- good evening everybody I would like to call tonight's meeting to order today is Tuesday December 9th
- and welcome to the Monroe County Council we have a packed agenda and we will go ahead and get started
- and again for the for counselors present to my right here we have counselors Henry Iverson Decker wilt
- and vital I don't see counselor a hawk
- on teams, but I'm sure she will be joining us here very soon. So we will go ahead and get started with
- our Pledge of Allegiance. So all those that are able to stand, please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.
- Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands,
- one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty
- justice for all okay all right next up is the adoption of tonight's agenda and does anybody wish to
- amend tonight's agenda yes council i ever say council i move to amend tonight's agenda in two ways number one
- I wish to table indefinitely items nine I and nine J per the department requests. That's nine I and
- nine J. And secondly, I'd like to add item six G, a request for an account line title change for the
- council office. Second. Okay. And then I actually wanted to amend
- our agenda for tonight as well. I know that I spoke with the sheriff this morning and they have their
- discussion that is on item 10A and I believe the individual that is traveling, is she present? Oh, hello.
- So she's traveling and so I would like to
- that up because I was told it was going to be brief, to let's see. I'll bump that up before we get into
- the meat and potatoes of the agenda. So I'll bump that to before we start the hire and freeze conversations.
- And then the other thing that I also wanted to
- for tonight's agenda is in light of everything that has been happening I think we should have a conversation
- of what's been happening with the or the proposal of the encampment situation it's deserved lots of
- conversation so I know I think I heard from maybe a couple of council members about this so I would
- like to add that also to tonight's agenda under
- council business. Will that be A or B or C or D or E? Why don't we make that, let's bump C to D and
- let's make the conversation item the new C.
- Another question for anybody from the public who is here about that issue and related issues. Is that
- when they should wait to make comment or should they come at public comment? They can come to public
- comment because usually what we do is we'll have discussion and sometimes discussion doesn't allow for
- a public comment. However, that could change. But because public is here first and foremost,
- I want to give respect to them as they are here. Don't want to waste the time. I'm sure their time definitely
- isn't wasted, but I just want to be respectful of everybody's time, whether it's public commenters.
- Obviously our room is very full tonight, but we also have other agenda items to discuss as well of county
- council business. So yes. Thank you.
- want to make sure everybody has a chance to speak instead of getting cut off. All right. Is there anybody
- else that has any other items to amend to tonight's agenda? Okay. And because I don't still see Councillor
- Huck on Teams, we can do this by voice vote. So all those in favor of approving tonight's agenda as
- amended signify by saying aye. All those opposed, same sign.
- Okay, motion carries. Okay.
- So next up, we will have public comment. And these are for items that are not on the agenda. I just
- want to make sure that we understand how public comment goes. I know recently, people have been wanting
- back and forth discussions. Public comment isn't necessarily allowed for back and forth discussions.
- However, any of us have the point of privilege to address anything that we hear tonight. So I want to
- make sure that we do that.
- And this is your time to talk to us. So I want to make sure that you use all full of your three minutes
- to say whatever it is that you want to say. I might have an idea of what you might want to say, but
- nonetheless, I don't want to assume. But I just want to make sure that people have plenty of time to
- do so. And if there's anything at any time that somebody has a question about, I'm sure one of us will
- be able to just kind of walk away from the dais, get your contact information, and we will
- proceed or.
- Some of you have also been emailing us, and I'm sure you also have our emails as well. But nonetheless,
- we want to make sure that you all are heard. So again, everybody that is wanting to make public comment
- here in the NatU Hill Room, you could come to the lectern here. You'll sign your name. All of the TVs
- here will have your timer here. You'll have up to three minutes. Just state your name for the record.
- Once the clock hits zero, that means you are done. So if you already
- know that you want to have or speak on items that are again not on tonight's agenda go ahead and start
- lining up for our friends via virtual land if you want to make a comment you also have a way of doing
- that as well you will just need to raise your hand and
- once we start seeing hands raised via Teams, I'll kind of alternate and go back and forth between our
- virtual team option and here in the Nattie Hill room. So everybody is good to go with how we're gonna
- do public comment? Okay, all right. So with that being said, I'd like to also acknowledge that Councilor
- Hawk is in the building. So all seven council members are present to do tonight's meeting. So we will
- proceed with our first public commenter.
- Good evening. Thank you, council members. It's been a minute since I've been here. I'm Mary Morgan.
- I'm executive director of Heading Home of South Central Indiana. As you know, we are a nonprofit that
- was set up to address systemic long-term challenges that prevent people from being housed in this region.
- And that's what we're working on. The county has been, as you know, a very strong partner in the Heading
- Home initiative.
- Many of you served on the plan that was developed as a community effort several years ago. Councilmember
- Wilts is a member of our board, as is Efrat Rosser, who is also here tonight, Bloomington Township Trustee.
- I'd also like to introduce one of our key staff, Erin Reynolds Nyland.
- who's in the back here. She's our director of housing stability and is overseeing the new staff that
- we're hiring for street outreach and diversion and prevention. I guess I'm just here tonight to say
- that there are a lot of different partners, including Heading Home, but many, many others in this community
- that have been doing the very challenging and long-term work of working with people
- who are seeking housing. This is not something that we can solve overnight because like all of us in
- this room, everyone who is unhoused has their own unique history, their own personal story to tell,
- their own reasons for arriving where they are today. So I hope we can all keep the individuals
- and their histories front and center as we talk about some of these system challenges that we're experiencing
- and how we can work together in partnership with the county, with the city and our other partners to
- really improve and shorten the length of time that people become stay homeless or that we can prevent
- people from becoming homeless in the first place.
- I would love to come back and give a longer report about some of heading homes work and some of the
- challenges and solutions that we're working on. But tonight I'll just say thank you for your partnership
- and I know it's a difficult issue and we need to work together to improve all of the lives of residents
- here. Thank you.
- I don't see any hands raised via teams. But again, if there's anybody that is on teams that would like
- to speak, go ahead and raise your hand. And until I see a hand raise on teams, I'm just going to keep
- going here and then at you Hill room. So again, state your name for the record. You have up to three
- minutes. Hi, everybody. My name is Shelby Porter off. My pronouns are she they and I want to thank you
- for taking the time to listen to our concerns. I'm going to move as quickly as possible. I've got a
- lot to say.
- Given that we have limited time, I won't spend much recapping the series of deeply flawed events that
- led us to this conversation. But if there are any concerns, I encourage you to follow up with me or
- us individually for more detailed discussion. I do, however, need to address a few things that have
- occurred today. The first of note is that we have been informed that the agenda line item up for discussion
- tonight pertaining to the cumulative capital fund has been pulled from discussion by the commissioners.
- This fund is being used to pay for the eviction of Thompson property, and tonight was the only opportunity
- for this fund to be discussed
- among council members in advance of the eviction date set for 12-15. We see this tactic for what it
- is and we want to call attention to it. If the commissioners cancel public meetings moving forward from
- this evening, we recognize that tactic too. This is hiding from the very constituency that they are
- obligated to represent. Secondly is that just hours ago I was texted by Commissioner Thomas who informed
- our group that the meeting she scheduled for us to discuss this issue has been moved from its designated
- time. This meeting was set in collaboration with
- for Wednesday at 7 p.m. via Teams. Commissioner Thomas has moved this meeting to a work session on Thursday
- at 1 p.m. at a time that we are not available to attend due to our jobs. Commissioner Thomas was aware
- of this. She also discussed in her office hours on December 4th that setting a meeting required public,
- open door policy and must be in person if exceeded a number of attendees. When I personally pushed back
- against this schedule change, her response today was that this was the only time that worked for the
- commissioner's schedules. I just want to note and go on record
- that all of the people here tonight who were at the Commissioner's meeting last Thursday have been working
- around their full-time jobs, their personal lives, their support of this community, in addition to attending
- these meetings, scheduling phone calls, and hours of informal pop-up discussion with county officials.
- Our time is valuable, and it is the duty of these elected governing agents to accommodate their constituents.
- You represent us.
- By this point in time, I assume the majority of the council members have been informed that the Thompson
- property, also called the RCA Camp, was slated for evictions of the unhoused community that lives there
- on December 8th. The folks here this evening pushed the commissioners hard to get a stay of eviction
- so we could discuss with the county council and commissioners more closely why evictions in the winter
- are a death sentence. Backing up a bit in time, on Monday, December 1st, members of the unhoused community
- at RCA Camp were given paper notices by three deputies that identified themselves with the county sheriff's
- department.
- The flyer was not on official letterhead, was not signed by any sitting elected member of the county's
- governing body, and gave the folks living at camp a week to leave. The flyer informed the community
- members that their belongings would be stored at Monroe County Highway Garage for one week and that
- Justin Baker would coordinate retrieval of these belongings. In addition to this flyer, a job posting
- via cleanup company Bio One was listed online, citing unhoused encampment cleanups as the hired project.
- In this job description, there are two bullet points of note.
- Any items that seem very personal will be put in a personal property dumpster, which the county will
- take care of and your time's up. Yep. Going to keep going. Most of what we will be interacting with
- will be trash. So don't worry about being too picky. I will leave it to my fellow constituents to outline
- why winter evictions should be against county policy. But I emphasize that the process in which this
- anticipated eviction was conducted is unacceptable. In addition to the very real, very high risk of
- a winter eviction,
- that a winter eviction poses to the community members of RCA, as well as other encampments, there was
- no clear vetted procedure for conducting an encampment eviction. This process was not made accessible
- to the public, nor the community members that live on Thompson property. And when we, as constituents
- of this county, pressed for more information, we were not able to be provided with any clear answers
- as to who approved this eviction. Last line, I promise. Last paragraph, I promise. Sorry. I want to
- go on record and make myself very clear, as I believe that when I was quoted in an earlier press release
- regarding the week-long extension of the eviction,
- I was misrepresented in my views. Under no circumstances do I support evictions of encampments. Evictions
- are harmful inhumane actions, and from a logistic standpoint, they do not help effectively mitigate
- any variables contributing to chronic houselessness. With that said,
- If evictions are to be conducted, it is unacceptable for county government to not have a rigorous publicly
- vetted policy. We urge and implore the council to demand the county commissioners to create procedures
- that are reviewed in collaboration with outreach members and houseless community members. We also urge
- the council to encourage commissioners that at the very minimum, a pause on any evictions be implemented
- until collaborations with community can occur.
- I end with a reaffirmation of my belief that evictions are never the answer. There is expansive research
- that supports this belief. And if a truly collaborative process is to be facilitated by the county,
- then we would be happy to support the sustainable, effective options that are available.
- I'd like to talk about the critical need to make winter evictions against county policy and encourage
- counsel here in discussing legislation with the commissioners. In 2020, during the height of the COVID-19
- pandemic, the city of Bloomington's office of the mayor proceeded with evicting the unhoused encampment
- at Seminary Park. This was done against the direct guidelines of the CDC that stated unhoused encampments
- for public health should be left alone, in place, and undisturbed.
- A member of that community died just a few days after this eviction occurred. I want to bring a closer
- case in time that fortunately did not result in the deaths of our friends in the houseless community,
- but very easily could have. Yesterday, December 8th, city of Bloomington proceeded with an eviction
- of the Brown Woods property on the west side of town. Despite public reports for the city that only
- one person remained at that camp, I can say personally, there were five. I was there last night.
- There's five people, one dog, still calling this site home. Health Net, an organization that's been
- identified as a resource employed by the city and the county, went out to this property, collected all
- of the individual's blankets, clothing, and other warm belongings, told the folks they would return
- to help them move, and never came back. Let me be very clear on what happened here last night. Health Net,
- an agency contracted by the county and the city left five people without their warm gear outside in
- the evening anticipated eviction in the dead of winter. The average temperature yesterday was 27 degrees
- Fahrenheit with a low of 18, not including wind chill. Myself and many other people of the community
- spent the better part of yesterday evening in Brownwoods helping those five individuals.
- One of us set out to calling the city government with just five minutes to spare before their business
- hours concluded. Their only concession that they would not evict until 8.30 this morning. They did not
- offer to get any of these five individuals camp secured housing for the evening. That was all on us.
- We were able to leverage our community partnerships with Hotels for Homeless and their director,
- Katie Norris, to get all five of these people in a hotel for the night.
- This emergency would have never occurred if evictions were not permitted in the winter. It is with this
- that we emphasize not the necessity for making winter evictions a violation of county policy and encourage
- immediate legislative action. We ask that the council support this initiative and ask for the assistance
- in impressing this need upon the commissioners. Thank you. All right, thank you.
- Now I'm going to go to teams before I go back to here in the night, you know, room person, Jonathan,
- you have you should be able to unmute. And again, you'll have up to three minutes. All right, so I don't
- really have anything to I'm sorry. Can you state your name for the record? Sorry, that's my bad. My
- name is Jonathan Merriman.
- And I don't necessarily have a prepared statement, but I just want to express my opinion and tell everybody
- that I really believe that these evictions are cruel in the truest sense of the word. They will lead
- to the deaths of multiple people more than likely. And there's a reason why these people aren't in homeless
- encampments. It's because they don't necessarily really have anywhere else to go. And I just think that
- at the very least,
- the County Commission should stay these evictions. I believe that they should prevent them entirely,
- but at the very least they need to be stayed to winter or stay till spring. I'm sorry. Um, that's what
- I have to say. Thank you.
- from my colleagues I want to talk about a future where harmful ill-advised situations like this do not
- occur again. I'm sorry can you say your name for the record? My name is Aidan Reif and I thank the council
- for taking our advice into consideration. The literature regarding effective solutions to chronic
- houselessness supports housing first. This does not mean shelters it means houses. Put people in houses.
- Right now Bloomington and Monroe County are in a housing crisis.
- In addition to this, there is word circulating that Crawford is closing due to the loss of federal funding.
- If this occurs, the people living at the site will most likely be unhoused. Our crisis is not shrinking,
- it is growing. Evictions, which are a costly financial project, not only directly oppose what the evidence
- suggests, but sets our community even further back. Thompson property is roughly 95 acres of outright
- owned county property.
- It has the potential to be catalyzed into a real solution-driven site, but that is not possible if ongoing
- and earnest collaboration with our houseless community members doesn't occur. The answers to what our
- community needs regarding houselessness comes from within the community. Working with and talking with
- the individuals that live in encampments is not just recommended, it is a necessity for any success.
- The literature also supports this.
- However, in order for that to work, to occur at all, a foundation of trust has to be built and continual
- evictions have created substantial damage to any possible relationship between government officials
- and unhoused citizens. Another eviction, like the one set for December 15th, would cause such damage
- that repair may be unobtainable. Let it be stated that the first step to building trust and lasting
- change is not staying this eviction on Monday the 15th, it's staying evictions permanently, followed
- by reform and a procedure created in tandem with houseless individuals.
- Hello, my name is Pepper Vickery, and I would like to share a personal story about how these evictions
- can affect those of us that are the most vulnerable. I would like to talk about a friend of mine. I
- met them when they were sitting on a curb, just crying, crying their eyes out. So I sat with them and
- asked them what was wrong. They told me that their bag was stolen in the middle of the night.
- while they were sleeping. They lost all of what little they had, what little cash they had, their wallet,
- their clothes, their phone, everything. They were staying in a safer location, but they were forced
- out by the Bloomington Police Department. And the first night in the new location, this happened. They
- were forced to walk everywhere, even though they had a broken ankle and were in a boot. They also were
- diagnosed with cancer,
- and due to their situation, they were unable to seek treatment. I would like to remind everyone here
- that these policies affect real human beings. They're not numbers, they're people with names and faces,
- and to evict somebody in the middle of the winter, it shouldn't just be illegal, it's absolutely cruel.
- I do not believe that
- I don't know what solution the city is looking for when they decide to evict the unhoused in the middle
- of winter. It only tends to make everything worse. And I think the city should really think about moving
- forward with a housing first policy. Multiple studies have shown in the few places that this has been
- implemented that housing first works and
- It has a massive, it massively reduces the amount of unhoused and the dangers therein of being unhoused
- in the cities who have implemented this. I would also like to remind the city of the Martin v. Boise
- principle that cities should not punish people for sleeping or camping if there is no access
- to an alternative. And as the city should know, there's not enough alternatives for most of these folks.
- and what little we have is full and inadequate to support our growing community's needs. That's what
- I have. Thank you. Again, not seeing any hands raised on team. So if you just joined via teams and we
- would like to make public comment on items and not on
- not on the agenda. Please go ahead and raise your hand and then we'll go back to here in the night you
- have room for public comment. Hello, my name is Moby Jean Glaser.
- I'm a trauma therapist here in Bloomington and I also live in the Broadview neighborhood. And I would
- like to first thank Council Member Hemnery for going to the Thompson property recently and choosing
- to engage directly with our unhoused neighbors who really should be at the center of this conversation
- and the center of the problem solving that is happening. I have been in proximity with a very small
- and I will emphasize small group of
- neighbors who have had complaints about the Thompson property. And I think their complaints really speak
- to the lack of understanding of what it is to survive living outside, the lack of understanding of what
- resources are truly available in our community. And we are seeing a policy and a decision from
- the commissioners and the sheriff that is really centered on the discomfort of a small group of privileged people
- who live in a certain social location. When we should be seeing policy, I would like to see policy that
- is centered on the needs more broadly of our community, including our unhoused neighbors. They are a
- part of our community. They are a part of our neighborhood. And this policy is not just dangerous. It
- is incredibly violent to push people out of
- the only place that they can live relatively safely at a time of extreme weather. And so as someone
- who lives in the neighborhood, who interacts with the folks who are living in the Thompson property,
- and I have interacted with these folks for years, I ask
- I know you're a financial body, so this decision didn't come directly from you, but I ask you to do
- whatever is in your power to make sure that we are centering our policy on the most marginalized members
- of our community. Thank you for this time and for your service. Thank you. Hello. Hi. My name is Toby Robb.
- I came all the way here from Indianapolis. I got on a bus on the southwest side of Indianapolis at 11
- o'clock this morning and traveled for four hours to get here. I bring that up because there aren't a
- whole lot of situations that would make me do that. This is a matter of life and death, and I want to
- emphasize that. I came here because some of the people affected by this eviction
- are some of my dearest friends. And I don't believe that friendship has borders, which is why, even
- though you should absolutely listen to the experiences and input of your actual constituents who live
- here, that's why I'm still speaking here, because I think it's worth saying that to turn homeless people
- out of the place where that isn't even a house
- That is the closest place. That is the only alternative to not freezing to death, to take away their
- belongings and just throw them away like that is one of the cruelest, most callous things that I've
- ever heard of. And it's incredibly easy to just look away and
- to act like you can just make these people disappear. But they're not going to disappear, not for me.
- And whatever happens to them, whatever is either done to them or whatever you as the government
- of Bloomington, what happened to them is something that I will remember. For whatever that's worth.
- So I would ask you and
- the most vehement terms possible. Do not let this happen. Thank you very much. Thank you all for making
- space to discuss such an urgent issue together today.
- You can say your name. I'm so sorry. Keep going. Sorry. My name is Ashley Chaunting and I'm a current
- resident of the Thompson Thompson property camp that has been the subject of so much discussion in recent
- weeks. Before I was a resident of our camp, I lived in the neighborhood nearby and service the area
- as an outreach volunteer. Like others who have shared their testimony in this conversation, I became
- homeless as a result of a dynamic disability, an autoimmune disorder which causes brain swelling and
- fainting spells when I'm exposed to mold.
- building materials, and certain cleaning and grooming products, to name a few. Upwards of 90% of housing
- or employment options are unavailable to me for more than a short time as a result. Other folks I camp
- with have stories related to domestic violence, moderate to severe mental health disorders, old school
- sports injuries, and previous failures by housing services. Whatever brought us there, about 40 individuals
- call Thompson Woods home, and my understanding is that this has been the truth
- for about the past 10 years. It is also my understanding that this number is roughly half the population
- numbers reported to the counties by the nonprofits you pay to manage us. I've come to understand through
- recent research and press that sensational reports about our camp are the norm, with one source quoted
- as saying there are hundreds of needles littering the property and another citing wanton property damage
- to the infrastructure at nearby RCA Park. The whole camp was grateful to Councilor Henry
- and Commissioner Madeira for taking time to visit on Saturday and see for themselves that these reports
- are categorically false. I was grateful for the opportunity to show them my reinforced tent with its
- contained propane heat, hardly the critical fire or freeze risk cited in other available reports. Not
- to speak for anyone, but they seemed pleasantly surprised to meet my neighbors and hear firsthand how
- motivated we are to maintain our camp to a comfortable standard and encourage the least obtrusive, most
- pro-social behavior possible in one another.
- Councilor Henry seemed quite sheepish at the end of our visit for having to ask about our restroom habits
- because he hadn't seen any evidence of the prolific human waste that had been reported to him. One point
- my house colleagues have made many times in the campaign to save our camp is how visitors to homeless
- camps rarely find the reality matches the sensationalism. They cite how welcoming we are to them, how
- we've adjusted to navigating the world with good humor and care. I've heard them say several times that
- one might be surprised
- but the fact is that no one in my camp is surprised. We understand the limitations of the services available
- to us, and we understand the intense weight of having nowhere else to go. When every other option fails,
- Thompson Woods and our neighbors there give us shelter, safety, care, and agency. What's that saying
- about home is the place when you have nowhere else to go, they have to take you in? By this definition,
- Thompson Woods is fully our home.
- And I urge this council to do everything in your power to delay our eviction as long as possible into
- the spring and beyond. Thank you. Thank you very much for that. I'm going to go back to teams here.
- Shoot. I'm trying to see who this.
- So Jessica, if you can unmute yourself, say your name for the record and you'll have up to three minutes.
- Yeah, sorry. I'm I'm Jesse, Jesse Coggy. And no, you're fine. You're fine. I want to thank you all for
- being here. Like I said, my name is Jesse Coggy and I'm a Monroe County resident in District one.
- And I want to take time to talk about the concerns this eviction has raised in terms of funding and
- the transparency around tax dollar spending. Specifically, I want to question how the commissioners
- can put the funds behind this eviction into use without your oversight as council members or that of
- their constituents.
- After digging into previously documented meeting minutes, public record, and conducting meetings with
- county officials, it has been made clear that the money being used to fund this eviction has come from
- the cumulative capital fund contract July 2024, number 1198, which is broadly defined in its use for
- services and contracts.
- What this fund does not encapsulate is emergency management, law enforcement support or health and social
- services, all things the commissioners have already committed or plan to commit to this operation. As
- you all know, this fund is most often used to support general property maintenance, including landscaping,
- hauling away old furniture or bringing in electricians and plumbers. It does not expand even with this
- loose definition to work that requires detailed collaboration between multiple agencies
- each bringing their own approach to the execution of this camp clearing. This will be a massively expensive
- undertaking, far exceeding the $35,000 contract already signed with Bio One, and we have no idea where
- that money is coming from or where it is going. I'm sure we've all seen the argument that supporting
- the needs of unhoused people in our community is an unnecessary expense on the part of the taxpayer.
- While I vehemently disagree with this position, I can sympathize with the frustration of seeing taxpayer
- money going straight down the drain. And this is what we are seeing every year with these rents and
- repeat evictions. These expenditures are not only incredibly wasteful and ineffective, but represent
- an inappropriate use of county funds.
- I urge the council to push for a stay on the eviction at Thompson property until the spring to ensure
- that this funding is not only accounted for but that this type of overreach into county funds can never
- occur again. Thank you. My name is Sid Doss and firstly I'd like to reiterate all of the points that
- have been made
- by everyone before me. And I would especially like to emphasize all of our collective stance that we
- do not support any forms of evictions at any point, regardless of season, regardless of location. This
- has never proven to be productive at all and has only caused more harm than anything else. The main
- thing that I'd like to share though right now is focusing back in on the slated evictions coming up
- within a few days, within the week.
- I'd just like to reiterate that as anyone who is working for the state, city or county, it
- is your responsibility to oppose the upcoming evictions by whatever means that you have. Regardless
- of the stated responsibilities of your roles as either council members, commissioners, mayor or anything
- else like that, these evictions have been deadly for people in the past.
- and it will result potentially in even more deaths if it is carried out. So given that alone, we demand
- that this is discussed fully and all options of postponing this eviction and preventing all in the future
- is discussed and carried out by any ways that y'all are able to. Thank you.
- My name is Gabriel. I actually didn't prepare anything, but I'm familiar with the judiciary process.
- I wanted to ensure that my colleagues were able to get the humanitarian angle across before I came out
- to you with some policy recommendations and steps moving forward because you are the judiciary body.
- You are in charge of process.
- I would like to highlight the egregious process failure of the commissioner's board. It is the first
- step of evictions to make sure services are rendered onto the unhoused community. The commissioners
- have chosen health one and the SSOs to facilitate that. As we have seen both yesterday in the failure
- of health net services and the repeated experiences, lived experiences of the unhoused folks, the lack
- of access to services process has broken down. The first step to evictions, which is the ensuring that
- services are rendered on these sites pre-eviction has not come to fruition.
- the funds were not allocated from elected officials but staff members, two of which are in us in this
- team's mission, this team's meeting. It is
- my opinion that the judiciary body would have some form of oversight over these cumulative capital funds,
- that funds don't go silently into the night, into contracts that do not cover the full breadth and scope
- of an eviction project. This is a massive interagency undertaking involving LEOs, emergency medical
- services, and contracts with cleaning companies. That has not been established. And as a taxpayer, I
- would like to know where my money is going. At the very least, your body should be investigating both the fine
- and non-financial processes of eviction and seeing that the county does not currently have any establishing
- those before moving forward with a property eviction at the Thompson property. Accountability is incredibly
- important in government and we as voters cannot hold accountable staff positions. It is absolutely incredibly
- callous that those who we do not elect have the opinion-making power to make life or death decisions
- for our most
- vulnerable neighbors. I would like to reiterate process failure on part of the commissioners, process
- failure on part of HealthONE, process failure on part of the city and communicating with the county.
- I'm not sure if these numbers were reiterated. I don't know if any of you know how many beds are in
- the city for homeless folks. Total, fixed number, it's 259. As of the 2025 January census, which was
- 11 months ago, there were 305 individuals noted as homeless. We know that there are more.
- many places don't disclose for their own specific and valid reasons. That means that there's a deficit
- of over 45 beds. And so when, you know, Councillor Thomas or Thompson guarantees us that every person
- at this camp will have a warm bed this, you know, this cold winter week when that eviction happens,
- It's not that she's lying. It's that the process has not given her the correct numbers. These numbers
- were pulled from your Monroe County white flag procedure. So you have these numbers. They're accessible.
- Clearly, there was a miscommunication in resources, in supply lines, in interagency cooperation. All
- these are grounds to stall this eviction. This will lose a life. And I think there's plenty of policy
- that you can put forward and procedure that you can iron out that could prevent this until spring. Thank
- you for your time. Thank you.
- I'm going to switch back to teams because it looks like Katie Norris has her hand raised. So Katie,
- if you can raise your hand again, state your name for the record and you'll have up to three minutes.
- To hear me. Yes, we can hear you. OK, I couldn't figure out how to raise my hand again. Hi, this is
- Katie Norris. I'm executive director of hotels for homeless.
- I also did not have something prepared. I scribbled a little bit down, so I kind of jumped in here and
- prompt you. We did take five people and one dog last night from the camp that had been evicted on the
- west side. Because we had to do that, we had to raise emergency funds to be able to do so. These were
- community donations that people in our community decided to share their
- funds, their money, to be able to make this happen with a quickness. These funds could have been used
- for others who have not found and worked hard to make an unused area of land into a safe and survivable
- home. People who live at long-term camps are the last to use our emergency survival services at Hotels
- for Homeless if they even use them at all. And the reason I believe for this
- this is my own personal opinion, is that they have created a place that they are able to survive. These
- are not the people in our community experiencing homelessness who are sleeping on the sidewalks or in
- abandoned cars or buildings. They are not the ones that get turned away at the end of the night
- by the shelters once they have been full and go into full-blown panic mode because they have no idea
- where they are literally going to lay their freezing cold bodies at night to sleep. These people have
- found an unused piece of land in our community and created a safe and survivable home. It is their home.
- They have a place to take their food. They have a place to store their clothing. They have a place to
- keep their medicines safe where they won't be taken or lost or destroyed. They have a place for their
- beloved pets who may have lived with them for a decade and are elderly. And you know, we don't know
- that that dog could have lived with somebody for 10 years in a safe and stable home before a medical
- condition caused them to lose their job and be evicted and yada yada yada. We all know how it goes.
- But these people are not using valuable community resources that others who have not figured out this
- way or have not been able to make this happen for themselves could be using. So we are very happy to
- provide our services to anyone in the community who needs them.
- when we have the available funding. I just feel like our services would be put to better use for people
- who have not already found and figured out a way to survive living outside in a community where they
- feel safe and they have the supports of the others who are living in that community with them. That's
- pretty much all I have to say. If anybody needs to reach out to us for help, or if they also would like
- to help us,
- they can reach out to us at h4hbloomington at gmail.com. Thank you. Thank you. OK. Hi, my name is Mo.
- I just wanted to speak to something that some other people have spoken on, the fact that while an eviction
- in winter is
- incredibly hard. Evictions at any point of the year are just unacceptable. If somebody is living outside,
- they probably don't want to be continuously harassed and kicked out of places that they can rest.
