So I'm wondering about the vehicles purchases. I see
- there are four vehicles, two building and two maintenance and then the transport vehicles. I'm wondering.
- It looks to me like you're buying the transport vehicle from someone in Salem, Indiana. So I'm wondering
- if all those can be purchased locally. No, no. The four for the building department and maintenance
- We I mean, Mr. Crider, we better serve to speak about this. But my understanding is that we have to
- go through the. It's a. I still keep the state QPA, right? And so depending on who has those vehicles
- depends on where we can get them, right? So we have to meet the QPA. The vans for the jail are a very
- specialized project, and that's where we are currently getting
- our squad cars. But again, that would be a question best posed to. Law enforcement vehicles are not
- the same as other vehicles. I understand that, but I didn't know if the local dealership here could
- work with whoever they work with to make the adjustment. Councillor, sorry, are we still?
- I thought I was. Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. So the trucks are trucks that you can go by anywhere.
- But you receive quotes to try to get the best rate. These two jail transport vans, they're specialty
- vehicles that require police outfits and that type of thing. You know, you're not. I guess at the end
- of the day, you could probably submit an order through someone, but then I
- got to take it somewhere to have it up fit and all the things and John Jones and Salem is kind of a
- one stop shop for that. Did you ask the local people if they don't provide the one stop. I didn't. OK.
- Might be something to think about in the future. I like local. Yeah I think we all like to do the local
- and I would again defer this to the sheriff's office. They're the ones who
- pretty much provide us with the information on what they're looking for and needing. Yes, Councilor
- Williams. Oh, I'm so sorry. Really quick. Locally, that service does not exist, period. That's why we
- can't do it here. And what Richard said is 100% correct. You have to be a particular certified provider
- to provide that police equipment. But locally, I would love it, but it does not exist. OK, thank you.
- I want to echo the thanks for making a lot of changes. I appreciate this level of presenting the details.
- It's not paper dolls, but you got to work with what you can.
- I really don't think I have any questions except that if we're bonding for this amount, are we saying
- for sure there's no geo bond next year? No, we can. I'm sorry, I did not. And you're going to need to
- unless you can find $440,000 for four more years for the sheriff.
- It's not, we're going to have to have a bond of some sort because the tasers and the body cameras and
- the in-car cameras is a $2.2 million purchase. And I think it's Axon. Again, they'll be able to speak
- more better, but they're allowing us to break it over the five years. So that's where the $440,000 comes from.
- So we can, but we don't have to bond as much. We can bond for what we need. It doesn't have to be the
- same level at each year, but we can continue to bond, but it's going to have to be six years, right?
- Yeah, six year term. So we get the money and then it's paid off over six years. Yeah, I understand that.
- I'm a little uncomfortable raising the amount
- that we typically bond for. I mean, we've been holding it very consistent. And I've thought that was
- a good strategy. You're not impacting what we have to have in terms of the debt servicing. It keeps
- it fairly constant. And so we're upping the amount, and we're upping the time that we have to pay it
- back. That's true.
- it's ultimately financing more and more and more if we don't take that cooling off year and wait. I
- guess at the end of the day, right, the tax rate associated with this individual bond will be less than
- what we have been paying per bond historically. That changes
- in four or five years if you continue to do a bond above $3 million. So in year five and six, or definitely
- year six and beyond, this would potentially increase that rate. There's a lot of property tax and all
- these other things associated with it. But yes, it would. And so I think that answers your question.
- I think it confirms my fears.
- I mean, I'm just uncomfortable with that. Okay. Councilor Decker? No, I'm losing my voice. Here's what
- I appreciate about our process on this. What was it, four meetings that we've talked about bonds?
- I appreciate that we in a very public fashion have scrubbed this back and forth in a lot of different
- directions and that scrubbing sometimes can be a little bit difficult, can have some friction.
- But I think that in that, we've got an answer here that represents a whole lot of different things in
- here. And I won't go through all the ones that I think are very vital and key, but I like that we are
- answering tough questions around emergency management. Because literally, if that goes wrong, none of
- this matters. And I like the fact that we're thinking about obligations for which we would not have had
- you know, 10 or 15 or 20 years ago when different values and different technology were there. The fact
- is anyone right, left, independent or otherwise wants a body cam on everybody. They want to know all
- of that. And they not only want that out there on that street, they want that in that jail in all fashions.
- And we want it too because we want to know. The public wants to know.
- And I like that we're having that in a very public way, going back and forth. I like that we had back
- and forth led by President Crossley on the justice building and obligations there. And again, not easy,
- difficult, but again, publicly vetted, and here we are. And perfection probably not here, but I think
- we're getting a little bit better, good to great, and that's not too bad for the courthouse.
- Thank you. All right. So if there is no further. Yes, Mr. Okay. Sorry. It's okay. Before you move to
- vote on this issue, I do think we need to amend exhibit a specifically.
- Um, moving the justice building repairs language in the third line to the fourth line after election
- services and before vehicles as that primary for renovations language is modifying the showers, buildings,
- repairs. Okay, so move second. All right. We got a motion in a second. So all those in favor of amended
- that language signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. All right. Motion carries. Now
- coming back.
- If there's no other further questions or comments from Council, we will go to public comment. Please
- come forward to the lectern here in the NETU Hill Room and raise your hand via Teams. This is on the
- underlying motion, not the motion, right? This is for the overall. For the amendment.
- Eric Spoonmore, Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce. I listened to the list last week. As you know,
- I think this list sounds better. Appreciate that. But I do agree with what I'm hearing from some council
- members. Let's rely less on bonding going forward in this very uncertain fiscal environment. Thank you.
- All right. Is there anybody else that wants to talk about this item again? Come forward to the lectern.
- And if you do feel like you want to speak on this item again so that we can move expeditiously to the
- greater topic at hand that we all are still waiting to hear, please line up. So thank you. Hello. I'll
- try to keep it quick because we got a lot.
- I do just want to point out that in Exhibit A that is listed as non-lethal forest equipment, and I think
- that is a misingenuous use, tasers are less lethal. They are not non-lethal, and they are actually quite
- dangerous. I'm reading here from taser safety issues on Wikipedia that
- At least 49 people died in 2018 in the US after being shocked by police with a taser. So I do just want
- to say that they are less lethal, not non-lethal weaponry. Thank you. All right. Any other public commenters?
- Going twice. All right. Can we please have a roll call vote?
- I have information, Madam President. This is on the amendment, correct? Or the whole bond. This is on
- the whole bond? Yeah. Okay, thank you. Uh-huh. Okay, I was just gonna... Yeah, because we voted on the
- amendment. On the amendment, but I just wanted to make sure everybody understood. Okay. Right. So, yes,
- this is on the overall resolutions for the bond and the appropriation. Correct. Councillor Feidl. Yes.
- Councillor Wilts.
- Councillor Henry? Pass. Pardon? Pass. Come back. Councillor Hawke? No. Councillor Crossley? Yes. Councillor
- Iverson? Yes. Councillor Decker? Yes. Motion passes. Oh, sorry. Councillor Henry? Yes, thank you. Sorry.
- Motion passes five to two.
- Thank you. All right. I'm going to go to Councilor Iverson next. Council, I move to table this discussion
- on establishing timeline and procedure for future bonds to the meeting on 11-10-2025. Second.
- Second's flying. All right. So any discussion on this? All right. Seeing none, all those in favor of
- table in this item to
- November 10th, 2025 meeting signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries.
- Council Iverson. After consulting with the treasurer's office council, I move to table this item to
- the meeting on November the 10th, 2025. Second. All right, we got a motion.
- Did you hear the motion? So there was a motion and I don't know if we had a second yet. Okay, so we
- had a motion in a second to table the treasurer's item. I thought she's here. Does she want it?
- Hold on, y'all. So she had, like, Councilor Iverson said he consulted.
- but we have the treasurer that's here, so I wanna give her the opportunity to say her piece. Again,
- let's practice patience so we can move on, y'all. Yes, Treasurer Smith. Hi, thank you for allowing me
- to speak. Last weekend, last meeting, I think there was some confusion. I was under the understanding
- that you guys had to invite me to come and speak, and I did not get an invitation.
- because it said we'd be asked to speak. And I thought you guys had to discuss it before you invited
- me. In addition to that, I had a major medical family emergency. So either way, even if you'd have heard
- it, I couldn't have been here because I was with a very, very, very critically sick person. It's not
- that I didn't want to be here. So what this is is not, I guess,
- I'm not really asking you to fill a vacancy because this person has always worked here. We have the
- same people working every spring and every fall. Last year, for the first time, we were asked to allow
- them not to be on the payroll for the months between after-tax billing, after-tax collection in November
- to the beginning of March when they go back on
- when they come back in. They only work a few weeks in the spring and two weeks in the fall. So I'm only
- asking for two weeks. Money's in my budget. So I was confused because this is not really a vacancy.
- It's the same person coming over and over and over for multiple years. And these are senior citizens
- who only make $15 an hour. And they do this out of the bottom of their heart to be nice, kind of like
- voter people that work at the polls.
- The work that they do is not something I can teach somebody in just a few days. Taxes are really confusing.
- You pay in arrears, you have to understand the difference between the years, you have to understand
- assessment changes and tax rate changes, and there's so many variables it takes a long time to learn
- this. So what I'm asking for is to allow this person to be able to come
- Over the next two weeks, taxes are due on November 10th. They usually work one to two days after taxes
- are due while the mail comes in, and that's it. And then they wouldn't be needed again until the spring.
- So it's no additional money. And it's the same person. And like I said, I never terminated them, and
- they never quit. This was something to save money.
- I think it was unemployment insurance. It wasn't meant, and I gave you guys a package. Every time we
- do this, this is going to be how we do it moving forward. These people have to fill this out,
- all of this, every time now. Before they just were inactivated, but their stuff was still in there.
- And so I don't know how you guys want to move forward with these repetitive same people, but I don't
- want to lose them because they're
- They're trained and they're wonderful, wonderful people, same people. So I'm happy to answer any questions
- or to explain further if that doesn't do it for you. Okay. But just to clarify, there was a motion and
- a second to table that conversation. And so since you've already expressed
- then it sounds like you need to amend your motion. Actually, I want to.
- stick with the motion because the idea of having a giant packet like this means we need to get some
- of our ducks in a row. And the idea is that additional conversations need to happen to ensure that giant
- packet isn't going to be required every single time you've got to get an employee in the pipeline. I
- understand and honor that. However, this happened and it clipped us right before
- this person was to come back to collect taxes, which is how we fund the government. It's very,
- very important. So, I mean, I'm kind of stuck. Okay. So, again, Councilor Hawk has her hand raised,
- and then I feel Councilor Wilts go ahead, and then I'll go to Councilor Hawk. Me first? Yes. Oh, you're
- saying? Okay.
- I just have a point of order and question because at the beginning of this meeting, we amended the agenda
- and we tabled this item, didn't we? Not mine, you didn't. I specifically left the treasurer out of that
- original motion. Okay, well, so who did we table? Because I just went. The prosecutor part. Prosecutor
- and highway only? Yes. Yes. Thank you. Okay.
- Okay, I think time is at the essence here. And to be clear, this is just like for a two week, go in
- there and help collect the taxes. And it's 15 bucks an hour. There's no overtime. There's no longevity.
- There's no health coverage. It's just two weeks of a live body standing there taking in the taxes so
- that we don't have long lines of people waiting to pay their taxes. And she doesn't need the rest of the time.
- And it's not necessarily for this person because, you know, this person could decide to go to Timbuktu.
- It's for somebody to help collect the taxes for two weeks, 15 bucks an hour. That's it, no benefits,
- no overtime, no anything else. I mean, I think time is sort of of the essence because, you know, it's
- gonna be time to start
- paying the taxes, and she needs to make sure she's got somebody in there. They don't wait till the last
- day to pay. They start paying. I understand. I just know that there was a motion and a second to table
- this item. So somebody wants to withdraw that motion or we vote on it and voted down and
- go back to opening this discussion up, and that should go quickly, because she's already presented the
- item. So somebody? OK. Well, like, the motion goes to table the discussion. Does it need a second? Yeah,
- you second it. OK, so we're going to vote? Yes. I'm sorry. I'm just. Does it help if I withdraw my second,
- then we go? There are two other departments that are in the same boat here.
- And we cannot, we tabled those other two departments. I think we need to table this one as well. She
- also just mentioned of the things that needed to happen, like what happened, like the payments and things
- of what needs to happen in the treasurer's office earlier during department updates.
- I'm going to call the question. Can we please have a roll call? Point of order. Yes. Did Mr. Deckard
- send his second? Yes. OK, then there is no motion. OK. So what is the question on the floor that we're
- calling order on? So right now, this is really important. So there's no motion. OK. It's all right.
- All right. My bad, y'all. It's OK. Don't add me here. We're all doing this at the same time.
- I'm doing this under the weather right now, so forgive me. Okay, so then since that was withdrawn, then.
- Yes, Councilor Iverson. Council, I move to open for discussion and possible approval the treasurer's
- request and fund 1000-0003 County General Treasurer to fill a part-time vacancy. Second. All right,
- we got a motion and a second.
- The treasurer has already given her presentation on it. Is there any other further question?
- Council Henry. Thank you, Madam President. So just to be clear, this is a two-week job because of the
- nature and how we clipped it, as you described it. I don't understand how we got to a process where
- ESD is eliminating positions and then bringing them back. You said this is a new process for your office.
- I think it's a new process.
- Yeah, you're here everyone. Can you speak to this so we can understand or get clarity if you don't mind?
- Madam President if you don't mind because it seems to be really important and if we're not gonna get
- taxes in I kind of want to know so Thank you. I appreciate it This is not a new process this is a process
- that we ask
- if there are going to be employees that are not going to be paid for an extended period of time we ask
- departments to submit the termination paperwork for those employees and then for them to be rehired.
- One of those things is one of those reasons is because we have to report the number of employees that
- we have on a monthly basis. And so that if we were to allow all of those employees to maintain stay
- employed we would be
- inflating those numbers that we're reporting to the Bureau of Labor Statistics is one place that we
- report that. Another reason is that we have employees that are
- In this situation, they go six months without working, being paid. We want to make sure that we are
- getting, when they come back, that we're getting updated information, like direct deposit information.
- We want to make sure that we're getting an updated background check because they haven't been employed
- for six months. You know, there are various reasons why we ask departments to do that. And another thing
- that I will say is that we have asked departments to do this. They don't always.
- Please follow through and do that. We have more staff in our office now, and so we are making sure that
- departments that do not have people, that they aren't paying for an extended period of time, that we
- are monitoring that. We're asking departments to submit that termination paperwork for seasonal, temporary
- employees. Thank you. I appreciate that clarity. Just to be clear, Treasurer, you're saying that this
- is new this year to you, or has it been ... Okay.
- Yeah, I think that the request has been made. Our department was overwhelmed with monitoring those requests
- that we make of the departments, and so we have the ability to monitor that more now with the addition
- of staff in our office, and so that's what we did. Okay, thank you for that. I mean, I also hear that
- that sounds a little inconsistent, because clearly it continued even if that was a problem,
- and now it's... Okay, it sounds like there's a bit going on here. Thank you, Madam President.
- Anybody else have any questions or comments? Seeing, yes, Council Hall. Are you ready for a motion?
- Well, I'm asking for questions or comments for anybody, and then we'll go to public comment, and then
- we'll vote. Okay, so if there's any public comment on this item, you can come forward to the lectern
- here, the Nightingale Room, or raise your hand via Teams.
- and seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Can you restate what we're voting on, please? OK,
- this it is a motion to approve the treasurer's request to fill a part time hourly position in the general
- fund treasurer for two weeks. Don't leave it so wide open. There might be some other treasurer someday.
- But that was not stated in the original motion. So do you need to amend that? Well, never mind.
- I don't care. Just vote. Okay. Please proceed. Thank you. Councillor Henry? Yes. Councillor Hawke? Yes.
- Councillor Crossley? Yes. Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Deckard? Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes. Councillor
- Wilts? No.
- Motion passes six to one. Next. Thank you very much. I do want to say I was caucused in last year, so
- that was my first year as treasurer in a very, very long time. We never did that before, so it was pretty
- surprising to me. Thank you. OK, thank you. I'll follow all the rules. I promise. OK, thank you duly
- noted. All right, next up is new business.
- Council I move to approve the health department's request in fund 8 1 1 5 dash 9 6 2 3 led case management
- for the creation of a new account line 3 2 4 1 0 personal health care and simultaneously approve an
- additional appropriation of $46 and 15 cents. Second. Miss Kelly proceed.
- Good evening. So this is essentially like a housekeeping item. So there was an expense that did not
- go out with our claims during this during the previous year. And so we paid this with it out of the
- county funds. So we'd like to just receive approval for this additional appropriation and essentially
- make a correction so that we can close out this grant.
- All right, questions or comments from Council Councilor. I just wanted to confirm we had a really healthy
- discussion with the auditor's office and the health department to go over this grant. So this is indeed
- just that housekeeping issue. Yes. All right. Seeing none, if public wants to make comment on this item,
- you can come forward to the lectern here in the net. You know, I raise your hand via teams. And seeing
- not maybe please have a roll call vote.
- Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
- Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
- firearms training for an additional appropriation the amount of $20,000 in the supplies category So
- we are just requesting an additional appropriation into this firearms fund so that we can buy some Full
- armor plates for their body armor this is in addition to
- the ammunition that they already purchased out of there. That's why we need 20,000. Okay. All right.
- And I'll open it up to council for any questions or comments. Anything else you all want to add? Thank
- you for your patience. We appreciate it. All right. Seeing none.
- If public would like to make comment on this item, you could come forward to the lectern here in the
- Not You Hill Room, or you can raise your hand via Teams. And seeing none, Ms. Turner-King, are you able?
- Nope, Michelle is racing back to the computer here. I'll just do a real follow up before she runs back.
- Councilor Hawk? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl?
- Yes. Councilor Wilts. Yes. Councilor Decker. Yes. Councilor Crossley. Yes. Motion passes seven zero.
- OK. Thank you. Thank you. Have a good night again. Thank you for your patience. All right. We are next
- up on item D, which is from the board of commissioners. Ready to go. Yeah. Council, I move to approve
- the commissioners request and fund eleven twelve dash zero zero zero zero economic development lit.
- the creation of account line three zero zero one three professional services and account line four five
- one five one property acquisition and simultaneously approve an additional appropriation of four million
- seven hundred twenty one thousand twenty nine dollars and forty six cents in the services category and
- three million three hundred seventy eight uh... excuse me start that again three million three hundred
- seventy eight thousand nine hundred and seventy eight
- dollars and fifty four cents in the capital category for a total appropriation of eight million one
- hundred thousand and eight dollars Second and we have mr. Cockrell And miss purdy and two of
- our commissioners present, please go ahead I'm gonna let mr. Cockrell do much much of the speaking this
- evening. Okay. Yes. I thought I'd start off with
- This is for our Justice Center project. And I'm going to give a little bit of history. I'm going to
- give a little bit of the logic, and then we'll see where it goes. This all started essentially in 2009
- when the ACLU filed, we have an agreed order with the ACLU through the courts. I really, in my mind,
- it started in 2019. So at the end of 2019,
- We were working with the Indiana Civil Liberties Union to extend our agreed order. And they essentially
- said, we think you're using this as a crutch, not to do any improvement. So we're going to make you,
- in order to extend this again, agree to do a review of your justice system. And so in 2019, we began
- that process. COVID hit. We didn't get the document back until June 20 of 2021.
- And so that was a RJS report. It essentially, well, it did say, and this is a quote, the jail facility
- is failing, right? And so we looked at that and we were trying to figure out what to do, right? And
- so we started the first conversation, do we rehab or do we find a new facility? And I'm just going to pull,
- In that report, it indicated that it would be $56,489,000 to rehabilitate that facility. And so now
- I'm going to read the list of things in that that says we needed to add space for into the facility.
