- I'm gonna go ahead and get started. Good evening, everybody. Welcome to Frozen Tundra Tuesday.
- It is Tuesday, January 27th, and we are calling to order our council meeting for tonight. We have present
- councilors Henry, Iverson, Deckard, Wilts, and Feidl.
- And we don't have counselor Hawk in person, but I do believe she might be joining virtually. So when
- she does join, we'll be sure to announce her arrival here, but we will go ahead and get started. So
- next up is the Pledge of Allegiance. So all those that are able to stand, please stand for the reciting
- of the Pledge of Allegiance. Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,
- into the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice
- for all. All right. Next up, we will have the adoption of
- our agenda. But before we get into our agenda, I do want to say for the public that's watching, it's
- nice and sunny right now. However, when the sun goes down and the roads still aren't the greatest right
- now, out of abundance of caution for those that will be in
- and for our staff that has to drive home. I just want to make sure everybody gets home safe and sound.
- So we are capping tonight's meeting at 8 p.m. I will ask my colleagues to help us move this train going.
- We got three hours to do our business and we will do so as fast and as meaningful as we can. So I just
- wanted to put that out there for everybody to know.
- We will go ahead and proceed with tonight's agenda. Okay, do we have any amendments for tonight's agenda?
- All right, and seeing none. Oh, yes, I do.
- The only thing that I was going to add is the clerk's items that we have here. I know we have some attendees
- from the clerk's office joining virtually, and some folks have to leave early. So I would like to bump
- up their items immediately following when our consent agenda items. So that is the only amendment that
- I'd like to make for tonight's item or agenda, which
- We are moving those after the consent agenda items those will be the new item 7.
- So because we don't have anybody attended virtually, all those that are in favor of or adopted in tonight's
- agenda as amended signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Okay. Motion carries. Thank
- you so much, colleagues, for that. Next up, we have item four, which is public comment. These are usually
- for items that are
- are not on tonight's agenda. So you can, if we have members of the public that are here, you can come
- forward to the lectern here in the NatU Hill Room. You can speak up to three minutes for items not on
- tonight's agenda, or if you are participating virtually, you can raise your hand via Teams. And looking
- out into the audience and seeing none.
- And then looking virtually, looks like we have somebody that is attended virtually. So you looks like
- this person's name is Skip Daly. So Skip, you should be able to unmute yourself, state your name for
- the record and you'll have up to three minutes to speak. Thank you. Skip Daly is my name. Madam President,
- honorable council members, thank you for your time.
- and while I wear a number of different hats within the community, tonight I come to you not as a member
- of the local media, not as a board member of a local commission, not as an insurance professional, but
- simply as a resident of Monroe County. I first became aware of this matter out of a social media post
- made by council member Hawke. I believe the matter is so grave that I decided to weigh in and additionally
- make a few phone calls and send a few
- emails on the matter. There are roads in the county that did not receive plowing services for reasons
- beyond the reasonable control of those living in those neighborhoods. For whatever reason, there are
- legal fights currently ongoing between the county and some developers for allegedly not complying with
- regulations regarding their neighborhood, and the roads remain off of the county maintenance inventory
- I'm not here to place blame on county departments, staff members or elected officials on how we got
- here. I'm not looking to spark discussion at this moment about the long-term solutions, as I trust those
- conversations need to either happen and or get expedited. My concern is the current immediate needs
- of our taxpaying and voting neighbors. I understand that you are the fiscal wing and not the legislators
- of the county, but I was directly told
- by the highway department that they are not able to use county funds for private roads. Meanwhile, police,
- fire and medical professionals cannot easily get to a potential destination. Residents cannot leave
- their homes and quality of life is significantly decreased during this emergency, sorry.
- I look to this council to use the clout of the office to facilitate an immediate solution. Plow them
- out. Find the money or the means to make it work today, tonight. Worry about the legal cases and the
- blame of the situation and the future long-term solutions next week, but plow them out now. Germanium
- Lane is the one particularly in question, but our residents don't,
- deserve to hand shovel 13 or 14 inches of snow from the road. Hearing the simple line that Monroe County
- cannot plow a private road is kicking the can during an emergency situation. Find a solution. Make the
- money available to get this taken care of. Be the answer tonight. And when the weather is more cooperative,
- help get to the bottom of this. But regardless of the circumstances that got us here, plow the roads.
- Thank you again for your time. Great. Thank you very much. Are there any other public commenters wishing
- to speak on items not on tonight's agenda that are attended virtually? You can again raise your hand
- via Teams.
- And seeing none, we will move on. Next up is department updates. And these are for items that are not
- on the agenda. And just the person I was hoping to come up here. Thank you. And department heads usually
- have up to 10 minutes to speak on items not on tonight's agenda. And we have the wonderful Miss Lisa
- Ridge here from the Highway Department. Welcome.
- Good evening. Good evening. I just wanted to provide an update after the snow event this past weekend.
- Our crew began at 5 p.m. on Saturday evening and we sent them home on Monday around 5 p.m.
- after 48 hours. We had approximately 45 employees working during this time from management to mechanics,
- equipment operators and truck drivers. We rotated crews consistently so that we could provide the rest
- of our crews but had assistance available 24-7 throughout this time.
- The average snowfall was 12 to 16 inches across the county. The crew will be plowing all week trying
- to widen the roadways with extreme cold temperatures. The melting will be a slow process. We will continue
- to haul in more materials and be ready for the next storm event. I personally think our crew did an
- excellent job with the snowfall that we experienced this past weekend. The cost of this event from Saturday
- to Monday for labor, equipment and materials was $297,800.
- $297,812.07. I also wanted to provide a little information about snow removal and private roads. Monroe
- County Highway Department receives their funding from the Motor Vehicle Highway Distribution. One of
- the factors that is part of this calculation is the road mileage of county maintained roads. When we
- officially accept county roads for future maintenance, it is sent to the state who then adds this to
- our funding.
- private roads do not bring any funding to the county highway department we are very restricted on what
- our funds can be used for but most importantly it must be on county maintained roads we have multiple
- subdivisions in this county that we are working long with the planning department that include issues
- of unfinished subdivisions and we would be happy to share this list with you or anyone else explain
- the issues that are outstanding
- who the developer is, if there's a bond on file, what it would take to bring this subdivision up to
- county standards, which the developer agreed to bring to standards when they started their project.
- It could be a whole subdivision or a phase of a subdivision. It could be unfinished roads, trees, sidewalks,
- ADA curb ramps, and it could be more reasons why the developer has not finished the subdivision or they
- just simply walked away.
- When a developer is approved for a subdivision within the county part of that agreement is that they
- will provide snow removal and all other maintenance until it is accepted by the county as you can see
- that doesn't happen. I have nothing but sympathy for the homeowners that are not aware that they might
- be buying a home on a private road. We are unable to maintain all these subdivisions with private roadways.
- If you take the snow plowing, which again we are not allowed to use our resources on private roads,
- this only makes it matters worse giving that developer more incentive just not to finish the improvement
- because the county has already stepped in. This has been an ongoing issue for the 38 years that I have
- been here. We do have some great developers in this county and this does not happen with all of them.
- But as you know, the saying goes, when there's one bad apple, then you have rules and you have regulations.
- I hope there can be a solution to this issue moving forward. It would make things a lot easier on homeowners
- and Monroe County. But I also want to add there's been about three or four subdivisions that planning
- department and highway have worked with where their developer has walked away. The homeowners developed
- their own HOA. They brought up
- They used what bond money was left and we accepted those roads when they were finished just as we said
- we would in the beginning So there are solutions, but we don't have the funds We don't have the resources
- to do this for the private roads and I do have sympathy for the people out there But that's who's paying
- the price, but the developers just get to walk away and never look back Thank you Thank you
- And first and foremost, we just want to say thank you to your staff. I think you said 45 employees working
- since Saturday night around the clock. OK.
- So that's a lot of people that are out doing a lot of work. And nothing is perfect. And we knew things
- were going to happen. But again, everything just happened so fast. So I just want to make sure that
- we can give grace. But understanding the job and task that you all have to do is not us that are out
- there. It's y'all. So we appreciate and I appreciate you all just
- like doing what you needed to do. And I appreciate you addressing that concern because I think something
- like this happened last year where a constituent reached out to me and I was asking about that. And
- so it's a shame that the developers take advantage of that and place the blame
- within county when they really should look at themselves and think about the HOAs and how they can figure
- out how to make that happen. So I appreciate that. And I do know that Skip had reached out to myself
- and I gave him the explanation also. I know our legal department has been involved with uranium. Myself,
- planning department, legal department, the developer, their attorney walked to the whole project last
- year, noted everything that was insufficient in that development.
- And the developer said he wasn't going to spend a dime in there. So now there's a litigation. We have
- tried providing the homeowners out there with private contractor names.
- We're currently working with Gentry East that has some private sections. I think we're close to having
- a solution with them to be able to stand up and take that section in that we promised if they made these
- improvements and they hired a contractor to get it done. We did the same thing in Emerald Trace.
- They used the bond money, got the work done. We accepted the roads as soon as it was completed. So we
- do anything that we can, but we just are not allowed to go in and use our resources to do private roads.
- Where do you stop? If we go do geranium, are we gonna go do the other 60 subdivisions that have private
- roads? We have development that's going on now. They're not being built to our county specifications.
- They're not having things inspected at the proper
- time but they're going to come to us and want us to take it in and we will say no but then it's the
- county's fault because we're not taking it in but it wasn't built to our specifications i don't know
- what the problem i don't know what the solution is but i still think it falls back on developers that
- do not keep their promise in the agreements that they agree to when they bring these subdivisions forward
- to the county and ask for permission to build them then build them right and build them to what you
- agreed to and don't leave these homeowners
- and on a private road with no help. Thank you. Real quickly, I'm going to see if anybody has anything
- for Ms. Ridge before we can get through our agenda. Yes, Council Member Wilts. I want to preface this
- with thank you for all that you do and all that your staff has been doing. And I know it's a monumental
- task, and I can't even imagine. I am wondering,
- about that short-term versus long-term solution that the public comment referred to. Because I too have
- had people call and then called your office and planning and tried to intervene, and it's a quagmire
- with some of these situations. At some point though, it becomes
- public safety concern, does it not? Not very often. This has gone on for years and I can only speak.
- If I lived on that road and I knew I didn't have this help and assistance, I would make sure I did have
- a private contractor and work with my neighbors while the county is going through litigation. I'm not
- blaming the neighbors. I'm not trying to put it onto them, but I know in talking with our legal department,
- we've provided
- And they have provided all the resources that they know to help these homeowners. I don't have an answer
- for the private roads. It's hard enough to take care of 700 miles of road. And again, I have sympathy
- for them. Would it be easy for me to just go drop a plow and plow that? And I wouldn't have had all
- the emails and the social media bashing. Absolutely. But I can't. It's not the right thing to do. It's
- not the proper thing to do.
- I'm not supposed to use our funding that way because then it takes away from the other areas that do
- receive, that we receive gasoline tax. And I know it's out there that I pay my property taxes and I
- should get the road, the plow. We don't get the property taxes. It's all based on the gasoline tax.
- So again, I have sympathy for all the neighbors. It's not just geranium. There's many roads out there
- that are private in these subdivisions that are suffering. I just don't know how you help them all.
- I don't have the answers. Okay. I'll take one more and then we got to keep moving. Yeah. Do you know
- how many subdivisions currently where the developers are not doing what they're supposed to be doing?
- I live in a neighborhood that is very similar to this and the developer actually is doing the plowing.
- So, and that didn't happen right away, but it's happening now. So how many actually are not doing the
- plowing? Do we know?
- So we have so I reached out to planning today to get an updated list and we have over 60 subdivisions
- on that list that we're currently working with that could be subdivisions that are 20 years old. That
- that I had a call today for one down a private road off herald road off plateau place developer walked
- from that one.
- I would say out of that 60, some of them are ongoing right now. But I would say some of those, the list
- I looked at before was probably 30 or 40 subdivisions with old issues of the developer not finishing
- the subdivision. OK. I didn't see council members Hawks. And for the record, she is joining virtually.
- So council member Hawks. And then after that, I will move on through the agenda. Oh, you're muted, council
- member Hawks.
- TSD, can we help unmute Council Member Haug? Okay. That looks like it is. We can hear you now, Council
- Member Haug. Okay, right. Okay. As Ms. Rich knows, people that have been contacting me and have been
- over the months and shall I say a few years. And so I wanted to make it clear
- This is not through the fault of the highway workers. They will plow whatever roads that they are directed
- to plow. But this does appear to be a situation where the developers just have dumped it in the county's
- lap. And I think this is a big situation. It's not gonna be fixed overnight. I think, however, we might
- just do as an emergency
- for those folks that are on that. I think it was on Geranium Lane where they have someone there that
- has hospital issues. But those are things, and I tried to make it clear, it's a county commissioner's
- decision. It's not the council's decision. And if they ask for an additional appropriation, it perhaps
- could be out of the Rene Day Fund for emergencies.
- But we can't do it forever until the developers step up and honor that bond or whatever they have signed
- to. Thank you. Yeah, I'll be quick, given the urgency. I know we're on a time crunch here, but I'm just
- wondering, I'm going to offer this out into the ether and hopefully someone with the commissioners staff
- hears this and I can follow up later.