- asked to take their belongings or go find their belongings in a new location without an ability to find
- their own transportation to get those belongings, to find a new spot, to be kicked out of the next spot.
- Simply at any point of the year, evictions are violent. They will cause deaths.
- from people who are continuously put in emergency mode and have to rebuild over and over and over again.
- And these are your constituents as well. And they deserve the same consideration as somebody who might
- be uncomfortable to see somebody not living the same way as them. Thank you. Thank you. OK. Is there
- anybody else?
- that would like to make public comment on this item, whether you're here in the net, you know, room
- or virtually via teams. Hello, my name is Marine Langley. I have lived in Bloomington all 28 years of
- my life. I've never been to a county council meeting before today.
- just because I think this issue is an important one. And I just want to publicly speak on the record
- to say, I do not support the evictions. Thank you. Thank you.
- And I just wanted to say, I think people did a really good job in showing that the bureaucratic process
- to stop anything when we say that any negative outcomes of these evictions, we can see very clearly
- that that is not working. And we know that in many ways that this is a death sentence for people. And
- I think that I just wanted to really bring to the forefront that I
- These people in many ways, as evidenced by someone who spoke earlier, are doing what the state has in
- many ways failed to do, which is find safety in a time of extreme crisis. And their safety that they've found
- these evictions will do nothing other than take away that safety. It does not give anyone else in the
- community safety. I do not feel safer knowing that my neighbors might freeze to death. And I also want
- to, I imagine too that people get into local government because I think people here and like all of
- us in this room know how important these decisions are and like really how important it is. Yeah, these
- decisions in these moments. I think it's been very obvious
- people don't get into local government to become executioners. And I think that this is a death sentence.
- I think that we knowing this, knowing that especially in this moment of this extreme cold,
- although of course, I think evictions again are never the right way to go. Again, evidence by literature
- is not the option. Capital punishment is especially a harsh crime for the crime of not being able to
- pay rent. So I really hope that we can
- we all care about these decisions. We know these decisions are going to have that impact and to choose
- safety over violence and fear. So thank you. Thank you. Hello. My name is Lydia Kern. I don't really
- have anything prepared, so just bear with me while I kind of stumble through.
- I'm here actually because I was inspired by my son, my nine-year-old son, who is deeply passionate about
- the unhoused population. And I just would like to, I think, remind the people here that houselessness
- is a systemic issue, not a personal failing, and that any one of us in this room is far closer to being
- without a home and sleeping on the street than we ever are to being rich and powerful. And I would just
- beg towards humanity and towards seeing these people as people and not different from you in any way
- fundamentally. And that the harm of evicting people from a place where they
- are not causing trouble. They are just trying to live peacefully. That is doing so much more harm than
- the slight discomfort of people around them that maybe have a lot more privilege and a lot more comfort.
- I'm someone myself who has teetered on the edge of homelessness more than once. And if it hadn't been
- for people in my community that took me in, I would have been homeless with a two-year-old. And I think
- about that every time I see somebody sleeping on the street.
- And I just, yeah, I think that's all I have. Thank you for your time, and thank you for being here to
- listen. Thank you. Last call for items not on tonight's agenda. Hi there. My name is Liam Pizzano.
- And I don't come preparing a speech or anything today. I would like to remind everyone here that this
- is not a new problem for our community. Not even five years ago, a homeless man of 51 years of age was
- found frozen to death by a park bench in Seminary Park. This is not an unfamiliar problem with our community.
- We have seen this problem in our city before, and we have seen it killed before.
- And the board of commissioners is allowing this to happen again by allowing this eviction to happen
- again. And I think every one of us has a duty here as members of any civilization and as humans ourselves
- to protect these people because these people are, through neglect, being killed. I yield my time.
- Thank you. Thank you.
- call via teams anybody want to raise your hand and speaker items not on the agenda all right not seeing
- any hands raised on teams but again last call here in the net you hill room okay um thank you all very
- much for your public comments um and i wrote everybody's name down that spoke
- And a very special, I guess, thank you to Ashley for taking the time to come out and speak about your
- lived experience. I really appreciate that. Thank you. Okay. We're going to move forward and we're going
- to go to department updates. So department updates are for items not on the agenda and
- Kelly Whitmer is up and Stephen Miller is too. So each department that has an update for items not on
- the agenda, you'll have up to 10 minutes and you can do that via Teams or here in person.
- We're both here together because Steve came to me with a brilliant idea or I thought it was a great
- idea. We bought 40 benches from the Pendleton Penitentiary and on the benches are. Excuse me, on the
- benches are the nine, are QR codes for the 988 Suicide Prevention Hotline. With these 40 benches,
- They may seem simple, but they carry a powerful message that help is always available. Each bench serves
- as a quiet reminder that someone in crisis can reach out by dialing 988, then pressing 1 to be directly
- connected to a service provider who's trained and certified to help veterans in crisis. Most of the
- benches are going to be located at the Monroe County Nature Preserve, but others will be at Carson Farm Park.
- The Cars Farm Greenway, the Flatwoods Park, Limestone Greenway, Will Detmer Park, Jackson Creek Park.
- And I want to offer a heartfelt thank you to Kelly Whitmer and the whole parks team for making this
- happen. It's really incredible to see the community come together to help veterans.
- and what we did also with Pendleton is that we had to take two staff members up there with our trailer
- and our truck and they had to go through tight security and get all the benches loaded and what our
- park superintendent Andy mentioned to me earlier was that the inmates the gentleman who built the benches
- signed their names on the bottom
- and that they did take care. These benches are extremely well made and I believe it is a sense of pride
- to them knowing that they're going to parks around the state of Indiana. I wanted to also mention that
- Reads Across America will be happening this weekend on Saturday. In Monroe County there'll be 10 different
- locations where we're having celebrations and honoring our
- of deceased veterans. There's going to be a ceremony at the Elks Lodge 446 at 400 North Walnut at 1030
- on December 13th. There'll be a wreath laying that follows directly after about noon at the Rose Hill
- Cemetery. Additionally, there will be wreath laying at White Oak Cemetery, Gosport Cemetery, Unionville
- Cemetery, Shiloh Cemetery,
- Valhalla Elks Rest, Burgoon, South Union, Prairie Chapel and Dog Island. I wanted to thank you for supporting
- these efforts, both the 988 benches that provide hope and the wreaths that honor our veterans service
- and sacrifice. These initiatives reflect our community's commitment to remembering, supporting and caring
- for those who have served. Thank you.
- Okay, thank you. Does anybody have any questions for them? All right, Council Henry, and then I'll go
- to Councilor Iverson. Thank you both for being here, and thank you for that good news. I guess my only
- question is more about claiming one of the benches for Courthouse Square. Is it possible for us to get
- one here, or is it really just designated for the parks? No, I mean, I'm sure the commissioners would...
- I can't speak for the commissioners. Of course not.
- but you can ask them yourselves. We would be more than happy to drop one off. Yeah, I may do so. I mean,
- just given the information on them and just the foot traffic downtown as well. I mean, it just seems
- like a wonderful opportunity to take advantage of what you all put together. So thank you for all that
- work. Mr. Miller, you.
- riddled off a long list of events for Reads Across America. For those watching or for those of us that
- want to attend one of those many ceremonies, where can we find that list or more information? Sure,
- there's the Reads Across America website, excuse me, if you just Google Reads Across America and then
- from the website you can click on the different regions and Bloomington and Monroe County will pop up
- as one of the options.
- Anybody else? Yes, Councilor Wilts. I told you before the meeting that I was excited because you all
- were going to be telling us about some new thing. And I specifically said, don't tell me, because it'll
- be like Christmas. And this is super cool. I never would have imagined. You know, I work in parks and
- rec and that kind of field.
- And so I'm familiar with the Pendleton program and they, you know, they're at the trade shows and saying,
- you know, the different products that they make. And this is so cool. It's just, it's a really good
- example of when you work together across silos, you are, the synergy is just incredible. I think this
- is a great project.
- It's win-win. Thank you for getting together and doing it. First of all, thank you both for all of this.
- It's always good to see the two of you. You never come with anything that's not helpful to the community.
- And while we have you here, particularly Mr. Miller, I was going to ask you
- If any of that, we've got a lot of influencers in the room as far as outreach to the community, they're
- hitting places that we all don't always hit, or we're trying to hit and we're not hitting it well. If
- a member of our audience or someone watching home knows a veteran, any veteran in the community, but
- particularly someone that is either in an encampment or elsewhere, how would they get,
- them in touch with you so that maybe to pursue things that folks haven't thought about or having struggles
- with or anything at all. Absolutely. Thank you for that question. So folks can reach out to me directly
- at my phone number is I'll give it to you now. It's 812-349.
- 2537. I do a lot of work with with unhoused veterans and veterans who are at risk of homelessness. So
- if any veteran or family or concerned citizen wants to talk about a veteran or what have you, please
- reach out to me. I'm happy to help get the ball rolling. If someone who's at risk of homelessness, we
- can help get
- them passed on to some social workers and heading home and other organizations like that who can help
- get them back on their feet. I appreciate that very much. And I know sometimes people are meek about,
- well, I'm not sure that's for me. But this office with Mr. Miller is beyond approachable. Every time
- I pass by there, they are literally assisting somebody who served that we made a lot of promises to
- as a country. And on the back end,
- Mr. Miller and the team really helped to get that done for them. So thank you. Welcome. Thank you. Any
- other updates or questions? All right. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. All right. Next up, we
- have an update for our one of our township trustees, Efrat.
- Oh, look at that. That's unheard of. Please proceed. Is this a quorum of township trustees? No,
- not quite. Chair, can you see this? Yeah, it reads right there. You can bring a chair up another chair.
- The microphones move around, so if you need to pass microphones, you can do that.
- Thank you so much. It's good to see everyone. Afrat Rosser, Bloomington Township Trustee, and also here
- as part of the Monroe County Trustee Association with some of my esteemed colleagues. If you want to
- introduce yourselves real quick. I'm Rita Barrow, Van Buren Township Trustee. I'm Joan Hall, Salt Creek
- Township Trustee. Michelle Bright, Benton Township Trustee.
- 11 townships within Monroe County and I want to pause for a minute and just acknowledge we planned this
- date some time back not realizing what else might be on the public's mind and just thinking about the
- threat of eviction prevention this this is kind of timely so I did have a presentation thanks for pulling
- that up I'll try to
- I don't know, do I tell someone when to move to the next slide? We'll try doing it that way. Okay.
- So yeah, just by way of introduction, we thought we'd overview just the townships a little bit,
- what we do, the impact we have in the community, and the challenges we're facing along with many of
- our colleagues and other governmental bodies as we move into the next couple of years here.
- There's a map up there of Monroe County and the townships. There's also a website at the bottom there.
- If anyone's unsure of what township they live in, that's a really good way to look it up. The trustees
- in this county, I think, collaborate really well together. I've learned so much from these three and
- others. Mr. Combs sends his regrets. He was supposed to be here. I have a memo from him instead I'll
- share with you. All right, and onto the next one.
- Just to talk a little bit about townships, we are each independent government units. We each have a
- board that we answer to and we're all independently elected. And townships are the oldest form of government
- around here before the state, city, county came along. We were here and so a lot of our duties kind
- of go back a couple hundred years and we continue to evolve what we do to meet
- the challenges of today. I put your tax dollars at work because I say that often in my office when I
- hear from people who walk in that maybe never needed help before but something happened, saw this a
- lot with the federal shutdown recently and a lot of people struggle to ask for help and I just remind
- everyone that these are your tax dollars at work if you've
- been here, whether you actually own property or you just reside here and consume here and work or play
- or any of that, your tax dollars support the townships and so don't hesitate to come to us at a time of need.
- We are charged with providing for the health safety and general welfare of our residents. And next slide.
- Some of the ways in which we do that, I think most of you know we provide a large amount of financial
- assistance for emergencies that households and individuals face. Every year we help thousands
- prevent eviction for thousands and we keep the utilities on, the lights on, we keep the water running.
- For a lot of folks, we provide food in either a pantry form or a voucher. We assist with dozens and
- dozens of burials and cremations for individuals each year, medical assistance, transportation, a lot
- of information and referral and light case work. So we really attend to the most urgent needs. People
- come to us usually on their worst day, possibly with that eviction,
- or that utilities disconnect. Next slide. We also have other roles that help maintain our community and help
- mediate neighborly disputes, we'll call them. We care for historic cemeteries. And I think between us,
- I don't have the data aggregated. It's kind of laborious to go to 11 townships and pull all this together.
- So I'm making a lot of generalizations. But I know that it's dozens of cemeteries, weed complaints when
- there's rank and noxious vegetation being unattended to, fence line disputes between neighbors. Some
- of us operate parks, community centers where people
- we'll come together. And next slide. And we do a lot of other things. We support a lot of the nonprofits
- in our community. Again, I didn't add it all up, but I do know that between your two largest ones, Perry
- and Bloomington Township, we grant out over 200,000 a year to local nonprofits that support the work
- that we do and we make referrals to.
- special events, notary services. We have a representative payee program now where we can assist anyone
- who receives Social Security or Veterans Administration income and has been deemed unable to care or
- manage their own funds.
- and we've had some great grant funded program ships with the county that I thought would be
- worth highlighting. The ARPA funds that you all shared with the townships during COVID times helped
- get so many households through some really tough times and allowed the townships to do that work efficiently
- and effectively and help get our community through some
- some really hard times. The home repair program that was launched in the last couple of years for rural
- homeowners also in partnership has allowed
- us to work with really some of our most vulnerable to maintain and preserve their housing that we're
- talking roof repairs, leaky roofs, insulating broken windows, water lines that are leaking and costing
- them hundreds and hundreds in water bills and so forth. So we can go on the next slide. We are, as I
- mentioned, independent government.
- units each of us. So we're fully tax funded. If you own property in Monroe County you're paying a levy
- to some township and we heavily rely on that. We also get a little bit in the way of distributions from
- a wheel tax, a gasoline and excise tax, and then we get the lit shares that you have generously shared with us
- over the last couple years. And for some of us, that's a significant part of our revenue picture. I
- know personally that's 25% of mine, I think higher for some of you. And all of these sources are now
- strained. I don't want to harp too much on the wheel tax because it's pretty small, but that is dwindling.
- there have been threats to township government, bills filed at the state to consolidate us to perhaps
- the county one position there, and then the impact of SEA 1 and HB 1461 thought was worth just kind
- of mentioning on the next slide. You know, SEA 1 gave property owners tax relief,
- part of the governor and the state legislature's wish. And that's great, but it comes at a cost to all
- of these local government units, including townships, and we'll have a real impact on the levels of
- services that we are able to provide. We're barely
- keeping up some days, I think this year will be my township's busiest in terms of a lot of numbers,
- the pantry and assistance, and I think others will say the same. So the immediate impact of SEA 1 with
- the levy freeze and some of the other changes to assess valuation means a loss of revenue that's immediate
- of around five to 7% for each of us.
- The sun setting of the lit in 27-28 will have that greater impact if not replaced locally. And that
- total between the 11 townships is almost 1.5 million on average for those next three years after it
- sunsets. So I know you're being made to be the bad guys by the state if we want to maintain levels of
- service in this county.
- And we're not here to press you hard. We're here to just start a conversation about this and what we
- want to see in our townships moving forward, right? HB 1461 also had a big effect on us in our ability
- to operate a healthy organization as it's taking any unrestricted funds, so mostly our grainy day funds.
- On the next slide, all of these cuts, of course, come at this time when we've got this housing crisis
- in our state and our community and, you know, safety programs like SNAP and Medicaid that have been
- cut, not even talking about the shutdown. And so, you know, we've been asking ourselves and I think
- a lot of the community is also starting to ask how we do foresee, you know, moving forward with all
- these challenges.
- Again, we're just here hoping to just start that conversation. We know you've been put in an awkward
- position to say the least and that you're struggling just the same with us. If I have left anything
- out that my colleagues want to add, please jump in. Otherwise, we're here for any questions we can answer
- and we look forward to talking and working with you in the future. Thank you for all that you do.
- Thank you for everyone that came out here tonight to engage in the heavy conversation. And I hope there's
- some resolution to that moving forward, too. Absolutely. Thank you. I'd just like to say thank you all
- for the work you do as well. But this also just goes to show how, if we all play well together and if
- we don't play well together, the effects
- that each body has on resources. So I hope for those who might be watching can get that message. And
- if you watch back later, I hope you can continue to get it. So I'm going to open it up for my colleagues
- here. I'm going to look to my left first to see if anybody has any questions. No, not right now. So
- I saw hands. So I'll go Iverson and then Henry.
- Thank you all for spending your evening with us. We're very happy to have you here. I think I told this
- to you all before, but we just don't get to see you all that often here, so it's a pleasure. I guess
- my question is a bit of a process one. You mentioned this is the first step in a longer conversation,
- and you raised some very interesting conversation topics. What do you foresee as the next step in this
- conversation?
- Again, as Jennifer has said, we have to collaborate. We can't have both of us disagreeing or agreeing
- to make an agreement until we all come together. And if the state decides to do away with townships,
- look what you're going to be stuck with.
- Let me ask you this. How many people can go inside a government office and be able to sit down and talk
- to someone with an eviction in their hand? It doesn't happen that way. It doesn't. With the townships,
- it does. We open our doors. We open our pantries.
- We open anything that we can do to help any individual that needs help. I especially like the ARPA.
- I think this is an outstanding because I have a lot of rural area individuals that live out there that
- are elderly. They live on social security and that alone. It's amazing to me
- how well the individuals feel they can sit down and tell someone their story. And you sit there and
- you give them a Kleenex and you're wiping your ears with a Kleenex as well. So they understand we're
- here to help. So. And just to add on to that, we were able to help people the same day. I had an experience
- yesterday. So Salt Peak Township is, if you're not familiar,
- is out State Road 446 near the lake. So we are in close proximity to the Pain Town campground. So I
- often am helping people who are actually technically homeless, but they're living temporarily in Pain
- Town campground, which is in the township. So they're living in an RV or a tent, and they can stay there
- for up to two weeks. I can help them with their campground rent, but then they have to leave for a couple
- of days. And so
- You know, I had a situation with a woman yesterday. She ran out of gas with her RV. You know, she had
- she had nowhere to go for a couple of days. It's cold. She they don't a lot of these people don't have
- any family or anyone to rely on. So I can put her up in a hotel for a couple of days and send her back
- to the campground. You know, so we're trying to just keep these people, you know,
- make sure they have food and shelter, but I was able to, she contacted me and I was able to help her
- within a couple of hours. And this is the kind of work that we all do every day. So if townships are
- dissolved, we just worry about what's gonna happen to these people. Who's gonna care for these people?
- So that's it.
- So yeah, I don't know on a practical level what that looks like. I think you have a long-term finance
- committee and maybe that's the place to take something like this up with more data and forecasts and
- whatnot. But I think it's a public discussion to understand the value of what our taxes provide us and
- whether we want to
- demonstrate those values, you know, locally in opposition to what the the state has done to us. I would
- agree that the next steps need to be public and long term finance, I think, is a is a good recommendation.
- But of course, that is something that we need to talk about.
- Thank you so much for your time tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Councilor Henry and then Hawk. Sorry,
- that sounded so definitive. Thanks, we'll talk. I don't have that power. Thank you all for being here.
- I know the conversation is a long time coming. I know Dan has wanted to be here, I think, for a few
- times at least to chat with us. You've all demonstrated again that you are the government of last resort
- in our community for so many people. You are seeing the consequence of
- state and national policy.
- every day. And the more we can tell your story, the more important, I think, it is to the community
- to understand that. Let me go back to why I think it's taken this long for you to get here,
- because Mr. Combs had told me that a few months ago when we were all facing the potential loss of SNAP
- benefits in our community, I understand that the Perry trustee office was just overwhelmed with people
- looking for relief. And of course, we were looking at almost a falling out there of that. Can you maybe
- share some of your experience with some of the
- kind of whipsaw effects that are hitting your office, especially to snap and help us understand what
- that looks like for all of you in the past few months. I mean, I know personally for Bloomington Township,
- even before the shutdown, you know, when the big beautiful bill went into effect,
- that cut snap for a lot of folks, including folks who are refugees or asylum seekers here through a
- legal process, right? So we started seeing more new faces in our pantry. And then, yeah, the shutdown, we
- We tallied numbers for those few weeks, and it was three times the volume we usually see in our food
- pantry. And just a lot of people who were really scared. There was just a lot of uncertainty, and it
- still has that ripple effect, right? They may have spent more of their own funds in those days that
- will now come to bear as the rents do in January. And not only that, just the increasing cost of food.
- Food assistance requests have just skyrocketed in the past year. Well, for everything, but especially
- with food. $150 voucher doesn't go as far as it used to. So that we actually built a small pantry in
- our little township, one of those little free pantries that we stock a couple of times a week just to
- kind of help supplement. But people are really struggling out there. Van Buren, this is the first year
- that Van Buren has had a pantry.
- And we have had donations. We open it two times a week, and especially like, which I have to say, one
- of my employees takes care of the pantry. And he opens it up one to three on Wednesday. And then on
- Fridays, it's one to five in case you're getting off work or whatever. But I will tell you this.
- We received 18 turkeys, not turkey breast, turkeys from Hoosier Hills. One day, they were gone.
- One day, and it was on a Wednesday, they had two hours, three hours to get and go. We have never seen
- this many people.
- The only requirement that I am saying is if you come on a Wednesday, don't come back on a Friday. Let's
- give everybody an opportunity to get groceries as well. But we've had a lot of individuals to come in.
- And you go in there on Friday evening after it's closed and the shelves are empty. You're going, there's no way.
- It does help. One of the amazing things recently in our community is just the number of people who have
- reached forward wanting to help their neighbor. That became very busy trying to coordinate those efforts.
- And we also have a food pantry. And I would go there. It would make my heart so happy because it would
- be just busting at the seams. And then the next day, I might come and half the stuff would be gone.
- And it would just be these kind of waves. But I've really seen our community come out and help each other.
- Another thing we've struggled with this year is just the amount of benefits and the amount of time to
- get benefits for someone that's in a hard spot. It's just been a real challenge with funding being cut,
- you know, SNAP benefits decreasing. And it's just been very frustrating to feel a pinch from the state
- about wanting to potentially eliminate governments, but eliminate townships.
- but also, you know, we might be the only people who can immediately help folks in their time of need
- as well. Thank you. Councilor Hawke. Yes. Moving away from the pantries, I mean, we've got a great one
- over there in Richland Township and people coming from all over and they show pictures of everything
- they have and I'm thinking, wow,
- That's quite a grocery store there. So kudos to them and all of their volunteers and all of you for
- making sure that you have it available a little closer to home because not everybody can walk to the
- pantry even if some people think the children should walk there. Had to throw that in.
- I want to talk about, which is something that I've heard from some of you about, is the legislation
- tied to road funding. And so while that's not been
- that's part of our conversation right now. I think it is one that we need to have. That's what I'm hearing
- from you that you're concerned about this. And I would not want the highway department to think that
- they can rely on all this extra money that's going to be happening because I.
- they just don't see how that's going to happen because you're not going to be getting the same amount
- in your income tax that local income tax as you've had in the past. So maybe somebody at the state didn't
- understand that or they they just thought they thought and rightfully so that there were some townships
- in the state
- that had quite a bit of cash saved back. And Van Buren did that at one time so that they didn't have
- to run up a bond and pay back interest on money to build that community center. But I just wanted to
- say it has not gone unnoticed by me that you're concerned about that. And I welcome a conversation about
- it because I know that's a concern.
- of the townships so just at any time you wish to share that or send me information or let's
- have a conversation about it just for the public to know the legislation was saying if you depending
- on where those funds are standing that that money could be used for highway
- you're not going to be able to do that. You're not going to be able to do that repairs is so right inside
- that own township. In other words, you wouldn't use Bloomington Township money to fix potholes in Richland
- Township or the other way around. However. Uh this is not a part of your funding to cover. And so those
- of us who are elected understand if we don't have a fund where revenues
- So please understand we're in the same situation where people come and say, well, can I do X, Y,
- and Z? But if we don't have funding for it specifically for that, then it's not always workable. So
- I've been studying the legislation, as you probably all know, and I know that you are.
- stay into it and I think you probably all have your 1782s back right if we don't have ours back yet
- I thought we might get it today and I think you're right council member hawk about the the state legislature
- may be seeing you know some cash reserves from some townships and I think it's just important to note
- that a lot of townships run fire departments and you know have to save up
- for that big truck. So sometimes that on paper looks misleading. I can tell you most of us are not sitting
- on huge amounts. And if we are, it's towards a goal that we have identified with our board, like a building
- or a needed asset. And you know that the part that is, that we are allowed to put in a tax rate for
- it to assist the townships
- by when we get to the 2028, the amount of that can only be a 0.2%. However, they've said, oh, but you
- can't use the 0.2 for that and the 0.4 for fire and the 1.2 for county because then you're 0.1 over.
- So one of those is going to have to lose one. And so I think you're going to have to be talking to the
- fire departments or something if you expect them to take less so that you can have some of it.
- the the part that you could have under that point too if we took it to point two it that also goes to
- the public library and they're counting on that money and that also goes to blemish and transportation
- they're counting on that money big time and that also goes to our solid waste district am i leaving
- somebody and the township so did i lead anybody out so that
- just simply is we'll have to collaborate work together well but we cannot we don't have a money tree
- in the backyard either so we understand the tough position you'll you're in now and will be in absolutely
- thank you yeah counselor thank you very much and i want to thank you all for coming here and talking
- to us anytime the trustees come in and and
- educate us a little bit on what's going on. I think that is a true gift because you're seeing everything
- directly. We will never be able to replicate the countertop that you have, whether it's your tabletop
- at home or otherwise. I did want to say, I have a couple of things I made an outline of here.
- Number one, and I was out of Bloomington Township maybe two or three months ago, but that payee program to me,
- when I hear all the issues we have in our community, some we heard denied, some that we're thinking
- about, to me, that payee program may be one of the hottest things since sliced bread is a sort of secret
- weapon, not to put pressure on our trustees that have enough to do, but I think that that is a, I think
- it's to be complimented, number one. I think there's opportunities there that when we can figure out
- that a little bit more,
- could probably be embracing that a little bit harder, but not in the traditional government way of you
- go do that, because we think that's cool. We're going to go get a pizza, but in the partnership way.
- And so I just want to say that I also want to say that in a partnership way, because the state has put
- us into this funding kind of mix, I think we're going to have to
- and we're going to do something that. Kind of figures this out and in does a little bit does as little
- as harm as possible to the people, the county and particularly people that are served. I was talking
- to some of our folks in the audience yesterday, and I said there was a time in
- tried to do as little harm as possible. In fact, you didn't deliberately do any harm. And if you made
- an accident, you tried to figure out how to get the train back on the tracks as quickly and efficiently
- as possible. Somewhere that was written on a chalkboard for people when they took an oath of office,
- somebody erased that throughout the chalk, throughout the eraser, and apparently they threw it out of
- their memory. When we think about what position we're in, trustees,
- and I listen to the comments that have gone before me, and I wonder what was the state thinking? Sometimes
- I'm worried that people aren't thinking. They're just doing. Because if they were dealing with any,
- and I just want to be respectful of your time, but if they were dealing with any of the stuff we've
- had on our agenda for the last year and you've been doing it at your countertops, they wouldn't be up
- there right now playing happy land and making up problems. So I know sometimes they watch us, and I
- hope that they will listen.
- this is where people live and things happen. And so I do think that we can be an example for that kind
- of moving forward and how we do it. And I think that I don't think the county is capable of even trying
- to figure out how to unlock your door and get in there and do those things. I don't know that we can
- get that pantry stocked. We certainly don't have one downstairs that I found. And I don't know that
- everybody can get down to the Nattie Hill to get that.
- Again, if anyone's listening, I know they don't know who's listening to me up there. Another new there.
- But if anyone's listening, I wouldn't mess with that. And there's a lot of powerful people from both
- sides of the aisle in this community that represent us and we shouldn't look at it. And I do think that
- you're wise to be here now. We're now in a position that nobody ever wants to talk about, which is now
- we will have to
- raise revenues, AKA raise taxes, because we've got these services have to be provided. And I think some
- of us have to keep saying it like that, because that's exactly what this is gonna be, because there's
- no free services. So anyway, I'm sorry to go on so long, but I wanna thank you and I just appreciate
- the opportunity.
- I'll let Councilor Feidl's hand go up and then after that we'll move on to the next. Okay,
- first of all, thanks for being here. I always appreciate hearing for all the groundwork. But I'm also
- wondering about, I know there have been numerous attempts over the years about trying to eliminate township
- trustees. And I can't remember, maybe you can remind me if there is a state trustees association, do
- you have an organization that looks out for you all statewide?
- And I'm hoping that that can be helpful in working with the State House to make the case to show how
- important it is to have this one-on-one service firsthand, right? When people come to you and they're
- so close. And so I would be interested to know how this goes. Do you know if there's any legislation
- already proposed for next year? Yeah, okay. House Bill 1233. Yes, 1233.