- And I think anybody who's been in that facility realizes there's not a lot of space to add. And that
- 56 was the high-end number. There is a lower-end number. Inadequate housing segregation.
- inadequate counseling space, inadequate housing space, inadequate program space, lack of medical interview
- space, lack of medical treatment space, lack of suicide prevention cells, lack of separation of contagious
- inmates, lack, no segregation of sexes or special needs inmates, no sick beds, inadequate
- adequate isolation cells, inadequate process and booking. So of that $56 million number, if you added
- up the high end of all those, it's $42 million. So 75% of the cost associated with the high end, roughly,
- equate to things that we needed to add space for in a building that we really don't have any space to
- go into. You added $56.42, correct?
- Just to help them understand that each one of those items had a high end and low end dollar amount associated
- with it. So I added the high end for each one of those individual things. And if you want the individual
- breakdown, I've got it. It's in the report that I think everybody's seen. So roughly 75 percent. So
- at that time, we started looking for for properties to
- build this new facility. And so that was the summer of 2022. We really began in earnest. And during
- that time, we looked at three different properties. And when I say we, the county looked at three different
- properties, more specifically, the board of commissioners with the county council and in consultation
- with the justice departments looked at those. And I think for the first round, it was much more county council
- county commissioners with some reach out to the sheriff. That group narrowed it down to the Fullerton
- site. We had all the county departments visit the Fullerton site. We had a purchase agreement with the
- Fullerton site, but it was contingent on getting it zoned appropriately with the city of Bloomington.
- We took it to the city of Bloomington. The city
- The city council said, this isn't the right spot for this facility. So then we had to go back and do
- that process all over again. So we were kind of working together with the council, the commissioners,
- and I think we did include more of the justice departments in those kind of conversations. We looked
- at four different sites. We looked at the Thompson site.
- which is later on in this agenda for a different purpose. We looked at the Hopewell site, which was
- owned by the city of Bloomington at the time. We looked at the North Park site. Those were the three
- primary ones we narrowed it down to. And then, you know, kind of a few months later, we learned about
- this vernal, a site on vernal, which happened to be in the one of the first three we looked at the first
- time around. So we looked at that again. And this group, that group came up with the North Park site.
- was chosen. And then on October 8th of 2024, this group increased the correctional tax in 2.17. And
- my understanding is that was to cover the gap that edit would not fund towards the facility. And then
- on 10-25-24, the commissioners approved a purchase agreement with the owner.
- subject to council's approval, and then on 11-26-24, the council approved ordinance 20-24-54, which
- said this is the property we're going to buy, and it fixed the terms and conditions to that. So at this
- point, the question before you, and what we're asking for is an additional appropriation to cover those
- costs, plus to cover the costs of the design work that we have had ongoing in which you guys have
- had the benefit of presentations, it had the benefit to discuss those. I mean, the end result, the end
- goal is to, and this is somewhat optimistic, I would say as I was preparing for this, I was looking
- through some of the old meetings. When we were doing the four tonight, I said we'd be done by the end
- of 2025. So that's how optimistic I can be with these things. But I think reasonably optimistic, if
- things shake our way, we have this thing completed sometime in 2029.
- At that point in time, I think the intent is, at least for the current Justice building, is to sell
- that back to the private market and let the private market take over that building and determine through
- their processes of what it's going to be for. I guess one of the questions is why are we talking about
- this now? I've heard that, I've gotten some emails about,
- And all those kind of financial constraints that you saw through budget times. And the number one answer
- is we're under contract. We're under contract at appraisal rates from last year. Speaking with the county
- assessor, land values are going up. So it's going to be more expensive. And I think the other thing is
- We've gone through enough iterations of trying to determine what's the proper site for this, that we've
- kind of looked at everything that's available that fits the needs that is adequate size that we can
- use. Can I add, just for clarification, especially for the public, you talked about
- Jeff talked about the RJS report with the amount of money it would cost to rehab the facility. Obviously,
- we know that an engineering study that we had done subsequent to that demonstrated that it's impossible
- to add that space to the current building. The current justice center building is poorly designed. There
- are a number of issues with it, but it cannot be added to structurally.
- it is impossible. And we have that study, we had that study done as well. So just to be clear, even
- if we have somebody throwing out numbers for what it would cost to add the space that we know we needed,
- in addition to what we have now, it didn't mean that we could actually build it. And so that's, we did
- that subsequent study and it demonstrates that. So in essence, this council and this board of commissioners
- approved the purchase last year. The question is, are you ready to pay the bill? It's an appropriation.
- This is an appropriation request. The purchase request has already been heard and voted on. So with that,
- Thank you very much, and I hope Commissioner Madeira, you feel better as one voiceless person to the
- next. We're in the same situation. All right, so I know we got lots of thoughts and conversations here.
- So I'm gonna start over here to my left and see if anybody wants to start first. Okay, I thought I saw
- Councilor Wilts' hand raised, so you go for it. I think the first question
- I have is if everything was in place a year ago, why are we here still not having made any movement
- forward, at least that I can tell from the story? Until now. Well, I think there are a lot of contingencies
- in our purchase agreement. The biggest one, and I think the most time consuming one, was that it needed
- to be rezoned to make it appropriate for our use of the property. The developer was rezoning that.
- It's in a PUD, and they were rezoning that entire PUD. And that was finalized late spring. And then
- I don't have a good answer for between late spring and now. But. I think you just did an oversight,
- frankly, as to bringing this to you. And the purchase agreement itself had an expectation
- in the summer, this past summer, is that correct? June 30th. June 30th, right. So technically one or
- the other party should have said something legally, right, to either continue it or kill it. I mean,
- we're in kind of this weird limbo that I don't think it's completely invalid because we didn't say anything,
- but it's also expired.
- And I've spoken with the owner, and he is still interested in moving forward. If we get into a situation
- where that purchase agreement gets invalidated, I don't know what property we build a justice facility
- on, A. And B, we go out for new assessments, and those, as Mr. Copper pointed, are going to be higher.
- the property. And so it's great that he's willing to. Continue the purchase agreement at last year's
- price. And only part Can I I'm sorry. Go for this. My last one for now. Um. Only part of this request
- is about the purchasing of the property. They're actually two
- property acquisition that was about 3.3 million and then there's a 4.7 million for professional services.
- Is that specific to professional services that have already been provided or is it for future? Not not
- provided but under contract for so that would be the DLZ contract amount and it is based upon a
- percentage of the overall project. So I think it's at 4.5% of the overall project. And if you look back,
- the average cost of those services between the CMA and the
- design team is between seven and 10% of the total project costs. And we're right in line with the low
- end of that. I think we're at seven and a half percent for that. And when we talk about the $225 million
- budget that we've talked about, all those costs are included in that budget. These costs. Ah, okay.
- So what we're talking about tonight is included in that total project number. Purchasing the property.
- DLZ, professional services, all of that is part of the soft cost. So when is the $4.7 million bill due?
- We will be invoiced on that as we continue to progress through this project. I'm actually holding two invoices
- for services rendered because we needed the ban number to remain static when I was asking for the 3.378.
- So we would know because that's exactly what we need to pay off purchase of property. That includes
- closing costs. Okay, so you're paying as you go. You've got some outstanding invoices
- what that we owe DLZ. How much do those amount to? $100,000. I'm sorry. I think about $900,000. So right
- now we owe that. We're under contract for the rest of it. Thank you. Okay. Councillor Decker. Thank you.
- some of these were questions that I had as well to get kind of up to speed on it. I want to go back
- for a second because this council, a year ago, really a year ago, same time of year, I was in that chair
- and you were having easier days. But we were in a hurry to get that correctional tax as part of the
- funding. So the jail portion
- could be so that we'd have a plan for that. My question kind of goes to somewhere where Councilor Wilts
- was, I think, in that what took a year on... If the purchase agreement was approved, what took a year
- to get it to here? I don't understand that because we were under a gotta go, gotta go, ACLU, all that.
- What slowed this year? My answer would be Senate Bill 1 and trying to work through what all those financing
- questions were. That took a lot of time in the spring. I'm not saying that it should have delayed this
- conversation.
- I'm saying that that is where our focus was during that period of time. There's no doubt about it. Plus,
- we had to make sure it got through the zoning process and the zoning got changed. And if you guys remember
- March, April, May, that was trying to figure out what the state was doing to us. And that was, at least
- in our department, one of our highest priorities.
- Can I add to that if I might? I just want to also say that the way the question was asked just for the
- public's edification, I want to be clear that design work has continued. DLZ has continued work. We
- have not stopped making progress on this project just because this appropriation hasn't come to you yet.
- Um, we certainly are working on other aspects that it hasn't held anything up. It hasn't delayed anything.
- It's not a stop. It's not a delay. This is just, we, this is a, we just need to keep moving forward
- and this has to get done. And the legislature questions still ultimately they remains. I mean, citizens
- of the state don't even know what congressional districts they live in.
- And they won't for three weeks, let alone any fix on property tax, any fix around that. And there's
- a lot of public, maybe even some here tonight, that would say, I don't want them to fix anything on
- property tax, because I don't like any of you people. I was looking at social media commentary around
- the Avon school referendum, and I thought, my gosh, people don't like schools, they don't like public,
- they don't like anything. So I'm not optimistic on things.
- We're still in a murky state as far as the state and what they're doing, not doing. I would say we're
- in a murky state as far as timing, right? I mean, I think what the end of the day question is, is that
- the tax rate that you guys have in the city, in the income tax council, which is controlled by the city
- of Bloomington, they did the edit tax. And then you guys looked at that revenue from the edit tax and
- decided on the correctional lit.
- you add those two together, we are on track, right? With those two together, we are on track. Our current
- tax rate, income tax rate, because this is what we're talking about, paying for this through a revenue
- bond through income tax, our current income tax rate covers it. When the big income tax switch happens,
- our current rate is below
- what you're allowed to, what your max is. So that flexibility is still there. It's the language of the
- legislation does not allow for us to commit more than a 25% of that income. And we can't commit that
- for more than two years. So if that doesn't get worked out, then we're looking at 2028, revising, seeing if,
- we're still on track because prices are going to change. And so we will have to reevaluate all that.
- And then in addition, there are a couple other legislative changes that need to occur if we want to
- do it prior to 2028. But once we hit 2028, I think the revenue stream that you have allocated today
- should still be available for this project. I'll be quiet for now. Thank you.
- No, okay counselor Henry Thank You madam president There's gonna be a lot to get into and I pardon me
- just wants to eat the whole pie I think I'm just gonna take a slice here and share today. I want to
- focus my attention on the purchase agreement itself Before I get to that I just want to make some comments
- here for because I know we have some guests in the room You know, I'm one of the two new members of
- council here and I do
- have a different philosophy about when we use the royal we, when we discuss what council does and what
- commission does and what we've done here. It's kind of like when I watch sports teams and it's like,
- is it the Hoosiers or is it the players this year on the team? And so I want to be clear that a council
- and a commission in a configuration made a decision about a purchase agreement and tax code and the
- like. And I know that
- So when we talk about this as a way as if it's all the same people and players up here, it's mostly
- the same. It's 28% new up here. It's a third new across the aisle in the commissioner's office. So I
- think that's really important to keep in mind that the royal we confuses even me sitting here. So it
- wasn't this council that has agreed to this purchase agreement.
- I want to appreciate the analysis, Mr. Occaro, that you presented. I think we need to be careful about
- some assumptions in here. The timeline omits some other really important things that we have to consider
- in discussing this. For example, in the last version of council when they approved the purchase agreement,
- the estimated hard costs were somewhere around 120 to 140 million. And then that has increased and ballooned
- with soft costs to the 250 to the 7 that we saw and back to 225. But to say that the costs a year ago
- are the same as today does, I think, need to be put on the table.
- There's also the fact that an election happened after the new diligence period.
- The commissioners and the council then felt that they had economic feasibility to proceed, but we had
- an election the following Tuesday that had consequences, and of course we've mentioned one of those
- is Senate Bill 1, which has fundamentally changed the way we can raise revenue for this. According to
- FSG, our financial advisor, the three options we have available to us do not get us the design that
- DLZ has put forward. I appreciate you have a different interpretation of that. I do not see a pathway
- to the full facility as you've described.
- Thirdly, the purchase agreement was decided in the white heat of the election in October. And frankly,
- some of us were engaged in other work trying to either get elected or people elected. And I got to say,
- I appreciate the friction and the frustration up here to get something in place. But some of those codicils
- in the agreement need to be discussed and teased out today as to why I think we are where we are. And
- most importantly is the idea that if, yes, the design phase has continued, it hasn't happened in public
- view. There's been two presentations of the DLC design, one in the early winter.
- one in August, and everything else has been outside of the view of this room and outside of the council,
- and I have not seen it myself as a sitting member of council. So whatever decisions have been made behind
- closed doors that remove stakeholder items and requirements and add requirements have been done behind
- closed doors and presented twice to the public, and I think that's probably why there's interest this
- evening in how we got to where we are. So I preface all that to then get to the questions on the purchase
- agreement.
- And I'm happy, I don't know who would like to answer these, I presume Mr. Cockrell. I'd like to focus
- on the due diligence piece at section 3.4. Can we actually get the purchase agreement on the screen
- here to take a look at? Maybe I'll hold here a second, just hopefully it doesn't take too long to get up.
- And then we'll catch up as it's there. So second, there's 3.4, which talks about the due diligence clause
- in the contract. One of those things talks about economic feasibility at the time, which would have
- been November 1st, 2024. I just mentioned we had an election after that. And of course, a lot of things
- have changed, inflation, tariffs, and taxes at the state level. So it would seem to me that economic
- feasibility after SEA 1 is really questionable. We can't actually develop the parcels as envisioned
- initially.
- Can you walk me through what the standard is for economic feasibility for the purchaser and what standard
- you're using to evaluate that? What makes it feasible? I would think that that is, and it's
- at our discretion. In my mind, what makes it feasible is one, whether we can afford it and whether the
- property still meets our long-term needs as an organization and whether we can
- financially afford the property and some concept of that in the future. And I guess before we move on,
- I want to just correct that my understanding when the last November you said you thought it was 120
- to 140 million, my understanding the whole conversation with the .17 was a $2 million cost of the project
- and not 120 to 140. I can't speak for the counselors that voted on that tax. If memory serves, some
- of them had interest in using those dollars for prevention and mental health services, of which are
- not evident in the most recent design as a non-law enforcement activity. So I'll leave it to them to
- ask the questions about the 1.7. I may have garbled that. In terms of the design, section 3.7,
- if we go to 3.7 on the purchase agreement,
- And this piece here, the purchaser's use of property, purchaser intends to use the property for a justice
- complex which includes a new county jail and court space. The county intends to complete the jail structure
- first, however, it will not operate facility until contracts are awarded for courtroom construction.
- This infers to me that, and as the author, she may be able to describe to me that there was an understanding
- of phasing the project at some point, that jail is built at one point, courts are added later. Is that
- a way to think about that particular item? Absolutely.
- But that section does allow for phasing of this project. There seems to be disagreement at the table.
- Is there a contrary opinion? Because you because you can't operate the jail portion until the other
- portion is completed. Well, that was written into the agreement. That's right. So that that seems to
- be added in. That doesn't I mean, is that a law or is that a mutual agreement between purchaser and
- seller? So I just heard Mr. Cockrell say, in fact, it is feasible. You're saying it's not, which is
- I think the contract allows for it, whether that is practical or not, I think. I would also note that
- it does leave out the sheriff's office as part of that. It also leaves out other facilities as part
- of that. Was it the intention to leave out the sheriff's office and the acquisition of the property?
- Because the office isn't even listed. It's courts and jail. I don't understand why we wouldn't list
- the other pieces parts as a requirement for
- acquisition. Because we were making a commitment to the person selling the property that we were going
- to have at least those two components on the site. Okay. We if we would have included all those other
- facilities that would be have been making decisions at that point in time before we were far enough
- along the design process to know what's feasible where is feasible and all those kind of considerations.
- So we did not
- basically say we are going to build everything we possibly can because we wanted to make sure we had
- flexibility to make tough decisions if the financing was different than what we anticipated it to be.
- But again, the required things in the purchase agreement are the jail and court space with no finite
- amount of courtrooms. Could be one, could be 12.
- Okay, moving on to the other clauses here. I will just call the out clauses. 3.1 up at the top indicates
- for the county council, I believe, and I'm no lawyer, I'm just asking questions, 3.1 financing county
- council approval contingent upon approval required under code and funding appropriation. I tend to read
- that as this doesn't happen unless we appropriate.
- that the agreement doesn't happen unless we appropriate it. If I'm turning the two keys on the nuclear
- submarine, is it the code and then appropriation that makes this live? It says and, yes. Okay. And then
- the last thing, I don't, again, hog the time, but the purchase agreement does have a lot to it. 10.1,
- I think, way at the bottom, is the closing dates, and I think Councilor Wilson already brought this
- up, and I just want to maybe reiterate it and completely understand it.
- So 10.1 is to be closed by June 1st, 2025. Has the commission or either the seller asked for a 30 day
- extension during this time? Not that I'm aware of. Okay, so we've never received, the commission didn't
- ask for it and seller didn't ask for it. It is now October 28th. This was supposed to be wrapped up
- June 1st. I mean, if I were selling a house and it was just dangling there until I guess we got around
- to buying at it, I would probably be concerned about
- finding another buyer at some point. I just don't know what the urgency is. I think a reasonable person
- would say that it doesn't seem like there's an urgency to get that done. You know, that's enough for
- now, I think, to get just to the meat and potatoes. I know you didn't mean that. No, we're good.
- Thank you, Madam President. I don't know what you just said, but okay. All right. Let's keep it moving.
- Councillor Hawke. As most of you know, I've already made the commitment not to support the North Park.
- And so you might just want to just ignore everything I have to say. However, even if I'm not supporting
- the location, I still have an obligation to look at what the total cost is going to be for the taxpayer
- and what the result is going to be for county government. So even if when you went to the state and
- the state said, oh, well, we're going to let you do more than what we said before, now instead of it
- being like the,
- point, what was it, .25 of the revenue. Maybe we'll let you double that or something. We have to look at
- not what's happening this year but what's happening in 2028 because what we have to work with is 1.2%
- income tax and at the same time we're losing property tax revenue because of the law changes and do
- we really want to take that much of a chunk out of the 1.2 when we still don't know for sure what our
- other expenses are going to be and at the same time we're still
- dealing with the fact that the city might continue to annex. That might happen if it happens. It's going
- to change some of our revenue projections for some of our other departments like the storm water and
- so forth. But the city is also trying to get additional money at the aim, whatever you call it, is
- trying to get the state to say the counties have to give the cities part of our 1.2. So now we're not
- just looking at 1.2, we're taking a reduction from that. And some of the last, the documents that was
- presented to us by LFSG was saying
- that they were going to use instead of the 1.2, they were going to use the 0.95% so that we would stay
- under the total max that we could have because if we take it up to 1.2, then there's going to be no
- money left in that 0.2 at the bottom of that list of numbers that we can do. Part of that money goes
- to Bloomington Transit, it could go, it could go to
- the public libraries and it could go to the townships. So we can't take that to point two if we take
- the other one up to 1.2 and do the fire and EMS to the point four. So that gets it up by the time the
- city did the 1.2, it would be over the max because we can only go to, what, 2.9. So that's a part of
- the bigger picture.
- I wonder why we aren't talking about the big picture because that is our job to make sure that we don't
- hit 2028 and put ourselves in such a bind that we can't move forward with something because we've already
- made obligations to do one thing or the other. We have to look at long range.
