- We can now call this meeting to order. Today is Tuesday, February 10th. Happy 10th day of Black History
- Month, 2026. We are here in the NatU Hill Room, and present I have my county council colleagues, Spiral,
- Wilts, Deckard, Henry, and not joining us in the NatU Hill Room is Councilor Hawk and Councilor Iverson.
- I don't believe Councilor Ivett
- Iverson might be able to attend virtually, but we're unsure with Councilor Hawke. So either way, we
- have a quorum, so we will go ahead and get started with the people's business. So all those that are
- able to stand, please stand for our reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the
- flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands,
- One nation, one God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. This is on all. All right.
- So next up, we have the adoption of tonight's agenda. Does anybody have any amendments that they would
- like to make for tonight's agenda? Yes.
- Councilor Decker. Madam President, I would like to add just a discussion item, and I believe the appropriate
- place would be in new business on the transit line that we have supported. I believe it's transit line
- 13 in the past. I'd make it 10A if that helps. I'd so move. Second, or if that's necessary. So transit
- conversation.
- Okay, so 10 a and I in light of our conversation of yesterday want to give folks an opportunity to maybe
- have a brief conversation of because I know counselor Henry wasn't able to attend but I'm sure he has watched
- the meeting from yesterday and maybe at the time council hawk will be present too so i want to give
- us an opportunity to have a conversation from yesterday's joint meeting so i'd like to add that after
- the transit conversation as well and that will be 10b what are you calling that again please um justice
- conversation is there anybody else that wish to make
- adjustments or amendments to tonight's agenda. All right, seeing none, and because we don't have anybody
- attended virtually as of right now, so all those in favor of amended tonight's agenda or approving tonight's
- agenda as amended signify by saying aye. All those opposed, same sign. All right, motion carries.
- All right, next up, this is the time for the public to come in the Nattier Hill Room or virtually via
- Teams. And so if you have to...
- If you would like to talk on items that are not on tonight's agenda, you can always come forward to
- the lectern here in the NatU Hill Room. Each person will have up to three minutes, and the displays
- around this room here will show your three minutes. And then if you are virtually, you can raise your
- hand via Teams, and you'll also have up to three minutes. So again, you just state your name for the
- record, raise your hand, or come forward to the podium here, and you'll have up to three minutes.
- I don't see anybody as of yet. Oh, okay, all right. One on teams as well. Okay, so we'll go here in
- the Net-U-Hill room first. Again, the sign-in sheet is there for you. Sign in, state your name, and
- you'll have up to three minutes. My name is Gretchen Clearwater, and I'm here tonight because I had
- heard that there was maybe an issue about whether there would be enough funding for
- holding the elections. And actually, that's on tonight's agenda. OK, so when do I publicly comment?
- So it will be on the conversation of ongoing business, so 8A. That will be an opportunity for- So I
- should just wait? Yes. OK. Yeah, because those are items. So again, this is for public comment for items
- not on the agenda. And so that's on the agenda. Gotcha. Yes, just want to make sure. All right, I'll
- just stay there.
- All right. Well, we'll see you soon. All right. All right. So now I'm going to go back to teams here.
- I saw a hand raised and I don't see it anymore. Um, with the person's hand, um, that was raised via
- teams. If you'd like to raise your hand again, again, this is our for items that are not on tonight's agenda.
- All right. Seeing none, I want to make sure that everybody has an opportunity to speak on those items.
- And seeing none, we'll move on. Thank you.
- So next up is department updates. This is for departments of Monroe County government to come and update
- the council on items that are also not on the agenda. So departments have up to 10 minutes to give the
- council an update. And again, you can either raise your hand via Teams if you're virtually, or you can
- come forward to the lectern here in the Natt U Hill room. Yeah, looking around, I don't see any movements.
- either in the room here or be a team so we will move forward. On tonight's agenda we don't have any
- consent agenda items so we will dive right into our business for the evening and starts with number
- seven with the hiring freeze review. Council I move to open for discussion and possible approval the
- coroner's request to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire and fund one zero zero zero dash
- 0007 county general coroner a part-time reserve deputy position Second we got a motion in a second.
- I see our coroner. Mr. Jeff hall is present welcome Good evening council. Good evening Yes, so I would
- like to request the opportunity to hire a
- current reserve deputy into a paid part time position. This reserve deputy has been with our office
- since 2017. So it was before I took election as coroner. It's actually the same year that I was elected.
- And I was under the impression that this individual had technically been a
- employee of the coroner's office. Apparently a reserve deputy is a position that was created at the
- time of the prior coroner's time plane and so I am wanting to move this position into a paid part-time
- position solely because one of my current deputy coroners is going to be out on medical leave for about
- two to three months having surgery and therefore this
- Reserve deputy is going to be stepping into that role. Typically a reserve deputy in the way that our
- office setup is, is a one unpaid shift per quarter. This individual is gonna be picking up a lot more
- shifts and kind of covering that gap while my paid deputy is gone. In fact, he's already had five calls
- this year since beginning of January. And to pull some numbers, he had 14 total calls that he was part of
- From 2021 including the five this year. So already he's you know, I'm gonna be doing much much more
- and I'd like to Allow him to be paid and compensated for those extra efforts Before that explanation
- and look to my council members here to see if anybody has any questions or comments for mr. Hall. Yes
- counselor will So my understanding is that you have
- um is it four deputies you have it correct there's myself my chief deputy and then four um paid uh deputy
- quarters okay and then the the deputy coroners are on contract and they're paid no not contract okay
- could you explain to me are they then they used to be on contract maybe no okay what's the situation
- they are paid for quarterly uh via
- So they have to turn in time through to the HR. They're paid through payroll, but they're only paid
- quarterly. So many questions. Okay. If they're turning in their time and they're paid quarterly, if
- they don't turn in their time, are they still paid? I believe that is correct. Yes.
- we've had for years. So I do know that our counsel, Molly Turner King, is working with the coroner to
- move them to contracts. Maybe that's where I got that. I think that's where you're. I would just think
- that if there was a full quarter where they didn't turn any time in, then I'm not positive that they
- would get paid there. But if they turn in any time through any quarter,
- Then they get paid, right? And they would get paid the same amount. Correct. It's not hourly.
- It's a stipend. Correct. It's a stipend. Yeah. It's a quarterly stipend that's paid to each deputy coroner.
- Okay. Regardless of hours worked. Okay. So this would be an additional appropriation to cover. Now you're
- saying you've got one. I do have a question. Actually, it's clearly I have lots of questions. Sure.
- No, that's fine. That's why I'm here.
- you have a reserve person that is going to be covering or is covering more and more because one of the
- deputies is not available. So typically they cover a little bit, they do it because they're volunteering
- their time and service and that's amazing. What you're suggesting then is that
- they permanently become part-time, not just during this absence, but permanently. That is correct, yes.
- Yes, a permanent part-time paid position from now until the individual decides to leave the coroner's
- office. Paid hourly, not stipend. Okay, and I see that you came up with a justified way to determine a rate.
- an hourly rate based on the three thousand per quarter that your regular deputy was paid. OK. Am I also
- I feel like I'm cross examining every time I ask you all questions and I don't mean to sound that way.
- I got to work on my tone. No, absolutely. My office is a very unique office. It's structured
- a lot differently than than many of the other county government offices. So in the description, what
- I'm seeing is that you're also
- asking then for the ability to hire up to five reserve deputies through this part timeline?
- Is that correct? That was just a request. Obviously, if you know, if I'm not going out and hiring five
- people right now with my office and the way that it operates, unfortunately, we don't have people lining
- up wanting to come work for the coroner's office.
- I do my due diligence to make sure that everyone that does come and work for the office is vetted very
- properly. And they're not just coming for the glory and the fame. But unfortunately, yeah, there's no
- one's lining up the doors wanting to come work for the office itself. It's usually individuals who have
- worked with other deputies that I have, or individuals who work in a very similar jobs classification.
- So this would to be
- If I had another individual come forward, say in the next six months to have the opportunity to put
- them through the process to bring them on as a paid as a paid part time deputy. But I'm really only
- looking for just the one right now to really help out our office. I'm happy to let anyone else have
- a turn. Other council members, do you all have any questions for Mr. Hall on this item?
- You have more. Go ahead. Anyone else has anything? This is just super straightforward. I'm the only
- person. Okay. It's okay. Well, I have thoughts and my thought is that given our current hiring freeze,
- that while we could approve a part-time position to cover for
- the person who can't fulfill their regular duties, I'm not inclined to go beyond that simply because
- of the season in which we find ourselves of freezing all hireings or at least trying to. So that's my
- thought. I mean, I want you to have the person on
- I could maybe be convinced that it stays as a part-time position and it's not necessarily time limited,
- but I don't think any more than one position is warranted at this point. I'm happy to listen to others
- on the topic though. Just to clarify, you're stating that this one individual, if he were to be approved,
- it would just be for a short timeframe or
- And that's what I would think. My only rebuttal to that is I don't know what this deputy coroner stipulations
- are going to be when he comes back from his surgery, if he's going to be on a lifting restriction, if
- he's going to be on something that's going to limit his ability. I don't know. I can't predict that
- the surgery he's having is a pretty common surgery and there is good recovery time from that. But I
- don't want to say
- you know, it's gonna be eight to 10, you know, eight to 10 weeks, two to three months until I get a
- little bit closer to that. Having the opportunity to have this secondary or this reserve deputy fill
- in as needed. I don't quite think that this individual is going to want to pick up any more shifts than
- he needs to. As he is similar to myself, we all have other secondary full-time jobs. This is just a
- secondary supplemental income.
- Thank you, I appreciate that. Yeah, of course. And for the record, Councillor Hawke is in the building.
- Okay, are there any other questions or comments from council related to this item? Seeing none, we'll
- move on to public comment. If there's public comment on this item, you can come forward to the lectern
- here in the Nightingale room or raise your hand via Teams.
- Seeing none. May we please have a roll call vote. Councillor Fiddle. Yes. Councillor Hogg. I'm going
- to pass since I was not here for the discussion. Councillor Will. No. Councillor Henry. Yes. Councillor
- Decker. Yes. Councillor Crossley. Yes.