- the Indiana Township Association. I think we're all pretty active in that area. We all go up there like
- in February to the state house. Can you move your microphone next to you so we can pick it up for people
- in the back? I'm not sure that I'm not sure that they're listening, but we're trying, you know,
- we're trying. I think it's probably going to come up again in January. One of the things that I think
- the Township Association is proposing is that instead of just saying, oh, we're going to dissolve township
- government, let's really look at the different townships. There may be opportunities where there could
- be some consolidation and more efficiencies and, you know, maybe
- do kind of a scorecard for each township. And if the ones that are active should remain, the ones that
- are not active, maybe those are dissolved, but don't just just wipe it on, wipe out slate clean without
- doing some closer evaluation, which makes sense to me. So I mean, even in Monroe County, it's possible
- that the two smallest townships are Salt Creek and Polk. And even though for a small township, we're
- very busy. I mean, there is a possibility that maybe some of the township, we could look at something
- like that even right here in this county.
- I want to go further. What scares me is if we merge these townships and they're in rural areas, how
- are they going to get there when they don't have a car? They can't use a computer. They have no idea
- how to even get us. So how can we go get them all the time and bring them to the office or take
- the application to them. That just means hiring more people to do more work. I don't see the merging
- working. I really don't. I just want to reiterate that point. The townships are the government definition
- of meeting people where they are.
- we can't pull back from that. And the fiscal situation, notwithstanding, this is critical work that
- is on the front lines of what we've been talking about since this meeting started. So thank you. Well,
- thank you very much for taking the time to come in. That was a nice
- overview of what y'all do and thank you for your service and all the things you have done and continue
- to do to uplift those and help those in our community who need it the most. So we appreciate it.
- Thank you. Appreciate all of you. Thank you very much for your time tonight. All right. Is there another
- department with an update? I'd see somebody that was shaking their head. Come on up.
- Good evening. Kyle Gibbons, Jail Commander. Typically, I try to keep things lighthearted and positive
- with everything we've talked about tonight. That's not something that I'm really interested in doing.
- This update almost seems meaningless, but we said we would do it, so here I am. We have selected a licensed
- CPA. She is from Indiana. She's from New Albany.
- Her name is Marcy Grube. She is a minority owned business. She's one of the best auditors in the state
- of Indiana. I've already provided her licensure to our liaisons. She has prior experience working with
- the commissary. This is something that we're looking to start the next week or so. If you have any questions,
- I'll answer them now. Thank you very much.
- Thank you for moving so quickly and coming back and keeping the communication going on this. You said
- she has experience with the commissary can you expand on that just a little bit. She's a forensic auditor as well.
- like I said, she's one of the better auditors in the states, why we selected her. But one of the primary
- reasons, Ms. Wilts, is because she has worked with sheriff's commissary before. So she has experience.
- We've got kind of a unique issue with creating the in-house commissary and the external commissary.
- So she'll have full knowledge on how to navigate that process. And that's primarily why we selected
- her. Thank you. Great.
- looking to my right here to see if anybody has any questions. No? Well, that was fast. Thank you very
- much. Thank you. Appreciate that. All right. Last call for any other departments that would like to
- provide an update for items not on the agenda. I see Ms. Kelly, yes.
- Good evening, Council. I don't have a whole lot. I just wanted to give you a brief update. So for the
- three new nursing positions that you recently approved, again, thank you for that. Those have been posted.
- We have started receiving applicants and started scheduling for those interviews at this time. So just
- wanted to provide that update. Appreciate that. Wonderful news. Thank you. All right. Last call for
- a department updates.
- of seeing none. Thank you all very much for providing those updates to us. Next up on our agenda is
- the consent agenda items. Council, I move to approve the following consent agenda items for December
- the 9th. A, the sheriff request and fund 1000-0005 County General Sheriff the creation of account line
- 30190 promotion and advertising. B,
- The sheriff's request and fund 1170-0005 public safety lit sheriff, the creation of account line 36013
- services law enforcement. C, the highway department's request and fund 1176-0000 motor vehicle highway
- for a category transfer of $120,000 from the supplies category to the services category. D,
- the commissioner's request and fund 1000-0068 county general commissioners for category
- transfer of $41,680.52 from the personnel category to the services category. E, the prosecutor's request
- and fund 2503-0000 diversion prosecutor user fees for a category transfer of $50 from the services category
- to the supplies category. F, the county council summary minutes of August 26th, budget session one.
- August 27th, budget session number two. September 3rd, budget session three. September 4th, budget
- 4, September 10, Budget Session 5, September 11, Budget Session 6, and September 16, Council Meeting
- G. And finally, the Council Office's request in Fund 1000-0061, County General Counsel, and amend the
- title of Account Line 30031 from Sophia Travis Service Grant to Sophia Travis in order to encompass
- all expenditures for this account line. Second.
- All right, we got a motion and a second. Is there any questions or comments from council? Yes, Councillor
- Iverson. Just real quick, thank you so much for doing the minutes. I know that was a big burden,
- so thank you, thank you, thank you. Anybody else? Yes, Councillor Wilks. Yeah, item D, is there any
- more explanation about the reason
- for the category transfer. I read what's in the agenda. But typically when we see these types of transfers,
- they are coming from the account, they're reflective of what the nature of the expenditure was. So I guess,
- Do the liaisons have more information or is there something that maybe I missed because I've not been
- great at my email the past couple of weeks? I'm going to look to Kim Schell and I do know that it looks
- like Ms. Purdy is online as well too. Okay, if Ms. Purdy wants to start first, but I know that earlier
- in the year they came in and they had done some in-house transfers to meet some bills.
- So that is, so one of the lines that they had used was Centerstone. And so they have an account line
- called Centerstone. So that line is going to be short. They got to make that payment here at the end
- of the year. So they're asking to do an in-house transfer or the category transfer so that they can
- make that payment for the end of the year. Do you have anything else to add? No, that was very good.
- Thank you. Did I see a hand go up over here?
- All right. Yes, Councilor Wilson, you had another question. Is this? Yes. Thank you. Is this from? So
- this is not the health insurance issues that we had that were unexpected. This is other that liability,
- that other kind of insurance that the county carries. Was this and I know I know you were in here. So
- this is just me asking if somebody remembers better than I do. But was this an unexpected rate increase?
- that you were covering? It was more than that. So I think it was more than just a rate increase. We've
- been adding vehicles. So every time we add a vehicle, that's a cost that's incurred. We have added,
- there were some buildings, I think, that was not actually included and should have been included. And
- I don't know if that was the transfer between, we went from one
- provider to another. So as far as our liability and workman's comp insurance is concerned, and that's
- what took much where we had to start dragging from other particular lines. This was all cost premiums
- that were being paid as opposed to claims. It was premiums and then I
- don't have it in front of me because we've had to transfer in multiple places. So I would lose track
- of where I'm stealing from. But if you approve this transfer, we should be able to pay all of our claims
- that are required in that particular budget.
- This will make the Centerstone account whole, but this does not represent the entire amount of what
- you needed to cover the expense. And you're pulling from the financial manager line because that was
- the only line that we have available to do it in house transfer. The only line that had enough extra funding.
- Yeah. I mean, the other option, because when I realized that we were down to $50,000, I went down to
- the auditor's office, and it was like, I don't know what we do. It's too late for an additional, and
- we have to make this payment. We have someone in that position, right? No. We do not have anyone in
- that position. Office manager? You've got office manager. Yeah, office manager. It says financial manager.
- You have financial manager, but you don't have anybody in office manager. Yeah, that's the wrong.
- That's the wrong should be office manager. Got it. That starts to make a little bit more sense. OK.
- Is can you confirm that the fund number is correct. Fund number is correct. Is correct. The account
- line is incorrect. So Carly are you able to pull up loud for me please.
- We can approve this as it is and let the department do an in-house transfer, or we can make all the
- changes tonight. What would you guys prefer? Say that again, please. I'm sorry. This correction can
- be handled with the department tomorrow, or we can make the changes live at tonight's meeting. It's
- up to you guys. You're saying we can approve it and you can take care of it, but we don't? Yes.
- Okay. All right. Does anybody else have any other questions? On that particular one or the others? Or
- anything else on consent agenda items? Okay. I heard somebody said, anybody have any more information
- on it? And on the sheriff's office, what we really need to look at is if they're creating an entire new line
- for something that we hadn't included in the budget. And so when I spoke with them about it,
- because you know, I'm always curious, I want to know what we're doing, because once you give them the
- new line, then, and they're saying they can do a transfer then within that category. So then I asked
- what category they were paying for it
- out of now and just exactly what it's for. Evidently this was at a request from the auditor's office
- to do it this way instead of paying for it out of the account line where they had been paying for these
- items so that it would be clear to the public. Just wanted to make that clear that we talked about that.
- also the new account line under public safety lit for the sheriff's department that had something to
- do with the uniform expenses, something that was embroidered on to a specialty area that the group working
- on. And so there was some embroidery that had to be done. And so evidently the auditor's office felt
- like it should
- not be under uniforms, but under this. I think I have that right. Are you back there? Did I get all
- that right? Yes, you got it all right. I think it's appropriate that we talk with them because anytime
- somebody puts in, oh, I want a new account line and I'll just
- moving around, well, then we want to know, is that something we're already doing and we're just paying
- for it in another line? We're just going to call it something different? Or is this a whole brand new
- something we're going to be doing that we didn't include? So you're already doing this, just paying
- for it out of different lines. And the auditor's office requested that it just makes it cleaner by creating
- these new account lines. Right. I just wanted to make it clear that we have done our due diligence.
- We did have a conversation about it.
- Thank you very much, Council Hawk, for that. Okay, anybody else have any other questions on anything
- related to consent agenda items? All right, and I'll go to public comment. If anybody has public comment
- for consent agenda items only, you can raise your hand via Teams or come to the lectern here in the
- NatU Hill Room. And seeing none, and seeing that we can also vote
- by voice vote for consent agenda items. All those in favor of approving consent agenda items as presented
- signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Okay. Motion carries. Thank you for that.
- Next we'll go up on the amendment part of our agenda item. This is we're moving up the sheriff's presentation regarding
- the required pension reporting, and so I'm just going to ask for the Sheriff's Office to come on up
- for this item. Thank you.
- This presentation is based upon a new statutory requirement requiring us to provide certain information
- about the pension fund. I want to introduce Elaine Beatty. She is with Gelzer Investments, and they
- handle our investment portfolio.
- Elaine, I've known Elaine for 30 plus years or so. She's just a wee bit older than me. But actually,
- she's not. I'm not just teasing her about it. But she spent an awful lot of time with Mercury and Keene,
- who is the actuary for nearly all the sheriff's pension plans and also the state police. So she has
- a very broad knowledge in the
- things that she's going to discuss with you. So I'm going to turn it over to her, and she's going to
- fulfill these statutory responsibilities and take any questions that you might have as a result.
- Thank you, Phil. And I even noted in the minutes that there was a bit of an overview as to what this
- was about. And as Phil even said, Senate Enrolled Act 144 was passed and signed into legislation effective
- July 1st of 2025.
- And it added a new section to the Indiana Code stating that there needed to be an annual presentation
- by a county police department, either by the county police department or the department's designated
- designee. So that's me. I'm the designee. Just to let you know, what is this really all about? It's
- a lot of accounting information.
- Back in 2013, the state started reporting and requiring reporting on the gateway system where adopting
- units that had pension plans and obligations made that would be a source of government revenue had to
- post information, supply information for legislative review.
- And it's the accounting information. It's not the information that you folks utilize in your budgeting
- process. This is what accountants, okay. So 2013, well, as it has evolved, more information has been
- required to be reported, and the General Assembly took this under their, I guess, arm of responsibility
- by the Pension Management Oversight Committee as an off-session
- committee, and they said, well, what is it we're supposed to see? Well, NPRS has an actuary on staff,
- and the actuary, Andy Blau, said, well, these are some of the things we should probably look at as important.
- Number one, is this happening in timely fashion? Are they reporting the information? And so that's how
- it sort of evolved. As Phil noted, the actuary, McCready and Keene,
- does all the calculations, sends all the information to the auditor's office to enable them to meet
- the deadline of posting to Gateway the first part of the year. And all that we have done here in this
- presentation is taken the information that McCready and Keene does provide, a copy of which is in the
- back, and put it into a more
- readable or understandable format. If you do have a second to look back at the appendix, when they provide
- the information, they go line by line, step by step what has to be entered into the software reporting
- system. And so what we're trying to do here is just make it a summary just to let you know what it is
- that does in fact represent.
- So we start with the retirement plan, and it talks about who's eligible. These are the merit employees
- and the sheriff. This is a pension fund that does not cover the other staff members, like the jail staff,
- support staff, but by statute just the merit employees and sheriff. What are the requirements for vesting?
- Eight-year cliff vesting, benefits that are included under this program by Indiana statute,
- disability, death benefit, and retirement income. Who is the administrator? That, again, was many years
- ago established under the old rules of Indiana code. It was going to be the sheriff and his merit board.
- The number of employees that are participating, it shows on page four. We've got some employees, half
- of them are not vested, half of them are vested, some separated, and you've got about 30 people drawing
- pensions right now from the program.
- Things that might be relative to what you do with your budgeting process is what is the contribution
- rate? The numbers that you receive as a line item to say this is what the contribution needs to be,
- when it is related to a percentage of payroll, it's about 26.5% of payroll. That really is meaningful
- so that you can compare a department that only has 10 employees to one that has 150.
- What do the members have withheld from their paycheck as mandatory contributions? They pay in 4% of
- their pay through payroll deductions. Annual covered payroll of these officers covered by the program
- is about 3.8 million.
- Then on the next pages, there is a little bit of information of which this is my bailiwick, the assets.
- How are the assets invested? There is an investment policy statement that is in effect, and that has
- been through the process with the merit board and the sheriff and our governance group, our compliance.
- This is certainly something that is adhered to. That portfolio is to be strategically allocated long term
- with this allocation, about 60% equity, sometimes a bit heavy, but in that range, fixed income about
- 30%, and then cash and other cash equivalent of 4.8%. You can see a little bit more information on there
- is how that relates to dollar amounts. And then some additional information here about what's the funding
- percentage of the program is 73.7%, et cetera, which might be something that you
- are interested in as you report those on your financial statements as well.
- The next page pension report, again, more of how those numbers are calculated relating it to service
- cost, what the actuary said is required contributions, et cetera. So all this information was being
- reviewed for all of the 92 counties and some of these other adopting agencies that had programs for
- their libraries or something like that. And then the General Assembly said, OK, so what? What?
- What should we be concerned or not concerned? So more recently, they have looked very closely at, well,
- OK, is everybody doing what they're supposed to be doing, kind of in a big brother role? And they came
- up with two things that they felt were very important. One, is the minimum contribution being paid?
- When the actuary says, here's what you got to pay,
- There's no pension police. These guys enforce laws, but there is no pension police. So is it happening?
- And so they said, if it's been happening and it's consistently been done in the most recent preceding
- five years, they're good. And what you'll see here on page seven is in those five years most recent,
- you have met or exceeded the minimum, so you're fine. So what's the other thing they said? What else
- should we be worried about? Well, what if
- obligations are being made at a local level that they really can't afford in essence of increasing an
- unfunded obligation. And that is where I said sometimes that's important to you folks as you want to
- get your bond rating so that you can issue bonds. Okay. So I said, well, anything over 50 percent, any
- program that maintains funded status 50 percent or higher, we're going to say that they're okay. So
- those are these two exhibits in here is what we're tracking again, just illustrating
- waiting for you there on page 8, for the last five years the plan has not at any point fallen below
- the 50% funded range. And that means you're in good graces with the General Assembly. There is further
- statutory language that says what happens if you fall below on either one of those. You are issued a
- letter and you are told to come and give a presentation to PMOC of how you're going to fix that problem.
- You guys are not in that position and really most of the counties in the state haven't been and are
- not going to ever be in that position.
- just resting assured. That's really the content of this presentation. There is a separate report that
- is identical to what I just went over, and for the benefit plan. By state statute, there are two programs
- to be funded through the one appropriation. It is the retirement program, and statute defines what those
- obligations are for that program. And that's really the heavy lift, because that's the retirement pension.
- So those are the most costly.
- a separate program established to be called a benefit fund that is to be similar to almost a checking
- account. Now, that's been expanded, but a checking account for what purpose? To pay life insurance for
- the officers while they're working and to pay widow benefits in the event of a death of an officer and
- long-term disability insurance premiums. Those are very minor in comparison. Therefore, they don't have
- the financial
- commitment or obligation, and it's just a much smaller program. I mean, it's less than a million dollars,
- and it's funded completely adequately, but it's just not the biggest target in terms of the finances.
- We do show, though, on page 13 and 14 that tracking those five-year contributions, they have been met
- or exceeded what the actuary said needed to be made, and the same thing true for the funding of that
- program. In fact, it's been
- 100 percent funded for so long, primarily because insurance premiums are very predictable. They have
- master policies with all the counties in the state, so it's been easily controlled in terms of cost.
- Aside from that, the appendix just has a reference to that portion of Indiana Code 51120, which is about
- retirement plan reporting.
- and then a copy of that information that the actuary did provide. And we'll be, again, working with
- the auditor here to ensure that that gets posted by January or February, whatever the deadline is. If
- anyone has any questions, I'm happy to answer it. Okay. I'm looking to my right here to see if anybody
- has any questions.
- things started. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for your patience. I really appreciate it.
- Two points I want to make, and then I'll ask my question. Number one, it is fantastic to see that we
- have 22 active employees that have hit that eight-year cliff vesting. So that's really good news. We
- always like to see that. And hopefully we'll see that number just keep going up and up and up.
- And of course, really nice to see that on page, what was that, page eight, that we were above that 50%
- threshold. My question to you is on page seven, where you see the actual county contribution is a little bit
- higher than the actuarially determined contribution? How should we be reading that?
- Very good point. When the actuary prepares their reports each year, they come up with three different
- contribution levels. There is the actuarial minimum, that's by state statute, separate from all of this.
- There is one that says minimum funding must take place. And then there is a recommended contribution
- and an accelerated contribution. The difference between the three is the time frame that the unfunded
- liabilities are amortized. So think of it as it's all the same house you buy, but you could do a 30-year
- payment, a 20-year payment, or a 15-year payment. That's what the different ones are. They encourage
- paying it off a little bit faster because what you're doing is paying off with less interest. That's
- really it. And that can help the funded status.
- go up a little bit faster than if sticking with the minimum contribution. Nothing wrong with that, just
- like there's nothing wrong with a 30-year mortgage either. So that's why the difference is
- on this illustration. Great. Thank you. That was a helpful analogy. Yeah. Thanks. Councilor Hull? I
- was trying to follow along, and I wasn't looking at it. I was just trying to hear what you were saying.
- two things that they look at. Did I understand you right? One of the things would be if we can't meet
- the funding that we had. That means for every fund in the county government or just this fund?
- Just this one. If we're spending more than we're bringing in, they don't care about that as long as
- we're funding this.
- You could say that. You could say that they are closely reviewing this, which is an obligation of the
- county. You've got many more obligations. This is just one isolated area that is attacked or at least
- addressed by this portion of the code. OK. OK. Anybody to my left here have any questions? OK.
- Well, I'm sure we will dive into it a little bit more, but we appreciate it and take troubles back.
- Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. We appreciate it. All right. Next up on our regularly scheduled
- program in here, we'll move to item seven.
- Council, I move to open for discussion and possible approval the auditor's request to be exempt from
- the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire and fund 1000-0002, County General Auditor, the internal auditor
- position. All right, we got a motion and a second. I see the auditor is along, but I see Carly is here,
- so who is persisting this?
- We are presenting this item to request that we fill this position. We had originally been exempt from
- the hiring freeze. We had a candidate that was qualified. However, we were unable to meet the salary
- expectations for that individual and we passed the deadline of I believe it was November 1st to hire.
- So we're bringing it back to the table to discuss as to whether or not we can get another extension
- to hire for that position.
- Thank you very much. And looking to my left here, see if anybody has questions, Councilor Decker. So
- if I understand it right, this would enable you to fill something we'd already designated in that interim
- process that we had to fill the role, is that right? That is correct. Okay. I saw hands raised, so I'll
- go Councilor Hawke first and then Iverson. Okay.
- we don't have back our 1782 yet. Uh, which, uh, I understood the commissioner said that the, uh, when
- I was hearing the work session, that the bond had been sold people, state bank, whatever. Uh, so would
- we not be, I mean, that's what the state waits on before they'll give us a 1782.
- So when should we be receiving that? And that's why I think we ought to look at that before we start
- saying to anyone, go ahead and fill a slot. We may see some changes on that. We've seen changes in the
- past, haven't we? Some real shocks. I don't expect to see real shocks, but I also know that we were
- passing things that we knew weren't going to fly.
- So I think we need to get a better grip on exactly where we are. And that 1782 should be back within
- the week, I would think, by now. So I'm not going to be supporting it until we see. But that's just
- me. OK. So just to ask you a quick question, are you saying if we don't get it?
- If we get it back in another week, we do have a meeting next week, next Tuesday. If we get it back by
- then, is that sufficient for you? Well, it would seem to me once we get the 1782 back, we have a time
- to look at it, see where we are. And then we have time to look at it with clearer eyes because I think
- there was a lot of this coming down.
- We'll have a hiring freeze except for all this many people. And we either recognize that we have to
- reduce staff or we don't. And the best way to reduce it is through attrition. I mean, I think our county
- employees would prefer that if somebody just left, we didn't fill the slot instead of going to them
- at some point in time and saying, now we have too many.
- That's just me. I know I'm probably a lot more cautious than the rest of the world, but I've had to
- learn to be. I appreciate that, yeah. So I'll go Iris and then Henry. Yeah, so two questions.
- Number one, how long has this position been vacant? And number two, do you currently have a candidate
- that is willing to come in at the lower price point?
- I would have to look back to see how long this position has been vacant. It was vacant back in October,
- so it's been vacant for, I think September sounds right, but I don't want to go on record and say that.
- Two, three months, something like that. Yeah. And then what was your second question? Do you have a
- candidate?
- We do not have a candidate. However, we have been made aware that there is a court that is closing and
- that there may be options for us to hire other employees from other departments. And so we would be
- able to keep that in-house, if possible, if it's the best candidate. I don't want to say we're hiring
- from that, but. Sure, sure. OK. All right, thanks. But that's not until the end of 2026, right?
- You said, okay, okay, okay. Counselor Henry. Thank you. Do we historically know how long we've had an
- internal auditor position? I mean, is this a relatively new creation or is it something that's kind
- of long-term or integral in the office? I have the job description pulled up and it was written in 2018,
- but I believe the position was,
- a position that existed before it was removed for a while, and then it was recreated. Thank you. Anybody?
- Okay. Councilor Hawke. Right. Now, this part, I don't know whether it was part of the legislation or
- just a part of one of our training sessions where it said, since we're going to not have this court
- after 2026 that any employee that leaves and if they need to be replaced, that it is replaced on temporary
- position only, that every employee is met temporary if it has to be replaced so that they know that
- there's not a permanent slot open for them. I'm talking about for the court. I'm just saying.
- So you can see why the judges are going to, the judge in question is going to hope nobody leaves. On
- the other hand, if I was the employee, I'd want to make sure I had a roof over my head. Yeah. If I could
- respond to that, I do apologize. I thought that was happening this year. That's just information that
- I've received and we are trying to find ways not to end employment with other
- the employees that are valuable to the county. I was wondering, I was just like, I thought that was
- it. So next year, I thought we yet again just found something out. So OK, I just want to make sure.
- OK, thank you. But we have to look at whatever happens in that court, if anything should happen, that's
- when they should not replace it, any employee, unless we make it very clear it's temporary, so that
- we're not having to pay the expenses.
- As of right now, they would have to come to us still, I think. Right, right. Okay, because at one point,
- I think I had at least talked about exempting a larger chunk of the justice system, but that didn't
- go anywhere. Tonight, I'm apparently having amnesia on all past actions that we've had. There's a lot
- that's still happening. Okay.
- So that does, Councillor Hawks point suggests that we table, I would think, this action for at least
- a week so that we can take a closer look. And I think as much as I would really like to have an internal
- auditor soon,
- especially given some of the recent questions that have arisen around the use of various funds. I think
- it is probably prudent to put this off a week and see if we can get more information just to confirm
- where we are on this.
- particular position. So I moved to table until our next meeting. Can I do that right now? All right.
- Which is December 16th. Thank you. Second. Okay. So we have a motion and a second to table this item
- until we get more information. Is there any other further discussion from council related to this item?
- Council, how did you have your hand raised? No. Oh, okay. I thought I saw your hand go up. Okay. Okay.
- So seeing none, if there's any, did the auditor's office have any? Oh, okay. I wanted to make sure.
- All right. If there's any public comment on this item to table, please come forward to the lectern here
- then at you. Hilberma, raise your hand.
- and seeing non-weekend voice vote. Okay, so all those in favor of tabling this item until our next meeting,
- which is next Tuesday, December 16th, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign.
- All right, motion carries. So this will come back next Tuesday. All right, next item. Council, I move
- to open for discussion possible approval of the Parks Department's request to be exempt from the hiring
- freeze and be allowed to hire in Fund 1179-0000,
- Parks non-reverting operating, 21 part-time positions and in Fund 1000-0803, County General Parks, 11
- part-time positions for the 2026 year. Second. All right, we got a motion and a second. Ms.
- Whitmer is back. Welcome. Welcome. Hello. This is Andy French, our park superintendent, and he's here
- to answer any questions. But first, I have a question. Do you want to talk about these jobs
- categories individually or as a group, because they're funded out of different accounts, and it may
- or may not be relevant to you. I would say groups. I was looking at this. Were you talking to me?
- I can always talk to you. I sat here so I could see you. I think it would be best if you talked in groups
- and then if anybody else had any questions, then we can kind of dive into the specific ones. Okay. If
- you would like to talk about day camp counselors. Sure. That is paid by non-reverting. The parents pay
- for the counselor's salary, the registration fees, the program fees.
- pay for their salaries, so it does not come out of county general. It's at Cars Farm Park. We have had
- our day camp for almost 40 years running. It's very popular. We have around 350 children each year.
- The parents rely on it. We start programming now. So if for some reason we do not have day camp any
- longer, we need to inform the parents, so they need to start looking for other child care.
- So it's very simple. If there's no counselors, there's no summer day camp at Karst. So I don't know
- if you have any. I mean, I know you guys understand what day camp is. Just keep going. Just keep going.
- Oh, keep going. OK. After school instructors, same thing. It is non-reverting money. It is not county
- general money. The parents pay us a program fee, and then we pay the instructors. They learn about different
- sports. It's not stressful.
- They get to make friends. So that one, I think, is pretty easy. And if the parents can't afford, we
- have scholarships available for both day camp and after school programs. The CARS Athletic
- Complex Supervisor, it is incorrect in your packet. It's just a typo. They do come out of county general.
- We have one person in charge of 25 acres.
- And we run seven days a week, except in the winter. They help with medical emergencies, field emergencies.
- They actually help with calling the games in the evenings. They do adult soccer. They take in all those
- registrations. They help people with the rules and any, how do I say, I don't want to say arguments
- among the participants.
- that we may get in athletics. We do have new synthetic fields, which will have new rules that will have
- to educate the people. So this is, it's a highly stressful job because they're also calling the games
- as in the fields. They may say,
- the weather's too bad, you're gonna need to go home. This is not easy. When you have parents and they're
- in sports, the heat of the moment, it's not an easy job. They also take care, they go through the restrooms
- to make sure the irrigation isn't going off during the games, they take care of the lights. So one person
- for 25 acres, it's a big job. So they help protect the facility, they help protect
- the clients that are using it. So that one is out of county general. The park maintenance technician,
- that is out of county general. We cannot operate without park maintenance technicians. We have eight
- full-time staff that if our part-time staff is not there to help to do restroom cleaning, trash removal,
- Mowing, weed eating, trash pickup, invasive control, security is very important to us. Then our full-time
- staff, that's what they'll be doing. And what were they doing? They were taking care of all the plumbing,
- the electrical, the heavy equipment operator, the bush hogging, the trailering. We have an in-house mechanic.
- The splash pad, we have all the athletics, everything that takes highly skilled. So our highly skilled
- people will have to backfill the less skilled but very important to us to operate. We also will not
- be able to do any work at the Monroe County Nature Preserve because we were all planning that we would
- be the general contractor. We have to make an entrance, we have to make trails.
- We have to get a maintenance building up and around any of the construction items our park staff would
- be doing. We estimate it's about a million dollar savings to the county if our people do it with our
- equipment than to hire it out. And if our staff is busy actually, because we'll have to prioritize restrooms,
- harsh athletic complex, and trash. Those are the three things that we would try to concentrate on. Everything
- else, we'll get to. And if we do not have part-time staff, and you know Marty's known me for years,
- I don't exaggerate. We will have to close the splash pad down. We might have to close restrooms down.
- We definitely will maybe some restroom stalls, because there's just not enough of us to take care of
- over a thousand acres in security.
- for these parks. Plus, they work 35 hours a week. They have benefit time. They go on vacation. Sometimes
- they get sick. Sometimes they break an arm. So we're not fully staffed five days a week. And we operate
- seven days a week. We have to open gates, close gates.
- And I think, you know, I wrote the park consequences. I think you understand it. Delayed maintenance
- will be done. Things will deteriorate. Liability will go up. You know, they are certified from the Indiana
- State Chemist for the chemicals that we spray. They are certified in pool and spa operator for the splash
- pad. They are playground safety instructors. I mean, certified.