- And so that's my two cents worth as I said, I wasn't going to support North Park anyway I already made
- that commitment to my folks in the Elstville area so you can just ignore everything I had to say but
- Do that at your own peril? Thank you, Madam President
- Our last work session where we reviewed the schematic design was on August the 29th. Felt like that
- was a good public discussion. We were able to look at a lot of the budget reductions that we had worked
- really hard on getting it down to a certain number. There's a lot of work that they did behind the scenes
- to try and reduce those spaces. At that meeting, we
- discussed quite a bit because we were in the middle of budgets already by October 29th about how we
- just we don't have the funds right now to go forward with the project as it is. And there was a lot
- of conversation about what could we have some more information about what phasing out would look like.
- So I guess
- Has DLZ started to think about, have you seen plans from DLZ on how to phase this out? Are they working
- on this? I guess I'm going to answer that question this way. I know they're continuing to work on it,
- and they know that we have issues with Senate Bill 1 and the financing and those things.
- So I've not seen, I mean, we saw some thoughts about what if we shelled part of the building and what
- that would mean. What if we only did the jail aspect? So we're looking at those things. I don't remember
- what the numbers are off the top of my head. Give me a call tomorrow and I'll find the email and we
- can sit down and talk about it.
- I don't know, right? I know that shelling out the entire building and not building out some of it was
- not a huge cost reduction. I want to say that just building a jail sheriff and maybe within that sheriff's
- space having a courtroom or two, that was closer to the kind of a midpoint between one and two or somewhere.
- I just don't remember the exact numbers. But we have been continuing to work on that.
- And I guess I want to be clear that all these are kind of the, when we issue the bond for what we're
- going to purchase, these are all very important questions. I guess we don't get necessarily to there
- if we don't have a place to put anything at. This is a conversation to buy some property and to pay
- for design work.
- I can't predict what the state's going to do. Nobody can predict what the state's going to do. We've
- had to react for the last year on this project. We're probably going to have to react some more. But
- having a landing point where we can have the design work, we can know what the site costs are going
- to be, and we can move forward, there's value to that if you believe that we need a new facility.
- I guess. I'm sorry, I'd like to add something as well. We have not asked deals the to prepare formal
- design paperwork and documents for a phased build out because. It is that is an additional expense and
- it is more time. And you know part of this appropriation today is to pay for design work, but that's for
- the building design as we saw it fairly fairly close in august now the other thing is phasing adds a
- lot of cost besides design phasing adds construction costs because of the way the building has to be
- built in order to create a phased approach i'm not saying it's not impossible it will make the cost
- of 225 go higher as will
- the cost of inflation, which gets added into what we thought were going to be 2026 costs. That cost
- goes up as well if you phase and you say we're going to do this here and we're going to do that in 2029
- or 2030 or whenever it might be. So I just wanted to clarify that we have not asked DLZ
- to create designs at the detail and scope. They know that this is an issue that has been discussed,
- so it's not news to them, but we have not tasked them with this because it will slow down their work
- on the current project and because it will add to the cost. It can be asked at the future, but that's
- not something we've asked them to do, so please do not look for those documents because they're not coming.
- So if we had another work session in the middle of next month, we don't. But hypothetically, if we did,
- we'd be looking at the same schematic designs for a large building for a quarter of a billion dollars.
- There are still some minor issues that we're working through with some of the departments. We have a
- meeting next week.
- with judges and prosecutor office regarding courtroom space, but in general, they are building together,
- putting together. Yes, we are that close that these are minor revisions, but we're getting their feedback
- on some options next week. And this is not going to change the price of anything. It's some courtrooms
- bigger, some smaller. Overall, the materials are the same.
- but we're getting down to that point where we're ready to move forward. So, yep. If I may, the only
- thing I would add is that we're moving forward as if everything is on point and is on track, ignoring
- the Senate Enrolled Act 1. And I understand, I can't ignore it, but we have to keep going.
- We are waiting to hear from legislation as to what will happen in next year, because if they do make
- the modifications that are requested, then we don't have to phase anything. We're back to where we started.
- With all due respect, that's a big if. I understand that's a big if, but at the same time, I don't think
- it's an impossible if by any stretch.
- So I'm going to go ahead because I've been trying to save my voice for this moment. And so what I'm
- hearing is we can't predict what the state is going to do, which, yeah, we can't predict that because
- look at what we saw yesterday happened in the news with redistricted. But I digress. So if we can't
- predict what the state is going to do and we're continue like, then why not pause on this right now?
- Why are we continuing? Because as it stands right now, due to the great work, and I say that in a sarcastic
- manner, of the Indiana General Assembly, they have messed around, and now we've been found out, and
- now we have to work within our means. As it stands right now, we can't afford it. We just went through
- eight and a half,
- weeks of budget, telling people to cut this, cut that, cut this. We did all of these things and to me
- right now, I guess, it's just real tone deaf to keep acting like we're gonna continue to move forward
- in this. We don't have a concept of a fix and neither does the state house right now. So why would we
- continue to keep moving and
- have an agreement where we all sit down in a room and say, I know this is not what we wanted. However,
- we can take a pause on this and we can look at starting to phase some stuff out because as it stands
- right now, understand it could cost later or the cost could go up, but it's still too much right now.
- So I guess, what are we doing? I guess my response to that would be,
- If we need to phase the project, we still need the place to put it to begin with. And again, I read
- the list of things that are not located within our jail facility. I'm not going to read them again unless
- you guys want me to. I mean, those are the gaps that I think when we, and I'm going to digress a little
- bit because I was here through the CJRC. I went to some of those meetings. I mean, really what we hear
- was a lot of the things with we need more medical space in the jail. We need more places to deal with
- people who have contagious diseases, especially when we were talking during COVID. We need more space.
- We need sick beds. We need these kind of treatment type beds in that facility. And right now that facility
- doesn't have
- But we also talked about, and I think myself, and I don't want to put you on the spot, Councilor Welch,
- I think one of the biggest things that we talked about, because my hesitation of approving a correctional
- tax, I was a little hesitant, but it was told to us, and I think it was you, Mr. Cockrell, that had
- made a comment about us being able to use those correctional tax for funding for mental health and substance
- use and treatment.
- And I guess for me personally, I'm looking at how we can do that. I understand the jail is doing it,
- but personally, how can we do that outside of the realm of the jail? And I guess what I'm hearing is
- what we had discussed isn't getting put into this project. That's what I'm hearing. After all the CJRC hiccups,
- after the JFAC and any other acronym meeting that the county has put forth. I guess right now, it's
- just really toned up right now for us to continue to try to appropriate this much money after going
- through a rigorous amount of hell when it came to budget. And in light of SB1,
- and not having a fix and not having a word from our state legislators to say, we hear you. Because again,
- they talk a good game and then all of a sudden they can turn around and say something completely different.
- So in my mind, I want to have a fix first, we pause and then we can move forward. So that's kind of
- what I'm thinking.
- And I understand y'all can agree to disagree, but that's just me. All right. I'm going to go to public
- comment. And then what I'm also going to do, I'm going to give council members, because depending on
- what we hear from public comment, I'm going to give us an opportunity to come back for second round
- comment and questions. So if you have a public comment on this item, please come forward to the lectern
- here in the night. You'll room again, start lining up.
- And if you also are on Teams, you can raise your hand via Teams. So we can alternate. So if you're on
- Teams, start raising your hand, and we can alternate back and forth. But again, please come to the lectern
- here. State your name for the record. You have up to three minutes. Once that three minutes is up, I
- will politely tell you that your time is up, and then we move forward. So we'll go here for it. Yes.
- My name is Philip Amerson.
- past my bedtime, you've done something that my wife can't even do, and that's keep me up. I want to
- thank everyone to begin with, and I really appreciated what Ms. Hawke said about seeing the big picture
- Some of you that teach know it's a term of art and I think I've been misunderstood when I've talked
- about this being a wicked problem. It is a problem with impossible solutions almost any direction you
- go or solutions that as soon as you make one decision there are 20 other things that you didn't anticipate.
- It's a complex matter and I appreciate your wrestling with this, it is what
- what social scientists call a wicked problem. I believe that you are beginning to find ways. I don't
- want to make anybody the enemy. That's a bit of what I, in this time in our nation, we're so quick to
- pit people against one another. I want to encourage you to continue to not to move toward the North
- Park. I want to speak against that.
- and find ways to think more creatively, holistically about locating the services, not only in the existing
- jail, but nearby, and there are some options. I know that Sheriff Marti has done a good job of lowering
- the population in this jail, and he's dealt with some of the difficult challenges that were put before
- him. I want to commend him for that, and I want to thank all of you for keeping me up. Thank you much.
- Thank you. I'll take one more public comment here in the Net You Hill room. So I'll do two here and
- then I'll do two virtually. So the next person, please come up.
- Thank you. My name is Kathleen Paquette. I'm a resident of Monroe County. I am here probably to no one's
- surprise in opposition to the purchase of the North Park land for a potential location for a jail and
- justice services. But I come before you not just with a no, but with suggestions on how to move forward.
- I understand that you are all the budget body, so I hope that our commissioners are listening, which
- they are because they're here, at least some of them.
- It seems there is a consistent and unaddressed underlying tension which has stymied action on jail proposals.
- I would like to name and make very clear the conflict between a community desire to keep our services
- accessible and our downtown functional and thriving.
- with jail builder recommendations that modern jails must be built on a sprawling suburban footprint.
- I believe that until this tension is taken seriously and addressed, we will continue to play whack-a-mole
- with location after location. There are so many very good reasons to keep our jail and justice services downtown.
- I am continually frustrated as someone who moved here over two decades ago specifically because I wanted
- to live car free in a place with a functional downtown to see these services consistently moving farther
- and farther away. In this case, with the North Park site for a jail, people will die walking along 46.
- It would also be a bizarre and unhelpful move to make courts inaccessible except by car when, according
- to our most recent data, the number one reason for jail booking is failure to appear in court. If we
- care about justice, safety, accessibility, equity, and sustainability and climate resistance, we need
- to make an effort to maintain a functional downtown. I believe that a good step forward would be to
- consult with local architects who are invested in the well-being of our community.
- and firms which have experience in urban jail design. Cities have multi-story jails, and Bloomington
- is a city. I understand that we have numerous government-owned properties within a block or two of the
- Charlotte Zetlo building, and I encourage creativity in considering what it could look like to keep
- these services where they currently are. Not to mention, it seems much easier to act faster and phase
- renovations on buildings that already exist downtown. Conversely, we could keep
- entertaining far-flung properties at a massive social and economic cost and keep butting up against
- opposition. I also can't help but notice the striking difference in the amounts of money we're discussing
- tonight with this that's on the table right now versus the Sophia Travis grant money that went to so
- many deserving organizations working to make our community better. The difference in that amount of
- money is staggering. I believe it is in our community's best interest
- to honor what we want and need over what the prison industrial complex tells us we need. This is an
- opportunity, of course, correct. Thank you for your time and attention and your hard work on this matter,
- which I do not envy. Thank you. Thank you. Next, as I said, I'm going to go two in that U-Hill room
- and two virtually. So the first two that have their hands raised in the order that they did,
- was Daisy Den and Claire Froman. So Daisy, if you can unmute yourself. And again, you'll have up to
- three minutes to speak on this item. Hi, my name is Daisy Den. I live in Bloomington. I am not the smartest
- person to talk on this, but I just want to voice my opposition to
- this purchase. There's a lot of reasons to oppose it. I think we've heard a lot of them already. One
- thing that hasn't been mentioned yet is the population of the proposed jail I think is pretty obscene
- and we know from the war on drugs that when
- when there's an option to put more people in jail, more people end up in jail. And that's something
- that I think we should try to avoid. I think that there's no reason to move forward with the sale until
- the many concerns that have been raised are addressed. And that's just one of the concerns. Thank you.
- I think that's all I have to say right now.
- All right, thank you very much. Next up is Claire Frohman. Again, unmute yourself and you'll have up
- to three minutes. Hi there, can you hear me? Hello? Yes, we can hear you. Please proceed. Yes, just
- to keep things brief, I just want to really second what the three speakers before me have said.
- There is so much to consider with how to maximize what we already have and keep the community in mind.
- There are a number of concerns, there are a number of creative solutions that it feels we haven't fully
- explored at this time. I initially was concerned due to lack of resources
- just the need for improving the conditions for people who are currently incarcerated here. And I understood
- that a new jail may be the necessary step, but what I understand now is that changes are already being
- made to the current jail to make things better. And I think moving more and putting our energy in that
- direction just makes more sense. I also don't feel like I'm the most well-spoken on this matter, but
- I strongly oppose
- the purchase of land for a new jail. And I would like to see our community band together to keep our
- downtown strong, create a safe space for the incarcerated and focus on harm reduction and reducing the
- number of people who are incarcerated. And that's all I want to say, thank you. Thank you. All right,
- again, we'll go to here and then at you everyone please.
- come to the lectern here, sign in, state your name, and you'll have up to three minutes. Hi, my name
- is Jana Perot, excuse my voice, and I'm a retired architect and architecture teacher, a professor of
- architecture, and I know you can do better
- than what I've seen that's been proposed. One of the things that I think good architecture does is look
- at the big picture. What does the community need and want? This is a public building. I know people
- are locked up inside, but it's a public building. It's part of our community. The people inside there
- are part of our community.
- We need to respect that. We need to understand how this affects the whole community, not just the sheriff's
- office or the courts. It's all of us. It's our downtown. It's our residential areas. It's our population.
- It's how we feel about our community. One of the things that this design apparently does is precludes
- any idea about decarceration, about making the jails smaller because we have treatments, we have services
- that make it unnecessary to jail so many people. I just think that we could, it sounds to me from what
- I've heard about the reviews of this project that in fact the community has not had a whole lot of input here.
- I do believe that if we had a commission of some kind that included people from the community, including
- incarcerated and decarcerated people, people who work with these
- of situations. There's lots of these people in our town. Our town is full of services and knowledgeable
- people about what is needed to make sure that we don't have so many incarcerated people, that we don't
- need a 500-bed jail for crying out loud. We just don't. And there's a better way to do this. And not
- purchasing this land, since we've gotten out, apparently we haven't got a
- and a real contract, let's just say, start over. We have made a mistake. And I know it's been a long
- process. It's been going on since I moved here. But we can do better. We can do better as a community.
- And I think that's been missing from this whole situation, from this whole process. There's a community
- out there that has strong feelings, passion, concern.
- They can help All of us you especially and these people here to do a better job Thank you. Thank you.
- And TSD. I've been trying to keep a timer on mine On my computer here, but can we please have the timer
- back up? Thank you All right next person here than at you overall I
- I'd like to start by thanking you all for your service here tonight and your time. Excuse me, can you
- please state your name? Yes, sorry. I'm Zoe Mantha. I'm a recently returned Peace Corps volunteer. I
- only mention this because I have spent the past two years working on a shoestring budget to do my own
- work. I made $300 a month and I had to fundraise for my grant after the loss of USAID this last year.
- This is all to say it's shocking to me to see that such a large sum of money
- being put towards land for a new jail. If the sale of the plot in North Park were to go through now,
- we're still looking at an extended timeline years down the line after another election for the new jail
- to actually be completed. I do not think it is wise, it is a wise use of our money to buy land at a
- time when our financial security is so uncertain. I would rather
- funds towards social services that better benefit our community. And I will reiterate, and a lot of
- people have said this, moving court offices out of downtown will not only affect the people who use
- those services here, but the many businesses downtown who rely upon the foot traffic brought by those
- offices being here. But thank you for your time. Great, thank you. Now I'm gonna alternate and go back to
- teams. So next up we will have speaker John Hamilton and the next speaker is Tracy Hutchins gets.
- So again, unmute yourself and you'll have up to three minutes. Mr. Hamilton.
- I'm trying. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. Thank you so much. Um, I am, I appreciate it. I'm really calling
- to speak for Charlotte Zitlow. Uh, Charlotte and I did a joint statement together, uh, and she can't
- be here to speak or be present, but I want to read parts of it. I can't read all of it and it is as
- follows. So please listen to this in Charlotte's voice. We don't need a bigger jail.
- Bloomington should reject plans to build a giant new jail on the outskirts of town. We too, John and
- Charlotte, haven't always agreed during our combined nearly a century of activism and experience in
- local and state politics, but we do now. Our community has no need for, indeed we'd be greatly harmed
- by, the wasteful expenditure on a huge new jail. Some decisions change our community's trajectory.
- Protecting our county courthouse from demolition decades ago was one. How much better off are we with
- a vibrant downtown and a beautifully restored historic courthouse that we're in? We face a similar pivot
- point today. Several county officials and private jail consultants urge abandoning the downtown Zitlo
- Justice Building and building a massive new government complex west of town. The cost is mind boggling.
- Its 300-plus million would be the largest public sector investment in our history, by far, nearly doubling
- the size of our current jail and tripling the overall size of the justice system. Abandoning downtown
- by uprooting the system is itself a bad enough idea to stop the plan draining away hundreds of people
- who patronize stores and restaurants. Doubling our jail size is preposterous.
- We've recently been as low as 160 and now average a little over 200 inmates. Planning for a jail of
- 400 or 500 beds is immoral. America and Indiana are dramatically over-incarcerated. We don't need more
- jail cells. We need better services. Our judges, prosecutors, sheriff, and other criminal justice players
- have improved what was a deficient jail and system.
- Instead of building a bloated new jail, we should improve what we have with significant new money invested
- in social services like mental health counseling, addiction treatments, affordable housing, options,
- and more. We have resources to do better. Let's split the current tax revenue that some want entirely
- for a big new jail, about $20 million a year, and use half for jail and facility improvements and half
- for new services to keep our neighbors out of jail.
- 10 million a year or more would make big changes. In the last 20 years, juvenile incarceration has been
- cut by 75% in America. If we do the same for adults, we could have a jail for just 75 people for 2040.
- How about that as a goal? Let's make our community a national leader in humane diversion and alternatives
- to jail. There's more, but that's all I can fit in. Thank you. Yes, thank you.
- All right, next up is Tracy. If you can unmute again, you'll have up to three minutes. Hello,
- can you hear me? Yes. Okay, thank you. Sorry.
- Ended up having to use my phone audio for part of this. Thank you so much. My name is Tracy Hutchings
- Getz. I am a Monroe County resident and a community organizer with Hoosier Action. I'm here tonight
- to both reiterate the opposition of Hoosier Action's Care Not Cuffs chapter, which is made up and led
- by people with experiences of addiction and incarceration.
- as well as my own personal opposition to the purchase of the North Park land as a Monroe County resident.
- In fact, one who proudly paid her property taxes during this meeting. Since several other people have
- already articulated the many problems with the North Park jail proposal, I'm going to share a personal
- story here to try to demonstrate the human cost in addition to the financial burden associated with
- this proposal.
- Like many in this county, members of my own family have struggled with substance use disorder and their
- own mental health. Members of my family have been locked up and suffered immensely due to the failed
- war on drugs. I am thinking today especially of my dad's brother, my uncle Wally, who spent much of
- his adult life in and out of county jails in Wisconsin and Illinois. The experiences he had of being
- locked up in county jails
- something he often experienced because he simply did not have money to make bail or eventually money
- to pay rent and stay housed. Being locked up did not make his life better. Being locked up did not make
- him stop using drugs or alcohol. What being locked up did was ultimately contribute to his early death
- in 2020 in the winter right before Christmas. At the time, while he was experiencing homelessness,
- and he tripped and he fell and he broke his neck in a freak accident. But one which I can't help but
- think of when I think of folks having to ultimately walk to and from where this county jail is proposed
- to be located. Yes, Wally's experience was in some ways extraordinarily unique and also it is the kind
- of thing that happens all the time
- to folks in our county who are struggling to make ends meet, who are in pain and who are turning to
- drugs and alcohol to deal with that. So as you think about making this decision, I really hope that
- you will think about the human cost in addition to the financial burden associated with the decisions
- you are empowered to make on our behalf. Thank you. Thank you.