- Motion passes four one one pass Thank you council. All right. Next up is item b from the highway department
- Council i need to open for discussion and possible approval of the highway department's request to be
- exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire and fund 1176-00
- 00 motor vehicle highway account line one five eight four two truck driver position Second, okay. We
- got a motion and a second. We have miss Ridge here. Welcome So we after the last major snowstorm we
- received a resignation So and you know, it's sometimes that's expected. He was a full-time truck driver
- the last 20 years so he wanted to go back to being a full-time truck driver on the road, so
- We did fill the last truck driver position. That position is starting February 23rd. So we are requesting
- to fill this position. If we fill this position, then we're just down a mechanic and a highway engineer
- at this time. And this is out the NVH fund? It is all out of the NVH fund. Nothing comes out of the
- county general fund. Gotcha. OK.
- I like when you say that, okay. All right, so any questions or comments for Ms. Ridge on this item?
- Councilor Hawk. Yes. First of all, it is in a different fund. And if that fund runs short, they'll know
- it and they have to make adjustments. So it doesn't affect the rest of the county government. But the
- second thing is, you know, I don't think we slept through the snowstorm.
- that we've had and had and had and neither is high rate apartment. And so it would just behoove us to
- recognize that and know that this is something that we have to do. It's really public safety. Any other
- questions or comments? Yes, Councillor Decker. I just wanted to ask you a question. As much as you're
- allowed to say on this,
- Was it the comparison of those two different being out on the road versus some of the work and a snowstorm
- that was part of that decision for this individual? This was a tough snowstorm. And they worked a lot
- of long hours. When you're driving a truck, you can't see. You're not on a four-lane highway. You're
- on a country rural road that has embankments. You can't see where the road ends. You can't see the edge
- of the road.
- and it's very stressful. It's very mentally stressful, it's tiring, but they stay out there, they stay
- at it until we are able to, we do give them breaks constantly. So what the guys go through, it's a lot
- and it's not for everybody. So I appreciate the ones that stick with us and do the job and they do it well.
- I did hear comments from people over the last few weeks where they've said, this is the worst one I
- remember. And it might be getting close to the blizzard in a different way because we're now doing more,
- more roads, more people, more, more things just to cover. So thanks again to all your folks for, for
- doing that and the way that they had to do 48 hours straight, right? We get breaks, but we called them
- in on that Saturday at 5pm and we sent them home on Monday at 5pm.
- Councilor Wilts. Yeah, I will support this since it's not in county general and I can't imagine driving
- in those conditions. I don't like driving anyway, so kudos to anyone willing to take on that challenge.
- But I just wanted to take a moment and let you know that I was speaking with a constituent who lives
- off of Stipp Road and they are
- Pleased as punch about what's happened down there. So Yeah, and we had to be a really good project.
- Yeah, I know it's been a long time coming but they're so excited and thankful. So passing that along.
- Thank you. I'm so proud. Oh, I also called you and left you a message and told you how pleased I was
- how the county came back out and took care of an issue near where I live, which is there was, I think, snow.
- business that had got plowed into one lane of the road that we access in and out of the place. It was
- taken care of just in hours. It was very quick. So I want to thank that. My neighborhood thanks you
- for that. Yeah. Councillor Hawke. Well, we're passing out the compliments. In my neighborhood, right
- before you get to my house, there's a major curve that you just can't
- you can't get around it without some help. And so after you come through with the bigger trucks, then
- a smaller truck with the plow came through to try to widen that without knocking down the mailbox. I
- was so grateful. But without that, all of those people cutting through our neighborhoods to get over
- to the next main intersection,
- They couldn't have made it without being in real trouble. And so they took special care to take care
- of those special areas that needed that. So appreciate it. You're getting all the love.
- So we appreciate it, thank you. All right, so seeing no other further questions or comments from council
- on this item, we'll go to the public. If you have a comment on this item, you can come forward to the
- lectern here in the room, or you can raise your hand via Teams. And may we please have a roll call vote?
- Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hawk? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry?
- Yes. Councillor Deckard. Yes. Councillor Crossley. Yes. Motion passes unanimous. All right. Thank you.
- All right. Next up is item C from the Health Department. Council, I move to open for discussion and
- possible approval the Health Department's request to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed
- to hire and fund one one five nine dash zero zero zero zero health account line one zero one eight nine
- public health nurse communicable diseases position. Second. We have Ms. Lori Kelley present here. Welcome.
- What can you tell us about this item? Good evening. So this request is to hire for a public health nurse
- who the primary function is to oversee our communicable
- case investigations. Second to that, this position will help to provide vaccinations and health screenings
- to the public, both inside the clinic and during outreach services. So a little bit of a dual position
- there, but the primary focus is our case investigations for communicable diseases. Thank you for that.
- I'm looking to see if anybody has any questions or comments for Miss Kelly on this item.
- I'll go with Councilor Henry and then I'll go back. Thank you, Laurie, for being here. So, did I talk,
- was it hard? Okay, good, sorry. It's okay. It's the lights. It's like mood lighting in here. Anyway,
- so I guess maybe just holistically, we haven't talked about the new clinic in a while. How are things
- developing in terms of the setup of the clinic? This is a piece of it, obviously, but I know there was
- an urgency to get things going on one January, but can you walk us through the status of where we are on that?
- Yes, absolutely. So as of January 1st, we have taken over all of the communicable disease investigations.
- So making sure that we have continuing care for those that are latent TB cases, lead case management.
- We are still transitioning the vaccination services. So we are waiting on a generator. So in the settlement
- agreement with IU Health, IU Health kept the generator. We originally thought that we would be getting that
- with the equipment. So when that did not occur, we had to purchase one. We're waiting on that shipment,
- which is supposed to happen within the next week or so that I'm aware of. Once that's installed, then
- we'll be able to move forward with our vaccination refrigerators. So we have to obtain five days of
- temperature readings along with pictures. And then we contact the Indiana Department of Health. They
- come down, do a site visit. Then we're ready to go ahead and
- order vaccines and will be able to start vaccinated in March. So in the interim then what just remind
- me what's covering our services then because until March I mean we got I guess it's a few weeks away
- but it's been what are we what's the stopgap how are we covering things right now. Sure, so we
- Morgan County is taking referrals for vaccination services. We are still covering all of the communicable
- diseases and we can provide health screenings and testing. So we are doing some testing for the public
- either scheduled, we could through walk-in, but we don't have that established like open clinic space.
- I have some data on how much Morgan, like how many cases or walk-ins Morgan County has and how many
- cases we've managed in the county with the current partial setup with the current nurses for the T.
- Oh, so we, as of today, when I looked, we have 85 communicable disease case investigations that are
- currently open. So at the start of January, we had around 77 and we kind of fluctuated, give her a few
- up or down at that. So 85 as of today is the highest that I've seen since January. So just trying to
- work with two current employees to make sure that we're okay. It's not a small number. Okay. So thank
- you for sharing that information and getting this going. Yeah. It's been a lot, but I think that we
- are so fortunate that we have
- to current employees who have really just stepped up to the plate. We're meeting on a weekly basis,
- often more than that, just to review the cases, come up with plans for how we're going to make sure
- that we continue that care. So really thankful for that. I think I saw Councilor Hawke and then I'll
- circle back to Councilor Wilton-Deckard. Yes.
- What time of the year or month do you schedule the vaccines at the schools, or do you do it on some
- kind of a rotation basis? Currently, IU Health has been providing those, so we have not worked out a
- strategy for who will be providing
- those ongoing services, whether IU Health will be continuing that or whether we will. We do have a school
- liaison, one of the public health nurse positions who will be starting later this month. And that will
- be one of the items that will then begin working with the schools to reestablish those connections.
- What services are we going to be going in and offering the schools? So that is still to be determined.
- But the schools do still have access.
- The school liaison position. Can you tell me a little bit more besides the vaccinations what else do
- they do within and in the schools. Oh, in the schools.
- eventually once the person of course gets hired and trained. So stop the bleed trainings, access to
- CPR trainings for staff, help to provide evaluations on is there education assistance. So right now
- our maternal child health coordinator is going in and providing tobacco and vaping education to some
- of the schools so they can help provide some
- access to that, nutrition. Really a lot of it is kind of working with the schools. What are your gaps
- and how can we help fill those? We also, they check on their supplies or their supplies needs that we
- could help to fulfill for them. Outside community events, can we help provide resources for bicycle
- safety, food cooking demonstrations for some of the classes,
- That that's just some of the programming that we've done kind of over the years and making sure that
- their emergency response plans are up to date. I want to go back to something that you said earlier
- and if you need to get back with me on this that's fine too. But you were talking about the average
- of communicable I sometimes can't say that communicable investigations that they do in a in a month
- and you said we're currently at about 85 you thought.
- Yes, that was where we were at when I looked earlier today. Do you know, and if you want to get back
- or if it slows things down, no worries, but do you know what a normal average, and I hate the word normal
- or average related to communicable disease, do you know what a normal average is for us in a month?
- I do think that's a huge thing the public should just kind of have on their radar as they think about it.
- Just thinking off the top of my head, we're pretty close to that, roughly. We are collecting all of
- our data for our annual report, so I do have that information that I could share with you. Some of it,
- of course, we can't share publicly, but the information that we can share, we can do that, certainly.
- Some of it...
- We have seen some increases because when the Indiana Department of Health has lost some funding, so
- they used to assist in some of these cases, whereas they've now put that back on local health departments.
- We've seen a large increase, I would say, over the past year in some of those cases. They do help try
- to support us where they can, but some of that has come in,
- come back to us, whereas the state had some, I think they were interns that were helping to manage some
- of that before. So I think some of it fluctuates just depending on funding. I appreciate that greatly.
- Given everything, state and certainly federal, I think it's gonna be more and more incumbent upon
- And I'm not telling you anything you don't know, but I do want the public to hear this. I think it's
- going to be incumbent on people like you and our health officer and then us thinking about that. If
- we're not monitoring it, I don't know who is. So thank you for kind of talking about that. It's not
- the happy side of life, but we do those things. So the others have one or a crack at it. So thank you.
- Any other questions or comments? Yes.
- Thank you. Just one more thing. I just want to be clear. So 1159, why this funding line? Why this fund?
- This was where the funding was originally established. So we were just transferring those funds that
- were set aside for the IU health contract to pay for these positions moving forward into this year.
- But that's the only reason.
- Yes, when I looked at the 1159, it did make me, of course, more cautious because that affects all of
- our other funds that are in what we call the frozen levy funds. So this is just like adding someone
- in the county general fund. Can you tell me which fund is paying for the insurance for this individual?