- But I'm just wondering about this. I think it's unfair to dump on highway for doing their job following
- the law, which they do second to none. And they've done the job really well for the last 48 hours. I
- think what we have and counselor Henrik can speak to this better. I think we have an emergency management
- situation where people are on on a street that we've identified both publicly and in discussion. We've
- got folks kind of trapped on the street. And I wonder about
- the commissioners exploring with emergency management getting a contractor to get them in out of there
- one time this time and then whoever this developer is for this I don't know why we're not saying the
- name but maybe maybe we shouldn't say the name legal wherever they're at they'll know that but my god
- man or woman whoever you are get a plow in there
- Come on, be human, be a neighbor. In the meantime, we will have to be that person or someone should.
- So commissioners, as you're listening, I think this is just like if we had water up, we had boats out,
- we had something out. I think we've got to do it. Let's take this pressure off highway, which my God,
- they do their job well enough. They clearly were bound by the state on everything else. I think this
- is an emergency management process and let's do that.
- and stop putting Lisa Ridge through this when she follows the rules. And we have a developer that apparently
- did not. So that's my recommendation. Councilor. Because my name was evoked, I thought I'd chime in.
- Thank you, Councilor Deckard. I would just add some technical to this. And I agree that the commissioners
- need to get involved. We had a state of emergency in the county. I never saw it published anywhere.
- I understand that there was a state of emergency declared or not. That's not clear. That'd be nice to
- know Thursday, because that document is what lifts ordinances out of the way to go do emergency things.
- I've asked County Legal through Ms. Turner-King to take a look at some code that may allow for that,
- but that's well beyond Ms. Ridge's, it's not you.
- That's not you. It's a commissioner's decision about how we declare an emergency in the county and what
- resources we can and can't do. But I would say that I took a look at that. I want to honor the fact
- there are 60 subdivisions in the county that are suffering this. And I just want to raise for the public's
- awareness, that's a lot of neighborhoods. And that's why our schools remain closed, because
- those neighborhoods are not open. And the schools, it impacts other
- of government in our community. So I would join in the chorus to the commission to really evaluate what
- the state of emergency really does for our community and what resources it can open up. But I would
- agree. Okay. Thank you. We appreciate it. All right. Moving on. And for those who just joined here in
- the NETU Hill Room, I know we got a lengthy agenda here, but I did mention that due to
- the road conditions that could potentially get a little worse once the sun starts to officially set.
- I want to cap tonight's meeting at eight.
- that we can get through everything so I'm again asking council members here to help us get through this
- so we can get through everything and get y'all home is safe and sound. Next up consent agenda items.
- Council I move to approve the following four consent agenda items for January 27th. Number one the sheriff's
- request and fund 1000-0005 county general sheriff to create account line 30190 promotion and advertisement.
- Number two the health department
- request and fund 1159-0000 health fund to create account line 10189 public health nurse communicable
- diseases and simultaneously transfer eighty thousand six hundred and fifteen dollars
- from the services category to the personnel category. Number three, the health department's request
- and fund 8104-9626 public health emergency preparedness grant to transfer $4,902.86 from the services
- category to $4,687.47 into the supplies category and $215.39 into the services category for a total transfer.
- of four thousand nine hundred two dollars and eighty six cents and number four the highway department's
- request and fund eleven twelve dash zero five three zero economic development lit highway for a transfer
- of four hundred eighty nine thousand seven hundred forty three dollars from the supplies category to
- the services category All right. We got a motion and a second. Is there any questions or comments from council?
- Seeing none. If we have public comment on this item, you can come forward to the lecture here in the
- net you have room or you can raise your hand via teams. And seeing none, just like with everything that
- we have to do this evening, because we have council member hung attending virtually, may we please have
- a roll call vote. Councilor cross Lee. Yes. Councilor Iverson. Yes.
- Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hawk? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker?
- Yes. Motion passes 7-0 unanimous. Great. Thank you very much. Next up, because we amended the agenda,
- we bumped up the clerk's items to come next following the consent agenda items.
- Just for clarification, I'm going to start with what was item Y. Are we all on the same page? Yes.
- All right. Council, I move to approve the clerk's request and fund 1112-0000 economic development lit
- voter registration for an additional appropriation of $600 in the supplies category.
- All right, we got a motion and a second. And I see that we have Kylie that is joining us. And it looks
- like we also have Election Board member Penny Githens join in as well, too. So welcome. Hello. I have
- a statement from Clark Brown that she has prepared. Sorry.
- I'm Kylie Ferris, currently serving as the Election Supervisor for Monroe County. Thank you for allowing
- me to appear before you. I'm presenting on behalf of the Monroe County Clerk and the Chair of the Monroe
- County Election Board. As I relayed to you guys during the public comment section of the last meeting
- and during the item as well, the Clerk noticed after the budget has been finalized that the cuts were
- drastic and that we would then have to come back to ask for appropriations.
- per state statute indiana code three dash eleven dash ten dash twenty six early voting hours only have
- to occur during the regular voting hours of the county clerk's office for the twenty eight days prior
- to the election. The minority clerk clerk's office is open Monday through Friday eight a.m. to four p.m.
- mineral county voters are accustomed to early voting on Monday through Friday eight a.m. to six p.m.
- with the reduction and allowing composition hours for 60 from 60 to 40 and the elimination of overtime
- considerably there will be sufficient not Unsufficient manpower to accommodate the more than 10 early
- voting and election voter registration office for during early voting There is more to this I feel like
- it would be best to just pass this forward to you guys and
- Really, I just am here to answer any questions that you guys have. Just trying to get out how much that
- we are missing, where we need, and trying to make it to where we can get this push through as quickly
- as possible. Because we have an election board meeting next week. And right now, it's just kind of a
- bunch of back and forth trying to figure out how we're going to move forward for early voting and Election
- Day this spring in May. And just want to answer any questions you guys may have. OK.
- Thank you very much. I will open it up to council council member Iverson. Thank you for being here on
- such a snowy night. I'm going to refer to the questions I submitted earlier. So they shouldn't come
- as a surprise. But it appears that in the clerk's office supplies, there's still a lot of budgeted funds
- since we just passed the budget a month ago. So I'm still a little confused about with a brand new budget
- being passed.
- You're asking for $600, but there's can you kind of explain that a little bit more. I will say, on my
- behalf as election supervisor, my main priority is going to be poll workers.
- and the overtime for the staff in the office, seeing as last year alone, after doing some of the numbers
- myself personally, I had worked a little bit over 200 hours of overtime last year with the election.
- So just ensuring that those are in place in order for us to continue conducting business the way that
- we always have to be accessible to the voters in Monroe County. I'm sorry.
- I've been with kids all day long, so I'm in like second grade brain here. My understanding is this request
- is about office supplies, not about overtime or staffing lines. Is that correct? So I believe this first
- request, yes. But then moving forward, the other ones, no. Sure, right, right. OK, so. Again. There
- there's sufficient funds in this in this account. It seems like the
- this request could easily be used with the budget that we just passed a month ago. Okay. Okay. And she's
- not the elected. I know, I know, I know, I know. So I don't, I just want to make sure that we don't
- put you're on the hot seat just because by nature. Um, but I just want to, you know, you're, you're
- doing good because you're here. So we appreciate that.
- Yes, Councilor Henry. Thank you. Thank you for coming in. I guess my first question, Michelle, can we
- pull the budget for the clerk's office to see what those lines are? Or do you have the number for the
- supply line, what we budgeted? Of how much is in there currently? Yes, I can do that for you. And I
- guess that's really good, right? I mean, if this is an in-house transfer to handle it, that would get
- you through the primary. I presume there's $600 in there somewhere. Thanks for finding it to be absolutely sure.
- Michelle, was that it there? Yes. There has been appropriated for that particular line that's requesting
- the $600, $1,900, and there has not been anything spent out of it at this point. Does Farish think that
- could get you through the election primary? Yes. Okay. And then if you need more after the primary,
- you just come back.
- Any other questions? Okay. So because we don't have any other questions, I'll go to public comment.
- If there's public comment on this item, you can come forward to the lectern here in the Nat Yehiel room
- or raise your hand via Teams. And seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Iverson?
- No. Councilor Feidl?
- no counselor hawk no counselor wilts no counselor henry no counselor dekert no counselor crossley no
- motion passes or fails unanimously seven zero okay next item
- Council I move to approve the clerk's request and fund 1215 dash zero zero one zero election fund voter
- registration for an additional appropriation of four thousand six hundred twenty five dollars in the
- services category Okay, what would you like to add to this? Can I get a clarification that that line
- is not going to be connected to the customs line
- We don't know what you mean. So there's a line that's for the contractor that we use for the IT. I'm
- just trying to make sure that those two lines are not connected. For office supplies? No, this is another
- office supply. I guess I'm not understanding what you mean connected because you have an account line
- printing and subscriptions and you have an account line training and travel. OK. Sorry. Thank you.
- These two lines, the training and travel, there is going to be a IVRA conference that is going to be
- closer to home this year. We are looking at trying to get as many individuals to that conference as
- possible. In the past, we've only done one or two.
- With it being long distance, we wanna be able to try to get as many staff members there as possible
- since it will be so close. And then the other line was for printing and subscriptions. With the move
- to the new location, this is going to be a big situation with trying to get the word out to voters in
- Monroe County. With the looking at what we expended from this line last year and what we are expecting
- to be expending this year,
- We feel like it would be best to go ahead and get the appropriation for this line as the cost is going
- to be one more because it's another year. Prices are always going to increase, but also we're going
- to have to do more mailings due to the move. Yeah, Councilor Iverson. I have essentially the same questions
- that I had on the last item.
- We just passed this budget a month ago, and there's quite a bit of unexpended dollars in the services
- line. Most, the vast majority of this could be handled by what's already in there. We had lots
- of conversations about the budget, and we tried to budget pretty close to what folks needed. So again,
- we could pull the unexpended dollars in this line, but there's quite a bit in there. Yeah, I will say
- Clerk Brown, I think her main
- thought on trying to get in here as soon as possible is so that we're not having to come back in between
- elections or during an election. Yeah. The difference, and maybe the number has changed, based on what
- I had earlier was there's still $4,500 in unexpended dollars in this fund. So the difference is $125.
- I mean, it's being shown on the screen here.
- That could be an internal transfer. I don't think I can support this based upon what the unexpended
- dollars in this brand new budget is being shown on the screen. And just to explain what's on the screen,
- the printing and subscriptions account line was appropriated $4,000. Nothing has been expended at this
- time. Training and travel.
- was appropriated at $2,375. And there has been a claim for $321.44 for that. So that leaves a balance
- of $2,053.56 for the budget for that. OK. Does anybody else have any questions or comments for Ms. Ferris?
- Councilor Wilts. Thank you. So just to kind of follow along, the existing balance in the printing and
- subscriptions will cover through the primary what you think needs to be done in terms of letting folks
- know about the move.
- My consideration, yes, there should be. It might be coming close, but as we said, that we can transfer
- internally. And are you aware of, gosh, I sound like a lawyer. I don't mean to sound that way.
- You're fine. That sounded horrible. On the night of, no, there's been one
- I'm not sure if there's a claim on the training and travel. Do you happen to know what that is? Yeah.
- So the state conference for Indiana election administration was in December. So that would have came
- out of this year's budget. Oh, would it? OK. All right. Thank you. Yep. OK. Any other questions or comments
- on this item here? Yeah. So thank you. Thank you again.
- recently these additional requests? Did the board vote on these before they came? The final number the
- clerk and myself went through to see where we were short on certain lines and then we had decided how
- much to ask for in appropriations. The election board was informed of the
- The election board was informed of where we're in a deficit for the election next year. So they had
- also agreed that we should come back to the council to see about the appropriations and then move forward
- from there. All right. Oh, and I see looks like there is a hand raise. So I'll go to Councilor Hawke.
- And then it looks like an election board member
- rather, Penny Githens also has her hands up. So I'll go to her, I'll go to Councilor Hawk and then I'll
- go to Ms. Githens next. Yes, I would just since I heard the response was they wanted to make sure there
- was additional dollars so that more of the staff could go for the training. There's so much training
- that's available online that they can do if they have a good one coming up again tomorrow.
- And so I think all of the departments are going to have to take a look and make sure we're not spending
- more than what we really have, because we know we have to look at the budgets hard this year. Should
- do it every year. Thank you, Counselor Hawk. All right, Ms. Githins, if you can unmute and you can go ahead.
- Okay, while I was aware of the fact, serving on the election board, that Ms. Farris was gonna come this
- evening, the election board was not given precise numbers and we did not vote on these precise numbers
- that are being brought before you tonight. Okay, thank you. All right, and seeing no other,
- Um, questions or comments from council. I'll move forward with public comment. If there's public comment,
- you can come forward to the lectern here in the net you over. Um, you'll have up to three minutes or
- you can raise your hand via teams. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councillor Fiddle.
- No. Councillor Hawk. No.
- Councilor Wilts? No. Councilor Henry? No. Councilor Decker? No. Councilor Crossley? No. Councilor Iverson?
- No. Motion fails 707. Okay, next item. Council, I move to approve the clerk's request and fund 1215-0062
- Election Fund Election Board and additional appropriation of $221,106 in the
- for a total appropriation of two hundred forty two thousand seven hundred eighty one dollars.
- Second okay. Right so this is going to be where the poll workers are- for on election day and during
- early voting. These are the- lines that we will definitely. Be looking at.