- Next up, we'll again go to the two public commenters here in the New Hill room. And as they are coming
- up to the queue, if you are virtually and you want to speak on this item again, please go ahead and
- raise your hand via Teams. Yes, please proceed. Good evening. I'm Eric Spoonmore with the Chamber of
- Commerce. Appreciate the opportunity to speak. I don't want to belabor the point tonight. I've been
- in your seat. I think we can all kind of probably tell which way
- The winds blowing on this, but I do want to register the chamber's position that we also urge you not
- to move forward with the purchase of North Park property for the new Monroe County justice complex.
- And here's why. First, there's no plan for the reuse of the existing justice building in downtown Bloomington
- before we commit.
- $230 to $300 million on this project. The public deserves clarity on what will happen to an important
- county-owned facility at the heart of our downtown. Leaving a major government anchor vacant would harm
- surrounding small businesses, reduce foot traffic, and create another dead zone in our central core.
- A long-term reuse plan should come before we invest hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in constructing
- a new replacement for this facility. Second, the proposal would uproot the entire Monroe County legal
- community from our downtown county seat, attorneys, financial institutions, tiles companies,
- other professional services that rely on the proximity to the Justice Building and courts. Many of these
- are locally owned small businesses that help sustain our downtown economy. Moving these daily activities
- miles away to the North Park site would devastate their business models, reduce downtown vibrancy and
- ripple through restaurants, coffee shops and other retailers that depend on that steady flow of Justice
- Building traffic. And third, excess
- accessibility is a material concern. The current downtown location is walkable, served by public transit,
- and near other essential services that support people navigating the justice system. Relocating the
- entire legal institution to North Park would create transportation barriers for residents, especially
- those with limited means, disabilities, or without personal vehicles. Justice should be accessible to
- everyone, not just those who can drive across town. Finally, and perhaps most importantly for the Council,
- Monroe County cannot afford this project. At an estimated $230 million, the justice complex would be
- by far the largest capital expenditure in the history of Monroe County. We've been here since 1818.
- With the financial constraints imposed by Senate Enrolled Act 1, our fiscal flexibility is more limited
- than ever.
- Proceeding now could mean diverting funds away from other essential needs, public safety, staffing,
- infrastructure maintenance, housing and social services that address the root causes of incarceration.
- We feel this is really kind of an inconceived plan at this point. It really raises serious economic
- accessibility and fiscal concerns all without a cohesive plan for what happens to our downtown.
- I respectfully urge the council to reengage the public in a comprehensive planning effort and explore
- more cost-effective solutions that keep justice services accessible and our downtown vibrant.
- Thank you. Thank you.
- Good evening. Thank you for giving us this opportunity to speak. I agree with everything that's been
- said before me, but a couple of things I wanted to say. Can you please state your name for the record?
- Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, my name is Martha Cross and I've lived in Monroe County in Bloomington for just
- a year and a half. But I served for eight years on the Terre Haute City Council at the time when the jail
- Proposal went through there and I have to tell you tonight's conversation sounds way too familiar But
- the good news is that's the bad news. The good news is That Bloomington's in a very and Monroe County
- are in a very different position than Vigo County was in You have a sheriff and I assume other public
- servants who have worked hard to keep the population in the jail under control that was not the case
- in Vigo County and
- You also have a situation where the crime rate, as I understand it, went down dramatically during the
- covid pandemic years and has risen a little bit, but not much since then. So what Mr. Hamilton was saying
- earlier about having a goal of getting it down even further is actually quite possible here. So to build
- this mega jail,
- just doesn't really make any sense financially. It doesn't make any sense in terms of space. And for
- all the other reasons that have been listed. So those two things, and I'm sure there may be others,
- you also, like Vigo County, you have a very rich nonprofit community who stands ready to provide more
- service if they have funding to do it. So
- I think all of those things speak very highly to coming up with a different solution here. I really
- think this happens all over the country where people are sued because people are being treated inhumanely
- in jails and then
- they start looking around, oh, who can we talk to about this? And so they start talking to the consultants
- who are building jails. Now, these people aren't bad people, but what they want to do is build big jails.
- And here, we have an opportunity to look at instead, as someone said earlier, to building up, perhaps,
- not out, which would make it much easier to find
- a downtown or at least in town site to do this on. And we don't need 500 beds. We know that. So we
- We just don't have to do these things in Bloomington. One of the reasons I was interested in blooming
- here, well, the real reason was my granddaughters are here. But one of the other reasons I've always
- been interested in coming to Bloomington and to Monroe County is that I have watched you very carefully
- over the years make really creative decisions to really hard problems. And I hope you'll do it again
- this time. Thank you. Thank you. All right.
- going back to teams and the first two people have their hands raised is Moby Jean Glasser and Elaine
- J. So Moby is first. Please unmute yourself and state your name for the record and you have up to three
- minutes. Hi, my name is Moby Jean Glaser. I'm a Bloomington resident, parent and mental health therapist.
- I strongly oppose purchasing the North Park location and I urge council members to vote no on purchasing
- the North Park location and furthermore any new land for a mega jail. It is incredibly frustrating to
- hear our county commissioners push for this project in the current situation our country and community
- is experiencing and makes me feel the commissioners are not considering the well-being of their community
- and are disconnected from their humanity. What feels apparent tonight from listening in on this meeting
- as well as what I know from my work as a trauma therapist
- and community member is that there is a dire need for money to be invested in evidence-based resources,
- housing, health care, child care,
- quality jobs, food security that create true safety in our community and prevent incarceration. I invite
- the council to be a part of creating true solutions to the issues our community is facing. This includes
- renovation of the current jail and to creating a legacy you can and should be proud of. Funding a giant
- jail will only further harm our community. It is also bad economic policy and puts our community at
- risk for all the reasons you have already heard before me tonight. Thank you for your
- and for this time. Thank you. Next up is Elaine J. Again, state your name for the recording. I have
- up to three minutes. Hello. Yes, we can hear you. Please proceed.
- Yes, this is Elaine Jackson. I'm going to focus on things that haven't really been touched on to kind
- of save on time and everybody's energy. So one thing we've talked about this evening is a lot of how
- this will affect downtown as a loss. But I have not heard the point being made about sprawl to this
- new location, because I do hear a lot at the county government level of
- being against sprawl, we're against sprawl. And all of a sudden we're for sprawl. And I just find that
- interesting. The second point is a little more to the, what I think we're kind of budding up against
- this point because we've touched on the ethics of this and we've touched on the budget of this. But
- I think there's a psychology to the sunk cost fallacy that we're suffering from here. And I would like
- some, would hope people on the commission and on the council do some introspection on
- just because we've gone down this road so far and the commissioners seem to be barreling forward with
- this doesn't mean we continue with this plan. And I'm glad to hear a lot of doubts come up this evening.
- And I hope that the sunk cost fallacy isn't the thing that makes people vote for this. Cause I think
- it's a bad move. And the last thing I like to say is kind of more towards the audience or anybody listening
- is that I would remember that there's an election coming up
- and that democracy works in a way is if these people do not vote in a way that their community wants
- them to, is they should be primaried. And I hope people consider that. So do not go through this. It
- is the financial wrong move. It is the ethical wrong move. I know we have better options than this and
- you've been presented with them endlessly. And I love and appreciate all of you for sitting through
- all of this. This is such hard work and
- I'm still proud to be a part of this community and to fight with you on stopping this thing and being
- more creative with how we get these problems solved. So thank you for your time. Thank you. All right.
- Next up, we'll come back here to the night. You know, again, state your name for the record. You have
- up to three minutes. Hi, my name is Josie Bowman. I wanted to begin
- by saying thank you for your work on the county council and for your consideration in the wide array
- of operations that happen within this county. I don't think there's anything more that I can add to
- everything that has already been said, but I implore the council to vote against the purchase of this
- site and to consider using the money for the purchase of this land to help rehabilitate the current
- justice center and to provide social services to avoid incarceration. Thank you.
- Hi, my name is Sam Holdman. I will also keep it brief because you've already heard from 20 plus people
- unanimously tell you that this is a bad idea. I would just like to add that not only is purchasing the
- North Park property a bad idea, but committing $4.7 million to professional services is a bad idea because
- this is based on a percentage of a budget that you have not approved that is not,
- your work that you don't have a way of paying for. And as has already been mentioned, there are numerous
- needs in this community for that money. You've had to draw from the economic development local income
- tax already to balance the budget. And I don't think you should commit an additional almost $5 million
- for services that haven't been done yet and are based on a purely conjectural budget. Thank you.
- Okay, we got two more people via Teams. Chloe and Gwen Greenaway. So Chloe is first. Again, state your
- name for the record and you'll have up to three minutes. And then before you do all that, please unmute.
- Thank you. Thank you. Hi, my name is Chloe. I could reiterate everything else that's been said, but
- just sitting in tonight on tonight's meeting,
- The main thing that kept coming up was how tight funds are with SNAP benefits, shifting not knowing
- how things are going to look and shake out the money. It just doesn't make sense to have that much money.
- Also just want you to consider everything that's going on on a larger scale outside of our county at
- the state level as well. Please make the right decision. Thank you.
- Next up is Gwen. Please unmute yourselves, state your name for the record, and you'll have up to three
- minutes. Hi, my name is Gwen Greenaway. I'm a longtime resident in Bloomington, and I would like to
- strongly urge the council to vote no on building this new jail.
- As multiple people have already said, prisons and jails are meant to disappear people. They're not meant
- to rehabilitate them. I have heard a lot of this council talking about food resources and wanting to
- put resources back into the community. So this just feels antithetical to
- what everyone has been talking about on this council. Yeah, that's all I have to say. Thank you.
- Thank you. It looks like we have two more people here in the night, you know, and you know what to do.
- Good evening, Seth much.
- I the care not cages got a public comment sent in from someone who had to work this evening They sent
- me a text so I would like to read it on their behalf with their permission. So these are not my words
- just to make that clear Hello, my name is Emily yearling. I live about a mile and a half from the proposed
- North Park jail site I am here today to implore you to vote against approving funding for the North
- Park jail site. I
- There is no public transit infrastructure in place at North Park. It is miles away from downtown resources
- along a dangerous road. People are released from jail at all times of day in all kinds of weather. Where
- do you think these people will go?
- This is a tragedy waiting to happen at worst and a safety disruption to nearby neighborhoods at best.
- The use of the North Park site as jail runs counter to the Envision Ellitsville plan as well. A jail
- right at the entrance of town obviously isn't very appealing. I can't imagine it would do much to help
- bring in new business or make people want to move to Ellitsville or visit Bloomington. Who wants to
- live or work next to a jail? Who wants to visit Bloomington when the first thing you see from the highway
- by exit 120 is a giant jail?
- The only people who will benefit economically from this plan are the jail construction company
- and architects, and maybe the bail bondsmen, while the rest of us will be saddled with a generation's
- worth of debt, all for the sake of a plan no one wants. And honestly, I'll be truly disheartened to
- watch the destruction of more green space. I thought there used to be plans for a park near the north
- site. Please use the resources to renovate the current jail to meet ACLU standards and do right by the
- community. Thank you.
- And I want to add for myself now I want to say a voice of appreciation. I know that at the beginning
- of this meeting we sort of moved away from the process of only taking comment that is not on the agenda.
- I know there are a lot of people here for whom I spoke to was their first county meeting they ever attended.
- They're getting involved in this and I don't think they had realized they were signing up for a
- going on five hour meeting. So I just wanna voice appreciation to the council for allowing the bending
- of the rules to allow them to share their perspectives with you sort of out of order. Thank you. Again,
- you know what to do. Sign your name in and you'll have up to three minutes and state your name for the
- record. You definitely should know.
- Thank you. My name is Steve Olin. I was one of the city council members who voted no on rezoning Fullerton
- Pike. The unanimous vote against that project was quite an achievement in the city council term that
- ended in 2019 with all of our internal disagreements. Back then, I asked what they would do with all
- the land at Fullerton Pike. Council members Piedmont Smith and Smith joined me on that tour.
- And I said to county officials, this might be a good idea if you were to build a new town square around
- it. But you can see from the design they commissioned from DLZ that they were not interested in a new
- town square. It's the opposite. It's a sprawling campus. You can also see from the price tag that cost
- was not their highest priority either.
- The reason for not starting with repairing the existing building was that it would cost $56 million
- just to fix it. That seems like a bargain now. The county built the garage next door to the jail in
- 2016, 250 spaces for $9.2 million. I told them that they could have bought 250 parking spaces in the
- garage across the street from the city for the next 41 years in lieu of building that garage.
- But now half the land for North Park will be used to build 700 parking spaces and the roads to access
- them. They said that building up and phasing increases costs. So does delay. So does sprawl. We could
- have afforded a phased project if we had built on the existing site five years ago.
- It'd be cheaper to raise that new parking garage, build a new jail on its footprint, then tear down
- the existing justice building and build a new office slash court building on it than to do what they're
- proposing at North Park. And it would not commit the sin of greenfield development. But the commissioners
- have to abandon their belief that the city is the wrong place. They chose this site like they chose
- Fullerton Pike because they wouldn't have to work with anyone else on it, let alone to get their permission.
- The Germans have a phrase. I don't speak German well, but I'm going to try to say it. Die Eier legende
- Wollmilksau, the egg laying wooly milk pig. It's what you get when you try to build an all-in-one solution.
- Their pursuit of some perfect all-in-one solution to the jail is the enemy of a good enough solution.
- The commissioners founded the city of Bloomington in 1818 to be the county seat
- An urban building combined with the people, the buildings, the urban downtown and the 200 years of the
- history of the city of Bloomington are the solution we are all looking for. Thank you. Thank you.
- All right. Next up, we will. Oh, since we had to.
- public comment. Okay, thank you. We've already had two in person, so I'm gonna go to teams. It looks
- like we have Robert Freeman Day. Please unmute yourself, state your name for the record, and you have
- up to three minutes. Hello, my name is Robert Freeman Day, and I've been here since 1993.
- I know plenty has been said here that I won't belabor repeating, but I still feel compelled to add my
- voice opposing the purchase of the property. Seeing the amount of money granted in today's session to
- services versus building a brand new jail just feels very unconscionable to me. That's all I really
- have to say. I do appreciate your time and work. Thank you.
- Thank you. All right, now we can come back to the night. You know, since I don't see any other hands
- raised via teams. See if I can keep this real short, it's long for everybody. Here's what I'll say.
- I'm the jail commander. Kyle Gibbons here at Monroe County Sheriff's Office. I don't have any cool buzzwords to use.
- I don't speak German at all. I'm probably going to get in trouble from the sheriff because he doesn't
- know I'm coming up here until right now with you guys. Here's what's disheartening. I'm not from here.
- I've now lived here for a year. I've been working here since the beginning of 23. And the thing that
- I loved the most about this community was their ability to talk, to have a conversation. I was talking
- to council member Kate Wiltz earlier.
- And it's so easy to stand here and talk about what if and what we should do and forget about what is.
- I've got 240 inmates inside my facility right now and I have to care about them every day. I don't get
- to have theories and ideas on how to fix things because I'm the person that has to fix it right now.
- And the problem with that is sometimes I feel like I don't have help.
- And it's not your fault. It's not the commissioner's fault. It's not anybody's fault in this room. But
- what is everyone's fault is we get lost in having a true conversation and talk about what we think should
- happen. I'm here. I was brought here specifically by the sheriff to do this job. I'm the best jail commander
- I think in the state. I work my ass off and I'm here. I've been here for 15 hours today already because I care.
- just like you guys. And it's so hard to hear everyone talk about what's going to happen down the road.
- I can't wait for that. And I know you guys can't either, but I'm back here pacing like a caged lion
- because it's so upsetting. And we just have, we line people up to talk about all these different things
- and say the same thing. Here we are three years now. We've talked about the same thing.
- And I have the walls literally caving in inside the facility right now. I'm not saying we need a super
- jail. I'm not saying we need to spend millions on a property. What I am saying is this is not sustainable.
- I have 90 personnel working for me, and every day is a battle. We talked earlier. She said,
- how are you doing? I said, I'm not really sure how I'm doing right now. How are you? Because it's a
- war. And I'm the person that everyone in here wanted to see in this position.
- I'm the person my mom hoped would work in this job to fix the issue she saw. And I'm handcuffed. And
- what's it going to take? Does someone have to die? And we could talk about this all the time in law
- enforcement. Something's going to happen. And we're screaming for the rooftops. We need help. And we're
- all just talking and not talking to each other. Thank you.
- last call for public comment. Speak now. Um, or literally just line up. Um, again, if you have final
- comment that you would like to make on this, please line up here in the night, you have room. Uh, and
- if you have comment and your own teams, please raise your hand. Yes. And we'll go to public comment
- again. State your name for the record and you'll have up to three minutes. Hi, my name is Christopher
- Tory. I spoke earlier. Um,
- I am not for the new jail. I think if the council values the people and represents the people's values,
- they've heard that today overwhelmingly. And I'd be very shocked if they voted any way differently.
- Thank you. And then I'll go last call for teams. If anybody wants to make public comment via teams,
- raise your hand, please.
- Seeing none, as I stated before, I'm going to go back to council to make final comment before we move
- forward. So I'm going to look over here to my right and see if anybody down the line has any questions
- or comments. So I'll start with Iverson, and then we'll just go on down. All right, I'll break the ice.
- I'm going to make four points today. Number one.
- I really appreciate the language about feeling handcuffed and walking around like a caged lion, I think,
- was the animal. We feel the same way. We had a plan. We had the financing all put together. We had the
- best people around to come up with the plans. And the rug was ripped out from underneath us.
- I don't know how we're going to afford anything right now, but we're stuck right now between two composing
- ideologies. Well, maybe the legislature is going to wake up and realize that we need a new jail, and
- then they're going to do the right thing. Or we're going to just keep having these conversations about
- ideas on and on and on and on.
- We've been through the CJRC. We've been through JFAC. We've had these conversations. You can go back
- and watch the videos. We've had these conversations. I will say, OK, let me get to my four points, because
- otherwise I'm just going to end up talking too much. Thank you. The timing for this request is awkward.
- Yesterday, Governor Braun called the legislature back to convene on November the 3rd. It is not.
- I think appropriate to take a quarter of a billion dollars on the hope and a prayer that on November
- 3rd that the legislature is going to wake up. I just don't think that's going to happen. I don't have
- a lot of faith in that. Number two, this is simply too expensive. We raised this on August the 29th.
- We brought the budget down.
- We worked really hard together to bring the budget down, and it's just, we're hamstrung. There's no
- way around it. We cannot afford a quarter of a billion dollars right now. We need to go through, Council
- Member Henry talked about this, the three different scenarios that DLGF, or not DLGF, excuse me, FSG,
- walked us through, and none of those are good options. None of them are good options.
- We're now in a situation where the supermajority in Indiana is banning local governments from doing
- projects. We don't have a phased architectural or structural design ready to go right now. We don't
- have a functioning jail where the walls are falling down around people. And I remember that meeting
- where you brought in that tube of detritus. It was disgusting.
- what you found and where we've been. So I will say, I'm gonna pivot now to my third point. The Substance
- Use Disorder Advisory Commission exists here in Monroe County. We have commissioned a report on treatments.
- No such report exists right now. We just don't know where the gaps are. There's a lot of disagreement
- about where the gaps are. That will come out in June.
- We have two vacancies on the Substance Use Disorder Advisory Commission. If you are interested in doing
- the work of thinking about what does treatment look like in Monroe County, what does mental health treatment
- look like, what does substance use disorder treatment look like in Monroe County, please apply for that
- commission. The next thing, the last thing I want to talk about is I didn't hear a lot about homelessness.
- The Supreme Court, of course, has a very recent ruling that now we can simply arrest our way out of
- homelessness. That is really, really disconcerting to me. I am very proudly a member of the board at
- Beacon, and we just cannot arrest our way out of homelessness. That plays in my brain a lot when thinking
- about this as well.