- I believe that was shifted into
- the Health First Indiana Fund. All of the insurance for everyone was shifted into 1161. I thought it
- was the other way around, but I'll look it up real quick. Previously in previous
- years the 1159 covering the health first Indiana insurance and that was based on the recommendation
- from the Indiana Department of Health. Well of course they would recommend that because it doesn't mean
- we would recommend it. That's that's where we're falling short is how we're going to pay for the insurance.
- I think you'd have that memorized, since we've talked about it so much. It is being paid out of $1,159.
- Is there not room in the 1161? Am I saying that number right? Is it 1161 for this position? The room,
- is that what you're asking? It's already budgeted. It's already budgeted in 1159. You guys already approved
- this position and it's appropriated already.
- Well, I know we've done that on budgets throughout the county, and this is our chance to change it,
- which we're gonna have to change some of these things. Just because something's already been budgeted
- and appropriated does not mean you can continue to fill it, because that's what hiring freeze means.
- So we do not have in the current Health First Indiana budget any room to move the expense there.
- So the budget that was approved last year for 2026 for Health First Indiana, we had to take a chunk
- of that. And so we're paying the positions around four or five months, just a chunk of that. We're working
- on doing our financial reports. So then we can submit to use funding that we had left over from last
- year, but we do not have
- currently have access to use those funds at this point. Okay. Is there any other questions or comments
- on this item? Seeing none, I'll go to the public on this item. If there is public comment on this item,
- raise your hand via Teams or come to the lectern here in the night
- none. May we please have a roll call vote. Councilor Hawk? No. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry?
- Yes. Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Motion passes majority five to one.
- Thank you. Next up is item D from the clerk's office. Me, sorry. Council, I move to open for discussion
- and possible approval of the clerk's office request to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed
- to hire and fund 1000-0001 County General Clerk, a part-time phones clerk position.
- Second. We got a motion and a second and we are joined this evening by our County Clerk, Nicole Brown.
- Welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, President Crossley, members of the Monroe County Council.
- I, while very respectful of the hiring freeze and asking to replace a part-time phones clerk, we had
- a lovely lady who
- had worked in a different clerk's office in another part of the state, moved to Monroe County. She worked
- for a time in the public school system and they did some cuts and let her go. So she wanted to come
- back to her clerk roots. The school system then realized what they lost and they hired her back. We
- absolutely wish her well. But in the clerk's office, we have a multi-line phone system that is very,
- There can be laws, but most of the time it is a very busy area because we have calls coming into the
- Justice Building for all of the different areas of the Justice Building, the courts, the prosecutor,
- the sheriff. People, when they don't know who to call, they call the clerk's office.
- role has to have a working knowledge of pretty much every area of not only the clerk's office, but different
- nuances of the judges, the courts, the prosecutor's office, the sheriff, and the person in that part-time
- role not only covers lunches, but they can pinch hit if we have unexpected illnesses, emergencies, absences,
- vacations, and I am requesting respectfully to be able to fill that role. Thank you. Thank you. And
- for my other job, I know that y'all definitely get the calls because from our office, we get them and
- vice versa. I appreciate you. I get it. I get it. All right. That's my government nerd of the day.
- All right. Checking in for council colleagues to see if anybody has any questions for Ms. Brown on this item.
- Councilor Wilks. Can you remind me how many full-time positions you have doing this kind of work? Because
- you're saying this one's to fill in and to cover. So there are two full-time people in phones and then
- one part-time. And we can, other duties as assigned, use the part-time in other areas, traffic,
- for example, to maybe answer some basic questions at the front desk.
- like the basic questions they would get on the phone. But ideally, two people are at the phones all
- the time because it is a multi-line phone system. And so somebody's always calling in. I have a lot
- of people who live out of Monroe County. They can't get to work or something like that. And so this
- person is typically able to jump in and cover, as I say, the absences, the vacations, illnesses,
- things like that. Thank you. You're welcome. Councillor Henry. Thank you. Thank you, Clerk Brown. It's
- interesting. I was placing calls around the county today to different offices and I was having different
- experiences with who greeted me first. There's an agency in the county that uses an automated system to
- press one for operator two for so-and-so to get you where you need to go. I'm sorry. Yeah, there's another
- agency that hasn't emptied their voicemail in a considerable amount of time, so it goes to an empty
- or full inbox. So I guess my question's here just so I understand what's going on in the office. How
- long has this position been open?
- She just left. The school system hired her back and I don't blame her one bit. She will now get to have
- her summers off. She had retired from another clerk's office, had worked there during the school year
- just for some extra money and now she gets to have her summers off again. I certainly cannot blame her,
- but she will be sorely missed. I can feel that from you guys. It seems like a big part of the team.
- Just data on how many calls you're getting per hour in that space. You say a lot, but I'm just trying
- to wrap my head around. Is it nonstop or what's it feel like? I can't tell you per hour. What I can
- tell you is, as you might imagine, Mondays and Fridays are the busiest because we've either been closed
- for the weekend or a county government holiday. Fridays, people get paid.
- As I say, the person in that role, you have to know something about everything. People want to know
- when their court date is. People want to know how much money they owe. Various questions. We get calls
- for elections in the clerk's office when, as you know, the elections division is in a completely separate
- building. There can be laws. I certainly would never try to
- say that they are not in the middle of the week, it could die down a bit, but then as I say, that's
- when we use that person to maybe pinch hit with somebody who might need some clerical help. My last
- question was, I don't have the job description in front of me, but I'm presuming there's a line in that
- part-time job description that says, and other duties. Other duties as assigned. And you've described
- some of those other duties. Absolutely. Okay, I think that's all I have. Thank you.
- Did I see your hand raised? No. Okay. No questions. Okay. All right. Councilor vital. I wonder if you
- can tell us how many phone lines there are that these people answer. So I'm going to say there's three
- phone numbers that come in from the public. But of course, nearly everybody in my office has a phone.
- So they, I mean,
- if it comes in and a clerk can help, a deputy clerk can help, it's transferred in-house to those people.
- But there are some things that need to go straight up to the court, are not in our bailiwick.
- Excuse me, some things that would need to go. People call us for, you would not imagine some of the
- different kinds of calls we take for things that have absolutely nothing to do with what we do. So we
- want very kind,
- compassionate people with a working knowledge of pretty much everything that goes on in the justice
- building to be able to feel those calls as quickly as they can, especially on those Mondays and Fridays
- that I described to Councilman Henry. You're welcome. Okay. Yes, Councilor Wilts. Pardon me if this
- was in our packet and I missed it. I'm curious.
- what you have in your part-time line set as, and what you're expecting in terms of how many hours this
- person will work. So, Counselor Wills, as you know, part-time is up to 28 hours. The particular person
- in the role that just left, she didn't need all 28 hours. I believe she worked about five hours a day.
- I have worked, it depends on who,
- applies and who's a good fit for our office. I have worked with IU students just up the road, worked
- around their class schedule. It just depends on who's applying and how many hours they're interested
- up to 28. But if you're asking if I can accommodate that 28, yes ma'am. That's where I was headed, yes.
- Great. No other further questions?
- Seeing none, we will go to public comment. If there's public comment on this item, you can come forward
- to the lectern here in the NETU Hill Room, or you can raise your hand via Teams. And seeing none, may
- we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker?
- Councillor Crossley? Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes. Councillor Hawke? No. Motion passes five to one majority.
- All right. Thank you very much. But we're gonna still stick with the clerk because we got ongoing business.
- So 8A is where we are headed.
- Okay. Council, as a reminder, this item was tabled from the January 27th meeting. I move to approve
- the clerk's request and fund 1215-0062 election fund election board. An additional appropriation of
- $221,106 in the personnel category and $21,675 in the services category for a total appropriation of $242,781.
- second all right and welcome good evening president crossley members of the monroe county council thank
- you for the opportunity to speak with you this evening two weeks ago my election supervisor appeared
- before you in my stead regarding additional appropriations she was to present with the chair for the
- monroe county election board my understanding is he was not able to end up joining her for the presentation
- i would like to make clear
- that I was told that we were not only invited, but expected that the council had simply been waiting
- for us to submit a request. And that in fact, if we could get that request in prior to 11 o'clock the
- next day, we would be placed on the council's agenda. And so I completed the request to be on the council
- council's agenda agenda with the election supervisor and chair presenting as it stands at this time.
- We do not have enough in the election budget to meet the statutory minimum hours of early voting in
- election day for the 2026 non-presidential primary in the general election. Also, to be clear, all members
- of the election board were provided with the numbers that were not only requested, but an explanation
- of the shortfall. One board member was apparently confused about the format, but failed to either ask
- clarifying questions about the numbers received or make an appointment to review documents with the
- election supervisor. Regarding that allegation, the maya culpa is not on my office or staff. I received
- a lovely card from a voter who made public comment at last Thursday's election board meeting. I asked
- her if I could share a portion of her note with the council and she said that I could. She writes,
- I am wondering whether members of the public might be able to raise additional funding to cover election
- shortfalls, whether you would accept in-kind donations of, say, printed signage for polling sites, whether
- people are legally allowed to volunteer their time and forego payment. In short, I want to help if it
- is legal and appropriate to do so. I think there are many, many people I could mobilize to help.
- I have never met this person, but her heartfelt correspondence resonated with me and reinforces the
- message that free and fair elections are not free. The more you want from elections, the more you have
- to be willing to pay. I absolutely have regrets that I did not request the same budget I did for the
- presidential elections as my clerk siblings threw out
- the state did and their councils approved their budget request. Had I done so, we would not only have
- the operational budget we need, but we would likely return money back into the election budget. I know
- that at least one member of the council is cognizant that we will have to prepare as though there will
- be a 100% turnout for both elections.
- At this point, I'm not prepared to grovel for election dollars. My staff and I stand ready to give you
- the elections you paid for within the parameter you provided. But with that, my election supervisor
- and I are happy to respond to your questions at this time. Thank you. Thank you. And I also just want
- to note for the record that I do see
- Ms. Penny Giffins, that is joining in the back. Since she is a part of the election board, I just wanted
- to acknowledge, and just in case you needed to come and speak as well, and along with election supervisor,
- Kylie. Welcome. All right. Is there any questions or comments from council on this item? Yes, Councilor
- Hawke. Yes. Generally, maybe.