- So they're highly competent people, but they would have to backfill the lower jobs just so we can operate
- and be open. So I think you get the gist of the idea. And I understand the position you're in. The money
- in county general has been, you approved the budget, and we have the money sitting in there. So I guess
- your is, do you want to take our money
- or to leave it there so we can pay our part-time employees is the basic questions. Okay. All right.
- Thank you for that.
- It sounds like I need to amend my motion to include these three people. So council, I move to amend
- my motion. In fund 1179-0000, Parks and Underverting Operating, there are now 18 part-time positions.
- And I'd like to add in fund 1000-0803, Parks and Recreation General, three positions. 14 total. For 14. 14.
- Yeah, for a total of 14. Right, 14, yes. Second. I thought you were adding it from 11 down to 30. No,
- no, no. Just moving it. Right, because it's wrong in the packet. Correct. Because the CARS athletic
- complex supervisor should be in general. That's right. And the way that it's listed, it's not reverted.
- So, okay. I second it. So, we second it. Okay.
- right on paper correct so we're good whale okay so is oh we gotta vote um all right so all those in
- favor uh i'm sorry councillor hawke what right now we're just going to vote on yeah just to fix it um
- so all those in favor of the amendment signify by saying aye aye all those opposed same sign okay motion
- carries yes councillor hawke okay uh
- We all know that the more parks we take on, you cannot do it with the same amount of staff. However,
- recently there was this discussion about whether or not the Nature Preserve would take precedent over
- the Quarry Park, which did seem, so I don't know how that ended up. I know that when Commissioner Thomas
- went to the food and beverage people. She was asking for money to be used for the query park. And then
- she was questioned by one of the members, well, what about the nature preserve? And she said, well,
- that was already taken care of. I do not believe it's already taken care of. Have we covered it? I think
- she was covering it like in the bond or something. The bond is what you're talking about.
- I guess the question could be for us, where do we want their staff to go to do this? Do we want them
- to concentrate on Castle Park and the parks that we already have in place? Or do we want to try to get
- that food and beverage money over there to help with the nature preserve? These are tough questions,
- but we cannot expect them to do
- an additional park altogether without the funding for it. So I don't know. Maybe you all really know
- the answer to my questions. I think Kelly might know the answer. It was taken out of the bond, and it
- was put into the food and beverage money. So we do have funding. We just don't have the people yet.
- Right. OK. So you're saying.
- This would be county general. For funding, but it wouldn't be because it's coming from. Are you saying
- it's because it's going to come from the food beverage? No, the the supplies and materials,
- food and beverage. But county general hourly would be. Would be our staff. Hourly, which would then
- put our full time staff
- two to three of them at the Monroe County Nature Preserve to build it. Now, if we have to put our full-time
- staff at Karst because we have no hourly, they physically can't be at two places at once. So we have
- hourly money right now in that account. Does that make sense to you?
- Well, I mean, I'm perfectly comfortable with the non-reverting operating fund for you to move forward
- and do what you need to do with that, as long as the money is there, because that's money you generate
- from services. But the park maintenance folks, and then you're saying that would be 14, and that is
- 14. 14 people.
- I'm looking at the page. It says Park Maintenance Technicians, 11 positions, and then we just changed
- it to adding three on there. So it'd be 14. Is that right? Well, that's the Karst Athletic
- Complex Supervisors, three. Park Maintenance Technicians, 11. Right, 14. Okay, so that... And it all
- comes out of County General hourly. Okay, I'm just trying to figure out a way that we can
- reduce services to those other two parks that the Nature Preserve or the Aquarium Park, which is really
- not getting a lot of people usage right now until we can get a handle on where we are money-wise. And
- I don't want you to be cutting these programs for the children and for day camp, just whatever that
- takes. I don't want that cut.
- Well, good news for us, we're not in charge of the quarry park, nor will we be. So that's off our plate.
- So whatever you all and the commissioners decide about that. Well, that's good news. Why were we trying
- to get the money out of food and beverage for it? There you go on that. That's good news for us. So
- for the Monroe County Nature Preserve, we also have to probably inform the trust officer
- who oversees us each year to make sure that we have recreational activities or purposes at that park.
- And they're assuming that we're going to be open to the public in a couple of years. If we don't build
- the entrance and these kinds of things, we won't be open. And we, County Legal will probably have to
- have a talk with them to say, we have the funding, but we don't have the people.
- to make this happen. So I don't know legally what that means in the trust document. Sometimes a gift
- is more than you can afford. Well, once we get up and going, the trust will give us some money each
- year for maintenance of the facility.
- but they don't have the money to get us an entrance and get us the equipment and the maintenance building
- and all the trails and the trees and the grassland and the wildflowers. If we can get all that in and
- stable, then they will give us money each year to maintain what I just mentioned. Okay. Councilor Woods.
- So at first it might be worth, well,
- The non-reverting, I think, is an easy call. So just kind of removing that from our discussion. Looking
- at the other positions, what I am hearing is that we have a project, because of the new property, that
- we will not be able to do if we don't. Fund the hourly. Hire these hourly folks to do things in the
- manner in which you've already laid out the structure of how your whole operation works. And we have
- some legal obligations around this trust. Correct. And that's been adjudicated, I believe,
- where recreation was defined and what activities could take place and a timeline was also defined, right?
- They were, they said that our farming will cease after next summer, you know, once the crops are out,
- which means we will have 150 to 170 acres that if we don't start maintaining it, we're going to have
- invasives like
- you wouldn't believe. I'm not saying we'll never have an invasive plant there, but we want to plant
- trees, wildflowers, grasses, prairies. All these things would also actually be a tourist destination.
- If we do it right, people will come to look at the beautiful thing that we made.
- But we also, we need a park entrance because we cannot have the entrance where it's at because it's
- off of a highway. We need it to come off a night ridge road which does not exist. We have to build it
- or there's no entrance. If there's no entrance, you can't get into the preserve. So if we don't have
- part-time staff to do the less skilled,
- task at the other parks, it will not free up our full time staff who are heavy equipment operators and
- trailers and mechanics and these kind of things to go to the Monroe County Nature Preserve to create
- it in one or two years, which is lightning fast. Because we're trying to do what the trust asks us to do.
- I mean, to build the park in one to two years is lightning fast. But if we don't have our full-time
- staff there, it can't be done. Because if we go to hire people, the money will be gone in a heartbeat,
- and we'll probably have nothing built hardly. Because every dollar for supplies costs a dollar in labor
- if you're hiring it out, basically.
- So if we have X amount of dollars, we can make it going very long way. But if now it's cut in half,
- you only have half. I want to see if anybody else has any other questions as we wrap up. No?
- I think we should go ahead and vote on the nonreverting fund and know we've got that. And if we're going
- to put a pause on the auditor, I think we should be able to do the same thing here because it isn't
- like as if, I mean, we didn't tell them they can't have anybody. But what we're hoping for is that
- we'll see less dollars used, even if it was budgeted, because you did recognize that we were in deficit
- of $5 million. I've heard that rumor. Yeah. So we got to get that from someplace. I know. So I'll make
- the motion to separate the issue. Second. Thanks. Okay, so we got a motion to separate the
- non-reverend from the county general. Any further discussion from council on that? Okay, seeing none,
- all those in favor of separating that motion? As presented, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed,
- same sign. Okay, motion carries. Okay, so we'll start with the non-reverend items first. Any further
- final discussion on that? I have a question. Yes, go ahead.
- what can you take that you had hoped to get out of the county general? What can you move that back into
- the non reverting just for a while until we can see where we are? Are you are you asking the park board
- to fund positions out of non reverting that they normally have not? Yes, that's what I sure am. Well,
- I have a park board meeting tomorrow and I will say that we're very poor right now because
- The park board has approved all of the changed orders for the Karst Athletic Complex overruns and any
- of the Flatwoods Park restroom overruns. So I don't think they can even make that determination until
- all our finances settle down maybe in January or February. And they may say, yeah, it's really important
- to have a security person, so maybe we'll do that.
- I don't think they have that kind of money. So when you looked at this, all you're seeing is a part
- time day camp counselors for the summer. Is that for summer only? Yes. The day camp counselors, after
- school instructors, now those are non-reverting and they're very part time. And the parents pay for
- it. I just want to make sure we've got that code. Yeah.
- those two groupings. And I would really love to suggest we might be able to get some of that out of
- our special purpose money that we, but I think that special purpose monies can be short too. So as we
- think about the motion of the non-reverend here, is there any other further questions or discussion
- on this item?
- Okay, seeing none. If there's public comment on this item, you can come forward to the lectern here
- then at you Hill room or raise your hand via James. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote.
- Councilor Fiddle? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Hawk? Yes. Councilor Crosley?
- Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Deckard? Yes. Motion passes unanimous 7-0.
- Okay. And then coming back to the other question about the county or the general, the positions in the
- county general, I had a quick question. So when do you start? I know these, like these are, when would
- you start? When would they start officially? Some of them work 12 months out of the year, actually.
- And others start in March. Late February, early March until October, November, usually.
- Okay, and so then it sounds like, so if majority of those start in the very early beginning of the spring,
- would you, in normal years, advertise that start in like January or now? Right after Christmas.
- Got it, okay. Because the competition to get these employees is rough. Okay. Okay.
- Yes, Councilor Henry. Thank you, and thank you for the whole conversation. I would maybe just make one
- editorial that's not really aimed at the Parks Department, but this is what happens when department
- heads come to us and ask for additional appropriations for things. It's not hard, and I am glad you're
- here to do that with us tonight. I do, I think my only heartburn is around about what Councilor Hawk
- was pointing to, but it's the gift with a really long tail, right? I mean, what we have is all this
- induced cost after we get the gift that just,
- And obviously, we're going increasingly sensitive up here to hidden costs or costs that keeps coming
- at us for things that we're trying to juggle. And so I guess, is there in the master plan for the development
- in terms of short-term, long-term, are some of these costs chunked out that I could get to or take a
- look at to try to understand? Because I think you painted a good picture. We got the gift, but there's
- an obligation to get it open in a certain time frame because the trustee is waiting for it.
- there's now induced costs to the county or someone to improve the entrances, to staff it, to secure
- it. Do we have some of those projections so we can get our head around what getting a nature park up
- and running is going to cost over a five-year period as costs that we are not getting from the trust,
- but we're going to have to find a way to do? If we are able, we have the food and beverage money that
- has been promised, and if we can still have our hourly,
- you all gave us in August, that's all we need. We don't need anything else from you. We will be able
- to maintain it on our own with the trust help. We will not ask you for any more money. That would include
- like the annual general obligation bond as well, because we saw some initial, because we initially tried
- through the GO bond and then we moved it to food and bev, but. Right. Okay. We are allowed with the
- food and beverage money and our hourly that we were planning on,
- We will build out what we can with that money and that's all that we're going to do. We won't do anything
- for, could be a decade. We will be able to manage that with the money from the trust each year. Because
- it's just very basic items. Grass, trees, road, utilities, a porter toilet.
- And that's all we're planning. And we're not planning on anything else. And if someone wants a shelter
- someday or this or that, we might be able to get a donation for that. Or in 10 years, you all decide,
- oh, yeah, let's get a shelter there. Other than that, this is not an athletic complex. This is not one
- of those major parks that has all kinds of bells and whistles. It's grass trails.
- And we will not be coming back for you for help because the trust will help us if we can get started
- with the seed money in with our hourly that we were planning on normally having. We haven't asked you
- for any more money. Can I have a follow up there. I appreciate that. But I'd say.
- The trust does allow for that kind of recreation if the county chose to go that way. There are like
- 10 items in there. Oh, yeah. The trust has no problem with what you all want to fund. Yeah, there's
- a perception out there that's not been said by anybody in the room right now that it's only for nature.
- I bet there are at least nine other options we could go with in that trust. You enumerated some of them,
- but right now none of those are being considered, like an indoor facility, outdoor facility, right?
- Yeah. Okay.
- The reason why it was written that way is because we were trying to write it for the next 100 years.
- We don't want someone in year 89 say, gee whiz, I wish they would have put this word in it. There might
- be hover ball. There might be a future something we don't know about. The attorneys tried to write it
- as broad, but that's not really what's going in the next decade. It's grass trails.
- and more grass trails and trees and wildlife. Okay. And we're going to wrap up because we've got more
- items on the agenda here. So, Councilor Deckert? Of the options, is the grass trail option pretty much
- the cheapest option you could have, right? Yes. We will have one- By far. By far. We will have one ADA
- trail that will be solid surface that will go to the back of the park.
- That's very important to us, but the grass trails are, we're very good at growing grass. And I appreciate
- you talking about an ADA trail because that's always the first that goes when these things start happening
- and people say, well, we get a really good deal if we just didn't, and that's. We have ADA parking and
- ADA trail going to the ADA restroom to any ADA facilities, but mostly grass trails.
- I fear on our present condition, which is why I'm going to start calling this process by which the state
- has induced local government to begin to eat each other and fight. My fear on that is we will, if we're
- not careful, we'll either
- screw up something like this that in 20 to 40 to 50 years looks a certain way, and then we lose a car
- or store the trails. I mean, look at the trails. When I was born here, I wouldn't have envisioned any
- of those trails. Now it's literally a pathway and a corridor for all these things. And essentially,
- the trust is asking us to do where... I'm sorry? Marty was just... Okay. Don't worry, Trent. I think
- I still have the floor for a second.
- The trust is just asking us to do the bare minimum so that is not overrun and then suddenly you're dealing
- with to deforest or not, right? The wrong evasives, invasives. Okay. Because we want to plant something
- that visitors actually will come see. I mean, beautiful flowers and prairies and interesting trees.
- They will come if we do it correctly.
- Okay. Thank you. Um, is there any other further questions on comments on this? I don't have a suggestion.
- Yes. Counselor Hawk. Okay. So, um, if I'm understanding this right, uh, would be possible to say, do
- some of them, but not all of them. You know, you don't have to have, I mean, you don't have to start
- hiring right now for something you're not going to need until spring.
- and delay it, that's the whole purpose in delaying hiring and replacing is to allow the money to build
- up so the money will, there'll be more to go back. So what about that? Just throwing a suggestion out
- there so that you, you know, sometimes a crush of bread is better than no bread. I don't know.
- We have to plan properly. I'm just saying you look back there and all those other people, they all want
- something too. Which ones do we say no to? Did you want to respond? And another thing is right now we
- still have some hourly on staff. I guess we need to know if we can spend our hourly or not.
- if some of them are still on staff. Because I don't know, we can't plan if we don't know month to month
- if you want to take our money back, which is totally your prerogative, but we can't not plan. Yes, Michelle.
- So our part-time hourly is divided up. There is permanent part-time hourly, and that are part-time hourly
- people that work
- 28 hours or less all year long. And then we have the seasonal and the temporary. How many permanent
- part-time hourly do you have in your general fund? And that's the ones that work all year long. Because
- you said that you've got... We have two that provide security. Now, we also have people that work February
- to November.
- We don't we've never been in those categories very well County legal has always been trying to put us
- in these categories and we never seem to fit very well Okay, if we If we table this until one week from
- today I think that might give us the same advantage that it did our last agenda item and allow us to consider
- some of your needs I know you have a park board meeting tomorrow you just said that I think it might
- be a good discussion to have either with them or after you've spoken with them you know we could talk
- as your liaison and just lay out what what the the planning needs are in in the next few months because
- I understand that operationally your hands are
- really tied by our indecision. And so one week, I think, would be enough. So I'm going to make a motion,
- if that's OK. I'm seeing nods. I move that we table the general fund part of this agenda item to our
- next meeting, which is December 16. Second. Everybody in unison. OK. Any other further discussion on
- this? All right. There is public.
- any other questions or comments on this item? Raise your hand via teams or come in and speak at the
- podium. And seeing none. May we have a roll call vote on that? Since you're tabling it can. That's right.
- Okay So all those in favor of table in this item to next Tuesday. December 16th signify by saying aye.
- All those opposed
- Well, I mean, oh, yes. OK. Well, we got you know what? I'm just going to take a moment to recess for
- a second. And so before, sorry, Miss Kelly, I know you're up next, but I'm just going to take a moment
- to recess here so we can kind of gather ourselves and get ready for the rest of the agenda. So if we
- can come back at
- All right, so we are going to come back to order here and the.
- We left off at, or we were getting ready to start before break item C. So now we go to item C, which
- is from the Health Department. Council, I move to open for discussion. Possible approval of the Health
- Department's request to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire in Fund 1161-0000 Local
- Public Health Services, the Health Services Director position. Second. Second. I hope somebody needs to read.
- All right, and I think that was me. All right, Miss Kelly, thank you, welcome.
- Thank you. So first I just wanted to say thank you for adding this to the agenda and for providing this
- time for this request. So I do appreciate that. So this request is to fill a vacancy. The department
- had been granted during the hiring freeze an exemption to fill this position. What had actually happened
- is the candidate who was in the position decided to no longer move forward. And so given the position
- had evolved prior to what it was before without the nursing
- services into making the additions with the nursing services, additional direct reports I think
- is understandable. But it's really important that we have this nurse supervisor to provide clinical
- oversight, quality control, provide scheduling, clinic schedules, be able to oversee state reporting
- requirements.
- This is currently funded through state funding. We were looking at also using some old grant funding
- that we're continuing to spend down in
- into next year in 2027 as an alternative option which would provide flexibility with not having to maintain
- the Indiana residency issue that we've discussed before with the Health First Indiana funding. So a
- couple different funding options that we've been looking at there. So happy to answer any questions
- that you would have otherwise.
- Okay. And TSD, I'm getting alerts that our camera in the courthouse is not turned on. And it looks like
- that way via cat. Okay. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you for that, Ms. Kelly. Council, do you have
- any questions or comments for Ms. Kelly? I already saw a hand up. Councilor Epperson. Thank you for
- being here. And of course, this is really important because it provides for vaccines for children.
- And so we here in Monroe County believe that vaccines are safe and effective, and we encourage everyone
- to go get their vaccines. So that's really wonderful. And sorry, I'm buzzing a lot. My question to you
- is, I think, again, this is not coming out of your general fund. This is coming out of the Healthy First
- Fund. What are you hearing from the state about the future of this fund?
- not a lot except for really just trying to put together plans to advocate to get the funding headed
- back up towards where it we originally saw but I think that that's that is part of our challenges is
- that we don't know what that state funding is going to be in 2028 and so I think that that's why it's
- really important that we're giving consideration to again using some of those
- old grant funds for some of these positions that we know are essential and that we just have to have.
- And as I think that you all have stated is that they're probably tough decisions that are going to be
- coming in the future about what's really essential to run departments versus not essential. Thank you
- for understanding that. And I guess, yeah, thank you. Thank you.
- Does anybody else have any questions? Yes, Councilor Wilts. I appreciate you looking at alternatives
- for the funding behind the position. I think that since we had exempted this position once, I think
- that the fair thing to do is to exempt it again. Are these alternative old grant funds? Is that something
- that you've been talking with? I keep pointing to the auditor's office about.
- Yes, so the one that I have in mind is that co ag grant funding that we're continuing to spend down.
- So one of the challenges that we're currently in is historically the department has received immunization
- grant funding through throughout.
- COVID for many, many years, they were also receiving COVID supplemental funding. So hundreds of thousands
- of additional grant dollars that were supporting these nurse services that we did not get provided with
- beginning July 1st of this year. So we are anticipating and we are hoping that that will return next
- year. But again, that's unknown.
- That was one hit that we took, but we're hopeful that that will come back. Me too. Does anybody else
- have any questions or comments from Miss Kelly on this item? All right. And seeing none, we'll turn
- to public comment. You can come forward to the lectern here in the Nightingale room or raise your hand
- via Teams. And seeing none, may we have a roll call vote, please?
- Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Crosley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor
- Feidl? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Motion passes 6-0. Thank you. All right. Thank you. And I just want
- to note for the record that Councilor Hawk did leave during the recess. So that's why her name was not
- called. Got it. Okay. Thank you. Duly noted. All right. Next up is new business items. And we'll start
- with the aviation department.
- Council, I move to approve the aviation department's request and fund 4801-0000 aviation construction,
- the creation of account line 30006 contractual, and simultaneously approve an additional appropriation
- of $25,000 in the services category. Second. Okay. I think that might be Mr. Leverty that is ready.
- and I see that he is present via team, so welcome. Good evening. Yes, the airport's requesting this
- appropriation for $25,000. We recently acquired several extremely large pieces of snow removal equipment,
- and this appropriation will help us acquire one more additional vehicle that we will use for
- spare parts because the spare parts for this equipment is hard to come by. Is the audio okay? Keep going.
- Okay, sorry. So this will allow us to get one more piece of equipment for cannibalization and then another
- big acquisition of this $25,000
- is for the very large runway brooms that we've acquired, we need to purchase brand new bristles, which
- will be put on the broom spindles because they need to be replaced from time to time. And we don't want
- to be in a position in the middle of the winter without new bristles for the brooms. And then there's
- some other small components like hydraulic cylinders and castor tires for the broom heads that we need
- to acquire to have this equipment up and running for the duration of the winter.
- Okay, thank you for that. Council, do you have any questions or comments for Mr. Lavity on this item?
- Yes, Councilor Wilts. Regarding the equipment you've already obtained, were you able to use it over
- the last snow event that we had? Yeah, we've been able to use it two times actually. There was one very
- light snow where we received
- maybe an inch, and then the most recent one that we had, I think it was, I'm not sure how long ago that
- was, where we had about two inches on the airfield. And we were able to clear the main runway, the parallel
- taxiway, and the main ramp in about 45 minutes. And in previous similar situations with about two inches
- of snow, that would have taken, just to get the primary runway open, that would have taken about
- three to four hours. Wow, okay. Yeah, yeah. And then to complete the rest of the airfield, the rest
- of the total airfield, aircraft parking area, seahanger areas, parking lots, that was all done before
- lunch. And in the past, that could have easily gone into a multi-day event. Wow, wow, that's great.
- It's really cool to hear.
- Yeah, it's amazing, especially for our staff. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Any other questions or comments
- from council on this item? All right. Seeing none, if we have public comment, again, please raise your
- hand via Teams or you can come to the podium here and then at U Hill Row. And seeing none, maybe please
- have a roll call vote. Councilor Crosley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes.
- Yes. Councilor Wills. Yes. Councilor Henry. Yes. Motion passes 6-0. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening.
- You too. All right next up item B. Council I move to approve the council office's request and fund 4116
- donations council the creation of account line 30031 Sophia Travis and simultaneously approve an additional
- appropriation of $3,000 in the services category. Second.
- All right, we got a motion in a second. I'm gonna look to Michelle. Welcome. Hi, so we got a donation
- fund and because of all of the budgets and everything, this item just slipped off the radar
- to be appropriated. So this is to appropriate that donation fund that was collected in honor of Councilor
- Munson. Three agencies were granted
- thousand dollars a piece which was Girls Incorporated, Grace Center, and the Heritage Festival. So this
- is just gonna be able to appropriate it so that we can move forward with cutting a check for them for
- those that total. All right thank you. Council do we have any questions or comments on this item?
- just doing some housekeeping stuff. All right. Hmm. I just kind of looked at the date and I just realized.
- Nope, not gonna do it. Tomorrow is actually a year that council member Munson has been gone. So that is very,
- interesting that we're doing this on the night before. So I just thought about that, because she's been
- on the brain a lot recently in light of all the other things that have been happening. And I've been
- trying to think of what would she do in some of these moments that we are having in hard times in county
- government. So I just looked at the date and just realized,
- day it was. So I'm going to stop talking because my nose feels like Rudolph the Red Nose reindeer right
- now, because it's getting a little warm, which means I will cry. So I'm not going to do it. So anyways,
- anybody else have any other questions, comments, or concerns? No? OK, great. So public comment, if you
- do have public comment on this item, you can come forward to the election here in the Night eHill room,
- or you can raise your hand via Teams. And seeing none.
- maybe please have a roll call vote. Councillor Iverson. Yes. Councillor Deckard. Yes. Councillor Feidl.
- Yes. Councillor Wilz. Yes. Councillor Henry. Yes. Councillor Crossley. Yes. Motion passes 6-0. Okay,
- thank you.
- Okay. All right. Um, next up is item C council. I moved to approve the highway department's request
- for a fund to fund transfer of cash of $201 and seven cents from fund 8161 dash 0000 sample road phase
- one to fund 1169 dash 0000 local road and street. Okay. We got a motion and a second and I thought this
- bridge is virtual. So I am
- okay hello um you can proceed i really don't have anything it's pretty simple um that uh that phase
- of the project is complete so we're just wanting to close out the grant fund okay newly noted um council
- what questions or comments do you have for miss bridge on this item no
- Okay. Um, if there's public comment again, you can, um, present yourselves here on this item and the
- net you have room at the podium, or you can raise your hand via teams. Okay. And seeing none, may we
- please have a roll call vote. Councilor Decker. Yes. Councilor Fiddle. Yes. Councilor Wilts. Yes. Councilor
- Henry. Yes.
- Councilor Crosley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Motion passes 6-0. All right. Thank you, Ms. Ridge.
- All right. Next up is item D. Council, I move to approve the prosecutor's request and fund 8123-9626,
- the stop grant for the creation of new account lines as outlined on the agenda and simultaneously approve
- additional appropriations of $122,809.52 in the personnel category.
- Second. All right. We have Ms. Beth Hamlin here. Hello. Welcome. Hello, counselors. This is a request
- for newly awarded stop grant funds. We did receive the fully executed contract signed by the state
- just yesterday, so we should be good to move on this. This funding period runs from 10-1 of 25 through
- 9-30 of 2026. It pays approximately half of the salary, FICA, and PERF for our domestic violence and
- our sex crime deputy prosecuting attorneys, and the match is covered by P.S. Lit in the amount of $40,928.96.
- Thank you for that. Questions or comments from Council? Oh, Councilor Williams? As always, this is great
- and appreciate the work that you do to maintain these funds. Congratulations. Oh, thanks. Just out of
- curiosity, because we see the
- the lovely things that are happening in federal government, and I say that in a very sarcastic manner.
- Do you think, is there any belief that you all think that this might not get renewed next year? We have
- not received any information to that effect. I don't anticipate that. I think the victim funding is
- probably more at risk for the VOCA grant.
- Um, but again, there are a lot of things that have happened in the last several years that I did not
- see coming. So let's buckle up. I know we can say the same for local government too. All right. Um,
- so I'm full of zingers tonight. Anybody else have any questions or comments?
- All right. Seeing none. If anybody has public comments on this item, you can come forward to the lectern
- here in the night, you know, room or raise your hand via teams. And seeing none, maybe please have a
- roll call vote. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Wills? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Crosley?
- Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Deckard? Yes. Motion passes six zero. All right. Thank you.
- Next up is item E. Council, I move to approve the prosecutor's request and fund 2503-0000 diversion
- slash prosecutor user fees to amend the 2025 salary ordinance and add account lines 13-031 APS case
- monitor, 35 hours, Pat A exempt, and 15-115 APS director, 35 hours, Pat C exempt. Second. That was out.
- You missed E. Sorry. Do you want me to read the right one? Yes. Yeah. Sorry, Beth. You're good.
- All right. Council I move to approve the prosecutor's request and fund 2503-0000 diversion prosecutor
- user fees for the creation of new account lines as outlined
- on the agenda and simultaneously approve additional appropriations of $14,043.58 in the personnel category
- and $2,525.36 in the services category for a total appropriation of $16,568.94. Second. Okay. Okay.
- Thank you. This request is necessary and I'll be honest, it's extremely frustrating.
- It's due to the refusal of the state division on aging to reimburse the final claim for our adult protective
- services expenses the month of June 2025. As you recall, the state decided to privatize adult protective
- services throughout the state and take it out of prosecutors offices. Our contract ended on June 30th.
- We had employees employed until June 30th. We submitted our final claim on
- August 29th, we had clear instruction that we had until the 30th to submit those claims. Additionally,
- they stated they would not reimburse expenditures made after June 30th, even though we had vacation
- time that was incurred prior to June 30th. I could go on. Anyway, we have requested an appropriation
- in our pretrial diversion fund so that we can make corrections so that the APS fund can end
- at a zero balance and not in the negative. Thank you. Okay. Anybody have any questions or comments on
- this item for Ms. Hamlin? It's a shame. I don't say that much. Yes, Councilor, I understand. And you've
- received no further response or communication from the state regarding this matter? No, we received
- a few emails, exchanges. We involved County Legal, Molly Turner King was excellent in her communication,
- defining the contract.
- pieces that spoke to our ability to make these claims and we requested a teams meeting to try to rectify
- it and they just, it was radio silence. So I don't, the frustration and lack of interest in there,
- you know, obviously the APS program is defunct. There is no APS in the county going forward.
- They don't seem interested in making good on their contract. So for $16,000, we'll pay it out of the
- PDP fund and move on. Gosh. Yes, Counselor Decker. Well, I never liked this switch in the first place.
- As a young criminal justice student in the 90s, I can remember that
- the discussion being vibrant around prosecutors now having the ability to manage this, think about this.
- And I worry while everything cannot be done in a local office, I'm truly worried about a population
- that really doesn't have that fair arbiter who is accountable to the public. We've heard about that
- all night. Individuals that are accountable to the public and there's something for roles we're in and
- roles others are in.