- As the present pro tem of this body, the biggest point for me, though, is without legislative action,
- we can't afford this. Councillor Henry, and then I'll go to Councillor Hock. Thank you, Madam President.
- Thank you. Those are still in the room. I have so many notes here and so many things I could say, and
- we've been here a while, so I'm going to try to do this from the heart rather than reading off a script.
- First, I want to make sure for the record Charlotte's letter is completely in our minutes, the whole
- letter. Do we need to make a motion for that? I want to make sure that her letter is included in this
- packet when we do the minutes, so I just want to flag that. That's procedural. I think we've had a...
- The reason why I focused my comments on the purchase agreement is what that has been discussed is really
- what we're talking about. It's fulfilling a process that was started before I got here, and I think
- Councilor Iverson just reminded me about
- when the first time I was in this room and heard this discussion was years ago when there was a CRJC
- and I was sitting on the bench back there wearing a very different hat. And so I'm going to be a little
- partisan here, even though I think this is a bipartisan discussion tonight. I do need to put my hat
- back on as somebody who chaired a Democratic party in this community for years and had to be on this
- side of the room listening to the conversation where we ended up. I have heard people tell me in the
- past few weeks that it's a bad look for Democrats in this community to be having this
- debate out loud, to be going down lists and asking questions in public. And yet, I think what we've
- heard tonight is the idea that so many things have been decided behind closed doors for so many years
- on this project that we have been cut out. And then I got elected, and I've been cut out of
- those conversations as well. We've been a little polite about this tonight. When we met in August to
- review the schematic design of the DLC, that was to be a joint meeting among two bodies. And at the
- 11th hour, we were told the county commissioners would not be joining us for that.
- We have gone down a path where we have tried in public and in private to have this conversation on why
- some requirements still seem to make it into the project and others get removed. And those are the kinds
- of projects that people have been asking for all night long in this. So I am as mystified as someone
- must be sitting in this room for the first time for five hours trying to figure out how we got here.
- So I think that needs to be said.
- And I'm just not going to accept the idea that because we continue to talk about this and it's going
- to get more costly and there's time going by, that I'm losing this game in the two-minute warning of
- this discussion when we know there are people that have been in government service for a decade and
- a half that have kicked this can down the road. I am not going to own it. I'm not owning it.
- And this started a long time ago. So here we are in the 11th hour trying to solve a problem. So I want
- to be crystal clear on that. So sorry about the sports metaphor again. We also heard tonight about selection
- bias. I have heard requirements that stay and requirements that get cut without even at the
- table understanding what it is in the purchase agreement, what we were to have before we get started.
- That enough should give us pauses to the flaws of the document and where we are today. We do need land,
- but for what?
- We have a design that calls for 53 acres of which we've heard a lot of that is parking lot.
- I mean, the design is now driving the land as opposed to the other way around. If we had had
- this conversation from the beginning about stakeholder engagement and where it ought to be, we might
- not be here today, which is to say this, folks, I don't know all of you, but I got here by way of working
- in 20 years of government project management. And we do not have a shared vision, but what we have are
- requirements that have sprawled all over the place. And I am very sensitive to the jail commander's
- statement. We have talked multiple times tonight about why this project should be phased, because the
- phasing really comes down to what the ACLU
- you asked of this county a decade and a half ago, two basic requirements. Is it constitutional and is
- there enough recreational space for the inmates in that facility? Everything else has been commentary
- up to this point. There have been so many different ways we can go on this.
- And for reasons that I am now still baffled and understanding as how we got here, I could not possibly
- vote yes for this tonight. I cannot vote for it. Next six months from now, if the legislature figures
- out how to do tax policy in the state of Indiana, I'm through with it because of the wicked problem
- described by the jail commander that we need something to make sense now for this facility. And Reverend
- Amerson's comment that this is a wicked problem we have to solve together. And that only happens when
- every stakeholder, whether we think they're stakeholders or not, are included in that conversation moving forward.
- body not only rejects the purchase agreement, we take what comes what may, we assemble a committee of
- community leaders to figure out where we need to be in 90 days to solve a problem we've been talking
- about for a decade, and that the next thing we do at the next meeting is repeal the ordinance that approved
- this purchase agreement together with. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you. Councillor Hawke. Yes.
- I just don't know that I want to follow up on that, but I
- You know, just never lose the opportunity to tell people what's on your mind. I've been hearing from
- a lot of people that are maybe not in agreement about what we should do with money, but then they maybe
- don't understand where you're going to get the money for services versus the money to build because
- it is different. However, we've been hearing also from the people in the city
- Oh, well, they don't want us to move it out of the city. Well, where were they when we said we found
- some places in the city? And it was like, no, no, no. They simply were not going to allow us to do that.
- Now we have a whole different group of people at the city. We have a different group of people here
- on the county council. So maybe we can get the city to say yes and yes and yes.
- You know, maybe that's where we're going here, is that the city and the county will behave better together
- instead of being at juggernauts. Because this is going to make a huge difference to our city. Years
- and years ago, when I was doing appraising and we're doing commercial appraisals and so forth, something
- that we always put in the appraisals, it was just the parts you stack in there, the downtown,
- Pretty much we were saying downtown was dead. Everybody moved out of the shopping centers. Downtown
- was just closed for business. And thank goodness for Bill Cook and for McCloskey and others, Steve Ferguson,
- who said, we're going to save downtown. Well, if we move all these businesses out,
- is going to be very inconvenient for everybody moving out and costly, but it's not healthy for downtown
- Bloomington. So I think what we've decided now, from what I'm hearing, we don't like the North Park.
- I never liked the North Park. But that doesn't mean we can't, we still have to do something. We have
- to do something.
- And wherever that something is, to begin with, it was just going to be the jail. It was going to be
- $70 million. Then I remember one of the commissioners said, well, let's put some courts over there.
- That'll be another $70 million. Anybody remember that? I remember it was $70 million, $70 million. OK,
- Kate, thanks for saying yes. OK, that's $140 million. How did we get from $140 million up to almost
- $250 million?
- Oh, they did try to cut it back to 25, but believe me, they'll just go up again. So I think that no,
- I don't want to have this commission and that commission and meetings and meetings. We'll just go right
- back to where we were. But maybe the city is going to come forward and say, maybe they'll let us build
- on some place that we wanted to build before. And you said no. And maybe if we need to get
- sewer hook odds, maybe the mayor will say yes. Those are some things we could work on together, specific
- things. And maybe we will have to go up and not out. And I know that's not what the sheriff was dreaming
- on. But I bet if he had the choice to go up or not at all, he might say, well, we'll have to get better
- elevators. So I'm just saying this is not the end of the story.
- because it just isn't, and we cannot continue to ignore where we are now. But I hope that we just put
- a plug in North Park and don't bring it back and not have one more cent spent on it. Thank you, Councillor
- Hawke. All right, I'm going to go down here to my left, and I'll start with Councillor Feidl. If you
- have something to say, sorry, I don't want to put you on the spot.
- Sometimes I wait on the end, but I'm ready. So I was caucused in, my first meeting was the end of January
- this year. It's been a real learning experience, I can tell you. I've enjoyed it a lot. I enjoy listening
- to people and what they have to say, but most of all, I think I'm here to represent. And I must say
- that this is the issue I've heard the most about
- from many long time friends, so long time community members and acquaintances, and they're not in favor
- of it. And I don't know what to say about that. I know a lot has happened earlier on and I wasn't a
- part of that, so I can't take responsibility. And unfortunately, I didn't attend a lot of those events
- until I did go to every event regarding the locations. Two meetings were held in Ellisville,
- at the fire station there and one on Vernal Pike. I did go to those three meetings when they started
- considering North Park and other locations. And I didn't get a real warm reception there either. But
- I understand something has to be done with the jail. I think I agree that maybe the city is ready to
- talk about this at this point. It seems to me like they've made a
- Unanimous they sent a unanimous letter that might indicate they would be willing to talk and I think
- that's what has to happen I think and we need to have a community jail and we put it out in the middle
- of nowhere. It doesn't seem like a community jail so I think I'm ready to say no as well Thank you
- have so many thoughts, but they aren't surprising. I have been progressively disappointed in where these
- conversations have taken us over the past couple of years. And I agree with a lot of what my colleagues
- have said about
- how we got here and where we need to maybe pivot a little bit. I am not willing to bet $11 million on
- the state legislature maybe letting us move forward. And that's really, really important. Our job is
- representation. Our job is deep consideration and communication with each other.
- But our job is also fiscal responsibility and it would be irresponsible to purchase property right now
- when we don't know how we can build on that property. I think and I will make a motion later after we've
- talked perhaps to separate the issue because I do think we have to pay our bills and we have some some
- bills. But that's really all I'm willing to move forward with tonight.
- We've we had as counselor Iverson mentioned we had community input in the The JFAC we had 30 points
- that we brought forth and said this is what we need in our community and It just doesn't seem to have
- mattered and
- And that's so very disappointing, and I'll take some responsibility for not carrying that football further.
- Sports analogy, shout out. But I think we need to pick it back up, and I think we need to look at the
- invitation from our city colleagues to perhaps open some conversations. I think we need to do it quickly.
- and consider what alternatives we actually have to the current plan, because not having a plan is not
- an option. We cannot leave our people in the current building any longer, and so this has to move quickly.
- I want to have conversations within the next month with our city folks, with other stakeholders who
- are interested,
- to get moving forward. We can't reuse the same facility. I know that's what a lot of folks have asked
- for. Please come talk to me. It's not feasible for getting the type of environment we need for those
- who have to spend time in that building. I'm convinced it's not feasible, but that does not mean that
- we can't keep services downtown.
- So we just need to communicate about that. And we've delayed this a year, just in the last year, based
- on potential state legislation considerations, rezoning processes. And if that was enough to delay this,
- certainly the fact that we know
- We can't use our planned financing should be enough to, you know, give us pause. So I'm that's where
- I am. I'm a no. Thank you. Thank you. Pardon me. I'll try not to go long because sometimes I go too
- long and I it's late. Nobody wants here anymore of that for me. But I have multiple thoughts that come
- up on this issue, and I've spoken
- over the years and it's now been years, numerous times, sometimes quite passionately about this and
- my concerns around can kicking. This didn't happen overnight and it clearly is not getting solved overnight
- and it wouldn't even qualify for half of a consideration of that.
- I do want to say this before I forget this. I want to thank every person who has emailed, every person
- that's come forward today, every person that stayed on Teams. Teams is awful to be on anyway for 20
- minutes, let alone however long we're heading now. So thank you that you care enough about your community
- to come with us and talk about it gives me hope in tough times. And I've said that more than a few times tonight.
- I love that Reverend Amerson talked about wicked problems. I wanted to make sure I had kind of a rough,
- accurate definition before I espoused on something as smart a person as that would talk about. But a
- wicked problem is a complex, ill-defined, persistent issue that is difficult or impossible to solve
- because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements. And friends, I will tell you, in the
- years I've worked in federal, state, and local government,
- Public service many times has wicked problem connotations because things are always changing you do
- one thing it starts another another thing and down the road you go I so I throw that out because I Every
- turn that we have made on this or attempted to make we've had a lot of strange history, too I appreciate
- city folks sending us a unanimous letter tonight. I will tell you that well has been gone to
- numerous times and it didn't have much water in it. And I'm going to say that one more time. There has
- been conversations with city folks. I don't know that it's all city folks. I don't know it's all county
- folks, but city officials, council members, mayors, department heads, whoever you are, if you have a
- lot or a spot that you think is better than not, I want you to send it. Now, no, if you send that, it's
- going to be in a public discussion.
- And people are going to have thoughts about that. So as you send that, I just want to keep that kind
- of in mind. Not a lot of people object to the location of the current justice center, but that's been
- here for some time before the courthouse here and the jail over there. One thing I'll say is this. I
- ran for office to help solve problems, whether they be wicked or otherwise. Try to figure it out. Make
- it slightly better or a lot better one day at a time.
- October 28th still for about another A little bit more time in the day. It's October 28th This is not
- getting solved tonight If the legislature is doing something that they actually start work soon, they
- start work really soon I think on something. I'm not necessarily happy about it all but then they're
- back in in January February March so we are roughly
- two to three months from seeing if something is happening here with the changes, other counties are
- having issues, schools are having issues, everybody's having issues. I hope they listen, but next couple
- weeks we're going to be at crash course on that one. But we would know, and what I would say is I always
- like to preserve every option
- you have possible because here's why. That jail commander that got up and spoke, Commander Gibbons,
- that's a person that believes in his job, has passion for it, and care for those people in there.
- That's authentic. I talk to my students all day long. They're like, how do you get authenticity?
- I'm like, you're not going to get it at the Village Pantry. You either have it or you don't. And that
- person has authenticity for that job. I go to bed at night knowing that all the stuff we talk about,
- I feel better that he's in that job, not me, trying to make that up. So with that, he's telling you
- things that, to Counselor Wilts's point,
- can't just go. And I'll say this, can kicking always starts with the best of intentions. And I've heard
- it. I've talked to public officials. Shoot, when I ran, I said, what do you think about this jail issue?
- Don't touch that, some of them said. Don't touch that. That's the third rail. But who speaks for those
- people who are in there tonight, who will speak for them to say, yeah, that wall falling down, that
- is a problem?
- So it can kick you, there's always a good reason. But we have to think about the logistics of how we
- get to solution. So again, I go back to it. If there is a site someone's got out there, great,
- send it, say it publicly. Don't just be again it, as my grandmother would say. But on the flip side,
- I think the council has to keep every option it has available until we aren't in these seats.
- And we have to do it because, my God, somebody has to do something sometime, somewhere, somehow, other
- than just simply say, it's not possible or feasible. So I bring that passion to do that, to say that,
- and I think that preserving that while figuring out what's going on with the legislature, we do that
- with literally every other issue we have.
- And why would tonight be any magnificently different than that? Watching Indianapolis, reacting
- to Indianapolis, planning around Indianapolis, finding money or losing money or whatever because Indianapolis
- might got that health discussion tonight. In part, Indianapolis. And I bet if we go down the list, we'd
- find it all. Hiring freeze, Indianapolis. So with that, friends, I just think preserving this as something
- to come back to,
- potentially as needed, as necessary, as whatever, I think is a wiser course of action, at least for
- the time being. Thank you. So again, to say many thanks to the 50-something people that are still on
- Teams and quite a few people that are here left.
- And then at you Hill room at 10 32 p.m. On a Tuesday night So I appreciate that that's what democracy
- looks like whether we agree to disagree that's neither here nor there But you are doing what you asked
- us to do and to be held accountable so a couple of things I wanted to address and from the public comment
- that I heard is that I just thought it was quite interesting and
- As the only person of color on this council to tell somebody to have a spine when I'm trying to advocate
- for people who look like me.
- People who look like me are disproportionately affected in the justice center, period. And I dare to
- say the other person of color in this room, Sheriff Marte, is doing the exact same thing and is advocating
- through that by his staff. So please be careful on how you address things because you have no idea what
- we are advocating for and have a spine. Who I am on the outside is my spine.
- The other thing that I wanted to address is Councilor Iverson made a comment about this earlier when
- it comes to the issue of the unhoused. And I wish, you know, when we talk about these types of things,
- I think back, I think sometimes we have
- short-term memory of things that have happened in our community in the past and I wish that the former
- mayor had a little bit more energy when folks were being kicked out of Seminary Park and the funding
- that he was using or that he has said that we should be using maybe some of that energy and that funding
- could have been used for those folks that are still in Seminary Park
- I only could imagine what this would look like if we put that energy into that some four plus years
- ago. Also to Councilor Hawks point, and I remember distinctly, people were asking, when this lawsuit
- was still happening and still going on, the former mayor was the mayor, current mayor at the time. And
- so again, that energy,
- Could we have had hope well? I know it was asked, and I also know that we were told no. So again, I'm just...
- If we gonna talk about it, let's be about it and not just talk at me when you don't have the positions
- that you hold. I appreciate it, but stronger stance could have been held when we were holding those
- offices. To my city colleagues, I see some that are both past and present that were here. I appreciate
- y'all coming in and you all having the conversations with us. But if you do not like North Park and
- you didn't like Fullerton,
- What do you propose we do? Also, if mental health and substance use treatment is a concern, we both
- bodies have opioid settlement money and also ED lit. How do you help us financially with this problem?
- Because I do know that there are city agencies that also use the facility as well.
- The other thing that I want to highlight since the jail commander Gibbons made a comment about this
- and we were talking around everybody to those that on the city council and I've spoken to some of you
- about this particular issue. Have you toured the facility? Have you talked to the sheriff? Have you
- talked to the jail commanders? Have you talked to the judges, the prosecutor?
- the public defenders, the everyday people that are in that building? Or do I dare to ask you, when is
- the last time you stepped in that building? This is a very complex situation that county government
- is facing. And just like we've heard much today, I really urge our city council colleagues to not just
- talk about it, not just talking to me through a letter, but talk with us, join in this conversation and
- I do remember last year, much like we had the conversations related to the CIB and the convention center,
- that maybe it's time for us to people on notice and have that same type of community conversation like
- we had when it came to the CIB and the convention center. Because guess what? That project is already
- broken ground, and that's going to be a lot faster than this justice building that's happening.
- I think that it's easy to call out flaws. But it's so challenging and rewarding to sit down and be down
- in the trenches with all of us to figure out this complex problem because again, it's not just a Monroe
- County problem. It is a
- or a city of Bloomington problem. It's all of our problems. So let's not continue to just talk around
- each other. Let's really come to a solution and let's figure out what can be done because time is of
- the essence and we need to get this done. Again, as I said earlier,
- The why now part for me after going through all the budget constraints and all the conversations, I
- still said it and I'll still stand 10 toes down in my confirmation. It's tone deaf to have this conversation
- right now. It is not something that I am interested in doing in terms of that moving forward with this.
- So that's all I have to say about that.
- So yeah. All right. Yes. I'd like to make a motion to separate the two lines in the original motion.
- Second. Thank you. OK. We got a motion and a second to separate the lines. And that is the conversation of the
- the split in of the purchase agreement and then the additional funding for DLZ. Is that right? Yep.
- One is listed as property acquisition and the other one is professional services. Correct. All right.
- So does anybody have any questions or comments related to that motion? I may, depending on the order
- that we take those, but I don't know, not on that
- Okay, I think it's obvious. Okay, so all those in favor of separating the motion as stated by Council
- Member Woods signify by saying aye. All those opposed, same sign. Okay, motion carries. Councilor Wilks,
- I'd like to make another motion on the professional services line. Is that appropriate to do now?
- Maybe we can tackle that one first, yes. Okay. Yeah. I would like to reduce that amount from $4,721,029.46
- to the total of the invoices, which if we do not have that total in front of us, I'm looking around,
- I'm not seeing anybody going, oh yeah, I know that number. I believe they said it was 900,000.
- So if we could reduce it to 900,000 even. Second. Okay. We have motion and second. And so, yes. I don't
- know the actual amounts. I mean, I know it was 500 and something and 400 and something. So that's how
- I come up with 900 something. Just happened to see the second one today. So the other thing is, is I
- don't know why you're doing this because we can pay it out of the band. If you're not buying the property,
- we will have, we have $8 million in the band.
- President, there's a motion. Yeah, there's a yeah. All right. I seconded. OK, I didn't hear what was
- going on. So we had a motion and a second because Councilor Wilks decreased the professional services
- law to nine hundred thousand dollars. I don't cover. What are you doing? Don't say nine hundred because
- she doesn't know. Yeah, I mean, I guess I'll amend my motion.
- And if they don't need it, then I'll just I'll move to reduce it to zero if they don't need it. Second.
- OK. All right. So we got a motion and a second to reduce this line item to zero. And that's the professional
- services line since we just heard that just counselor. Right. I just want to make it clear that they that
- no further services will be ordered. Because we don't want it to just keep money going out and going
- out until we know what we're going to do. Just pay for what we are. That's correct. My understanding
- is that we will tell DLZ and the others to stand down. So there won't be any additional, we'll just
- have to fill out whatever work has been done so far.