- The primary, however the primary is ran, is how the general has to be ran. So if we have a set hours
- during the primary for early voting, those same hours have to apply to the general. This is where we
- are kind of coming to a tie and don't know how to proceed until we either have the dollars or we don't
- have the dollars. Right now there is a
- two different proportions where one will go to cutting early voting hours to eight to four instead of
- eight to six and then we will also be having to reduce the Saturday election day early voting hours
- as well to the minimum. That one I believe is seven hours minimum on the Saturdays. These are both things
- that we don't want to do but if
- the money's not there and that we know that it will be there for the general. We don't feel comfortable
- doing it one way in the primary and just hoping that we can have it the same in the general. This is
- also a situation with the number of polling locations. We had 29 polling locations this last election,
- 2024. Right now we are looking at reducing that to 22, but we were notified that one polling location
- will not be being a polling location. So that will have to reduce to 21 unless if there is a
- Location in Monroe County that would be open to being a polling location Thank you Any questions or
- comments from council on this item council Henry? Thank you, Michelle I don't know if you could pull
- up or find the excel sheet where we did the comp during the budget cycle where we compared the 2024
- verse what we budgeted because that's really the crux of this I appreciate you coming in on this because
- I think this was one space during the budget cycle where
- You know, I think from my seat anyway, we looked at a series of budget numbers. And what we didn't account
- for was the adjustment in pay to poll workers between the primary and the general election by the board
- of commissioners, right? So the number that we ended up approving in our budget was a percentage up
- from the primary and not really accounting for that difference, the pay bump. Now, I know that sounds
- plaid in the room, but I guess I'm trying to figure this out
- Maybe a few absentee lines here so absentee worker a you have requested for sixty eight thousand eight
- eighty which is. How did you guys how did you drive this number like why that number so by all of this
- we had taken every day of early voting and we had divided each of those in half for the primary and
- the general.
- If we do the full eight to six every day, like we have in the past, there's always two shifts. So it's
- a customating the number of poll workers at each of those locations. Well, on each of those days of
- early voting and then multiplying that by how much they would be making each day. There's an estimate
- for regular early voting hours and your short sixty eight thousand eight eighty, according to what the
- commissioners agreed to pay those. Correct. There's no additional
- percentage increase in pay? No, and I've actually even reduced the number of poll workers already for
- the numbers that we gave you this year. So we had taken back quite a bit during early voting during
- the 2024 general. The first two weeks, we had a smaller number of workers. The second two weeks, we
- had a higher number of workers. From those numbers, I have reduced even more for this next election.
- Thanks. In October, as soon as we took that vote,
- You were all very gracious to have me over to do an Excel sheet comparison of what happened during the
- budget. At that point I thought we would have saw this request much earlier than where we are now. My
- next two questions have to do with B and C because what I and I know this isn't I'm looking at an Excel
- sheet that the public doesn't have here but it was a document shared by the clerk's office.
- Absentee B, the regular EV hour difference that I thought we had in
- October was 32,400 here. The request is 41,300 in what you have in the packet tonight. Do we know why
- the change? Because the 6880 matches what I heard in October. This doesn't. This is off by almost 9,000.
- Yeah, so I believe that there might have been rounding up after it had left from the numbers that I
- had given.
- So similarly, absentee C, the regular EV hour difference was about 24,432. Your absentee C request tonight
- is 49,416. So while the absentee A seems to be close to what these other two, they're off by a bit.
- Let me ask this. Do these numbers reflect a 29 poll location? Or these are early voting, right? Early
- voting is the ABS. OK.
- But does it reflect a full hour, like the usual hours? 8 to 6, yes. So this would be 8 to 6.
- But even still, the B and C lines seem to be larger than what even in October we had talked about. Correct.
- So B, when we had gone through, we had noticed that the requested amount during the budget season was
- lower than what it should have been. I then added in who is supposed to be paid out of that line and
- realized that those were not
- in the correct line. I guess maybe Michelle, thank you for throwing that up quickly. What is the current
- appropriation for these? Because ultimately, you all can come back and ask for additional appropriations
- between the primary and the general once we've locked in those poll locations. We have to do it the
- same. So whatever, and then there's ample in the fund, right? So what was the appropriate for these
- account lines? This column right here, whoop, daggummit, sorry.
- That's why we're not getting, I'm kidding. This column right here, which is in, was what was approved
- for. And then here's the 2024. Here's 2025, 2024, and 2023.
- What's the difference? It all depends on what I can make them bigger, but what specifically do you want
- to look at? Do you want to see the personnel part right at this moment? Okay. Absentee B particularly,
- right? Where we have... Yeah, absentee B is the one that even I was questioning why the original number
- was what it was.
- If we needed more time with this, what does that do to the timeline for the election board to approve
- polling location? We should have approved polling locations and early voting hours at the January meeting.
- So we are currently a month behind. You're pursuing 22, not 29 right now. They would prefer 29. That
- contingent on this vote tonight, because these two line items are a little messy.
- Okay, the only other thing that I'll say to this is, I know we have been, it's been said in some of
- the, and this is not to you at all Ms. Barrett, so I just want to make it abundantly clear.
- And watching some of the election board meetings, it's been a little dismay at the fact that it almost
- feels like it's the county council's fault if we don't do certain things. But we have said during last
- year's budget purgatory is what I like to call it, because it was a lot, that you all could come back
- for additional appropriations as needed. And so I just saw some of the
- messages out there via social media. And it was definitely said that if council doesn't do this, then
- we might have to drastically cut back. And I don't want any, for a second, anybody to think that we
- are trying to dismay or reduce things here. We just got a fiscal job, and we have to do it. And we're
- trying to hold our ground and stay to that.
- However, my council members think of how we should proceed here. I just want to make it explicitly clear
- that we have expressed that should the clerk need anything else ahead of time, we can get on the agenda.
- People could attend virtually or can also attend here for additional appropriations as we proceed. But
- I just wanted to note that for the record here. Yes, Councilor Decker.
- Thank you very much. This is the line item area that I kind of get the most keyed up on watching because
- I think it's the one not to diminish anything else, but I think it's where the fruit is on what actually
- happens or what doesn't happen. And as we were looking at these lines, I was talking to Councilor Wilts,
- these very definitions of absentee workers, A workers, B workers, C. I remember, I think when you started
- here, we had that whole curve.
- That was fun. I remember there was a little bit of smiling and frowning and crying all the same time.
- But one thing I just want to say on that is I recall on that we were mid flight, not ideal, but adjusting
- things as we went and
- We had a lot of absentee workers that came in here at one point, because you all were literally in season
- of doing that. Yeah, I had poll workers on the verge of walking out during that time. I think I went
- in there to do something and they called me everything but Trenton Deckard. But the reason I bring this
- up is I do think this is one to watch particularly hard, particularly as we go forward with planning.
- But to me, because of our
- our current predicament and situation I want the early voting to be the early voting that is the will
- of the public I mean we've heard from at least one party chair I suspect we'll hear from the other on
- it because it's a bipartisan election board but my preference would be that we keep as a council pretty
- limber about coming back here to say
- here's what early voting costs looks like, and here's where we need to add in with the hopes that we
- do achieve some savings over time, but we don't defund the entire election, because I think there's
- a bipartisan support for what happens in there. I mean, it's clear with those workers. But we are at
- the issue that it is January versus
- the May where we're trying to figure out those classifications. So I would actually offer to council
- that this be held here as an item to come back to as we start to look at that. I'd almost say it's a
- motion to keep it indefinitely so that they know that door comes in because we're not that, I don't
- think we're that hard to come back in and ask for additionals here. I just want to say that
- in order because it is additional appropriations, you have to table it to a specific date and time.
- So you can't do it indefinitely. But could you table it to multiple dates and times so that you preserve
- the option? No, you can only do one date. We get to that date, you can table it forward. And we've done
- that in the past with some other departments where we've gotten here, we weren't quite ready yet, and
- we just moved it.
- And we just move it. So you could set a date for in the future. We get to that date. If we still don't
- know what's going on, you table it again forward. Okay. So we have to do that because of DLGF. We have
- to assign it a certain meeting date. So yes, counselor.
- In that instance then, I do move to table this item to the February 10th meeting, which is our very
- next meeting. Second. Okay, we got a motion and a second to table to February 10th. Are there any additional
- questions or comments from council related to this? Okay, yes. I'll be very brief. So for February 10th,
- like I think the way to move this forward would be I need the change that
- that gets us whole to the 2024 cycle on these positions, right? So whatever was changed, because I think
- what we're discovering on the fly here is the numbers aren't, I mean, one of them looks right to adults.
- And so it really is coming in and saying, here's the difference. This is what needs to be done to get
- us to what we think we need. Does that make sense? I think when we tidy that up, a lot of this moves
- quickly. That's it.
- Councilor Iverson. And the other benefit to this is that we can all be watching and participating on
- the election board meeting on January the 8th, which happens two days prior to this coming back to Council.
- February. That's what I said. Okay. This is about the issue as a whole. Would you like me to wait till
- after we decide to table? Because if we table it, I wasn't sure if I was still able to ask. Well, because if we
- motion to table it. That's it. Like if it goes through, then there's really nothing else that needs
- to be said. So do you want to just. OK. OK. All right. Anybody else that has any questions or comments
- related to this? All right. If there is public comment on this item, you can come forward to lectern
- here in the night. You know, remember, raise your hand via teams. Sound like a commercial.
- all right and that being said michelle can we please have a roll call vote what's the motion the motion
- is to table this item um to february 10th okay on the motion to table counselor hawk yes counselor wilts
- yes counselor henry yes counselor dekert yes
- Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Okay,
- thank you. And so looks like that is all the business. All right, thank you Ms. Ferris for coming in
- tonight. All right, next up we will jump back into our regularly scheduled program with the agenda.
- And we're going right back to item number 7A for those of you keeping track at home.
- Council I move to open for discussion and possible approval of the prosecutor's request to be exempt
- from the hiring freeze and to be allowed to hire and fund one thousand dash zero six six zero county
- general child support the case child support caseworker position and in fund one thousand dash zero
- zero zero nine county general prosecutor the leg legal secretary position.
- All right, we got a motion and a second and I see that we have our prosecutor joining us virtually.
- So please, you should be able to unmute and go ahead.
- TSD, does she have, or can somebody help her unmute? Oh. All right, I think I got it. Yes, we just took
- a second. Apologies. All right, I'll try to go quickly. We must post and fill our case manager position
- as soon as possible. This position will be vacant Monday, February 2nd.
- The current person in the position is retiring this week after many years in county service. So it's
- a happy occasion. This position is responsible for gathering and providing information from custodial
- and non-custodial parents for establishing paternity and child support orders to ensure children receive
- necessary financial and medical support. They monitor compliance in cases where such orders have already
- been established.
- They prepare rearages when non-custodial parents have not paid as ordered. This specific position carries
- a caseload of 507 cases. The child support program in my office is responsible for establishing paternity
- in cases where that has not been done, locating absent parents, establishing child support
- orders, particularly where a child and custodial parent are on TANF, which is temporary assistance for
- needy families,
- or Medicaid benefits. And then enforcing child support orders if they're not paid, and we can use things
- like wage garnishment, suspension of professional or driver's licenses, and tax intercepts as required
- by law. Our child support program did receive the 2019 Haynes Turner World Award from the Community
- Justice Mediation for its efforts to right-size child support orders and work with noncustodial parents
- to overcome barriers
- through things like treatment and educational efforts. Custodial parents, non-custodial parents, and
- legal guardians can all apply for child support services through the prosecutor's office, regardless
- of their income level. But the case manager position is an important part of the team, routinely monitoring
- cases, entering and processing payment information to ensure timely receipt of payments, and identifying
- non-compliance issues early.
- The case manager is responsible for a lot of communications with custodial and non-custodial parents
- regarding payment of child support. This program has a direct and immediate impact on children in our
- community, particularly those who are in need of TANF and other benefits. Without effective case management,
- delays in payments may be exacerbated. I would note that the salary benefits are reimbursed by approximately
- two-thirds for this position,
- under Title IV-D due to our mandatory enforcement for those receiving those federal TAMF benefits. So
- at this time I'd entertain any questions that the council may have. Okay, thank you. All right, looking
- to council here either at the dais or virtually to see if anybody has any questions on this item. I do.
- Okay, Councilor Hawke, go ahead. Right, I was trying to see the agenda on split screen. Are we speaking
- right now just as the child support caseworker? Or I think I heard the motion read that it would also
- be for the legal secretary. So I would like to say. I thought we were just doing the case manager, but
- I do have notes on the legal secretary.
- Am I mistaken about where? Yeah, the motion was read for both to be heard at the same time. I'd like
- to split the question, please. OK. OK. Sue and Council Hawk, you want to just divide the questions regarding
- the child support casework and legal secretary to clarify, right? Right, that's correct. OK, so we need
- a second. OK, OK.
- We got a motion and a second to divide the question there. Any discussion with council related to divide
- in this question? All right. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Iverson?
- Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hawk?
- Yes. Is this the vote to support the first part of the question or just the vote to support? This is
- the vote to split. Okay, yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor
- Crossley? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Okay. So first up,
- It is the child support caseworker. So, Councilor Hawke, did you have questions about the caseworker?
- Not at all. I think we need to support that. Okay. Okay. All right. Councilor, I appreciate it. And
- I think the fact that this receives that reimbursement, approximately two thirds via the federal 4D
- program, I think that's really helpful in this case as well. I'm looking to my left here to see if anybody
- has any questions.
- And seeing none, I'll go to a public comment. If you have public comment on this particular item, which
- is the child support caseworker, you can raise your hand via Teams or you can come forward to the lectern
- here in the Nattie Hill room. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Feidl?
- Yes. Councilor Hogg? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry?
- Yes. Councillor Deckard. Yes. Councillor Crossley. Yes. Councillor Iverson. Yes. Motion passes unanimous.
- Okay. Next up is the item for legal secretary. Councillor Hong, did you have a question about this one?