- Everybody thinks this budget is different from every other budget, but you have dollars that's already
- appropriated, and generally we ask the departments to spend out of what has been appropriated, we're
- not saying hire extra people because we're in hiring freeze, but to proceed with your normal business,
- and come back to us if things run short, if you spend more than what you've been appropriated. So maybe
- this is different. Have I missed something somewhere? Why would this be any different? Thank you for
- your question. This is the first time that I can recall, after having presented at the budget hearings
- late summer, early fall, that
- the budget, the numbers were then sliced after I left the table for the budget hearings. So this is
- the first time I've had to come and say, can you please put some of that money back? I've always asked
- for a budget that reflected the two elections that we would be having. And I believe the auditor told
- you at that time that I typically return money. I'm not out spending money willy nilly.
- do what needs to be done to cover those two elections and the cuts that were made to the budget after
- I left the budget table leave me as I indicated with not enough to meet the bare minimum, the statute
- minimum for the two elections. So we're going to have to come back anyway. I've met with my liaisons,
- they were aware
- and they told us to come back. And as I say, when my election supervisor was here two weeks ago, I was
- told that she was invited, that we were expected, that they knew they had not given us the money, enough
- money to run both elections, and that is why I am before you today. I just wanna make it clear
- to you and to the public, surely you know, that there is money in the fund to do if you run out of money,
- then you come back and do an additional appropriation. But we also have to recognize we're trying not
- to spend that down because every year we're supposed to be trying to grow that balance so we'll be ready
- for the presidential election. But to ask for
- whatever you feel like you need to get all the way through the full year, mercy. I mean, we have a lot
- of departments that like to do that. We would have just skipped budget hearings and just went, you know,
- diddle and everything. So, I mean, I don't think anybody's asking you not to do your statutory duties.
- It's just use the money that's already been appropriated. If you run out of that money, then it's the
- time for you to ask for more money that's left in the fund.
- I don't understand why it wouldn't be that way. But as you say, in the past, you've been given the kind
- of appropriation you needed to do the whole year. So it was kind of a shock when you didn't see the
- whole year. But many departments didn't get the whole year. And that's what we had to do to try to get
- through the budget. And we still spent way more than we should have in all of the budgets. I think we
- recognize that now.
- I just want to make sure that the public understands. No one's telling you not to run a good and fair
- election. And my point today, and if you happen to watch the election board meeting last week, is that
- elections are as critical to Monroe County's infrastructure as your highway, as your sheriff, your fire,
- et cetera. And so when I look at other agencies such as my dear friend,
- the sheriff who received not only what he asked for, but $155,000 in overtime to make sure that operations
- continue even at the end of the workday. You don't stop a homicide and say, I'm sorry, we're only, you know,
- We're done working. We'll come back tomorrow in the highway department who between the snow bonus, regular
- over time, double over time in stormwater received $209,540. I asked for $25,000 for two elections to
- take care of the 10 to 20 people depending on the turnout and how busy we are. I asked for that money
- because otherwise they're going home at four o'clock. Nobody is going to
- leave their dinner table, leave homework time, bedtime, bedtime for evenings and weekends to do the
- poll worker training, help with all of the things that we need to do after four o'clock for less than
- one hour of compensatory time per day. And you don't ask that of any other infrastructure person like
- the sheriff or the highway. You don't ask them to work for 40 hours of compensatory time. I certainly
- don't believe that that's what they got for this disrespectful weather that we just had a few weeks
- ago. But we're prepared, again, to give you the election you paid for. I saw you had your hand up, and
- I just want to jump in for a second, because I really feel like to compare with the highway department
- and the sheriff's office, I understand
- I understand where we're going with that, but I think those are completely different things to say that.
- And so I'm looking and just going, I don't know. But if we're going to compare those departments, and
- the comparison that I think of is,
- When those departments, I can think of the times where those departments have used their money and they've
- also come back to council and they've also said, hey council, we're out, can you please help us? And
- they've made that case. And so I guess with councilor Hawkinson and I bet money, all seven of us,
- even though Councilor Iverson is not here, as Councilor Hawkins mentioned, and I look around and I say
- that I think everybody is definitely concerned and want to make sure that we, the voters of Monroe County,
- every single person, I have a new voter that gets to vote this year, that is able to participate and
- do the democratic process that we have as our rights.
- But I don't think that it is fair to put this on council, especially because I think the biggest thing
- that we keep saying, and I know folks have said that they don't want us to kind of come back and forth
- and compare, but SEA 1 literally was the first year last year that we had to, you know,
- look at how we can rob Peter to pay Paul to make sure that all things are happening. And we definitely
- don't want to be in that boat with you all, but I guess for me, it's a little baffling that we're here
- because as it's been mentioned, and I'm sure other folks might mention this as well, and I think,
- you know, to Ms. Ferris when she was here earlier, and I appreciate Ms. Ferris coming in, you know,
- a couple of weeks ago and taking the questions, even though
- uh, the election board president, I didn't show up and I reached out to him and I expressed that,
- you know, we could bump him up, but I digress. Anyways, and that's fine. It's neither here nor there.
- But the point of the matter is that I think we're all making is if there is funds that are here,
- can you, because I heard you just say like, you'll have to come back anyway. So to that point, if you
- have to come back anyway, then why can't you come back during that time frame in which
- Like and ask for that because I know folks are here and they probably want to you know Tell us all the
- things about making sure that we fund this and to those people watching and and here and then at you
- Hill room That's what we're trying to do. That's what has been expressed countless times and we are
- definitely telling that to you I'm here in person. I just wanted to make it abundantly clear that I
- Don't want us to play chicken with
- the voters, and if this one doesn't balk up, and then this one doesn't balk up, because in the end,
- we're hurting voters. And all we're saying here as council is use what you have, because we're in a
- new era. And I hope that folks can understand that. As dismay as folks might be, that's fine. But use
- what you have and then come back. And so, Madam President, thank you for your thoughtful words. And
- most people in the audience
- certainly not my election supervisor, who probably wasn't even born when this quote was said. Some of
- you may remember that there was a show, and the gentleman would say, if you'll give me a hamburger today,
- I will gladly pay you on Tuesday. And so that's the optics that I feel. I think the optics are bad in
- terms of I'm looking at my budget where there are lines
- that were zeroed out. I look at comparable infrastructure budgets and do not see zeros. I am saying
- we will do, if that's what you want us to do, we will do what we have with the money that we've been
- given. It does not seem right, fair, or appropriate in this instance, and it isn't as though
- My liaisons did not. They started early last year telling me about the ramifications, which was why
- I gave myself haircuts before I ever came to you last summer, early fall. I started giving my, I used
- less of a budget than the presidential. If I had realized that, you know,
- other clerks throughout the state were going ahead with and just asking for that presidential money
- because it means we prepare as though every voter is going to show up in the same way they would the
- presidential. If I had realized that that was the trend, I would have done that and then these haircuts
- would be easier to take because I would already be working with
- at a level that made me comfortable because it was the same as the presidential. Does that, I'm hopeful
- to have made that make sense. I haven't eaten today. Of course. And I'm so sorry. I know counselor Henry
- had his hand raised and I'm seeing I'm filling all the questions coming from this side as well. But
- in watching the election board from last week, I guess I know that you all have
- a special meeting this Thursday to kind of go over this very thing. And so help me to understand because
- it seems to be that you'll vote on the hours this Thursday, is that correct? Correct. And that also
- has to be unanimous, is that correct? So the hours, the statutory minimum is what will be to extend
- the statutory minimum to
- what Monroe County has become accustomed to will take a unanimous vote. So that's what we've been accustomed
- to. And that's the hours that are eight to six. That's right. Right. And so with that being
- and my understanding that there could be a potential that if we don't give you all what you're asking
- for right now and you get to your meeting on Thursday,
- And because what we didn't give, although it's there and you could choose to, somebody could, if you
- don't have a unanimous vote on the hours from eight to six, then it defaults back to eight to four.
- Okay. But that's where I'm saying, that's a slippery slope because again,
- we should not be playing chicken with things. It's like the chicken little scenario, the sky is falling,
- and it's really not. The funds are there, we're just simply asking for y'all to come back. And I think
- that's the bottom line that we are simply saying. I think we've heard Councilor Hawk, I'm sure other
- people will have the same sentiments, because I heard it a couple of weeks ago. But that's the bottom,
- that's what it is. And I would just hate because,
- I've actually had to answer constituents' emails and phone calls on this very issue, where we got an
- email about this. And it's like, I don't know what else to say except for the funds are there. And so
- I've just been like, well, that's where you have to go talk to the election board and figure this out,
- because we're saying that it's there. We're not cutting anything, because it
- It's being presented to the public that we are literally not, because of the budget cuts that we sustained
- for your particular budget, and we did that for other people as well, that it seems like the council
- is just, the council will be responsible for whatever happens regarding primary day, and that's not
- okay to say that
- because we didn't give what you need right now or what you are requesting for right now that it's our
- fault and eight to six isn't going to be a thing and that's going to be on council because I don't want
- that to happen because that's not fair. So I'll go, I'm sorry, I know everybody's coming so I'll just
- go to Councilor Henry and then I'll just go all the way now. Thank you Madam President.
- And I appreciate you cutting in line. No, it helps to clarify a lot. I really appreciate you getting
- ahead of me on it. I have four points of information before I go ahead and start with some questions
- here. First, maybe Michelle or Ms. Woodruff, can we verify the sheriff's and jail budget for last year?
- My understanding is we cut the budget by about $2 million during the budget process. But I just want
- to make sure that we're honest in the room
- We did some significant cuts to the sheriff's office. Second point of information is I just want to
- make sure that I heard that Indiana code says there was a unanimous vote required. Mr. Cockerill, can
- we take a look at the code on what the unanimous vote or the vote process is for the polling locations?
- Just to be sure, I just want to know chapter and verse where that is coming from.
- I just want to ask my peers before I get into other questions, because I'm sure you have your own. Was
- another member going to ask about overtime, because I can withhold on those questions? I have other
- things I'd like to talk about. So I appreciate you coming in. I wanted to maybe walk through some things
- for my understanding of the public. And I agree with both my colleagues to the right and left here that
- we have some misapprehensions. So I just want to ask some basic questions. As of right now,
- your appropriation line would fund the primary.
- that don't worry about the general election, but the money that's in the account lines would fully fund
- the primary, isn't that correct? With reduced staffing, which would cause me great pause, we could do
- the statutory minimum. Let me ask it again. I mean, the budget that we provided, and maybe Ms. Schell,
- we're going to need to see the budget up. If the argument was it was set at
- the 2024 level before the adjustments by the commissioners and the like. That was a full year we budgeted
- for two elections. Are you saying that the appropriation you have right now would not cover one election,
- the primary and full? I don't, because I'm not seeing those same numbers. I think you would probably
- have an election and a half right now based on what we appropriated in the fall.
