WEBVTT 00:00:00.482 --> 00:00:08.959 - All right, we are going to go ahead and call tonight's meeting to order. Today is Tuesday, 00:00:08.959 --> 00:00:12.126 - December 16 2025. It is the last. 00:00:12.258 --> 00:00:21.451 - council meeting of 2025. And for the record here, we have present in the net you Hill room. I'll start 00:00:21.451 --> 00:00:30.377 - to my left here. Um, we have counselors, vital, Wilts, Deckard and Iverson. Um, not joining us this 00:00:30.377 --> 00:00:39.838 - evening in person. Our council members, David Henry and Marty Hawk, and they should be virtual. And I see 00:00:40.034 --> 00:00:50.344 - Councilmember Hawke virtual. So we got a quorum in the NatU Hill room. So we will go ahead and get started. 00:00:50.344 --> 00:01:00.273 - So all those who are able to stand, please stand for the reciting of our Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge 00:01:00.273 --> 00:01:09.438 - allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, 00:01:09.826 --> 00:01:21.643 - One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, thank you. Next up 00:01:21.643 --> 00:01:33.342 - is the adoption of tonight's agenda. Does anybody wish to make any amendments to tonight's agenda? 00:01:35.362 --> 00:01:43.826 - Yes, Councilor. Madam President, I move to pull item 12 C per the department's request and move to add 00:01:43.826 --> 00:01:52.372 - item 10 J auditors request for an in-house transfer with regards to fund eight nine five zero dash zero 00:01:52.372 --> 00:02:00.672 - zero zero zero America Rescue Plan Act or ARPA. Second. OK, we got a motion and a second. And I also 00:02:00.672 --> 00:02:02.398 - wanted to do a quick 00:02:02.754 --> 00:02:11.023 - change of tonight's agenda. I know Mayor Morgan and team from heading home are here and a few of those 00:02:11.023 --> 00:02:19.373 - folks will not be able to stay for a lot of our meetings. So I would like to add and their item is 11A. 00:02:19.373 --> 00:02:28.606 - So I would like to bump that up after consent agenda items. So are there any other amendments to tonight's agenda? 00:02:32.610 --> 00:02:40.481 - All right so um all those that are well nope because we got council members present virtually so everything 00:02:40.481 --> 00:02:47.841 - tonight will be a roll call vote so may we please have a roll call vote on tonight's amended agenda. 00:02:47.841 --> 00:02:54.910 - Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Hawk is still not present is that correct? 00:02:55.522 --> 00:03:03.513 - I don't believe she's attending she just sorry to interrupt but she sent an email to me just a little 00:03:03.513 --> 00:03:11.348 - bit ago saying that she wasn't feeling well okay okay well we hope counselor hulk is feeling better 00:03:11.348 --> 00:03:19.261 - okay thank you counselor iverson yes counselor dekert yes counselor crossley yes and counselor henry 00:03:19.261 --> 00:03:24.510 - yes passes unanimous six zero okay thank you very much and next up 00:03:24.706 --> 00:03:31.522 - public comment. So if there is anybody that is here present in the NET Youth Hill Room or virtually, 00:03:31.522 --> 00:03:38.743 - you can make public comment on things that are not on tonight's agenda. You can do so via Teams by raising 00:03:38.743 --> 00:03:45.762 - your hand, or you can come into the NET Youth Hill Room to the lectern here. So do we have anybody here 00:03:45.762 --> 00:03:53.118 - present in the NET Youth Hill Room? I already saw a hand just pop up. So just checking here in person. Nope. 00:03:53.410 --> 00:04:03.033 - okay um and so i will go to teams so i think it was mr mg so mr mg you should be able to unmute yourself 00:04:03.033 --> 00:04:12.381 - state your name for the record and you'll have up to three minutes good evening uh president crossley 00:04:12.381 --> 00:04:22.462 - members of the county council sorry i'm not there do you uh be in person at the historic nath hill u room but 00:04:22.658 --> 00:04:27.537 - I did want to check in online. I want to take a moment to thank this body for the care and diligence 00:04:27.537 --> 00:04:32.368 - you bring into your work on behalf of the residents of Monroe County. I might have been critical in 00:04:32.368 --> 00:04:37.296 - the past a couple times where I don't think that was the case, but this is the case now. The time you 00:04:37.296 --> 00:04:42.368 - spend asking some good, thoughtful questions recently weighing some very difficult decisions and holding 00:04:42.368 --> 00:04:47.006 - yourselves accountable and government accountable affects a real commitment to good government. 00:04:47.426 --> 00:04:53.411 - Even when issues are complex and viewpoints differ, I think there's been a focus on transparency and 00:04:53.411 --> 00:04:59.397 - responsible stewardship that helps build the necessary trust that we have to have a local government 00:04:59.397 --> 00:05:05.441 - that ensures these decisions are made in our best interests or the community's best interest in mind. 00:05:05.441 --> 00:05:11.427 - Thank you for your service, continued dedication, serving Monroe County residents. I'll look forward 00:05:11.427 --> 00:05:16.286 - to the rest of the meeting. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much. All right. 00:05:16.706 --> 00:05:26.799 - Last call for anybody that would like to make public comment on items on tonight's agenda. Again, raise 00:05:26.799 --> 00:05:36.990 - your hand via Teams, or you can come forward to the lectern here in the NatU Hill Room. And seeing none. 00:05:37.634 --> 00:05:43.595 - We will move on. Thank you for public comment. All right, next up is department updates. And so usually 00:05:43.595 --> 00:05:49.384 - department updates are for items that are not on the agenda. So those departments will have up to 10 00:05:49.384 --> 00:05:55.230 - minutes to make your update. Again, if you are present here and then at AU Hill Room, you can come to 00:05:55.230 --> 00:06:01.192 - the lectern here, or you can have a seat at the table. Or if you are virtually, you can raise your hand 00:06:01.192 --> 00:06:01.822 - via Teams. 00:06:03.874 --> 00:06:11.675 - Yes, Michelle. I just wanted to bring to your attention from the meeting from December the 9th, there 00:06:11.675 --> 00:06:19.629 - was a Scribner's error with regards to the probation's care grant. They used the wrong location number. 00:06:19.629 --> 00:06:27.583 - So the auditor went ahead and corrected it to the correct number for that grant year. So we just wanted 00:06:27.583 --> 00:06:33.854 - to bring that to your attention. Is that OK? Thank you very much for that update. 00:06:36.770 --> 00:06:47.947 - there any other department updates okay seeing none we will move on all right so next up is item six 00:06:47.947 --> 00:06:57.022 - for boards and commissions and we saw it in the news but we now have official got 00:06:57.186 --> 00:07:04.855 - a word of resignation for Mr. Jeff McKim as the council's appointment to the CIB. Are there any comments 00:07:04.855 --> 00:07:12.306 - from council regarding this resignation? Yes, Councilor Iverson. I just wanted to take a brief second 00:07:12.306 --> 00:07:19.610 - and thank Mr. McKim for his dedication to the CIB. We can see the fruits of his labors in the steel 00:07:19.610 --> 00:07:26.622 - structure that is now where the expanded convention center is going to be. So I think it's just 00:07:26.754 --> 00:07:34.593 - a moment where we can take time to thank Mr. McKim for all of his dedicated service. I also want to 00:07:34.593 --> 00:07:42.511 - thank him for his service to the county one additional year beyond his previous work but I also want 00:07:42.511 --> 00:07:50.585 - to congratulate the city that was a tremendous coup in bringing him to work for their organization and 00:07:50.585 --> 00:07:52.702 - if they do well we do well 00:07:52.898 --> 00:08:00.187 - and I think that it'll continue to benefit the community of no this is our second controller from the 00:08:00.187 --> 00:08:07.477 - county so somebody here is doing something right and let's just keep doing it and and hopefully we're 00:08:07.477 --> 00:08:14.838 - not sending the third anytime soon thank you anybody else have any questions or comments yes counselor 00:08:14.838 --> 00:08:20.126 - wilts uh just echoing my colleagues and congratulations all around and um 00:08:21.602 --> 00:08:33.534 - former counselor McKim will be missed on the CIB. What is the process then for replacing Mr. McKim? 00:08:33.826 --> 00:08:42.876 - and that gets into our next item. But for this particular one, anybody that is very much interested 00:08:42.876 --> 00:08:52.470 - in being a council appointment to the CIB, then you can go to our website and you can apply at the boards 00:08:52.470 --> 00:09:02.878 - and commissions page and submit an application. And we will review those and we will pick the best person to suit. 00:09:03.234 --> 00:09:10.961 - to fill some big shoes. Do we have a timeline or at least a goal? I don't think that we have a timeline. 00:09:10.961 --> 00:09:17.657 - However, I think given the nature of the position, I don't think we will have any problems 00:09:17.657 --> 00:09:24.574 - finding applicants. So again, maybe if all of us could just again pitch out to the community, 00:09:24.674 --> 00:09:31.731 - Um, for anybody that would like to apply to be the council appointment for the CIB again, um, contact 00:09:31.731 --> 00:09:38.719 - one of us come up after the meeting today. Um, and also just go to the county's website to apply via 00:09:38.719 --> 00:09:46.053 - the boards and commissions page. Okay. Councilor Henry, I want to make sure I didn't see your hand raised 00:09:46.053 --> 00:09:51.934 - and want to miss you for anything. I'll just say thanks, Jeff. There's no reason to. 00:09:52.226 --> 00:10:00.413 - keep that much praise. Jeff's a great guy. Thank you, Jeff. Yes. All right. And I would like to say 00:10:00.413 --> 00:10:08.846 - I get to see him in another capacity. So I'm kind of excited with that. So congratulations to the city 00:10:08.846 --> 00:10:17.034 - for getting one of the best people here in town. And I again look forward to seeing him around City 00:10:17.034 --> 00:10:19.326 - Hall next month. All right. 00:10:19.970 --> 00:10:31.046 - That being said, are there any objections to accepting Mr. McKim's resignation? All right. And seeing 00:10:31.046 --> 00:10:34.846 - none, his resignation is accepted. 00:10:35.010 --> 00:10:42.753 - All right. Next up, as Councilor Wilts was alluding to, we have not one, but two citizen vacancies. 00:10:42.753 --> 00:10:50.729 - And so, kind of also reminds me of my day job. So as we pitch for boards and commissions, anybody that 00:10:50.729 --> 00:10:59.014 - would like to, anybody that is on teams or anybody present here in the Nattie Hill Room that knows anybody 00:10:59.014 --> 00:11:04.976 - that would be a great fit for one of two of our vacancies, we have a vacancy 00:11:04.976 --> 00:11:11.070 - for the Sophia Travis Grant Committee. That one would be a two-year term. 00:11:11.554 --> 00:11:19.339 - Do we change? Yes, OK. Do your term. And then we, again, as we mentioned, go into the Capital Improvement 00:11:19.339 --> 00:11:27.271 - Board, also known as the CIB, as it is very much in the news recently. So if you are interested in applying 00:11:34.910 --> 00:11:41.520 - slash Monroe. And again, you can scroll down to you see on the left-hand side the board's 00:11:41.520 --> 00:11:50.368 - commissions click that and you should be able to apply for either one of those and if you have any questions 00:11:50.368 --> 00:11:58.566 - related to applying for any of those positions you can always contact our county office at eight one 00:11:58.566 --> 00:12:07.089 - two three four nine seven three one two for like a PSA all right so next up as we move from six to seven 00:12:07.089 --> 00:12:10.174 - six seven all right um sorry you know 00:12:10.274 --> 00:12:19.652 - Gotta have some fun. All right These last few days definitely deserve it. All right. Next up is consent 00:12:19.652 --> 00:12:29.572 - agenda items Council I move to approve the following consent agenda item for december the 16th the recorder's 00:12:29.572 --> 00:12:32.638 - office request and fund 1189-0000 00:12:32.738 --> 00:12:40.009 - Recorders, records, perpetuation for category transfer $54,435 from the supplies category to the services 00:12:40.009 --> 00:12:47.486 - category. Second. All right, is there any questions or comments on tonight consent agenda items for council? 00:12:48.962 --> 00:12:56.033 - and looking via Teams land and looking here at the day, so I don't see any. So we'll take public comment. 00:12:56.033 --> 00:13:02.704 - If we have public comment on consent agenda item as presented, you can come forward to the election 00:13:02.704 --> 00:13:09.508 - here in the Nattie Hill room or you can raise your hand via Teams. And seeing none, maybe please have 00:13:09.508 --> 00:13:16.512 - a roll call vote. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Crosley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? 00:13:16.512 --> 00:13:18.046 - Yes. Councilor Decker? 00:13:18.306 --> 00:13:26.171 - Yes. Councilor Wilts. Yes. Motion passes unanimous six zero. All right. Thank you. And now we go to 00:13:26.171 --> 00:13:34.350 - the amended portion, which is bumping 11 a all the way up to next. So I believe we have folks here from 00:13:34.350 --> 00:13:42.686 - heading home. I see them. So make your way to the table here and we will get started with our discussion. 00:13:57.314 --> 00:14:03.770 - Good evening, counselors. Good evening. I was not sure if I was going to have a remote to advance our 00:14:03.770 --> 00:14:10.416 - slides. We do have a slide presentation for you tonight. You just say advance. I just say the next slide 00:14:10.416 --> 00:14:17.062 - and they'll take care of it for you. OK, fantastic. Well, then in that case, I'm going to open my laptop 00:14:17.062 --> 00:14:20.606 - so I'll know where the heck I am in terms of my slides. 00:14:28.354 --> 00:14:34.390 - All right. Well, good evening. I'm Mary Morgan. I'm executive director of Heading Home of South Central 00:14:34.390 --> 00:14:40.252 - Indiana. And we really appreciate the opportunity to be able to talk with you tonight about not only 00:14:40.252 --> 00:14:46.113 - Heading Home, but some of our system work as well. I am delighted that I have two team members here. 00:14:46.113 --> 00:14:52.439 - And I would like them just quickly introduce themselves. Hi. Good evening. Tatiana Wheeler. I work alongside 00:14:52.439 --> 00:14:56.734 - Mary Morgan and Mary Hamburg at Heading Home. I'm the associate director. 00:14:59.618 --> 00:15:08.355 - I'm the strategic partnerships director. All right. Advance, please. We can advance. There we go. So 00:15:08.355 --> 00:15:17.611 - we're going to talk a little bit about the housing crisis. We're going to talk about the regional homeless 00:15:17.611 --> 00:15:26.262 - response system, our own origin story, and some of our initiatives and some communications and next 00:15:26.262 --> 00:15:27.646 - steps. Advance. 00:15:27.842 --> 00:15:34.340 - You are aware that housing is key. Homelessness is a housing problem. And just wanted to remind folks 00:15:34.340 --> 00:15:41.029 - of some of the challenges that we face, not only in our region, but also as a nation. There is a serious 00:15:41.029 --> 00:15:47.527 - lack of affordable housing, especially for low-income and extremely low-income individuals. There are 00:15:47.527 --> 00:15:53.961 - an insufficient number of landlords that accept vouchers, which is a subsidy that many people use so 00:15:53.961 --> 00:15:56.318 - that they can afford the high rents. 00:15:56.514 --> 00:16:03.295 - There is also a serious stigma, which is becoming more and more of a concern to me in our community, 00:16:03.295 --> 00:16:10.076 - especially against people who are unhoused. I think you've all heard about it, and we as a community 00:16:10.076 --> 00:16:16.790 - have a lot of work to do there. And then just insufficient supportive services for those people who 00:16:16.790 --> 00:16:22.430 - need them, including mental health services to keep people stably housed, advanced. 00:16:24.354 --> 00:16:33.220 - So how are we responding to the housing crisis? We are part of a six county region. This is a map of 00:16:33.220 --> 00:16:39.102 - the different counties that are part of this region. It's a state. 00:16:39.298 --> 00:16:45.708 - designation, and Heading Home's work mirrors the state region, which is region 10. Primarily at this 00:16:45.708 --> 00:16:52.499 - point, because we are still a young organization, our work focuses on Monroe, Morgan, and Lawrence County, 00:16:52.499 --> 00:16:59.354 - but we are also interested in working in some of these other counties, which have very, very few resources, 00:16:59.354 --> 00:17:06.526 - and so their lack of resources puts more of a burden on Monroe County in particular, so we need to address that. 00:17:07.490 --> 00:17:14.867 - These are some of the key partners in general in moving people from homelessness to housing. We rely 00:17:14.867 --> 00:17:22.756 - on emergency shelters and the staff there, as well as our street outreach staff in different organizations, 00:17:22.756 --> 00:17:30.206 - and then, of course, housing providers, including landlords. And this is just a quick overview of how 00:17:30.206 --> 00:17:36.926 - we connect with people who are unhoused. You can advance. Oh, sorry. Advance. And one more. 00:17:38.530 --> 00:17:46.581 - Thank you. There are access points which people enter the homeless response system that can be shelters, 00:17:46.581 --> 00:17:54.478 - can be a phone call to an agency or an individual, or that can be connected with street outreach staff 00:17:54.478 --> 00:18:02.376 - that encounter folks in encampments and on the street. Case managers and others do assessments to just 00:18:02.376 --> 00:18:08.510 - get a general idea of what the situation is and how to address someone's needs. 00:18:09.826 --> 00:18:17.999 - And then those assessments are turned into a scoring mechanism and that enables us to more equitably 00:18:17.999 --> 00:18:26.173 - understand what priorities people should have in terms of their access to housing because we do have 00:18:26.173 --> 00:18:34.427 - limited resources. Those scores will then cause referrals to happen in a coordinated entry system and 00:18:34.427 --> 00:18:38.878 - be connected to the appropriate housing. Next, please. 00:18:41.538 --> 00:18:48.526 - A little bit of background about Heading Home. Many of you know this because you were involved in our 00:18:48.526 --> 00:18:55.446 - origin story. Next, please. We began in 2020 and 21, and many of you were involved in the group that 00:18:55.446 --> 00:19:02.366 - put together the Heading Home plan, which is our North Star and guides a lot of our work. You'll see 00:19:02.366 --> 00:19:07.230 - some familiar faces. This was a collaboration of the city, the county, 00:19:07.362 --> 00:19:15.958 - United Way, the Community Foundation, and other stakeholders, including the South Central Housing Network. 00:19:15.958 --> 00:19:24.233 - Next, please. We just included a link to our Heading Home plan, which is on our website, and honestly, 00:19:24.233 --> 00:19:32.990 - I feel like it needs to be updated, so we're gonna be working on that in the future. Just FYI. Next, please. 00:19:34.498 --> 00:19:42.614 - We have been transitioning in this past year, and one of the things that was a transition for us was 00:19:42.614 --> 00:19:51.051 - to expand our board of directors. We now have, I think, a very formidable group, including Councilmember 00:19:51.051 --> 00:19:59.246 - Wilts, and these are the folks that helped direct our mission. Next, please. Just a quick overview of 00:19:59.246 --> 00:20:02.782 - our status from very germ of an idea in 21. 00:20:03.106 --> 00:20:11.164 - The fact that we were originally housed with the United Way We in 2022 and 23 as we expanded program 00:20:11.164 --> 00:20:19.143 - and our role in the community we moved to the mill on a co-working space in the trades district and 00:20:19.143 --> 00:20:27.122 - This year where we're thrilled to receive our 501 c3 status We are continue expanding our board and 00:20:27.122 --> 00:20:28.478 - programs we have 00:20:28.802 --> 00:20:36.729 - affiliated with the community foundation now they provide a lot of our back office support and added 00:20:36.729 --> 00:20:44.734 - a significant number of staff as you'll see next please our leadership team some of whom you see here 00:20:44.734 --> 00:20:52.583 - and then we are also onboarding and have onboarded a significant number of staff to bring our total 00:20:52.583 --> 00:20:56.350 - to 12 right now and soon to be 13 staff members 00:20:56.642 --> 00:21:04.586 - up from two really for the past four years until this fall. Next, please. So Heading Home was set up 00:21:04.586 --> 00:21:12.609 - to be a backbone organization to support the work of all of our partners and to really look at system 00:21:12.609 --> 00:21:20.711 - level changes in the region. There are some examples on this slide that we've been working on over the 00:21:20.711 --> 00:21:24.958 - past four years. And they are really efforts to bring 00:21:25.346 --> 00:21:32.874 - together community partners to tackle big system problems that one individual partner agency wouldn't 00:21:32.874 --> 00:21:40.476 - be able to do on their own. Some of those that we've worked on, including cross agency trainings where 00:21:40.476 --> 00:21:45.790 - we bring together different case managers from our various agencies and 00:21:46.114 --> 00:21:53.056 - provide training on issues that affect everyone, collaborating regionally, doing several system-level 00:21:53.056 --> 00:22:00.065 - changes that we will be talking about in a minute. Next, please. And again. So these are some examples 00:22:00.065 --> 00:22:07.075 - of the system changes that we've worked on. We created the Heading Home Guide, which is a website that 00:22:07.075 --> 00:22:11.294 - provides a range of information on a lot of different topics. 00:22:11.458 --> 00:22:17.726 - We wanted to put it all in one place so that not only our agency partners would have access to this 00:22:17.726 --> 00:22:24.245 - up to date information, but also people from the general public. Heading home had a commitment to build 00:22:24.245 --> 00:22:30.512 - the website, but also maintain it on a regular basis, which is not an insignificant amount of work. 00:22:30.512 --> 00:22:31.390 - Next, please. 00:22:32.194 --> 00:22:38.958 - We've also done a lot of work on landlord engagement. And we have now that we have a full time staff 00:22:38.958 --> 00:22:45.990 - person to do this work. We are really excited. We can really make some significant changes in this area. 00:22:45.990 --> 00:22:52.687 - I was going to brag on Mary for a minute. Within the first two weeks of her being in this position, 00:22:52.687 --> 00:22:59.450 - she uncovered one hundred and fifty different vacant units in among our landlord partners. Now, that 00:22:59.450 --> 00:23:00.254 - is amazing. 00:23:00.642 --> 00:23:07.993 - The next challenge is to work on the barriers that some of those complexes have that prevent people 00:23:07.993 --> 00:23:15.343 - from accessing those units, credit checks, felony checks, criminal background checks, the fact that 00:23:15.343 --> 00:23:22.988 - you might need three times your deposit or three times the income level of your deposit. Is that right? 00:23:22.988 --> 00:23:26.590 - Yeah, three times the rent in income each month. 00:23:26.754 --> 00:23:33.271 - challenging to say the least. So these are some of the things that we've done over the past four years 00:23:33.271 --> 00:23:39.599 - with landlords, but we are really looking forward to this next era where we're gonna make some huge 00:23:39.599 --> 00:23:41.054 - changes. Next, please. 00:23:42.018 --> 00:23:49.435 - Cross-agency training that I mentioned earlier, this is just some examples of the topics that we've 00:23:49.435 --> 00:23:56.927 - done in the past. We're also working with the National Alliance to End Homelessness and are bringing 00:23:56.927 --> 00:24:04.418 - in trainers for a two-day session open to all of our agency partners on housing problem solving. The 00:24:04.418 --> 00:24:11.984 - NAEH is a really terrific organization to work with and we're happy to be able to host this training. 00:24:11.984 --> 00:24:19.719 - session. Next, please. We also do a fair amount of community convenings, whether that's with the business 00:24:19.719 --> 00:24:27.600 - group, candidate learning sessions and forums, working with our faith partners. There are a lot of sessions 00:24:27.600 --> 00:24:31.614 - that we've had with student organizations in the past. 00:24:31.778 --> 00:24:38.982 - And it's just a role that we have to try to provide some education and information and problem solving 00:24:38.982 --> 00:24:45.976 - with other members outside of the homeless response system. And then one of our big partnerships is 00:24:45.976 --> 00:24:53.600 - with the national organization called Built for Zero. This is an entity that works with over 100 communities 00:24:53.600 --> 00:24:55.838 - nationwide and internationally. 