- So yeah, this project is on hold. Okay. So we got a motion and second. Is there any other further comment
- on this item? Okay. Um, do we gotta go public comment? Okay. All right. So all those in favor, uh,
- let's go. Yeah. Okay.
- Point of information, it's zero. It's zero. Okay, that's what I was going to say. So it started out
- at 900, but now we're just saying zero. Okay. All right. So, sorry. Councilor Wilts. Yes. Oh,
- wait a minute. This is just for the professional services line.
- So this is just for the professional services line, changing that amount to zero. Yes. Councilor Wilts.
- Yes. Councilor Henry. Yes. Councilor Hawk. Yes. Councilor Crossley. Yes. Councilor Iverson. Yes. Councilor
- Deckard. Yes. Councilor Feidl. Yes. Motion passes seven zero. Okay.
- The other motion was the separation, which comes next of the property acquisition. Yes, Councilor Decker.
- I was going to make offer a motion on this, but I think Commissioner Madera, did you have something
- we want to. If I may, I actually have a voice now. I would like to offer a statement if I could. Sure.
- As many of you know, I'm in my first year in office, so like some council members, I'm responding to
- this issue for the first time. The issue is not whether to build a jail. We have to build a jail. No
- one gets up in the morning saying, yay, I get to build a jail. We have strong commitments to providing
- mental health and substance use treatment in the community and focusing resources to the extent possible
- on keeping people out of the system. To build a jail is to recognize that the current one is inhumane
- and unsafe.
- It does not mean that we are not focusing on harm reduction, mental health treatment, and substance
- use treatment in the community. We need to pursue both projects simultaneously. We've been talking about
- incarceration as if it is a local issue, as if the number of people in our jail depends on our community
- values and priorities. I'm hearing about what the sheriff does, what judges do, and what our community
- values are. But there's another really important and unfortunate piece of the puzzle that we need to
- think about.
- In Indiana, the size of the incarcerated population is driven primarily by state policy, not local choice.
- The General Assembly defines crimes and penalties, sets sentencing ranges and credit time, and authorizes
- sentencing enhancements and statewide court rules govern bail, pretrial lease, probation, and parole.
- The Department of Correction controls prison capacity and intake and funds many community corrections programs.
- Counties and sheriffs operate jails, but they cannot change who must be detained or for how long. These
- decisions flow from state charges and court orders. Horrifyingly, we now face a host of proposals that
- are coming on the state level that, at least in the short term, may curb county officials' abilities
- to use measures like pretrial release to keep as many people as possible out of jail.
- One of these is a legislative proposal for statewide minimum bail, which is a nightmare for so many
- reasons, least of all, that it proposes people are guilty before they are innocent. Even if we hate
- these dehumanizing measures, if they pass, our judges will have to apply them in at least some circumstances
- because they will be mandatory. While we shouldn't build jails bigger in anticipation of horrible state
- laws, we do have to realize that even if violent crime fails,
- I'm sorry, violent crime falls, state law changes may well find other ways to fill jails that place
- matters beyond the control of county officials. This is a reality with which we have to grapple. All
- of this means that we need a lot more advocacy efforts on the state level to stop these terrible
- pro-incarceration measures from passing. It also means a lot of it is beyond our control. So I look
- forward to seeing all of you in January with me at the State House, just as I saw you here tonight.
- Also, the biggest problem is at the end of the day, our justice center is at the end of its natural
- lifespan. That's 30 to 50 years. Renovating might appear to be the cheaper option in the short term,
- but it's more expensive in the long term. The current jail was too small the moment it opened. It was
- built for 160-some people. The facilities do not allow for constitutional inmate care now.
- We do not have adequate medical or mental health spaces. We do not have medical interview rooms. We
- face HIPAA concerns. We need padded suicide wash spaces.
- If there's another pandemic, worse shot. There's no reverse airflow systems. It's extremely expensive
- and likely impossible to add them in. Currently, we cannot effectively provide health care, mental health
- care, and reentry services. We don't have recreational space that's effective. We don't have gender
- equitable work opportunities. We have a tiny insufficient room for inmate education.
- We don't have room for technical or educational training programs. As we approach 80% capacity, it becomes
- impossible to separate people by risk, gender, medical needs, and other factors.
- Rehabilitative programs, constitutional care, educational opportunities, health concerns, evidence-based
- research suggests that this is most easily and effectively accomplished in a one-story facility. Sheriff
- Marte has done amazing things, but you can only put so much lipstick on a pig, even if it's a pig named
- for a beloved community leader. Why are we condemning our inmates, our guards, and our staff to live
- and work in hell?
- Finally, measures are being taken in response to the ACLU lawsuit, but the biggest measure and the one
- that's the underlying premise of the settlement order was building a new facility. If we don't, then
- we're going to get sued again, and it's going to cost millions, and there's no way we're going to win.
- And if the ACLU lawsuit goes away, we're going to face lawsuit after lawsuit by individual inmates.
- We're going to continue to lose until we fix the problem, and there's only one fix that will give us
- more space.
- unless we take space from other county services housed in the justice center and these agencies are
- already pressed for space. This issue keeps me up at night like it keeps you all up at night because
- I'm deeply committed to keeping everyone we can out of the justice system in the first place. It has
- so many terrible consequences in every area of life from finances to employment to housing to family.
- There are no doubt community conversations that we need to have about this issue, but we just need to
- have them on realistic terms. Thank you.
- So I think thanks Commissioner I again I believe that we clearly are not moving forward with this this
- evening but that said for problem solving and options and potential while we figure this out I believe that
- every option should remain on the table. And with that notion, I would move that we table the remaining
- property acquisition item here, line 45151 indefinitely as we get more information from the legislature,
- get more information from city colleagues, get more information period to do our job. If I may.
- I'm going to second that motion so that it stays on the floor. Yes. All right. My concern is if you
- leave that amount that was requested for the property acquisition, that will not be sufficient because if we pay
- the remaining invoices from DLZ out of the ban, that's going to change that balance. So we would need
- more money out of the edit to pay for the purchase of property. So I would recommend that you just table
- the whole thing, because we're not going to use it. We'll pay the ban, or I guess it doesn't do any good.
- I think if it's not going to be approved tonight, we're paying for expenses out of the bond anticipation
- note. It has to be re-advertised anyway because the levels change. Yeah, everything's changed. The breakdown
- between what is in there for professional services and property purchase changes. Thank you. Anybody
- down here? Yes, Councillor Iverson. So even though I seconded the motion, I think it's important to
- have this conversation
- I do think that having an up or down vote on this is important. I think there's been so much. Hold on,
- hold on, hold on. Let me finish. Let me finish. There's been so much conversation about so many aspects
- of what we've been talking about for years. I do think that it's an important thing that we need that
- we do need to talk about. Council Henry. Thank you, Madam President. And thank you for
- getting this conversation on the table if you will. I will vote against tabling the motion because whether
- we decide tonight to do this or four months to do this or five months to do this the math doesn't change
- and the math doesn't lie. Councilor Hawk painted a picture about the tax base and what is coming for
- us that right now under the estimates for
- What we're going to do to pay for this facility is something like one-third of every local income tax
- dollar after next year out of every pocket in this room or county taxpayers earning income will go to
- the jail first, which leaves us two-thirds of 1.2% to fund everything else in this county. And that's
- the best possible scenario. Across the street, City Hall, and in City Halls across Indiana, the Association
- of Indiana Municipalities is lobbying the State House on their wish list to reduce our tax rate in the
- county down
- to 0.7 percent, which would be two-thirds of every dollar, 0.41, going to the Jail and Justice Center
- project before we pay for everything else in the county. Now, what's left of that pie, 64 and a half
- percent of this county's budget, is criminal justice, which means if you are concerned about prevention
- and health and all these things, that slice of the pie gets smaller and smaller and smaller. And here's
- even more worse news. The Supreme Court of Indiana is deciding annexation as we speak. If the city of
- Bloomington is successful,
- That means the parcels coming into the city of Bloomington are now off the books for stormwater for
- roads and that's tax dollars. We're going to have to make up somewhere else. The story keeps getting
- worse. We can kick the can down the road. We can table. But the sober right thing to do tonight is to
- as Peter Iverson just said we need the up or down vote because we are going to be right back here in
- a few months talking about the same math that will not change when I have now heard from the jail commander
- that we need to get something going and we need to put people in a room to discuss the project. The
- only way we're going to do that is to
- Take the upper down, get back to the drawing board, and vote on it. Lastly, folks in the room, I want
- you to be very clear about what you heard. Tabling means that we are considering to keep North Park,
- despite everything you've said tonight, as what has been said is something in the back pocket or in
- the abundance of caution, which means all the commentary about moving it from downtown or the concerns
- that I've heard about sprawl, we're holding on for that moment four months from now to basically do
- this again.
- I'm not holding on to it. I don't think there's any need to hold on to anything at this point. I'm still
- voting no. And I'll vote no when it comes off the table again, if that's where we end up. Thank you,
- Madam President. Council Hulk? And a no for tabling. OK. The Hulk has spoken. We'll come back over here
- to my left to see if anybody has any photo comments. OK. Now we will go to a roll call vote, please.
- on the table. Yes. Okay. So this is to table the property acquisition amount indefinitely. Councilor
- Hawk. Not in favor of tabling. So the answer is no. Councilor Henry. No. Councilor Decker. Yes. Councilor Crossley.
- Councillor Iverson. No. Councillor Feidl. No. Councillor Wilts. No. Councillor Cronk. No. Thank you.
- Motion fails two to five.
- Sorry, I have Iverson in the wrong place. Motion fails. One to six. Thank you. It's getting late.
- It is OK. So are we done with all this? OK, so now we vote on the property acquisition. So can we please
- have a roll call vote on that?
- wasn't ready for that. Give me just a moment. This is for the funding for this. So this is to appropriate
- that account line. Sorry about that. Okay.
- Sorry, again, the motion is to fund. Yes. No. Make sure that got clear. No. Councilor Hogg? No. Councilor
- Crossley? No. Councilor Iverson? No. Councilor Decker? No. Councilor Feidl? No. Councilor Wilz? No.
- Motion passes. Fails.
- Okay. All right, so. All right, so we still got some business to attend to tonight. I know it's getting
- late, but we still got some stuff to do. So we're going to go to item E.
- We're item E, which is the conversation of hiring freeze evaluation. Council, I would like to move to
- open for discussion a hiring freeze evaluation process and possible amendments to resolution 2025-42,
- which establishes that hiring freeze. Second. Ms. Turner King, what would you like to add to this? Well,
- we've received some requests for
- in essence exemptions to the hiring freeze, but I don't think we've discussed how those requests will
- be evaluated if you want to establish a process for evaluation. I know our employee services department
- has put together a rubric for consideration to see if you would like to implement some procedure to
- that effect. I wasn't sure if Eve wanted to come up and yeah.
- If you want to talk about what you said to Council. Would it be helpful if I display? Yes. There are
- two documents. I'm probably going to display the rubric.
- Should we take a break for a moment? Since we have two people gone, you know. Oh, OK. Yeah, let's take
- a quick five minute recess, please. And if we could just come back at. I'm just going to say about 1105.
- Can't believe I'm saying, oh my God, come back at 1105. OK, so let's take a break and come back at 1105. We got.
- A quorum here. So let us go ahead and proceed. Thank you. All right. So this is essentially a conversation
- starter for you all. I provided you with some suggestions on how you could evaluate the requests that
- are coming in from departments. And my thoughts are essentially that if you had a form that asked the
- same questions from every department,
- that you're more likely to get the information that you're looking for rather than the email request
- that has been the practice that has started things for you. And then for there to be a way to evaluate
- that form, the information on that form to determine whether the department request would meet your criteria.
- just as a way, these are my thoughts, as a way to help you through this process, because in the first
- couple of weeks, you've received a few requests. And so I think they've shared that with you, and Molly's
- got the... Yes. Councilor Iverson. Let me break the ice again. So first of all,
- Equity has to be the thing, right? It has to be the same form for every department because otherwise,
- staff's gonna be going crazy trying to figure out which way, left or right. So the approach I think
- is spot on. Whether or not we can tweak things here and there, whatever, but so far so good.
- Anybody else? Yes, Councillor Williams. Sure.
- Thank you for doing this and I agree. It's a really good start and covers the main areas that I think
- should be covered. I think what I would want to do is maybe strengthen some of the language around,
- for instance,
- the role of the needed position in preserving health life and safety or you know what is its impact
- or the impact of it not being filled on health life and safety factors. Is it a statutory position I
- think that's on here. I think and I'm going to make comments because I wrote out things
- this afternoon before I saw this too. So if I'm overlapping it's not because I'm correcting necessarily
- what you said. I just haven't I saw it briefly and thought oh yeah we were on the same page. But anything
- that we put forward I think should also talk about not just this you know obviously if it's a statutory
- position then we got to fill it. But just because of the position it fulfills statutory duties.
- I think that's a separate question. So I think we should be asking about that and whether duties can
- be fulfilled by other folks in the department. And one of the and then one other thing that I think
- I wanted to throw out is the idea that if if this position and this being the one under
- under you know request for being filled is critical. What efforts can the department make to offset
- that fiscal impact. So the whole point of the hiring freeze is fiscal clearly. So we're not it's hard
- to set a goal around the attrition
- approach to saving money. We could talk about that. I think that might be a conversation for later.
- But as we move forward, knowing that we are trying to save money by, you know, by attrition, if a department
- feels that a vacancy is going to impact them,
- to the point where they can't function, it's mission critical, it's statutory, whatever the justification
- is. And I'm willing to kind of work with folks to get to what that looks like. I do think part of the
- strategy either before or after we talk to them should be, hey, offset the costs in some other way with
- personnel.
- Not with supplies not you know with something ongoing because that's the that's the need. The need is
- not hey we have too many people. The need is we have a budget problem that's not going away. So those
- are just my my thoughts from this afternoon between meetings. Yes.
- At one point when we first started talking about this, and I think the paperwork got put together after
- I left at a meeting at about 11 o'clock. I don't know why I'm still here. It's past 11 o'clock, folks.
- At any rate, I thought that we all understood we did not mean the jail. We can't just close the jail
- because we don't have enough staff.
- and we cannot disclose the new shelter. Now, I don't mean all of the entire budget for YSB. I'm talking
- the shelter staff because that's a 24 seven operations. And so they need to have whatever the staff
- requirements are. So that should just be without a question. And beyond that, I mean, I'm sure the sheriff's
- here and saying,
- You know, he doesn't want to have his merit deputies and the one that he's trying to make sure he's
- not short staff that he's been working so hard on. But the big thing is out of the gate, we should make
- sure it is not the jail. The health life safety point, I think.
- I think we need to be specific, because you'd be surprised how many people will say, well, if I don't
- do this, people's health is at risk, or if I don't do this, whatever. And I think that, yeah, I think
- you make a good point. May I continue? I'm sorry. I'm just going to sit around and have a conversation.
- It's all right. It's what I'm here for. It's OK. I think you can make the argument about public safety
- and speaking of public safety.
- All of you are still here. So hi, and I know this is something that is very important to you. So Sheriff
- Marte, if you got something to say, please say it. So I want to make this clear that I'm speaking only
- in our department, no one else's. And the reason why I want to start that way is because I sent everyone
- The whole council e-mail last Wednesday articulating trying to explain where we are right now with this
- hiring freeze. And I could tell you right now that the stress level of the people that are working that
- job right now is off the charts. Off the charts right now. Because when logically, I understand we have
- to tighten our belts. I get that.
- But the problem is for us, we're kind of in a skeleton crew right now. And it took us how many years
- to get to the point where we're at now. And I'm sitting here telling you that if we continue this path,
- we're going to go backwards. We're going to go backwards in the jail because the jail is a very distinct
- operation. It is. I wouldn't be here telling you that. I was elected.
- to do a job here for this county, people that voted me in. But I'm doing it for people that didn't vote
- me in either also. And right now, I showed you the condition of the jail in the beginning. I wasn't
- making it up. And the hard time that we had, that we had to get it to where it now, I fear that if you
- keep us in the same atmosphere as everybody else, when we're the only agency, I take it back,
- Us, the youth services app, work 24-7. Think about that, 24-7. When people that work in this county
- have a holiday, we don't. They're there. We're obligated to feed the residents in that facility. We
- prepare 750 meals a day, a day. Think about that.
- So when we don't have an individual, and we have to wait, and then it falls through the cracks,
- guess what? It's us. When the jail commander talks about the stress and what he's going through,
- it's real. It's real. But now it's on me because I'm the one that brought these two people here to try
- to get us to a particular place where we should be. My goodness.
- You control as far as the fine freeze goes. I get it. And I will follow the rules. But I need your help.
- I'm telling you, I need your help to do my job. Clear than that, I don't know how to say it. That email
- that I sent you was very intentional. I wanted you to read it before I stood in front of you. Because
- I don't comprehend that you've seen a good portion of you took a tour of that jail.
- Do we really want to go back? Because I'm telling you, right now, people under that stress, we don't
- need to add more to it. And when I say to you that some of the things you might not be aware of, when
- there's a storm and the county shut down, we don't have that luxury. We just don't. So how in the world
- are we supposed to wait?
- and go through the process when things for us happen like that. When the mold situation took place and
- we had to evacuate that place, and bear with me, when the mold happened in that place and we had to
- evacuate that jail to mediate the mold. No one was in that justice center, but we were when COVID hit.
- And people work from home.
- Guess what? People in that jail did not. They had to go to work. So when I ask you, think about this,
- because I see what's coming my way. And now that I'm hearing, OK, are we going to be in that facility
- for a long period of time? Obviously. We've just been decided just now. That's what I just heard. Don't
- tie my hands. Just like the junk commander says, don't handcuff me. Don't do that.
- Because I don't want to come back here and God forbid the worst happened and I keep saying it and I'm
- not saying it because I want to scare people. I'm saying this because those are the facts for us. If
- we start continuing to lose people when I don't know when they're going to leave, I can't plan for it
- in advance. You cannot hold it to the same standards as everybody else. It just won't work. That being
- said, I would like for all of us to be in the same street of music.
- I want to ask the chief to read the actual email that I sent the entire council so we could be on the
- same sheet of music here, because I don't know if everybody read it. So I want to make sure that we
- are on the same sheet of music. This is the email that the sheriff sent out on October 22nd to the members
- of the county council.
- When I assumed the office of sheriff in January of 2023, I inherited a jail plague by severe staffing
- shortages. These vacancies directly contributed to deplorable living working conditions that existed
- within the facility at that time. The council itself recognized these vacancies as a major concern as
- they were central to the operational instability, safety risks, morale issues that
- plagued the jail. For my first day in office, I made it a top priority to correct these conditions and
- rebuild both the workforce and the morale within the Monroe County Sheriff's Office. To that end, my
- administration has implemented a streamlined and efficient hiring process that has allowed us to maintain
- a nearly fully staffed jail for almost two years. The results have been clear and measurable, improved
- safety for the officers and inmates, better cleanliness and an order and a noticeable increase in staff
- morale and retention.
- These gains represent the hard work and commitment of many, and I am proud of the progress we have achieved
- to help our County Council with the help of our County Council and Board of Commissioners. Hiring for
- reason enacted by the County Council on September 30, 2025, threatens to reverse this progress if applied
- to corrections positions. Staffing in a correctional facility is not a budgetary convenience. It is
- a critical matter of safety, compliance, and liability.