- So what I have is that it would cover the primary with us moving funds from different lines in order
- to cover the early voting costs. That would be the in-house transfers to the appropriation you have.
- So every other department of the county uses their account lines and they come back and ask for additional
- appropriations. What's different, I think, and we all agree that maybe in previous years we've done
- an entire or attempted to do an entire year. But that gets us to maybe the second point. And maybe this
- is a misapprehension. I don't agree that a reversion is savings to the county.
- A reversion is encumbered money that has been captured by the department for future use and house transfers
- moving things around.
- What's being described as a give back is not a give back. It's money that was basically over appropriated
- and not used in that cycle. And to Councilor Hawke's point, it's what we use to bank up to the four
- year presidential based on a long history of Councilor Hawke being here and building that fund.
- So that to me, I just want to be clear that if the public's listening to this and thinking that there's
- a quarter of a million dollars that moves back every year, which is about what it was, right?
- You know six figures that moves back from the clerk's office to the election fund that is that reversion
- is not savings it's it's over appropriation now I understand that I'll give you a chance to reply to
- that is that it's. If i'm taking the face value the idea that you're planning for the maximum election
- each time.
- And we're not using that proceeds and it comes back to the fund. I mean, that's one way to look at it.
- But in no year have we actually hit the ceiling on a full election cycle. That money keeps coming back
- to the election fund for the following. President Crossley put it right. I mean, it's Senate Bill 1
- that's driving us to being incredibly scrutinizing of how we're using funds in the future, including
- saving up for the presidential year in 28 that we have to start thinking about. So I think those are
- just I want to get that on the table.
- I have three I want to talk about this budget here because in October as a liaison we did talk about
- the fact that I agree to this and we've conceded it in public that when we did the budgeting we didn't
- account for the commissioners raises you know the adjustments between the primary and the general election
- in twenty twenty four so when we budgeted we knew that was shorted a little bit and that's what I thought
- we were fixing at the time we talked about I'm going to talk about absentee workers A B and C here because
- this is what came up in the last meeting.
- We talked about some October numbers for early voting 28 days, the regular EV hours, and a deficit of
- $68,880, which is in our packet for tonight. Absentee worker B, when we talked about it in person back
- in October, we saw a regular EV hours at a $32,400 deficit. Tonight we see a budget number of $41,300
- for that line.
- absentee see when you and I sat down in October I was staff was a deficit of twenty four thousand four
- hundred thirty two tonight we see absentee see at forty nine thousand four sixteen in our last meeting
- we had asked
- to understand this change, because this is really important. I mean, absentee C is almost a $25,000
- difference from what we thought we were going to fix in October. And so when I look at that and say,
- you know, these are 20 to 100% increases in account lines, this is way more than what the commissioners
- approved in their adjustment. Can you help me understand just those three account lines and why, especially
- B and C are off by 8,924,993 respectively?
- So on ABSB, there was originally just travel board that was accounted for that line. It was then determined
- that reconcilers who also worked during early voting should have been included into that pay line. So
- their total payments would be coming out of that line as well. For them running a regular election with
- the eight to six, it would be $15,600 to cover them.
- So just so I'm clear, are we talking about funding for the primary at this point or the entire election?
- That is for the entire election. Okay. If it was for just the primary, it'd be an additional $5,200.
- In absentee C? Absentee C, I believe it was the absentee leads in the back office that were left off
- of that one. Those are the individuals who are in our office starting in March, and they are the ones
- that process all of the absentee by mail military overseas. They also have
- their time that had to be added in, but the leads from early voting, they also do a recruiting for the
- poll workers on that. So there was an additional 50 hours added to their pay in order to cover them
- for what they do. So I just got the time. I wanted to make sure I got the timeline right. So we went
- through the budget process in October. Yep. None of that was accounted for in October. No. We went ahead
- and made cuts as we've made cuts all over the county to try to account for future spending.
- We had a conversation in October about adjustments, and then we now have an additional adjustment. Is
- that a fair way? So in between the conversation that we had with you and Peter Iverson is when these
- were found. Peter Iverson and a commissioner received these numbers, and these are the exact same numbers
- that the election board received in November. The numbers in our packet are the ones I just read out
- that were from our conversation.
- the packet that is not from our conversation. So somewhere between October and last meeting, we ended
- up with these increases, none of which was accounted for in the budget in September. Okay. Well,
- that's a lot. I'll turn it over down the line here. I'm sure there's more to talk about that. Okay.
- All right.
- Thank you very much for coming in here. And I want to thank the election supervisor for taking my call
- earlier. I had some questions for her. And clerk, I want to commend her to you and her passion
- for professionalization in that office because she cares about her job. We don't always see that in
- everything in public service. If we saw it at every level, we'd be in much better shape here. Here's
- where I'm worried about all this. I'm worried that we are having a fight
- that is putting the voter at jeopardy and may not be actually, we may not actually be that far apart
- on anything at all. And if there's anything in public service that puts me through the top of the rotunda
- in any building, and I've watched it for 20 some odd years, is something that gets the public perhaps
- unnecessarily
- and probably on our side and all sides, there's a little bit of this that has done this. But if I'm
- looking at what I'm looking at, and I know that made a lot of sense, but if I'm looking at this, we
- could fund the traditional primary now with a little bit of that, a little bit of this, just like every
- other department above me, below me, and across this county campus,
- we could fund that primary just as normal in what will be a robust year. If I had to bet my mortgage,
- I would say we will have voters of every political stripe coming out for various reasons, and they'll
- all think they're right, which means they're gonna be lined up and determined. But we could fund that
- now, and then I'm trying to figure out when our first meeting is in June, but we could literally, well,
- late May, we could come off the May,
- that we have a robust primary come back in late May early June and say okay now where's this where these
- dollars kind of following I know you have some after connection where the dollars following following
- how do we have a robust fall in the same way we had a robust may what I've never heard one counselor
- say appears I'm against. A robust primary in a
- What I am hearing is our financial situation means we've got to watch everything and talk about it and
- hope that somewhere in that between the primary in the fall you save us twenty dollars and make us all
- look good but we don't sacrifice all the folks that are
- I don't think we have to take too much of time to do it. I know that it means.
- a little bit of this and a little bit of that on the ledger of the election supervisor. But I think
- that would go a long way to calming this because I always have people that come up and they're like,
- why do you want to cut elections? And I'll say I spent four and a half years as our state election director,
- a bipartisan. I want nothing to do with that. Show me who's doing that. And they say, well, that's you,
- Deckard. And I'm like, no, that's not me. So I just I think we could calm this down, bring this back.
- have a robust primary. There's no reason we can't do that and not discourage things from happening and
- then just do what we always do. We were, Kate and I, when we were in council leadership, we were in
- here at some ungodly hour for the fall election dealing with those levels, ABS, A, B, and C, trying
- to get a classification because there were some
- HR, employee services had something, but we were doing that and we got through that. I just think that
- this is doable. I think this could calm it and you get a robust primary. You get a robust fall. Voters
- of every strike get what they want and then down the road we go.
- think the world of you. And yes, I rely on the fact that you do have the bird's eye view of what we
- are facing with respect to election. You know, compromise means that nobody gets everything that they
- want. And I certainly am open and have an open heart to compromise. And so I get if tonight it gives
- you heartburn for the entire amount of appropriations that we've asked for. I get that. But also in
- good faith, I would ask
- that you consider some of the lines, and then that way we will be back, we will be back, but it would
- help me to feel better about a more robust primary to get some of this. So if we could agree on some
- lines that you're willing to appropriate, it doesn't have to amount to the 242-781, but then good faith
- on both sides,
- Is that fair? I'll let others comment. I'm open to anything, but what I'm not open to is not having
- a robust primary or robust fall. And as a Democratic clerk, I don't want to give you a less than robust.
- I mean, it's one of those, we got to live within our means. Everybody has to, but we want more.
- If you want a limousine for the primary and the general, you're gonna have to give me a little bit of
- limousine money. Otherwise, we rolling up Pinto, sir. But they take car payments for that limo, too.
- Okay, well, I'm coming back to ask you if you will work with me and finance at a lower rate than we
- might have otherwise came here intending, then I will be back to upgrade the car later with a little
- bit more money. Is that fair, counselor?
- I think it's fair, but I'm only one of seven. Yeah, so we're going to go down the line. I just have
- a point of information. I just want to maybe get back to the data for a second. Were they able to get
- the information I asked for earlier? Mr. Cockrell, you have the Indiana code that we were talking about?
- I think we were talking about Indiana code 3111026.3, establishment of satellite offices.
- And in that, it indicates that in E2B, it includes if a resolution is adopted under this section for
- a primary election, and that is establishing a satellite voting site, the board may, by unanimous vote
- of the board's entire membership, amend the resolution to modify for subsequent general or
- municipal elections, the location of the satellite office, and the hours at which absentee voting may
- occur at the satellite office. So I think that's where we're at. And we also spoke with our good friend,
- Matt Kochivar, to make sure that I would never come here and speak out of turn. It would be the eight
- to four unless, by unanimous vote of the election board, we voted to extend the hours. So they're referring
- to the satellite office.
- you know, early voting is a satellite office and it functions under the hours of the clerk, which are eight a.m.
- to four p.m. That that's where we are. So I understand you still have a point. Yeah, I just want to
- actually want a clarification on this now. So that's not what the code says. It doesn't say shall. It
- doesn't say that the hour shall be the same. That's not what you just read. I pulled up.
- Yeah, but I didn't hear the word shall. I mean that that would infer that there's opportunity to adjust
- the hours. I'm a lawyer, but that's why I'm asking you. Says the board may by unanimous vote of the.
- Of the entire membership amend the resolution to modify. For subsequent general municipal elections,
- the hours and I think above that in a section.
- It says a resolution adopted under this section. So what I just read was modification. This is a resolution
- adopted under the section. A resolution must be adopted by unanimous vote of the entire membership of
- the board. A resolution adopted under the section must do the following. State the locations of the
- satellite offices. State the hours at which absentee voting may occur at the satellite office.
- The other point of clarification, the information earlier was just the clerks or the sheriff's budget.