- I just think that we're going that's not supported with that reimbursement, correct?
- That's right. May I read? Sorry, I didn't read my comments on that. May I please do that? Yes, go ahead.
- Okay. It's imperative that we be able to post and fill the position of legal secretary as soon as possible.
- This position will also be vacant effective Monday, February 2nd. The person who was in this position
- love to stay with our office but was offered and recruited a position in Greene County which is closer
- to home and pays significantly more with fewer duties and responsibilities. One of the primary
- responsibilities for the legal secretary position is discovery compliance for four assigned
- deputy prosecutors in my office.
- The current caseload is 1,143 cases. This is the highest caseload due to the specialized Circuit Court
- II caseloads. So pursuant to Indiana rule of criminal procedure 2.5, we are required to provide discovery
- to the defense in all criminal cases 30 days from the date of initial hearing. So when we initially
- file a criminal case, the legal secretary receives the initial batch of police reports
- attaches them in our case management system, which is web-based, builds files, and runs the calendars
- of initial hearings to ensure that these cases are ready for court. After the initial hearings, the
- legal secretary must read through those police reports to identify what additional items of evidence
- or information need to be requested from law enforcement agencies or other departments. This can include
- body-worn camera videos, 911 calls, photographs, surveillance videos, forensic interviews from Susie's place,
- medical records, laboratory results, autopsy reports, certified copies of records or other items referenced
- in the initial police reports. These items are requested and then as they are received, they are attached
- with our case management system and then a copy is provided to the defense. Discovery is an ongoing
- obligation. Any new information that we receive on criminal cases must be timely shared with the defense.
- This particular position includes sex crimes,
- violence offenses. This means that there are some extra obligations such as filing protective orders
- to prevent copying of sensitive digital evidence, notifying events of child sex abuse material that
- cannot be legally copied and shared but must be available for inspection by defense counsel, redacting
- medical records, preparing no contact orders, and other measures to protect victims and witnesses in
- these sensitive case cases.
- During the pendency of the case, the legal secretary is also responsible for drafting and filing certain
- motions and other documents, issuing subpoenas for various hearings and trials to witnesses, and otherwise
- assisting deputies with case processing. Until we can fulfill this position, the other legal secretaries,
- who also have very full caseloads, must absorb the slack. And this is the recipe for getting behind
- on discovery
- or making mistakes that could compromise sensitive information. So what happens if we don't meet our
- discovery deadlines because the legal secretaries can't keep up? Well, there are very severe consequences.
- If we can't get the case to trial due to the state's late discovery, it could mean that a serious violent
- offender is released from jail.
- Or it could also mean that if it's been a year since the initial hearing, the case could be dismissed
- with prejudice pursuant to criminal rule four and never be heard on the merits. A less punitive but
- still very serious sanction is that the court could order a late-discovered piece of evidence excluded
- from trial, which could jeopardize our chances of a successful prosecution. I would also just add it
- puts us attorneys at risk. Pursuant to Indiana rule of professional conduct 5.3, for us attorneys,
- Our law licenses are on the line if our non-lawyer assistants cannot meet legal requirements
- and expectations. So we must have sufficient support staff to meet our legal obligations. And that's
- challenging to do when we're fully staffed, but it's going to be impossible if we have missing positions.
- So if you have any questions about the legal secretary position, I'd be happy to answer those for you.
- Okay. Anybody have any questions or
- comments on this item. Yes, Councilor Anderson. Thank you, Madam Prosecutor, for being with us today.
- I hope that you're staying warm and safe where you're at. I cannot find the org chart for whatever reason
- for your department. Again, I've been with kids all day long, so I've got a second grader's brain right
- now. How many legal secretaries are in the department?
- Let me think about it. We have two who do intake functions, and then we have one who acts as a receptionist,
- and then we have five who do these discovery compliances and ongoing case maintenance that I've just
- described. Okay, thank you so much. Looks like maybe, oh, okay. All right. Does anybody else have any
- questions or comments on this item?
- And seeing none, I'll take public comment on this item. If you have public comment on this item, you
- can come forward to the lectern here and then at you. However, my raise your hand via teams. And seeing
- none, may we please have a roll call vote. Councillor Hawk. No.
- Councilor Wilts. Yes. Councilor Henry. Councilor Decker. Yes. Councilor Crossley. Yes. Councilor Iverson.
- Yes. Councilor Fein. Yes. Motion passes majority six to one.
- thank you all right next thank you is you're welcome um item b from the highway department council i
- move to open for discussion possible approval of the highway department's request to be exempt from
- the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire and fund 1176-0000 motor vehicle highway the mechanic position
- so yeah i'm just here to see if we can uh
- fill a vacant position, second mechanic position. And this is also funded out of the motor vehicle highway.
- So it's not out of the county general or doesn't affect the county general fund. We have one master
- mechanic and then we have two open mechanic positions. You had already approved us filling that position.
- So I'm asking to fill the second one. Thank you. Does anybody have any questions or comments on this
- item for Ms. Ridge?
- Councilor Wilks. Is this position currently vacant? It will become this Friday. This Friday. Okay.
- Thank you. Anybody else? All right. Seeing none, we'll take public comment. You can come forward here
- to the lectern in the room, or you can raise your hand via TAMES. And seeing none, maybe please have
- a roll call vote. Councilor Feidl? Yes.
- Yes. Councilor Wilts. Yes. Councilor Henry. Yes. Councilor Deckard. Yes. Councilor Crossley. Yes. Councilor
- Iverson. Yes. Motion passes unanimous 7-0. Thank you. All right. Next up is our ongoing business items
- and we'll start with A.
- Council, as a reminder, this item was tabled from the January 13th council meeting. I move to open a
- discussion regarding law clerks. Second. Okay, we got a motion and a second. And I see that we have
- Judge Decoff in our room here and she will be present at the table here momentarily. Welcome. Good evening.
- I'm primarily here because
- From the January 13th meeting, which I was not present for, but I watched, Councilmember Henry asked
- that I attend. I want to start off by saying that at no time on the 13th did I, and I take responsibility
- for this. This is not my colleagues. This is not any other judge. This was not me as presiding judge.
- What happened was we had two law clerks that we put in to get paid.
- And all of the years that I've been on the bench, law clerks were never considered employees. We were
- told that we needed to submit as employees. I called the county attorney. The county attorney told me
- that she would submit a resolution to the council with the law clerks in them so those two could get
- paid as we had done in the past. We had done this during hiring freezes. They have never been affected.
- So this is on me. It never occurred to me that there was going to be any kind of discussion or debate.
- I apologize to you for the time that you took. Had I been here, had I known that was going to happen,
- I would have been here to answer your questions. I would have so answered your questions, because I
- did not think that this was going to be an issue. And it was, and council member, council
- Councilmember Henry said during that meeting that times are different. I get that. We would have appeared
- before you. We would have asked for them like you wanted us to. It just did not occur to me. In an attempt
- to answer a couple of those questions now,
- We do use unpaid law clerks. We prefer law clerks that are getting credit from the law school. We prefer
- that. We get law clerks either because I teach there as an adjunct. Judge Stafford teaches there as
- an adjunct. We know of people. Judge Bradley has contacts. Judge Salzman. And so if somebody wants to
- be a law clerk, it's invaluable experience for them. And it's invaluable to us.
- They do the things we don't really have time to do. They do extensive research. They come to court.
- They take notes. We can consult with them. They're invaluable. And in answer to a question that was
- asked during the 13th, if we didn't have clerks who did this who did, it would be us. So that is what
- law clerks do. In 2025, we had 18 law clerks, three we paid for. The other 15 were
- getting it through credit. The one that I have this semester and the one that Judge Salzman has with
- me is because she began a project that is ongoing and so I wanted her to finish that project and she
- could no longer get credit from the law school. Judge Salzman's law clerk is in the same position. She
- had her doing some things and she wanted her to continue.
- We pay them $14 an hour. We do not let them work more than 10 hours a week and most of the time if they
- work 10 hours a week I would be surprised. We have never considered them our staff. We have never considered
- them anything but quite helpful to us. We get their assistance and they get expertise. So that's what
- law clerks are about.
- I told Councilmember Wilt and I told Councilmember Feidl that I'm embarrassed that that even happened.
- In fact, one of my colleagues was like, oh my God, that was so embarrassing. Like what? And I'm like,
- yes, I know. This is on me. I believed it was going to be what it had been before. And then you all
- had to take the time to address this.
- I so apologize. That's never what I thought. I know Council Member Hawke called me egregious. We certainly
- did not mean to be egregious. I didn't mean to ignore our liaisons. I just didn't think it was going
- to be an issue for the liaisons. If I thought it was going to be an issue at all, I would have been
- here. And we certainly would have asked the way we were supposed to ask. So to assure everybody, I'm
- not here to ask for anything tonight. You approved the two we had. Thank you very much. We are not asking
- for any more during the semester. We don't need any more during the semester.
- They are semester positions or summer positions, because that's the way that the law school operates.
- And we know that. We know that we'll have a law clerk typically for a semester. Could we all use one?
- Yes, but what we do is share.
- My law clerk is available to the other judges as is Judge Salzman's and there are other judges this
- semester who have clerks who are doing it for credit and we share them. Somebody else said I have this,
- I need this and we say there's a clerk available. We would like them to get as much experience as possible.
- So that's how they're utilized.
- We certainly, I certainly meant no disrespect to you at all or to circumvent your process or to think
- that we're the third branch of government and we can do what we want. That was never ever that, never
- did I have that intention. It was simply that this had never been an issue and I did not think it was
- gonna be an issue. So I appreciate the two you gave us and in the future if you, if we need law clerks
- we will certainly come to you and
- put forth the argument as to why we do need them, but I just wanted to explain to you that's how we've
- always done this and how we've seen it. So you asked me to be here to answer your questions, and I'm
- pleased to be here to answer your questions because I didn't really feel bad about the hour you spent
- debating this on the 13th because, oh my gosh.
- Trust me, I know how valuable time is and I know how valuable time is arguing about something that somebody
- could have just taken care of. So yes, so whatever you need. Here I am. Well, we appreciate that Judge
- DeKoff and I mean, I'll speak for myself. I've never been in this position before where we've had something
- like this that has happened. So I don't think I would say for me personally, I don't think you all took
- that as or, you know,
- staying in our lane and doing whatever we want here. That's not how I think that is. So I appreciate
- you giving that explanation to us and providing clarification. Maybe we did need to have that conversation
- so that this conversation that we all know. So out of, it was an hour long conversation, there came
- a lot of knowledge and you just clarified a bunch of stuff, at least for me. So I appreciate that. So
- thank you very much.
- I see my hand wave, but I'm gonna look over here first, see if anybody had any questions. Councilor
- Wilson, then I'll circle back over here. I just want to say that Councilor Feidl and I worked together
- to kind of send an update email to the judge explaining the nature of the discussion and the outcome.
- And I want to thank you for, you know, we tried to have a meeting, you know, our schedules didn't work.
- But Judge DeKoff responded quickly and explained how we got to where we were. And I certainly don't
- think it sounds like it was anything other than a rushed agenda item that wasn't thought through. And
- that's not on you. I think it was kind of a multi-step issue.
- I don't have any questions for you. You answered all of my questions in the email, and I very much appreciate
- that. And I apologize for the feelings of embarrassment. Thank you for coming in and answering the questions.
- I know my name was brought up there. There was an hour of sausage making. I didn't get a sandwich out
- of it at the end. Sorry, we went through that with everybody. But I guess my question is this, though.
- You mentioned summer interns.
- So if there's some thought to hiring summer interns under this new idea that we really do need to understand
- how the dollars are being spent in the hiring freeze. Do you anticipate those? What's the advertising
- for those? What's the timeline? When do you start collecting summer interns? Because it sounds like
- we might be there again in a few months. We would typically start knowing interest of law clerks or
- whether we needed to try to find a law clerk that would
- need to be paid sometime I would say towards after about the middle of the semester so sometime Aprilish
- where we're going to start knowing that but again our preference is going to be for them getting credit
- other than our paying them. So we have paid a few through the years but
- typically we're going to get interest from students who say I want to stay in Bloomington for the summer.
- I can get some summer credit. Are you interested in law clerks, et cetera. So right now I can't tell
- you definitively that there wouldn't be somebody that would ask would want to have a law position that
- isn't in the position for credit that for some reason we would want.
- A lot of times we may have one law clerk during the summer because somebody is doing it for credit,
- but typically I would say it's the semesters and usually those students are doing it for credit.
- Thank you. Thank you, Your Honor, for bringing that to us. I think to Councilor Wilts's point, it was
- an agenda item that was presented with not a lot of context, and so we've definitely scrambled in public
- on those. Thank you for that. I appreciate it. Thank you.
- Yes, I thank you, Judge, for coming and discussing this with us. I think it's a learning curve for all
- of us. This is really going to be a tough year and we'll all have to do things differently than what
- we would like. But I thank you for coming and showing respect to the Council of Justice. We need to
- show respect to the courts.
