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.