- and what that looks like. I think this is gonna be a small walking pneumonia disaster. And the fact
- that you can't even get a response is pretty indicative of how the state is gonna manage that. So this
- is one that I think we're gonna, much like everything else, we're gonna see the repercussions in our
- everyday life in a whole bunch of ways. I agree. It's terrifying, really.
- Any other questions or comments? Yes, Councilor Wilts. Yeah, just reiterating what Councilor Deckert
- is saying and curious as to even though you're being ghosted on this item, have you heard anything about
- what they are putting in place?
- I should have brought it with me. I don't have it. It's a statewide hotline, much similar to the DCS
- changes when they went to a state hotline. I have not heard much feedback about how that's working.
- But yes, there is a process in place. And that's an 800 number that anybody can
- use to gain across the state. Okay. Unless you or for concerns across the state. I mean, if you have
- a concern and you live out of state and you're concerned about someone that lives in state, you can
- still use it. That makes sense. Okay. Let's turn a king. Do you want me to give you that number? Sure.
- Please. It's 1-800-992-6978. Lower again. 1-800-992-6978.
- Thank you. All right. I think this would be a good opportunity. I know Council Henry kind of joked about
- this before, but
- kind of think it's a little serious now. Your little idea of how they do in Congress where they just
- have like a rolling thing behind people and we can just keep tabulating the dollar amounts that the
- state is costing local municipalities. I actually think that might be a sobering idea and we can kind
- of throw it back at them and let them know like this is what they're doing. So I think that's something
- you should think about in the future. Specifically?
- I mean, it was your idea. You have the homework. It was your idea. I'm off to IU surplus to buy a shop.
- I think that this is a legitimate and fair discussion. I want to give a really good example tonight.
- The pension report that we received, it was quite elaborate. That's nice. That's wonderful. Some state
- legislators thought of that. They had a good reason before they went to redistricting rally. And then
- We are paying, I'm sure, tonight for that individual to drive down here, to sit back there, to log up
- those hours, and that happens every day. Literally, that whole row of tables of staffers are devoted
- to making sure that we're compliant with XYZ, but if not, but for October 15th, can't get into your
- own penny bank. I mean, literally, for people that say,
- government needs to shrink, I have some ideas on where government shrinkage might need to happen because
- they clearly are in candy land that they have time for what they're dealing with. Again, with all that
- we're thinking about, challenges we're facing, et cetera, these things probably should have a rolling
- average. Don't get me started on capitalism. My bad.
- Okay, so if there's no further questions or snarky comments here, we can go forward to the public and
- see if they have any comments on this item. So if you do, you can raise your hand via Teams or you can
- come to the podium here in the Nightingale Room. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote.
- Councilor Wilz? Yes. Councilor Henry?
- Yes. Councillor Crosley. Yes. Councillor Iverson. Yes. Councillor Deckard. Yes. Councillor Feidl. Yeah.
- Motion passes 6-0. Okay. Now we go to item F.
- Great, you've heard this before. Council, I move to approve the prosecutor's request and fund 2503-0000
- diversion prosecutor user fees to amend the 2025 salary ordinance. And that account lines 13031 APS
- case monitor, 35 hours, Pat A exempt, and 15115 APS director, 35 hours, Pat C exempt. Second. Okay,
- thank you. This just allows the salary ordinance so we can make that
- we don't have any intention to fill these positions. Okay. Thank you. All right. Questions or comments
- from Council? Seeing none. Public comment. Raise your hand via Teams or come to the lectern here in
- the Nattie Hill room. And seeing none again, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Henry? Yes.
- Councilor Crosley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes.
- Councillor Deckard. Yes. Councillor Fiddle. Yes. Councillor Wilts. Yes. Motion passes 6-0. Okay.
- Thank you. Thank you very much. Next up is item G. Oh yeah and item G is the auditor's office. So I'm
- looking at Carly and to give a brief update on this item. Yes.
- So when closing out the funds we were just discussing with Ms. Hamlin, we identified that there is a
- negative cash balance in the amount of $5,847.69 that exists from about mid 2023 and back. We've discussed
- this with the state. The state has agreed that we should establish our period of due diligence and discuss
- decide how much this would cost to reconcile these dollars. The auditor has determined that our due
- diligence is back to mid 2023. So we've done a correction of error to move these expenses into another
- fund. We're just notifying you that this correction has occurred or is in the process of occurring.
- OK. Thank you for that. Does anybody have any questions or comments here?
- Okay. And then I would assume, just like you're doing today, that you just give us an update once it's
- all completed. Maybe via email? Yeah. Okay. That works. All right. All right. Thank you very much. We
- appreciate that. That was fast. All right. Next up is item H.
- Council, I move to approve the emergency management's request in fund 8178-0000. National priority com
- for a deappropriation of account line 30006 contractual in the amount of $100. Second. Okay, we got
- a motion and a second. And it looks like Mr. Baker is virtual. So you should be able to unmute and you
- should go ahead.
- Good evening, Council. The Department would like to request the de-appropriation of the remaining $100
- out of the Fund 8178. This was a grant that we applied for in 2023. It was the State Homeland Security
- Program grant that we used to facilitate an exercise. And the total amount was $18,100. And the $18
- covered the contract
- expenses and the $100 we set aside just in case they didn't cover something like office supplies such
- as paper and stuff like the reports and stuff. So we are just asking to the $100 more needed. So when
- you're just going to get the $100 back to the state. Yeah, I know we just thank you for that. That was,
- you know, all right.
- Any questions or comments from Council on this item? Seems pretty easy. They didn't use it and they
- have to send it back. Wish they could do the same for us in this state, but we appreciate that, Mr.
- Baker. All right, so if there's any other questions or no further questions from Council on this item,
- if you would like to have public comment on this item, you can come forward to the lectern here in the
- NatU Hill Room or raise your hand via Teams. And seeing none.
- maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Crosley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Decker?
- Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Motion passes 6-0. Okay thank
- you very much Mr. Rieger and thank you for your patience. All right next up we will spend some time
- with the probation
- department with item K. Council I move to approve the probation department's request and fund 9140-0000
- pre-trial program grant. The creation of new account lines is outlined on the agenda and simultaneously
- approve additional appropriations of $214,746 in the personnel category. Second.
- All right, and we have Ms. Linda Brady here. Welcome. Thank you. You're welcome. I'm Linda Brady, Chief
- Probation Officer. I know I have a lot of agenda items, but I do want to just kind of give you a brief
- overview of what I'll be going over tonight. As you can see, Probation Department has been awarded many
- grants for 2026. 10 will be appropriated tonight, and they total about $1.86 million. So it's significant
- for our department.
- 30% of our department is funded by grants. So it's a very important funding source for the department.
- For tonight's grants, the three funding sources are the Indiana Department of Correction, which is the
- largest portion, Indiana Supreme Court, and Monroe County CARES. We also have an additional grant award
- that won't be here tonight, just to let you know it's coming, the sequential intercept model,
- the SIM grant. We've been getting that from opioid money from the feds,
- we're going to have a lot of fun tonight. We're going to have a lot of fun tonight. We're going to have
- a lot of fun tonight. We're going to have a lot of fun tonight. We're going to have a lot of fun tonight.
- We're going to have a lot of fun tonight. We're going to have a lot of fun tonight. We're going to have
- a lot of fun tonight. We're going to have a lot of fun tonight. We're going to have a lot of fun tonight.
- We're going to have a lot of fun tonight. We're going to have a lot of fun tonight. We're going to have
- a lot of fun tonight. We're going to have a lot of fun tonight.
- and we have always set the annual CTP budget the same time as our Community Corrections Grant budget
- because it's supposed to supplement the Community Corrections program. So we never know until we know
- what the grant is going to be, what we should be asking for for CTP. So just a summary of all the grants
- for 2026, any grant that pays a portion of staff salaries, excuse me, pays
- First of all, only partial salaries. All of the grants require matching funds. And so the matching funds
- are used to pay for partial salaries, COLAs, step raises, and the accompanying FICA, PERF for the COLAs.
- Also, the FICA and PERF
- that if it's allowed by the granting entity in longevity, if it's if it's allowed by the granting entity,
- we put longevity. Counting longevity for the employees that are eligible into the grants. Um. All grants
- had a hard cap on how much they would fund for. The fringe benefits. So we all want to want to make it
- Any grant money that pays for a salary also pays that corresponding FICA and PERF. Thank you. I appreciate
- it. This is what you get when you get asthma. And that's also community. Good job. Thank you for taking
- care of me. Good story.
- health insurance. So for 2026, all the positions that are grant funded have had their self insurance
- budget in the employee services county general budget. That was done during budget time. None of the
- grants that are being appropriated tonight provided sufficient funding for self insurance due to their
- budget caps. We knew this going in, we dealt with our council liaisons. So we already dealt with this
- through the budgeting process for next year.
- Excuse me. So that is the summary of it. So this particular grant. So this is the first of six grants
- that the court received from the Indiana Supreme Court. You probably remember, some of you, if you were
- around for a while, the probation department was part of Indiana's pretrial pilot project. In 2014,
- we received a grant from the Indiana Supreme Court to start our pretrial release program.
- After the pilot program ended, then we officially began our pretrial program in October of 2016.
- In 2019, the Board of Directors of the Judicial Conference of Indiana adopted pretrial service rules
- forming a basis for voluntary certification for Indiana counties implementing pretrial best practices.
- We were certified by the Indiana Office of Court Services in April, 2021.
- and we were recertified in July 2024. And because of the certification and recertification, that's why
- we're eligible to have these grants. If we didn't get certified, we wouldn't be eligible. And there
- are counties who've chosen not to apply for this money. They don't want to go through the certification
- process, which is their choice. And so, as I said, achieving and maintaining certification is part of
- the process, and we have to do that to be eligible for grant funding.
- for calendar year 2026. The Monroe Circuit Court received two grants from the Indiana Supreme Court
- to continue providing pretrial services. The total amount awarded by the Supreme Court for both grants
- in total is $486,612. Through this specific grant, the court was awarded $200,000
- program. The grant also provides up to $10,000 for part time probation officer assistance to help with
- collection of the required program statistics. We have a lot of
- The dollar amount for this grant is a 6% decrease from what we received last year. And this is due to
- the state Supreme Court received a 5% budget cut as most state. Departments did and also they had more
- than double the amount of grant requests than money they had to give out for pre trial programs and
- that's hence the caps.
- There are no grant funds allocated for supply services or capital expenses. It's all personnel. So it
- pays for a large portion of the pretrial probation officer's salary and the public defender's salary,
- the FICA and the PERF. Any remaining costs for the pretrial services program from this grant are paid
- by the community corrections user fees and the public defender's budget.
- So just a couple things about our pretrial program. We follow national best practice that maximize release,
- maximize appearance to court, and maximize public safety. Those are called the three M's of pretrial.
- And while it's not a primary purpose of pretrial services, maximizing release of individuals from the
- jail does impact the jail population by reducing the number of individuals in the jail awaiting resolution
- of their case.
- And for some people, they might not think it's important, but research has shown
- that pretrial detention has a criminogenic effect, meaning that being detained longer increases the
- likelihood a person will be arrested for a new crime and arrested for a new violent crime. So it matters
- how long people are detained in jail. And so thus, this is an important program for our community. Defendants
- who are released from jail during the pretrial period are more likely than their incarcerated peers
- to maintain pro-social contacts within the community, maintain contact with
- family and find and maintain employment or education. In Monroe County all arrestees undergo a state
- required validated pretrial risk assessment to assess their likelihood of appearing for court and not
- being arrested while their case is pending. There are some people that pretrial detention may be appropriate.
- We have this risk assessment tool and also the pretrial services report prepared by our probation officers
- to help the judges make the informed decisions about bail. So the
- The risk tool is just one of the tools the probation officers prepare a report with more information
- for the court. We do collect a lot of data and just a few pieces of data. Since 2016, when our program
- started, our overall appearance rate
- people come into court without missing any court dates is above 70%. That means all of the 70% of defendants
- that we assessed show up for all of their court hearings while their case is pending. Also since 2016,
- our overall safety rate has maintained at 90%. That means 90% of assessed defendants were never re-arrested
- for criminal offense while their case is pending. That's significant.
- I'm sorry. Excuse me. Also since 2016, our overall success rate has maintained over 60%, which means
- 60% of defendants have not been a rearrested and also do not fail to appear for court. So it's a very
- successful program. We've had very good outcomes and it's our
- program is considered one of the best, if not the best in the state. I don't mean to be bragging, but
- that's what we hear from the Indiana Office of Court Services and the Supreme Court. We're really proud
- of our pre-trial program. So that's basically it. So if you have any questions. And we're going to give
- you a minute so you can chug some water. That was a lot. So we appreciate that. You are good.
- I have one, thank you. I appreciate your taking care of me. We should have had it out. Nope, you're
- totally fine. We will take a moment. Okay. Thank you. As we think of, as we allow Miss Brady to catch
- her breath there, is there any questions that we are thinking of? Yes, Councilor. Let me wax eloquent.
- I'm kidding. I won't do that. This is, I think, the second time that we've had something like this come
- to us because the
- the Indiana Supreme Court did grant these dollars to literally save the pretrial diversion program.
- So whenever I think we have the opportunity, we should look into the cameras and say, thank you, Indiana
- Supreme Court, for doing this. Absolutely. We've had so many conversations about the value of pretrial
- diversion. And it's just an important, important tool we have in this community.
- just congratulations on getting these grants. It's such an important thing for our community that really
- keeps people out of jail. Thank you. Thank you, Shannon. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is the items
- that we found out towards the end of the budget cycle that you were
- So that's the next one. That's the next one. So this one is the one that we have been getting every
- year since we have been certified as a pretrial program. But it got cut a little bit because of the
- state budget line getting cut in the Supreme Court's grant. Okay.
- All right, any other questions or comments from Ms. Brady? Yes, Councillor Hinnock. Yeah, thank you.
- I think maybe that's where I'm focused is on that 6% right now, or just that cut. So as you've heard
- tonight, we've talked about thinking through the future and the contingencies of what happens when these
- grants get to a point where we start to really impact services. So as I understand it, because of the
- match, you've structured your staffing with a,
- general fund contribution from the county and then the grant to make a full FTE. So just thinking ahead,
- if it hits to a point where those 6% cuts continue, have you had to adjust in the past what happens
- when we lose that funding for an FTE? Does the county absorb all of the person's salary at that point?
- Or what has been some of the thought that, contingency-wise, looking ahead?
- Well, we've been I just have to say that since the beginning of the program, the program has been fully
- funded by grants. And so there was not really county general at the very beginning. It's been over time.
- There's been a little bit of county general here and there. And we until this past year, any
- um supplement that isn't paid by the grant has come out of project income which is community corrections
- user fees so really there hasn't been a lot of county general contribution for the program and that
- is something that we know that it just we're not going to be able to continue because uh as Kate knows
- she's on our community corrections advisory board those user fees i mean we're
- barely hanging in there. And we've known this for years that you just can't keep using soft money, client
- funded fees to pay for essential programs. And so this is something we worked with back to when Trent
- was a council liaison to our department and Peter, you've been at twice. We've been working on this
- for years trying to make those funds sustainable.
- and we've hit a wall, the perfect storm, I think you would say, with these. So if at some point there
- isn't state funding for the grants, this is something that would need to go to our local JRAC, Justice
- Reinvestment Advisory Council, because it would have a system impact. If we didn't have this program
- to get people out of jail,
- what would that do to the jail population? And also, what would it do in terms of the people who aren't
- gonna be able to get out to their recidivism rate, to their ability to succeed if they get put on community
- supervision after they get out of jail? So it would have a system-wide impact that would have to be
- analyzed, I think, by all parties, all branches of government and the local JREC.
- You brought up the J word this evening with the jail justice piece. This is one of the threads in the
- tapestry. When we think about buying a building versus the system that's built around it, I'm glad that
- we have this model today for this fiscal year, but it's easy to conjure, as we've heard all night about
- the cuts coming.
- of the impacts here, how we might need to reimagine how we provide these services. Yeah, you touched
- on it. This keeps our jail population low. And how much does that cost versus X amount of buildings?
- So thank you for indulging the question there. I appreciate it. I hear from the community, a lot of
- the community commenters talk about, we need to be doing things to keep people out of jail. And this
- is a thing we do that gets people out quicker. And also, if the judge
- isn't comfortable with somebody not being under community supervision while they're in a pretrial. We
- have different levels of supervision that we can provide so the judge feels comfortable letting them
- out of jail. So it's a really, really important program and has big impacts. So thank you. All right,
- looking to my left. No? OK. All right.
- So if there is public comment on this item, you can come forward to the lectern here in the night, you
- know where you can raise your hand via teams. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call. Councillor
- Fiddle. Yes. Councillor Wilts. Yes. Councillor Henry. Yes. Councillor Crossley. Yes. Councillor Iverson.
- Yes. Councillor Deckard. Yeah. Motion passes six zero.
- Okay next item. Council I move to approve the probation department's request and fund 9144-0000 pre-trial
- services grant the creation of new account lines as outlined on the agenda and simultaneously approve
- additional appropriations of $271,866 in the personnel category. Second.
- Okay we got a motion second yes okay so this is the second pre-trial grant that we were receiving from
- the supreme court and this is the one we found out about during budget that so what had happened was
- as you know the indiana general assembly cut most state budgets by five percent
- for whatever reason, I don't know why, they cut community corrections grants by 10%. And so the DOC,
- Department of Correction, had to make some decisions on what they would or wouldn't fund. And they made
- a decision that they were going to defund all Indiana pretrial services programs starting in 2026. And
- so that was a shock and surprise to every pretrial program operating in the state. So that was, yeah.
- That was after six years of being flatlined because again, state budgets were flatlined. So the Supreme
- Court, out of their own budget,
- they wanted us to be able to continue operations with our pre-trial program. So they gave this one-time
- grant for 2026, and it's specifically to make up for the loss of the DOC funding. And they gave us the
- exact dollar amount that the DOC did. And that funds the full salary, FICA and PERF for three probation
- officers assigned to pre-trial services. And then also it's a partial salary, FICA and PERF for one
- additional probation officer.
- assigned to the pretrial services program. So our pretrial services program has five probation officers
- and one director. All of them are grant funded at some level. So the majority of their salaries in FICA
- and PERF are paid by grants. This grant does not pay anything for supplies, services, or capital, again,
- personnel. So any questions? Any questions, Counselor?
- I was just happy to hear this came in clutch when we were having some very interesting conversations
- towards the end of budget. And it was amazing to hear that that came in at the last minute. So, yay.
- Okay. Yes.
- So seeing no other further questions or comments from Council, we'll go to public comment. You can raise
- your hand via Teams or you can come to the lectern here in the NatU Hill room. And seeing none, may
- we please have a roll call? Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Crosley? Yes. Councilor
- Iverson? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Motion passes 6-0. Next up, item M.
- Council, I move to approve the probation department's request and fund ninety one forty two dash zero
- zero zero zero community corrections grant. The creation of new account lines is outlined on the agenda
- and simultaneously approve additional appropriations of one million forty nine thousand one hundred
- sixty seven dollars in the personnel category. OK, anything else to answer this?
- So this grant we have been getting since the inception since Indiana created Community Corrections grants
- more than 40 years ago, we have gotten one of these brands every single year. We already talked about
- the budget being cut by 1010% so.
- This is the first of three grants that we're going to talk about tonight that are for supporting of
- the Community Corrections Program. The other two grants that we'll discuss are for Drug Court and Mental
- Health Court coming from the Department of Correction. This grant award funds partial salaries and partial
- fringe benefits for 16 full-time employees of the Community Corrections Program. It doesn't fund any
- supply services or capital, all personnel.
- So as we know, for many years, the salaries have been supplemented out of the community corrections
- user fees, and they'll continue to be supplemented from there as well. As I already mentioned, their
- insurance is in county general and employee services line. So this grant is specific to supporting the
- core operations of the community corrections program, and that includes the home detention,
- program, electronic monitoring, day reporting, and drug testing program, and also to continue the use
- of the department's evidence-based practice and continuous quality improvement initiative that promotes
- accountability, enhance public safety, and encourage positive behavioral change among participants under
- supervision.
- And I looked at a DOC snapshot for November of 2025 and according to theirs there in this is on their
- website and they had 228 admissions from Monroe County.
- and another 290 offenders were admitted to our community corrections program. So more people are sentenced
- to our community corrections program than go to prison. So this is truly an alternative to prisons.
- It's almost all felonies who are dealt with in this way. Also from our stats, we had
- One hundred and four individuals on home detention electronic monitoring, ninety of those being for
- felony offenses and more than half of the offenses they were on home detention for were drug related
- or crimes involving violence. And of the electronic monitoring home detention cases that were closed
- in twenty twenty four, ninety three percent were closed successfully. That's very high.
- percentage. And also the judges had 59 individuals on 24 seven alcohol monitoring is an at home kind
- of like a personal alcohol test that they blow in and it's connected to GPS connected to our department,
- and we get
- breath test and it's those are usually used for someone who has many drunk driving offenses and the
- judge would to keep them out safely in the community from jail would has them on alcohol monitoring.
- So we had 59 on on that. So that's kind of a summary. Any questions or comments from Council on this
- item Councilor Wilts.
- someone from having their buddy. It takes their picture. Thank you. I was like, there's gotta be something.
- Yeah. Okay. Yes. Okay. Any other questions or from council? Okay. Seeing none. If there's public comment,
- either raise your hand via Teams or you can come to the podium here in the Natt U Hill room.
- but I do believe that I see Councilor Hawke virtually. So now we, well, regardless, we would still go
- roll call vote, but just wanted to acknowledge that. And can we please have a roll call vote? Councilor
- Henry? Yes. Councilor Hawke? I have to pass. I didn't hear that. Okay. I'm just not getting on. Sounds good.
- I didn't hear the motion. My client will read it. Councilor Crosley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor
- Decker? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Motion passes 6-0-1. Okay. Next up is item
- in. Council, I move to approve the probation department's request and fund 9148-0000.
- drug court grant. The creation of new account lines is outlined on the agenda and simultaneously approve
- additional appropriations of $137,209 in the personnel category. Second. All right. Motion and a second is Brady.
- Okay our drug court program our problem solving court program is part of our community corrections program
- and because of that we were eligible for the department of correction funding for that and so this grant
- from the doc pays partial salaries and fringe benefits for one probation officer case manager and two
- field officers
- judge Mary Ellen Dieckhoff presides over all four of our problem solving courts, and they are all for
- certified by the Indian officer court services with our most recent certifications being in 2024. And
- then part of the state certification, all problem solving courts must undergo regular independent program
- evaluations. So we just underwent
- our most recent program evaluation. And I just give you a few statistics from that. Drug court participants
- serve 50% fewer days in jail for sanctions than those who opted out of the program.
- A statewide outcome evaluation and cost benefit analysis research found that Monroe County Drug Court
- reduced recidivism by 67% and saves taxpayers money. The study also showed that recidivism rate for
- drug court participants, including dropouts, was 17%, while the rate for a comparison group
- of those who opted out was 33%. And then drug court participants, regardless of graduation status, were
- found to be half as likely to have had any arrests in the two year follow up period relative to the
- comparison group. Drug court graduates had an even lower recidivism rate of 11%, which is extremely low.
- So we just had a research from the Criminology and Criminal Justice Department of Indiana University.
- They did an evaluation of all four of our problem-solving courts. They found that all four showed reduction
- of risk level, the risk to re-offend. They all showed increase in education level, increase in attainment
- of employment. The recidivism rates varied anywhere from 8% for reentry court
- mental health court was our highest recidivism rate with 35%, but that's not surprising because it's
- a very difficult population to have under community supervision. As previously mentioned, the drug court
- award was reduced for this year by, it was reduced by 14% from the year before. These, I just want to
- also point out that these three positions that are being funded by this,
- They have been funded by grants since 2001. So that was our first year. I wrote a federal drug court
- implementation grant. And since then, we had four years of that. And we've had many years of Edward
- Byrne grants until they finally kicked us off the program and said, OK, you've had enough. It's time
- for you to get some local funding. So we've been getting a lot of grant money for this program. I should
- probably sometime just
- figure out how much I've gotten since 2001, but all of these positions have been grant funded for really
- long time. So that's it. Yes. Good. Okay. Looking to council members, either virtually or in the net.
- Does anybody have any questions or comments on this item? I see Councilor Hawke has her hand up. Go ahead.
- Yes, and I regret that I wasn't here for the other positions discussed, so I don't know what all has
- been discussed. But I will say that my concern on all of these is that rather than putting a part of
- a salary, a part of a position and splitting it out like that, it would be far better to put
- one whole position where the grant would cover one whole position instead of like two or three part-time,
- you know, half of a position. And further, it would be best practices to cover the health benefits for
- the health insurance. So was there any movement on that at all to try to save us from ourselves with that?
- Because what I, and I think you're looking at this wrong and I acknowledge it could be, but it would
- seem to me that what we have is if we, we've always said when a grant goes away, the position goes away.
- But if you only put a fourth of a price of that position in the grant, the grant goes away and the general
- has to pick up the difference.
- too many of them were picking up the insurance. So those are my concerns. And in the past, when we had
- the money to do it, there was no problem. Now we're going to be looking at not enough money to do everything
- everybody wants. So those are my concerns. I don't think there was a question. The question is, which
- of those, which of these
- grants could you have moved one person one whole expense over into the grant instead of several different
- ones could you have moved just one oh how much so the grant whatever the grant could hold and cover
- all the benefits so rather than splitting it up i'm not really sure what you're saying marty but i have
- to say that the doc funds partial positions they don't fund
- a particular percentage of, they just give you, here's how many dollars I'm giving you for this position.
- Here's how many dollars I'm giving you for this position. And so the rest of it has to come from somewhere.
- So we don't have any say over how much money they give us per position. They just decide it. And it's
- not based on a formula. It's not based on a percentage. It's just an amount that's given. Then we have
- to make it up.
- So let's say, well, no, we don't really, we can just reduce the amount of the number of people, right?
- That's what we'll be, let's say, I mean, are they saying when we get the, and I don't have private community
- corrections, we have to, we have to do that. But with the probation, a lot of probation budgets, you've
- got a lot of split positions, part in a grant and part in general.
- Do you agree with me when I say that? A lot of the grant funds, you've got part of the grant position
- covered under the grant and part of it covered under general.
- And I'd say that that's not unusual with, I know I've talked to Councilor Henry about this before, that
- it's really not an unusual situation for grants to require match funds. And so having them ask us to
- pick up parts of salaries or benefits, that's a pretty normal thing for grant entities to do. Well,
- but are we doing whatever they require?
- for match funds or are we doing more than that? And I'm just saying this because we have to overall
- look at how hard this budget was hit because of the insurance funds. I'm not just saying your department,
- but throughout. And so I'm just trying to figure out how can we get a better handle on it? But if you're
- saying, no, we just have to do this or what, I know that the Indiana County Council Association statewide
- is really protesting the fact that the state courts are saying probation officers should be paid for
- entirely by the state and whether or not that's going to go any place that they're pushing hard for.
- So that's something to look at too. Anyway, thank you. It's late in the day, so move forward. Duly noted. Okay.
- Um, any other questions or comments from council? Okay. Seeing none. Excuse me. Um, we'll go to public
- comment for this item. If you have public comment on this item, come to the lectern here than at you.
- However, I'm a raise your hand via teams and seeing nine, maybe please have a roll call up. No.
- Councilor Crosley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor
- Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Motion passes 6-1. Okay, next item. Council, I move to approve the
- Probation Department's request and fund 9150-0000 Mental Health Court for the creation of new account
- lines and simultaneously approve additional appropriations
- of $42,958 in the personnel category. Second. Okay. Okay, another grant from the Department of Correction.
- This is a 13% decrease over last year. Okay. So, Council, does anybody have any questions or comments
- on this item? No. Looking at Council Huff, don't see anything.
- All right, so public comment, come to the lectern here in the Nightingale Room or raise your hand via
- Teams. And seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Crosley? Yes. Councilor Iverson?
- Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Hawk? You're muted
- Councilor Hawk.
- Yep, you're still muted. Okay, yes, I may as well go ahead and say yes on these things because I don't
- know what the decision was about encouraging them to put more at more of the position, more of the expenses
- over into these grant funds. And I apologize, I had to leave the meeting. So I don't, I maybe just need
- to leave this discussion because I didn't hear the rest. Okay, all right.
- So that was a yes. Yes, and then I'm gonna leave the meeting. Okay. Because I don't know. Okay,
- good night. All right, so that was a yes. Chancellor, you want to vote on this and choose? I'll pass.
- Okay, thank you. Thanks. So motion passes 6-0-1. Okay, thank you, next item.
- Council, I move to approve the probation department's request and fund 9172-9626 Drug Treatment Court
- for the creation of new account lines and simultaneously approve additional appropriations of $9,920
- in the supplies category and $2,500 in the services category for a total appropriation of $12,420. Second.