00:24:55.970 --> 00:25:04.887 - to really tackle some of these seemingly intractable problems and really make a dent in our nation's 00:25:04.887 --> 00:25:13.893 - system to address homelessness. We are the first and only community so far in Indiana to be a part of 00:25:13.893 --> 00:25:23.870 - this network, and we are really grateful for the coaching that they provide and the resources that they provide. 00:25:24.226 --> 00:25:28.318 - They've guided us in a lot of work, which I'll talk about in a minute. 00:25:28.770 --> 00:25:35.583 - We just had a meeting earlier today with our coaches, and we're really excited that they are focusing 00:25:35.583 --> 00:25:42.396 - on our community to try to help us address some of the issues related to unsheltered homelessness. So 00:25:42.396 --> 00:25:49.410 - we haven't figured out what exactly that will look like. You might have heard of an entity called Clutch 00:25:49.410 --> 00:25:56.090 - Consulting that has done some encampment work, moving folks from encampments into housing and other 00:25:56.090 --> 00:25:56.958 - communities. 00:25:57.058 --> 00:26:03.466 - They are now contracted with Built for Zero to work with partner communities and they have also trained 00:26:03.466 --> 00:26:09.751 - Built for Zero staff who will be working with us. We met with one of those folks earlier today. So we 00:26:09.751 --> 00:26:15.913 - don't know exactly what that's going to look like. It might be they would come here for a community 00:26:15.913 --> 00:26:22.568 - convening, stakeholder partnerships, if we can get the county and the city together to address specifically 00:26:22.568 --> 00:26:26.142 - encampments or other issues that are barriers to housing. 00:26:26.402 --> 00:26:33.957 - We would love to be a part of that, and we would love to invite you all to be a part of that as well. 00:26:33.957 --> 00:26:41.585 - Next, please. Build for Zero was instrumental in helping us put together a data dashboard. Tatiana has 00:26:41.585 --> 00:26:49.733 - taken the lead on that. It is updated every month with information from the Collaborative Homeless Management 00:26:49.733 --> 00:26:55.806 - Information System, which is a database that are used by partners in this region. 00:26:55.970 --> 00:27:03.831 - It's very helpful in having a better sense of what is happening in our community, and so we're not going 00:27:03.831 --> 00:27:11.318 - in it blind. We've been working a lot on just ensuring quality data. We achieved that through Built 00:27:11.318 --> 00:27:18.880 - for Zero. Was that 2024? 2024? And have been working with our data coaches to make sure that we have 00:27:18.880 --> 00:27:25.918 - as accurate as possible information about what's happening in our homeless system. And again, 00:27:26.082 --> 00:27:33.608 - I think I said this last week that the data is important. Each of those data points represents an individual. 00:27:33.608 --> 00:27:40.518 - Each individual is unique. So while data gives us a great kind of aggregate view, when we're talking 00:27:40.518 --> 00:27:47.496 - about people who are struggling in this way, each story is different. And it's important to keep that 00:27:47.496 --> 00:27:49.822 - in mind. Next, please. And again. 00:27:50.626 --> 00:27:56.216 - So I just wanted to highlight a couple of things that are focused primarily on Monroe County. 00:27:56.216 --> 00:28:02.221 - As I've said, what I've talked about so far is regional, although much of the work is in Monroe, but 00:28:02.221 --> 00:28:07.454 - we have two specific projects that are focused on Monroe. One is a housing action plan. 00:28:07.586 --> 00:28:16.101 - We convened a group of service providers in 2024 to develop really a very targeted list of recommendations 00:28:16.101 --> 00:28:24.059 - for what needs to happen in our community to address unsheltered homelessness and what it will cost 00:28:24.059 --> 00:28:32.096 - to get there. Some of the things on the slide are part of the recommendations and I encourage you to 00:28:32.096 --> 00:28:35.518 - look at that plan. We can send you a link. 00:28:35.778 --> 00:28:44.100 - for a more granular level of detail and we do get quite granular. But this is one of the things that 00:28:44.100 --> 00:28:52.668 - helps guide us and as we're seeking funding opportunities we look for ways to address the need for case 00:28:52.668 --> 00:29:00.990 - managers, the need for diversion funds, the need for medical respite and other issues. Next, please. 00:29:02.402 --> 00:29:10.023 - And then some really exciting news. Earlier this year, actually in late 2024, the Community Foundation 00:29:10.023 --> 00:29:17.644 - of Bloomington and Monroe County received a significant grant from the Lilly Endowment. And we are one 00:29:17.644 --> 00:29:24.747 - of the main partners that is implementing that grant. That has allowed us to hire Mary Hamrick, 00:29:24.747 --> 00:29:32.368 - for example. We've also made a hire of Erin Reynolds Nyland, who was here at our last meeting and who, 00:29:32.368 --> 00:29:39.300 - oversees the significant number of case managers that we're introducing to this community. In total, 00:29:39.300 --> 00:29:46.370 - we'll have six street outreach case managers, hopefully by the end of the year or by early 2026. Three 00:29:46.370 --> 00:29:52.478 - diversion and prevention case managers who are already in place at our partner agencies. 00:29:52.706 --> 00:30:00.814 - and our strategic partnerships director, as I mentioned. This grant also includes basically a guaranteed 00:30:00.814 --> 00:30:08.612 - basic income pilot project that is administered by SCAP and that if we can show proof of concept, we 00:30:08.612 --> 00:30:14.558 - would hope to carry on after this grant expires in five years. Next, please. 00:30:15.778 --> 00:30:22.413 - And this just gives you a little bit of a chart to show the community foundation has funded Heading 00:30:22.413 --> 00:30:29.578 - Home. And then we're working with these various partners in street outreach. We have case managers embedded 00:30:29.578 --> 00:30:36.280 - at Centerstone Beacon and Health Net's Homeless Initiative Program. And our diversion and prevention 00:30:36.280 --> 00:30:43.113 - case managers are embedded at New Hope for Families, the library, the downtown branch, and Bloomington 00:30:43.113 --> 00:30:45.502 - and Perry Township trustee offices. 00:30:47.650 --> 00:30:54.602 - And quickly I just want to mention a little bit more of the targeted strategic work. We've been working 00:30:54.602 --> 00:31:01.554 - in Lawrence County. We set up a housing task force as a recommendation that came out of a housing study 00:31:01.554 --> 00:31:04.094 - that we commissioned a few years ago. 00:31:04.386 --> 00:31:12.243 - And we are doing something similar in Morgan County. Currently, Laura Little-Page, she's a professor 00:31:12.243 --> 00:31:20.100 - at IU you might know of. She and her graduate students are doing a housing study in Morgan County to 00:31:20.100 --> 00:31:28.113 - give us a better understanding of homelessness there. And Tatiana is board chair for Wellspring, which 00:31:28.113 --> 00:31:32.158 - is the only shelter in Morgan County. Next, please. 00:31:33.314 --> 00:31:40.568 - And just a reminder, you all should be on our email list. Hopefully doesn't go to spam for the newsletters 00:31:40.568 --> 00:31:47.483 - that we send out every month. We have information on our website. Obviously, we do have social media, 00:31:47.483 --> 00:31:54.738 - which we are going to be ramping up a little bit more in 2026. And we are always happy to come and address 00:31:54.738 --> 00:32:01.653 - any kind of gathering, large or small. I don't think we've ever turned anybody down who's asked us to 00:32:01.653 --> 00:32:03.280 - come and speak at their 00:32:03.280 --> 00:32:06.526 - organization. 00:32:07.362 --> 00:32:14.595 - One other thing as part of our outreach and communications, we did a series, and that is ongoing, called 00:32:14.595 --> 00:32:21.484 - People of Housing Security because we felt like it was important to put a face to the folks who are 00:32:21.484 --> 00:32:28.373 - doing frontline work in whatever way they may be. So that may be somebody at the Township Trustee's 00:32:28.373 --> 00:32:35.399 - office. It may be somebody who is working for the city as a downtown ambassador. Of course, it's case 00:32:35.399 --> 00:32:37.328 - managers and others who are 00:32:37.328 --> 00:32:44.004 - working in our partner agencies. But this is just a way to kind of humanize some of the folks who are 00:32:44.004 --> 00:32:50.615 - doing this really challenging work. And finally, I just would like to leave you with a thought. This 00:32:50.615 --> 00:32:57.160 - is one of my favorite quotes, choosing to have joy is not naively thinking everything will be easy. 00:32:57.160 --> 00:33:02.462 - It is courageously believing that there is still hope even when things get hard. 00:33:04.002 --> 00:33:11.336 - Thank you. And I'm happy to take any questions. All right. Thank you very much to you and your team. 00:33:11.336 --> 00:33:18.816 - Looks like we have somebody joining online from your team as well. So we appreciate that. I'm sure our 00:33:18.816 --> 00:33:26.368 - council members here have a question. I'll kick it off with a question. You have mentioned earlier that 00:33:26.368 --> 00:33:33.630 - you're working on training, and you're working with the National Alliance on Homelessness Training. 00:33:33.762 --> 00:33:43.445 - And that's upcoming, who exactly like would be able to attend, would we as elected to be able to do 00:33:43.445 --> 00:33:52.062 - that, or just wanted to ask, would you want to do that. I mean, I think we should. Yeah. 00:33:52.194 --> 00:34:00.363 - It was originally, we can certainly talk about that, it was originally intended for frontline workers 00:34:00.363 --> 00:34:08.772 - who will be working directly with people who are in-house to really give them a framework to, especially 00:34:08.772 --> 00:34:16.861 - in initial conversations, to be very housing-focused. So it is intended for all of the agencies that 00:34:16.861 --> 00:34:17.822 - are working 00:34:18.114 --> 00:34:25.210 - New Hope for Families, Wheeler Mission, Beacon, Centerstone, Health Net, et cetera, et cetera. So I 00:34:25.210 --> 00:34:32.518 - think we do have a cap on, and correct me if I'm wrong, Todd, do we have a cap on the number of people 00:34:32.518 --> 00:34:39.614 - that we can give the training to? For my recollection, I think we have a pretty decently large cap. 00:34:40.386 --> 00:34:47.243 - So that's a possibility then. We'll explore it. OK. I was just interested, because I know sometimes 00:34:47.243 --> 00:34:54.375 - we as electeds have lots of opinions on things. And so since we have opinions on those things, we might 00:34:54.375 --> 00:35:01.300 - not be experts. And you all are. And so sometimes it's easy for us to just kind of take a chill pill 00:35:01.300 --> 00:35:08.363 - and be quiet and maybe attend something like this. So if that's something that's definitely available, 00:35:08.363 --> 00:35:10.352 - I think I would really think 00:35:10.352 --> 00:35:16.840 - I'm speaking for myself here. I think I have council members that would probably take you up on that 00:35:16.840 --> 00:35:22.750 - offer and hopefully some other electeds would take you up on that offer. I appreciate that. 00:35:22.850 --> 00:35:29.571 - Thank you. And I should also add, I meant to add this at the very beginning of my presentation, you 00:35:29.571 --> 00:35:36.763 - all received a letter from our board of directors. So we are really eager, interested, happy to facilitate 00:35:36.763 --> 00:35:43.955 - any kind of discussion or give you any kind of support at the policy level or convening or really anything 00:35:43.955 --> 00:35:49.534 - that you think in this space you could use some help with. We're happy to do that. 00:35:49.826 --> 00:35:56.937 - Appreciate that. Thank you. Um, I'm gonna go to Councilmember Henry since I saw his hand raise and then 00:35:56.937 --> 00:36:04.458 - I'll kick it back to the room here. Thank you. And thank you, Mary Morgan and team for giving us presentation 00:36:04.458 --> 00:36:10.270 - today I guess I do want to say thank you for your work I know it's really hard work. 00:36:10.402 --> 00:36:17.508 - Yeah, and we're dealing with a, you know, another one of those wicked problems which seems to be a phrase 00:36:17.508 --> 00:36:24.212 - we've used this year and a lot of the stuff we're facing in the community. I guess my question, and 00:36:24.212 --> 00:36:31.117 - maybe something that triggered here in your presentation for me is that, you know, the normal, the day 00:36:31.117 --> 00:36:32.190 - to day work of. 00:36:32.386 --> 00:36:39.159 - housing in our community and the challenge for those that are unhoused in the community, your normal 00:36:39.159 --> 00:36:45.932 - everyday work and the work that our service providers do as a matter of routine is that outreach and 00:36:45.932 --> 00:36:52.907 - that scoring and that work to really help get people on a pathway into housing attainment, which I know 00:36:52.907 --> 00:36:57.534 - is not easy. And it doesn't happen overnight, but it strikes me that 00:36:57.698 --> 00:37:05.506 - what creates emergencies for our nonprofit community, your organization, other organizations you mentioned, 00:37:05.506 --> 00:37:12.808 - what creates an emergency or urgent situation is when external stakeholders or even key stakeholders 00:37:12.808 --> 00:37:16.350 - kind of disrupt your work through something like 00:37:16.674 --> 00:37:22.880 - trying to clear an encampment in a certain time period, like on a timeline that kind of disrupts the 00:37:22.880 --> 00:37:29.393 - flow or the normal of your work. And that sort of expedites your outreach and puts people into a scramble 00:37:29.393 --> 00:37:30.622 - to try to, I guess, 00:37:31.010 --> 00:37:37.216 - get people placed before the urgency comes from the choice we're making to work on the encampments. 00:37:37.216 --> 00:37:43.423 - I guess to the extent you're comfortable, I'm kind of curious how we might all get on the same page 00:37:43.423 --> 00:37:50.064 - with a shared objective because it seems like the objectives are slightly disaligned or misaligned between 00:37:50.064 --> 00:37:56.394 - some folks deciding on the urgency to clear things versus working with our partners that all the best 00:37:56.394 --> 00:37:59.870 - practices you're trying to put in. I mean, how might we 00:38:00.290 --> 00:38:08.067 - close the gap and get a shared objective here so that we don't blow up the normal work of the organizations 00:38:08.067 --> 00:38:15.844 - that are trying so hard with kind of self-induced emergencies through bureaucracy. Do you have any thoughts 00:38:15.844 --> 00:38:23.261 - on that tonight? I'm really glad you asked a simple question. Of course. It's exam season. That's what 00:38:23.261 --> 00:38:26.718 - it's exam season. That's how it goes. Go ahead. 00:38:27.106 --> 00:38:35.154 - I will say that it's been a rough couple of weeks. We really do not thrive in chaos, and I think that 00:38:35.154 --> 00:38:43.361 - there's been a fair amount of chaos. What I would say is I do think that it would help the whole system 00:38:43.361 --> 00:38:51.646 - if we could get the key players in a room and talk about those shared values, have better communication, 00:38:51.970 --> 00:38:59.914 - and really a clear plan for when there is a crisis or when there is something that comes up, we know 00:38:59.914 --> 00:39:07.858 - exactly who's involved in the decision making tree and how we can come together to basically make it 00:39:07.858 --> 00:39:15.802 - a situation that is in the best interest for not just people who are unhoused or in crisis, but also 00:39:15.802 --> 00:39:18.398 - for our entire community, right? 00:39:18.594 --> 00:39:27.527 - should have a stake in this. We should have a stake in making a community where people are, they have 00:39:27.527 --> 00:39:36.461 - stable housing, and if they don't, they can get it quickly. So I feel like this is a very politically 00:39:36.461 --> 00:39:46.270 - correct response to your question, but I do think that we have a lot of room to grow in terms of communication. 00:39:46.402 --> 00:39:54.451 - and planning and I would like to see that happen and be put in place at a time when we're not in the 00:39:54.451 --> 00:40:02.580 - middle of a crisis and when tempers are not heated. It's really been challenging right now and I know 00:40:02.580 --> 00:40:10.709 - that some of our service provider partners are feeling that pain and really what they want to do that 00:40:10.709 --> 00:40:12.542 - their mission is is to 00:40:14.466 --> 00:40:21.299 - meet people where they are, and ideally, make sure that they are in a place that's stable and secure. 00:40:21.299 --> 00:40:27.998 - OK. I'm going to kick it here. And I saw Councilor Decker's hand raised. I've got several. And as I 00:40:27.998 --> 00:40:34.764 - always say to a lot of folks, particularly on things that are hard, if you all need to get back with 00:40:34.764 --> 00:40:41.463 - me later, that's fine, too. And I also understand that you're managing a lot. And I kind of want to 00:40:41.463 --> 00:40:42.334 - start there. 00:40:43.042 --> 00:40:51.168 - You have a large selection of folks that you're dealing with just across the board that are doing portions 00:40:51.168 --> 00:40:59.067 - of housing and housing solutions in a variety of different ways. And I'm sure having been on the United 00:40:59.067 --> 00:41:06.662 - Way staff at one time, there's a variety of strong opinions about how that should be and who should 00:41:06.662 --> 00:41:11.902 - get what and when. You see, though, and help me if this is the case, 00:41:12.130 --> 00:41:18.918 - The whole purpose of what you all are doing in that plan was to try to get people around some common 00:41:18.918 --> 00:41:25.638 - understandings and not the service provider alphabet soup, which is a beautiful thing. It's a bunch 00:41:25.638 --> 00:41:32.561 - of people chasing after it. But to get us around a plan and get government officials around a plan and 00:41:32.561 --> 00:41:39.550 - try to get us all from stopping to do what we do on every issue and that start inventing solutions from 00:41:40.066 --> 00:41:49.058 - the opinion side of things. Ultimately, that was kind of the deal, right? Yes. Do you want me to elaborate? 00:41:49.058 --> 00:41:53.470 - Well, if you want to. I think one of the reasons why 00:41:53.826 --> 00:42:00.298 - Well, first of all, I think there are a lot of things in the plan that nobody would disagree with until 00:42:00.298 --> 00:42:06.833 - you start trying to implement them. And then people will have different opinions about how things should 00:42:06.833 --> 00:42:13.119 - be implemented. So that's just part of the process. But I also think that the plan is perhaps overly 00:42:13.119 --> 00:42:18.782 - broad. We have a lot in there. And you can really find almost any kind of housing solution 00:42:18.978 --> 00:42:25.580 - in that plan. So I think that it would help us to be a little more focused, perhaps, in the next go-around. 00:42:25.580 --> 00:42:31.692 - One of the things we did with the Monroe County Housing Action Plan was try to be extremely focused 00:42:31.692 --> 00:42:37.927 - in our recommendations, which is very different from the Heading Home Plan, which is quite broad. But 00:42:37.927 --> 00:42:42.878 - I think that it's always the devil in the details, right? So we work through it. 00:42:43.106 --> 00:42:48.564 - Well, I appreciate that. And I think one of the things I remember when we were in candidate forums, 00:42:48.564 --> 00:42:54.404 - and people would say, what are your thoughts on housing? And of course, we could be talking about multiple 00:42:54.404 --> 00:43:00.081 - levels of housing. One of the things I always try to focus on was that, well, we have a plan. And yeah, 00:43:00.081 --> 00:43:05.648 - things can change in that plan, but that's better than what we used to have, which was, again, all of 00:43:05.648 --> 00:43:10.942 - us kind of, let me throw the football that way. I think this is something I heard in an article. 00:43:11.778 --> 00:43:18.378 - One thing is I'm looking at your dashboard and I love the dashboard because numbers are numbers. And 00:43:18.378 --> 00:43:25.174 - I know that it's hard to get these numbers, but when I look at the dashboard, particularly when I filed 00:43:25.174 --> 00:43:31.775 - it down to single adults and the actively homeless in the community, I see a pattern. I even took it 00:43:31.775 --> 00:43:38.440 - down to this year, but I see a pattern from when you started this that numbers are going down. And so 00:43:38.440 --> 00:43:41.054 - the first part of my question would be, 00:43:41.378 --> 00:43:47.928 - Why do you think those numbers were heading down? What do you think was going on that may have helped 00:43:47.928 --> 00:43:54.543 - with that? Would you feel comfortable answering that? Sure. Thanks for the question. This is something 00:43:54.543 --> 00:44:01.029 - that I've been investigating personally. And I think it contributes to a couple of different things. 00:44:01.029 --> 00:44:07.579 - I think any data needs other data to build around those narratives. And I think it's really important 00:44:07.579 --> 00:44:08.414 - when looking 00:44:08.546 --> 00:44:14.076 - the active number of people experiencing homelessness on the dashboard to also look at the percentage 00:44:14.076 --> 00:44:16.190 - of people being housed month to month. 00:44:16.290 --> 00:44:22.227 - And we recently noticed that dip in our data. And I think it can be articulated that we also saw across 00:44:22.227 --> 00:44:28.050 - our system that there are a lot of people who had outdated assessments. Generally, it's best practice 00:44:28.050 --> 00:44:33.873 - to update assessments with clients every 90 days. Generally, across our region, our service providers 00:44:33.873 --> 00:44:38.782 - are really generous because they want to make sure they're doing their due diligence. 00:44:39.202 --> 00:44:44.600 - to keep that information updated. Though there are times that people disappear from the community, or 00:44:44.600 --> 00:44:50.103 - they self-resolve, or they return to other support systems in other communities. And so that's a reason 00:44:50.103 --> 00:44:55.554 - why we saw numbers decreasing as well, is because people were being moved to an active. And that's one 00:44:55.554 --> 00:45:00.845 - of the outflow categories, as well as housing. And so while we want to say, oh, there's less people 00:45:00.845 --> 00:45:06.296 - experiencing homelessness, there's a deeper story to tell there, is that, well, did we just lose touch 00:45:06.296 --> 00:45:06.878 - with them? 00:45:07.074 --> 00:45:13.920 - Did they self resolve, are they stably house now and so that's some of my priority work looking into 00:45:13.920 --> 00:45:20.699 - the deeper narratives within our dashboard coming in 2026. And I will add that the infusion of case 00:45:20.699 --> 00:45:24.766 - managers that are doing street outreach now will have more. 00:45:24.994 --> 00:45:32.495 - as an agency, more street outreach workers than any other agency in our county with the six street outreach 00:45:32.495 --> 00:45:39.440 - folks that are embedded in our partner agencies, that will help us tremendously in not losing touch 00:45:39.440 --> 00:45:46.802 - with people that are unsheltered. And then I guess the last thing is I was really intrigued by the notion 00:45:46.802 --> 00:45:47.774 - of connecting 00:45:47.874 --> 00:45:54.970 - people to, we've got a landlord, we've got a vacancy here, connecting someone in there, and obviously 00:45:54.970 --> 00:46:01.996 - the attention right now is on encampments, right? Because that's how this system seems to work where 00:46:01.996 --> 00:46:09.092 - we, you know, what is the visibility, what are everybody talking about, what's everybody fired up on? 00:46:09.092 --> 00:46:17.022 - And conceivably, those kinds of matchups with, there's no monolithic answer, but those kind of matchups may offer 00:46:17.186 --> 00:46:26.059 - solutions for some individuals that could go from here to here or have the option to go from here to 00:46:26.059 --> 00:46:35.020 - here and make a decision on that. I mean, am I overthinking that or under thinking it? Do you want to 00:46:35.020 --> 00:46:38.622 - take a stab at that? Yeah, sure. I think 00:46:39.170 --> 00:46:45.677 - Yes and no. I think on paper it seems very, very simple. If we have 150 open units and we have a similar 00:46:45.677 --> 00:46:51.936 - amount of people that are unsheltered in our community, why does homelessness exist? And I think one 00:46:51.936 --> 00:46:58.567 - of the key things that we're starting to realize, both just having done the work a long time, I previously 00:46:58.567 --> 00:47:05.694 - was at New Hope for Family, so I've been in the work a while, but just as a community what we're realizing is that 00:47:07.042 --> 00:47:14.111 - The barrier to having open units and vacancy is not necessarily the barrier to having people be housed. 00:47:14.111 --> 00:47:21.045 - As Mary talked about earlier, the barrier is getting into housing. It's not being able to continue to 00:47:21.045 --> 00:47:27.774 - pay your rent or to be able to not get into fights with your neighbor and get evicted or whatever. 