- Even one unfilled position creates a ripple effect that harms the operation and endangers both staff
- and residents. Hiring freeze does more than simply pause the filling of a position. It delays the entire
- process by requiring additional layers of approval before a vacancy can be even advertised. Each delay
- from the time position becomes vacant, the time a permission is granted to post to the time the applicant
- is hired extends the gap in staffing coverage. These delays trickle down,
- to every level of jail operations, forcing the existing staff to work longer shifts, increasing fatigue,
- driving overtime costs, and affecting officer and inmate safety and eroding morale. Even a short disruption
- in the hiring pipeline can take months to correct as it interrupts the steady recruitment flow that
- has been essential to maintaining adequate staffing. Once the momentum of hiring is lost, the effects compound.
- The training schedules must be reset, shifts must be rearranged, and experienced officers are left carrying
- the heavy load. When vacancies go unfilled, we see reduced officer and inmate safety due to inadequate
- supervision, increased overtime costs, which cost more than filling positions properly, fatigue, burnout,
- higher turnover among staff, decline in morale, and facility cleanliness.
- diminished ability to respond effectively to emergencies and increased exposure to legal and financial
- liability to the county. These are not hypothetical outcomes. They are the very same issues that existed
- before I took office, issues the council rightly identified as unacceptable. A one-size-fits-all hiring
- freeze is not responsible for management of a 24-7 correctional facility that must, by law, maintain
- minimum staffing levels. I also urge the council to remember
- Monroe County is currently operating in a private settlement agreement with the ACL in Indiana related
- to jail overcrowding. The ACL has taken notice of the improvements made under my administration, has
- acknowledged the policy change in both conditions and cooperation. Applying hiring freeze in the jail
- would undermine that progress and risk damaging counties improved relationships with the ACL, especially
- at a time when construction of a new jail faces real and ongoing delays. We wrote that before tonight,
- that's for sure.
- This is in the county's best interest. Is this in the county's best interest legally, fiscally, and
- ethically to ensure staffing levels remain stable and compliant? Undermining staff at the correctional
- facility would now not only jeopardize the safety, but also can invite renewed scrutiny and potential
- legal action. I respectfully ask each council member to consider the following simple question. Would
- you truly vote in a public meeting not to allow opening and filling a vacant correctional position at the jail?
- If the honest answer is no, then it stands to reason that corrections positions must be exempt from
- this hiring freeze. To maintain a purely symbolic hiring freeze, knowing it will directly harm operations,
- safety, and morale would be inconsistent and irresponsible of government and safety priorities. So the
- rest is plain and engaging here. And Kyle's going to talk about this, ladies and gentlemen.
- You know, I think the most important part of that whole diatribe there is this is exactly what we were
- facing when we walked in the door. And I will tell you, I think we all can agree we are now sentenced
- to that building for a lot longer than what we were anticipating. We started this dialogue three years
- ago when we sit here tonight back to square one. I've stood
- talking to Kyle Gibbons one day in that jail, after we'd been here about six months, and watched blood
- start oozing from his nose because of the air quality that was in that facility when we took over. I
- stood there and watched his nose start bleeding. And our people have lived in that and they have worked
- in that. When COVID hit, everybody was going home but us. And from the time someone quits their position
- at that jail, and they will call in and say, I quit.
- or they will be in the middle of their shift and they will walk off and say, I quit. Some of that is
- just a work ethic that comes with different people's expectations, but some of it is because it's a
- crappy place to work. So what Kyle has done, and I used to get questions when I come into these updates,
- how's the staffing level at the jail? How's the staffing level at the jail?
- And we're good. We're fully staffed. And it was a major accomplishment when we, in August of about 2023,
- just after about nine months, eight months of being here, Kyle had corrected that. And what he does
- when they quit, he immediately begins the hiring process. We have a stack of applications. He makes
- the phone call. He will get people interviewed sometimes the next day to come in and interview for that
- position whenever they come. We don't wait till we get five positions.
- so we can train them all at once. That sounds real nice and tidy, but that's not the way this situation
- works. So the next day, within a week, we've got people interviewed. We do a pretty extensive background.
- It takes some time, and usually within about a three-week period of someone walking off the door, we
- have someone there, and then there's 80 hours of
- required training and then there's a field training program and it's usually about three months before
- that person's you know worth their salt and they're they're now an independent corrections officer.
- So you know I just I'm just absolutely befuddled that we would even consider doing this after all of
- the health that has been experienced in that jail
- and what these people have been put through and we're talking about interrupting a hiring process that
- at least keeps fresh bodies coming in there when someone leaves there. And if we do that, the sheriff's
- right. This is exactly what happened because there wasn't attention paid to immediately jumping on that
- and here we go again.
- So, you know, I talked to my friend who's the sheriff of Morgan County. You know, they're dealing with
- Senate Bill 1 just like everybody else, I reckon. And I said, how'd you guys, they have a heart and
- freeze up there. I said, how'd you guys handle it? He goes, it didn't affect us. It wasn't even considered.
- They have their own, I get the thing, they have county EMS because county EMS, the sheriff's office,
- the jail, and, you know, fire, wasn't even considered in the conversation.
- So I would implore you, given tonight's events, and I'm not passing judgment on it, I'm just talking
- about the reality of where we sit tonight, we're going to be living in that jail. And we've got to deal
- with that jail. And we don't have a choice. Nobody else sitting in this room, nobody else that was talking
- tonight will have to contend with that.
- So it's pretty easy when you go home and you're not dealing with it every day. I'm sitting here sick
- as a dog and I've been sick as a dog for five days, but I got to come in here. And I have seen our folks
- struggle mightily with that because they come to work sick because they don't want to let their shift
- partner down. Because when one guy leaves the shift, the whole thing goes into chaos. And unless you
- work in there,
- All I can do is tell you about it. You're welcome to come work a couple shifts if you'd like. But it's
- not pleasant, I can promise you that. So that's my two cents worth for what it's worth. It takes people
- to help people. It takes people to ensure that we're in the right position at the right time and these
- are trained individuals
- putting themselves in a position to help people. And that's what we're all talking about. I mean, we're
- talking about extra programs, and we're talking about this, and we're talking about that, and all these
- ways we can help, but that takes manpower. As it stands right now, Nicky Ferris, who worked over 26
- years in that position, has now been gone for about a month. That's a month that we haven't had somebody
- that's done the job for almost all over 26 years. That is incredibly difficult to try to handle, especially
- when I've only been here for three. She was doing things in that position that I didn't even know were
- things, and I run the jail. Right now, we just have a hodgepodge, including me. We're all trying to
- figure it out. If tonight you said, all right, after a month, we'll allow you to fill the position,
- it's going to take weeks.
- of applications. And if it's somebody who doesn't have the level of experience that Nikki Ferris had
- when she left, I've got to try to fill that with one person. I can't cut somewhere else and hope that
- I can figure that out. So the training that it would take after the three weeks of applications, after
- the three to four weeks of background checks, the training would take just as long. We're looking at months.
- before we have somebody, if you decide today to fill that position. The issue with that is that the
- people inside the facility, their attorneys and their families, and they don't care that we're shorthanded.
- They need things at certain times. As it stands here, we've been here for over six hours now. We've
- provided meal service. We've done laundry. We've cleaned the facility.
- We've done transports. We've prepared people for court in the morning. We've moved people around. We
- try to remain classified in some way or another, because obviously you guys understand we're limited
- on space. All of those things take people. And when the jail commander's sitting in here and the chief
- deputy and the sheriff, you've got to rely on the captain that's there. And when he's there, he's got
- to rely on his sergeants. Everybody plays a role.
- And in this job, we have statutory requirements. And this is the first time I've seen E's list. And
- I think it's a great start. I just think that for us, it's not even close to feasible. Pete, you were
- the one this whole time, you were so invested in making sure we remained fully staffed. You were the
- one beating that drum and I loved you for it. I still do. But if we start going backwards,
- if even it means for one position, because again, you get your 80 hours on initial hire, 40 hours every
- year or in the first year, and then you get 16 hours every year after. When we do this training, when
- we take down use of force instances by over 500% or down 85%, I'm sorry, that comes from allowing us
- to take 30 officers to train them properly while the rest of the staff runs the jail.
- We can't just do that. We don't get to shut things down. We're not at clerical deadlines for some things.
- We have people, and people change by the second, by what the sheriff said. And this is your decision,
- obviously. This is what you do. All we can say is we express our needs.
- And again, I'll echo what the sheriff said. I don't want any other office, especially judges who we
- work closely with, to feel like we believe that we're more important than anyone else. That's what it
- can look like, especially as law enforcement. And I understand that perception. But I will say, if I
- don't have the people to do the jobs, I can't do mine. And if I can't do mine, then the people of Monroe
- County elected the sheriff and put him in a position that's untenable.
- The last thing I'm going to say is this, because when I walk through the halls of that office, and I'm
- thinking about, okay, how do we proceed from this point forward? Because I have to abide by the policy
- that you set. But I'm walking by a wall that we have that I don't wish is on any department.
- We have a wall, memorial wall, honored and dedicated to the people, deputies and correctional officers,
- They don't want to be here with us anymore. That's the distinction between us and anyone else. I don't
- wish that at anyone, but I don't want that wall growing. And it is there right now. So with that in
- mind, I am asking to be exempt. Because when people are fatigued and they're tired, it's a very dangerous
- job. But in our world,
- that. No one else could say that. We just can't. I want to make sure that that's understood. Okay. Thank
- you very much for bringing that to the attention. I will say that I feel like I've said this countless
- times during each of the conversations related to the hiring freeze.
- This is not a perfect situation that anybody wants to be in. And I can certainly understand what you
- guys are telling us how you feel. We don't wanna be in this position as well. And I don't think this
- has been, I've said this to y'all publicly and privately when we've had conversations about this. I
- think these are things that you can make the case for and the argument for which you all three
- are making for tonight to say why you are exempt, and I think you've done what you needed to do tonight.
- So I'm not gonna fault all of us up here for trying to figure out how
- we can do things with the constraints of SP one. We're not trying to put y'all at a very tight situation,
- even more than what we are already facing. Um, just the same. So I say all that to say that I hear you
- very loud and very clear. Um, and I'm willing to listen to my colleagues and I'm gonna go to Kate since
- you are the liaison. Thank you. Um, I want to
- Thank you, Mr Givens for the phone call today and talking to me and. It you know, I think that your
- point that you made earlier at the lectern is is one that's that's very important communication and
- being able to have conversations is critical to keeping things moving forward, not taking two steps back.
- every time, not ending up in a position where we vote down something that we've been working toward
- because we can't ethically do it. So all of that to say, I think that I can't speak for my colleagues,
- but my guess is that we're all on the same page here. For a correctional officer position, for a road
- deputy certainly,
- please don't let us hold you up. We get that those are critical positions, and I'm ready to vote to
- exempt those right this minute. That's where I am. And I'm just guessing others are, too, especially
- the one down there waving her arms. She's like, woo! How did I get home before midnight? Yeah, but what
- I think, the devil's in the details,
- I think what we might need to discuss are your clerical positions exempt. I don't think we can exempt
- an entire department or office, but we can certainly say, in my opinion, yeah, certain positions, certain
- types of positions should be exempt, and we don't want to hold you up on that. I know you have a position
- that you're referring to that isn't vacant. I literally
- dumbed me, my fault, did not realize that the facility manager position was Nicky Ferris's position.
- I was thinking, oh, it's just a facility manager. It's like maintenance. Why do you need that filled
- so badly? And then Kyle set me straight, and I was like, oh, yeah.
- that position runs half of what goes on inside that jail and half of all of the good things like the
- folks, you know, the inmates who are working in the jail and keeps that whole thing flowing. So,
- you know, communication, just that to me, I think that would be a case where you could lay
- out the operational impact of not having that position.
- You know, that person was impacting the quality of life of the positions we're about to, you know, we
- would exempt. You know, so I want to craft something where we can look at that and we can differentiate
- between the facility manager in the jail and somebody else who
- And I'm not going to name a position because I'll get in great big trouble, but another position that
- doesn't have that type of role where they're feeding 750 meals worth of people every day and that kind
- of thing. And that's what this conversation should be about is differentiating that.
- I think a separate conversation and perhaps a more immediate conversation is do we have exempt positions
- and where are they. What are they. And let's be really clear and get that messaging out to our department.
- So we're not having panic and demoralized employees. I'll stop now. Thanks.
- And I think we should probably take it one step further because the way that we got to the language
- of this hiring freeze was looking at the hiring freeze from a decade ago. And so as we're thinking,
- maybe it wasn't a decade ago, whatever it was, as we're thinking about getting this, it would behoove
- us to do what you just said, I think, work quickly
- so that we address the immediate concerns, but also be really clear-eyed about how we're moving, how
- we're writing this so that it makes a lot of sense. The second point I want to make is Youth Service
- Bureau is not here right now, and I'm curious about what other departments exist that would be that
- 24-hour, you know, I don't think there is one.
- But I think we need to also be thinking about their operations and what needs to be done there, too.
- Can I respond to Kate real quick here? Kate has a very valid point. Our plea here is simply for corrections
- officers and merit officers. Those other ones, one, there's so few of them, and two, we don't
- We're not saying that the operations inside our agency are so much more important than others. So I
- wouldn't fault the council at all if you said any position that's not a corrections officer or a merit
- officer you must come for here like everybody else does and justify the reason why you need that field.
- You know, the facilities manager position is kind of a fluke here. We would certainly come to you and
- say, hey, we would like a real rapid response on the person who cooks 750 meals and orders all of the
- food and all the cleaning supplies and manages the inmate workers and all that stuff. But the day-to-day
- operations, what we deal with, first off, is the turnover on the corrections side more than anything,
- and then the
- the safety issues and the public service issue creates when a merit deputy's position is vacant. So
- that's all we're talking about here. Am I wrong, Sheriff? No, you beat me too. And my apologies if I
- can make that crystal clear. Our concern basically utmost correctional officers and the merit.
- That affects public safety tremendously in our world. I wouldn't be sitting in front of you if we had
- enough staff members, but we don't, and that's what really worries me because, again, bad things happen
- really quick in our profession, and if we're not fully staffed, it's just gonna make it worse.
- And not if, it's when. It's gonna happen. That's my dilemma, but I agree with...
- The fact that, you know, not the entire department, no, I'm asking for corrections and merit. So I agree
- with you. Councillor Henry. I'll keep it brief. I know we're late, very late. I want to just honor the
- fact that you're still here. There are department heads that waited out and are here and I appreciate
- that they do this. There are others that we might not see as very often, but I appreciate you're here.
- I want to honor the fact that we did talk earlier in the week. I think a lot of what I talked about
- with all of you has been basically said about the exemption that needs to be made. I think all I'm just
- going to say is I wasn't here for the vote either on that Wednesday. It was later into the evening.
- I guess I had made an assumption that the positions that we would qualify for overtime were kind of
- similar to this. I must have crossed those wires confusing that we didn't exempt.
- From the hiring freeze basically the same positions be exempted from overtime pay which is merit and
- jail in that list So I think it's an easy fix. I mean if there's a probably a broader or longer conversation
- We got to do about all of this, you know in terms of the the range of positions I will say to you I
- think for council It is a foretaste of what you know a tighter budget might look like where we are starting
- to talk about personnel that are well
- you know, the word essential versus those that are programmatic or administrative or other roles that,
- you know, you have to run your operation on or else, as Councilor Hawks said, you know, we can't close,
- right? And as you've said, too. So at this point, I'm marble-mouthed, but I'm happy to support the exemption
- for this particular department with those positions that we've discussed because of the reasons discussed,
- and that's it. Thank you, Madam President. Any Councilor Fiddle?
- I just wondered, I support this, but I just wondered if you have any idea how many correction and merit
- officers we might be talking about here, the positions, about, it doesn't have to be exact. Right now,
- we have two vacant merit positions. No, I don't mean the vacancies. I mean like how many total merit
- and correctional officers are there? She's asked total number of correctional officers. A big idea,
- a range. 88 total.
- How many part times? 88 total correction officers. And then part time is seven. So about 95 total,
- you think? That's part of the 88. Oh, part of the 88. That's part of the 88. So total about 80. Okay,
- thank you. Correction officers. There's 45 mayor deputies. So 45 and 88, is that what you're talking
- about? Yes. Thank you. That's the number I was looking for, about. Thank you. Yes, ma'am.
- In light of this conversation, I drafted language to add to the resolution if you would like to see
- that, please.
- Okay so this is the resolution. I added the language in red under hiring department so originally it
- said no department exempt from the hiring freeze struck that language and added the council does not
- intend for this resolution to jeopardize public safety and or the continuation of necessary county services
- within the correctional center and or the sheriff's office. Therefore one correctional officer positions
- within the Monroe County Correctional Center and two merit deputy positions within the sheriff's office
- will be exempt from the hiring freeze. The elected official and or department head, as delineated here
- and by this paragraph, may continue with the hiring of any vacancy within these respective departments
- without seeking permission from the council pursuant to this amended resolution. And then I struck in
- the chart where they had three positions already identified. Yes, Councilor Feiter. So what happened,
- Molly, to their account or
- But Molly Turner-King, what happened to the Youth Services Bureau? Were we not thinking about that either
- at this point? I could add Youth Services Bureau. You could always come back and amend this after a
- discussion with Youth Services Bureaus as to what positions they're talking about. That sounds good.
- But since the Sheriff's Office is here tonight, I think we can add this language to accommodate their
- request if that is the will of the Council. Thank you.
- I think in the interest of time, since they're here and it's critical for these positions to be added,
- again, much like we keep finding things that we need to add to this resolution, I think it would be
- in the best interest of us to try to proceed with this. And then maybe we can work with employee services
- and staff to figure out who else
- could also potentially be exempt on this, whether that's the highway, whether it's YSB. Those people
- that have critical 24-hour care, I'm just trying to make sure, because we're not going to get it all
- right now, and it's almost midnight. But since they're here, we move forward with doing what we need
- to do with this and then working together with any other department that
- has positions that potentially could be exempt. Does that sound like a plan for everybody? Okay, yes.
- I have one more thing. The facilities manager position, we actually already put in for in looking for
- permission to hire it. I think Kim said that we didn't have any available council members and it may
- be slipped through the cracks a little bit. Are we
- Are we saying that if this is passed, we can hire that position? Are we getting approval for that tonight?
- And I think that would be something that maybe we can add to the list. And I will say, because I've
- said this to y'all as well, I swear
- that I thought that very early on in the conversation that this was a position that was supposed to
- be added to the exemplist. I still stand like I swear I thought I saw it somewhere. So if that got mixed
- in the sauce, then I'm sorry for that. Yes. Excuse me. The that that position is going to be addressed
- later in item 10 because we need to amend the the exempt list.
- because there was some errors with regards to account numbers and that kind of thing. So that was one
- of the things that I said to add to that, so. Okay, so then we can proceed, yes. Council, I move to
- amend resolution 2025-42 with the language on the screen, as well as the items in the chart that were
- updated. Second.
- All right, we got a motion and a second. Is there any other further discussion on this? All right, seeing
- none, all those in favor of. Oh, public comment. OK, if we got public comment on this item, please,
- if you're still here, please come forward to the lectern here in the net. You know, I raise your hand
- via teams. I think we might have public comment. Oh, it's OK.
- voting on this so I can go. We're trying. We're all trying to get to our final destination, which is
- home right now. Amen. Yeah. Hi, guys. Kylie Ferris, election supervisor. I want to say that I agree
- with the sheriff and his team on that the hiring freeze is not a one size fits all. Now, I know our
- situations are not the same, but both of our work does have to be done.
- But with that being said, the absentee staff that we have that works for our office are individuals
- who we already are having issues with finding enough of them, let alone having this hiring freeze where
- they're all afraid that they're not going to be accepted back. We already have enough hoops to jump
- through. And so one of our main concerns is that if we get to the election next year and we have somebody
- call out last minute
- Are we going to have to wait to come back to a county council and not have an individual to fill that
- spot for that day? And what that's going to look like moving forward? I understand that, like I said,
- our offices are not the same. They're 24 hours. We're twice a year. But absentee voting is 28 days,
- twice a year. So just trying to make sure that we are also going to be covered with this hiring fees
- as well and getting that on the table for you guys. Thank you.