- and so to that end I'm I'm glad to see you here and we'll work this out because I mean I do want to
- make clear um and the 13th I kept hearing do they not know there's a hiring freeze like what is wrong
- with them there's a hiring freeze yes we are aware there's a hiring freeze we're respecting the hiring
- free hiring freeze again we I did not and the county attorney said we're going to do the resolution
- like we've done I'm like okay um and so again yes we we are aware and
- It's important that we communicate and we understand each other because in 2027, for the first time
- since I've been part of this system, we are going to lose a court. And the thing about losing that court
- is, right now, currently in that court, there are over 4,000 cases. Those 4,000 cases have to be now
- dealt with without a court. So we are going to have to also
- In our arena, we have a meeting set up in April to start looking at what we are going to do and how
- we are going to take care of. Those are 4,000 right now at the beginning of 26. So we are going to also
- have to experience some things that we have never experienced before. And I definitely did not want
- to do anything that was going to impact the relationship that we have with the council. So again, I just
- I appreciated being asked to come and appreciate the opportunity to explain to you from my position
- what happened. So again, I apologize for your time and I apologize for misunderstanding. So I hope I've
- answered your questions. Yes, Councillor Faito. I just want to thank you for coming here myself.
- Thank you. Thank you. Okay. All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you.
- And I think we can all learn from all that communication goes a long way with everybody. So we appreciate
- that. All right. Next up is item B. But I will have Councilor Iverson discuss that first before we move
- into the next. Council, based on what we just heard from the presiding judge, I move to table this item
- indefinitely. Second. OK. There is a motion and a second.
- Um, not yet. Um, yeah, no, it's okay. Um, and that is because if you recall a couple of weeks ago, the
- conversation, um, was brought up because it had something to do with the law clerks. But since we all
- got our answers there, there's nothing that needs to be said. Um, or as Forrest Gump said, that's all
- I have to say about that. So, um, that being said, we can all laugh. It's okay. All right. So that's it folks.
- All right. All right. So no other further questions or comments. There is a motion and a second. If
- there is any public comment on this item, you can come forward to the lectern here, the NETE Hill Room,
- or raise your hand via Teams. And seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote to table this item
- indefinitely. Councilor Wilts.
- I know what you're confused. Look, yes. Yeah. Councillor Henry. Councillor Deckard. Yes. Councillor
- Crossley. Yes. Councillor Iverson. Yes. Councillor Fiddle. Yes. Councillor Hawk. Yes. Motion passes
- unanimous. Thank you. And again, that was to
- the item regarding the law clerks. So next up is item number nine. Council, I move to approve the courts.
- Yep, sorry. Council, I move to approve the prosecutor's request and fund nine. You're up there. Sorry.
- Prosecutor is B and item is
- Item A is courts. Yes. So you, Ms. Hamlin, will come directly after courts. Sorry. All right. Getting
- our steps in. Council, I move to approve the court's request and fund 1213-0000 GAL slash CASA grant
- to create account line 38350 grant distribution and simultaneously approve an additional appropriation
- of $85,897 in the services category.
- Okay. Okay. I come with good news. Our CASA program has received two grants for this year,
- totaling the $85,897. So I'm just here asking that they both be appropriated. The money, I understand,
- has already been received, so we can get the money to them. Congratulations on that. Any questions or
- comments for Ms. Abraham on this item?
- public comment on this item. You can come forward to the lectern here. Raise your hand via Teams. And
- seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Council Henry? Yes. Council Decker? Yes. Council Crosley?
- Yes. Council Iverson? Yes. Council Fiddle? Yes.
- Yes. Councilor Wilts. Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Thank you. Just give you a heads up. I'll be back
- on February 24th. I've submitted for three more grants that we've received. So I'm nice. Okay. We appreciate
- it. Thank you.
- Now is item B for the prosecutor's office. That was B. All right. I got it. All right. Counsel, I move
- to approve the prosecutor's request and fund 9159-9626 High Tech Crimes Unit Fund for an additional
- appropriation of $151,642.27 in the services category. Second.
- All right, Ms. Hamlin. Now you're up. Good evening, counselors. I just heard I heard B. I got so excited.
- I hustle right up here. Sorry about that. It's OK. This is a request to appropriate the high tech crimes
- unit fund for two thousand twenty six. The source of the funding is a grant from the Indiana Prosecuting
- Attorneys Council and is in the net amount mentioned. The funding period starts January 1st of twenty
- six and goes through the end of the year.
- The Monroe County High Tech Crime Unit is overseen by Prosecutor Oliphant, directed by Levi Minnick,
- and covers an 11-county area, Monroe, Bartholomew, Brown, Green, Jackson, Lawrence, Marion, Morgan,
- Orange, Owen, and Washington counties. The HTCU forensically processes computer-related materials to
- obtain evidence in criminal cases. In 2025, the numbers were that we opened 188
- individual cases, they processed 358 pieces of evidence for 42 different organizations and processed
- 20 terabytes of evidence. Happy to take any questions. Okay. Any questions or comments for Ms. Hamlin
- on this item from council? Seeing none over here. Seeing none over there.
- don't see Councillor Hawke's hands raised. Okay, so we'll move on to public comment. You can come forward
- to the lectern here or you can raise your hand via Teams. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll
- call vote. Councillor Deckard? Yes. Councillor Crossley? Yes. Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Feidl?
- Yes. Councillor Hawke? Yes. Councillor Wilts? Yes.
- Counselor Henry. Yes motion passes unanimous. Thank you. We appreciate this All right. Next up is item
- C the convention and visitors commission council I move to approve the request from the convention and
- visitors commission in fund 1127 dash zero zero zero zero convention visitor tourism fund for an additional
- appropriation of six hundred thousand dollars in the services category Second. All right. Welcome.
- We got mr. Campbell here. Welcome
- Yes, well, thank you very much. So have a quick update for you from the Convention and Visitors Commission.
- In November, we voted and approved up to $600,000 for development of a downtown visitors center in our
- downtown location. We have a location selected near the new convention center, and this would be fully
- funded through the innkeepers tax.
- It's interesting, in 1988, when we moved into our current visitor's center, we were on the main thoroughfare
- into town. And that is no longer the case if you've been out to our visitor's center. So we've been
- in that location for 37 years, and the world has changed. Nobody stops in for maps anymore. You have
- one on your phone. And this move will allow us to engage
- the over 1000 hotel rooms that will be in the downtown area and the visitors and the community members
- that live and work in downtown. This will be a resource for them to understand and explore the rest
- of Monroe County and all of our attractions and shops and restaurants we have to offer. So it's certainly the time.
- And it also coincides with the opening of the Convention Center and will allow us to engage not only
- the visitors who are here, but also to encourage those event planners and convention planners coming
- to our community to say, is this where we want to host this event? Being able to walk right across the
- street and then on board and show all the
- all the great things that are in this community. So happy to answer any questions. This would come from
- the general fund, and we are asking for a separate line item so we could track those expenses that are
- going specifically for that. If not all of this money is used, then that just returns to the general
- fund, the general fund for the
- commission and visitors commission. Not the. Yes, not your job. Thanks for that clarification. We appreciate
- that. And it makes sense to have everything downtown. So I think so. It's just different. Yep. Everything
- is all working out. And I saw Councilor Hawk had her. She was first to have her hand up. So I'm going
- to Councilor Hawk and then I'll turn to my right here for the other council members. Yes. Can you
- share with us the plans for the existing building and that property there. I believe that is or at least
- one time it was in the name of the county government so I'm not sure exactly where we stand on that
- but would like to have an explanation about what is plans for that property. Well you're not getting
- rid of us just yet so we are still planning to occupy that building
- in the interim. So this convention or this downtown center would be a customer facing or guest facing
- portion of that. Now our intention is long term is to move the whole staff downtown and at that point
- it is in the county's name and would revert to the county. I don't know that we would have a use for
- it after that but I wouldn't anticipate that that
- we will still be in that building for the next couple of years at least. So it might I anticipate that
- you'll continue to maintain the building and in good repair. As we've always done. I know.
- Thank you. I'll be brief and good to see Mr. Gamble. I'm on the CBC on behalf of council. So I got a
- little bit of a preview of what was coming. The early design mockups and things are going to be really
- interesting for this space. And I look forward to the foot traffic, even for local residents buying
- mugs and tchotchkes and holiday things to send to family to tell them to visit Bloomington more often.
- So it's a good project. This is just bringing our convention core together. All good things. Thank you
- for bringing it.
- Thank you. Looking to my left here I'll go counselor vital and then Decker next. And so, I understand
- you're coming downtown and is it possible to tell us where that location is. Yes, so we're selected
- the below the fourth street garage, there's a vacant lot.
- vacant space at that point. It's the closest one to the expansion of the convention center.
- So that proximity, both to all of the traffic in downtown and the convention center, really make this
- an ideal location for this operation. So that brings up parking for me, that you would be in that space.
- So will there be adequate parking in the garage to service your needs for people coming to see you,
- visitor center people? Well, I think so. It's a visitor garage anyway. And so that is the purpose. And
- so having that there means it's already built in. So are there adequate places in the garage currently
- during the daytime to service you? I believe so. Yes.
- Thank you very much for your comments. I'll also be brief. I just love the comments that you made about
- the years and change because in this community so often we get very rooted and it's always been and
- it can't be and it's never been. The reality is this community is because of some of our status has
- always had some changes going on. So I appreciate that. I also appreciate the patience
- which you all have towards some of the change, particularly around the Convention Center, because it's
- been a long haul, but you've been more successful than most public discussions or projects than I can
- recall in some time. So thank you for that. All right. And just because they're here, I just want to
- shout out your Convention Center board. Hi.
- Thanks for being here. All right. If there's public comment on this item, you can come forward to the
- lectern here, the Nightingale room or raise your hand via teams. I mean, I need to. Oh, I'm so sorry.
- That's OK. I'm sorry, Michelle. This is a contractual line. Do you do you guys have a contract? We have
- not signed a contract yet. We need to make sure we have the funding to do that. But yes, we would engage
- with an architect.
- and a GC. OK. And when you get that signed, we need a copy of it for us to link to this appropriation.
- Absolutely. OK. Yeah. We want to make sure we have the money before we sign the deal. OK. Thank you.
- OK. All right. And so we will move on to public comment here. So it looks like we already have a hand raised.
- and everybody has up to three minutes. So I see one here already raised and it looks like we have movement
- here in the room. So it looks like Commissioner Thomas. All right. So Commissioner Thomas, you all have
- up to three minutes. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I want to thank Mr. Campbell and the members
- of the Convention and Visitors Commission for their great work through all of this. And I agree that this is
- great idea to move this office downtown. It makes total sense. But I remember there was some discussion
- early on that the visiting Bloomington site was offered for the third street location of the existing
- convention center. In other words, it would be in a current, what is currently a meeting room would
- be made available.
- and that what you're committing to is rental at the 4th Street garage that you wouldn't have to pay
- if you were in the existing convention center. I don't know if you could offer any information on that.
- Thank you. Yeah, you can after the public comment. Yes, you can totally do that afterwards. Yes, please
- come forward to the lecture.
- State your name and you'll have up to three minutes. Hello, my name is Talisha Coppock with Downtown
- Bloomington, Inc. and enthusiastically support this request. Our downtown community super excited. Visit
- Bloomington is such a professional, well-trained staff, and they've done such a great job of promoting
- all our small businesses and attractions. And this is just the next level of hospitality for our community.
- So it's pretty exciting.
- And the hope is growth and development and more interactive and deeper connections with our locals and
- visitors on all that we have to offer. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Is there any other public comment
- before Mr. Campbell comes up and addresses Miss Thomas questions? Seeing none, Mr. Campbell, if you
- want to go ahead and address that.
- Yes, Commissioner Thomas is correct. We did consider a room or vacating or occupying a meeting room
- in the convention center proper in the older section of that building. We declined that for the reason
- of we need that space to sell the convention center. So the loss of a meeting room, a breakout room,
- I think would
- in the long run be something we would kind of kick ourselves for doing. So we need that large space
- for the event space, for that expo venue, and then the breakout sessions that go on. So we decided to
- preserve that so we could better sell the commencement center. So I hope that helps. All right.
- Thank you. We appreciate that. All right.
- And seeing no other further question or comment, may we please have a roll call vote on this item. Councilor
- Crossley. Yes. Councilor Iverson. Yes. Councilor Feidl. Yes. Councilor Hawk. Yes. Councilor Wilts. Yes.
- Councilor Henry. Yes. Councilor Deckard. Yes.
- Motion passes unanimous. All right. We appreciate it. Thank you. Next up, item D from the aviation
- department. Council, I move to approve the aviation department's request and fund forty eight oh one
- dash zero zero zero zero aviation construction for the creation of a new account line three zero zero
- zero six contractual services and simultaneously approve an additional appropriation of seventy four
- thousand thirty five dollars in the services category. Second.
- All right. And it looks like we have Mr. Carlos Laverne joining us virtually. Please go ahead and proceed.
- Okay. Greetings. Okay. Great. They just added me to the meeting. Thank you. Okay. We're good to go.
- So, uh, we are requesting an additional appropriation from the construction fund.
- to create a new account line contractual services for $74,035. Is the audio okay there? I'm getting
- a really bad echo. No, we can hear you. Okay.
- Following up on work done by SM&E and AP Engineering Consulting for geotechnical testing in the area
- around Runway 1734, we engaged CTO Engineering for additional testing. This was to ensure
- basically that we had no cars in the airfield area there was some earlier geotechnical work that we
- paid for if you might recall last year that kind of raised some eyebrows so we consulted with CTL to
- do some additional geotesting for $49,035 and that confirmed the fact that
- there were no additional cars. We wanted to be very sure that we had no dangers approaching the main
- runway on the airport. So that's item number one. Item number two is the airport purchased an additional
- runway snow plow from the Minneapolis St. Paul airport systems for $5,000. This is a large 27 foot runway plow.