- Did we get that number pulled up? I know it's almost panantic, but we did suggest that there was no
- cut in that budget. I just want to make sure it's in there for the record. That budget was cut. Getting
- an exact answer is a little hard because there were so many changes, but whenever I look at the levy
- fund locations, that $2 million does seem accurate. Fair.
- Is that it for your point of clarification? Yeah, I'm good, thank you. Okay, appreciate that. All right,
- Councilor Wilts. Thank you. I feel like my colleagues have made a lot of good points and Councilor Deckard,
- in the spirit of working together to get what I think we all want, kind of hit that home. I want to
- be very clear
- that I do not see anything about what we are doing as underfunding our primary. You have all of our,
- if I may, support to run your election as robustly as you have in the past, and always do, because you
- do. You run great elections. I have a great team.
- We are not saying back off of the quality. What we are saying is we have to be watching every penny.
- And if we can give you enough to get by for the primary so that we can look at how that money was spent
- and really take a close look at what's needed, that will help us be more accountable to the public
- as well as ourselves. We took a look at last, at 2024, 2025, up to a point, we looked at how the spending
- in all of the departments was. Budgeting, expenditures, reversions, we took looks at all of that across
- all kinds of different things and we had down to the micro level what
- was an outlier in expense for that particular year. What was the trend? We looked for hours at everybody's
- budget, and when we made cuts, it was not out of any favoritism or to punish any one office over another.
- I can promise you, we're really trying to be fair. The couple of departments that you've referenced
- that have large overtime for their employees,
- have representation. They have union representation, negotiated amounts that they get. And good for
- them for that. Sure. And I want to be very clear for my dear friend, the sheriff, and for the head of
- the highway department, I do not one bit begrudge what they have. I asked for a small fraction
- of what they were given in overtime. This money doesn't go into Nicole Brown's home. Nicole Brown gets
- money out of a totally different budget. This is to make sure that my staff has what they need and it's
- 10 to 20 people depending on, things can change on a dime. I can think we have enough people, something
- comes up and we have better than expected turnout and we've got to maneuver and get people in place
- and everything and I just want to feel comfortable. I am not,
- asking anybody to rob a bank. I am asking for enough money to feel comfortable that we don't have to
- come back here before June 1st. And so in the spirit of compromise, and because I consider you all to
- be incredibly capable people as far as what the budget is going, I regret again that I didn't ask for
- presidential money because I think I would feel better with what I was dealing with
- If that if if I had had that Some of my clerk brothers and sisters did that and the council overwhelmingly
- approved it for the same I don't think we would have so don't regret anything That would not have changed
- the way we made our decision But i'm saying the haircuts that I would have taken still would have left
- enough. I don't know about that money that we were basing it on Looking at the trends and the individual
- expenses. I promise you we were looking at over time and who?
- Who got that overtime payment on your staff? And we've got lots of information. We want to see you making
- an effort to just make smart decisions. And I trust that you will do that. You have the money to pay
- people what they deserve to do the work that you need done. I would suggest looking at comp time as an option
- In addition to overtime, I recognize that, because I've read some of what was said in the election board
- meeting, I wasn't able to attend. I know that that's a point of contention. And we do use overtime.
- I don't want you to feel like they don't accrue overtime, because you have to get from that 35 to 40
- hours. The limits were put on the compensatory time. And I can tell you right now, you correct me if
- I do not have one person
- that is normally someone we can count on to their, having worked in elections before, having the skill
- set to help us get through this very busy time to, they are not going to give up evenings, bedtime,
- bath time, weekends for less than one hour. We got 60 days ahead of the election where we're getting
- ready, including that 28 days of early voting with the two Saturdays and then election day. So 60,
- You know, I took algebra twice, but I can kind of do enough of math to balance the checkbook. 60 days,
- 40 compensatory hours before you start getting the nasty grams from the courthouse. They are not going
- to work for less than one hour of compensatory time a day, 12 to 16 hours. They're not.
- I'm open to compromise. I'm saying I get that it's not palatable for the amount requested. I'm asking,
- can we do something today so that we each leave feeling like we want a little bit of something? And
- if that's not where we are, that just disheartens me. I'm not opposed to looking at partial, just in
- good faith. I'm not opposed to that.
- I do think that there's some mischaracterization on how comp time could help your office's situation.
- I mean, once they get to 40 hours, they do get the time and a half comp time. So that is accruing at
- a higher rate than just one for one hour. And then you have the summer where people can
- spend down that calm time and then they can build it back up. And I get that that might not sound like
- your delightful bankers hours kind of job. That's not what any of us have signed up for. Councilor vital
- I think you had your hand. So I think this is for me when I'm hearing a lot of and it feels like this
- is a timing issue.
- You've got a proposal here. You want this much money. But I also hear that this much money will fund
- both elections. Am I under that? I'm sorry. Will this much money you're asking for fund both elections?
- I thought we talked about we might have to come back. So the money that we have asked for would fund
- both elections with us transferring in-house. So I really want to know what it would cost to run the
- primary. Can you give us a number?
- of these numbers you've given us, what's it going to cost to pull off the primary? I am not comfortable
- giving a number. Or a range. Is there a range? Is there a range between x and x? Do you have a range?
- You could lowball it. And what would be the maximum you think you would spend for the primary?
- I used to be the League of Women Voters service chair. I want to fund it. And I need the numbers. I
- think most of us need the numbers. Please give me a moment. That's fine.
- I am going to suggest 600,000, maybe a little less. But again, I expect to have to fund, I'm sorry,
- to prepare for,
- Some of it, I'm not gonna lie, would be waste. We have to print 100% Democrat ballots, 100% Republican
- ballots. We have to act as though, and staff as though 100% are going to, we've made the cuts. The general,
- of course, a lot of people don't like to vote in the primary. The general, of course, will be, you're
- asking for even more robust, so to give you the election that you want.
- And obviously, if I'm wrong, you asked me for this number. I gave you what I think today. If I'm wrong,
- we're going to have to do exactly what you said, which is, hey, we did not realize that this many people
- were going to line up.
- You know, we were more than a little surprised during the presidential when an average of 1,000 voters
- showed up every day of early voting. We are watching the news just like I'm sure you are, looking at
- the trends, seeing what's going on. And people are turning out, and they are voting, and they are sending
- a message. And so we need to be prepared.
- The primary could be a total bust and I could be back here saying, I'm so sorry. I didn't know it was
- only going to be two people voting in the primary. But right now, for me to feel comfortable as the
- person who has to sign at the bottom line of the election, I want to prepare for the better than expected
- turnout trends and so I will.
- I am prepared to compromise with you tonight. If you're prepared to work with me, I'm prepared to work
- with you. If not, we can move forward. So I'm not trying to take up your evening. Counselor Henry's
- point about the money in the fund now. Is there enough money in the fund now to perform the primary
- election? We do not have money in the overtime line. And again, we're talking 10, 10 to
- Would you say 10 to 15? So 2024, we had 10 individuals who occurred over time from that entire election
- cycle, and it was a total of $20,603. Me, honestly, the one thing that I am worried about is making
- sure that we have this over time in the line for the individuals in the office who are able to occur
- this, which are three people in my office right now. The other individuals are
- from the clerk's office who come down to help mostly on election day. But I mean, myself, I'm okay with
- if we dropped it down to 10,000. For now, yes. Let me ask a practice question here on how the county
- operates. I've been here a year, right? Not forever, I know that. But I have a question. So let's say
- the clerk's office or any department overspends what it is
- they need to do and they owe something and they come back and do counsel. We can pay that. Is that not
- right? Right. Exactly. Say that again. You can't spend more than what you've appropriated. So we're
- not doing that. So we don't do that. We have a practice of that.
- Correct. Okay, thank you. So that's why we have them do in-house transfers or category transfers. Okay.
- So would there be money to do an in-house transfer? Yes. That's what they have. Right now in their election
- fund that I've pulled up for today, right now, the unexpended amount in the election fund,
- which is $1,215,000, they have $1,355,620.
- I ran a primary election with that, this primary election with that upcoming. The only thing that they,
- I mean, so they can do in-house transfers and category transfers. If you want them to be able to have
- overtime because we have that resolution, you would have to approve this department to be able to transfer
- in a certain amount of money.
- So they, yes, within their budgets, they have plenty of money to be able to transfer. Thank you. But
- to that regard, again, it has to be like, in good faith, it has to be used. And then if there is the
- transfer that is needed and we have that freeze on the overtime, that's when council can come, that's
- when the ask is to come back to council.
- Right, so if they've used this entire, let's just say $1,355,000 in primary, they have to come back
- and get that exact amount for the general fund. So I would think that's the compromise right there.
- I think that's the compromise is, again, it's in there.
- You didn't even leave me a dollar in there so that I would I could do it. But I think the kind of I
- wrote this down because I kind of wanted to go back to to kind of reiterate what Councilor Wills was
- saying. I think, again, as we went through with the pond tooth comb for everybody's budget and including
- yours, I think the idea and the intent was to see what we are spending.
- I know that the idea is the fact that if we didn't spend it and it went back into reversions, that to
- me tells me that we need to look at how we are spending and try to finesse so that in this day and age
- after SEA 1, that we are really truly spending what we are needing at the time there. So again, that
- was the idea and the intent of us doing that is to look at the trends,
- to figure out what it's been, and as it was mentioned so many different times tonight and back at the
- budget hearings, it's to come back for those additional appropriations. And so I understand that you're
- looking for a compromise, but I think we just heard it with what Michelle was saying in terms of, which
- was the question that Councilor Feidl had brought up, you used what you got. You got a lot, you said 600,000,
- and you got over a million as of like what is needed right now, you use that money and then if there
- is an opportunity because that resolution, like again, we put that in there to, or the freeze in there
- to really kind of put a stop to using that, then you come back to us and then you say, after the transfers,
- can I transfer to this? And as it has been said so many times tonight, like we are asking for you to
- use it and then come back.
- That's it. So I'd like to think that that is the compromise that we are saying. Nobody is saying no.
- At least I've not heard any of us say no. I think the idea is use what you have, use in-house transfers
- as so many other departments have, and let's try to come back. That's it. So to be clear, Madam President,
- We can move money into the overtime line to take care of the staff. We can't because of the freeze like
- we have to approve that and its entirety. What we're saying is use what you have. And if there is a
- necessary for that.