- Thank you. All right. Is there any other public comment on this item? All right. And seeing none, all
- those in favor of amending the resolution as presented? Yes.
- Since it's a resolution, it needs to be a voice. Oh, my bad. I'm sorry. It's I mean, a roll call. OK,
- way past my bedtime. Yeah, my brain is saying one thing and my tongue is saying something else.
- All right. So roll call, please. Councilor Crossley. Yes. Councilor Iverson. Yes. Councilor Deckard.
- Yes. Councilor Feidl. Yes. Councilor Wilts. Yes. Councilor Henry. Motion passes unanimous. And I'll
- make note that Councilor Hawke has left the meeting.
- Okay. All right. So that's it there. Thank you, Council. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Next up on the
- agenda here is item H. Council, I move to open for discussion and possible approval the Sheriff's Request
- and Fund 1000-2005 County Sheriff General and to submit an in-house transfer request and move to a total
- of 52. Sorry.
- We didn't finish the conversation with regards to the rubric. Yeah, you did a motion just on that. And
- so you guys, you have to decide what you want to do moving forward. Let's flip it in reverse and come
- back to you. There you go. Yeah, I mean, this is your show. Sorry, Jamie. Yeah, so now those folks are
- taken out of it. And you got to decide what you're going to do with everyone else. So we'll figure out
- other exemptions.
- possibly, but then how do you want this to work with those other requests? Got it. Anything else you
- want to add? And thank you. You've also been here. You've been here for a while too, so appreciate it.
- Thank you. Giving shout outs. So all right. Anything else we need to add? I'm looking at y'all over
- yonder. Ms. Turner King has a puzzle look on her face.
- Do you want me to say more? I don't have a thought, actually. I'm now on the fly. I think you have to
- there's two prongs of this. Are you OK with this form? Do you want to implement this form? And then
- if we are implementing this form, who is scoring this form? You have a couple options, I think. You
- could use PAC for this capacity. You could treat it similar to KSAs where employee services and council
- administrators score it or council can
- court, but weirdly as a whole in a public meeting. Weirdly as a whole? No, no. I mean, as a whole.
- I mean, it would feel awkward doing it in a public meeting. So, yeah, I mean, I think wouldn't that
- be PAC is kind of not doing anything at the moment because of what we've been implementing?
- So maybe that is a good thing to go with pack and I saw council will stand up. That's what I was gonna
- say That pack should meet to go over Play with play with that and you'll be there right? I mean that
- would be awesome if you could be in And if there's gonna be a scoring procedure
- Maybe we don't ask a whole bunch of open-ended questions. Maybe we put it on a scale of one to five.
- Maybe we do some, I don't know. It seems like a lot of open-ended questions would be harder to score
- because then it would be very subjective. Agreed. And I think that that was my intent was to take the
- subjectiveness out of it as much as we can. Great. Great. I agree.
- I think I'm good then. So we'll just, you know, on the advice of council, we'll call a PAC meeting and
- the committee then will work with the HR director and myself as well as legal and we'll come up with
- a form for you guys to approve as soon as we can.
- Yes, counselor. Is there anything else that you needed to bring our attention to that you were looking
- for more specific feedback? No, I don't think so. I think that it would just in my experience working
- with departments that a lot of ambiguity leaves room for
- confusion and just like a lack of understanding of what the goals are, right? And so I think that if
- you have something that helps them essentially get on the same page as you and know what details you're
- looking for, that would be helpful for them. Great. So thank you again and again. All right. Sorry,
- can I make a timing concern comment? So if
- meets to form this what they want in this document in the rubric and then that will come back to full
- council is the idea that that's happening before November 10th when you tabled all so it'll go on the
- November 10th meeting and then maybe PAC should consider how they're going to potentially apply whatever
- procedure is to the pending request should should pack be the score
- What did you say? Is that kind of what you're saying? Oh, the score. I don't know that I'm saying PAC
- should be the score. I'm saying we just tabled the request from just table the request from tonight's
- meeting so that we can apply the process, but we don't have a process.
- I mean, I don't know. Maybe the solution is to reach out to Highway and Prosecutor, whose requests were
- tabled, and ask them if it's in the November meeting, second November meeting, if that's bad. I think
- the highway was moved to the second meeting. Yes. Beth is still here. Maybe she can answer. I don't
- know if Ms. Hamlin wants to be put on the spot to answer this question. I guess that I'm posing. I want
- to catch her before she laughs.
- We tabled the prosecutor's juvenile deputy request to November 10th. If it gets pushed to the November
- 18th meeting, is that detrimental? Do you feel comfortable speaking to this issue? We can work with
- the 18th. I think it's important we find some kind of tangible process. That solves my timing concern.
- And that's what the next PAC meeting is going to be, is
- I just want to be clear. It's like an effort of good faith. It's still an unfilled position that we're
- covering, and we'll speak to that on the 18th. Thank you. Thank you. Are everybody clear on what needs
- to be done? Thank you, E. Yes, and so since I have the PAC members here,
- I'm assuming we want to meet because we'll have to advertise that meeting for November the 4th and what
- would be a good time? I know that Councillor Wilts said that she has a noon is not good for her. Unless
- you want to review your schedule, we can do a doodle poll. We have time. Can I go to sleep first? I
- was just about to say, can we please, like, let's figure, yeah.
- We just got some stuff. All right. Now we're going to move on to item H. All right. Here we go, Jamie.
- Council I move to open for discussion and possible approval of the sheriff's request and fund one thousand
- zero zero zero five county general sheriff to submit an in-house transfer request and move a total of
- fifty two thousand dollars into the overtime lines which is required per resolution twenty twenty five
- dash forty one use of overtime budget and reporting. All right.
- And thank you for your patience. Well, thank you guys. So for this, we are already overexpended by a
- little over $7,000 in our deputy overtime. Pull your mic down. Thank you. That better? Yeah. Sorry.
- So we do need to transfer money, obviously. We're wanting to transfer from our two vacant deputy positions.
- Clearly, we're not going to be able to fill those by the end of the year.
- The other line is for CHIRP. That's the reimbursable grant. You don't want to go into the negative with
- it. So that's why I'm saying $7,000 for that. I don't anticipate that we will need the full $45,000
- for the deputy overtime, but because it's so close to the end of the year, I'd rather put more money
- in there. Okay. Any council?
- Do you have any questions or comments on this item?
- If there's still public comment that is still watching and still would like to make a comment on this
- item, you can come forward to the lectern here in the NatU Hill Room. We'll say good morning to you.
- Or you can raise your hand via Teams. Yup, I would be in my bed with my bonnet on right now. All right,
- so that being said, may we please have a roll call vote?
- Councillor Decker. Yes. Councillor Fiddle. Yes. Councillor Wilts. Yes. Councillor Henry. Yes. Councillor
- Hawke has left the building. Councillor Crossley. Yes. Councillor Iverson. Yes. Motion passes unanimous.
- All right. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is item I.
- Council I move to open for discussion and possible approval of the sheriff's request and fund 1000 dash
- zero three eight zero county general jail to submit an in to submit an in-house transfer request and
- move a total of thirty four thousand dollars into the overtime line which is required per resolution
- 2025-41 use of overtime budgeting and reporting. All right. Good morning. Good morning.
- That's so weird right now. It is. I never thought I'd say that. As you can see, I kind of laid out all
- the facts and the details specific to this request. We're asking to move $34,000 into our overtime.
- As I've stated in this information, that should suffice for the remainder of the year without maybe
- a little bit on the safer side in hopes of not having to revisit this at a later meeting. Thank you.
- Council, yes, Council, I understand. For both, just to request this over time, the detail is so appreciated.
- This came up earlier in the meeting, but the level of detail is really fantastic. I know it probably
- seems like overkill, but it's not. Thank you. Happy to help. Anybody else? All right. If there's public
- comment that would like to make a comment on this item, you can come forward to the lectern here in
- the NETU Hill Room, or you can raise your hand via Teams.
- Seeing none, may you please have a roll call vote. Please have a roll call vote. Sorry. It's okay. Councilor
- Feidl. Yes. Councilor Wilts. Yes. Councilor Henry. Yes. Councilor Crossley. Yes. Councilor Iverson.
- Yes. Councilor Decker. Yes. Motion passes unanimous. All right. Thank you.
- Good night and good morning. All right. Moving on to the next item still. Item J. Council, I move to
- approve ordinance 2025-39, an ordinance to approve and fix terms and conditions for the sale of land.
- Second. All right. And we have Mr. Cockrell that is coming up. Thank you.
- whether to say good evening or good morning. Good morning. Good night. This is an ordinance, so unless
- it has an anonymous vote today, it will have to come back at the next meeting. So I thought I'd throw
- that out there first. What this is is we've discussed the Thompson property. I think we've had an executive
- session where we had a potential buyer. Everybody seemed really interested in
- and selling that property, what this will do is allow the commissioners to use one of three statutory
- options. One would be kind of the regular notice out and we collect bids. The second one would be a
- provision that would allow us to use the economic development provision, if so choose, so that if we
- had someone who wanted to develop it, you get a little bit more flexibility with the timelines.
- of them researching the property or not. And the third is for another governmental entity in case maybe
- say Bloomington wanted to buy it. In any event, the average of the two appraisals is $4,672,500 and
- this would not allow for a sale less than that amount. All right. Thank you very much. Council, any
- questions or comments on this topic?
- Councilor Wilts, I saw your hand first and then Mr. Deckard. In the spirit of keeping options open,
- should we maybe table this or postpone till we know more about our land use needs or are we for sure?
- I don't know. This is what popped in my head. I don't know.
- Is there a reason that we have to do this now in the middle of the night? No. It's not like pressing.
- We don't have any potential buyers. We don't have any potential, anything like that. This is to begin
- the process. I mean, clearly, if earlier tonight went differently, this was going to be a fairly easy
- decision. I would say in defense of continuing to move forward with this, if you so choose, we've looked
- at that property pretty extensively.
- that it was purchased for the jail complex and there are a lot of constraints to that property that
- would make it difficult to. Yeah. So I am in addition to my initial like, well, maybe we keep it in
- our back pocket. It is the middle of the night and this type of like sale of land
- approval thing at literally 1208. I mean, maybe just to save face a little bit. I mean, you know, there's
- nobody awake to make public comment in case there was. I mean, I just would like to table it. Well,
- in all fairness, let's hear what other council members say. And what? I can't just keep talking. I mean,
- you did a great job externally processing. Thank you. Now it's time to hear what other people have to
- say. Council member Deckard.
- I am I'm actually interested in seeing the county recoup dollars from things that have been sitting
- there. I agree with Councilor Wilson. That's your middle of the night is the time to do it. This is
- a long agenda with Herculean things on it and with tons of it. One thing I just want to say that this
- site was well discussed in those neighborhoods in among lots of people.
- And what I want to make sure we don't do, if I'm just speaking my druthers since it's already late,
- is that we start then eyeballing this with squinting eyes and say, well, you know what? That one looks
- pretty, too, because they all start like that. Somebody, you know, there once was a dream called Fullerton,
- Virgil Pike, Thompson, North Park. Someone will send something tonight. And later, people will say,
- not in my backyard. Don't do it.
- And so I have some concerns over that. I also I also want to make sure of one thing abundantly clear
- is that once it is sold, that becomes something that someone does something with. And so neighbors may
- find things there that are akin to whatever. So I just you know, this is what we've learned about land,
- property and jails and justice centers.
- All right, does it count? Councillor Crossley, do you have anything to say about this topic? No, except
- for I think it's late and I don't want to make a decision like this with it being as late as it is.
- All right, I'm going to continue to pretend like I'm still running this meeting. Councillor Wilts, would
- you like to make a motion? I'd like to table this item until our next council meeting, which is November
- 10th. Second.
- And if I may, I'm going to consider that. This would be the first reading of this ordinance. Yes. So
- that at the next meeting, it would be the second reading. Ooh, I like that. Someone is not as sleepy
- as the rest of us. All right. Is there any public comment on this tabling? Seeing none, can we have
- a roll or a voice vote? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed? All right, the ayes
- have it. See you on the 10th. You want to take this out?
- Yeah. Molly, help us with item 10A. There's more. And you got to read the motion before she takes this.
- Council, I move to approve the following amendments to the 2025-42 hiring freeze exempt list to correct
- fund slash account slash location numbers and positions. One, amend airport
- amend airport account line from fourteen zero zero three to thirteen five nine zero two you can skip
- two three thank you add jail facilities manager one thousand dash sixteen zero two one dash zero three
- eight zero full-time
- amend the first TSD support technician from 11 38 1 3 2 9 0 dash 0 0 0 0 to 1000 dash 1 7 8 0 1 dash
- 0 1 0 6 and Finally add ysb counselor 8 1 2 0 dash 1 1 1 2 0 dash 9 6 2 6 full time Mr. King
- These are corrections that in working with employee services we have identified needs to be made to
- the resolution so they reflect correct account lines and then it adds the sheriff's office. I mean the
- correctional centers facilities manager to the exempt list. With the caveat we're adding the facilities
- manager to this exemption list on now October 29th.
- The exemption list has a expiration date of November 1st. And so I don't think they're going to hire
- someone in the next three days. What do they have to have done by November? Sorry, an offer extended
- and accepted all best laid plans. So. I mean, everyone else on that list was given
- was included originally whenever that was passed at camera call. I think we can specify in making the
- amendment that they have a longer time to hire. So I don't know, December 31st?
- we should have that done easily by that period of time. It's simply opening the position. Then we have
- to do a background investigation interviews and all those types of things. So I'd say if you use December
- 31st, I would give us more than ample time to do that. So I can make the amendment and then specify
- in that line in the chart that unlike all the other positions listed in that chart, they have until
- December 31st due to the late edition. Yes. Okay.
- Is there a motion to move to that effect? So moved. Second. All right. We got a motion and a second
- to add the jail facilities manager position with an exempt or a date of December 31st, 2025 to get that
- filled. Any further discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor of amending this as presented signify
- by saying aye. Aye.
- All those opposed, same sign. Okay, motion carries. All right, now we go come back to overall. Man,
- that sounds like I just woke up and smoked a whole pack of cigarettes. Okay, so is there any other further
- discussion overall? Nope. All right. Just so choked up about all of this.
- If we can't public comment, if you are still listening and you would like to make a public comment,
- please entertain us by raising your hand via Teams. Or you can come to the lecture to hear the now.
- Seeing none, may please have a roll call vote. Yes.
- Yes. Councillor Decker. Yes. Councillor Feidl. Yes. Councillor Wilts. Yes. Councillor Henry. Yes. Motion
- passes unanimous. Thank you. That is all of the business. Yes. I'm sorry. As much as I don't want to
- do this, a power greater than me has pointed out that I need to point out that on item 8D,
- which was the property acquisition, there was a motion failed. A motion failing is not the same as a
- denied motion, which I believe is the intent of the council. A failed motion may not prevent the same
- or similar proposal from being reintroduced later. A denied motion is final action. It's very distinct
- but important difference in language. Therefore,
- I think hearing the conversation and what I believe is the intent of the council, I would suggest that
- item 8D be reopened and that if council wishes to do so, someone move to deny the appropriation for
- the property acquisition. Council, I move to reopen the commission's request and fund 1112-0000. Economic
- development lit.
- The creation of a count line four five one five one property acquisition And furthermore what's language
- If the intent is to deny the appropriation The motion should specifically say such so move to deny and
- council I moved to deny that line Second
- Motion and a second Because we have to be very tedious with this. Is there any other further discussion
- on that? Councillor Decker. I I have to say It makes me nervous doing an action on this After everybody
- has left the building. Yes on this and I get it and
- Except I don't want someone to watch this and later get a conspiracy theory that the one that tried
- to table it was speaking against us doing this I just think that sometimes these things get us into
- strange quicksands that at 12 18 at night are not I Don't want someone to be alarmed that they went
- back to that item in the middle of the night. It makes me very wary if this were
- improving minutes, that'd be a different thing, but I start to get nervous. That said, I will vote for
- this to keep that moving. And to that point, is there language or something that, Molly, you would be
- able to send to let people know, like, this is what happened? I believe there's case law on the difference
- between a failure of a motion and a denial of a motion. And so if we don't want to do this now, which I think
- my recommendation, and we do. I can send counsel the case law. If you do want to do this now, I can
- send something to... I don't know who to send it to. I don't know who... I do think it's important to
- be transparent about this, obviously. I just don't know who all to send
- a summary of what is happening too. I could easily brainstorming today's Tuesday. I could go and announce
- it at the commissioner's meeting on Thursday. I mean, I think couldn't also another email suffice to like,
- the commissioners and make an announcement as well. I guess my whole idea would be to communicate more.
- I don't want people to feel like the lack of communication is some sneaky link kind of way of doing
- something. What if we just tabled this and opened it to just to finish up the business of it. I mean
- our intent is clear and make it official as like
- and oh gosh, every single person is saying no. I think the idea that I would like is to put the communication
- out there, let it be known this is what we did. I mean, we already voted no, but I guess stamp it in
- red rubber ink and blood. We just need to do this as a finality.
- I guess. So, I mean, I guess I look at it as, and there's a member of the media here, so hopefully that
- could be, I'm not putting that on you, sorry. But just saying, like, sorry, let's lighten again. But
- I'm just wondering, like, if that is, like, we have to be able to get our
- the word out that this is what we did, because obviously, I think if we table it, we're going to have
- a longer conversation. I just see that being a longer, longer deal. And I just think we just need to
- do the business official, because it was brought to our attention by legal that this is what we need
- to do, and this is how we did it. I can draft an email to that effect. OK.
- heard Councilor Herring and then I'll go to item. Thank you. I'm going to just take it on face value
- that the corrective action was suggested and we take it to correct it this morning or whatever. I do
- not think and given the late hour I don't want to be skeptical of the legal interpretation we just had
- almost two hours after we took the vote. I think it's really important to say that because if this was
- I appreciate you caught it at this point but boy would that have been useful about two hours ago. And
- so if the corrective has been suggested and if that is the vote we take to just secure the evening fine
- otherwise I would just I almost want to pretend like I didn't hear you said so that if we had to fix
- it in our next meeting we would. I do not. I want to suggest that this is all suggested with good intentions.
- But if there's space now between what we've done this evening and the next time we gather
- We know how the courthouse works, because I gave a speech about it. So I'm just going to take it as
- the corrective action has been suggested. I would, of course, vote for it, because it is technical and
- procedural and not substantive in my view. It fixes a technical thing, and we move on. But I would be
- very remiss opening this up to a space that allows people to have conversations for two weeks before
- we get back to fixing it. Yes, sir. Quick point of inquiry.
- They cannot move forward with the appropriation. Is that correct? If you would have asked me that question
- two hours ago, I would have confidently said, yes, that is correct. But I haven't seen the case law
- on the difference between failure of emotion and denial. And so I don't know that I can answer that
- right now. And then Councilor Feidl had it.
- I'm wondering, could there be, wait, she's listening. I'm listening, sorry. So I'm wondering if there
- could be a statement of intent added to what we voted on. I can include language that legal requested
- that this action be taken to solidify the already expressed intent during the time that this item was
- discussed. Yes. Thank you.
- So does that? This conversation kind of serves as that. Yeah. OK. All right. So we got a motion and
- a second. I made the second. I did. Thank you. All right. Triumphantly. If there's public comment on
- this item, please come forward to the election here the night you go. Remember, raise your hand if you'd
- like to share. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote.
- Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Wilz? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor
- Decker? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. It was a made a motion to reopen and deny
- the appropriation request. Thank you. Okay. All right.
- So that being said, we are now to the end of the agenda. Council liaison updates and comments. I'm gonna
- ask y'all to hold that to November 10th. So with that being said, we are adjourned. Thank you. One more.