00:47:28.578 --> 00:47:34.756 - stipulations in the criteria for residents or future tenants to be able to be accepted into an apartment 00:47:34.756 --> 00:47:40.816 - complex or a private landlord's house is too constringent for people. You have to make three times the 00:47:40.816 --> 00:47:46.994 - rent. You have to have a certain credit score. You have to have 650 or 700 credit score to rent a place, 00:47:46.994 --> 00:47:52.878 - not to buy, not to lease, not to have a mortgage, right? Just to have a 12-month lease. You have to 00:47:52.878 --> 00:47:56.702 - have no evictions, no criminal history. You have to be a perfect 00:47:56.930 --> 00:48:03.543 - upstanding person just to have a roof over your head. And that's the big barrier that we have is not, 00:48:03.543 --> 00:48:10.025 - you know, pouring money into into helping pay people's rents and deposits is helping and is doing a 00:48:10.025 --> 00:48:16.832 - large amount of preventing homelessness. But a huge bigger issue is the accessibility to stable housing. 00:48:16.832 --> 00:48:24.158 - Thank you very much. The last thing I'll just say is I appreciate just clarity around complexity, because again, 00:48:24.770 --> 00:48:31.356 - If you go on social media, you listen even to us. Sometimes we think that we understand every bit of 00:48:31.356 --> 00:48:38.072 - this. But literally in the last five years, I've heard very passionate, very what sounds like credible 00:48:38.072 --> 00:48:44.593 - articulations around who could be outside and how long they could be outside and what is reasonable 00:48:44.593 --> 00:48:51.179 - and what is not. I've heard people argue every side of that and multiple sides beyond that with such 00:48:51.179 --> 00:48:52.222 - seriousness and 00:48:52.418 --> 00:48:58.113 - that you would look at it and go, oh my heavens. And I think that the complexity of this is just, it's 00:48:58.113 --> 00:49:04.030 - beyond our minds. So thank you for letting me ask you a couple of questions. Thank you. Councilor Iverson. 00:49:05.186 --> 00:49:10.664 - Thank you all three for taking time out of your evening and joining us. As I've said before, the work 00:49:10.664 --> 00:49:16.464 - you do is so important to this community. And I'll echo what Council Member Crossley said, is that learning 00:49:16.464 --> 00:49:22.102 - for us is paramount. We get stuff thrown at us all the time, and your website, your newsletter is really 00:49:22.102 --> 00:49:27.526 - important. I pay attention to it, and I try to digest as much as I can. Obviously, as Council Member 00:49:27.526 --> 00:49:33.434 - Decker just stated, we're not perfect, but we're constantly learning. And so I appreciate that. Particularly, 00:49:33.434 --> 00:49:35.152 - I heard tonight two interesting 00:49:35.152 --> 00:49:42.093 - interesting tidbits, rent sometimes is three times income. I haven't heard that number before. That's 00:49:42.093 --> 00:49:49.238 - a really interesting number and I believe it. So actually, that's a stipulation for getting into housing 00:49:49.238 --> 00:49:56.110 - is that your income must be equal to three times the rent. Yeah. So not that rent is that people are 00:49:56.110 --> 00:50:01.758 - being asked to pay more than what they actually make. But still, that's a shocking 00:50:01.954 --> 00:50:07.658 - number or that there's this organization called Clutch Consulting, which is coming in and talking about 00:50:07.658 --> 00:50:13.417 - their specialty is encampments. I think that's all really interesting things to learn about. And I think 00:50:13.417 --> 00:50:18.957 - the previous conversation that, Mary, you just had with Council Member Deckard about housing and the 00:50:18.957 --> 00:50:24.552 - availability of housing leads me to my question I have for you tonight is we're all reading the news, 00:50:24.552 --> 00:50:29.214 - we're all listening to the news, and the availability of federal funding seems dire. 00:50:29.858 --> 00:50:38.321 - What are you hearing? I'm losing sleep over this. What should we know? I wish I could give you a clear 00:50:38.321 --> 00:50:46.947 - answer on that. I think that part of the anxiety that we all feel is because we don't have a clear level 00:50:46.947 --> 00:50:55.410 - from the federal government. And although the really I don't even know how to describe it. The federal 00:50:55.410 --> 00:50:59.518 - government is trying to pivot very quickly from a 00:50:59.618 --> 00:51:08.797 - philosophy of funding that has been in place for decades to a different philosophy, and it has just 00:51:08.797 --> 00:51:17.150 - sown chaos, uncertainty, fear, and will, if implemented, I believe, lead to an increase in 00:51:17.250 --> 00:51:24.479 - unhoused people. I just don't see how it, if we don't have those housing supports that we rely on, I 00:51:24.479 --> 00:51:31.708 - don't know any other way that could unfold. So the federal government now, because of a lawsuit, has 00:51:31.708 --> 00:51:38.865 - paused its decision, and HUD is not really giving any indication on what's going to happen next. So 00:51:38.865 --> 00:51:40.798 - the challenge is that some 00:51:40.898 --> 00:51:48.511 - of the funding cycles are coming up starting in January. I think that locally from the permanent supportive 00:51:48.511 --> 00:51:55.912 - housing side and you're on Beacon's board I believe so you've heard this directly from them. Their grant 00:51:55.912 --> 00:52:02.960 - cycle is a bit later in the year. I think September. Centerstone I think they said it was closer to 00:52:02.960 --> 00:52:03.806 - the summer. 00:52:04.290 --> 00:52:12.773 - time frame for some of their complexes. So, you know, people are waiting and seeing and trying to advocate 00:52:12.773 --> 00:52:20.542 - as much as possible with elected officials. So if you have any sway at the federal level, I would 00:52:20.642 --> 00:52:27.642 - I would encourage you to deploy it, because right now we're at a real turning point, I think. And if 00:52:27.642 --> 00:52:34.711 - this is a philosophical change that has to be made, then at the very least we need a longer lead time 00:52:34.711 --> 00:52:41.711 - to make accommodations for these changes. And the current proposal, or the proposal that was pulled, 00:52:41.711 --> 00:52:43.582 - was not allowing for that. 00:52:44.098 --> 00:52:50.945 - My heart goes out to folks who are living in encampments in this weather and the threat of evictions. 00:52:50.945 --> 00:52:57.657 - But the main reason why I personally want to take you up on your offer to facilitate a conversation 00:52:57.657 --> 00:53:04.504 - is for this reason. The future, I love your quote, it's important to be hopeful, but the future seems 00:53:04.504 --> 00:53:11.552 - like we really need to start talking. Definitely. Thank you. All right. I thought I saw some hands here. 00:53:11.552 --> 00:53:12.894 - So Councilor Vidal. 00:53:12.994 --> 00:53:20.834 - Yes, I'm interested in the income requirement for the rent. So I wondered how we might, as a county 00:53:20.834 --> 00:53:28.988 - or a community, compare to other communities who have situations like or not like this. And do you know 00:53:28.988 --> 00:53:37.063 - any data on that? Do we compare? Do landlords elsewhere have that same requirement, or is it just kind 00:53:37.063 --> 00:53:42.238 - of just here, or where is that all at? So that's a good question. 00:53:42.626 --> 00:53:49.130 - And I think many landlords have two, two and a half or three times the rent that you must make. I will 00:53:49.130 --> 00:53:55.445 - note that multiple studies year after year show that Monroe County, across the state, Monroe County 00:53:55.445 --> 00:54:02.201 - is the most unaffordable and hardest to obtain housing in the entire state. The only county that sometimes 00:54:02.201 --> 00:54:08.958 - beats us out is Tippecanoe County, which is where Purdue is, West Lafayette, and usually in third place is 00:54:09.346 --> 00:54:17.006 - Muncie, and I'm blanking on the county for Muncie, but where Ball State is. Thank you. Yeah. So these 00:54:17.006 --> 00:54:17.982 - big schools. 00:54:18.146 --> 00:54:25.724 - these counties where big schools are, are what are really increasing the unobtainability and unaffordability 00:54:25.724 --> 00:54:32.677 - of housing. And so I do know a lot of other properties are doing two times the rent and things like 00:54:32.677 --> 00:54:39.699 - that as well. But the reason that we're having that trouble is because HUD sets what's a fair market 00:54:39.699 --> 00:54:46.791 - rent or FMRs. And HUD, just in a conversation with a landlord I had a week or two ago, they said that 00:54:46.791 --> 00:54:48.112 - HUD set their FMRs 00:54:48.112 --> 00:54:54.573 - in a unit. It's actually the retreat at Switchyard, which is a brand new property here in town. And 00:54:54.573 --> 00:55:01.227 - HUD told her that the median salary in Bloomington is $52,000 a year. And so therefore, they set their 00:55:01.227 --> 00:55:08.011 - FMRs as such, which I think is surprising that that is the median salary. Because I think that if you've 00:55:08.011 --> 00:55:14.924 - lived here long enough, you know that that's not true. But because students are here and people affiliated 00:55:14.924 --> 00:55:16.862 - with the university are here, 00:55:16.962 --> 00:55:23.706 - which is a wonderful thing, and the university provides so much to our economy, but because those people 00:55:23.706 --> 00:55:30.193 - are kind of driving up that median salary, it then is impacting housing. And so then people who live 00:55:30.193 --> 00:55:36.745 - here and are townies and are from here, but aren't affiliated with the university and don't have that 00:55:36.745 --> 00:55:42.590 - kind of income, then are forced to come up to that standard as well. Thank you. Wow, okay. 00:55:42.946 --> 00:55:52.982 - Anybody else have any other final questions or comments from the heading for that? Yes, Councilor Wilts. 00:55:52.982 --> 00:56:02.539 - Thank you for coming. I appreciate it personally and on behalf of county government. Regarding your 00:56:02.539 --> 00:56:05.502 - letter and your presence here. 00:56:05.602 --> 00:56:12.010 - It went to not just county council, it went to the commissioners as well, I believe. That's right. Have 00:56:12.010 --> 00:56:18.232 - you heard back from anyone in county government, I know it just, it just went out this afternoon and 00:56:18.232 --> 00:56:18.910 - I actually 00:56:19.074 --> 00:56:25.126 - I've been sitting here. So not that I'm expecting that you have, but I also know that you've offered 00:56:25.126 --> 00:56:31.117 - to meet or present to the commissioners. Have you heard back from anybody in county government yet? 00:56:31.117 --> 00:56:37.409 - I haven't heard back from any of the commissioners yet, but nor have I reached out specifically directly 00:56:37.409 --> 00:56:39.326 - to them yet. I have talked with 00:56:39.490 --> 00:56:47.083 - I exchanged emails with Angie Purdy and I told her to expect the letter and I sent her the encampment 00:56:47.083 --> 00:56:54.676 - guidance from the South Central Housing Network and offered to meet with them, give a presentation to 00:56:54.676 --> 00:57:02.492 - the commissioners if they wanted to do that. So I will be following up more directly. Great. Yeah. Well, 00:57:02.492 --> 00:57:08.670 - I'm hopeful that we can work together to make things a little bit better, at least 00:57:08.994 --> 00:57:16.839 - from the county government perspective on how we do this. So appreciate it. Great, thank you. All right, 00:57:16.839 --> 00:57:24.310 - well, I definitely appreciate you all taking the opportunity, given the circumstances over the past 00:57:24.310 --> 00:57:32.005 - several weeks, to come in and educate us on things that you all do. And as it's been mentioned, I look 00:57:32.005 --> 00:57:38.654 - forward to continuing conversations, but not just conversations, but really having those 00:57:38.786 --> 00:57:45.943 - after having the conversations really kind of put an action to it. So I appreciate all the work that 00:57:45.943 --> 00:57:53.029 - you're doing and I definitely know on a level and former life I used to work in property management 00:57:53.029 --> 00:58:00.115 - for 10 years. So the fact that you have to the deposits were always things where it killed like the 00:58:00.115 --> 00:58:02.878 - application process for people because 00:58:03.138 --> 00:58:09.659 - Depending on your credit score, as you had mentioned before, if you had a decent credit score, you might 00:58:09.659 --> 00:58:15.870 - not have needed a huge deposit. But if you didn't, if you had bankruptcies, evictions, all of those 00:58:15.870 --> 00:58:22.080 - different things, then you had to have double or triple the amount. And usually, that was something 00:58:22.080 --> 00:58:24.254 - where people just gave up and just 00:58:24.642 --> 00:58:30.718 - went away from that. So but it all comes back to what we do here in Monroe County. So and Monroe County 00:58:30.718 --> 00:58:36.677 - government has a lot of work to do. We talk a lot and so now we need to start getting some work done. 00:58:36.677 --> 00:58:42.695 - So appreciate you taking the time to plant that seed to us and we hope folks across the hall here will 00:58:42.695 --> 00:58:48.537 - take you up on your offer and you get to present to them again. All right. So thank you so much. We 00:58:48.537 --> 00:58:52.510 - appreciate it. Thank you council members. Appreciate it. Thank you. 00:58:53.506 --> 00:59:00.542 - All right, next back up, we got item eight, and it looks like we're going to the hire and freeze conversations. 00:59:06.082 --> 00:59:13.243 - Council, as a reminder, this item was tabled from the December 9th meeting. I move to open for discussion 00:59:13.243 --> 00:59:20.066 - and possible approval of the auditor's request to be exempt from the hiring freeze and to be allowed 00:59:20.066 --> 00:59:26.889 - to hire and fund 1000-0002 County General Auditor, the internal auditor position. Second. All right, 00:59:26.889 --> 00:59:32.158 - we got a motion and a second and we see the auditor here. Ms. Gregory, hello. 00:59:32.578 --> 00:59:40.592 - Good evening council so um this is coming back before you today and I'm hoping will be an easy and brief 00:59:40.592 --> 00:59:48.606 - conversation this is a position that was part of the exempt list when this hiring freeze was implemented 00:59:48.606 --> 00:59:56.391 - unfortunately I was just unable to find a qualified candidate prior to my November 1 deadline so this 00:59:56.391 --> 01:00:00.894 - is just requesting your permission to continue what you've 01:00:01.090 --> 01:00:07.594 - kind of already improved initially. To proceed with finding a good candidate for this role, which is 01:00:07.594 --> 01:00:14.097 - it does take some time. This is a specialized position and it is very important for the county. This 01:00:14.097 --> 01:00:16.222 - is an added layer of control and 01:00:16.322 --> 01:00:22.839 - you know this person conducts like you know obviously internal audits for the county but assists with 01:00:22.839 --> 01:00:29.420 - the budgets it consists with assists with audits with report compilation and all kinds of other things 01:00:29.420 --> 01:00:36.321 - that assist the county to ensure you're on the right path so i'm happy to answer any questions or specifics 01:00:36.321 --> 01:00:43.221 - but i do want to note that we do have the support of fsg financial solutions group who the county contracts 01:00:43.221 --> 01:00:46.288 - with for financial guidance and they think this 01:00:46.288 --> 01:00:52.361 - position is very important as well. I forwarded that email to you. Okay, thank you very much. 01:00:52.361 --> 01:00:59.210 - Thank you. And look in the council to see if anybody has any questions. So, Councilor Henry's hand raised 01:00:59.210 --> 01:01:04.766 - first, so you go first sir. Yeah, thank you Madam President and thank you Auditor for 01:01:04.994 --> 01:01:11.568 - the explanation there. I'm supportive of getting this position filled. And it seems to me over the past 01:01:11.568 --> 01:01:18.016 - few weeks, it's all the more important to have the internal auditor role filled when we look at like, 01:01:18.016 --> 01:01:24.717 - for example, the way the commissioners attempted to use the cumulative capital fund during the encampment 01:01:24.717 --> 01:01:31.038 - discussion last week, or the work your office is doing to help the Board of Health sort through its 01:01:31.202 --> 01:01:37.478 - Well, I guess it's like nearly a million in grants that are kind of messy in that office over the past 01:01:37.478 --> 01:01:44.119 - year. The internal controls are important. So yeah, it's it's sort of a core function here. So we understand 01:01:44.119 --> 01:01:50.274 - what our bottom line is. So the only thing I'll say maybe is another comment too, is that I think as 01:01:50.274 --> 01:01:51.614 - we look at all of the 01:01:52.290 --> 01:01:58.915 - the variations on the freeze or the exemptions on the freeze that we really do need to work with department 01:01:58.915 --> 01:02:05.111 - heads to start thinking through. If we're hoping for attrition over the next calendar year to reduce 01:02:05.111 --> 01:02:11.490 - the budget in positions, we need to work with department heads on what that means rather than just kind 01:02:11.490 --> 01:02:17.624 - of hoping that positions go away through attrition. I know that's been raised a few times here, but 01:02:17.624 --> 01:02:18.974 - it kind of feels like 01:02:19.106 --> 01:02:25.265 - reaching under the hood of the car and just yanking out pieces indiscriminately rather than trying to 01:02:25.265 --> 01:02:31.606 - figure out over the next calendar year how we might be able to work with department heads on the savings 01:02:31.606 --> 01:02:37.825 - we're gonna need and subsequent fiscal years to help in our workforce here to keep everybody employed. 01:02:37.825 --> 01:02:44.045 - So I'm supportive of this one and I hope the others are as well, thanks. Thank you. All right, looking 01:02:44.045 --> 01:02:48.030 - here at the dais to see if anybody has any questions or comments. 01:02:49.154 --> 01:02:57.050 - Yes, Councilor Woods. Since Councilor Henry brought up kind of the bigger picture, I wanted to chime 01:02:57.050 --> 01:03:04.867 - in and say that I agree that we need to be more strategic about how we're doing this and what we're 01:03:04.867 --> 01:03:12.763 - thinking. I know we've put a lot of thought into it. I'm not trying to say that we haven't, but this 01:03:12.763 --> 01:03:18.782 - is part of what I envisioned that our long-term financial committee would be 01:03:19.298 --> 01:03:29.254 - talking about and thinking about and I think it might be worth as we move to the new year, new committees, 01:03:29.254 --> 01:03:38.559 - new whatever, thinking about redefining or expanding the role that that committee has in looking at 01:03:38.559 --> 01:03:48.702 - literally what is it over the next three to five years that we're trying to get to in terms of budgeting and 01:03:49.698 --> 01:03:57.835 - put in our revenues. And I know that's not, I'm not saying that that committee has not worked on that. 01:03:57.835 --> 01:04:05.736 - It's just, we need a little bit more, I think. And I think this falls under that. Also, we have two 01:04:05.736 --> 01:04:14.110 - resolutions that we are operating under right now. The KSA and the hiring freeze. Do both of those expire 01:04:14.110 --> 01:04:16.638 - at the end of this month? Okay. 01:04:16.930 --> 01:04:26.892 - and we do not have anything on our agenda to really talk about those. Is that correct? Okay. I was looking 01:04:26.892 --> 01:04:36.203 - at the discussion. All right. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. Any other questions or comments from 01:04:36.203 --> 01:04:45.886 - council? I know staff, we've been trying to schedule for a while now. And with FSD, a long term finance 01:04:45.886 --> 01:04:46.910 - committee, 01:04:47.010 --> 01:04:54.554 - meeting so hopefully we can do that and get in contact it's not like staff isn't trying not saying that 01:04:54.554 --> 01:05:01.808 - that's not what you were saying but it's a little difficult to find people this time of year yes um 01:05:01.808 --> 01:05:09.425 - you know i think people get on autopilot after thanksgiving so um you know staff we're definitely trying 01:05:09.425 --> 01:05:16.606 - to think about that yes um and to both of the counselor's points we definitely need to hit 2026 um 01:05:17.122 --> 01:05:23.185 - you know, pretty hit the ground running with a lot of things that we have mentioned that we'd like to 01:05:23.185 --> 01:05:29.367 - do with this past budget season, what we have to implement going forward. So I appreciate that comment. 01:05:29.367 --> 01:05:35.370 - All right. So seeing no other questions or comments from council, we will move to public comment. If 01:05:35.370 --> 01:05:41.492 - you have public comment on this item, you can raise your hand via Teams or come forward to the lectern 01:05:41.492 --> 01:05:44.286 - here the night you help around. All right. And 01:05:44.418 --> 01:05:54.069 - Seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor 01:05:54.069 --> 01:06:03.998 - Crosley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Motion passes unanimous 01:06:03.998 --> 01:06:10.494 - six zero. Okay, next up is item B. Council, as a reminder, this item. 01:06:10.594 --> 01:06:17.021 - was tabled from the December 9th meeting, and I move to open for discussion and possible approval of 01:06:17.021 --> 01:06:23.958 - the Parks Department's request to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire and fund 1000-0803 01:06:23.958 --> 01:06:30.385 - County General Parks, 11 part-time positions, and three part-time Karst Athletic Complex supervisors 01:06:30.385 --> 01:06:36.621 - for the 2026 year. Second. Okay. We have Ms. Whitman here joining us again. Welcome. Hello. Well, 01:06:36.621 --> 01:06:39.294 - thank you. Do you want me to go over what 01:06:39.714 --> 01:06:46.794 - We talked about last week, which is absolutely fine. I think if you want to hit some highlights, because 01:06:46.794 --> 01:06:53.603 - we had a very robust conversation. I will hit the highlights. The Karst Athletic Complex supervisors 01:06:53.603 --> 01:07:00.683 - will probably work March through November. It's one person for 25 acres. They do everything from calling 01:07:00.683 --> 01:07:07.358 - the ambulance, making sure everyone's playing well together. They operate our adult soccer league. 01:07:08.290 --> 01:07:15.916 - And obviously they can't be everywhere, but we usually try to prioritize the fields that they should 01:07:15.916 --> 01:07:23.542 - concentrate on the park maintenance technicians. They do everything for us. They allow our full time 01:07:23.542 --> 01:07:30.942 - staff who are highly skilled as our mechanics, our plumbers, our electricians, snow plow drivers. 01:07:32.130 --> 01:07:39.526 - Heavy equipment operators do their things to keep the park safe. So if we don't have part-time staff, 01:07:39.526 --> 01:07:46.778 - those eight staff members have to backfill the lower skilled things, which means we will be closing 01:07:46.778 --> 01:07:54.029 - the splash pad. We will be closing the restrooms on and off depending on what's going on that week. 01:07:54.029 --> 01:08:02.078 - We're a 35-hour department with eight staff, which means we are never fully staffed all week. They're on FMLA. 01:08:02.466 --> 01:08:10.903 - They're maybe sick. They may have an injury. They're on benefit time. So now we could be down to six 01:08:10.903 --> 01:08:19.341 - people to run the entire park system. We will obviously prioritize the athletic complex and toilets. 01:08:19.341 --> 01:08:27.862 - And that's where we're at. We have, which means the greenways. We can't do what we're doing now. This 01:08:27.862 --> 01:08:31.454 - golf course, the dog park, a lot of things 01:08:32.034 --> 01:08:38.305 - are going to shrink and the park board will want a list of everything so they can know what's going 01:08:38.305 --> 01:08:44.576 - on and the park board has instructed me to make sure I put a one page notice up so the public knows 01:08:44.576 --> 01:08:50.910 - what's closing and why they're closing and we can't do anything about it because we're not magicians 01:08:50.910 --> 01:08:54.046 - here. We can't make things happen without people. 01:08:54.210 --> 01:09:03.019 - and we can't do any construction at the Monroe County Nature Preserve, which has funding for us to be 01:09:03.019 --> 01:09:11.741 - the general contractor to save the county $1 million. So that's where we're at. Is that fast enough? 01:09:11.741 --> 01:09:20.550 - Okay. Yes. Appreciate that. Thank you. Nice recap. All right. Any questions or comments from council? 01:09:20.550 --> 01:09:23.486 - Yes. Councilor Wilks. I wanted to 01:09:26.082 --> 01:09:35.489 - wanted to just draw your attention to the email that Michelle forwarded today. I know it was late in 01:09:35.489 --> 01:09:44.895 - the game, but kind of went over some information about these positions and why we're in sort of that 01:09:44.895 --> 01:09:55.326 - rehire situation and kind of give some background. So if you haven't, I'm happy to go into it, but it's policy. 