- And if you'll recall, we had already received six pieces of equipment from Minneapolis-St. Paul through
- the help of the Indiana University Athletic Department and Cook Group. We had received two 27-foot plows,
- two rotary blowers, and two 18-foot runway brooms with their generous help. And during the transaction,
- we had the opportunity to acquire one more
- 27 foot runway plow. So the airport went ahead with that purchase for $5,000. And so now that we have
- these seven pieces of runway size and airport specific snow removal equipment, we're also seeking additional
- appropriation of $25,000 to cover that $5,000 purchase and then to allow us to do some some upkeep and
- some maintenance, particularly the runway brooms that we acquired. They all have to be reth
- re-bristled from time to time. So we already purchased $12,000 in bristles, and those were put on last
- month. And with all of that snow equipment that we have in place now, I can pretty proudly say that
- we made it through the storm without having to close the runway. We allowed the small crosswind runway
- to close, but at no time during the storm did our main runway close.
- Thank you. All right. Looks like Councilor Hawke has her hand raised first. So Councilor Hawke proceed.
- Yes. Thank you for presentation. Just as a reminder to the public, this is out of the construction fund
- and does not affect the general fund or the property tax fund or any other revenue. It just comes from
- that construction fund.
- Thank you. All right. Any other questions or comments from council on this item? Seeing none, we'll
- go to public comment. If you have public comment on this item, you can raise your hand via Teams or
- you can come forward to the podium here. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Iverson.
- Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hogg? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker?
- Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. All right. Thank you, Mr. Lerner. Thank you very
- much. Have a good night. You too. All right. Next up is item E from our Parks and Rec Department.
- Council, I move to approve the parks department's request and fund 4113-0000 donations park to create
- new account lines as outlined on the agenda and simultaneously approve an additional appropriation of
- $3,000 in the supplies category and $164,800 in the services category for a total appropriation of $167,800.
- Second. And we have Ms. Whitman.
- Whitmer here. Excuse me. Welcome. Hello. Hello. This should be very easy. These are donated funds. And
- by the end of August, I am calculating we should have one hundred sixty seven thousand eight hundred
- dollars. And that's exactly what I'm asking you to appropriate. Plus add the two lines in there. I do
- want to add two words. The funds will be used at the Monroe County Nature Preserve Equipment Storage
- Building related amenities and memorial benches. So that's
- part of everything. Any questions? Anybody have any questions for Ms. Whitmer? Looks like you stumped
- them. Oh, I'm sorry. We got one. Councilor Hogg has her hand raised. Sorry. Hello, I just wanted to
- make sure that we all know that since she said that that's not the amount of money they have presently.
- So if the money doesn't come in as she has anticipated, she'll adjust the amount that she spends. That's
- the way the Parks Department works. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Any other questions
- or comments? And seeing none, we'll go to public comment. You can raise your hand via Teams, or you
- can come here in the room in the Nattie Hill room. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote.
- Councilor Feidl. Yes. Councilor Hawk. Yes. Councilor Wilts. Yes. Councilor Henry. Yes. Councilor Deckard.
- Yes. Councilor Crossley. Yes. Councilor Iverson. Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Thank you. Thank you.
- Have a good night.
- All right, next up is item F from the public defender's office. Council, I move to approve the public
- defender's request to amend the 2026 salary ordinance and fund 1200-0000 public defender supplemental
- and remove account 13041 senior paralegal and simultaneously and fund 1000-0271 county general public
- defender at account line 13041 senior paralegal
- 40 hours pat a non exempt. And I'm going to look to our council staff Michelle here for this item. During
- the budget process the senior paralegal position for 2025 was in the supplemental fund. During the budget
- process that
- position was moved to general fund and approved there in the general fund. But during a review of the
- salary ordinance, this was missed. So this is just to bring the salary ordinance and the approved budget
- together so that payroll can process correctly. OK.
- Yes, can you give us a total dollar map that will be going over to the general fund expense? And I'm
- assuming shouldn't assume anything, I guess. But will this mean that that will just be a part of adding
- on to what we actually ended up budgeting?
- This was a budgeted and approved already in the general fund. So this is just to make the salary ordinance
- match what was previously approved back in October. Thank you. Any other questions or comments for Michelle?
- Okay. Councilor Huck, did you have another question?
- and I was trying to lower it, didn't I? Oh, okay. It's good now. You're okay. All right. Thank you.
- Seeing no other questions or comment, if we have public comment, you can come forward to the lectern
- here or you can raise your hand via Teams. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor
- Hawk? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry?
- Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Motion
- passes unanimous. Thank you. Next up is item G from the Highway Department. Council, I move to approve
- the Highway Department's request and fund 1135-0000 human bridge for an additional appropriation of
- $75,000 in the services category. Second.
- All right, and we have Ms. Ridge joining us virtually. Please go ahead. Hello, can you hear me? Yes,
- we can hear you. So this first item is creating two new lines, one for Rockport Road Bridge 308 and
- the second is for the Eagleton Avenue Bridge 922. We wanted to put this into our cumulative bridge
- as a count line. So if there are any items that are not covered under the grant, it will be paid strictly
- from the local funds. Okay, thank you. Are there any questions or comments from council on this item?
- Seeing none. If there's public comment, you can come forward to the lectern here or you can raise your
- hand via Teams. And seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote?
- Councilor Wilkes? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor
- Iverson? Yes. Councilor Pytel? Yes. Councilor Hock? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. And still sticking
- with the Highway Department is item H. Council, I move to approve the Highway Department's request and
- fund 1197-0000 Stormwater Management.
- to create new accounts as outlined on the agenda and simultaneously approve an additional appropriation
- of $922,704.22 in the services category. Second. Okay. Ms. Ridge, what would you like to add to this?
- So when we did budgets last July, when we started setting them up, we were hoping that these two projects
- would be done in the fall and they were not. So we have a 2026 construction season for Redbud and then
- finishing up
- So we were appropriating what was left in those two accounts in 2025. Any questions or comments from
- council on this item? Councilor Wilts. So the projects are ongoing, is that correct? Could you kind
- of give us an update? Yeah, correct.
- actually we didn't start that because of the fall but it has been awarded and Stip Road we're just doing
- the finishing we need to wait for erosion and control and everything for the spring and then we'll close
- that project out I think but both of these amounts are the contract amounts that for the awarded contractor.
- Any other further questions or comments from council?
- Seeing none. If there's public comment, you can come forward to the lectern here, or you can raise your
- hand via zines. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor
- Deckard? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hawk?
- Yes. Councilor Wills? Yes.
- Motion passes unanimous. Next up, item I. Council, I'm going to be combining items I and J into one
- motion. I move to approve the Highway Department's request and fund eighty one ninety one dash zero
- zero zero zero old State Road thirty seven and Dillman intersection to create a count line three seven
- four one six design, approve an additional appropriation of five hundred thirty nine thousand six hundred
- fifty dollars in the services category.
- and simultaneously approve a fund to fund transfer of cash of fifty eight thousand one hundred fifty
- dollars from fund eleven sixty nine dash zero zero zero zero local rodent street to fund eighty one
- ninety one dash zero zero zero zero old state road thirty seven and dillman intersection okay miss ridge
- um so this is um a project that is ninety ten
- federally funded, it's called a H-SIP project, Highway Safety Improvement Project. It is for
- the reconstruction of the old State Road 37 and Dillman Road to improve that intersection with a roundabout.
- This is for the design stage of it. Then the local match for design would be the 58,150. That's what
- we're requesting to move from cash to cover our part of the 10 percent for design.
- And I'll move on next to questions and I see Councilor Decker has a question. I'll just be really quick.
- I was exploring Dilman Road about three hours before the storm and just all the work already happening
- around that area is making that a hundred times more safer. So I was excited to see this on our agenda
- and I just appreciate it a lot. Any other questions or comments for Ms. Ridge on these items?
- and seeing none, we'll take public comment. You can raise your hand via Teams or you can come forward
- to the lectern here in the room. And may we please have a roll call vote. Councillor Crossley? Yes.
- Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes. Councillor Hawk? Yes. Councillor Wilts? Yes. Councillor Henry?
- Councillor Deckard. Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Next up are items K and L. Council I move to approve
- the highway department's request and fund 8192-0000.
- Two thousand twenty six at two thousand twenty nine bridge inspection to create account line three seven
- four one six design approve an additional appropriation of six hundred forty seven thousand six hundred
- sixty nine dollars and seventeen cents in the services category and simultaneously approve a fund to
- fund transfer of cash of one hundred twenty nine thousand five hundred thirty three dollars and eighty
- three cents from fund eleven thirty five dash zero zero zero zero cumulative bridge
- to fund 8192-00002026-2029 bridge inspection. Second. Okay, Ms. Ridge. So we are required to do a four-year
- cycle for our bridge inspections. Our compliance month is the month of March. This is an 80-20 federally
- funded program, so the
- grant creation is to be able to start that process in 2026. And the fund to fund transfer is what we
- anticipate our match to be. Thank you. Any questions or comments from Council on these items?
- Seeing none, we'll move to public comment. If you have public comment, you can come forward to the lectern
- here in the room or you can raise your hand via Teams.
- and still seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hawk? Yes.
- Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor
- Iverson? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. We appreciate it. Thank you, Ms. Ridge.
- All right, next up is item M from the Board of Commissioners. Council, I move to approve the commissioner's
- request and fund 4900-0000 employee morale to create account line 30185 employee promotion and simultaneously
- approve an additional appropriation of $4,972.24 in the services category. Second. Okay, we got a motion
- and a second and looks like Ms. Angie Purdy is
- Attendant virtually, please go ahead. It's pretty, it looks like you're muted. Oh, yeah, there we go.
- I just got a little notification thing that could speak.
- So this particular item, you had actually approved late in 2025. However, by the time we actually received
- products and the invoice, the budget was closed for 2025. So we're now asking to just have
- it re-appropriated, but to give a little bit more background.
- We went ahead and paid for this for 2025 using a credit card thinking that this would have been heard
- by council at the first meeting of the year, but that's not, it didn't happen that way. And so the auditor
- went ahead and used it as an encumbrance and went ahead and paid that. So I'm hoping
- I didn't catch the amount, but it should be $2,632.78 is the request now. Go ahead.
- I believe that what we need to do is change the motion. So I'm going to move to amend the motion on
- the table to change the amount requested to $2,632.78. Second. Okay, we got a motion and a second to
- change or to amend the
- amount there to the $2,632.78. Is there any questions or comments on this motion? Seeing none. Okay.
- Can we please get a roll call vote? This is on the amendment to change the amount to $2,632.78.
- I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. But I think Angie was coughing while I was saying this. Councilor Wilts?
- Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes.
- Councilor Feidl? Yes. Motion passes unanimously. Okay, thank you. And now we'll come back to the overall.
- I'll go to Councilor Henry first and then I'll see Councilor Hawke has their hand raised.
- Thank you, Madam President. Ms. Mote, I have some questions about this process here. I know Ms. Gregory
- is not here tonight. So there was a credit card expense before council approves the expense. So I'm
- trying to get a sequence of events here. Did we spend money before council authorized spending money?
- Did the county? It was appropriated in, like you guys approved it in 2025.
- However, the credit card statement didn't come until January of 2026. So to not incur credit card fees
- and stuff, we went ahead and appropriate or encumbered the amount from what you guys had approved last
- year into this year so that we could get that paid. And then we're just amending the amount of what
- we actually need to appropriate.
- encumber funds like this anymore, right? We usually do this for bonds only at this point as a county.
- Yeah, we're, we're sticking to bonds, but since this was kind of tricky and that we didn't want interest
- fees and stuff, they went ahead and moved it forward since it was just approved in December, I believe of 2025.
- And it just kind of missed that mark. OK, so that piece. So we appropriated it, but we missed the claims
- window for the end of the year. Yes. And what commissioners missed the window for the end of the year.
- And then we put on a credit card and the bills due Monday. And that's why we need to decide today. What's
- the due date for the credit card with the. I'm not sure when exactly.
- I don't do claims. I'm sorry. I know you're in the hot seat. I don't know the exact when credit cards
- are due, but I know that in order to not get fees with those credit cards, we had to pay it pretty quickly.
- Thank you. I'm only just drilling on this to say. It's a standard of how we spend money. This seems
- like a small thing because it's a box of fudge through the employee morale fund, but if it is a process where
- We saw a lot of this last year where something was expended and then there's a council asked to fix
- it on the back end to bring it into compliance with things. It's just new year, new opportunity to not
- do this moving forward. I mean, we know the holiday is coming for 12 months. I presume we can get ahead
- of that next time. That's not for you, but that's it. Thank you, Madam President. All right, thank you
- very much. Councilor Hawk. Yes.
- Many of us remember when we used some of those dollars for that marvelous Christmas luncheon we used
- to have, and many of us miss it. That ship has sailed, I believe. But I'm wondering if there's a group
- that might be able to give some suggestions about what we might do for employee promotion. That's the
- kind of thing where you might have
- a picnic out at one of the parks for the employees or something. To pass around donuts at Christmas
- time, that's lovely, but not everybody's there, not everybody eats donuts. It's just not up to par to
- what's most done. Nobody's expecting the commissioners to be able to come up with money for this marvelous
- banquet we used to have.
- but there might be something other than passing around donuts that might be better appreciated. Just
- my thoughts. Appreciate that. Thanks, Councilor Hawk. Is there any other questions or comments?
- I see Ms. Purdy has her hand raised. Ms. Purdy? Yeah, I just wanted to respond.