- then just as you all have come to us previously with the hiring freeze exemption, that is something
- that you could possibly come back to and talk to us about. That's what we're saying. So you would be
- paying overtime out of the regular salary line if you chose to do that? Oh, sorry. No? OK, so how in
- the world would she do overtime without coming to us first?
- wouldn't be able to. That's why it's written the way it is. So it would be comp time and then it would
- only be comp time. It would only be comp time. They could come back. What we've done in the past, but
- we haven't done it for a long time, was when somebody accumulated a large amount of comp time, it got
- paid out. Okay. But if you want them to get it right now during this process, you would have to approve
- them being able to transfer money in, but it cannot be paid out of the same line. They have their salary
- line and then they have an overtime line. Is there any problem? I'm looking at the attorney in the room.
- Is there any concern around going forward with the understanding that we may need to pay out comp time
- that was awarded?
- Because I'm familiar with that process when a job is, you know, someone leaves a job, but I'm not familiar
- with it in the middle of two. I think our policies say you get comp time, right? You earn comp time
- if you work over 35 hours and you're a 35-hour employee, you get hour for hour to 40, and then anything
- over 40, you get time and a half because that is federal law, right? So I guess I want to be careful
- because there is an upper limit, right? I think it's like 320 hours.
- or something like that. If you get over 320 hours, you have to pay it out, right? Because the feds say
- you are supposed to go above that. We've ran into that in the past, but we haven't in a long time. So
- absent that caveat, I think you could put it into a comp time, and then they could come and ask you
- to pay it out. There's nothing illegal with that. That would fit with all our policies and the code.
- I just want to say for reference, I'm currently sitting at 49.30 in my comp time. And in 2024, I occurred
- 287.28 hours of overtime. This is where like, we need to know where that threshold is going to be of
- where the payout is going to be because I have two individuals who are full time in my office currently,
- and they're estimated to get about 60 hours of overtime next year.
- Well, not next year, this year, sorry. I mean, right now we had the moving companies in the office until 7 p.m.
- Monday, and I was the only one there because none of them wanted the comp time, that they are only able
- to get one hour per week, one hour per day for the week to meet that 40. After that, they're expecting
- to be able to get their overtime that they're not gonna be able to now.
- But they get comp time. They get time and a half. Correct. After fourth. Yeah. But for us, between the
- primary and the general election, the close of the primary and the beginning of the general, there's
- very minimum time. And with there only being three individuals in my office who are full time, it's
- hard for us to delegate weeks of being able to be off, especially in an election that could be bigger
- than what we're expecting.
- Thank you. I appreciate everyone's energy here. There's a lot of line items to work through. It's part
- of the discussion. I have a question for Mr. Cockerill. So Fair Labor Standards Act, the appropriate
- use of overtime, is it meant to be a subsidy or a compensation for salary or is it meant to be paid
- for hours that are performed? How does that work usually?
- Well, unless you're an exempt employee, you're not exempt employee, you're not exempt from the Fair
- Labor Standards Act. Overtime is every hour after 40 hours you work in a week, you get paid one and
- a half times your salary. And that is to compensate you for working over, and it's really to incentivize
- your employer for not making you work over 40 hours, right? Because that's how we've determined is a
- standard work week and we want to keep that standard work week.
- So I guess the answer is if it's over 40 hours, you are compensating them a time and a half, one, because
- they're working over a standard work week, and two, as an incentive to keep you from having people work
- over a standard work week. So it's there for both reasons. Well, I appreciate that, because one of the
- challenges why we're talking about this line is that during the budget cycle, it was suggested in the
- room that overtime is being used for something other than that, that it was a sort of addition to salary.
- And I don't want to speak for other counselors, but I know that's why I think
- holistically over time or the whole county was looked at at that point to make sure that if we have
- structural problems with the job classification and we have department heads that are using overtime
- as a means to sort of bump up the salary, that's just not how overtime works. And that's part of the
- challenge we're having with this particular line item. But thank you for the clarification. Yes. Thank you.
- I do want to clarify. The ordinance says that only certain departments are exempt from the ability to
- get overtime. So if you were to offer overtime to the clerk's office, you would have to amend that resolution
- to then mirror what the actions are. Okay. Is there any other questions or comments from council?
- I've exhausted all, oh, sorry, Councilor. Right, maybe it just doesn't work for your staff, but instead
- of cutting the hours from eight to four, we have to remember we're not doing it just to be easy on employees.
- We have to remember we're doing this for the public and not all public is going to be available to come
- in for early voting before four.
- I mean, not everyone's retired. So I would suggest that your office hours should just be different or
- split up the ones who are going to stay over. Or do something. Do something, just like you would do
- with any other budget. If you've got to figure out how you're going to cover somebody until 6 o'clock
- so that voters can actually get in there to vote, that's the point.
- then rotate who's going to stay until six or something of the sort. But do whatever you have to do to
- make this work. And I think that there's a lot of concern that you will leave here and say to the public,
- oh, we can't have this election the way we wanted because they won't give us the money. I mean, that's
- what's in your minds, folks. I'm a mind reader.
- And that's just not the way it is. The money is there, all you have to do is come when you're out of
- money of your appropriations and get another appropriation, just like every other department in this
- county. And you've been here long enough, you know how the budgets are supposed to work. Now, I'm not
- saying that about you because you're fairly new to this, but you're going to catch on. Marty, I just
- want to add on to what you had said.
- We have been told that we should try to alternate of who's going to be where and when. The only issue
- with that is it has to be a bipartisan team. We have to have a bipartisan team at all times, especially
- when we're handling the ballots at the end of the election. Sorry, at the end of each day, especially
- at the end of the election. But if I only have two full time employees,
- If I'm alternating those two, that means I'm one short on either the D side or the R side. It's two
- full time myself and two part time. My part time employees, they are there to help prep and get everything
- ready for election day. And they are very busy within that timeframe of them being there that some days
- there's not enough time to get done their tasks for that day that
- I'm the one that's stepping in and finishing up those tasks or one of my full-time employees is helping
- with that task until they're needed over early voting. I also do want to say that there was many of
- times that I would stay instead so that they could go home and be with their families, but also there was
- some instances where we were at the early voting location way past six o'clock because we were counting
- up the ballots and say, for instance, two or three of them got stuck together. We have to make sure
- every single ballot from that day is accounted for before we can leave. So that's just one of those
- moments where we're not wanting to use overtime as a way to make up for the money that we're not getting
- Like I could use me, for example, the next highest paid, I'm the lowest paid election supervisor in
- the state. The next one makes $15,000 more than I do. I could be using that as an example. I could be
- using that as a, this is why we need overtime, but instead it's to ensure that everything is being done
- transparently and legally.
- That's where I'm at, and that's where overtime has came into effect. That's why my two full-time people
- only occurred, one occurred 59 hours and the other one occurred 57 hours in 2024 for the whole election,
- where me, I was at 287, but that's also, we have training that has to be taken care of on weekends and
- at nights. That's my overtime of the month of March, the month of February, trying to get everything
- prepared and ready.
- I mean, trust me, I have two kids at home. I want to be with them, but. I know this is going on long,
- but I think you just triggered something I just need to ask. So when I hear all that, my contracting
- life, and I don't want to go on about biographies. I know that we do that up here sometimes. But I worked
- on contracts where I had to figure out full-time employees. And at what point is 1.25, 1.5, 1.75 somebody
- a new person that you hire?
- Are you taking on responsibilities that are typically reserved for the voter registration director is
- why your, your hours are over. Because we have that position as well. And I guess my question is,
- you know, they're in that court brown that's a question to you because you were two hats in this county
- and and it's important for us to understand that that second hat voter registration director of those hours.
- If we're not using that FTE's time, and we've got three employees that are overburdened and underpaid
- from what I'm hearing, I just need to understand how that office is running. Because somewhere we're
- losing a human that should be an FTE. We are losing. If we have that many hours of overtime being conducted
- by three personnel. We are losing a human. And the people who work in Kylie's position also have an
- assistant in other parts of the state. We have tried to come to PAC and get an assistant.
- for the election supervisor and to no avail. In addition to the money, as she said, being the lowest
- paid in the state, I know that you recall my efforts to try and get more money for the election supervisor.
- We also tried to get her an assistant because that's what's done to keep all of this going and have
- that extra human.
- With all due respect, that wasn't my question. I asked about your second hat that you wear as an employee
- of the county as the voter registration director, of which you're compensated above your elected clerk's
- salary. So my question is, in that role, those hours, are they being conducted by staff to cover for
- time that's not spent in the county? And that's what I'm trying to, I mean, because this is a lot of
- person. I mean, Kylie, I will say this and I'm getting a little emotional because I've been a county
- employee and there's nothing worse than having your salary laid bare in this room.
- Okay, so I just want to honor that. But this is a serious question because we've identified a person
- and a half here that in all this conversation, I can't figure out where that human is. So respectfully,
- is that voter registration director role, is that work being delegated down to personnel to conduct
- that activity in your office? The voter registration role, no. Election, yes. She's out of elections.
- I think I'll leave it hanging in the air from there, but thank you, Madam President.
- And I guess all of this kind of triggered one more question that I had for that. And then I'll look
- to see if other people had any. Because I hear what you were saying, Kylie. But I guess also thinking
- about my 8 to 5 job and thinking about if other people aren't available and we kind of get bare bones
- in the office,
- Is there a way, and I mean this in no disrespect, is there a time where you, Clerk Brown, fill in for
- that office since they only have three? Because I feel like I just, I hear what she's saying, and I've
- seen the other two employees, and when things happen,
- She's has her back against the wall and trying to do everything and y'all just moved offices yesterday
- right and so working and you know having you're giving time off to other people and you're staying late
- but then you have little people at home too and so that's where that's
- I would hope that somebody is helping to fill in for you as well. So I guess my ask is, is there other
- people that can come down and help with the situation? Because it sounds like she needs help. And that
- absolutely happens. And typically, the chief deputy, we kind of divide and conquer. And the chief deputy
- will go down and help with elections where I am more in the office. But I also do send staff from
- my office to help take some of the load off of the people who are working there. Are you okay? Who are
- working down there? All right. Councilor Decker. I just want to say there's a point where the budget
- shark helps the county and then the budget shark
- might start eating the people. And I don't know where we're at, but I wanna get us to a little bit of
- a resolution if we can. And I say this as a kid who sat inside the justice building at the bottom of
- a desk while my mom did anything she could to get transcript money and overtime. And then sometimes
- she took on things that really were beyond it. I'm always sensitive to,
- our discussions here about over time that at times can get a little bit casual for the reality and the
- experience and little ones at home or little ones at a desk or or what have you. And so with that in
- mind council I I do think that I think we've heard a lot there's a lot to process we've talked a lot about
- the you know how how does that office work through that but I do think that I will offer a motion that
- in that line 17 101 on overtime that an amount of $10,000 be inserted and that legal direct resolutions
- and anything else that needs to be addressed with that offer that motion.