01:09:55.746 --> 01:10:07.764 - Maybe you should. Maybe. OK, I feel like I'm giving testimony on hearsay or something. You got this. 01:10:07.764 --> 01:10:20.496 - So at the park board meeting, we talked with we talked amongst ourselves about the nature of the positions 01:10:20.496 --> 01:10:24.542 - and the fact that it is HR policy 01:10:24.802 --> 01:10:33.788 - to in the county to take seasonal positions and basically terminate the employees who are filling those 01:10:33.788 --> 01:10:42.861 - positions in the off season and then go through the process of rehiring. And since no one at the meeting 01:10:42.861 --> 01:10:51.588 - really knew why our county legal department conversed with our employee services department and kind 01:10:51.588 --> 01:10:52.798 - of summarized 01:10:53.026 --> 01:11:02.849 - the reasonings, which I know we have employee services here, and I do want to just say if I get it wrong, 01:11:02.849 --> 01:11:12.209 - we might need some help. But the reasoning rests on a lot of things that can happen, I guess, in the 01:11:12.209 --> 01:11:21.662 - off season that we wouldn't necessarily know about and be able to account for if we kept people hired 01:11:21.762 --> 01:11:31.423 - but weren't interacting with them, like something that might show up on a background check, for instance. 01:11:31.423 --> 01:11:40.719 - So this enables us to check in, I guess, in that way on employees before they are re-installed in the 01:11:40.719 --> 01:11:48.830 - position. That's the one major one that I remember. There's also that kind of a tracking 01:11:49.474 --> 01:11:59.638 - So if somebody just doesn't come back, that would be harder to know that. And so this allows our employee 01:11:59.638 --> 01:12:09.610 - services folks to really better track who in the payroll list is actually being paid, being and working 01:12:09.610 --> 01:12:19.390 - and that kind of thing. Did I get that right? Do you need to add? I'm trying really hard here, sorry. 01:12:19.522 --> 01:12:27.038 - I think there were three things and I named two poorly. On the fly, you did good. Yeah. And so I think 01:12:27.038 --> 01:12:34.553 - that Justin was trying to give you the highlights, but there, I mean, I could list probably 50 reasons 01:12:34.553 --> 01:12:42.142 - why keeping accurate records are really important for us. And so that's the gist of that is that we are 01:12:42.594 --> 01:12:48.717 - It was mentioned by a department earlier in these conversations like why don't we just make them inactive 01:12:48.717 --> 01:12:54.782 - and then make them reactive because we can't do that state board of accounts requires us to have a form. 01:12:55.106 --> 01:13:01.751 - for every change that we make in payroll because they audit all of the entries that we make in payroll. 01:13:01.751 --> 01:13:08.204 - So part of that process is filling out a termination form. So then we make them inactive and then to 01:13:08.204 --> 01:13:14.721 - make them reactive, they fill out a new hire form. And those are the forms that we have because those 01:13:14.721 --> 01:13:21.111 - are the forms that we already use for those same purposes. So that's kind of, and we have to report 01:13:21.111 --> 01:13:25.072 - the things for lots of reasons. We have to report our payroll 01:13:25.072 --> 01:13:31.876 - our employee data for a variety of reasons and some of that is for employees benefit. We do public student 01:13:31.876 --> 01:13:38.426 - loan forgiveness verification of employment. We do loan verification of employment. There's just a lot 01:13:38.426 --> 01:13:44.849 - of things that we do that are based on keeping accurate records and that's why it's really important 01:13:44.849 --> 01:13:51.463 - for us to be able to pinpoint. If somebody didn't work for six months, we need to know that information 01:13:51.463 --> 01:13:55.024 - and that's how we document it. Also really important if 01:13:55.024 --> 01:14:00.746 - a department didn't bring if we kept them active and department didn't bring them back then our roster 01:14:00.746 --> 01:14:06.468 - of people just keeps growing and growing and it leaves more room for error both on the department when 01:14:06.468 --> 01:14:12.079 - they're processing payroll they might try and pay somebody who um isn't working and then on our side 01:14:12.079 --> 01:14:17.745 - when we're processing payroll to make sure that those inactive those people who aren't working aren't 01:14:17.745 --> 01:14:19.134 - showing up that we could 01:14:19.746 --> 01:14:27.324 - It's an internal control. We just talked about the importance of that. So that's the gist of why we 01:14:27.324 --> 01:14:35.508 - do this process. Does that help? And probably, and I don't know without looking at the numbers, we probably 01:14:35.508 --> 01:14:43.465 - rehire 80% of the same people. And they come back year after year. And we have to do this every November 01:14:43.465 --> 01:14:47.102 - and rehire them and do all the stuff. I wonder. 01:14:47.426 --> 01:14:55.050 - About the expense of associated. Are there, I mean, I'm assuming there's a cost to these processes and 01:14:55.050 --> 01:15:02.452 - I, I'm not trying to, I am throwing a wrench. I understand. I will tell you the cost of an error is 01:15:02.452 --> 01:15:07.486 - more costly than having departments consistently do the same thing. 01:15:08.002 --> 01:15:13.739 - that is where we're coming from. If a department turns in payroll to pay somebody who shouldn't have 01:15:13.739 --> 01:15:17.886 - been paid, the cost of us trying to get that money back is going to cost 01:15:18.114 --> 01:15:24.939 - us, the legal department, it just involves more people. So us having policies that we apply consistently 01:15:24.939 --> 01:15:31.569 - to all departments, making sure they're doing all of the same things, that's easier for us because we 01:15:31.569 --> 01:15:38.070 - are expecting the same things consistently than having to be like, this department does it this way 01:15:38.070 --> 01:15:44.830 - and this department, when you have turnover and then things that institutional knowledge doesn't really 01:15:44.830 --> 01:15:48.080 - get translated. So consistency for us is the cost 01:15:48.080 --> 01:15:57.027 - effective nest. I just had an inquiry point but for E if I understand it right we're in this freeze 01:15:57.027 --> 01:16:06.331 - discussion in this first parts just rhetorical we're in the freeze discussion because of the state cuts 01:16:06.331 --> 01:16:12.862 - on the flip side you're essentially saying there's a million reasons why 01:16:13.250 --> 01:16:20.271 - this has to be done as a rehire process. But bottom line, state board of accounts requires form to release, 01:16:20.271 --> 01:16:27.162 - form to do, right? That is correct. I mean, the auditor's office can tell you that when we have an audit, 01:16:27.162 --> 01:16:33.988 - I mean, they're asking for a million types of forms for us to document why we did a certain thing. Well, 01:16:33.988 --> 01:16:40.619 - so just to kind of cut to the chase, I mean, in that case, ladies and gentlemen, and in the audience, 01:16:40.619 --> 01:16:41.854 - Farrow has spoken. 01:16:42.082 --> 01:16:47.473 - there's no other everything else here is just debating whether or not you want to well do you want to 01:16:47.473 --> 01:16:51.966 - take a bathroom break or anything else that the state might permit this is literally 01:16:52.226 --> 01:16:59.355 - a requirement from them. It's a CYA kind of thing, right? That's why we have forms and that's why we 01:16:59.355 --> 01:17:06.765 - go through those processes, because eventually the auditors office is going to ask me, do you have these 01:17:06.765 --> 01:17:13.894 - things that match this thing over here? And then I will have to produce that information. OK, I have 01:17:13.894 --> 01:17:18.270 - other comments, but I don't have to now. Well, and, you know, 01:17:19.298 --> 01:17:25.394 - I wrangle with all this and Kate raises an interesting point. I'd love to have a giant tally like you 01:17:25.394 --> 01:17:31.431 - would if you, you know, we're talking to an attorney on hours spent trying to comply with state law. 01:17:31.431 --> 01:17:37.587 - I'd love to have that because then we could send that again to Farrow and then we could get that taken 01:17:37.587 --> 01:17:43.743 - care of. And that takes time to calculate too. Exactly. And that's ours. And I mean, literally, if you 01:17:43.743 --> 01:17:46.014 - look at the last two meetings we had, 01:17:46.210 --> 01:17:52.355 - We rock that bell till the midnight hour and there was a time I'd be in downtown I might hear that bell 01:17:52.355 --> 01:17:58.383 - but not inside this building and that has changed and that's all because of all this one thing I just 01:17:58.383 --> 01:18:04.469 - want to say bottom line on this I think we're kind of going around in this circle about whether or not 01:18:04.469 --> 01:18:10.910 - to do it and somebody said something to me one time that really hit home for me both experientially and just 01:18:11.042 --> 01:18:18.161 - I'm not sure if you've ever been to a park in your life and Kelly it may been you when I was out visiting 01:18:18.161 --> 01:18:24.877 - parts. With the parts of the great equalizer in this community. Because if you think about it to go 01:18:24.877 --> 01:18:31.660 - in a state park you have to pay a fee right. To go to an amusement park you definitely have to pay a 01:18:31.660 --> 01:18:38.376 - fee a lot of our families particularly right now they'll never be able to get an amusement park. To 01:18:38.376 --> 01:18:39.518 - go join a sports 01:18:39.746 --> 01:18:47.008 - we generally have a large set of lands that have been established by our four county people who set 01:18:47.008 --> 01:18:54.271 - those aside. Our duty is to take care of them with a little bit elbow grease, maintenance, and good 01:18:54.271 --> 01:19:01.606 - wisdom from that table right there. So that in 20 years, the next ones at this table have guaranteed 01:19:01.606 --> 01:19:07.198 - that for future. And I just worry that sometimes we start needling into cuts 01:19:07.522 --> 01:19:13.715 - and then suddenly we're not gonna have some of this stuff that somebody tupped it out. The cool thing 01:19:13.715 --> 01:19:19.969 - about the Parks Department that I always like is you don't get those shelter houses for free. Now some 01:19:19.969 --> 01:19:26.102 - people try to squat, right, and do that. Not often. But not often. And they're reasonably priced, so 01:19:26.102 --> 01:19:32.416 - everyone has a chance. Yes. And so we've got access for folks, but we also, they're trying to make sure 01:19:32.416 --> 01:19:34.238 - some revenue comes in so that 01:19:34.370 --> 01:19:40.103 - There's things maintained, but the bottom line is it's just like Lisa Ridge and Rhodes. If you don't 01:19:40.103 --> 01:19:42.430 - maintain it, then it becomes a disaster. 01:19:42.530 --> 01:19:47.146 - And the other thing is, and I've seen this before, and Kelly could write a book on it. If you don't 01:19:47.146 --> 01:19:51.947 - update the parks per the clientele, and guess what? We have a lot of people that want to make sure it's 01:19:51.947 --> 01:19:56.702 - got the latest grades. We can't ever afford always the latest grades, but they want that. If you don't 01:19:56.702 --> 01:20:01.457 - do that, they'll say, well, it's not safe. You're not doing what you're supposed to be doing. What are 01:20:01.457 --> 01:20:05.150 - you doing with my tax dollars? So I always worry when things like this start to 01:20:05.538 --> 01:20:11.659 - get up on the chopping block because this is the only chance somebody may not make the south football 01:20:11.659 --> 01:20:17.780 - team for a variety of reasons but they can go to cars park as many times as they want as long as that 01:20:17.780 --> 01:20:24.141 - gates open on a normal hour and i i think that that's if nothing else from county government young people 01:20:24.141 --> 01:20:28.222 - that may be what they get flatwoods out there that is the last stop 01:20:28.450 --> 01:20:34.561 - for a good park. There's tons of snakes, which I don't appreciate, but that's my business. But that's 01:20:34.561 --> 01:20:40.853 - your last stop. And then, you know, I know that the new park is the one that is controversial, but Peter 01:20:40.853 --> 01:20:47.024 - and the East Side kids, they don't always get lots of anything. And if we don't do something now, that 01:20:47.024 --> 01:20:53.255 - won't be a karst in 20 to 30 or 40 or 50 years, or Kate, for that matter, on the East Side. So, I mean, 01:20:53.255 --> 01:20:57.150 - there's, look, there's things and there's things, but it's just, 01:20:57.314 --> 01:21:05.322 - I worry that we're trying to, again, squeeze Pharaoh's money here out of something that's not going 01:21:05.322 --> 01:21:13.570 - to come. Oh, and I bet you that quote came from Jeff McKim. On Pharaoh? No. The equalizer. That sounds 01:21:13.570 --> 01:21:21.658 - like him. You know, it probably was. He's a pretty smart guy. Sidney knew that. All right. Any other 01:21:21.658 --> 01:21:26.142 - questions or comments or any group names to give today? 01:21:28.034 --> 01:21:36.237 - Nope. All right. Seeing none. Public comment time. If you have public comment on this particular item, 01:21:36.237 --> 01:21:44.360 - excuse me, you can come forward to the lectern here in the Net-E-Hill room or you can raise your hand 01:21:44.360 --> 01:21:52.881 - via Teams. And seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Crossley? 01:21:52.881 --> 01:21:57.182 - Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Deckard? Yeah. 01:21:57.826 --> 01:22:03.954 - Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Motion passes unanimous six zero. Thank you and I forgot 01:22:03.954 --> 01:22:10.021 - this is Andy French. Thank you. Our park superintendent who works very hard. Appreciate it. And you 01:22:10.021 --> 01:22:16.088 - all may not know that we get called out the same time as the highway garage for snow plowing and we 01:22:16.088 --> 01:22:22.155 - take care of the jail and the youth services and all the things. And we may have to close the parks 01:22:22.155 --> 01:22:25.310 - in order to continue, you know, this is what we do. 01:22:25.442 --> 01:22:33.298 - And people don't appreciate because they don't know they're out there doing that at one in the morning, 01:22:33.298 --> 01:22:41.079 - too. Oh, you appreciate it. Thank you. Have a good night. All right. All right. Next up is item C, the 01:22:41.079 --> 01:22:42.590 - highway department. 01:22:42.690 --> 01:22:49.341 - Council, I move to open for discussion. Impossible approval. The highway department's request to be 01:22:49.341 --> 01:22:55.993 - exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire. In Fund 1197-0000, stormwater management, the 01:22:55.993 --> 01:23:02.910 - stormwater equipment operator position, and or a stormwater slash highway position vacancy that results 01:23:02.910 --> 01:23:09.694 - from a possible internal department hire for the 2026 year. Second. All right. And joining us tonight 01:23:09.694 --> 01:23:12.222 - in person is Ms. Lisa Ridge. Welcome. 01:23:12.450 --> 01:23:19.979 - Good evening. I was thinking I was a tabled item after those two tabled items and I was like oh you 01:23:19.979 --> 01:23:28.111 - don't need to hear this again but no it's first. So this position became vacant on 11-21-2025. The employee 01:23:28.111 --> 01:23:35.716 - seeked employment at a different location. This is not paid out of the county general fund. It's out 01:23:35.716 --> 01:23:41.438 - of the stormwater fund so it doesn't affect anything in the county general. 01:23:42.370 --> 01:23:49.751 - The reason why we need to keep moving forward and fill these positions. One of the current equipment 01:23:49.751 --> 01:23:57.060 - operators that we have on staff is out on FMLA, possibly leaving for a 90 day leave at the first of 01:23:57.060 --> 01:24:03.710 - the year. Another employee in Stormwater is gonna take the six week family leave in March. 01:24:04.578 --> 01:24:11.257 - The position is also used for snow removal. We use the whole stormwater crew. They're assigned a route. 01:24:11.257 --> 01:24:17.936 - So without those, the persons, the employees in those positions, those routes are not covered. It takes 01:24:17.936 --> 01:24:24.614 - other employees more time to get the roads cleared because there's not anybody in that position to take 01:24:24.614 --> 01:24:31.550 - that route. So we have to find different ways to cover those areas when we don't have that position filled. 01:24:32.354 --> 01:24:39.470 - It's already a small crew, so replacing the position is in the best interest of the department and the 01:24:39.470 --> 01:24:46.516 - public. With the award of the CCMG that was announced on December 1st, this crew does consistent work 01:24:46.516 --> 01:24:53.424 - for getting those roads prepped by ditching. They have a gradle. We use that crew to prep all these 01:24:53.424 --> 01:25:00.402 - roads before we pave. So we do utilize them. So that's kind of the reasons why we would like to fill 01:25:00.402 --> 01:25:01.438 - this position. 01:25:01.570 --> 01:25:08.904 - I anticipate that this is an equipment operator position. We are a collective bargaining unit, so we 01:25:08.904 --> 01:25:16.384 - are required to post that position if it's approved to be filled in-house for seven days. I anticipate 01:25:16.384 --> 01:25:23.791 - that there will be employees in-house to apply for that that are current truck drivers in the highway 01:25:23.791 --> 01:25:27.422 - out of the MVH fund. And we do a skills and test. 01:25:27.554 --> 01:25:36.202 - ability test for running equipment. I would foresee somebody moving up into that position, leaving open 01:25:36.202 --> 01:25:44.600 - an NVH position. So I don't know if it's approved. Do I have to come back and start this cycle again 01:25:44.600 --> 01:25:53.081 - when two weeks ago you approved me to fill the highway positions that I have filled? We have our last 01:25:53.081 --> 01:25:56.158 - employee starting tomorrow, but this 01:25:56.482 --> 01:26:05.839 - could start that cycle again. It's my understanding we might have a mechanic that will be possibly leaving 01:26:05.839 --> 01:26:14.671 - in January. I'll be right back for that MVH position also. Again, none of these positions are in the 01:26:14.671 --> 01:26:23.416 - general fund, county general. It does not affect your deficit that you're trying to fix. It's just, 01:26:23.416 --> 01:26:24.990 - I see this cycle. 01:26:25.122 --> 01:26:35.632 - We've gone through it for years that with this hiring freeze, it's possible I'm going to keep coming 01:26:35.632 --> 01:26:46.037 - back. So. Okay, if you have any questions. Thank you for that. And given the circumstances of early 01:26:46.037 --> 01:26:47.390 - snow season. 01:26:47.618 --> 01:26:54.674 - That's a very expensive week when I did payroll yesterday. I could only imagine. And we're not even 01:26:54.674 --> 01:27:01.942 - in winter yet. Well, yeah, winter officially starts Sunday. All right. That being said, do we have any 01:27:01.942 --> 01:27:05.470 - questions or comments for Ms. Ridge on this item? 01:27:16.674 --> 01:27:24.256 - So again, so your concern is because none of these positions are in the general fund because you'll 01:27:24.256 --> 01:27:32.444 - have some potential movement that will be happening because of people potentially that are already employed 01:27:32.444 --> 01:27:40.557 - filling those, which is a good thing, by the way. At least we're keeping people. This will kind of restart 01:27:40.557 --> 01:27:46.622 - the clock. So it almost sounds like from what I hear, maybe three, potentially. 01:27:46.978 --> 01:27:54.161 - So how I think this will play out is I believe that a truck driver will move into the stormwater equipment 01:27:54.161 --> 01:28:01.344 - operator position if it's filled. That would leave me of posting a truck driver position and still leaving 01:28:01.344 --> 01:28:08.124 - the one open that I said I would not fill. And then if the mechanic gives their notice, I would have 01:28:08.124 --> 01:28:14.904 - that one to post. So I ultimately see that we could have a truck driver and a mechanic position open 01:28:14.904 --> 01:28:15.710 - in January. 01:28:16.930 --> 01:28:28.646 - Okay. All right. Okay. Well, we appreciate that as there are no questions. Yes, Michelle. So the way 01:28:28.646 --> 01:28:38.622 - that the motion was typed up so that based on what she submitted is you would approve 01:28:39.074 --> 01:28:46.902 - her to fill that position. And if it is internal, she could go ahead and move forward with filling that 01:28:46.902 --> 01:28:54.656 - position that would become vacant due to that internal. So that would take care of one step that she's 01:28:54.656 --> 01:29:02.258 - asking about. So if you approve that for this, she could go ahead, make that internal move, and then 01:29:02.258 --> 01:29:07.678 - go ahead and post that truck driver position. So that's what the script 01:29:08.162 --> 01:29:15.260 - motion has stated okay you have to come back or if for that's perfectly fine mechanic did yeah later 01:29:15.260 --> 01:29:22.358 - but that will take care of I wrote it that way on purpose after reading what she had submitted so if 01:29:22.358 --> 01:29:29.526 - you want to do it different that would never come back no yeah okay and I think that helps well again 01:29:29.526 --> 01:29:32.478 - the mechanic is still not in general fine 01:29:32.834 --> 01:29:38.425 - Is that it's not and I have no problem of waiting for that. I know I have agenda items to come to you 01:29:38.425 --> 01:29:43.906 - on the January 27th meeting. So I haven't doing it with the truck driver and the equipment operator 01:29:43.906 --> 01:29:48.894 - that that would be perfect for me. Okay. Okay. All right. Just making sure we're trying to 01:29:49.634 --> 01:29:56.845 - I appreciate that. Thank you, Michelle, for clarifying that. Seeing no further questions or comments 01:29:56.845 --> 01:30:04.270 - on this item, we'll go to public comment. If you have public comment on this item, you can come forward 01:30:04.270 --> 01:30:11.552 - to the lectern here in the night yellow room or raise your hand via Teams. Seeing none, may we please 01:30:11.552 --> 01:30:18.334 - have a roll call vote? Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. 01:30:18.434 --> 01:30:26.127 - Yes. Councilor Wills. Yes. Councilor Henry. Yes. Motion passes unanimous six zero. Okay. Thank you. 01:30:26.127 --> 01:30:34.051 - We appreciate it. All right. Next up on the agenda. I think we're in new business, correct? No ongoing 01:30:34.051 --> 01:30:41.820 - business. That is correct. All right. Council, I move to approve the commissioner's request and fund 01:30:41.820 --> 01:30:46.590 - four nine zero zero dash zero zero zero zero employee morale. 01:30:46.786 --> 01:30:54.498 - the creation of account line three zero one eight five employee promotion and simultaneously approve 01:30:54.498 --> 01:31:02.211 - an additional appropriation of four thousand nine hundred twenty two dollars and forty five cents in 01:31:02.211 --> 01:31:09.847 - the services category second okay we got a motion and a second and i don't i'm actually gonna cover 01:31:09.847 --> 01:31:13.054 - this oh okay okay your voice yeah okay um 01:31:13.154 --> 01:31:20.330 - So this is money that's from the vending machine, and the commissioners often use this money to do something 01:31:20.330 --> 01:31:27.176 - for employees for Christmas. And so they're asking for the appropriation to be eligible to do that this 01:31:27.176 --> 01:31:34.220 - year. All right, Councilor Feidl. So do all employees then benefit from this fund? Typically, what they've 01:31:34.220 --> 01:31:40.803 - done in the past is like donuts or fudge or cookies that get delivered to each individual office so 01:31:40.803 --> 01:31:42.910 - that all employees can benefit. 01:31:43.138 --> 01:31:51.335 - Thank you. All right. Any other questions or comments on this item? Seeing none, I see faces, 01:31:51.335 --> 01:32:00.142 - but I see none. All right. I'm going to go to public comment on this item. If you could come forward 01:32:00.142 --> 01:32:09.036 - to the lectern here in the Nattie Hill room, if you have public comment on this item, please do so or 01:32:09.036 --> 01:32:11.390 - raise your hand via Teams. 01:32:13.698 --> 01:32:22.247 - Seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor 01:32:22.247 --> 01:32:30.635 - Feidl? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Crosley? Yes. Motion passes unanimous 01:32:30.635 --> 01:32:38.700 - 6-0. Okay, thank you. Next up, item B. Council, I move to approve the Employee Service Department's 01:32:38.700 --> 01:32:40.958 - request and fund 4700-0000. 01:32:41.090 --> 01:32:47.947 - self-insurance an additional appropriation of three million three hundred thirty eight thousand eight 01:32:47.947 --> 01:32:54.939 - hundred ninety three dollars and 31 cents in the services category Okay, we have you joining us. Hello. 01:32:54.939 --> 01:33:01.796 - Hello. Uh, let me start by saying I don't need three million dollars. Um Yeah at the time that I made 01:33:01.796 --> 01:33:03.678 - this request due to all the 01:33:03.906 --> 01:33:12.804 - the timing of when that request is due, there were three anthem invoices that were going to be coming 01:33:12.804 --> 01:33:21.527 - our way. Since that time when I submitted this request, we received and paid two of those invoices. 