- Okay we got a motion a second miss Brady. Okay these next four should go pretty quickly there they're
- all four grants that are from the Indiana Supreme Court that because we have separate problem-solving
- court programs we were eligible to apply for a separate grant for each of these programs so three of
- the four received
- the same amount of money, and we'll get to the last one, which will be Veterans Treatment Court. That's
- the only one that includes personnel. All the first three that we're talking about, the drug court,
- reentry court, and mental health court, all of them received a 3% cut over last year. And what they
- pay for in this grant is outreach materials, supervision incentives, which is usually bus passes, drug
- test supplies, which helps to reduce the cost of drug testing for our participants,
- and travel training for the training of our Drift Court staff and team. And so again, this will be the
- same for the next, this one and two more. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions or comments from Miss
- Brady on this item? Seeing none. In public comment, please raise your hand via Teams or you can come
- forward to the lectern here in the Na'i Hall room.
- for this item and seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor
- Decker? Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes. Councillor Wilz? Yes. Councillor Henry? Yes. And Councillor Crosley?
- Yes. For the record, Councillor Hock has left the meeting. So we are at six zero motion passes. Okay.
- Thank you very much. Item Q.
- Council, I move to approve the probation department's request and fund 9168-9626 mental health court
- for the creation of new account lines and simultaneously approve additional appropriations of $9,920
- in the supplies category and $2,500 in the services category for a total appropriation of $12,420. Second.
- Okay, that's great. Nothing to add. Thank you.
- Okay, so she has nothing to add. Does anybody else have anything to add on this? No? Great. All right.
- Public comment time for this item. Come to the podium here in the night. You will raise your hand for
- your teams. And seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote. Councilor Decker. Decker. Yes.
- Councilor Fiddle? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Crosley? Yes. Councilor
- Iverson? Yes. Motion passes 6-0. Okay, thank you very much. Item R. Council, I move to approve the probation
- department's request and fund 9166-9626 reentry court program
- for the creation of new account lines and simultaneously approve additional appropriations of $9,920
- in the supplies category and $2,500 in the services category for a total appropriation of $12,420. Second.
- Okay. Ms. Brady? Same as the last grant. Okay. Nothing to add. Council? Looking to my left. Looking
- to my right. Checking my list. Okay.
- public comment Tom if you have any public comment on this I don't come forward to the lectern here in
- the night either room or raise your hand via teams and seeing none maybe please have a roll call vote
- counselor vital yes counselor wilts yes counselor Henry yes counselor Crosley yes counselor Iverson
- yes counselor Deckard yes motion passes six zero all right item s
- Council I move to approve the probation department's request and fund nine one seven zero dash nine
- six two six veterans treatment court for the creation of new account lines as outlined on the agenda
- and simultaneously approve additional appropriations of eighty six thousand nine hundred seventy four
- dollars in the personnel category nine thousand nine hundred twenty dollars in the supplies category
- and two thousand five hundred dollars in the services category for a total appropriation of ninety nine
- thousand three hundred ninety four dollars second
- all right miss brady okay as i mentioned before this is the only one of the problem solving court grants
- that funds a position and it funds most of the salaries and fringe benefits of our veterans court case
- manager probation officer he is also a veteran himself and does an excellent job and also our veterans
- court is regional we can the judge can accept uh transfers from lawrence county green county
- And Owen County, I believe are the ones that are in our region. Thank you. Council would say you on
- this item. Yes, counselor Decker. I just had a quick question. So when they transfer from another county,
- because the grant covers that.
- it takes care of the cut. Do those counties have to throw in any dollars? No, they don't. They don't.
- And it's just a matter. Usually it would be somebody who either works or is doing either works in Monroe
- County, lives in Monroe County, or is doing treatment in Monroe County. There'd be a reason that they
- would want to have that person supervised in our county. Any other questions or comments from council
- on this item? Seeing none. Public comment time if there's public comment on this item.
- I'm forward to the lectern here in the night. You know room or is your hand via teams? And seeing none,
- maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Crosley? Yes.
- Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Motion passes 6-0. Okay, next item.
- Council, I move to approve the probation department's request and fund
- 4924-9624 probation cares grant for the creation of new account lines as outlined on the agenda and
- simultaneously approve additional appropriations of $1,162.50 in the supplies category and $1,462.50
- in the services category for a total appropriation of $2,625. Second. Okay, we got a motion and a second,
- Ms. Brady.
- We apply for this grant every year to help our department address the problems related to substance
- abuse. We one of the grants is for purchase a portable breath testing unit, and that's because we do
- about 21,000
- alcohol tests a year with our clients. Most of that's in our day reporting program. The other award
- is for instant cups. So it's drug testing cups. So persons who use the drug testing cups, if it's negative,
- the test is free because if it's negative, then we don't have to send it off to the lab for confirmation.
- So it significantly reduces the drug testing costs for our clients. And only about two to five percent
- in our problem-solving court test positive. They're very low compared to the department as a whole,
- it's about 28 to 30% positive rate. So yeah, this really helps cut down the cost for our participants.
- Okay. Sounds good. Okay, Councilor Wilks. About how many tests can you buy for both of these with this amount?
- That's a good question. So it says in 2024, we purchased 6000 instant cups, but that was between this
- grant and the problem solving court grant. So we bought 6000 test cups.
- And is that reflective of how many tests were done then? In the instant cups, we only use the instant
- cups for the most part for problem solving court. Because for the regular probation tests, we go ahead
- and do a regular test that's sent to the lab. Yeah. So if you do 21,000 breath tests per year, does
- this even come close to paying for that? Well, the breath test is just you blow into the machine so
- that there's no
- no urine situation going on that so how so this is buying a unit right it's a unit right it's a unit
- for for us to do the testing and it's reusable yes there's a there's a straw kind of thing that people
- put on it they blow they blow into that actually i've never had to do this but um so i appreciate you
- explaining it thank you council is there any other questions or comments on this
- Seeing none, public comment on this item. Raise your hand via Teams or you can come here and then at
- you over. All right, seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor
- Crosley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Wilts?
- Yes. Motion passes six zero. All right, next item.
- That's the last one. This is it. Council, I move to approve the probation department's request and fund
- 1123-9626 Community Transition Program for the creation of new account lines as outlined on the agenda
- and simultaneously approve additional appropriations of $19,000 in the supplies category, $26,000 in
- the services category, and $5,000 in the capital category for a total appropriation of $50,000. Second.
- Okay, that's great. Okay, Community Transition Program. It's a program by the Department of Correction.
- So certain offenders, if they are eligible and if they wish to participate in the early release program,
- they can apply. And if our court accepts them, they come out of
- jail or come out of prison early and the department of correction reimburses us $25 a day so that helps
- to pay for any of their drug testing costs or any of their if we have their own electronic monitoring
- or home detention it pays for that and it helps ease people back into society early from their term
- in prison so that we we never know how much we're going to get so we just
- put a budget out there. If the money isn't there, if we don't have enough people on the program, there's
- not enough money, we can't spend it. We only spend what we collect from the DOC. So this is our best
- guess. Council, do you have any questions or comments on this item? Yes, Councilor Wilts. So with this
- program, people are coming from a state institution. Presumably they were
- they're from Monroe yes they have to have been sent right they have to have been sentenced out of Monroe
- County on here yes yes okay yeah and the judge it they would be unlikely to accept somebody if if somebody
- didn't have any ties or if they came here and committed a felony offense and they don't have any community
- ties the judge probably won't accept it because they got they have to have some some reason that we
- would be supervising them in this county
- Right. To be out on a community transition. Approximately how many of these folks do we have in a given
- time period? No, it's very small. It's a small number. I can't remember from the stats, but I want to
- say it's fewer than 20 a year. Okay. And how long are they under your care?
- Wait, this is above my pay grade. This is a Becca strike. She's on on knowing there someplace. It depends
- on how the seriousness of their felony level 123456. So the the more serious the felony, the longer
- they're on for. But I think the minimum for the least is 60 days, I think, for the lowest.
- I think, but if Becca's on there. I can connect with you all later. Yeah, I can't remember, sorry.
- Thank you. Okay, any other questions or comments?
- Yes, Councilor Decker. I just want to say, I am always amazed when someone gets a question that you
- can't answer because you always have your stats. I have a team, I say. You've got a good team. Yes,
- I do. I have a really good team. And I think it's huge. A lot of times people on our side of the table
- start talking about systems and how they should look and work. I think you're actually coming in always,
- which you always do, with numbers that show
- this does this, this program does this, here's what we know about this, this is all those details. And
- I think that's kind of a model to figure out other things as we start to do that, because clearly the
- dollars have been invested in the community, sending books here, trying things out, pilot programs,
- all those things, because those efficiencies. And so you don't always see that in every program and
- we don't always get these kinds of answers. Thank you. All right.
- Seeing no other further questions or comments. If public has item, or comments rather, that they'd like
- to say on this item, come forward to the lectern here in the net, you will raise your hand via Teams.
- All right. And just thank you to Anthony and Becca for staying online as long as they did. So you definitely
- have a good team indeed. With that being said, may we, excuse me, may we please have a roll call vote?
- Councilor Crosley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor
- Wilts? Yes. And Councilor Henry? Yes. Motion passes 6-0. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen
- and vote. I appreciate it. Thank you for getting that great. Thanks for staying out late. Thank you.
- Have a good night. All right. Next up, we are near the end of our agenda, y'all.
- Hooked down and let's finish up. Next up is County Council Business, item eight. Council, I move to
- approve resolution 2025-54, pledging support to the BEDC or the Bloomington Economic Development Commission.
- Second. All right. And then I'm going to look to Ms. Turner-King for this. Hold on one second. I think
- I said commission, but I think I need to say corporation. Yes.
- I want to verify because there are there is there is one of each one in the city and we're talking about
- the corporation and not the Commission. Okay. Thank you. So I'm fixing
- that language in the resolution. But what is before you as resolution 2025-54, which pledges a $30,000
- donation to BDC. We similarly did this last year. And so this is just a continuation of that practice.
- All right. And again, this is the practice that we have to do because
- It is usually budgeted in our item and we ran into issues with it being paid by county commissioners.
- So it's not like we're just pushing, you know, donation through. This is the other alternative method
- that we have to do because we got denied. So, Councilor Henry, and then I'll go down the line.
- Thank you. A few questions because I'm trying to
- wrap my head around this. So is this payment retroactive at the end of the fiscal year or is this in
- anticipation of next year? Like this goes. So it just normally gets paid out at the end of the year,
- but this is for this year's donation. So it's this year's donation at the end of the year. Correct.
- When is the first SIMTRA payment expected to go to BEDC from the tax abatement?
- I'm not 100% sure I could try to find the tax abatement paperwork, but it might take me a minute. Okay.
- I mean, that's one question I have. I guess the next question I have here too, and thank you for catching
- the typos, is, and I'll just raise this with my peers, the BEDC has been in the news in the past two
- or three weeks, and I don't know if there's anyone on from the BEDC in Teams. I don't know if there is.
- You know I'm kind of curious what's going on in the organization, you know it's been you know there's
- been reporting about a change in leadership I don't know if that's a change in strategic direction over
- the past year. I believe there was some conversation about the BBC merging into other organizations
- in the community. So the strategic plan that we help underwrite might be a little different.
- or what we think we're buying might be a little different than what's going on. So I would be comfortable
- tabling for a week until we can get either maybe someone from BDC to chat with us and also maybe to
- get some clarity about when the Simtra tax abatement first hits them, because it would look like potentially
- 30 now and 30 in a few months. And I'm kind of curious what that looks like. But that's my thought on
- that. Good point. Yes, Councilor Decker.
- I would agree with the tabling notion on this, because we will be back here in a week to kind of run
- a new show to make a longer meeting but sometimes you can't avoid it in these times. I also think that
- it's incumbent upon.
- a council a county commissioners and anyone else really that's an entity to to ask good questions of
- this organization about future and what their vision are and what steps and support they might need
- from us, including either this support or something else in lieu of that and I think it'd be good.
- It would be good to know. It's important for us as a county not to kind of put our head down and say,
- I don't know what's going on over there and I don't want to know. I think that we not only need to know,
- I think for the sake of this economy right now and the affordability issues we have and the job issues
- that we've got, including the ones we supply, I think that we need more information here and then come
- back again on a week from today. All right.
- I thought I saw another one down the way. I did, but I agree with the comment that's just been made,
- so. Okay. So, Council, without, with no objections, I'd like to table this item to our December 16th
- meeting. Second. Okay. All right. Will, all those in favor of tabling this item signify by saying aye.
- Aye. All those opposed, same sign.
- all right motion carries thank you next item council i move to approve resolution 2025-56 pledging support
- to seven oaks classical school second all right and then i would look to mr nanking for this this resolution
- that's before you pledges 1800 to seven oaks
- Originally, this relates to the Sophia Travis Community Service grant funding. The committee had met
- and approved an award, seven oaks, in the amount of $1,800. And this is the mechanism that would get
- him that funding. OK. Can we read the resolution by chance? Yes. Can you put it in, Sharon, so we can
- see her? Thank you.
- My computer is being weird. Would it be helpful if I just read it into record? I like that. This is
- resolution 202556, a resolution approving a donation to Seven Oaks Classical School.
- Whereas seven oaks classical school here after seven oaks is a tuition free public charter school located
- in Monroe County that serves nearly 600 students and.
- Whereas Seven Oaks applied for Sophia Travis Community Service grant to fund two school initiatives,
- one, to pay AP testing fees for AP chemistry for all current Seven Oaks AP test takers, to remove the
- financial burden placed on students and their families due to recent legislative changes, and two, to
- provide food security for students and families through free lunches and the backpack blessings program.
- whereas the Sophia Travis Community Service Grants Committee supported awarding Seven Oaks funding in
- the amount of $1,800 to fund these initiatives and whereas the Monroe County Council recognizes that
- supporting Seven Oaks' efforts has a compounding ripple effect throughout Monroe County affecting education
- including civic engagement, health, and the quality of life of Monroe County constituents.
- And whereas due to circumstances beyond the County Council's control, Seven Oaks did not receive funding
- as part of the 2025 Sophia Travis Community Service Grants Awards. Now, therefore, be it resolved by
- the Monroe County Council, Monroe County, Indiana, that the Monroe County Council hereby donates to
- Seven Oaks funding in the amount of one thousand and eight hundred dollars to fund its AP testing fees
- and food security initiatives presented to and adopted this
- blank day of blank 2025 by the Monroe County Council of Monroe County, Bloomington, Indiana. Thank you
- for that. Council, do you have any questions or comments on this item? Looking to my left here, Councilor
- Wilks. Yes, so do we have the $1,800 just sitting in our Sophia Travis account
- Correct, this is in part why we changed the account line in the beginning of the meeting so that we
- could accomplish both donations and grant funding from that account line. So it would come out of the
- Sophia Trav, what is now the Sophia Travis Fund. Okay, that was gonna be my next question. And then
- is there going to be a way in the ledger or somewhere,
- in in systems to identify grants versus donations coming from the same fund when when we put the um
- claim into the computer it's we mark it as um in the notes as donation okay cool that's that's my main
- my main concern thanks all right yes counselor iverson so i'm going to be supporting this but i'm
- deeply uncomfortable having public tax dollars going to a charter school. This is a really, really awkward
- vote. I understand, though, that the narrative around this is not about that. The narrative around this
- is about making sure that kids get access to food, and that's why I'm supporting this. I think it was
- a huge mistake.
- by the county commissioners, particularly Julie Thomas, to pull this out and vote against this. And
- so it's regrettable that we have to take the time to do this, but I'll be supporting this. Yeah, Councilor
- Henry. I would just echo the sentiments, but it does come down to, I think all of us have made statements
- about this item, and that this is a effort to make right what was, well, harmful.
- And so I think this is an easy vote to take. I hope the commissioners see the same way. Yeah,
- I would agree. And to counsel ever since point. We actually talked about this and Sophia Travis,
- because the, the notion is.
- you know, I think. Whatever you think of charter schools versus public schools. You know, that's neither
- here nor there. Um I am very much pro public schools by all means of born and raised throughout him
- and raising. Um three Children through him at least one graduated and two more still at MCC SC. Uh so
- that being said, they met the
- $1800 for this versus one other charter school that was allowed to go through of this one was a little
- suspect. And so, you know, we were
- This was also done in the middle of SNAP benefits being taken away. So how toned-up and how crass was
- that type of decision? And boy, what a time it is for county government right now. So I wish we could
- be on the news for something positive. But nonetheless, this is what we decided. The committee did it,
- council did it, and then we got stonewalled. So this is our way of, again, like Councilor Henry said,
- trying to do what was right, which is
- what we did initially in the first place. So I'm going to go to Councilor Feinstein and then come back
- to Decker. Okay, I'm very glad you brought up the fact about they met the criteria because I think that's
- really how the committee, as I remember serving on it, labored over it because that was the criteria.
- We did have some discussions. I'm pro-public school also, but this particular charter school met the criteria.
- and it met the criteria of what we wanted to fund. And so we went with that and I'm happy to support
- this so that they can have the money that we intended for that purpose to begin with. Thank you. You're
- welcome. All right, Councilor Decker. One thing that we heard from the trustees about nine days ago,
- no, earlier tonight, one thing we heard from the trustees is about food depletion in their pantries.
- And food is food.
- We heard in the Sophia Travis Grants request, we heard from Ivy Tech, they needed a food bank. And the
- one thing I always think about, I had an uncle passed away, I think it's been about seven years from
- now, and he often would find himself unhoused and be in situations and one time he and I were riding
- the bus together and I said, you doing all right? He goes, I'm all right. So you getting enough to eat?
- And he said, one thing about this town,
- He said, if you're not getting fed, you're not doing something right because the food resources are
- there, but they're at places like community kitchen. It's at these pantries, et cetera. And that's something
- we should hug as a unifier in the community, that food, which is classically what it does. We all got
- to eat it. We all need it that that comes to it. And so I look at this, they had a request for it. They
- met those stipulations. And to me, that is not a question. There's a lot of philosophy.
- about schools the General Assembly has been talking about that for it seems like 30 or 40 years now
- steady and I'm sure the voters will too but food is just food and people in this community border to
- border are people regardless of how they get here regardless of their situation and regardless of what
- how people classify them and once we stop breaking stuff like that down I mean you got to close the
- shutters on this inhumanity
- Thanks, colleagues. All right. If there is no other further question or comment on this item, you can,
- we'll go to a public comment. And then if you have public comment on this item, you can come forward
- to the lectern here in the night in the room or raise your hand via Teams. And seeing none, please have
- a roll call vote. Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes.
- Councilor Crossley? Once again, yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Motion passes 6-0. All right. Thank you
- very much. Now we go to the amendment item and then we'll be next to the last here soon. But I felt
- like it was incumbent for us to have the discussion of the encampment evictions that were supposed to
- take place this past Monday and now
- What looks like is to be postponed to next Monday on the 15th. And so we've been, you know, we had 18
- public comment. Yep, 18, because I wrote everybody's name down and synopsis of what they were saying.
- So we had 18 people that showed up either via Teams or NatU Hill Room.
- just today, but I'm sure all of us at some point have had conversations with you all that are out there
- and in the community as well as lots of emails as well. And so I am
- I'm gonna try to keep it PG-13. I'm appalled at the decisions that we are making in county government
- right now. In particular, the decisions that happened on Thursday morning at 10 a.m. You know, I think
- number one, 10 a.m.
- on Thursday, where people aren't really paying attention. That's one thing, but that's neither here
- nor there. Government, as we heard tonight, should be accessible. And there's things that are happening
- right now.
- And I spoke out against the encampment remover removal back in 2021. And I still stand with not doing
- encampment enclosures, especially one thing I wanted to correct public on I kept hearing the middle
- of winter y'all it's not even winter yet.
- It will be winter in the next couple of weeks. Look at how cold it is right now. And I think prediction,
- because I'm a weather nerd, is supposed to be below normal. Let us sink in for y'all. Yep, there you
- go. And so that's cold. And we all, at some point, some of us,
- We'll go home and be warm. And we have those that are unhoused that will not. But we also heard from
- somebody speaking to that experience, Ashley, and was explaining how they are feeling when they are
- outside, and the choices that they are making.
- And so these are kind of decisions that I would think would go to types of vote situations. But again,
- I'm not in the commissioner's seat. I'm not in the business that pays me, which is county council. But
- that being said,
- As we heard many times tonight, we have to have a checks and balance system on what our friends on Thursday
- morning are doing versus what we do every second and fourth Tuesday of every month as we conduct our
- business. And I find it very rude and very disrespectful that we have no idea things that are happening
- or what's going on until we see a Reddit post and then waiting to be a part of a meeting and hearing
- the public
- that are happening because they are doing the work. They are continuing to talk to people that are there.
- So, yeah, that's frustrating. And I've spoken to several of y'all and via email and whatnot. And I know
- people, like we have said several times that, you know, at least for me, I've thought about
- the the things of where people are saying what are you going to do about it what are you going to do
- about it and while we are not the executive and legislative slash legislator we are the fiscal legislative
- and guess what we hold the purse strings and so we got to have some type of check and balance um because
- again as i just said in our previous conversation that county government is in the news right now for
- all the dang going wrong reasons it is
- Um, deplorable. It is embarrassing that we cannot like this is what we are getting at right now. So
- to my colleagues, I ask, and I'm looking at everybody here to figure out how we can do things, how we
- can make checks and balances. I know we have thoughts. I really hope we can say those out loud. Um,
- tonight, I think personally, I would like to see a thing. I don't know. We had the items table indefinitely,
- but again,
- It might come back because we don't have any idea as to what is about to happen either on Monday or
- two Mondays from now or whatever the case is. We still have no idea what is happening. I reached out
- what Friday and asked the question of what the hell is going on and got an email sent to us about, Hey,
- here's this press release. I'm a colleague of commissioners here.
- I don't have to pick up a phone. I should be able to freaking email and have a conversation and be respected
- enough for my colleagues to tell us, hey, council, this is what's happening. Every single second Tuesday
- and fourth Tuesday of every month, item number five, department updates. Items not on the agenda.
- That is a time where I would expect, just like many other departments here tonight, give us a department
- update. So if there is a department update, such as an encampment eviction, a pending one at least,
- I would think that somebody that has something to do with that will come into this room and talk to
- us about it. That's what I would think, right? But it didn't happen. So here we are.
- Staying in my lane, as we were told many years ago, to that's what we can do. Well, now I'm doing it.
- And now I'm going to start doing it. I'm going to look at my colleagues and figure out, how are we going
- to stay in our lane? But how are we going to do this with effective change? Because there has to be
- a checks and balance. And the other thing I'll say is, there's no procedure. I know there was cut our
- emails going about, what is the procedure? What is the plan? We see our colleagues over on the city.
- They have a plan and procedure. And it was really embarrassing to see them put their whole plan out
- online. And we're sitting here going, I don't know. How crazy do we look when we have no plan? And we're
- telling constituents, yeah, I don't know. I'm just there with you. And I'm an elected official. All
- seven of us, six of us that are here right now, we are elected officials. And we have no plan. We have
- no idea, y'all. None. But that's not our fault.
- But what we can do is try to figure out how we can have a checks and balance system. And to my colleagues,
- I'm looking to you all to see maybe going forward, we can set forth a resolution that says, when things
- like this happen,
- This forces people to come back to us to tell us what is happening, what's going on. And we can take
- a vote on whether or not the funds will be appropriated and move forward. So this is something that
- we can do. We just did that earlier this year with overtime and we switched that around. I think that
- is something that's similar for us to do. And that is a conversation that
- I'd like to have with us maybe not as long because we still have a little bit more just one more item
- left. But that being said I just I just wanted to thank everybody to come out or come here tonight.
- You're still here with us and again many thanks to
- Ashley, and I think her name was Lydia, who was the mom who said she was close to being in house. It's
- situations like that that kind of made me choke up, and I had to get up and walk away, because many,
- many years ago, that could have been me. In fact, yeah. So without going into specifics about my life,
- I think that's what makes a public servant versus a politician.
- That's what we need more of. And if that's what we need to do, democracy needs to happen and we have
- time to do that next year. So that being said, I'm gonna shut my mouth and I'm gonna go to council and
- see what we got to say and go to my left or nope, my other left, my right. So I'll start with council Henry.
- Thank you. Thank you, Madam President, for adding this to the agenda and speaking tonight. I'm a little
- low. I'm not going to have a lot of animation here, because I also wrote out some stuff to make sure
- it gets into public record. I think it's important that words are said in this room. I'm exhausted,
- but not nearly as exhausted as the people that are in the house that have no idea what their fate is
- in the next few days. And I'll just leave it there to start.
- I want to speak very plainly about what I've observed in the clearing process or the lack of the process.
- And I want to say that this action's not in my name. I don't agree with what we're doing. Last week
- when news broke that the county intended to clear the Thompson encampment, I did not learn about it
- through a formal government channel. I learned about it with someone sending me a link from Reddit of
- the flyer that was posted in the encampment.
- I then called our emergency management agency, as I'm the liaison to that agency from this body, and
- talked to Justin Baker and Jamie Nibel, whose phone numbers were listed on the flyer for contacting
- people or for contact. I assumed at the moment that we were running it very similar to the 2022 encampment
- where we had an emergency declaration and we had the agencies involved with planning for that, but that
- was not the case. Our emergency management agency was,
- The phone number was put out there. They were taking calls for public information, but were not empowered
- to be the public information officer or spokesperson for the county on the issue. They were overwhelmed
- with calls while trying to figure out what their role would be, which was basically directed by the
- commissioner's office to inventory the property of individuals that would be at the highway garage.
- At this point, and I'll just share a personal anecdote.
- I teach emergency management at IU. It happened to be the night that I was lecturing on crisis
- communications, which my colleague, Counselor Deckard, may appreciate this comment. That is, I'm lecturing
- to my students and trying to share the best practices of how a community ought to go about its time
- in crisis to elicit empathy, to be truthful, to explain to people the who, what, where, when, why,
- and how, and the next time we're going to tell you what's not going on in the very government I serve in.
- And at that point, I had a bit of a shock to my system with my students. At that point, I had started
- to request from our county board of commissioners the very things I teach in emergency management. What
- is the action plan? Not the legal authority, but the operational plan for how we're coordinating all
- the resources of this county to
- handle the project called the encampment. What is the objective of this operation? Is it just to clear
- property or is it to be humane and try to find people's shelter? I asked who the point of contact for
- the media was. I asked who was in charge of the operation and I have yet to get that formal answer from
- the board of commissioners.
- To be appalled is not the right word here for me. And to teach a public affairs school one of the best
- in the country where we teach public management and not see it running in this building has been incredibly
- frustrating. It's not my apology to give right now, but it's definitely, I think, our action to figure
- out how we maintain the safety of people that are unhoused in our community, from the service providers,
- to the activists, to the people themselves. We are being asked why now
- Why now? And all I'm getting is feedback about a bureaucratic process, about a vendor and a contract
- issued in July, and it just so happens the vendor's ready to do some work. Those are unacceptable answers.
- And they're indisputable. And so to have anyone to the contrary say, well, David, we've told you this,
- or we've given you this answer, I'm saying publicly I don't have it. And I would defy them to show me
- where it's happened.
- seal back at this point Madam President. I'm gonna make six points I'll make them quickly and I'm glad
- to see that there is at least one commissioner that's watching I would bet that there's more. Number
- one you've heard it before we do not have an operational plan but I'm so glad that Mary Morgan and
- came here tonight and talked because there is the outline of a plan at heading home indiana.org it would
- be so easy so easy for the commissioners to just take the elements of that and plop it down and it just
- It boggles my mind that we have got intelligent people who have been working on this for years, who've
- been working with lived experience, people lived experience working on this. It just boggles my mind
- that we have not codified a single operational plan, and one exists at headinghomeindiana.org, at least
- the shell of one. I will also note that during the commissioner's meeting,
- There was a lot of religious language. It was really interesting to hear that. And it doesn't escape,
- I think, a lot of people in the faith communities that we are now in the second week of Advent. Hanukkah
- starts on Monday. And for those celebrating Yule, the equinox is December 21st. This is a terrible time
- to be professing on one side of your mouth, joy, love and peace, and on the other, kicking people out
- into the snow.
- Number three, the public hearing that happened in the commissioners meeting, which featured not only
- two recesses, but lecturing of people to be quiet and respectful, is not how democracies work. Ken Burns
- has this great new documentary on the American Revolution. If you haven't started watching it,
- it's fantastic.
- Our country was not born by people sitting around being quiet and being respectful. We're throwing tea
- off boats. Like, all right, I'm getting, I'm getting, like sing more Beatles, right? Like if that's
- what it takes, let's sing more songs, right? So some Arlo Guthrie in there. Number four, during a public
- comment, there was a lot of talk about cumulative capital, one of the funds that we have. We don't have
- claims for
- for things in cumulative capital that we can even approve much less see. So this idea that bio one is
- being used, that's not appearing in our ledger reports. So this is a huge problem where there's obfuscation
- of the ways that they're funding these things that are on these flyers. It's wild to see. I'll get to
- that in a second. Number five, there is no communication plan.
- This blows my mind. Where is the press conference where we are saying, what's the count of people living
- on the property the commissioners own? What are the agencies involved? What have they been doing? Can
- they be invited up to the microphone to talk about this?
- You know, some people have been housed. Some people have gone to hotels for homeless for a night. Explain
- that. Let's talk about that. Let's have this dialogue. But there's no communications plan. There's been
- no updates. The press release is on Friday, nothing on Monday, nothing on Tuesday. And number six, and
- let me conclude with this, federal funding for rapid rehousing is ending. This is bad, but it is about
- to get worse. There is a ticking.