- to Councilor Henry's statements and that is we didn't fail to process anything. This was purely a timing
- issue that caused the problem between the close of the 2025 budget, which happens before the end of
- 2025, and then the use of the 2026 budget. We did everything in compliance with time,
- The problem was by the time we were going to get that invoice, the budget was going to be closed for
- 2025. I spoke with the auditor's office at that time to come up with a potential solution. And so that's
- how we ended up with the credit card. And so that's why we paid it on the credit card. And we would
- not have had to encumber anything had this been on
- the first council meeting, but it wasn't. Okay. Why wasn't it? I'm sorry, Madam President. Was that
- because the request for the agenda wasn't put in an entirely manner? Walk me through that. You chose
- not to put it on there. I was told that there would be no additional appropriations on the January 6th.
- I believe you have that just as a organizational type meeting.
- It wasn't that I forgot to do anything. And that's typically how first meetings of the year usually
- are. Okay. It made sense to me at the time. Okay. All right. Any other questions or comments from council?
- All right. Seeing none, I'll go to public comment. You can come forward to the lectern here in the room
- or you can raise your hand via
- and seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor
- Deckard? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Hawke? Yes. Councilor Feidl?
- Yes. Motion passes unanimous.
- Okay, next up is item in. Council I move to approve the commission's request in Fund 4933-0000 PSAP
- lit for an additional appropriation of $156,607 in the services category. Second. Okay, Ms. Perry, please
- proceed. Yeah, this was another this was a situation where during budgets, it was brought to our attention
- that the amount submitted in Lau
- was off $156,607 from what the anticipated revenue is gonna be from the rate that's established for
- the PSAP. And so a bunch of us were talking and we thought it was gonna get taken care of on the October
- 8th meeting, but budgets were crazy and things didn't happen to no one's fault. So I just wanna put
- that out there.
- And so then given this is a 26 budget, I just had to wait till the beginning of the year to request
- this additional appropriation. And yes, the previous city controller and the current city controller
- is aware. Thank you very much for that explanation. Is there any other questions or comments from council
- on that item? Yes, Councilor Decker. I just have a quick one.
- So who submits this into Lau? I know there's multiple whatever. Who does that? You do it with me. Yeah,
- I do it. Yeah, I put it in there and and I don't know. I get the verse. So getting the final number
- is sometimes not the most easy. Due to different timings between the city and the county and when the
- rates come out, actual amounts come out. So that's what happened is.
- I thought that was the number initially appropriated was correct, but there's clearly going to get 156,000
- more. But between everything at the county and everything at the city, really nobody really noticed
- until more recently, right? Yeah, well, um, Jessica noticed it during the budget. That's how, cause
- we thought we could fix it. You know, it was, it was before the budgets were done.
- and the original plan was to just correct it during the budget process, but it kind of got dropped at
- that time with, I don't know, everybody. The virtual pups are back. All right. Any other questions or
- comments from council? Seeing none.
- public comment. Public comment. If you got something to say on this item, you can come forward to the
- lectern here in the room or raise your hand via Teams. And seeing none, can we please have a roll call
- vote? Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes.
- Yes. Councilor Feidl. Yes. Councilor Hawk. Yes. Motion passes unanimous. We appreciate it. Thank you.
- All right. Next up is item O from the sheriff's office. Council, I move to approve the sheriff's request
- and fund 1156-0000 firearms training to create account line 21060 training supplies and simultaneously
- approve an additional appropriation of $100,000 in the supplies category.
- All right welcome thank you. So this is just what we have to do annually to be able to spend the firearms
- training fund. We're just asking for more this year than previously so that we don't have to come back.
- All right any questions or comments on this item from council? Self-explanatory. All right so if there
- is public comment you can come forward to the lectern here raise your hand via Teams.
- Seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor
- Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hogg? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes.
- Motion passes unanimous. All right, next up is PE.
- Council, I move to approve the sheriff's request and fund 4009-0000 Sheriff's Sale Administration to
- create new account lines as outlined on the agenda and simultaneously approve an additional appropriation
- of $50,973.67 in the supplies category and $4,000 in the services category for a total appropriation
- of $54,973.67. Okay.
- So these funds come from the tax warrants and the share of sales. And we are wanting to be able to utilize
- with the increase in postage. We can use funds from this account to pay for postage, envelopes that
- we use to mail out the mailings, paper, everything related to those two things. Any questions or comments
- from council on this item? All right.
- Seeing none, we'll go to public comment. Raise your hand via Teams or come to the podium here in the
- room. And seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor Crossley?
- Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hogg? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry?
- Motion passes unanimous. All right. Next up is Q. Council, I move to approve the sheriff's request and
- fund 4107-0000 donation sheriff's department to create account lines outlined on the agenda
- and simultaneously approve additional appropriations of $4,000 in the supplies category and $10,613.02
- in the services category for a total of $14,613.02. Again. Okay.
- Like when I came in December, this is just funds that have been donated to the sheriff's office that
- the sheriff is allowed to use for either specific purposes or whatever he feels is necessary. Any questions
- or comments from counsel on this item? Seeing none. Public comment, you can come forward to the lectern
- here or you can raise your hand via Teams.
- I'm still seeing none. Maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson?
- Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hawke? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor
- Deckard? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Okay next up item R.
- I move to approve the sheriff's request and fund four one zero eight dash zero zero zero zero donation
- sheriff canine to create account lines outlined on the agenda and simultaneously approve additional
- appropriations of three three million three thousand five hundred twenty nine dollars and eighty eight
- cents in the supplies category and one thousand dollars in the services category for a total of four
- thousand five hundred twenty nine dollars and eighty eight cents
- same as with the donations. This is specifically for anything related to the canines. Okay. Any questions
- or comments from council on this item? Seeing none. We will go to the public. If you have public comment,
- you can raise your hand via Teams or come to the podium. And still seeing none, may we please have a
- roll call vote? Councilor Iverson.
- Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hawke? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker?
- Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. All right, thank you. Next up, we got items coming
- from the Health Department, starting with items S and T.
- Council, I move to approve the health department's request and fund 8112-9626 STD strengthening prevention.
- Today appropriate $58,835 in the personnel category and simultaneously amend the 2026 salary ordinance
- and remove account line 10142 disease intervention specialist. All right, we got a motion and a second.
- It looks like Ms. Kelly is joining us virtually and you may proceed.
- Good evening, counsel. Sorry about that. I was trying to get access. So this request is just
- to be appropriate grant funding. So this was originally provided by the Indiana Department of Health
- for an additional disease intervention specialist due to the hiring freeze and not being able to recruit
- and fill this position. The Indiana Department of Health did ask for this funding back.
- Okay, thank you for that. Any other questions or comments from Council on this item? Seeing none. If
- there's public comment on this item, you can come forward to the lectern here or raise your hand via
- Teams. And seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote.
- I'm sorry, I stepped away. Councilor Will? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor
- Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Motion passes 6-0. Okay. Next up is item U.
- Council I move to approve the health department's request and fund 1161-9625 local public health services
- grant to create account lines as outlined on the agenda and simultaneously approve additional appropriations
- of $831,306.80 in the personnel category.
- one hundred thirty thousand three hundred seventy six dollars and seventeen cents in the supplies category
- and one hundred and fifteen thousand eight hundred forty six dollars and thirty six cents in the services
- category for a total appropriation of one million one hundred seventy four thousand five hundred twenty
- nine dollars and thirty three cents. Okay Miss Kelly. So what we've actually been working on doing is with
- our state funding, we are required to submit budgets and all of our financial reporting based upon the
- year that we received the state funding. So it was recommended that we created location numbers just
- to be able to help us better keep track of what funds, what year they're budgeted for, and for our reporting
- purposes. So this is basically just creating those new account lines with those locations for tracking purposes.
- Thank you. Are there any other questions or comments from almost at the county, the county council?
- Anybody got questions or comments on this item? Lost my brain. All right. And seeing none, we'll go
- to public comment. If you have public comment on this item, you can raise your hand via Teams or come
- forward to the podium. And seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote. Councilor Wilts.
- Yes. Councillor Henry. Yes. Councillor Deckard. Yes. Councillor Crossley. Yes. Councillor Iverson. Yes.
- Councillor Feidl. Yes. Councillor Hawke. Yes. Motion passes unanimous. All right. Next up is item V.
- Council I move to approve the health department's request and fund 1161-9626 local public health services
- grant to create account lines as outlined on the agenda and simultaneously approve additional appropriations
- of six hundred twenty nine thousand fifty three dollars and twenty cents in the personnel category seventeen
- thousand nine hundred forty four dollars and eighty three cents in the supplies category and one hundred
- seventy nine thousand thirty eight dollars and sixty four cents in the services category and
- for a total appropriation of $826,036.67. Second. Okay, Ms. Kelly, what would you like to add to this
- item? So pretty much same thing. So this just allows us to submit to use a portion of those funds from
- 2026 for salary and expenses, and then we will submit to use 2025 funds since we're getting those locations
- for our remaining expenses.
- Thank you. Any questions or comments from Council on this item? Seeing none. Public comment, if you
- would like to have a comment on this item, you can raise your hand via Teams or come forward to the
- podium. And seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Council Henry? Yes. Council Decker? Yes.
- Council Crosley? Yes. Council Iverson? Yes.
- Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hogg? Oh, Councilor Hogg, you're muted. Councilor Hogg? Yes. Thank you.
- Councilor Wilts? Yes. Motion passes, unanimous. All right, next up we will go to item W as in winning.
- Let's go council. I move to approve the health department's request and fund 1161 dashes zero zero zero
- zero local public health fund a deappropriation of one million four hundred sixty thousand three hundred
- and sixty dollars in the personnel category one hundred forty eight thousand three hundred twenty one
- dollars in the supplies category and three hundred ninety one thousand eight hundred eighty five dollars
- in the services category for a total deappropriation of two million five hundred sixty six dollars Okay,
- miss Kelly
- I think this is really just housekeeping again. So since we've created those locations, this is just
- de-appropriating it from where it was previously. Thank you. Any questions or comments from council
- on this item? Seeing none, we'll move to public comment. Raise your hand via Teams or come to the podium
- here in the room. Seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote?
- Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor
- Hawke? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Thank you. Item X.
- Council, I move to approve the Health Department's request to amend the 2026 salary ordinance and fund
- 1161-0000 Local Public Health Services
- to remove location number 0000, and to allow for multiple location designation for grant year periods,
- which is the current practice for other departmental grant funds. Second. All right, we got a motion
- and a second. Miss Kelly. Again, I think this is just housekeeping so that we update the salary ordinance
- with these changes. Thank you. Any questions or comments? I saw a hand.
- Ms. Kelly, I really applaud this move. I know this probably comes from other places, but I think this
- is going to be much easier to track the different grant funds. So congratulations on taking this move.
- Any other questions or comments from council? Seeing none, we'll move to public comment. You can come
- forward to the lectern here or raise your hand via Teams.
- and seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote. Councillor Crossley? Yes. Councillor Iverson?
- Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes. Councillor Hock? Yes. Councillor Wilts? Yes. Councillor Henry? Yes. Councillor
- Decker? Yes. Motion passes unanimous.
- Thank you. Thank you. Have a good night. Next up, we already went through the clerk's office information.
- Next up, we are at the Youth Services Bureau with items AB.
- Council, I move to approve the YSB's request, Youth Service Bureau's request, and fund 4100-0000 donations,
- youth shelter, to create account lines outlined on the agenda and to simultaneously approve additional
- appropriations of $2,500 in the supplies category. Second. Okay. And I am looking... Hello. Hi. Welcome.
- So the only reason that
- they're requesting these donation ones are because they used to be able to carry forward. And with our
- updated SBOA guidance, they need to be approved by you guys and were budgeted in the future. So the,
- I don't know what these values are, right?
- double check the values really fast.
- Well, that's what I want to see is what's at the very end of 2025.
- supply line there might be an issue or like a the value might be off a little bit I think that the unexpended
- from last year that would we would normally carry forward into the new year would be $989.54 and not
- a full thousand dollars
- but I don't want to miss. We could table this to February 10th and get some clarification. Council,
- I move to table this item to the February 10th meeting. Second.
- OK, we got a motion and a second to table this item until February 2nd pending further clarification.
- Totally fine. It's OK. Any further questions or comments on this motion? All right. Public comment,
- come forward to the lectern here in the Nattie Hill room or raise your hand via Teams. And seeing none,
- may we please have a roll call vote?
- Councilor Wilts is not present. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes.
- Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hawke? Yes. Motion passes six to zero. All right.
- Next up is item AC.
- I move to approve the Youth Service Bureau's request and fund 4106-0000 donation safe place to create
- account line 36050 miscellaneous expenses and to simultaneously approve an additional appropriation
- of $6,467.71 in the services category. All right. Same thing. They just historically they would have
- been carried forward, but we're just aligning with
- the SBOA guidance and having them appropriated, hopefully budgeted in the future. Okay, thank you. We
- appreciate that. Is there any other questions or comments, whether that's virtual or in person here?
- Seeing none. If there is public comment, you can come forward to the lectern here or raise your hand
- via Teams.
- being none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor
- Wilts? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hawke?
- Yes. Motion passes unanimous. All right, next up is item AD.
- Council I move to approve the Youth Service Bureau's request and fund 4110-0000 donations prevention
- general to create account lines outlined on the agenda and to simultaneously approve an additional
- appropriation of $1,218.11 in supplies category and $276.66 in the services category for a
- total appropriation of $1,494.77. Second. Okay.
- It was a donation fund and now we gotta go through. Okay, so it seems like a lot of cleanup. Yeah, we're
- just doing a lot of cleanup housekeeping. Okay, all right, sounds good. Any questions or comments on
- this item from council? And seeing none, we'll go to public comment. Raise your hand via Teams or come
- to the podium here. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote.
- Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor
- Hawke? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. All right. Next up
- is item AE.
- Council, I move to approve the Youth Service Bureau's request and fund 4111-0000 donations BTCC to create
- account lines outlined on the agenda and to simultaneously approve an additional appropriation of $1,600
- and $12,600 in the services category for a total appropriation of $14,200. Second. All right. Again,
- just housekeeping.
- Get it approved. Thank you. Any questions or comments from council on this item? Seeing none, is there
- any public comment? Raise your hand via Teams or come to the podium. And seeing none, may we please
- have a roll call vote. Councillor Deckard. Yes. Councillor Crossley. Yes.
- Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hogg? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry?
- Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Next up is item AF. Gosh. Council, I move to approve the Council Office
- Request and Fund 4116-0000. Donations, Council,
- to create a count line three zero zero three one Sophia Travis and to simultaneously approve an additional
- appropriation of three thousand dollars in the services category. Thank you Michelle. Yes we had a prop
- we council appropriated this fund at the back in twenty twenty five but due to some
- the agencies. There were several that didn't come in and sign their agreements accordingly. So we couldn't
- distribute those funds until then. So we are coming back to reappropriate this so that we can get the
- checks out to everyone. Thank you for that. Any questions or comments from council on this item? Seeing none.
- If there's public comment on this item, you can come forward to the lectern here in the night in the
- room or raise your hand via teams. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Deckard.
- Yes. Councilor Crossley. Yes. Councilor Iverson. Yes. Councilor Feidl. Yes. Councilor Henry. Yes. Councilor
- Hawk. Yes. Councilor Wilts. Yes.
- Motion passes unanimous. Seeing that we don't have any presentations or county council business, we
- are next up at council liaison updates and comments. I'm gonna go virtually to Councilor Hawks and she's
- there first and then we will go wrap around from councilors, Henry on. I'm not sure Mike, that's gonna
- let me say anything.
- First of all, I wanted to say that after being requested, having to do with the highway issue, and I
- did put that on Facebook because I thought maybe if we could all put our minds together, we could come
- up with a solution. I hope that we understand no way in any way did I ever want to fault the highway
- department. This is not their purview to
- work around how we're going to pay for this or what we might do to make this work. I know that in the
- past, we've had county legal work with the developers, come up with a plan, come up with the solution
- so that it can all be worked out. Now, this was a long time ago when we had people like Kirk White and
- others on the county commissioners, a lot's changed since then.
- But surely we can do something that we don't leave people out there without a way to get out for their
- public safety. But I think we've also got to do a better job of staying in touch with the people that
- this affects to let them know how our legal department, how we're working forward, where we are on each
- of these cases, because it's, I think,
- more information is better than none. And there's so many that they just think nothing's being done.
- So I would like to see the commissioners and the legal department and the planning department sort of
- let us know where we stand, how many situations like this we might have and what we can do to resolve them.
- Appreciate that, thank you. Councilor Henry. Thank you, Madam President. Yeah, I would just put it on,
- I wrote down at the top of this ticking clocks. There's a lot of ticking clocks, I think, this month
- in the county. This is one of them. The weather, and just picking up on Councilor Hawk's comments from
- what we've been talking about tonight, the likelihood that the snow melts in the next week is pretty
- minimal, right?
- sunlight temperatures that kind of thaw things and then freeze them at night. And this is gonna be back
- and forth at least for five or six days in some of these neighborhoods. As I mentioned, and very briefly,
- I called a few different folks today to try to figure out what the root cause is. And when it comes
- to school closure, when we have, again, 60 developments in the county that have varying degrees of clearance
- based on whether or not the developer did it or the HOA did it, it is delaying the reopening of the
- public schools.
- So there are second and third order impacts. Now, where does that happen? It happens at the planning
- phase. This is stuff we should be talking about in July, not January. It means that our emergency management
- agency needs to be pulled in on decision making. They're usually the second or third agency to get involved
- when we have weather like this after the board of commissioners and highway. And I want to point out
- tonight the ticking clock of the budget. We heard Ms. Ridge say that this was about a $297,000 activity.
- I believe that the salt and sand resources have been drained a little bit and it's just this, you know,
- we're third week of January. So if this is winter, we're probably going to be looking at this conversation
- a few more times between now and March. So I'm hopeful and I presume maybe I'll make some time to try
- to go to the commissioner's meeting on Thursday to raise some of this and the public comment there to
- say it's not enough just to
- point fingers or post on social media. The biggest challenge we have here is we do not still have after
- the derecho, the cyclone bomb, the floods, the tornado, a public information officer where everybody
- in the community can go to to know this is the official activities of the county. That is, I don't mean
- to be doing an after action report in real time, but until that point, we don't know what's going on
- as a body or a government, and these are things we really have to iron out.
- Now it's an issue of safety, as it's been pointed out, you know, Councilor Deckard and others here.
- I want to point out another ticking clock on my mind. We had a productive meeting with, I think, the
- board of commissioners about the jail last week. We didn't get, you know, I think next steps, but we
- do need to start getting next steps there. But I was hopeful that we would be able to address in that
- meeting not only this question of what happened with the Sophia Travis grant program, which we didn't
- get to at the end of the year about the
- ping-ponging of donations, and we never really got that public conversation. I guess we sort of fixed
- that tonight. But also, not April 15th is a deadline, but April 1st, because that's the deadline that
- is still out there for the clearing of the encampment at Thompson. I had spoken with some of the mutual
- aid partners that brought that to our attention this week, and they are muddling through. It is awfully cold.
- But at the same time the community still doesn't know what the plan is I believe the Commissioner's
- office has shared with me at this point the heading home plan as the plan but the people that are living
- there do not have that information yet and so as the clock ticks towards April 1 and You know, it's
- not on our mind right now, but it will be you know in a month or two I worry that we're gonna be right
- back to where we were a few months ago when folks are filling the room and
- haven't really communicated what we're doing to them at this point. So that's on my mind, too. Maybe
- on a somewhat positive note, we haven't been in this room since the football Hoosiers did their thing.
- And maybe that's why they're wearing burgundy down there, close to crimson, I don't know. But congrats
- to the students. Hopefully, at this point in week three of the semester, they'll finally get their head
- in my class instead of Memorial Stadium.
- How exciting is all that? And I was thinking, as the trophy made its rounds to Kroger and Walmart, if
- we could maybe get a request to get it in the rotunda just for an hour or two? I don't know who we have
- to talk to about that. But it belongs in there for a day, don't you think? But anyway, that's it. Thanks.
- It traveled. Not him? I mean, I did it. I like that idea. All right. Thank you, Madam President. I also
- wanted to start off with congratulations to national champions, the Indiana Hoosiers.
- I wanted to remark that as I was watching the game from home, I did not get to travel to Miami to watch
- the game. I know it was really remarkable seeing the difference in ads from the different schools. IU
- ran ads talking about the work on treating cancer.
- You come here to Indiana University to overcome challenges. You come here to Indiana University to do
- research. And it made me think a lot about all of the great things that are happening right here in
- Monroe County. And a couple of things stood out. Way back in September, Indiana University announced
- that we had surpassed the $1 billion mark in terms of research that's being done at Indiana University.
- There are major,
- initiatives happening here at Indiana that we are just so thankful.
- that we are attracting and retaining researchers to do the work that needs to be done to meet needs.
- I also wanted to point out that our alma mater, there's a couple of us here up on this dais, the O'Neill
- School continues to be number one in the nation for masters of public affairs. So if you want to learn
- how to do the things that we do up here,
- There is no better place than to come to Indiana University right here in Monroe County. So go Hoosiers,
- not only on the football field, but also in the lab and also over at the O'Neill School. Take that Harvard.
- That's right. Kennedy School. Thank you very much. I also want to join. Congratulations to our football
- Hoosiers. As I said on a
- a comment among all the difficulties of the world. It's nice to have good news and just something that
- you can look at and go, that's awesome. And what teamwork is as this year takes off and the weather
- is just what it is. A lot of people told me this is about as bad as they've seen the snow. Some people
- that remember the blizzard of 78 indicate that it's either feels like that or reminds them or they haven't shoveled.
- at least like that since then. And the backside of me would agree with that very much. In fact, I'm
- wearing boots tonight. I'm probably gonna keep them on till middle July. I do wanna say on this issue
- that we have before us with developments and roads not getting clear, I appreciate what Councilor Henry
- said that this is more of a July discussion. I just, you know, I sent a message off
- meeting to our commissioners i appreciate them looking at i've heard back from two of the three on on
- them and again this is not a county highway mess those the folks at county highway which went in worked
- this time period have done a wonderful job as their lives went on for 48 hours as well as our first
- responders
- in the community, they all perform admirably. I think our task in county government, maybe city, maybe
- township, definitely state and federal, if I may, our job is to kind of hit problems like those public
- servants do, where they hit it for about 48 hours straight and they come out with solutions. I mean,
- we still, I made a suggestion to the commissioners on a way to get geranium
- moving. And I have to be frank, some of the things I've heard back are just more of the discussion on
- why you can't do something. And I'm always reminded of the old LBJ, there's a quote, there's a million
- reasons why you can't do something. And it takes extraordinary leadership to figure out how we get to
- can. And I don't know, in every other emergency management situation,
- people tornado flooding or whatever, people kind of put things to the side and go, I got to move this
- along down the road. Here's what we've learned. But it seems on this one that we're just we're kind
- of stuck in all this like patchwork of things that prevent us. I don't know, maybe a fleet of us got
- to go over with shovels or something. But we can't just we can't just sit in the quagmire.
- private sectors hat does have responsibilities. But often government does what others will not do or
- cannot do or fail to do. And that's the reason it exists. So I'm going to keep pushing on that. But
- I really it's these problems that we have don't go away. And we can't sit on a Monday night and watch
- a football game of extraordinary ability and charm and leadership and other things and then not
- figure out how we do that in our own sense. There's a lesson there among all that, both big and small.
- I also do want to say that warming stations, it took a minute to get the warming stations going compared
- to some of our previous responses. And I am grateful to the faith communities, including the place where
- I worship First United Methodist Church. We're jumping in to fill in some gaps on that. Where in the
- world would we be without our
- of faith leaders who meet people, figure out things, and do it alongside our not-for-profit leaders.
- So thanks to all those folks, and I'll be quiet. Thanks. We have four minutes until our mandatory stop
- time, so I will talk quickly and be brief. It's OK. I have several things. But actually, I just want
- to say that regarding
- ticking clock of April 1st and the encampment at the Thompson property. I will be working with Commissioner
- Madeira and others on hopefully that specific issue. I think that the commissioner's task force that
- they're putting together is maybe a bit broader than that, but certainly I think pointing out the deadlines
- that we've imposed on people's lives is of the utmost importance. And I hope to carry that torch a little
- bit in those meetings. I haven't heard about anything being set up yet. I inquired last week. I will
- inquire again. So I just, that's all I got. Thanks. So I've been a part of four
- liaison assignment meetings. I won't delve into those. Nothing earth shattering any of those. But I
- did want to say I really enjoyed the Martin Luther King ceremony the same night as the championship
- game. The keynote speaker was about Coretta Scott King. And I really learned a lot about her life. And
- it was really refreshing to see how much of a partnership they were in working together, her and Martin
- Luther King.
- Speaking of the championship game five of my family went so we were pretty invested in that All the
- boys and my daughter went So and back to the Plow issue, you know, I live in a neighborhood been there
- now me five years this spring and I'm one of the ones that doesn't have the county plow service because
- the developer has not
- committed his assignments and checked off the list or whatever they call that. But on the other hand,
- it was really, the first couple of years was really rough in trying to convince the developer that yes,
- he did have the responsibility to do the roads. And the last year or two has been phenomenally wonderful.
- One of the years we had bulldozers plowing through the neighborhood. So that was an event I hadn't seen before.
- But this year it's been terrific. So in some ways there are advantages, but on the other hand, I'd really
- like to have the county doing my roads. I really would. I had a great experience today talking with
- a county staff member about a plow issue that was clogging up one of the lanes on Centennial Drive near
- where I live. And he put it out there for the supervisor to go investigate. And I was really happy with
- that. But Centennial Drive is in the county road.
- I wouldn't have gotten that, I think, with the developer. So there are advantages and disadvantages,
- but I'd really like to see it happen for all those neighborhoods. I didn't realize there were so many.
- Thank you for that. So a lot of y'all said a bunch of things that I was thinking. So again, major shout
- out and thank you to public safety officials working around the clock this past week.
- And as we clear out everything, we appreciate that.
- and looking forward to the collaboration of trying to figure out this situation that we're in, because
- it does pose a public safety risk. So that is a thing. Never have I ever in the 25 years that I've been
- here, did I ever think in my undergrad years I would ever root for a football team that I never went
- to a football game. And look at the tides have changed. I remember 24 years ago, it was in 2002 when IU went
- to the national championship of Purdue, and I was a friend, or nope, Marilyn, went to the game, and we lost.
- Major kudos and shout out to everybody involved in that. The biggest thing is when we come back, it
- will be February 10th, which is the start of Black History Month. I want to definitely mention that.
- I know a lot of erasures might be around, but that is something that is still going to be celebrated
- no matter how much people try to take it away. Last but certainly not least, I have to say this because
- Just thinking of public safety and a lot of different things. My heart's definitely out with the community
- in Minneapolis. And that's all I have to say about that. If that can happen there, it can happen anywhere.
- And so we have to look out for our neighbors. So with that being said, everybody please get home safe
- and sound. And with that, I appreciate my colleagues sticking to the task and we are adjourned. Thank you.