01:33:21.527 --> 01:33:25.278 - So currently in that fund, so the way that 01:33:25.378 --> 01:33:31.631 - this works is when we receive an invoice, we pay a portion of that invoice from a line called Anthem 01:33:31.631 --> 01:33:38.070 - Contractual, and then we pay the rest of the invoice from what is a line that's called health insurance 01:33:38.070 --> 01:33:44.447 - claims. That's the bulk of where the invoice comes from. Typically, at this time of year, we're seeing 01:33:44.447 --> 01:33:50.824 - a credit in the contractual portion of things because we've met stop loss, and I saw your face. We met 01:33:50.824 --> 01:33:55.344 - stop loss and things like that, so we're getting credits back from that. 01:33:55.344 --> 01:34:04.377 - And so at this point in the health insurance claims line, thanks to the auditor's office for working 01:34:04.377 --> 01:34:13.588 - this week, they transferred every single dollar that I had available in other lines because we've paid 01:34:13.588 --> 01:34:22.620 - all of our invoices into this line. So we have remaining funds of $318,409. We have one invoice left 01:34:22.620 --> 01:34:25.214 - that will come in on Friday. 01:34:26.050 --> 01:34:35.807 - I am hopeful that that will cover what comes in. I am fearful that it will not. And so that's why I'm 01:34:35.807 --> 01:34:45.373 - here, because it is possible our invoice that we received two weeks ago was, for the claims part of 01:34:45.373 --> 01:34:54.174 - things, was around $400,000. The one we received two weeks before that was around $200,000. 01:34:54.914 --> 01:35:00.800 - I recognize we've talked about this all year long about wanting to understand and being able to predict 01:35:00.800 --> 01:35:05.950 - what's coming and at this point in the year I just can't do that for an invoice coming in. 01:35:06.274 --> 01:35:12.405 - basically in the last possible minute that the auditor's office can process it to ensure. And that invoice 01:35:12.405 --> 01:35:18.363 - is due before the end of the year. We have seven day terms for a turnaround, which due to the holidays, 01:35:18.363 --> 01:35:24.322 - it will still be before the end of the year. So this is purely an administrative task where I need some 01:35:24.322 --> 01:35:30.109 - more money from you to make sure that I can pay that invoice that comes in on Friday. It needs to be 01:35:30.109 --> 01:35:35.838 - paid no matter what. I would like to make that happen in this year so it's not a next year problem. 01:35:36.706 --> 01:35:43.648 - eating into the appropriations that we have for next year. All that to say the number, I don't know 01:35:43.648 --> 01:35:50.799 - what that number is. I think I would feel confident if in the highest claim that we paid in the health 01:35:50.799 --> 01:35:57.881 - insurance line this year was a million dollars. I guess I'm thinking that if we could have the health 01:35:57.881 --> 01:36:02.046 - insurance line balance be a million so that if that is what 01:36:02.178 --> 01:36:10.118 - comes through on Friday that I could pay it. I know that's not, I don't have concrete numbers to give 01:36:10.118 --> 01:36:18.057 - you. I've tried to get any information from Anthem, but I just can't. I don't have the information to 01:36:18.057 --> 01:36:25.997 - give you before this conversation. I don't know, I'll answer questions. And then maybe we can come to 01:36:25.997 --> 01:36:31.134 - an agreement on what I might need. All right, thank you for that. 01:36:31.618 --> 01:36:40.184 - hands raised. So I'm going to go Council Iverson and then I'll flip it to Councilor Feidl. My question 01:36:40.184 --> 01:36:48.834 - is directed at staff. Is there a number that I need to amend the motion or do you think we're okay with 01:36:48.834 --> 01:36:57.234 - what was read out in the motion? You'll need to amend her the request because her current balance in 01:36:57.234 --> 01:37:00.062 - that fund is not three million so 01:37:02.626 --> 01:37:11.388 - Yeah, I suppose that if that's the way you want it to go, and you just want to appropriate the cash 01:37:11.388 --> 01:37:20.501 - balance, I can give you that number too. OK. I have current cash balance. And Kim, if you could correct 01:37:20.501 --> 01:37:29.438 - me if I'm wrong, or somebody, try and find it on my paper. I passed it. $2,644,935.79? Yes. OK, cool. 01:37:32.578 --> 01:37:45.846 - I'll say that one more time. 2,644,935.79. Yeah, Council, I understand. Council, I move to amend my 01:37:45.846 --> 01:38:00.043 - motion to a new number, which is 2,644,935.79. Second. OK, we got a motion and a second on that amendment. 01:38:00.043 --> 01:38:01.502 - All right. 01:38:01.762 --> 01:38:10.570 - Councilor, I'll go to Councilor Feidl and then I'll go to Councilor Henry next. So am I understanding 01:38:10.570 --> 01:38:19.291 - it correctly that this will be the last payment for this year, whatever we appropriate now? Correct. 01:38:19.291 --> 01:38:28.099 - I just want to make sure. Thank you. Yes, sorry. That's my fault. Sorry. Any questions or comments on 01:38:28.099 --> 01:38:31.294 - the amendment to change that number? 01:38:31.618 --> 01:38:44.110 - Councilor, okay. I wasn't sure if that was why your hand was raised. Okay. Yes. Could we restate the 01:38:44.110 --> 01:38:56.478 - amount on the amendment, please? Mm-hmm. Okay. $2,644,935.79. 2644935.79. Okay. So there's no other 01:38:56.478 --> 01:39:01.054 - further questions on that amendment. 01:39:01.154 --> 01:39:08.507 - I'll go to public comment. Public comment. Raise your hand via Teams or come forward to the lectern 01:39:08.507 --> 01:39:15.933 - here in the Net Youth Overroom. All right. And seeing none, we'll need to have a roll call vote. See 01:39:15.933 --> 01:39:23.286 - Councilor Henry's hand out. I think it's on the overall. Oh, yeah. OK. Further amendment. Councilor 01:39:23.286 --> 01:39:31.006 - Wilts. Yes. Councilor Henry. Yes. Councilor Deckard. Yes. Councilor Crossley. Yes. Councilor Feidl. Yes. 01:39:31.522 --> 01:39:38.207 - and Councilor Iverson. Motion passes unanimous, six zero on the amendment. Okay, thank you. Now we'll 01:39:38.207 --> 01:39:44.827 - come back to overall. Now go back to Councilor Henry. Thank you. I guess my question is more forward 01:39:44.827 --> 01:39:51.839 - leaning into next year, because I know we've done a few of these settlement votes here in the last quarter 01:39:51.839 --> 01:39:58.590 - and they are seven figure votes. What's the forecast for next year on this? E, do you have a sense of, 01:39:58.690 --> 01:40:04.548 - What are your head looks like I know I previous commissioners meeting I called in to say that I really 01:40:04.548 --> 01:40:10.235 - do think council should be talking with a packs and commissioners administrator and you as you look 01:40:10.235 --> 01:40:14.046 - at contracts from year to year just so we understand the risk but. 01:40:14.338 --> 01:40:20.591 - Do you have a crystal ball for next year on what this cost looks like for us? I don't have a crystal 01:40:20.591 --> 01:40:27.278 - ball, but I have talked with both Apex and the clinic, and they do annual reports where they are evaluating 01:40:27.278 --> 01:40:33.717 - the health, Apex specifically, the health of the plan, the health of the employees, all the things that 01:40:33.717 --> 01:40:39.908 - we can factor into, things that will accrue costs for us. And I've thought about you all as part of 01:40:39.908 --> 01:40:44.304 - that reporting, and I'm asking them to put together extra information. 01:40:44.304 --> 01:40:52.673 - and to share with you so that we can make some decisions. And I think looking forward, we have a lot 01:40:52.673 --> 01:41:01.539 - of thoughts about some things we can implement that will create some cost savings. I think we've mentioned 01:41:01.539 --> 01:41:06.014 - some of those in various meetings that we've been in. 01:41:06.114 --> 01:41:12.301 - Looking forward, those conversations will need to happen early on in the year because by July, we're 01:41:12.301 --> 01:41:18.549 - starting to talk about those contracts for next year and renewal rates and all those types of things. 01:41:18.549 --> 01:41:24.675 - So I'm hopeful we can get you some information. Typically, the annual reports once they've compiled 01:41:24.675 --> 01:41:30.494 - them, like end of February, beginning of March is when that stuff's available. Does that help? 01:41:35.138 --> 01:41:42.794 - Any other questions or comments on this item from council? Okay, and seeing none, I'll go back to public 01:41:42.794 --> 01:41:50.231 - comment for the overall public comment. If you have public comment, come raise your hand via Teams or 01:41:50.231 --> 01:41:55.262 - you can come forward to the lectern here in the night you have room. 01:41:58.178 --> 01:42:04.260 - All right. And seeing none, may we please. Oh, I'm sorry. I just have a question for you. I want to 01:42:04.260 --> 01:42:10.525 - I want to make this what you need it to be. I don't want, you know, I'm coming. I recognize I'm coming 01:42:10.525 --> 01:42:16.790 - in the last minute asking you to do this thing. If if maybe you could in your conversations figure out 01:42:16.790 --> 01:42:20.318 - what's the process you would like this to be for me to to 01:42:21.282 --> 01:42:27.502 - provide some consistency. And this is the first year we've appropriated this fund. So we're kind of 01:42:27.502 --> 01:42:33.722 - figuring things out as we go. You tell me how you would like this when we're coming to year end and 01:42:33.722 --> 01:42:40.005 - having these conversations, what you want that to look like. I will do my best to work with that and 01:42:40.005 --> 01:42:46.287 - make it something that is beneficial for everybody. Does that help? Yeah. OK, cool. Appreciate that. 01:42:46.287 --> 01:42:50.206 - Thank you. All right. And may we please have a roll call vote? 01:42:50.754 --> 01:42:57.962 - Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Wills? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor 01:42:57.962 --> 01:43:05.170 - Crosley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Motion passes unanimous 6-0. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate 01:43:05.170 --> 01:43:12.666 - it. And back up, well, item C, but we have Highway Department coming back again. That's right. Council, 01:43:12.666 --> 01:43:16.702 - I'll be combining Highway item C and D into one motion. 01:43:17.058 --> 01:43:23.066 - So I move to approve the highway department's request for a fund to fund transfer of cash of two hundred 01:43:23.066 --> 01:43:28.788 - twelve dollars and fifty cents from funds ninety one seventy four dash zero zero zero zero lake and 01:43:28.788 --> 01:43:34.624 - river enhancement or Larry to fund eleven ninety seven dash zero zero zero zero stormwater management 01:43:34.624 --> 01:43:40.461 - and simultaneously in fund nine one seven four dash zero zero zero zero lake and river enhancement or 01:43:40.461 --> 01:43:46.526 - Larry approve an additional appropriation of three thousand six hundred dollars in the services category. 01:43:47.426 --> 01:43:56.150 - second okay um miss ridge is back what do you have to tell us about larry or layer layer yeah it's okay 01:43:56.150 --> 01:44:04.623 - you can call it you can call it larry if you want that's the first time i've heard that so um so i'm 01:44:04.623 --> 01:44:08.062 - here to correct the layer larry grant um 01:44:08.994 --> 01:44:15.386 - A lot of the cards in this grant anyway, so that's it. It's kind of fitting. So we had a lot of players 01:44:15.386 --> 01:44:21.655 - in this with soil and water. We had property owners contributing their portion because part of it was 01:44:21.655 --> 01:44:28.047 - on private property. We had stormwater contributing their portion. So this the work has been completed. 01:44:28.047 --> 01:44:31.550 - We received the grant funds. This is just to finish out. 01:44:31.746 --> 01:44:38.512 - cleaning up the the last part of it moving that fund to fund because that was part of the local match 01:44:38.512 --> 01:44:45.212 - not part of the grant so it's basically so we want to get this done before the end of the year since 01:44:45.212 --> 01:44:51.846 - so it can be closed out all right thank you for that and already saw a hand raise and council votes 01:44:51.846 --> 01:44:56.158 - you're up could you give a brief description of the project just 01:44:56.290 --> 01:45:02.846 - So the public kind of knows. So they were two log jam cleanups. And basically when you get that within 01:45:02.846 --> 01:45:09.339 - these creek areas and such, then you can create a flooding in the areas. So the stormwater department 01:45:09.339 --> 01:45:15.831 - applied for the layer grant, received that. I think it was a max of 25,000. So we worked out with the 01:45:15.831 --> 01:45:22.387 - property owner soil and water. Then we hired a contractor, I believe at the time it was Bluestone. And 01:45:22.387 --> 01:45:26.270 - then when it was dry enough for them to get their equipment, 01:45:26.306 --> 01:45:34.918 - remove those log jams, so that way it keeps everything flowing. Thank you. All right. Any other questions 01:45:34.918 --> 01:45:43.042 - or comments from council? And seeing none, we'll go to public comment. Raise your hand via Teams or 01:45:43.042 --> 01:45:51.166 - come forward to the lectern here in the Natt U Hill room. All right. And seeing none, may we please 01:45:51.166 --> 01:45:54.334 - have a roll call vote? Councilor Pidl? 01:45:54.658 --> 01:46:02.277 - yes councillor wilts yes councillor hawke a big partner councillor henry yes councillor crossley yes 01:46:02.277 --> 01:46:09.972 - councillor iverson yes councillor dekert yes motion passes unanimous six zero thank you thank you all 01:46:09.972 --> 01:46:14.046 - right next up is item e from the sheriff's department 01:46:14.338 --> 01:46:20.461 - Council I'll be combining sheriff's items E and F into one motion. I move to approve the sheriff's fund 01:46:20.461 --> 01:46:26.760 - request and fund 1000 dash zero zero zero five county a general sheriff a deappropriation of five thousand 01:46:26.760 --> 01:46:32.824 - four hundred ninety eight dollars and fifty cents in the personnel category and simultaneously approve 01:46:32.824 --> 01:46:38.829 - and fund eight one zero three dash zero zero zero zero operation pullover an additional appropriation 01:46:38.829 --> 01:46:44.304 - of five thousand four hundred ninety eight dollars and fifty cents in the personnel category 01:46:44.304 --> 01:46:52.435 - second all right we have Jamie here welcome hello I'm just end of the year housekeeping that's all it 01:46:52.435 --> 01:47:00.406 - is really just moving the funds around thank you for that any questions or comments from council on 01:47:00.406 --> 01:47:08.377 - this item see none we'll go to public comment raise your hand via teams or come to the lectern here 01:47:08.377 --> 01:47:11.486 - in the night you'll roam for this item 01:47:13.474 --> 01:47:21.757 - And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councillor Henry? Yes. Councillor Crosley? Yes. 01:47:21.757 --> 01:47:30.122 - Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Decker? Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes. Councillor Woods? Yes. Motion 01:47:30.122 --> 01:47:34.878 - passes unanimous 6-0. Okay, thank you. Next up is item G. 01:47:35.202 --> 01:47:41.698 - Council I move to approve the sheriff's request and fund four one zero seven dash zero zero zero zero 01:47:41.698 --> 01:47:48.386 - donation sheriff the creation of account line three zero zero one four other services and simultaneously 01:47:48.386 --> 01:47:55.074 - approve an additional appropriation of fifteen thousand dollars in the services category. Okay. Anything 01:47:55.074 --> 01:48:02.398 - to add here. This is just occasionally we have the public that comes in and donates money to the sheriff's office. 01:48:02.818 --> 01:48:10.040 - And sometimes they say it's at the sheriff's discretion. Sometimes they have something specific that 01:48:10.040 --> 01:48:17.263 - they want us to use the funds for. It's never been utilized before. And we would like to start using 01:48:17.263 --> 01:48:24.843 - that or have the ability to. Okay. Look at that. Okay. All right. Any questions or comments from council? 01:48:24.843 --> 01:48:30.206 - Yes, Councilor Feidl. So about how long has this amount been accumulating? 01:48:30.818 --> 01:48:38.309 - we know Brie how long this has been created i don't off the top of my head but we could definitely get 01:48:38.309 --> 01:48:46.019 - that information for you just curious sure okay any other questions or comments on this item from council 01:48:46.019 --> 01:48:53.365 - yes councillor wilkes i just feel the need since uh councillor hawke isn't here to state the obvious 01:48:53.365 --> 01:49:00.638 - that you can't spend what you don't have so we're appropriating 15 but you have 14 735 according to 01:49:01.154 --> 01:49:09.658 - or yeah so was there something guidance of the auditor's office it can be amended to what is actually 01:49:09.658 --> 01:49:18.078 - in there you want us to amend it okay could we amend it to yeah yes counselor okay council I move to 01:49:18.078 --> 01:49:26.832 - amend the motion to a new number which is fourteen thousand seven hundred thirty five dollars and ninety 01:49:26.832 --> 01:49:30.334 - two cents I concur okay we got the motion 01:49:30.722 --> 01:49:38.838 - And a second on that. Any other further question or comment from council? All right. Seeing none, can 01:49:38.838 --> 01:49:46.875 - we have a roll call vote on this friendly amendment? Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Crosley? Yes. 01:49:46.875 --> 01:49:54.833 - Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. And Councilor Feidl? Yes. Motion 01:49:54.833 --> 01:49:58.334 - passes unanimous 6-0. All right. Thank you. 01:49:58.562 --> 01:50:06.667 - Oh wait, we gotta do the overall. All right, any other questions or comments? And thanks, Councilor 01:50:06.667 --> 01:50:14.853 - Wilts, for keeping the spirit of Councilor Hawk going. All right, and seeing none, we'll have public 01:50:14.853 --> 01:50:23.039 - comment. You can raise your hand via Teams or come forward to the lectern here in the Net Youth Hall 01:50:23.039 --> 01:50:27.902 - room. And seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? 01:50:28.994 --> 01:50:37.249 - Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor 01:50:37.249 --> 01:50:45.258 - Crossley? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Motion passes unanimous six zero. Thank you. You're welcome. 01:50:45.258 --> 01:50:48.446 - Thank you. Okay. Next up is item H for 01:50:48.674 --> 01:50:58.217 - Hava from the auditor's office. How'd you think I was going to say that? I don't know. All right, council, 01:50:58.217 --> 01:51:07.403 - I'll be combining the auditor's items H and I into one motion. I move to approve the auditor's request 01:51:07.403 --> 01:51:16.945 - in fund 8956-0000. The Hava grants a deappropriation of $35,873 in the capital category and simultaneously 01:51:16.945 --> 01:51:18.640 - in fund 8958-0000. 01:51:18.640 --> 01:51:27.666 - grant, approve the creation of account line 4001 equipment with an additional appropriation of $35,873 01:51:27.666 --> 01:51:30.558 - in the capital category. Second. 01:51:30.690 --> 01:51:37.911 - Okay and I'll look to the auditor for this. Hello what do you have for us on the HAVA grant? It's a 01:51:37.911 --> 01:51:45.565 - fun word right? Yes this is just a really simple housekeeping item. We're just asking for your assistance 01:51:45.565 --> 01:51:53.002 - with correcting a small error. Unfortunately this is the only way to correct. We clicked the wrong box 01:51:53.002 --> 01:52:00.656 - when setting up this fund and unfortunately it's not just a simple fix where we can unclick and click the 01:52:00.656 --> 01:52:06.850 - correct one, we have to totally add a new fund and kind of start from scratch, which is not a big deal, 01:52:06.850 --> 01:52:13.402 - but it's just coming here and presenting to you and explaining we need to de-appropriate then re-appropriate. 01:52:13.402 --> 01:52:19.418 - Understand. We did work with Lau, our financial software company, and confirmed this is the only way 01:52:19.418 --> 01:52:25.433 - to do it, unfortunately. OK. All right. Seems understandable, but does anybody have any questions or 01:52:25.433 --> 01:52:27.518 - comments from the auditor on this? 01:52:29.346 --> 01:52:37.231 - Seeing none, we'll go to public comment. Raise your hand via Teams or come forward to the lectern here 01:52:37.231 --> 01:52:45.193 - in the Night Eagle Room. And seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Crossley? Yes. 01:52:45.193 --> 01:52:53.307 - Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Deckard? Yes. And Councilor 01:52:53.307 --> 01:52:56.446 - Wilts? Yes. Motion passes unanimous 6-0. 01:52:57.058 --> 01:53:06.289 - All right, and because we combine those, we'll go to item J, then add it one. Council, I move to approve 01:53:06.289 --> 01:53:15.169 - the auditor's request and fund 8950-0000, American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, an in-house transfer of 01:53:15.169 --> 01:53:24.049 - $8,550 from account line 367100, ARPA septic assistance, to account line 36714, ARPA program support 01:53:24.049 --> 01:53:27.038 - in the services category. Second. 01:53:27.234 --> 01:53:36.620 - okay and yes yes thank you for accommodating us and adding this to the agenda we appreciate your support 01:53:36.620 --> 01:53:45.827 - this is just to transfer from one project line into another already established project line currently 01:53:45.827 --> 01:53:48.062 - the auditor's budget has 01:53:48.162 --> 01:53:54.979 - has supported an invoice of a little over $1,500 for our outside administrative support from Baker Tilly 01:53:54.979 --> 01:54:01.730 - and this will just move some excess funding from a project that's not going to be able to fully utilize 01:54:01.730 --> 01:54:08.222 - into that line so it's not coming out of the county's general fund so it is in the best interest of 01:54:08.222 --> 01:54:14.974 - the county if you're willing to approve. All right any questions or comments from council on this item? 01:54:23.330 --> 01:54:31.762 - And the only thing I would just add is a year from now, we will have to figure out a plan to make sure 01:54:31.762 --> 01:54:39.949 - that everything that we did through ARPA is spent down to the penny because this all has to be done 01:54:39.949 --> 01:54:48.135 - by December 31st of twenty twenty six. And so considering how fast this year went, it would be very 01:54:48.135 --> 01:54:52.638 - helpful. I know we kind of mentioned earlier this year 01:54:52.962 --> 01:55:00.546 - to try to have a follow-up joint meeting with the commissioners to do a plan to talk about some of that 01:55:00.546 --> 01:55:07.983 - or to have an update rather on some of that because I know I thought if my memory serves me well that 01:55:07.983 --> 01:55:15.567 - there were some things that we were thinking that we would switch and change and so I would really hope 01:55:15.567 --> 01:55:22.494 - that we wouldn't wait until next year's grand finale to scramble and try to figure out because 01:55:22.946 --> 01:55:29.840 - That's actually something we did last year where we kind of had to scramble this year for it. I think 01:55:29.840 --> 01:55:36.734 - I saw the auditor's hand raised again. Yeah, thank you for noting that we would like to address this. 01:55:37.538 --> 01:55:43.515 - very minimum by you know the midpoint of the year preferably before we like to be proactive rather than 01:55:43.515 --> 01:55:49.549 - reactive so having that plan in place something in our pocket just so we know how we're going to proceed 01:55:49.549 --> 01:55:55.756 - if and when projects do come in under budget and where we would hate to give back this this these resources 01:55:55.756 --> 01:56:01.790 - that we can certainly utilize rather than you know expending on a well-deserved already approved project 01:56:01.790 --> 01:56:04.606 - right yeah so maybe that's something that we can 01:56:04.930 --> 01:56:12.050 - I don't know if maybe we can pass on the message to commissioners. I know sometimes we need to make 01:56:12.050 --> 01:56:19.384 - sure that they get our information from our meetings. So I just wanted to, I guess, I think that maybe 01:56:19.384 --> 01:56:27.146 - that would be a good idea for us to do maybe first quarter is to have a meeting to kind of go over projects. 