- timeline that we need to have both an operational plan and a communications plan in place. And we need
- to do it soon. And part of that operational plan has to include a plan for when moratoriums exist and
- how long they exist. And there's so much to do. And we have to start doing it now.
- go ahead and start yeah yeah go ahead thank you very much for giving me a chance to talk i have so many
- thoughts last night i had a meeting counselor wilson i had a meeting with some of our our folks here
- and uh i i took note after note after note after note that helps me make sense of things and figure
- things out i'll say that when this all occurred i was teaching a class and as it always happens when
- something goes wrong my
- phone starts blowing up with a text inbox. So I'm looking here, looking at this and trying to figure
- that out. And I was trying to make sense of what was going on. And the thing I always come back to on
- all of these situations are always, if I'm struggling to make sense of going on, what's going on as
- a county officer, used to be the president of the council, try to stay up on things that doesn't always
- do a good job. But I'm struggling to keep up on what's going on. I can only imagine
- the average person or even the person that is even worse affected by this. I couldn't tell what was
- going on. I don't know that the public still fully understands what's going on. And the only thing that
- really has saved this discussion right now are passionate private citizens who have literally used their
- personal time and work time and taking time off work
- and done all sorts of things, not only to help their neighbor, but to try to figure out how do we make
- change on this postponement, on the original eviction notice, et cetera. I recognize fully, and I think
- I shared this last night, I recognize fully that my understanding of what is happening for our unhoused
- community has rapidly changed over the last few years.
- Back in the day, I'll say this to the public, I had this very odd, I don't know, almost Oliver Twist
- Dickens-like thought that if we just go to folks and say, if you want to come with me, we can go do
- this. But life is not that easy. And that savior type complex is not that connect the extension cord
- and fix this.
- We are talking about humans living with us, among us, all around us. And so often I get on social media
- and I just see these stupid dehumanizing comments and quotations that people make about someone else's
- brother, sister, neighbor, or themselves, depending on the time. And I'm just boggled by it. Here's
- one thing I do know. So that's just some commentary. So I'm just trying to make sense of that. Here's
- what I do know.
- If there is a process, I don't know what the process is. And I'm not sure any other county official
- fully knows what that process is. If there is a process, at least on the county end, it's not been vetted
- or discussed. I think, my gosh, we've talked about the jail forever. We've talked about some of these
- line items we covered tonight, which are important, don't get me wrong.
- They've received more vetting than this discussion on something that's impactful to lives that are literally
- living among us. So there's not a process. We need a process. People need to understand what that is
- so they can either get it, know it, or object to it, which is, as Peter was saying, the democratic way.
- It's everyone's right to say, Trent, you're full of it, or Trent, you're right, or Trent, I don't know,
- I just don't like you. That's the democratic way. The second thing is, I've gone to several different
- sources over and over and I'm like, help me understand this, help me understand this. The timing, I
- still have not got an answer on. I don't understand the timing. Whether you take faith arguments, whether
- you take cold arguments, whether you take anything, I don't understand the timing right now.
- I understand there could be a lot of different arguments for the timing, but as I look at that, I don't
- get it. I also think this is what happens. Earlier tonight, I made a comment. A lot of times, elected
- officials do this. I'd like for it to be this way. I'm going to go order a pizza. You all work on that.
- We'll send a check. I think we've got a lot of providers
- doing things. I think there's a lot of providers trying to do things. I think there's even more people
- trying to fill gaps and trying to be providers. I think we are so new at all of this. And because we
- lose focus talking about the third funding line and we can't find that for the semicolon and well, we
- got to do public notice. Because we get so hung up on that you Hill issues, we don't get hung up on
- humanity issues. And so for me,
- I think the action on this one's cooked. I think that for a variety of reasons, including humans, they're
- in a place trying to figure out life as it is. I think if there was a goal to persuade folks elsewhere,
- we've broken the fundamental persuasion, and that is trust. In persuasion, you're helping
- building trust, bring someone, let's try this. Maybe we'll try that. Let's look at this. I feel like
- that is, is not happening here. And so I, if things move forward, I don't know that it's not going to
- turn into 40 other different things that then suddenly it's, well, now we've got a new side issue and
- other issues. And this weather alarms me to no end.
- And so that's a lot of me entering thoughts there, but when I look at this, how this developed what
- Thursday, the meandering of that and trying to figure that out alone. That is a process, I do want to
- say, I want to thank the people.
- who have sat through this meeting and all those semicolons and lines as we do our jobs to help us do
- our jobs. I also want to thank the people who are actively pursuing further discussions with
- our commissioners. As was reported to us earlier tonight, that meeting time has changed, and the meeting
- time has changed, and the meeting time has changed. This is a big enough county now
- where a commissioner meetings or any public meeting of significance, and I think that's a lot of them,
- unfortunately for maybe the people in them, they gotta go to more evening accessible times and not times
- that don't work for people. This is still a community of working people who need to be able to weigh
- in on issues and not simply, well, I don't know what they're doing down there, but they always seem
- to fight. So anyway, I've said too much, but thank you. Thank you, appreciate it. Council Welles.
- Yeah. Luckily, the general public in our county is not so general or average. Luckily, y'all are amazing.
- And we've heard the most articulate public comment, I think, of any public meetings I've ever seen.
- And so I just want to echo the thank you for coming. Thank you for sharing your passion and your expertise
- and staying for so freaking long. But I think I'll try to be succinct. Famous last words. I see some
- specific issues that
- we must work through. And the first one I see is the lack of communication, not just like what Councillor
- Iverson was describing, but the fact that we as a body didn't know this was happening until it was in
- a public meeting. Thank you again.
- didn't know that there was a special meeting called this week until I was told by someone else. So therefore
- also don't know that it was changed except for thank you. There's no communication about the use of
- funds and that's gotta change. All of this has to change. I think another main issue is that we are
- that check and balance that is if you look
- at Indiana history. That is why our body was created. We're not in the Constitution. The commissioners
- are. And then the state was like, whoa, we got three people up here just doing whatever they want. Let's
- put in county councils. So that is our role. That is our duty. And it's a fiduciary one. But it's important.
- We are stewarding your money. And that is not something to take lightly.
- We need a better understanding of how and when and to whom spending is going on. And that needs to be
- outlined and we need to take control of figuring out how to make that happen. We can't just call for
- it. It requires some work on our part. We lack a transparent process. I think that was Councilor Crossley's
- first point, but we also,
- that the process we lack must be transparent. It must be fair and kind and just and compassionate. It
- has to be all of those things. I mean, the fact that we talk about codifying and putting in a protocol
- isn't enough. We have to make sure that we don't lose sight of
- of the human aspect of this and the fact that these are our neighbors and it's not okay to sweep and
- shovel things aside and look at the new day as though it's been all right, because it's not. We have
- to stop being fearful about risk.
- liability or looking like we don't know what we're doing because Lord knows I do not know what I'm doing.
- I'm up here trying my best and we're going to not get it right the first time, but we have to stop being
- afraid of doing something. So that said, I think we have to agree on some sort of statement about this week.
- We have to implore the commissioners through written communication. I'm hoping that everyone on this
- body can sign on to laying out the absolute necessity for a stay on eviction, at least through to warm spring.
- And by warm spring, I'm talking April, and we've seen snow in April, but that at least, at the very
- least, the weather is not predictable enough between now and then, and they've admitted that the weather
- is a factor by staying it for a week. So I feel like this is very justifiable. We must write this, we
- must write this by tomorrow,
- early afternoon and get this communicated. I mean, I'm sure those who are interested will watch our
- comments tonight, but those who are not interested, I want to make sure that they get the message. Our
- longer term strategy must include developing specific protocol around what to do to address
- unhoused neighbors situations humanely, ethically, and consistently. And I think it starts with a protocol
- around knowing the money situation better, requiring that we are specifically asked about appropriating
- when these actions are being taken. And I mean, we will have to work on that wording.
- of course. I think secondly, and I'm going to look at my cheat sheet here because this is what I wrote
- down, you know, last week real quick. But I think there needs to be a timeline incorporated into that
- protocol so that we aren't giving people 30 days or less. 30 hours. I mean, I think Councilor Decker,
- last night you pointed out like if you're if you're late on your mortgage, you
- There's a long process, you know? And so why would we not afford that to everyone? I think that we have
- to be very specific about how we notify folks. This can't be just posting a piece of paper
- and calling that good, that's no, that's not how you would do it. That's not how you do it. I think
- also in whatever protocol we put together, we have to identify the partner agencies, their roles and
- a timeline for communication and a way to circle back and have an after action. If an eviction is part
- of it, if it's not part of it, let's also debrief. We do way too little debriefing
- in county government. I'm shocked. I am shocked at how little we do. That should be a part of it. I
- will end soon, I promise. The storage and retrieval procedures and the plan for non-retrieved property,
- if we do eviction, and again, I'm stressing that part because eviction is not the only path I see for
- what we want to tackle. I think
- that has to be articulated and it has to be done in a way that is much more sensitive to the conditions
- and the livelihoods and lives lived that we're affecting. There's so much more because we could address
- systemic issues as well. And to your point, Councilor Iverson, there is a lot of guidance on this.
- pulled a stack of it and was looking through it today. We can put something together. Whether or not
- it's perfect, it doesn't matter as long as we're not doing haphazard, not undirected action. Thank you
- for my time. You're welcome. Thank you. Councilor Feidl.
- I come at this with an activist heart. So it really warms my heart to see you all out here still this
- evening. I've done my fair share of protesting in a variety of areas, a lot of my working life. And
- I'm just excited that you're all still here, hanging in there with this whole process. I, too, would
- like to see something happen. I'm interested in impact. I'm very interested in the impact that
- anything that's happening will have on the citizens that are being affected by all of this. I want to
- eliminate harm. I don't want harm anywhere. You know, we're just talking about property here. We're
- not talking about anything that we can't work on to make it work for everybody involved. So I would
- really like to go along with a lot of the things that have been said here tonight
- and implement something where we can have a process. I'm very upset that I, as a now county counselor
- for less than a year, not quite a year, can't find out what this is costing, who it's paying for, and
- where it's coming from. I don't seem to see the bill for this thing that they had planned.
- Where is the bill? I don't know where that is. If somebody has that, I'd like to see it.
- I don't know where that is. It seems like that's our role, right? So we weren't asked to approve money
- to make this happen. And that seems wrong, first off the bat. I think that's totally wrong. I mean,
- I thought that was our job, was to approve the money. We're the pocketbook here. So I don't like that
- at all. It doesn't seem like that that check and balances
- that process has been adhered to, and it really disturbs me that that has happened. So I will do everything
- that I can do to make it better, make it have a good impact for all involved, and go on from here. So
- I think a lot has been said. I don't need to repeat everything, but that's kind of where I'm at. I appreciate
- that. And to your point, Councilor Feidl, just one thing that I just thought of that kind of sobers
- you up a little bit is,
- If nobody, if y'all didn't make the noise that you've made Thursday, this item that was sent out as
- a draft was on the agenda for today. The original eviction was yesterday. Let that sink in for a second.
- Look at how like ask money after. That's it.
- And the impact, right? Yeah. Exactly. So I guess now, now that we've all had an opportunity to say things
- and listening to the public this evening, what do you all have an appetite to do? So many things.
- I know. Personal Jen Crossley, I know what she wants to do, however,
- putting my county council hat on. Yeah, what are our options, right? That is my role and my responsibility.
- Again, I still think that there is a resolution that I think that we can put into play here and hand
- deliver. And again, put the checks and balances in. I think that's a start. As we give them an opportunity
- to come up with a plan or heck, maybe work together. What about that?
- earliest we could do a resolution, which we need to do is next week. I think tomorrow we have to have
- some written communication statement put together. That's really difficult to coordinate amongst us,
- but I'm confident that we can lean on some folks to help us without violating open door law, get something
- together. Please.
- Councilor heard Iverson and then I saw Henry's hand go up. I think in the near term sounds great in
- the most immediate term after that. And when we're talking about a plan, it is super important. And
- we heard this in public comment today is we need lived experience at the table to craft that plan. So
- There is the Ashley's of the world, the Lydia's of the world. Katie Norris needs to be at the table,
- right? Hotels for the homeless. Folks need to be at the table who know what they're talking about. And
- so I think that's going to take time to coordinate, but I think that's worth doing, and I think it's
- worth doing soon.
- Sound like pre ambulatory clauses in the resolution, right? Because I appreciate all the brainstorming.
- I also appreciate I don't get to be the emergency manager of the county or some of the other roles here
- yet. But in any case, the the challenge I have is I think I think listing and enumerating the expectations.
- The short term is assuring that there's no misuse of county funds because we can't seem to figure out
- where this is coming from.
- And which means I think, which is a larger conversation, which unfortunately we still have to talk about
- the edit and I'm already looking at that document, also seeing some of these constructions that kind
- of box us into things, right? That we're gonna have to, from a fiscal standpoint, understand when a
- process like this happens, who pays and how and where's it coming from? When was that authorized? And
- to answer some questions up here, I mean, look, FEMA has been around since 1979.
- There's a process for stakeholder engagement and writing operations plans that goes back 46 years. We
- don't have to reinvent the wheel, but we can bring partners in and encourage through a whereas clause
- what we expect to see. And it's probably making sure that this is run by an informed vibe and preparing
- for these types of things by the partners that we're expecting to do them.
- You know, when I have stakeholders in the county tell me that they've not been informed, that they have
- a role in the directive, I think is one of the terms of art that has been shared with me this week.
- Not a plan, not whatever. But we need to understand that stakeholders are stakeholders if we think so
- or not, and they need to be involved, I think to Peter's point, right, that we need them there. So I
- think that's a lot of operational or kind of pre-ambulatory clauses in a resolution. But I think the
- short term is we've got to make sure there's not a misuse of county funds.
- I'm not persuaded that there is not at this point. And I guess that would be working with the auditor
- this week to figure that out. Well, is there, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Is there a way, because Councilor
- Feidl just left me, we have to put a stay on it, you know? And we don't have that power. So is there
- a way, I'm looking to people who work here who are knowledgeable, for us to,
- affect immediate change on the plan? I mean, anyone got ideas on how we can impact what's happening
- on Monday? Besides just asking what's the plan? When is this happening? Where is this happening? Who's
- doing the work? We've asked all week. I mean, I'm sorry. We have no idea. I mean, all we know is something's
- happening on the 15th and it's going to be devastating. That's all I know.
- And so that's why I'm asking, is there something else? Does County Council have anything else that is
- quick? And we are not built to be quick. I understand that. There's reasons why, but is there anything
- at our disposal? On the spot, I'm not thinking of anything. I mean, this is like,
- county executive function. But we fund county executive functions. And that's the and I'm not saying
- that for you. I'm just saying in general because you know, we they do with what we do because we go
- through budget purgatory every year, especially this year. And there has to be
- But it shouldn't. First of all, it shouldn't have to be this way. We should have people that are duly
- elected individuals that come to us and talk to us and actually not talk to us, talk with us and make
- adult decisions. But here we are. So, yeah, and I just feel like there has to be if you can't find it,
- that's fine. But it's just there's there has to be something.
- because I'm tired of playing games at this point. Madam President, can I follow up with a question?
- Yes. Mr. King, I was going to ask some very direct statements here, so bear with me. Are you able to
- provide us a maybe Socratic legal counter argument that would defend our position if we decided to challenge
- the executive position on this based on the fact that you are from the county legal department that
- works for the commissioners? Could you give us an alternative answer to it's an executive function you don't see
- a way around it. What's the law school counter-argument against what you just said? I mean, I was kind
- of unprepared to talk about this, so I'm not really, I don't know that I can give you the law school
- argument without researching it. That's fair. Let me ask the legal, maybe the fiscal question. What
- would be the process if we wanted to de-appropriate funds this evening? Would it have to be publicly
- noticed? You can't do it. But could we notice it for next meeting? No. No. It's three weeks. You have
- to have 10 days.
- notice. So we wouldn't even make our next meeting because it's a short week. Correct. You wouldn't be
- able to de-appropriate the 2025 budget. However, there is a process for
- claims that you cannot make an advance purchase without going through those processes. Since the services
- have likely not been performed, the claim would likely not be issued until closer to 2026. So unless
- it was submitted as an emergency claim or services have already been provided, then it would likely
- be a 2026 claim.
- So it's probably important for the vendor to know that if there's a potential misuse of funds, they
- may not get paid. They may be taking on a liability that they do not get paid for. Is that a way to
- think about it? You can't really answer that. I can say that from up here. Okay, that's it, Madam President.
- All right, any other questions or comments? I get, yeah, Councilor Wills. Could we just,
- take two minutes and we'll just bullet point out what would be in a letter tomorrow. Like, and I'll
- just type my notes and then we can workshop via staff. So I have letter to commissioners. We scheduled
- encampment eviction. Number one, don't do it until like,
- I mean, no, seriously, like, so, you know, postpone this until spring. I think I would really like to
- say postpone until there's a definite plan agreed to by all parties. I would be in favor of that totally. Right.
- because they have to have the funding to do what they want to do and that's us and then they want to
- do the plan or they want us to work with them to do a plan to make that happen okay well let's let's
- have a plan that everybody agrees upon and then we can go from there okay yes sounds like a plan to
- me yeah look at that we request the reason why now
- Is there a mitigating factor or something that requires this? I don't care about the reason why I'm
- going to stop. Well, I mean, I agree, but I don't think we'll get it. But it's not, you know,
- nothing better, nothing. Other points. I have some. Yes. So during public comment, it's been raised
- a couple of times there. We're talking about people and we don't know how many souls
- are on this property. Some people are saying 10. Some people saying five, some people saying 20. How
- many souls are sleeping out there right now when it is bitterly cold? Number two. What agencies are
- doing street outreach right now? Is it just health net? I hear you. I hear you. So like, is like,
- What is going on with agencies, right? Number two, or number three, what housing entities are involved
- here? Are there any housing entities involved here? Is hotels or homeless involved? Is Crawford involved?
- Is Friends Place involved? Go down the list of where people can find a warm, safe, secure shelter
- Like how many of those places are being consulted? Or are we just trying to figure out who's gonna cart
- away people's stuff the fastest? Can we ask some questions that are people-centric? I'm caught between,
- I don't really care about the answers to that if they're not gonna stop. So I think what it is is that
- these are the things we want to find out
- after they have agreed to stop. These are some of the things that we would like to work with them to
- better understand. And as an entry toward creating a, I don't know if shared's the right word, but a
- agreed upon and informed approach.
- make sense? I mean ultimately this is a county government approach, right? Yeah. We all represent county
- government here. It's not just them, it's not just us. Everybody represents county government, including
- the staff sitting here tonight, right? We have in this whole building, all a bunch of buildings, right?
- I mean I think it's a black eye on the whole county government, you know? It's not just us, not just
- anybody, it's everybody, and our citizens, right? Our community is counting upon us to look at this
- whole big picture and figure out what we can do collectively to make the best of the situation, right?
- What is that going to be? I do think we need to keep the meta questions in there. I mean, this is important.
- And yet I keep coming back to like, OK, I don't want to say lane, but like the things that we really
- do affect from our seats, right?
- What fund is this? Have there been transfers in that fund? If it is pointing back to the, you know,
- we need to know where we're going to expect to see the claim hit. Mr. Iverson is looking at the ledger
- here all evening and we're waiting with bated breath. We think we know from the public meeting where
- they're pulling it from, but that fund has restrictions.
- Well, in some way. But we need to know what fund and what in-house transfers, what they're doing, how
- they're moving money around to accomplish hiring. That plus, as I spoke with our friends that are in
- the audience when I visited the encampment, it's also the indirect cost. It's not just bio one. There's
- a lot of indirect costs we don't understand. Has that been accounted for? And where is that coming from?
- So those are, I know, fiscal questions that are not as
- urgent, but they do speak from our seats, from what's going on. Well, I think in the beginning, and
- I still don't understand what was the impetus for this now. That's the why now. Right. That's a great
- question. Why now? Right? Why now? Nobody ever answered that that I saw anywhere. Why, and then why
- now? Right? Cruelty. So given the weather and the lack of any immediate
- need, we are requesting a postponement of any action regarding the encampment until there is a protocol
- or plan in place for addressing the commissioners and communities concerns about the welfare of the
- folks there. May I, I mean, may I add a counselor Hawk just texted me. I just want to share it. Um,
- but she, she was asking where the expectation that the people, where do they go?
- I mean, it's part of whatever this plan is, we don't really understand where people are going. That
- was her question. Great. Should you join the meeting? Yeah, OK. She's still awake. I thought I saw a
- hand raise over here. Maybe? Yes. I'm pondering thoughts.
- I get that you're trying to draft this letter, and I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but I'm also hired
- to do a job and point out other concerns. And I think there goes, and this is not my personal opinion.
- I'm just doing my job. I need to say that. But there are legal concerns. There are public health concerns.
- I haven't been to the encampment. I don't know what those concerns are. I haven't been to all the meetings.
- I don't know what those are.
- I don't want to say drafting a letter is premature, but I think you have to have a lot more information
- on what those concerns are and why. And maybe this is not a letter with here's our bullet points, but
- can we have a meeting? Can we set down so we can have this conversation? Because I think it's beneficial
- if you're in the same room talking instead of exchanging emails and letters back and forth.
- But you know, the only thing that I would, oh, go ahead. I'm sorry. No, no, no, go ahead. No, go ahead.
- You can finish. And I know, I know that the emails have tried to establish that, but I mean, I think
- there's been a lot of moving parts last week alone that has not. I mean, like there's a lot of moving
- parts, so I don't know there's been time to process all those moving parts and answer all the incoming request.
- Yeah. And I think to that degree, sure. But they've had an opportunity tonight to even come in and say
- something. And like, yeah, that too. And so they also had an opportunity to have the meeting with the
- groups tomorrow, which sounds like it got postponed to Thursday at 1 PM. And again,
- I'm just going to say it, because I work a 9 or an 8 to 5 job. Doing it at a time frame where people
- that have true concerns and who are trying to advocate and do a job, those are at times when we can't
- even be here. I usually try to use my lunch and my personal time from my job, my actual 40
- hour a week job to do this work. That's not anybody's concern, but that's what I do. However, I don't
- know what they like, you know, our public has, I can only imagine. And so I get
- I understand. But I guess at this point, I've been in rooms now where commissioners have been sitting
- here and talking to us. And then County Council Theater turns on at 10 AM. And then I see something
- completely different. And it's like, where was that energy when we were sitting in the same room talking
- to each other? And at this point, I think this kind of gets
- A conversation and it looks like Marty or counselor is on and and has her hand raised we thought she
- went to bed Marty and so um you know we're just trying to figure out like again.
- we have to have a checks and balance. The public is asking us for checks and balance. We've gone through
- many different scenarios and different types of things. We still got one more conversation where there's
- another checks and balance. That has to happen. The moral of the thing, you know, the moral of the county
- government is there's a checks and balance, but I guess certain restrictions may apply for certain groups.
- So that's, I think that us sending this to them,
- and having it public and being able to go about and doing this is us doing our job. And this is us trying
- to get them to communicate with us. Because as it stands, I'm not certain if one commissioner is still
- online right now. And that's just one. The main nucleus that is over the presiding president
- I would think we should be in here and at least talking to us or at least giving an update. And that
- has not happened. So that's kind of where I think we are in terms of trying to send this letter out.
- Councilor Hawk. Yes. Seems to me what we need to really be thinking about is where are these folks going
- to go? That's the plan we ought to know now. If they are, if this happens,
- Where do they plan for them to go? Just move them down the street a little ways and set up encampment
- there and they won't even have their tents anymore. I mean, I think the plan has to include a part of
- the transition of where they're going to go because right now they're on county property. Are they going
- to move them someplace or then they're going to be at someone's backyard?
- I mean, that is all a part of it. However, if we're just looking at the funding, because I was trying
- to figure out what fund was this paid from, if it was, or to be paid from, wasn't it, it QMTAP is what
- I thought it was, and that there was going to be a transfer between lines and
- And if that's the case, I don't know how you stop it from doing that because they already have
- the appropriation for the total. They can do a transfer with just the letter of transfer. Is that correct,
- Kim? I don't know for sure. Are you looking at the? Yes. I mean, they can do in-house transfers to fund
- whatever line they anticipate that coming out of. Right. So this could happen.
- Madam President. Yes. Except, if I may, I've looked at that ordinance. Kim Cap has limitations. There's
- about 11 of them. And one of them requires a declared emergency to use the fund. It's there. And it
- was done in 2022, the last time we tried to do this. It was not done by the county commission at this
- point. I want to follow up on the comment made by Ms. Turner-King. I'm probably the only person in the
- room that's done level three hazmat training, like worn the suits.
- and worked with civil support teams in the country. I think we have to be very cautious when we start
- throwing around what's a public health hazard, because we don't have a declared one. And if there was
- an emergency, we would have a declared emergency from the Board of Health, and there isn't one. And
- so as far as the, sorry, we have every right to put a resolution out, because it's a public document
- that's expressing the will of this body.
- It's the what about-ism in the council, the commissioner's meeting last week that got us into this point
- to begin with. So I'm just, I'm a little, I'm gonna leave it there, because anything beyond that is
- gonna bring out some anger. I've been on the ground out there. And again, I've trained on this stuff.
- I've worn the blue suits. I did not see what could constitute quota cesspool. So I put my word against
- whoever suggested such a thing.
- And they may be helpful to have an emergency management mindset and to work with our law enforcement
- entities that plan and do these things. Sheriff Marte has experience with encampments in Indianapolis
- from his previous career. He would understand from an operational perspective what we should be doing.
- Those voices haven't been included in planning. And we do not have a shared objective of a county of
- what we're trying to do out there.
- And we don't even know how it's being fiscally managed. We do not have a shared objective. And with
- no offense to people that spend a good amount of their lives and time maintaining our buildings and
- facilities, it might not be the right incident commander to have to manage this activity and treating
- it just like a facility project. And I think it's becoming abundantly clear. And that's all I have on
- this. I think I've said enough this evening on this activity. Thank you. OK.
- Is there any other points that we need to give to Councilor Wilts at this moment? I have a question
- here. Yes. If indeed this property is still under consideration for where the new jail location is going
- to be, and if that's a part of it,
- And I don't know, because you folks know what you're doing. Nobody's telling me anything. But if that's
- the case, then why would there be such a rush to get them out of there in the next month or so before
- springtime? Or do they want them out of there so they can sell it to somebody else? Have we given them
- permission to sell it? Nope. No, we have not. Yeah.
- OK, I mean, that's just part of the conversation. Kind of a question. And no, I did not go to bed. I've
- been watching you. I just watched on cats instead of this. So my dog wouldn't bark. We're just jealous.
- Well, let me tell you what. You can have my bad news, and I'll stay there. How's that?
- Yes, Councilor Decker. I know the hour is getting late. I do want to say this. I think there's an underlying
- theme that might get a little bit missing from some of this and that truly, if you look at our agenda,
- most of the items that we linger over is a sense of has at its root, some sense of care to try to do
- it better by
- somebody else in the county. I mean, we spent forever on probation with the notion that, as someone
- said to me once, if we get it right in probation, then one issue that gets someone in our court system
- doesn't turn into one issue that gets someone in the court system out of their job, away from their
- family, out of their marriage. Things don't rocket into other things. And I think that that underlying
- genesis of care for
- each other in this policy, in policies adopted, in how we go about this, and how do you want to find
- out about things? I mean, the foreclosure comparison, I looked it up, the average in 2025 on foreclosure
- is 645 days. I don't have to do rocket science to figure out how long that is, but it is longer
- this process and I worry that sometimes in again these line items and other things that we lose a little
- bit of sense of that we're talking about humans with dignity who trying to figure out things people
- trying to do right by them our social service providers other entities in the county and I think that
- that is a reminder that needs to to stay in into this it's about getting to that
- to try to get to day two, because here's the underlying thing that's getting ready to hit us like a,
- like a steel hammer. When those federal changes are fully implemented and there's funding laws and shoot,
- I just looked online while we were sitting here today, there were several citizens in Indianapolis that
- were slated to be take their oath as naturalized citizens. They just didn't have the swearing.
- I don't know what that means, but it means to me that things are changing and they're not changing in
- a positive Mr. Rogers way. They're changing in the crappy kind of way that we've seen in other communities.
- So at least here, that genesis of care and compassionate care has got to be an underlying guide for
- us. Okay. So as we wrap up this discussion, I think what I'd like to see one is
- what Councilor Wilts has crafted and get sent to commissioners. And then ideally next Tuesday on the
- 16th, I would like to have the discussion where we do talk about a resolution. And put it on the after
- the 15th. I know, which is so unfortunate.
- something together. I think it's important that we work through this table. So I can pull a draft of
- a very drafty draft together and get it to you tonight.
- Ms. Turner King, do you have time in the morning to take a look to make sure that there is at least
- nothing that is false or we're not suggesting something inappropriate legally? I mean, I just, I know
- I'm not asking for you to spend a half day kind of researching things. I don't want that.
- necessarily this time around. Maybe you all disagree, but it would, I think it would be good to have
- your eyes on it. I will rearrange tomorrow to make time. Okay. So if you could Kim, sorry, Michelle,
- if you could send out my drafty draft and people could reply to Michelle.