01:56:27.146 --> 01:56:34.622 - And then just as you were saying for that midpoint year to kind of figure out maybe right before budget, 01:56:35.106 --> 01:56:42.104 - That would be very helpful to figure out what we still have and to kind of finalize as we enter the 01:56:42.104 --> 01:56:47.422 - fourth quarter of next year to make sure everything is kind of put in play. 01:56:47.746 --> 01:56:53.739 - Yes, we did provide a very basic update of where we are now, but we would like to have a little bit 01:56:53.739 --> 01:56:59.732 - more of a formal presentation at the beginning of the year, just to kind of start us off along that 01:56:59.732 --> 01:57:05.845 - path and then we can reassess later in the first quarter, if that's okay. I think that will get us on 01:57:05.845 --> 01:57:12.198 - the right track and we have communicated with the commissioner's office and we hope that the plan update, 01:57:12.198 --> 01:57:17.712 - the ARPA plan update will be on their agenda for Thursday. I'm not certain if it is or not, 01:57:17.712 --> 01:57:24.786 - but I know that it is on the radar. Okay, okay. Yeah, since both of us, both bodies have to do all of 01:57:24.786 --> 01:57:31.860 - that, I definitely think that we need to make sure that we schedule that joint meeting with them. So, 01:57:31.860 --> 01:57:38.796 - all right, any other questions or comments related to this item? All right, seeing none. If there's 01:57:38.796 --> 01:57:45.800 - public comment on this item, you can come forward to the lectern here in the net, you can raise your 01:57:45.800 --> 01:57:46.910 - hand via Teams. 01:57:49.346 --> 01:57:57.312 - and seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. 01:57:57.312 --> 01:58:05.677 - Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Crosley? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Motion passes 01:58:05.677 --> 01:58:13.882 - unanimous six zero. All right, thank you very much for that. Next up, since we moved item 11 and we're 01:58:13.882 --> 01:58:16.830 - done with that, we'll go to item 12. 01:58:16.930 --> 01:58:23.698 - which is the county council business. And we'll start with item A, which is a resolution approval. Council, 01:58:23.698 --> 01:58:30.278 - as a reminder, this item was tabled from the December 9th meeting. I move to approve resolution 2025-54, 01:58:30.278 --> 01:58:36.231 - a resolution pledging support to the BEDC or the Bloomington Economic Development Corporation. 01:58:36.231 --> 01:58:42.561 - I don't see it. Second. All right. I'm looking to our council attorney to see if you wanted to start 01:58:42.561 --> 01:58:44.190 - off anything first. Okay. 01:58:44.738 --> 01:58:52.190 - All right, and I see we have a BED representative, BEDC representative here. Clark, please go ahead. 01:58:54.722 --> 01:59:01.497 - Well, good evening, Council. My name is Clark Greiner. I'm the interim president for the BEDC, and it's 01:59:01.497 --> 01:59:08.337 - certainly a pleasure to be here this evening. I want to thank you for considering funding appropriations 01:59:08.337 --> 01:59:15.047 - to support economic development efforts in Monroe County. The BEDC has served as the primary community 01:59:15.047 --> 01:59:21.691 - organization for economic development on the business retention, attraction, and expansion for Monroe 01:59:21.691 --> 01:59:24.688 - County. And over the time that I've been with 01:59:24.688 --> 01:59:31.893 - BEDC over the last six years we've tried to function in that capacity as a sole economic development 01:59:31.893 --> 01:59:39.099 - organization for the county. As you know BEDC our membership has over 117 members we continue to try 01:59:39.099 --> 01:59:42.238 - to grow that and our members are made up of 01:59:42.466 --> 01:59:49.419 - most of the major trading sector employers such as Cook, Medical, Cook Group, Simtra, Phoenix Closure, 01:59:49.419 --> 01:59:56.238 - and then other community partners such as the IU Health, Indiana University, Monroe County, the city 01:59:56.238 --> 02:00:03.056 - of Bloomington, Ellitsville, and our board leadership consists of and includes organizations such as 02:00:03.056 --> 02:00:08.862 - Smithville, Forbes, IU Credit Union, Cook Group, Weddle Brothers, just to name a few. 02:00:09.346 --> 02:00:15.166 - And it is our goal to really help bring prosperity to the citizens of Monroe County, which I know that's 02:00:15.166 --> 02:00:20.708 - consistent with what you guys endeavor to do as well. I want to give you a little information about 02:00:20.708 --> 02:00:26.361 - some of the history of what the BEDC has done over the past five years. If you look at our budget and 02:00:26.361 --> 02:00:32.070 - added all those dollars up and then divided that by the amount of capital investment we had, for every 02:00:32.070 --> 02:00:34.398 - one dollar that you invested in the BEDC, 02:00:34.498 --> 02:00:42.011 - there was, it led to $289 in capital investment back into all of Monroe County. That resulted in more 02:00:42.011 --> 02:00:50.114 - than 900 plus new jobs and more than a billion dollars in that capital expenditure investment. And consistent 02:00:50.114 --> 02:00:57.701 - with that, we are still on target with our 2024 through 2026 business strategy, which is in place. And 02:00:57.701 --> 02:01:04.478 - that's one of our primary economic drivers for leading us forward on that. But as you know, 02:01:04.610 --> 02:01:11.191 - plans and economic development is dynamic. It's not static. And if you look at that, when we first drafted 02:01:11.191 --> 02:01:16.542 - that plan, there were things that have popped up since then. Some of them are tariffs. 02:01:16.706 --> 02:01:22.174 - which wasn't around when we were really talking about that. Some of the tech innovation, there's more 02:01:22.174 --> 02:01:27.749 - and more information being talked about that. Also one that we're dealing with that's top of mind right 02:01:27.749 --> 02:01:33.324 - now is the SCA-1. We're addressing that and some of the changes that it makes. We confront those things 02:01:33.324 --> 02:01:38.953 - and try to adjust and adapt to those as we go about our economic development initiatives. And of course, 02:01:38.953 --> 02:01:44.635 - then on the positive side here, Big Ten champions, you know, Go Hoosiers, you know, that's very exciting. 02:01:44.635 --> 02:01:46.672 - Heisman winner, again, very exciting. 02:01:46.672 --> 02:01:52.627 - And we have one of the coolest coaches in all of college football. So we have a lot to be proud about 02:01:52.627 --> 02:01:58.991 - our community. I want to just kind of review some of the things that have happened in 2025. Semper purchased 02:01:58.991 --> 02:02:05.297 - the former GE site in July of 2025. That was a major redevelopment. Many of you up there had an opportunity 02:02:05.297 --> 02:02:11.369 - to kind of look at that facility ahead of time. And as we drive there, buy it now, how exciting is that 02:02:11.369 --> 02:02:16.624 - to see? Those are efforts that the BEDC has been involved with, and that started way back 02:02:16.624 --> 02:02:22.766 - when we fostered those initial relationships with Syntra, their growth and expansion after they acquired 02:02:22.766 --> 02:02:26.686 - the Baxter operation. So we've been engaged for some time on that. 02:02:27.618 --> 02:02:33.293 - I also wanted to talk about some of the actions and things that we're doing right now. We have also 02:02:33.293 --> 02:02:39.026 - attracted a company called Omboy. They're a Canadian based company. They are right now leasing space 02:02:39.026 --> 02:02:44.758 - in the existing Phoenix Closure Facility. We hope that in the not too distant future that they'll be 02:02:44.758 --> 02:02:50.603 - constructing the building to house their employees and to continue to grow and expand. Another company 02:02:50.603 --> 02:02:56.619 - that we've also attracted here recently to the Monroe County Airport is a company called Swift Energetics 02:02:56.619 --> 02:02:57.584 - and Engineering. 02:02:57.584 --> 02:03:04.238 - And that's been a very exciting thing. They're still in their initial growth stage, so we're still working 02:03:04.238 --> 02:03:10.643 - with them on critical issues and stuff. One of the things I also wanted to point out really quick, and 02:03:10.643 --> 02:03:16.862 - this is very exciting, over the last six months, the airport has been, the BEDC, along with airport 02:03:16.862 --> 02:03:20.158 - leadership, has been engaged with multiple different 02:03:20.706 --> 02:03:26.851 - organizations that are looking at the airport as a potential home for their business growth and expansion. 02:03:26.851 --> 02:03:32.594 - It's super exciting. If you look at everything that's been involved in that, this could potentially 02:03:32.594 --> 02:03:35.006 - lead to hundreds and hundreds of new jobs 02:03:35.202 --> 02:03:41.491 - high paying jobs out there. So some of the technology, the innovation that's happening out at the airport 02:03:41.491 --> 02:03:47.779 - and that's in the aviation industry and aerospace industry is very dynamic. And the Monroe County airport 02:03:47.779 --> 02:03:53.890 - has positioned themselves well to be able to do that. I've been involved with them and attending a lot 02:03:53.890 --> 02:04:00.178 - of their board meetings so that we become very familiar with what goes on and what takes place out there. 02:04:00.178 --> 02:04:01.246 - So we want to use 02:04:01.346 --> 02:04:09.649 - the funds that you're considering appropriating us to continue to level up, to offer, again, prosperity 02:04:09.649 --> 02:04:18.431 - back to the community. So thank you for your time. Thank you very much for coming this evening and explaining 02:04:18.431 --> 02:04:26.974 - that to us. All right, anybody have any questions or comments? And Councilor Feidl's hand is up, go ahead. 02:04:27.394 --> 02:04:34.382 - So I remember last week when we had this on the agenda the first time that, as I remember it, we tabled 02:04:34.382 --> 02:04:41.235 - it because we wanted more information about some of the developments that had been occurring in BEDC. 02:04:41.235 --> 02:04:48.559 - And honestly, I don't feel like I know much. And I think that's disappointing as a partner in this endeavor, 02:04:48.559 --> 02:04:54.942 - if you want to call us that, that I don't know what's going on. So I'll just leave it at that. 02:04:57.410 --> 02:05:04.797 - Okay, all right. And Councilor Henry has his hand up. Please go ahead. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Clark, 02:05:04.797 --> 02:05:11.766 - for presenting a little bit about the year review there and what's going on at the airport. I agree 02:05:11.766 --> 02:05:18.805 - that there's a lot of excitement and opportunity with our Board of Aviation. I know a few of us have 02:05:18.805 --> 02:05:23.614 - been involved in those conversations. I guess for me, as someone who 02:05:24.546 --> 02:05:31.153 - suggested tabling last week and we tabled this item to get some of that feedback. I'm content with what 02:05:31.153 --> 02:05:37.570 - I've heard here today. It's a pretty good ROI to have a $30,000 a year donation yield. The work that 02:05:37.570 --> 02:05:44.050 - you all do for the county on economic development that otherwise we'd have to bring in house and have 02:05:44.050 --> 02:05:51.166 - an FTE with benefits doing that work. So I'm good with that moving forward, but I will say as I think about our 02:05:51.682 --> 02:05:59.805 - donations generally. I guess this has nothing to do with BEDC, but we conveyed through resolution our 02:05:59.805 --> 02:06:07.928 - desire to do a donation last week to the Board of Commissioners that somehow didn't happen. There was 02:06:07.928 --> 02:06:13.502 - not clarity on why that item was removed from their claims because we 02:06:13.634 --> 02:06:20.174 - did communicate our intent about another donation. I guess I'm just maybe as a point of information 02:06:20.174 --> 02:06:26.910 - for staff, how, if we do vote in favor of our resolution to make this donation, how does that get into 02:06:26.910 --> 02:06:33.777 - the commissioner's docket for Thursday so they understand that we have a resolution that is saying words 02:06:33.777 --> 02:06:40.578 - that shows our intent? Does it get in that packet or how is that presented in that meeting on Thursday? 02:06:40.578 --> 02:06:41.886 - I'd hate to see us, 02:06:41.986 --> 02:06:48.301 - I go through another round of our intent not being clear because we clearly wrote a resolution to that 02:06:48.301 --> 02:06:54.860 - effect. Can staff answer that? For resolutions, it's included as it would be processed through the claims. 02:06:54.860 --> 02:07:01.052 - And so the resolution that was passed is included in the claims docket and the claims are subject to 02:07:01.052 --> 02:07:07.428 - commissioner approval. So it's just really a matter of reading their packet, I presume. Okay. I'll just 02:07:07.428 --> 02:07:09.022 - leave it at that comment. 02:07:09.314 --> 02:07:15.100 - And again, thank you again for coming in tonight, Clark, and making the presentation there. I will say, 02:07:15.100 --> 02:07:20.942 - I think, too, in the future, as we think about our donation pattern and what we do to basically delegate 02:07:20.942 --> 02:07:26.562 - as a council activities like communications and economic development, that, yeah, there may be other 02:07:26.562 --> 02:07:32.348 - opportunities to invest in other organizations basically doing the work that the county could be doing. 02:07:32.348 --> 02:07:37.022 - So I'll just leave it there. But I'm happy to support this resolution this evening. 02:07:37.154 --> 02:07:44.030 - Thank you very much for that. Any other questions or comments? Councilor Wilts, and then I'll go to 02:07:44.030 --> 02:07:51.044 - Deckard. You mentioned that the BEDC had been tackling issues or impacts around SCA 1, and I was just 02:07:51.044 --> 02:07:57.990 - wondering if you could give me a little bit more information about that. You know, one of the things 02:07:57.990 --> 02:08:05.004 - that we want to look at, if you look at some of the primary drivers, it's our understanding right now 02:08:05.004 --> 02:08:06.654 - that SCA 1 is all about 02:08:06.946 --> 02:08:12.371 - income tax right to raise the revenue for that so what that means is as we approach the market we're 02:08:12.371 --> 02:08:17.797 - looking for good paying jobs trying to figure out how to get those jobs locate here to not only just 02:08:17.797 --> 02:08:23.276 - help with revenue but to also help potentially reverse some of the population decline that we've seen 02:08:23.276 --> 02:08:24.350 - over the decades so 02:08:24.706 --> 02:08:30.022 - our efforts are going to be much more assertive in reaching out to companies that we feel are a great 02:08:30.022 --> 02:08:35.337 - fit for our community. And it could be because we know when I've worked with you all in the past that 02:08:35.337 --> 02:08:40.653 - when we bring an opportunity here and it's the right opportunity, you guys have been very supportive. 02:08:40.653 --> 02:08:45.969 - So we're going to go outside of our community. We're going to identify companies that align with what 02:08:45.969 --> 02:08:51.337 - we're trying to accomplish here to increase wages, to increase the number of people that can come here 02:08:51.337 --> 02:08:54.672 - and live here. And those are things that we can do to influence 02:08:54.672 --> 02:09:01.010 - those folks. And so we'll do that. So the money that we are gifted, so to speak, we will use that to 02:09:01.010 --> 02:09:07.286 - develop outreach programs, talking with site selectors, specific companies that may be aligned with 02:09:07.286 --> 02:09:13.562 - our traded sectors or support our traded sectors. So we've got multiple tools in our toolbox. Those 02:09:13.562 --> 02:09:20.151 - aren't immediate things. Those things take time to evolve, but those are things we're going to be paying 02:09:20.151 --> 02:09:21.406 - close attention to. 02:09:25.410 --> 02:09:36.314 - So obviously, we can't tell people where to live. But it did come up with Cimtra that really the benefits 02:09:36.314 --> 02:09:46.704 - to county government from local income tax depend on those folks living within Monroe County. And so 02:09:46.704 --> 02:09:54.110 - when we attract businesses to the county and yet their employees choose 02:09:54.722 --> 02:10:03.995 - for whatever reason and quite justifiably in some cases I'm sure, to live outside the county, that's 02:10:03.995 --> 02:10:13.267 - not bringing income tax into our coffers, it's helping our neighboring counties and that's great for 02:10:13.267 --> 02:10:23.550 - them. So my question is, are there strategies that we could work together on or do you have ideas around how to 02:10:24.130 --> 02:10:30.691 - get those income tax dollars, those residents, those employees into Monroe County? Well, I think it's 02:10:30.691 --> 02:10:37.124 - starting with acknowledgement. So some of the first things that we've got to recognize that when we 02:10:37.124 --> 02:10:43.556 - talk with our traded sector companies, the larger employers, as I've mentioned, anywhere from 48 to 02:10:43.556 --> 02:10:48.638 - 50, maybe slightly north of that of their folks live outside of Monroe County. 02:10:48.770 --> 02:10:53.748 - right? So the question is, is to meet and talk with these folks and say, why is that occurring? And 02:10:53.748 --> 02:10:58.775 - I think some of the things that we've got to be aware of is, what are these folks looking for? A lot 02:10:58.775 --> 02:11:04.002 - of it's going to be housing, particularly single-family housing. So we've got to look at our development 02:11:04.002 --> 02:11:09.278 - standards and see how they align with SEA 1 so that we can continue to incentivize that. And those aren't 02:11:09.278 --> 02:11:14.356 - necessarily easy things to do, but they're necessary to address some of those questions. And so those 02:11:14.356 --> 02:11:18.736 - would be things that we can sit down, talk with our traded sector companies, talk about 02:11:18.736 --> 02:11:23.483 - about some of the challenges they're seeing, maybe talk to some of their employees to say, hey, how 02:11:23.483 --> 02:11:28.372 - can we do this better? And those are some of the things. So I think it's kind of a community solution. 02:11:28.372 --> 02:11:33.166 - So it's a combination of traded sectors. It's about acknowledgment of some of the challenges that we 02:11:33.166 --> 02:11:38.055 - face, and then how we go about strategically addressing those to, A, help us, number one, identify how 02:11:38.055 --> 02:11:42.849 - we can increase revenue through the income tax of those people that live here. So that's going to be 02:11:42.849 --> 02:11:47.644 - one of the top things that we're paying attention to. And again, these things don't occur overnight, 02:11:47.644 --> 02:11:48.688 - but I think those are 02:11:48.688 --> 02:11:56.476 - things that I think are going to be important to address. And we all have a contribution to do and give 02:11:56.476 --> 02:12:03.964 - to that to make that work. Thank you very much. Thanks for being here, Clark. And thanks for taking 02:12:03.964 --> 02:12:12.052 - my call yesterday to get additional information. I do appreciate very much that the BDC has been a constant 02:12:12.052 --> 02:12:15.646 - presence, both through you and your predecessor 02:12:15.778 --> 02:12:23.019 - in some of these conversations with the county talking about jobs talking about what we got to do and 02:12:23.019 --> 02:12:30.616 - even convening people to it i mean i think we've all been to a few of us at least have been to the airport 02:12:30.616 --> 02:12:38.070 - numerous times for numerous things under various entities um one thing is i i do want to comment i think 02:12:38.070 --> 02:12:39.774 - the counselor henry was 02:12:40.226 --> 02:12:48.581 - I'm not sure that's the issue I think they get our point I think they're sending their own message. 02:12:48.581 --> 02:12:56.935 - And I think they'll send a message and this Clark this doesn't necessarily have to do with you. But 02:12:56.935 --> 02:13:00.862 - they they'll they'll send their message until. 02:13:01.698 --> 02:13:08.885 - you know, that word sends a different message or maybe they won't. I'm like Mary Morgan was saying earlier, 02:13:08.885 --> 02:13:15.607 - I have always joy and hope and optimism, but I don't know how it'll turn out. But we'll find out one 02:13:15.607 --> 02:13:22.461 - way or the other. And the show goes on. One thing I will say is this. I'm not sure, friends, given the 02:13:22.461 --> 02:13:29.249 - population numbers, I'm not sure that the community is in the position that it sometimes thinks it is 02:13:29.249 --> 02:13:30.846 - of convenience on jobs. 02:13:31.074 --> 02:13:38.107 - In fact, I don't think we are at all. We're in an age right now where the attacks on higher education 02:13:38.107 --> 02:13:45.209 - in a college town, and Clark, you don't have to comment on that, but I will, the attacks on that could 02:13:45.209 --> 02:13:52.518 - massively disrupt for a variety of different reasons. We got through a pandemic with our fingers crossed. 02:13:52.518 --> 02:13:56.862 - Now, some people didn't get through it, but we got through it. 02:13:57.506 --> 02:14:05.496 - you can only take so many hits and so many bad policies from Indy or DC or wherever, you can only do 02:14:05.496 --> 02:14:13.565 - that before you have a risk. The other thing is we have diversified our workforce, thank God, through 02:14:13.565 --> 02:14:21.950 - life sciences. Meanwhile, how we define science and healthcare is also rapidly taking some hits. In 2020, 02:14:22.050 --> 02:14:27.781 - on the the vaccine my gosh we were I I was in my classroom teaching in person one a few instructors 02:14:27.781 --> 02:14:33.569 - there on campus they said there's a they've got the vaccine my wife's texting me everybody's gonna I 02:14:33.569 --> 02:14:39.358 - said I'll gargle the thing every day if it if it takes care of this now and now ever ever I was down 02:14:39.358 --> 02:14:45.261 - with that until they weren't and now things are different so I sometimes think that the folks like the 02:14:45.261 --> 02:14:48.126 - BDC who are having those discussions about places 02:14:49.314 --> 02:14:57.334 - And things that we offer I think you got to be doing that as they're doing that under whatever form 02:14:57.334 --> 02:15:05.354 - it is because I remember vividly and Liz Fidel could write the book in the nineties when the plants 02:15:05.354 --> 02:15:07.038 - we had began to say. 02:15:07.138 --> 02:15:13.028 - this isn't working anymore. And everyone said, that'll never happen. That'll never happen. That turned 02:15:13.028 --> 02:15:18.861 - from never happened in regional traction, people driving daily from as far as Evansville and Illinois 02:15:18.861 --> 02:15:24.752 - to fill those jobs, including all the locals, by the way, McDowell Gardens and all their parking spots 02:15:24.752 --> 02:15:30.699 - and all those extra driveways were not because those people wanted extra driveways. They did it because 02:15:30.699 --> 02:15:37.104 - they sold parking lot spaces for the plant. That open field was vibrant. And then it changed. And someone said, 02:15:37.104 --> 02:15:42.270 - what are you going to do? Mayor, what are you going to do? County, what are you going to do? And what 02:15:42.270 --> 02:15:47.436 - they said is, we've got to attract new jobs. I think today, sometimes I listen to people and we speak 02:15:47.436 --> 02:15:52.704 - with the convenience of, well, we could do that, but I'm worried about growth and infringement on that. 02:15:52.704 --> 02:15:57.870 - Folks, I don't know that we're in the catbird seed that we think that we are. And so I think the BDC, 02:15:57.870 --> 02:16:03.137 - either this year, next year, many years, all years, I think Clark out there and others hustling on this 02:16:03.137 --> 02:16:03.998 - is our only hope 02:16:04.130 --> 02:16:11.126 - in case something gets more wild than it is. And those population numbers do not lie. The school recognized 02:16:11.126 --> 02:16:17.668 - that. I think other government entities have to recognize that too. There's something that is up and 02:16:17.668 --> 02:16:24.210 - we gotta own it. All right, thank you very much. Councilor Iverson. Mr. Greiner, thank you again for 02:16:24.210 --> 02:16:30.752 - being here and waiting till the end of the meeting. Really appreciate it and for your phone calls to 02:16:30.752 --> 02:16:33.278 - us. Appreciate, that's always helpful. 02:16:33.762 --> 02:16:40.697 - I'm not going to speak too much on this, but I do remember the BEDC was there front and center talking 02:16:40.697 --> 02:16:47.430 - about housing during the CDO debates. And that was a really healthy debate. We really got to talk a 02:16:47.430 --> 02:16:54.567 - lot about the pros and cons, the ways the sky was thinking about zoning. And BDC offered a lot of helpful 02:16:54.567 --> 02:17:01.367 - advice to that debate. And I I think the absolute key benefit for me, though, and the reason why I'm 02:17:01.367 --> 02:17:03.454 - going to be supporting this is 02:17:03.810 --> 02:17:09.983 - I've been able to get out there and tour, a lot of these factories, a lot of these sites, and I don't 02:17:09.983 --> 02:17:16.035 - need to have a tour, but it was meeting the people working there, the people who were coming in and 02:17:16.035 --> 02:17:22.207 - that is that is really the key indicator and talking to them about you know what do you need what are 02:17:22.207 --> 02:17:23.902 - you seeing and that's just. 02:17:24.066 --> 02:17:30.948 - great access to folks that I otherwise wouldn't have access to have a conversation with. So I'll be 02:17:30.948 --> 02:17:37.968 - supporting this. And I certainly hope that the commissioners see it that way as well as they came out 02:17:37.968 --> 02:17:44.988 - on a lot of these with us as well. So I think I'll leave it at that. Thank you. All right. Thank you. 02:17:44.988 --> 02:17:46.846 - Yeah. Nothing else to add. 02:17:47.074 --> 02:17:54.834 - to what my fellow council colleagues have said. I think, well, just one thing. The only thing that I 02:17:54.834 --> 02:18:02.979 - would like to see is just using public comment to come in and give any type of updates in the next coming 02:18:02.979 --> 02:18:10.893 - year, whether that's if you're seeing something that is proposed legislation from the General Assembly 02:18:10.893 --> 02:18:17.040 - that we should be mindful of, that we can work together with, definitely let us 02:18:17.040 --> 02:18:24.254 - know of course email but definitely like to see your face here and just explain that to us so that the 02:18:24.254 --> 02:18:31.328 - public could also know as well so definitely wanted to just express that and thank you very much for 02:18:31.328 --> 02:18:38.682 - that um i think councillor henry touched on this earlier but i'm going to look to miss turner king again 02:18:38.682 --> 02:18:45.686 - with this just to clarify because again what we heard last year or last week is they didn't know so 02:18:45.686 --> 02:18:46.526 - should this 02:18:47.938 --> 02:18:54.388 - I don't want to go through. Is there something as me as council president? Do I need to send a formal 02:18:54.388 --> 02:19:00.776 - email so nothing gets mixed and lost in the sauce? I don't. Yeah. I think an email would help, but I 02:19:00.776 --> 02:19:07.352 - will also add that this has been preemptively added to the commissioners meeting as an agenda item that 02:19:07.352 --> 02:19:13.866 - hopefully my voice allows me to present tomorrow. OK, OK. Well, maybe as a council president, actually 02:19:13.866 --> 02:19:17.534 - Thursday send an email just as a double and triple check. 02:19:17.698 --> 02:19:25.075 - We know for sure that this is coming. Yep. OK. All right. That being said, got to cross our T's and 02:19:25.075 --> 02:19:32.451 - dot our I's. All right. Public comment time. If you'd like to make public comment on this item, you 02:19:32.451 --> 02:19:39.828 - can come forward to the lectern here in the night. You have a raise your hand via teams. Thank you. 02:19:39.828 --> 02:19:45.950 - Thank you. Oh, yeah. Go ahead. It seems like a clerk. I might have one more thing. 02:19:46.178 --> 02:19:52.869 - I talked a little bit about my frustration about not what's going on, and I would like to ask that we 02:19:52.869 --> 02:19:59.690 - receive more communication about updates within the workings of the BEDC so that I, especially, I don't 02:19:59.690 --> 02:20:06.316 - know about others, but I can speak for myself. I want to know what's going on. I like to know what's 02:20:06.316 --> 02:20:13.334 - going on in an organization before I support it. And so I would like continued updates on what's happening 02:20:13.334 --> 02:20:14.974 - within the organization. 02:20:15.810 --> 02:20:25.355 - happy to do that thank you okay and look forward to it me too okay all right yeah one more and i think 02:20:25.355 --> 02:20:34.994 - if the board because i know this is not in your hands to add to counselor vital if the board could tell 02:20:34.994 --> 02:20:39.998 - us officially their window on the the leadership role 02:20:40.194 --> 02:20:48.917 - precisely and kind of how that's gonna work. I think that will help as a partner to know. I don't know 02:20:48.917 --> 02:20:58.063 - if the city wants that or Eltsville, because they're in those board meetings, but I think that's a helpful. 02:20:58.063 --> 02:21:06.532 - Those discussions are taking place now, so. All right, and last call for public comment. And seeing 02:21:06.532 --> 02:21:10.174 - none, may we please have a roll call vote. 02:21:15.874 --> 02:21:25.319 - Councillor Henry? Yes. Councillor Crossley? Yes. Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Deckard? Yes. Councillor 02:21:25.319 --> 02:21:34.078 - Feidl? Yes, and I look forward to the partnership. Motion passes unanimous 6-0. All right, thank you. 02:21:34.078 --> 02:21:39.230 - Thank you, have a good night. All right, next up is item B. 02:21:44.130 --> 02:21:50.503 - Council, I move to approve resolution 2025-57, a resolution approving the Highway Collective Bargaining 02:21:50.503 --> 02:21:56.876 - Agreement. Second, please. All right, we got a motion in a second, Ms. Dernike. So for the last several 02:21:56.876 --> 02:22:03.126 - months, we've been meeting with the Collective Bargaining Unit for the Highway Department and Highway 02:22:03.126 --> 02:22:09.438 - Management regarding the Collective Bargaining Agreement that's set to expire at the end of this year. 02:22:10.754 --> 02:22:17.395 - What is before you today is the finalized version of this agreement. And I'm going to point out the 02:22:17.395 --> 02:22:24.635 - substantial changes. So the first one is that this is a two-year agreement instead of a three-year agreement 02:22:24.635 --> 02:22:31.940 - like we normally do. No, this is a three-year instead of a two-year because it seemed it might be problematic 02:22:31.940 --> 02:22:38.582 - to try to negotiate in the end of 2027. The agreement now allows for the highway department to sign 02:22:38.582 --> 02:22:40.574 - up twice a year for overtime. 02:22:40.674 --> 02:22:48.132 - previously you signed your name up one time and then if you missed too many times you were taken off 02:22:48.132 --> 02:22:55.812 - the list and so this allows them the opportunity to break the year in half. The major change is there's 02:22:55.812 --> 02:23:03.344 - some now limitations on when an employee can be called in on like a snow removal or an emergency call 02:23:03.344 --> 02:23:08.734 - out. We wanted to limit it so that if an employee calls in sick that day 02:23:08.930 --> 02:23:16.236 - They couldn't then be called out that evening for an emergency situation for liability purposes. It 02:23:16.236 --> 02:23:23.834 - now allows the highway employees to convert 40 hours of their sick time to personal time, and it allows 02:23:23.834 --> 02:23:31.140 - them to use it all at the beginning. So this is not them getting more time. They still get the same 02:23:31.140 --> 02:23:36.766 - amount of time. They're just allowed to convert more hours to personal time. 02:23:37.090 --> 02:23:44.363 - And this is because the union wanted to stay with the old scheme of benefit time. So most of the county 02:23:44.363 --> 02:23:51.846 - has transitioned to just having personal time and vacation time and not personal time, sick time, vacation 02:23:51.846 --> 02:23:58.909 - time. But they liked that old structure, so they kept it. And so we're allowing them to convert more 02:23:58.909 --> 02:24:04.574 - sick hours to personal time. And I think those are the major changes. All right. 02:24:05.282 --> 02:24:12.989 - And so counselor, I've ever since handed up and then I'll come back around. Am I reading this correctly? 02:24:12.989 --> 02:24:20.696 - This has been signed by both the commissioners and the union representatives. Mr. Cockrell did presented 02:24:20.696 --> 02:24:28.257 - to the commissioners last week. Yeah. OK. Councilor Fido. And you mentioned one or some of the changes 02:24:28.257 --> 02:24:32.734 - were union initiated. And so I just wanted to make sure that 02:24:33.154 --> 02:24:42.134 - that was okay what the employees wondered as well, right? I assume that's what that means, right? We 02:24:42.134 --> 02:24:51.648 - did a lot of back and forth, but we came to an agreement. Okay, thank you. Any other questions or comments 02:24:51.648 --> 02:24:56.894 - from Ms. Turner-King on this item? All right. Seeing none. 02:24:58.594 --> 02:25:05.751 - We'll go to public comment on this item. If we have public comment on this, you can come forward to 02:25:05.751 --> 02:25:12.908 - the lectern here, the Nattie Hill room or raise your hand via Teams. And seeing none, may we please 02:25:12.908 --> 02:25:20.423 - have a roll call vote. Councilor Crosley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor 02:25:20.423 --> 02:25:27.294 - Feidl? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Motion passes unanimous six zero. Okay. 02:25:27.938 --> 02:25:36.532 - Next up, we will go to item D. Council, I move to open for discussion and possible approval to extend 02:25:36.532 --> 02:25:45.633 - the expiration date of resolution 2025-14, which temporarily suspends the personal administration committee 02:25:45.633 --> 02:25:50.014 - and job position requests. Second. Ms. Darnit King. 02:25:50.210 --> 02:25:56.745 - So I went ahead and prepared an amended resolution that I'll display on the screen. The only change 02:25:56.745 --> 02:26:03.607 - to the resolution is in paragraph three, which previously stated the resolution implemented a pack pause 02:26:03.607 --> 02:26:10.469 - that would expire in December of 2025 unless renewed by the council prior to that date. The resolution's 02:26:10.469 --> 02:26:13.214 - now gonna read, let me try to display it. 02:26:15.586 --> 02:26:21.652 - The resolution was set to automatically expire December of 2025. However, after further consideration 02:26:21.652 --> 02:26:27.837 - and review of the county's budget, the council believes it's fiscal fiscally responsible to extend this 02:26:27.837 --> 02:26:33.903 - pause until December 31st of 2026. And you can amend that date. I just put a placeholder in there for 02:26:33.903 --> 02:26:40.088 - now, unless renewed repelled or amended prior to that date by the council. Okay. Yes. Counselor Decker. 02:26:40.088 --> 02:26:42.526 - This is probably a really dumb question. 02:26:42.818 --> 02:26:50.679 - but this occurred to me as I was thinking about these last two items. This sitting council now, which 02:26:50.679 --> 02:26:58.616 - is the same sitting council theoretically in January that comes in here, we can set something for next 02:26:58.616 --> 02:27:05.860 - year, same as this year. It's just in this case, we set it to expire at the end of this year. 02:27:05.860 --> 02:27:11.486 - Is that right? It was set to expire at the end of this year. Yeah, yeah. 02:27:11.874 --> 02:27:18.972 - So there's nothing that would make this action not good for next year. It's okay. I think it's okay 02:27:18.972 --> 02:27:26.140 - because, um, as I'm displaying paragraph three, it says, unless for nude repeal to amend it prior to 02:27:26.140 --> 02:27:33.451 - the December 31st date, which allows any future council to change it. All right. And no dumb questions 02:27:33.451 --> 02:27:36.574 - to box said, even the genius has questions. 02:27:38.210 --> 02:27:45.300 - I'm full of quotes tonight. All right. Anybody else have any? Yes. Council Iverson. So this is going 02:27:45.300 --> 02:27:52.390 - to come up in both this one, this item and the next item. But I have not seen and maybe I missed it, 02:27:52.390 --> 02:27:59.410 - but I have not seen new economic data for Indiana that suggests that the next budget cycle is going 02:27:59.410 --> 02:28:02.078 - to be any easier than the last cycle. 02:28:05.762 --> 02:28:13.291 - I'm not seeing anybody that's indicating that they have seen anything like that. The next, I think, 02:28:13.291 --> 02:28:21.196 - thing on our calendar is an AIC legislative session in late January. We might get some more information, 02:28:21.196 --> 02:28:29.101 - maybe. But until I see anything contrary to the struggle that we had this last budget cycle, I am really 02:28:29.101 --> 02:28:31.134 - hesitant to make a change. 02:28:33.762 --> 02:28:41.558 - And then I'll go to Councilor Henry. So thank you. This is more of a legal term question. So is there, 02:28:41.558 --> 02:28:49.203 - it's, is, is repel being used for a specific reason or is it meant to be repeal? It's supposed to be 02:28:49.203 --> 02:28:56.923 - repeal. Okay. Well, I guess we need to change that. All right. That's it. I just want to make sure we 02:28:56.923 --> 02:29:01.086 - caught it. Cause I understand there's a legal, we can, 02:29:01.186 --> 02:29:09.418 - legally repel something too. I just don't know if we're trying to do that. Okay, thanks. Nice catch, 02:29:09.418 --> 02:29:17.894 - Councilor Henry. I think the only thing that I would add to this for council members is I think earlier 02:29:17.894 --> 02:29:26.044 - we heard about how we need to have a long-term finance discussion with this and I think considering 02:29:26.044 --> 02:29:29.630 - the forecast of a lot of things with SEA 1, 02:29:29.794 --> 02:29:38.263 - I don't feel very comfortable in allowing this to, I guess, to sunset at the end of this year. I think 02:29:38.263 --> 02:29:46.486 - we need to kind of pump the brakes on some things as we continue to navigate. And maybe again, this 02:29:46.486 --> 02:29:54.462 - is something that we could come to the long term finance and ask the question of, because again, 02:29:54.978 --> 02:30:02.725 - we can make amendments to the resolution. So if we chose a date after hearing, if we have a long-term 02:30:02.725 --> 02:30:10.396 - finance committee meeting and we speak to Greg Garantos about this and FSG about this, and they feel 02:30:10.396 --> 02:30:18.218 - comfortable with it, and we feel comfortable with it, we can always amend the resolution to change the 02:30:18.218 --> 02:30:24.446 - date. And so again, because the forecast is very frightful, I'm not very hopeful. 02:30:25.282 --> 02:30:35.944 - Yes, Councilor Wilts. Thank you. I just wanted to say that I agree that we're not quite ready to lift 02:30:35.944 --> 02:30:46.501 - this. However, as I've mentioned, I do think that there is business that the PAC could be doing. And 02:30:46.501 --> 02:30:54.654 - I didn't notice that it says that in the resolution. That's what it's called. 02:30:55.362 --> 02:31:05.408 - So I would, and maybe there are pieces of what long-term finance is looking at that come to PAC to process 02:31:05.408 --> 02:31:14.797 - and bring to council as well. I think we should utilize some of these committees strategically. And 02:31:14.797 --> 02:31:23.998 - so just wanted to point out that this doesn't mean that PAC cannot be meeting to do other things. 02:31:25.762 --> 02:31:33.300 - I agree. Well, I could, to your point, and I think you said this a while back when we were discussing 02:31:33.300 --> 02:31:41.356 - the higher end freeze, maybe Pat could come back to the table and discuss the higher end freeze in different 02:31:41.356 --> 02:31:48.820 - ways to figure that process out. Because I still think that people still have questions and concerns 02:31:48.820 --> 02:31:55.102 - about it. So maybe that's something that Pat could do and then bring back to council 02:31:55.266 --> 02:32:04.872 - for a larger discussion and our approval. Okay. Yes. If the intent is for PAC to still meet, then we 02:32:04.872 --> 02:32:14.384 - would have to make an amendment to the resolution because item one says the personal administration 02:32:14.384 --> 02:32:23.134 - committee will not meet. PAC may continue to meet to consider procedural matters. Does that 02:32:23.298 --> 02:32:38.756 - not mean what I think it means. I don't think that sentence is in the version that was passed. I'm just 02:32:38.756 --> 02:32:46.782 - looking in our packet. It's at the end of number one. 02:32:48.450 --> 02:32:56.071 - I didn't submit a resolution to the packet, so I'm not sure where the resolution that was in the packet 02:32:56.071 --> 02:33:03.912 - came from. I don't know. Everyone else has one in their packet, right? Am I looking at the wrong document? 02:33:03.912 --> 02:33:11.460 - Nope. Okay. Yep. Councilor Henry. Lord, this has been a crazy meeting. Yeah. Councilor Wilson's point, 02:33:11.460 --> 02:33:17.982 - I guess the question or the way I'm hearing it is if we allowed a little pack to happen, 02:33:18.082 --> 02:33:25.266 - um, that to make sure that it's, it's clear to departments that that doesn't open up PAC to do its regular 02:33:25.266 --> 02:33:32.114 - business, that it's limited to, I think the way you were going at it was in the right direction. This 02:33:32.114 --> 02:33:39.096 - idea that it's, it's really about the rules and procedure and not, um, the PAC process, right? So like, 02:33:39.096 --> 02:33:42.654 - like if it's, I mean, I mean, I, it's almost like a, 02:33:43.554 --> 02:33:49.242 - And I think I just, I'm careful about the word procedure because the procedure is for people to bring 02:33:49.242 --> 02:33:54.930 - things to PAC, right? So like, we don't want them doing that. But what we're talking about is opening 02:33:54.930 --> 02:34:00.786 - the committee up to deal with policy related to personnel. Like that would help us with department heads 02:34:00.786 --> 02:34:06.474 - and trying to figure out what a more severe budget cycle could look like if our revenue really drops, 02:34:06.474 --> 02:34:12.106 - right? Like it's not about opening the PAC process up. It's really about like a rules behavior. Does 02:34:12.106 --> 02:34:13.054 - that make sense? 02:34:14.818 --> 02:34:22.669 - Yeah, thanks. What it says, at least in the one I have. I checked S drive for approved resolutions and 02:34:22.669 --> 02:34:30.519 - there were two versions. And so I looked at the wrong version. And so that sentence is in what I would 02:34:30.519 --> 02:34:38.294 - consider the latter past version. So I have now added it to it. Cool. Thank you. Just to clarify, the 02:34:38.294 --> 02:34:43.934 - version in the packet that the public can see is the correct version? OK. 02:34:44.322 --> 02:34:56.960 - No amendment. Cool. OK. All right. Any other questions or comments from counsel? Who's on first? Yes, 02:34:56.960 --> 02:35:10.590 - counselor. And Ms. Mallory Turner King, may I ask you another question? The times that PAC has met this fall, 02:35:10.882 --> 02:35:20.325 - has been at the pleasure of the council. So the council has said you can meet on whenever and do whatever. 02:35:20.325 --> 02:35:29.326 - Section number one seems to indicate that PAC can schedule itself for meetings on procedural matters. 02:35:29.326 --> 02:35:38.681 - Am I reading that correctly or does council still need to provide guidance to say you can meet on January 02:35:38.681 --> 02:35:40.446 - 14th as an example? 02:35:41.538 --> 02:35:47.672 - for the 2026 calendar resolution we did include a PAC meeting schedule. I remember that. And then in 02:35:47.672 --> 02:35:53.928 - that resolution it says if the PAC meeting schedule is that the PAC chair has the authority to address 02:35:53.928 --> 02:36:00.001 - any scheduling amendments necessary for PAC meetings so it allows the chair to amend that. We would 02:36:00.001 --> 02:36:06.014 - just need to ensure that if it is amended that it is noticed in accordance with open door. Got it. 02:36:12.066 --> 02:36:27.090 - So technically this is just a discussion. And so now we need to have a motion to extend. So council, 02:36:27.090 --> 02:36:40.478 - I guess with no objections, I would like to extend our pack pause to December 31st, 2026. 02:36:41.890 --> 02:36:50.195 - Am I second? I think you can simplify it and say I would like to move to approve amended resolution 02:36:50.195 --> 02:36:58.833 - 2025 14 and then that has the new date. OK, so what you said. All right. Does that suffice? OK, second. 02:36:58.833 --> 02:37:06.142 - All right. And so that is what we are doing. All right. Any other further questions or? 02:37:06.498 --> 02:37:14.163 - comments from council on this. Yeah, I just have the point of order. Is the document that Molly, 02:37:14.163 --> 02:37:22.539 - that you, or that Mr. King amended, is that the same resolution we're talking about that's in the packet? 02:37:22.539 --> 02:37:30.678 - It wasn't clear to me. Yes. What was apparently in the packet was the version that was passed in March 02:37:30.678 --> 02:37:32.574 - and then the resolution 02:37:32.706 --> 02:37:39.255 - The amended version is the one that I displayed on the screen, and I'm happy to re-display it. Wait, 02:37:39.255 --> 02:37:45.933 - so we just said we were doing it as amended, though. So you're passing the amended one. The one in the 02:37:45.933 --> 02:37:52.482 - packet is not the amended one. The one in the packet is the original one. I don't know where the one 02:37:52.482 --> 02:37:59.550 - in the packet came from. I put it in there so that you guys would have a reference of what we passed to what 02:38:00.930 --> 02:38:11.461 - she was working on because at the time of the packet, the amendment was not ready to put in the packet. 02:38:11.461 --> 02:38:22.398 - My understanding was that the motion on the floor was amending section three of the packet, simply updating 02:38:22.398 --> 02:38:29.790 - the year to 2026. So the document in the packet would not change at all. 02:38:30.466 --> 02:38:46.134 - except for section three, updating the year to 2026. It is correct that the only change is to paragraph 02:38:46.134 --> 02:39:00.446 - three, other than it says amended at the top. It adds the language in section three changes to 02:39:00.546 --> 02:39:09.387 - What is displayed on the screen? It was set to expire December 25th. However, after further consideration 02:39:09.387 --> 02:39:17.894 - and review of the county's budget, the council believes it's fiscally responsible to extend the pause 02:39:17.894 --> 02:39:26.484 - until December 31st of 2026. Can you scroll up to number one just for my own peace of mind? Thank you. 02:39:26.484 --> 02:39:27.902 - Okay, thank you. 02:39:28.450 --> 02:39:35.180 - Yeah, this is my question that both documents are verbatim except for what we just changed, right? Because 02:39:35.180 --> 02:39:41.533 - I hate to have an amended over here and then something else that was a prior version that we somehow 02:39:41.533 --> 02:39:47.319 - merged together here. If it's clear to folks in the room that that amendment is on the most 02:39:47.319 --> 02:39:54.238 - recent resolution, then I'm good. It's not clear way out here. It's clear in the room. Okay, good, all right. 02:39:58.402 --> 02:40:06.980 - Ms. Turner-King, were you about to say something? I'm sorry. Okay. Because I think to Councilor Wilts's 02:40:06.980 --> 02:40:15.558 - point, it sounds like you wanted to ensure that we could still do procedural things for PAC, and that's 02:40:15.558 --> 02:40:20.094 - in what we see here that was in the PAC. Got it. Okay. 02:40:20.642 --> 02:40:28.292 - Okay, so we got a motion and a second on the floor. Any other further discussion from Council on this. 02:40:28.292 --> 02:40:35.422 - So is this for the amendment or the overall piece document now. This would be on the amendment. 02:40:35.842 --> 02:40:43.576 - We're voting on the amendment now. Thank you. It would be a motion to accept the resolution as amended. 02:40:43.576 --> 02:40:51.161 - As amended. So that's the whole thing. Because the only thing that we were doing is changing the date 02:40:51.161 --> 02:40:58.598 - in item three to extend to December 31st, 2026. Thank you. You're welcome. OK. So any other further 02:40:58.598 --> 02:41:00.606 - questions or comments? OK. 02:41:00.962 --> 02:41:08.423 - Um, seeing none from council, we'll go to public comment. If there's any public comment on this item, 02:41:08.423 --> 02:41:16.030 - come forward to the lectern here. The night you hope room or raise your hand via teams and seeing none, 02:41:16.030 --> 02:41:23.564 - maybe please have a roll call vote. Councillor Deckard. Yes. Councillor Fiddle. Yes. Councillor Woods. 02:41:23.564 --> 02:41:29.342 - Yes. Councillor Henry. Yes. Councillor Crossley. Yes. Councillor Iverson. Yes. 02:41:29.474 --> 02:41:36.703 - Motion passes unanimous six zero. Okay, thank you. Next up is item E. Council I move to open for discussion 02:41:36.703 --> 02:41:43.530 - and possible approval to extend the expiration date of resolution 2025-24, which temporarily suspends 02:41:43.530 --> 02:41:49.086 - the KSA or knowledge skills and abilities practice. Second. Okay, Ms. Turner King. 02:41:50.114 --> 02:42:02.924 - Similar to the previous motion, I prepared a resolution and the language changes to item three in it. 02:42:02.924 --> 02:42:15.358 - It previously stated that the KSA pause ends December 31st of 2025 and now reads as on the screen. 02:42:20.386 --> 02:42:27.693 - Okay, yes, Council Iverson. I support the possible amendment or the amendment being shown on the screen 02:42:27.693 --> 02:42:34.859 - for the same reasons that I talked about the previous point. I've seen no economic data that suggests 02:42:34.859 --> 02:42:42.096 - that the budget in the coming year is going to be any easier than the previous year. Councilor Decker. 02:42:42.096 --> 02:42:44.414 - Well, I appreciate that comment. 02:42:44.514 --> 02:42:52.798 - And the more I look at this resolution, it reminds me of my griping from when we adopted it originally. 02:42:52.798 --> 02:43:01.242 - And it seems to be more so the case that my griping that rescue not coming, change not coming is probably 02:43:01.242 --> 02:43:07.774 - imminent. I mean, just to kind of set the timeline, if I understand it correctly, 02:43:07.970 --> 02:43:14.680 - The general assembly is in technically right now and then they're out in February and that's shoot. 