- And then, I don't know what I'm doing tomorrow. One of us should incorporate and kind of finalize for
- their eyes again. Give me a second. Tomorrow is the 11th. I can work on.
- Tomorrow's the 10th. Excellent. A whole new day. Yeah, I can work on stuff. I have some time in the
- morning and in the afternoon. Just a little chunk in the middle, I can't. So I could be the one who
- rounds up everything after you've sent it to Kim and tries to
- Put everything back together, send it back to Kim, send it out. Texting to let people know when we've
- reached. Thank you. Thanks. So is this a letter? Right now, it's a letter. OK. So what's the goal of
- the letter? Stopping the eviction until we have procedures in place. And it's going to say something
- like that.
- Do you like me to read the bullet points? No, I just want to make sure it encapsulates that. But that's
- OK. Yeah. So yeah. OK. Hi. We don't have public comment right now. But we are more than happy. We need
- to finish this up here. It was a suggestion, actually, or a question, because you asked about paths
- forward of making action happen.
- given the questions of procedural flaws potentially, is there room for filing an injunction until you
- all have had the chance to review this if there is no stay of the eviction through reasonable responses
- to this letter?
- if they do not respond to this letter, they do not change the eviction date, it sounds like there is
- reasonable question of if they follow procedural norms of whether it be the contract or the eviction
- notice, things of that nature, open law rules, things of that nature. Is there cause for an eviction
- to be filed at least until the attorney or
- other individuals to review this. That is a legal question. That's way above my pay grade. Very interesting
- idea. I don't believe we have standing as elected officials, but we do as taxpayers. Is that generally
- my understanding? Again, without looking at laws on injunctions, I'm not going to be able to provide
- a legal answer on that tonight.
- It suggests though, if you are writing a letter that you decide tonight after the draft is circulated
- via staff and in accordance with open door law, are you delegating the authority to sign that letter
- to someone? Ms. Schell? So it's come, going to the commissioner's sign with all council signature, like
- who's names on this?
- I think it should be everybody's, and I think we should send her a text or an email, whichever you prefer,
- to say, I'm signing off on this version. And that is a point of privilege here. Is this something that
- we need to make emotional? Because I'm seeing another. Actually, city council did this when they sent
- the letter to us about North Park. So is this something that, without getting involved with Open Door,
- Is this something that we can say we make a motion to authorize the letter to be sent via council staff
- with those who want their names to be approved on it to be sent on to count or to commissioners?
- I can also, if you like and you approve the memo, I can apply your digital signature to it. Okay, I
- guess by show of hand,
- would like their name to be on? We have Marty online, so. Oh, yeah. Well, just kind of getting an idea
- of who would like to have their names, like, signed on to this letter. Okay. Councilor Hawk, would you
- like your name on this letter? You're muted. I would have seen what the letter said before.
- Because once again, I think the most important thing here for the people that we're trying to help is
- what's the plan to help them, not just to win an argument with the commissioners. Let's find out what
- our plan is. But maybe I'm looking at it wrong. So would you be OK with saying if Michelle
- without, and I don't know if this would violate open door, if it gets sent to you all and Council Hawk
- is OK with it, could a motion be said, we all sign on it, and Council Hawk could contingent upon her
- approval of this letter?
- I do know that open door will not allow you to take official action, which was proving and signing this
- letter as an entire council via email would not be in compliance with open door. I believe my memory
- of the city council meeting was they in their individual capacity and not as an entire council signed
- it already drafted letter because.
- There were individuals who did not sign on to the letter because it was in their individual capacities.
- So it wasn't an entire council letter. And I am very cautious and hesitant and feeling all sorts of
- bad Spidey sense lawyer vibes. And the idea that you would approve signing a letter via email.
- Councilor Decker. If we were to instead say, such as a motion, which I'd be prepared to give, that we
- move that Councilor Wilts be given permission to take a draft she is developing, circulated among councilors
- for their individual signatures, if they choose, would that satisfy? That would have to be in, like,
- Councilor Wilts can't send all of you or a quorum of you a letter
- with staff. In accordance with open doors. So there'd have to be staff coordination. I think you could
- delegate writing the letter to one person. Which is what Councilor Wilts technically is already doing.
- I'm happy to give my notes to someone else. If you want to be the person writing it, that's fine. No,
- I think you're... Okay.
- Don't have to be me. Yeah, you took the initiative. OK. So. So we can sign on as individuals. Yes, I
- do not think it can be a council action. Unless improved at a public meeting, and it's a little hard
- to do without the draft letter, it sounds like. Not as fast as you are. OK, OK.
- So the- What if you- Yes, Councilor Hawke. We got to wrap it up. Why don't you put something together
- that said we are very concerned and we wish to see better cooperation or something and we want to follow
- this up with more information that we're going to send to you or something rather than anybody could agree to.
- I don't know if one of you guys want to do. That's what, that's what we actually, I'm not certain if
- you were in or watching, but that's technically that's what we're doing. What I, right. We want to have
- more cooperation and we want to be able to work with them with this. Right. Right. So yeah, that's,
- yeah, that's what we're saying. Right. Okay. Okay. So to move forward.
- Councilor Wilts will work. Oh, and then. And so if we all say we're gonna sign it now and you can just
- sign my name onto it, it's fine with me. I think that's what we're checking on now. It sounds like what
- we can do is we can sign on as individuals. Well, if we know what it's gonna say, we could just go ahead
- and have Kate send it out from all of us.
- excuse myself for a moment and take this with me. And I will be back and please proceed with the meeting.
- Okay. All right. So we'll go for it. All right. So we, we, we can't, I'm sorry. We, we, we can, um,
- after it's been adjourned, we can have a conversation, but we really got to move forward. So yeah, if
- you want to go out and talk with councilor Wilts and run safely.
- All right. I have one more question if it's possible. Maybe this would help if I just leave the baby
- and don't want to be a problem. For the Monday potential eviction, was another sign put up somewhere
- down there about this or how are people being notified about that? Do we know? No, no. Okay.
- The first event, right? Okay, thank you. Okay. Just because we can't hear what he's saying. So he said,
- if I remember heard him correctly, you said that the first notice was posted, right? The first date
- of the eviction notice was posted, right? But nothing for the 15th, is that correct? Right. Okay. Okay.
- All right. So we got to get moving forward with this last part.
- um so next up is item c or d our new d council i move to open for a discussion the capital improvement
- plan for the economic development income tax fund or edit shoot second all right we got a motion and
- a second miss turner king
- So I believe this discussion is to identify our council recommendations on what you would like included
- in the edit plan. There was a list put together for the commissioners meeting that listed potential
- projects. And so I think the question before council is, how do you feel about that list? Are you okay
- with the list as is? Do you want some things included in the list, not others? Do you want things on
- the list changed?
- I will say as a caveat, whatever is included in the list, absolutely you have to, I would recommend
- that you include the 2026 budgetary expenses and that the list that you're recommending has to be of
- a value of $19 million to meet the statutory requirements
- I think it's 75%. All right, so Councilmember Henry and I were there on Thursday to talk about this
- with the commissioners. The list that's here sounds a lot like what Mr. Cockrell listed out in the meeting.
- So this is not a surprise to see this here. So clearly
- I think Commissioner Thomas wants to leave in the County Justice Center. And just technically, there
- needs to be a renumbering of all this because the Justice Center on page one doesn't have a number.
- The operational costs, I agree with you, need to stay in there. The airport terminal, I could take it
- or leave it. I mean, I want an airport terminal. It's important for economic development. We've talked
- ad nauseam about having an airport terminal.
- Really, I think what could be in there that's not in there is bituminous. Every single year, we just
- invest so much money in bituminous and that's an economic development tool because when people come
- in to watch the Hoosiers play football, they're driving on our roads.
- And if Lisa Ridge were here right now, which I don't even know if she's still watching, she would say,
- we never have enough. So let's put that in here and and make sure that our roads are drivable when people
- go and watch the Hoosiers play. The the other thing I'll mention is that the sewer, the sanitary sewer
- expansion is absolutely amazing. It goes to
- what we're talking about tonight, which is housing. And one of the key reasons why I heard over and
- over again from the planning department we could not expand housing was because there's no sewer there.
- So I think that's a really good idea to put that in there. And of course, you know, transit's great,
- fire protection district. So I think this is all good stuff. My only addition would be bituminous. And
- if I could get away with it, self-insurance,
- But I don't think we can make an economic development argument for self-insurance. As a follow-up question,
- if I may. Yes, please. If you're going to include bituminous, how much? Is there a further thought on
- how? Well, let's see. What do we budget in the 2026 budget for bituminous? Do you recall at the top
- of your head? I want to say it's a million five. I was going to say two.
- I'll tell you here in just a moment. But I would also want to check in with Miss Ridge to make sure
- that because I don't think that number includes cul-de-sacs. I'm sorry. Not cul-de-sacs. Oh, sorry.
- It's 11 o'clock. Words are failing me. Sidewalks. What did you say? Sidewalks.
- Sidewalks, yes, but in the developments, these side neighborhoods. Anyway, we need to talk with Lisa
- Ridge. Mr. Deckard's laughing at me. Yeah, so that's what I would say is around two million would cover
- what we budgeted and then anything more would come from Ms. Ridge.
- Councilor Henry. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Iverson. Yeah, we both had the privilege of speaking on this.
- It was only last week. So my observation about the draft in front of me is that it's a little more complex
- and longer than the previous version of the capital improvement plan. I have some questions here based
- on the dialogue that we had in that meeting, which was spirited.
- And I agree that, yeah, under capital projects, project one, which is really what we call the justice
- center project, I have some heartburn about setting a cost of 225 million after we've had some challenges
- about being able to raise that amount. It locks into another public document that we think that's what
- this is going to end up being. And we have yet to sort that out as a conversation about what our new
- vision for what a jail and or justice center ought to be. So I have,
- I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm
- campus design is the number, as opposed to setting it as something that may be less, especially given
- it's a five-year and not 20-year plan, which is what we're going to have to do to build anything anyway.
- So I'm curious if my fellow counselors would want to see a reduction in the estimated total cost on
- the edit, as opposed to putting a $225 million number in the thing. And maybe, again, we have to put
- an estimate. But I have some concerns about that number being locked into a future-facing document.
- Secondly is under the planning development and construction schedule, which is a three sentence line
- in the previous version of the plan. We now have the kind of schema for what we've heard in the past
- about what state legislative changes would need to happen in order for us to do certain things. This
- seems to be a lot. Michelle, do you have a comment on this? No, I was just going to just say when you're
- ready, I have the edit numbers.
- Okay, and then I guess the only other question I have more from a legalese perspective is the big word
- or in there gives us some flexibility if for some reason we want to, I guess, have some other mix of
- projects that are not either operational costs or us committing to the jail and or justice center that
- I guess I'm fine with and I appreciate Councilor Iverson's suggestions of other things, but we have a,
- We have a new document that is 144% of the total allocation as opposed to 100% even. That's what it
- says is the percentage of total to be allocated to projects during the term of the plan is 144% of the
- edit. And I'm a little baffled by that number. At the very bottom. So there's some things I
- think, unfortunately, this late hour, we've got to sort out if this is going to be the plan that we
- have to submit by the end of the year.
- We've got this mega number in here for mega jail. Is the mix correct for 75%? Do we need to have all
- this language on page 519 about without legislative changes, bonding, 2028, dot, dot, dot? Is that really
- necessary when the previous version had three sentences? And yeah, I know this is a lot, folks, but
- this is going to walk us into a five-year plan for this fund, and there seems to be
- And I'm trying to be empathetic and be open and have some integrity here. We've had a whole evening
- this evening of trusting but verifying what happens across the hall around here. I want to make sure
- the document before does not lock us into something. Because I'm not sure what I'm seeing here is not
- that. So that's a lot of words. So I guess the question is, Turner King, can we make amendments to this
- thing and send it back? Or are we making amendments to this document or accepting the document as presented?
- think that you can make amendments and this would go back to the commissioners as a recommendation for
- inclusion in the plan or exclusion plan. Okay, that's it right now. Madam President, I may have some
- amendments then. Well, and I guess our thing is we have our last meeting of the year next Tuesday and
- they have their last meeting of the year next Thursday. So
- If we make amendments and then if we, for some reason, decide to come back next Tuesday and then this
- gets sent to them Thursday or the Thursday the 18th, my concern would be they reject some of the things
- and there's nothing else that we can do about it. Yeah, go ahead, Peter, sorry. Yeah, Councilor. This
- came up on Thursday during the work session that, um,
- There is no deadline here. The sense of urgency that the commissioners were raising is actually false.
- We could pass something that said that we're going to fund the Justice Center. And then the very first
- meeting in January said we're funding the Justice Center and sewer expansion. And then the meeting after
- that, we could come back and say, oh, yeah, and we're supporting bituminous. So this plan is imminent.
- You can edit this plan over and over and over again.
- That's what the conversation was, is that we just need to, the commissioners need to pass something.
- It does not have to be perfect right now. And the minimum being what we committed to in the budget.
- Yes. 4.6. And then an agreement that we use the rest for a jail and or justice center and stop using
- that term as if it's a very large single facility. The minimum in the plan would be 19 million because
- it has to have 75%.
- So the balance, the balance of 4.668 is set aside for a potential jail on Door Justice Center. It's
- really two things that we can agree on right now. The rest of the stuff we can add on later.
- I think this, I heard Councilor Iverson relay it. And just so that you catch this too, the Justice Center
- project is not numbered on the first page and it is not included in the list of expenditures on the
- last page.
- I think because even without the justice center project, you are above the 19 million threshold. Right,
- right, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. I just wanted to make sure that that was being caught. Councilor
- Huck. Okay, since we've not done this before, where we voted on everything having to do with the jail
- inside that budget,
- Let's say they, however they pass this, will we vote on everything before they spend it? Or if they
- pass this, do they have the authority to just go ahead and spend it with no appropriation? That I don't
- understand. How many years did you say this was for? How many years?
- It's locked in for five. Did you say five years? Yes. Well, just say no to that. No, no, no. We don't
- know what's going to happen past two years. Absolutely. We're not even going to have an edit, but we
- cannot lock it in for five because we need that
- edit money to be rollover into the 1.2 to operate county government. What are they thinking of? Can't
- do it for five. One information I want to ask Ms. Turner King another question tonight. If this is adopted
- and that budgetary amount which we've went to
- to save our budget. If this is adopted, can we come back in January 2026 and amend it as we literally,
- or ask them to amend it literally as we just did for this year? So if it's adopted as proposed, could
- you ask them to amend it in January? Or altered.
- Let's say it's adopted. If it's adopted as proposed, can you come back in the next year and say, well,
- no, it's we got to adjust it even more. In looking at the capital improvement plan statute, I think
- it doesn't preclude the option to amend. It just says that you have to have a plan in place before you
- can spend and that you can't spend for anything that's not within the plan. So basically,
- adopting it or them adopting it with the budget in there makes that go. We know that we're not anywhere
- near on a justice center or jail operation, depending on what you want to call it. We're not anywhere
- near on doing anything there because of obvious issues that have been discussed. So that couldn't go
- anyway. This is a plan with
- plan, but the actual preparation process that we go through, where it comes in here, it's posted, blah,
- blah, blah. Those are just individual items yet to come. The budget is the one thing that is the ship
- that is set sail. Yes. Even if the, for example, even if the justice project is included in the plan,
- they would, if they want to, so the plan
- proposes, you know, purchase of land in 2026. They can't just go purchase land in 2026. They would still
- have to meet all the statutory requirements to purchase the land. So council would still have to approve
- the purchase agreement. All those things would still have to occur. It's just including it in the plan
- would allow the funding to be used for those reasons. I guess my point is this council, because I feel
- like we're getting into multiple weeds and multiple debates here, is
- stripped down to just budget or stripped up to this plan. None of that matters until truly we start
- appropriating and going back to the drawing. Otherwise, they would just pass one of these and my gosh,
- North Park would be just humming along. The other thing I just want to say is that sometimes we speak
- uncertainty based on changes that have happened this year. There is nothing certain.
- with the crowd in Indianapolis. And when we think about the constraints that have been passed on that
- justice discussion, which seems to be downtown, and which also we know from our own employees, there's
- issues in the non-jail portion, we may be talking about some of these dollars going to both some jail,
- some jail remodel, whatever, to pick on whatever side of the issue, or conversely, some alteration of
- the judicial building as it exists because you can't just have two floors sitting there and all those
- other issues. So I just, there's not certainty on a lot of that, including if the jail were located
- downtown, which has been the preference of the city council, where that is. That is now a theoretically,
- if real estate market is, I understand, a more costly environment, much more costly.
- So I throw all that out because I don't know. If we strip it down to the budget or max it out, I still
- think there's unanswered questions that literally every public official on both sides of that ledger
- will have to answer. Any other questions or comments? Yes, Council Hawke.
- I'm just really worried because I think I'll be losing sight of the fact that we cannot tie up this
- edit money for five years in any way, shape or form simply because there won't be an edit come 2028.
- It will be a part of our operating money, the whole total operating money, 1.2. And so we cannot,
- put, tie up this much of it and for five years, that's a kill us folks. Do you think I'm, you just don't
- do that. It cannot, in mid 2027, this council will, the city council will no longer be in charge of
- changing it or any of it.
- You know, they won't have, we'll each have our own, we'll each have our own role to play in the income
- tax. And at that point in 2027, we're gonna be deciding whether or not to go the whole 1.2 for operations
- and the 0.4 for fire and the 0.2 for the townships and whatever. And you start chunking off this great big edit
- and pull that out, because we're not gonna have that. We're not gonna have public safety. We're not
- gonna have any of that. All we're gonna have is the 1.2. I mean, right? Right? Yes. Correct, Councilor
- Hotway. Here's the issue. You've got two conflicting laws, right? The one that requires you to adopt
- a plan for how you're gonna expend this and to lay out
- I guess by, well, no, by project, but you've got that. You've also got the changes to the landscape,
- which if you, whoever you listen to, the crow or the legislator, you get different advice on what that's
- going to look like and what that's not going to look like. So once again, the state has done a fine
- job of giving us a conflict scenario and compliance in this plan.
- So clearly we gotta be smart enough to know we don't do five years. It says we, it says that I think
- that legislation says we have to do two years, but, but, but no more than two years, folks,
- no more than two, because then we'll get ready to decide what we're going to do for 2028. And we'll
- have our hands tied behind our back.
- You could still do two years, but the underlying point is all that's going to get appropriated here.
- There's nothing we will do tonight that'll make this any easier, any harder than appropriating and going
- through every hiring freeze and every jail discussion or non-jail discussion that we have. It's still
- the same thing. Madam President, I'd like to make amendments. Hold on a second. I thought, did I see
- your hand up? Carly or somebody over there? Okay.
- Yes, Councilor. Let me attempt an amendment here and we can at least get somewhere on it. Madam President,
- I'd like to amend the draft for consideration by the county commissioners to the following. Amendment
- one, to set the term of the plan to two years from date of adoption. Amendment two, is to label the
- Justice Center project
- project one, so strike justice center project and say project one instead in the document. Amendment
- three for general description is to say county jail and or justice center. I'll wait for folks to catch
- up. Yeah, thank you. So term of plan two years.
- Correct justice center project to project one. And correct general description to county jail and or
- justice center. Set estimated total cost to $150 million. And I'm okay with the rest for now. Second.
- And I'd like to ask a question.
- Why the change in estimated total cost for the justice and or jail? I would like to set it back to the
- initial estimates by DLZ that were around 150 million. Also, since we've rejected the North Park purchase,
- the facility that we will be building will probably not be the one estimated by DLZ at 225 million.
- I also don't want it in writing that that's the new number.
- I think we need to negotiate that still, but I don't want it in writing that that number somehow still
- survives the vote of this council unanimously not to go forward with the North Park purchase. So there
- is a motion and a second. Is there any other additional questions or comments on those amendments? Seeing
- none. We can't do a voice vote because council hawk is online.
- So maybe please have a roll call. Yes. And maybe we should list those amendments back because I'm going
- to make sure I got this right. Okay. So, um, amendment one is to set the term of the plan for two years
- from the date of adoption.
- Amendment two is to label the justice center to project one. Amendment three is change the
- general description to say county jail and or justice center. And amendment four is to set the estimated
- cost to 150 million. Okay. May I speak? Yes, go ahead councilor. Okay.
- I don't like the part where it says two years from date of adoption because, you know, they could delay
- adoption. Is that me causing the feedback? I'm sorry. No, it's in the room. Okay. I would think what
- you would rather say is to expire, you know, that it's a B for
- 26 and 27, so that we know that's gone at the end of 2027. I would think, because otherwise, what if
- they delayed the document for six months or something, and then we wouldn't be able to do the 2028 budgeting?
- Because we need this money to set up within the 1.2.
- Point of information, Madam President. Yes, go ahead. So Mr. King, I'm just borrowing the language from
- the previous capital improvement plan, like the last draft that used the term of the plan as X years
- from the date of adoption. Councilor Hawk raises a point that maybe having an actual expiration date
- like we would do in a resolution like December 31st, 2026. No, 2027.
- Yeah, right. Okay. Does it set a fixed date rather than two years from date of adoption? Is there any
- legal reason to... We could set a fixed date of expiry to make this work. Does it have to match like
- the language from the previous version? No. I think it just has to match the language in the statute
- and it says a capital improvement plan must encompass a period of not less than two years. Okay. Right.
- Whatever give them two years,
- Can I ask a friendly question to my colleagues? So do you have a recommended end date then if we went
- with December 31st? What would that be? 27? Would that work, December 31st, 2027? So it looks like she's
- shaking her head yes. I'm going to take that as a friendly amendment that I would accept. Who was seconding
- me? Was that Iverson? Yes.
- Okay, so then as I understand it, then the new term would be the term of this plan, or the term of this
- plan will expire on December 31st, 2027. Does that make sense to the desk? And for purposes
- of administration, I consent. I think we're gonna give Ms. Turner-King
- opportunity to where you hear what Council Henry was saying in terms of making to expire December 31st
- of 2027. Yes. We're good. Okay. All right. So any other further discussion on this? All right. Um, I
- skipped public comment on this. So I'll try to give a I don't know if anybody has it.
- but let me go back to public comment and see if there's any public comment. Okay, but counselor Henry
- made a motion and it was seconded. Now he amended the motion. So I think we need to vote on the amendment
- to that original motion. I consented. It was a friendly amendment. So as the original seconder, I simply said,
- That's fine, because he was just. We don't have to. It was a friendly amendment. OK. Legal says that's
- not really clean, because on our other amendments, we always take a vote. So we will go with whatever
- you decide.
- recommendations. Yeah. Let's just recommend it. Okay. So it was a friendly amendment. And so we're just
- going to keep going. Um, okay. Um, I'll again go to public comment. Uh, if you have public comment,
- please make a comment on this item and seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote.
- a moment of motion. With the amendment. Do you have no idea what's happening? Yeah. Go ahead. Councilor
- Feidl? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Oh, does she need to read it out? She didn't show what the motion
- was. Councilor Wilz? Yes. Councilor Hawk? Yes, I can.
- Yes. I don't know. I didn't hear the rest of the motion. I just got cut off with the five years. Just
- put me down. So, yes. Want me to read it again? No, no. Okay. No, go. Just go. You guys can go home.
- Councilor Crosley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Deckard? Yes. Motion passes 601. Okay.
- So looking back to Councilor Wilts, just in case, do we need to come back to anything? Are you good?
- Because if you're good, we don't have to do this. Like, we don't need to do anything else. Do we have
- to improve the entire thing at this point? Oh, yes, sorry. It's just a minute. Okay. All right. So now
- we'll need to have a roll call vote on the overall.
- Councilor Hawke. This is on the overall, Councilor Hawke. The whole resolution. On the resolution, totally.
- I guess I'll say yes. Councilor Wilz? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor
- Feidl? Yes. Councilor Crosley? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Motion passes 601.
- Okay, so we're done with that item. Yay. Okay. Um, so council will there's nothing else that we need
- to do at this point. I believe there might be a draft letter for consideration and approval. I have
- a draft letter that needs one more sentence added to it that I just received a note about so I'm going to
- It was a note from the public, not from y'all. We're not hiding stuff that I think I want to add. And
- maybe we could do the comments from folks, and I'll be done. And in time for my comment, I can.
- Is that how? Yes. Sorry, I got so distracted. I'm just trying to keep it. Sorry, sorry. It's OK.
- It's OK. So let's see if anybody has any comments. Make it brief. Looking down to my right. We're doing
- council process. Yeah, so we can finish.
- eloquent. Can I talk? No, you're fired. Just talk so you can go so we can go. Okay, all right. So there's
- been a lot made of the fact that the Indiana Hoosiers are Big Ten champions. Fantastic, right? Our football
- team is amazing. But what I think has gotten buried is the fact that the economic impact of
- The success of our football team has had reverberations to the point where the food and beverage tax
- receipts are significantly higher this year than they were at the same time last year. There's a great
- article in the Herald Times that enumerates some of that. But the good news is that if you're not a
- football fan, you're still benefiting from it. So there you go. That's my comment.
- anybody else for this matter. I have too much to say. I'll save it for next week. You're okay. I'll
- save it for next week. I'll give Kate Wilt some more time here. Number one, I appreciated very much
- the tour of the jail that Sheriff Marte and his team gave to Kenneth Falk. I appreciated also very much
- the questions that Kenneth Falk had at the time of that tour and the
- way that the sheriff's team discusses operations in depth. There have been significant improvements
- in that facility. At the same time, the work continues and the work is ongoing. And so I was pleased
- to join other counselors there in that facility. I also want to say thank you to Reads Across America,
- which will be decorating veterans graves, as was mentioned earlier, this week. That's always a important
- time in the community, among many other important times that we have. Thank you. And that's the council,
- oh, sure. I'll talk. So I also toured the jail with ACLU and counselors, Deckard and Wilts, and it was
- a very illuminating discussion.
- I also wanted to talk about the Monroe County Fairgrounds, the canopy of lights I attended.
- And that was, I think, my 40th year at that. So I was pretty happy about that. But the Monroe County
- Airport, the holiday lights there, they're going on every weekend through Christmas and a little bit
- after. And so you can go there and take a carload and see and drive through with a radio station. I
- forget the number.
- but it's a nice family and they change every year. So there'll be, this is the second year they've done
- it. They'll do another display next year to be a different display next year. So, and then they'll rotate
- after that. So I got to go through them when I went out to the last fair association board meeting and
- got to drive through it. It was really lovely and just a nice thing to do with a group of people to
- enjoy the holidays. I have been,
- doing a couple of BEDC meetings and downtown Bloomington meetings and things to do with the airport
- discussions, what they're going to do out there eventually. So, yeah. And then there was Thanksgiving
- in there somewhere. So, yeah, thankful. I did just finish a draft letter that could be sent or signed.
- or both. And I emailed it to Ms. Turner King and Michelle. I'm happy to just read it. And if we need
- it displayed, one of them has it. So dear commissioners,
- Knowing that our ethic of care as county officials and public servants is aligned in support of all
- members of our community and none of us wishes to do harm in our work, we as concerned individuals
- respectfully request that the board of commissioners officially stop all action regarding the removal
- of people and property from the Thompson property. We appreciate the one week stay on the planned eviction
- and note that the winter weather played a role in the decision given that
- One, the weather conditions are and will remain unpredictable for the foreseeable future, and two, that
- our conversations with constituents, service providers, and members of the public have underscored a
- lack of an immediate threat to public health and safety. There is at least considerable ambiguity and
- differing positions on the conditions on the property
- would warrant action by the county. Please postpone all eviction action until there is a protocol or
- plan for addressing concerns about the encampment. Such a plan will be informed by a number of entities
- internal and external including members of the unhoused community and worked on collaboratively to address
- our concerns. Collectively our immediate questions and concerns include
- And this is a bulleted list. What was the process for notifying the residents of their eviction, both
- for the December 8th and December 15th planned events? What fund is being used? What are the contracted
- services? What internal county resources are being committed? How many people are residing at the encampment?
- Who is providing street services currently at that location?
- what housing entities are involved, where are the impacted individuals going? In the absence of adequate
- response to this request, the council may consider deappropriation in certain lines of the communal
- capital fund that we assume are supporting encampment eviction activity. We look forward to hearing
- your response.
- ahead of or during your meeting on Thursday. Thank you for working with us to address these concerns
- and improve our county's approach to managing property and caring for our residents. Sincerely, individuals.
- So thank you for that and thank you for working with members of the public that are still here with
- that. Is there
- So again, we can all sign as individuals. Definitely sign my name. So I'm good. Okay. Do we need to
- do this with staff? Could you send it to me so I can read it again? Yes. Okay. As I read it, I stumbled
- on a couple
- type of thing, so I'm just going to send it again to you in a little bit. Send it to me and then before
- I leave tonight, I will send it to everyone. Okay. Should we respond directly to you to confirm that
- you want? Yes, respond only to me, don't reply all or anything. Thank you. Thank you. All right.
- So without, Council Hug, do you have anything else to add this evening?
- No, I was just reading the bottom part of it, but I'll see you later. Okay. All right. Sounds good.
- So I've said enough too, so I'm not going to say anything else. So that being said, we are adjourned.
- Thank you.