02:43:14.680 --> 02:43:21.389 - We won't even be done with snow trucks by then, let alone whatever. And so we're in this trouble. I 02:43:21.389 --> 02:43:28.569 - do appreciate the reassurance from a year ago that the council can, should something manifest, the council 02:43:28.569 --> 02:43:35.614 - can undo this resolution just like we could amend it all year and sometimes we do. So I appreciate that. 02:43:36.130 --> 02:43:49.568 - the ability we have to do that. All right, any other questions or comments from council on this item? 02:43:49.568 --> 02:44:03.006 - Yes, Councilor Iverson. Council I move to approve the adopted resolution 2025-24-25. Second. Hold on. 02:44:03.298 --> 02:44:11.018 - What I wanted to do with that motion, I'm gonna verbalize this, is adopt what was on the screen, but 02:44:11.018 --> 02:44:19.044 - then I got confused as to the naming of the resolution. No, we need to say the same, we're just adopting 02:44:19.044 --> 02:44:26.994 - that resolution. It would be a motion to adopt the amended resolution, which is 20, 25, 24. That's what 02:44:26.994 --> 02:44:32.574 - I wanted to do. I think that's what I said, but we've been here a while. 02:44:37.250 --> 02:44:50.213 - do I need to restate the motion I would say yes to clarify or you could say so moved all right okay 02:44:50.213 --> 02:45:03.177 - so we have that clarification there is there any other further discussion from council on this item 02:45:03.177 --> 02:45:04.862 - who seconded 02:45:06.978 --> 02:45:19.579 - Thank you. Yes, sounds like question is bigger than this item, but related. Nothing that we are doing 02:45:19.579 --> 02:45:32.798 - here or in the last one is addressing the hiring freeze right. And when does that expire. Next year. Wait. 02:45:40.450 --> 02:46:03.572 - I for some reason thought it expired at the end of this month too, but okay. The hiring freeze resolution 02:46:03.572 --> 02:46:10.334 - expires December 31st of 2026. 02:46:15.554 --> 02:46:24.650 - Look at that. Way to go. Okay. So again, the underlying thing is, yeah. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Okay. 02:46:24.650 --> 02:46:33.655 - All right. Any other further questions or comments on council related to the resolution as amended? 02:46:33.655 --> 02:46:42.841 - Seeing none. Public comment. You can raise your hand via teams or come forward to the lectern here in 02:46:42.841 --> 02:46:45.182 - the NatU Hill room. Okay. 02:46:45.730 --> 02:46:55.926 - And without further ado, may we please have a roll call vote on the final item of twenty twenty five. 02:46:55.926 --> 02:47:05.921 - House Iverson. Yes. Also, Decker. The counselor, Decker. Yes, counselor. Yes. Counselor Wilts. Yes. 02:47:05.921 --> 02:47:13.918 - Counselor Henry. Yes. Counselor Crosley. Yes. Motion passes unanimous six zero. 02:47:27.362 --> 02:47:35.735 - Okay. Okay. All right. So that brings us to, there was a little confusion here in the night, you know, 02:47:35.735 --> 02:47:43.864 - room. Um, everybody good on before we move. Yes, counselor. So I'll just bring it up. So we look at 02:47:43.864 --> 02:47:52.155 - the agenda. It's got 12 C, which is the meeting schedule, right? Right. And did we get rid of that or 02:47:52.155 --> 02:47:56.382 - it was removed? That's the one that we did earlier. 02:47:56.610 --> 02:48:04.828 - Where miss well Michelle can you or Molly? Explain that again Originally, we thought we were gonna have 02:48:04.828 --> 02:48:12.414 - to amend the meeting schedule to accommodate for a change in deadlines since the way Additional 02:48:12.414 --> 02:48:20.554 - appropriations is going to be advertised as changing but after all right after further review We don't 02:48:20.554 --> 02:48:25.374 - think we need to amend the deadlines What's gonna happen is? 02:48:26.722 --> 02:48:32.230 - additional appropriations will be advertised through Gateway, and there's a 14-day advertisement, but 02:48:32.230 --> 02:48:37.791 - I think our current advertising deadlines accounts for that. What we were afraid of was that we'd have 02:48:37.791 --> 02:48:43.299 - to advertise in Gateway and the newspaper, and our advertisement schedule wouldn't have accounted for 02:48:43.299 --> 02:48:48.860 - that, but after confirming with DLGF, we don't have to advertise in the paper anymore, we could remove 02:48:48.860 --> 02:48:54.800 - that item. I apologize for missing that if that was said some other time. Okay. I missed it. I was completely 02:48:54.800 --> 02:48:55.934 - confused as to what. 02:48:58.882 --> 02:49:07.427 - implementing all kinds of craziness over here on this end. All right, so if we're all good, we'll come 02:49:07.427 --> 02:49:15.724 - down to the last item, which is council comments and liaison updates. And it is the last one of the 02:49:15.724 --> 02:49:24.020 - year, so make it count. I'm going to start with Councilor Vidal. It's not color code, but I do have 02:49:24.020 --> 02:49:25.182 - a list. Okay. 02:49:25.538 --> 02:49:32.953 - So I just wanted to remind folks to shop local with this Bloomington gift card option. 50 vendors or 02:49:32.953 --> 02:49:40.514 - businesses are signed up to be part of that. So you can go on the City of Bloomington website and find 02:49:40.514 --> 02:49:48.075 - it there. It's called the Bloomington gift card. And you can find that at BloomingtonIN.gov. The 250th 02:49:48.075 --> 02:49:54.462 - anniversary events will be occurring, I've learned, between February and July of 2026. 02:49:55.170 --> 02:50:03.201 - I remind people that there's a copy of the Declaration of Independence at the Lilly Library and the 02:50:03.201 --> 02:50:11.714 - IU campus. In one meeting I was at recently, it was about from the people on Kirkwood Avenue. And they're 02:50:11.714 --> 02:50:18.782 - concerned about when emergency management notifications occur and information goes out, 02:50:19.010 --> 02:50:27.058 - were seeking a more collaborative approach into how that all gets disseminated. I think they were feeling 02:50:27.058 --> 02:50:34.802 - a little non-unification in messages they were receiving. And they didn't give me exact examples, but 02:50:34.802 --> 02:50:42.242 - there was some discussion about that. The taste of Bloomington next year will either be Saturday, 02:50:42.242 --> 02:50:45.886 - August 1st, or rain date of Sunday, August 2nd. 02:50:46.242 --> 02:50:54.085 - And they will be closing down Dunn and Grant this year. So that should help with people walking back 02:50:54.085 --> 02:51:01.928 - and forth on Kirkwood there. Visit Bloomington is working on a culinary passport trail. They'll have 02:51:01.928 --> 02:51:10.081 - it ready approximately in January next month. Freeze Fest is coming up on January 23rd and January 24th. 02:51:10.081 --> 02:51:13.886 - And that'll be at Switchyard this year. And then 02:51:14.018 --> 02:51:22.452 - We were alerted that the economic impact of each home football game is six to seven million dollars. 02:51:22.452 --> 02:51:31.470 - And then we talked a little bit about, I think, the ice arrest that happened recently. And as I understand, 02:51:31.470 --> 02:51:39.820 - the hearing for that will be tomorrow in Chicago. Yes. So that is still ongoing. There are there is 02:51:39.820 --> 02:51:42.910 - good legal counsel, as I understand. 02:51:43.682 --> 02:51:55.392 - and we're hoping for the best there. So that's, I'll leave it at that. Thank you, we appreciate that. 02:51:55.392 --> 02:52:06.298 - All right, Councilor Wilts. Yeah, cool. I have a couple of things that are just minor updates. 02:52:06.298 --> 02:52:12.382 - Let's see here. I am trying to find my minor updates 02:52:13.666 --> 02:52:25.030 - I'm messing everything up. There we go. The Waste Reduction District of Monroe County does a lot of 02:52:25.030 --> 02:52:36.508 - really cool things. And one of the things I learned as a member of their board is that we now have a 02:52:36.508 --> 02:52:43.326 - private entity offering curbside residential compost pickup 02:52:43.810 --> 02:52:53.135 - weekly to anyone residing within the city limits of Bloomington or in the northern half of Monroe County 02:52:53.135 --> 02:53:02.194 - for now. They are out of counties up north they've got a wide coverage area and the company's name is 02:53:02.194 --> 02:53:11.253 - Richland Farms so if that is something that interests you please go ahead and go to their website and 02:53:11.253 --> 02:53:13.118 - go to the compostery 02:53:13.250 --> 02:53:21.378 - section of the website. It is very reasonable in terms of the cost. I'll leave it at that and let you 02:53:21.378 --> 02:53:29.346 - all explore. It's Richland Farms. The other thing I wanted to say from the Waste Reduction District 02:53:29.346 --> 02:53:37.793 - is that we've lost a couple of members of the Citizens Advisory Committee to the Waste Reduction District 02:53:37.793 --> 02:53:42.654 - and it's a very, I would say it's a very impactful committee 02:53:43.042 --> 02:53:53.986 - of citizens and if you have any interest in waste reduction and recycling and composting and learning 02:53:53.986 --> 02:54:04.823 - more about how to reduce and reuse throughout the county, consider applying to the citizens advisory 02:54:04.823 --> 02:54:09.758 - committee and that application is super short 02:54:10.754 --> 02:54:21.929 - And it is on the wastereductiondistrict.com site is what it looks like. Monroe County Waste Reduction 02:54:21.929 --> 02:54:33.104 - District, wastereductiondistrict.com. And you can navigate to the CAC or Citizens Advisory Committee. 02:54:33.104 --> 02:54:38.910 - That I believe is all I had. Crazy. Let me see here. 02:54:39.490 --> 02:54:48.945 - Yeah, that's all I had. Thank you. Liza, my voice. I just want to start off and I want to thank our 02:54:48.945 --> 02:54:58.494 - highway workers who have been out clearing roads in a really early front end kind of winter before I 02:54:58.494 --> 02:55:02.654 - think we were prepared for it and some real 02:55:02.754 --> 02:55:08.447 - Arctic blasts. So thanks them. Thanks also to our friends in the city who do the same in the city and 02:55:08.447 --> 02:55:14.084 - over in the town of Elstville where I was cruising around in some of that. And you can see all these 02:55:14.084 --> 02:55:18.270 - folks out there doing that. They're away from their families, they're out. 02:55:18.530 --> 02:55:25.565 - questionably bad weather, as well as our law enforcement, who also stuff respond and other first responders. 02:55:25.565 --> 02:55:32.470 - And so thanks to all those heroes, they get the job done. I also will say this. I try to say this annually 02:55:32.470 --> 02:55:39.183 - to folks at home. I sometimes watch social media and I get a little nervous because sometimes we expect 02:55:39.183 --> 02:55:44.862 - miracles out of massive snow storms where temperatures are dropping. Please be patient. 02:55:44.994 --> 02:55:50.694 - be patient with those who work with you for you and where you have to go. And I know that's easy for 02:55:50.694 --> 02:55:56.450 - me to say now, but these things are what they are. And we've got a lot of folks trying to cover a lot 02:55:56.450 --> 02:56:02.149 - of ground quickly. I also want to point out that in this weather, as we've talked about for numerous 02:56:02.149 --> 02:56:04.350 - times in the last couple weeks, severe 02:56:04.450 --> 02:56:11.760 - winter hits a lot of different people, including those who find themselves unhoused and outside, which 02:56:11.760 --> 02:56:19.000 - we've talked about a great deal. I want to thank the churches who banded together for the Bloomington 02:56:19.000 --> 02:56:21.342 - Severe Winter Emergency Shelter. 02:56:21.442 --> 02:56:27.764 - that it's downtown, you've got First United, you've got First United Methodist, First Presbyterian, 02:56:27.764 --> 02:56:34.086 - kind of doing that rotation. I'm sure there's other entities that are also jumping in there as well 02:56:34.086 --> 02:56:40.534 - as our traditional, and I hate to use that word, traditional providers that make things happen. These 02:56:40.534 --> 02:56:46.983 - are volunteers that go overnight, that they get this done so that others will be okay. And so that we 02:56:46.983 --> 02:56:51.408 - try to make sense of how we do this. One thing is if you're out there 02:56:51.408 --> 02:56:58.064 - and you're thinking that you've got a little time and you want to help that effort, I'm sure they would 02:56:58.064 --> 02:57:04.656 - love either support in being a volunteer or supporting financially, because a lot of times these folks 02:57:04.656 --> 02:57:11.056 - are raising this money as they go and doing it with just volunteers and best wishes and good hopes. 02:57:11.056 --> 02:57:17.520 - To find out more about that, you could go to BSWERS, B-S-W-E-R-S dot wordpress dot com. And then the 02:57:17.520 --> 02:57:21.360 - last thing I'll just say in this season is the council is a 02:57:21.360 --> 02:57:28.965 - we are allegedly done for the year. I look at Councillor Crossley, no one's more excited than her. But 02:57:28.965 --> 02:57:36.718 - as we are allegedly done, this is the last time at this mic, and Councillor Feidl talked about a hearing 02:57:36.718 --> 02:57:44.250 - for a member of our community up in Chicago. And I, friends, I don't know what is precisely going on. 02:57:44.250 --> 02:57:49.566 - I cannot put my feet on it or hands on it, but the snatching of people, 02:57:50.146 --> 02:57:56.949 - the grabbing of people, the things that go bump in the night on public property and grab people. That's 02:57:56.949 --> 02:58:03.621 - creepy stuff. That reminds me of stuff I read in history books in Little Grandview Elementary, and it 02:58:03.621 --> 02:58:10.359 - wasn't in the United States. Now, we haven't been saints. And there's a lot of folks that know exactly 02:58:10.359 --> 02:58:15.134 - what I mean by that in a variety of ways. But is this who we want to be? 02:58:15.810 --> 02:58:23.646 - And so, in a season where some of our faiths talk about nativity scenes and people that wandered across 02:58:23.646 --> 02:58:31.331 - border to flee oppression and ruin and death, is this who we really want to be as a country? So, more 02:58:31.331 --> 02:58:35.550 - than any time, look out for your neighbor, but my gosh. 02:58:36.034 --> 02:58:42.644 - If you're not down with any of this, let's let our federal representatives know this because this is 02:58:42.644 --> 02:58:49.319 - the United States of America built by people from all over this world that make it stronger. And this 02:58:49.319 --> 02:58:55.863 - community is a place that literally was built stronger. There was no original townie other than our 02:58:55.863 --> 02:59:02.472 - first generations that were here. And so we only get stronger with more people. We only get stronger 02:59:02.472 --> 02:59:03.454 - by being kind. 02:59:03.618 --> 02:59:10.683 - And friends, we got to do better than this. And if you're mad about it like I am, then call somebody. 02:59:10.683 --> 02:59:17.886 - Erin Houchin is your congresswoman. Todd Young, Jim Banks, they're your U.S. senators. And you can find 02:59:17.886 --> 02:59:24.882 - any of their information online and otherwise. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that. Yes, Councilor 02:59:24.882 --> 02:59:28.414 - Iverson. I want to share four things today. First, 02:59:28.514 --> 02:59:36.591 - We've talked a lot about the cold. We've talked about being patient with folks plowing, where folks 02:59:36.591 --> 02:59:44.748 - can go and sleep. But I want to mention something fun. On January 1st, Pain Town will have its Polar 02:59:44.748 --> 02:59:52.906 - Plunge. I will be there yet again. Costumes are encouraged. It is a really, really fun time. You can 02:59:52.906 --> 02:59:58.398 - find more details on Facebook. Just look up Pain Town Polar Plunge. 02:59:58.722 --> 03:00:05.982 - Crack of Dawn on January 1st is a lot of fun. If Crack of Dawn on January 1st is not when you are at 03:00:05.982 --> 03:00:13.458 - your best. There is another opportunity, people of Monroe County. The Lemon Drop Polar Plunge will take 03:00:13.458 --> 03:00:21.149 - place on January the 10th at 10 a.m. on Lake Lemon. Again, costumes are encouraged. Or, you know, whatever 03:00:21.149 --> 03:00:25.534 - bathing suit you want to wear on January 10th at Lake Lemon. 03:00:25.826 --> 03:00:33.274 - Number two, SUDAC is going to meet tomorrow. We are really excited. The commission has approved a contract 03:00:33.274 --> 03:00:40.373 - for us to have the Opioid Summit next year. We're working hard on that as well as getting a treatment 03:00:40.373 --> 03:00:44.062 - list of recommendations put together for the county. 03:00:44.226 --> 03:00:53.102 - The health board will meet this week. And so I'll be attending that and see what they're up to. And 03:00:53.102 --> 03:01:02.600 - then in addition to the last thing I'll mention is thank you to President Crossley for her year of service 03:01:02.600 --> 03:01:04.286 - to this community. 03:01:05.314 --> 03:01:11.327 - It is a lot. And there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes. And so thank you for your dedication 03:01:11.327 --> 03:01:17.520 - and your courage. Thank you also to our staff. Thank you for everything all four of you have done this 03:01:17.520 --> 03:01:23.593 - year. This has not been an easy year. The packets just seem to get longer and longer. And people add 03:01:23.593 --> 03:01:29.786 - stuff at the very last minute that you have to add and all the minutes. So thank you. Thank you. Thank 03:01:29.786 --> 03:01:35.198 - you to each and every one of you. Happy holidays. And may you all have a joyous new year. 03:01:35.298 --> 03:01:42.179 - Thank you. All right. In virtual land, Councilor Henry. Thank you, Madam President. And I'd like to 03:01:42.179 --> 03:01:49.266 - thank my colleagues for a good first year here on council. There's been a lot and we've worked through 03:01:49.266 --> 03:01:56.354 - a lot. I appreciate when community leaders leave from their seats and they have agency and we all just 03:01:56.354 --> 03:02:03.166 - stay in our lanes, but we lead from the seats we have. And I think everyone's done that this year. 03:02:03.394 --> 03:02:09.575 - It's been a joy to work with all of you. I have one kind of update comment and then I'll finish on a 03:02:09.575 --> 03:02:15.940 - light note since I'm the last to talk. So the Convention and Visitors Center Board of which I've served 03:02:15.940 --> 03:02:22.428 - on as a liaison for the past year, we had our last meeting. The first thing we're gonna see on our docket 03:02:22.428 --> 03:02:28.670 - in January is a request to appropriate funds for the Visit Bloomington's relocation of that center to 03:02:28.866 --> 03:02:34.700 - downtown on 4th Street from our old 37 location. They're eager to get their architectural work going 03:02:34.700 --> 03:02:40.765 - to get the visitor center piece opened, which will complement the work on the convention center. There's 03:02:40.765 --> 03:02:46.598 - a lot of good news coming out of that board. One statistic that came out that really relates to Mary 03:02:46.598 --> 03:02:50.526 - Morgan's heading home presentation earlier is that we have over 880 03:02:51.298 --> 03:02:57.439 - Airbnb is in our community. By comparison to other counties in Indiana, only Indianapolis and South 03:02:57.439 --> 03:03:03.702 - Bend have more. Places like Fort Wayne have less because they regulate them there by a sample. And so 03:03:03.702 --> 03:03:10.088 - when we think about the housing choices in the community and the 880 units are set aside for short-term 03:03:10.088 --> 03:03:16.474 - or Airbnb rentals, especially in the city of Bloomington, there's another rock to look under into maybe 03:03:16.474 --> 03:03:21.264 - how we're creating some challenges for housing for what Mr. Greiner mentioned 03:03:21.264 --> 03:03:28.138 - with the BDC and attracting businesses here to house workers as opposed to those units being rentals. 03:03:28.138 --> 03:03:35.282 - And so while that is going on from an economic standpoint, those homes do generate in keepers tax revenue 03:03:35.282 --> 03:03:39.326 - too. So while we are also beneficiaries of it, but there's, 03:03:40.066 --> 03:03:45.695 - There are some challenges there with that many units in our community that are set aside for that Airbnb 03:03:45.695 --> 03:03:51.216 - use. I hope the city of Bloomington through their hand office really takes up some regulatory behavior 03:03:51.216 --> 03:03:56.792 - in the next year to really think through how much is too much on that. But on the last note, I am sorry 03:03:56.792 --> 03:04:02.206 - I'm not with you all. I'm in the state of Ohio next door where there's a really a lot of sad Buckeye 03:04:02.206 --> 03:04:08.478 - fans, especially as I'm wearing my IU hat all over the state. I will do so on my way back through Columbus tomorrow. 03:04:08.802 --> 03:04:17.093 - I'll just leave it on that. Go IU, et cetera. We'll see you on the flip side after the Rose Bowl. Thanks, 03:04:17.093 --> 03:04:25.385 - everybody. Thank you. And make sure you chant the O-H-N-O as you wear your hat. Appreciate it. All right. 03:04:25.385 --> 03:04:30.782 - Thank you. OK, so last but not least, again, as we are in the spirit 03:04:31.074 --> 03:04:39.742 - Hopefully we can continue to have the spirit of the holidays all year round. But because there's a lot of dark. 03:04:40.226 --> 03:04:47.233 - I don't know how many times right now. But I will choose to shift focus to light. And so I just want 03:04:47.233 --> 03:04:54.380 - to say to the auditor staff, I always call them the team, the table team. I appreciate that. Everybody 03:04:54.380 --> 03:05:01.387 - has gone through or is going through a whole lot of stuff this year. And you all continue to show up 03:05:01.387 --> 03:05:05.758 - as much as you have for us. And we definitely appreciate that. 03:05:06.018 --> 03:05:13.310 - see other teams around. And I think that we have a better team in the county. And I'm not just saying, 03:05:13.310 --> 03:05:20.531 - but I'm saying. So that being said, I just appreciate all of you all. I know sometimes we can kind of 03:05:20.531 --> 03:05:27.823 - irk each other and just kind of do all the things. But we still smile and we say thank you. To the two 03:05:27.823 --> 03:05:34.974 - newbies on council, y'all did a phenomenal job. Counselor Henry and Counselor Feidl for stepping in. 03:05:37.730 --> 03:05:44.990 - There was a lot this year and every month this year we can highlight at least 03:05:45.250 --> 03:05:53.240 - to at least one event where the next month was like, hold my beer, there's more to come. But we continue 03:05:53.240 --> 03:06:01.305 - to persevere and we'll continue to do so in 2026. To my colleagues here, all of you virtual and Councilor 03:06:01.305 --> 03:06:08.991 - Huck who aren't here, I continue to be very grateful for all of you. There have been moments where I 03:06:08.991 --> 03:06:15.230 - did not think that we would be banded together with certain votes and situations. 03:06:15.586 --> 03:06:23.674 - that we you're shocked me. And I really appreciated that. And I think that, you know, again, sometimes 03:06:23.674 --> 03:06:31.526 - some of us kind of maybe pushed us more than others into uncomfortable moments. But again, I think, 03:06:31.526 --> 03:06:39.379 - you know, we need that because I think that I don't think I've seen the level of scrutiny of county 03:06:39.379 --> 03:06:40.478 - council ever. 03:06:40.578 --> 03:06:47.194 - And I think that we are doing this all for the right reasons. It's not for vanity. It's not for fame. 03:06:47.194 --> 03:06:53.745 - It's not for any of that. But we really care about our community. And we appreciate that. And I just 03:06:53.745 --> 03:07:00.231 - appreciate my colleagues really coming together, especially last week after I think it was Kat said 03:07:00.231 --> 03:07:06.717 - it was a six hour and 27 minute meeting. So I appreciate that. I know our meetings are a little bit 03:07:06.717 --> 03:07:10.544 - longer. But at least we get through a lot of the business. 03:07:10.544 --> 03:07:17.644 - and don't let people sit through there and table them. So that being said, I just, again, appreciate 03:07:17.644 --> 03:07:24.884 - that. I appreciate everybody. Also, we got a very nice card from the Monroe County Humane Association. 03:07:24.884 --> 03:07:31.984 - I think that was one of our group's people that we funded through the Sophia Travis Grant Committee. 03:07:31.984 --> 03:07:35.358 - So we appreciate hearing or seeing that. Again, 03:07:36.546 --> 03:07:43.418 - The other thing that I wanted to say is there has been a lot of conversation and I want my colleagues 03:07:43.418 --> 03:07:50.291 - to pay attention to it close as we continue to go through the year with the CIB and the redevelopment 03:07:50.291 --> 03:07:57.230 - commission and the city and the conversations about there's been some talk from council members on the 03:07:57.230 --> 03:08:04.574 - city side about land swaps and I've been trying to pay close attention to that. I don't think any of us have 03:08:04.674 --> 03:08:12.078 - have been privy to the conversation. However, I think we should stay tuned and be very mindful of what 03:08:12.078 --> 03:08:19.338 - our council colleagues do on 401 North Morton Street. And maybe they'll talk about it tomorrow. They 03:08:19.338 --> 03:08:27.102 - have a meeting. Their last meeting tomorrow is at 630. So again, just appreciate everybody, all the things. 03:08:27.202 --> 03:08:37.456 - department head and council or, you know, employees of county government. We definitely appreciate that. 03:08:37.456 --> 03:08:45.854 - And without that being said, we are adjourned for 2025. See y'all in 2026. Thank you.