- I'm open to an amended version of that motion. How do I, can I second and then offer to amend or do
- I? But in second it and then you would just make another amendment. And I didn't hear a second. I'm
- seconding it then. And then I'll make an amendment. Okay. I second it. I would like to amend that to
- a total of $5,000.
- or you can do a friendly amendment too. I'll accept the amendment. And then it is a friendly thing.
- So we got a motion and a second to make a, an open up the line item for overtime for $5,000. Counselor
- Hawk. Well, I thought I heard her say for, so I thought she meant the bottom line was going to be 5,000.
- The overtime line.
- Yeah, and none of the other stuff is on the table right now. It's different, yeah. And so do we know
- what you project one half of the year, supposed to be $12,500? Can you repeat that? Sorry. What? Can
- you repeat that? I didn't hear you. Sorry. OK. Well, the overtime line they're asking for is for $25,000.
- And they've told us this is for a full year.
- So one would think that one half year would be one half of that, right? And so yours and what has what
- has Sherry been budgeted? Nothing. What has she been budgeted for over time? Zero. So. OK, so you're
- saying five.
- I mean, I'll go along with that. I just wanted to make sure we weren't doing five on top of another
- 10 or 15. Okay. Okay. So anybody else have any other questions to the amendment of 5,000? May I just
- say one thing? Yeah. I fully expect that comp time will be utilized and then
- we can talk about that. Our meeting in June, I believe is June 9th. So let's plan to hear maybe even
- just a debrief from you. You can come in and department update as we then, you know, talk about what's
- happening. And if you need an agenda item where you make a request, that's fine too. But this allows
- you to have some leeway with the overtime line. I never wanted to come across that we do not utilize
- comp time.
- We do. We can't just utilize comp time and expect people to be good. In fact, they've shared that they
- are not and would not be good with that. I also want to add that in June, I will come back in June to
- give an update, but we also will be moving to the permanent location in June.
- That's another place that we're seeing some of the overtime as well is with trying to get things back
- in order for the office to be ready and be prepared for this primary election that we have coming up
- very quickly. I mean, even being informed just last week at the election board meeting that we may or
- may not have the space for the public review of the ballots and might have to have it actually in this
- exact room, which not sure how that will look or go.
- As always, my office is constantly trying to make things work with what we have. And there's just a
- point in time that it comes to we can't anymore. So thank you. So any other final questions or comments
- on this amendment? I have a final comment. Yes, go ahead. I just want you to know that I believe that
- you have a great staff.
- uh mineral county is very fortunate to have a great staff there i agree and uh so one would not want
- uh you to think or the public to think that you're not appreciated uh we're just trying to figure out
- a way that the budget works for you just like it's going to have to work for all of the departments
- you were not used to having been cut before because oh county hadn't done a good job of doing any budget
- cuts for years because we didn't have to
- we have to now. Agree. Okay. Any other final comments? All right. Councillor Decker. I'll be quick.
- I just want to thank again, the passion towards the election administration that goes on in that office.
- And again, I share that on this end, as we go door to door or not door to door, we go hand in hand towards
- find the doorknob in a dark room. And we'll get there. We'll stay in touch on that. And let's let's
- move forward with this, keep talking, adjust as necessary, whatever that might be, and we'll get there
- together. All right, thank you. All right, so I'll go to public comment on this item. This is only for
- the amendment on the floor, which we heard. So again, if you have public comment, you can come forward
- to the lectern here in the Nightingale room. You'll have up to three minutes and then just state your
- name. And we will go to the lectern here.
- Good evening, Lisa Ridge, Highway Director. I just wanted to correct a couple statements that were made.
- Our guys would have loved it if they would have received over $200,000 in overtime. That is inaccurate.
- When I gave a storm report and gave out the numbers, I believe it was $297,000 for the total event.
- That's materials, that's equipment, that's gasoline, that's repairs.
- That's overtime and it's double time. There is no snow plow bonus paid for that event. The guys have
- a contract. They are paid in the month of April, $1,300. That is for being on call 24-7 from December
- 1st to March 31st. That's four months. And they get $1,300 for doing that in the month of April.
- So it is not, they were not paid a snow plow bonus for one storm event. They were not paid over $200,000
- in overtime and double time. They would have loved it. And they earn it. They work hard for it. But
- that's not how our budget works. They put their lives at risk for it. Thank you very much. All right.
- It looks like we have an individual who has a phone number
- with their hand raise again will ask that you state your name for the record. Well, I meet yourself
- first state your name for the record and you have up to 3 minutes. Hello, can you hear me we can hear
- you please state your name for the record you have up to 3 minutes.
- Hi, my name is Garrett Figg and I'm a clerk's office employee. Just watching live and I just wanted
- to say with the comp time thing versus overtime, with comp time, I think one of the latest things that
- I believe the council had done, they put a cap
- with the 40 hours and if you go over 40 hours, you can't use any other time until that's back under
- a 40 hour thing. And I just felt that that's a bit constricting when it comes to being able to like
- use a sick day or use some of your personal time, you would have to use comp time. And in the event
- that you left the county or got let go from the county,
- you would lose all that personal slash sick time and only be able to take your comp and vacation. So
- obviously overtime is much better and comp time's great. It's just one of those things in the meantime,
- I just wanted to say that just in support and I really appreciate your guys' time and everything you
- do. And obviously the clerk and everything the elections do as well. So thank you all so much for your
- time. Thank you. All right.
- Is there any other comments from the gallery here regarding the amendment to add the 5,000 for overtime,
- either here in the NatU Hill room or via Teams? Raise your hand via Teams. And seeing none, we can do
- a voice vote for this amendment, correct? Yeah. Okay. The amendment, yes. Okay.
- So all those in favor of voting to approve the 5,000 and overtime signify by saying aye. Aye. All those
- opposed, same sign. Okay, motion carries. Okay, so coming back to the overall conversation here, is
- there any last minute conversation or questions or comments from council on this item? Yes, Councilor Frydell.
- Considering we just heard some discussion about the comp time. I wonder if somebody could reread the
- policy we have on comp time for the county. Is that possible? I'm not sure I'm going to reread it because
- I'd have to find it but I think he is essentially correct. You can after you're in over 40 hours of
- comp time you're required to use that before you can use any other benefit time I think with the exception
- of bereavement. So it's a way to
- What I said, we no longer have people with over 300 hours anymore. That's one of the big reasons is
- how we manage that situation. So he is correct that if once you get over 40 hours, you have to use that
- time prior to using any other benefit time. That's in our personnel policy. That's the board of judges,
- county commissioners, prosecutor who approved that. All right. Any other comments before we go to the
- public on the overall conversation here?
- All right. Yeah. Okay. Uh, I'll go Decker and then Wilton, then we'll move on to. All right. So I, two
- things I've, two things I've heard this evening is the overall, we had the original overall motion.
- We had the amendment to approve the overtime, but those are, they don't seem to be sitting in congruence
- with kind of what has been discussed, which is this notion that we
- Go robust, primary May as normal and in late May, June around the relocation, come back and figure out
- fall for amount needed. And so I think that's got to get reconciled here so that we're not doing something
- weird or incongruent with where we've been or where we're trying to go with all this.
- Council so I would like to make a motion to zero out the law all the lines in the original request,
- except for 17 101 over time which we will keep as amended $5,000.
- Okay we got a motion and a second to zero out the line items as presented except for 17-101 which is
- the overtime which is what we just approved. Is there any additional questions or comments from council?
- Councilor Decker. I would just clarify that that allows unless I'm saying this wrong that allows the
- clerk's office to again use within the lines they have move within the lines they have and
- for the primary and then in the May, June-ish time around that, we would come back in and look at where
- they're at, where they need to be to guarantee the fall at a robust level. I have a question about that.
- Are they allowed to move into the overtime line? No, per the ordinance, they have to come back and ask.
- So that's all they have to do is make a request to come back and ask to move money in there.
- I just wanted to clarify. Okay. Beyond the 5,000. Beyond the 5,000. Beyond the 5,000. Beyond the 5,000,
- yes. Okay. So... Okay. Councillor Henry? I'll support the zeroing out. I mean, another way to go would
- just be to divide the question, but how are we at there at this point? But I just want to be abundantly
- clear. I mean, we seem to have a notional agreement that the expectation is we're going to have a fully
- funded 29-poll location election tonight.
- And we will talk about it in May. But at that point, I hope that we all walk out of here with
- that understanding. Because I think that's my understanding. I think that's the public's understanding
- at this point that this is a fully funded infrastructure robust for the primary. And that's where we're
- going to be going into the primary. I mean, I'm walking out with that interpretation. If anyone has
- some alternative view of that, I'd like to know before we take the vote.
- Well, yeah, because I mean, to that regard, look how much time we spent in going back and having the
- compromise here. And so I just hope that all of this wouldn't be for nothing if we get to the election
- meeting on Thursday and find out that we just sat here and tried to compromise and do everything in
- good faith. And then it just went down the drain. I will say that the election board has not looked
- at 29 polling locations for this election at all. They've only looked at 22.
- and one of those locations did back out, so it would be 21 currently. Again, Madam President, if I may,
- just to understand though, I'm walking out of this room with an understanding that we can fund a 29-poll
- election with what's here, and I hope that the election board will take it to its 29 or have
- that consideration. The budget's here, so I don't know what's holding us up. They don't have to. Obviously,
- they don't have to. We're just saying that why would we need 29?
- Yeah, we haven't reached out to all of the locations we've only reached out to that list of 22 and have
- gotten confirmation from all but one. So then that would be adding the calling the other locations that
- had not been contacted. And we're looking at approving this on Thursday in order for us to meet deadlines.
- So, okay, point of information, I'm sorry. So in the past, we've had 29 to 31 locations. And so you've
- said that you've been reaching out since October to only 22, 21 have been confirmed. We can fund what
- we use to a fully, the Monroe County way, the fully funded election that we all expect to have at least
- 29 poll locations. That's what we've been negotiating all night. So I just wanna be clear on that, because
- like that's been, to the clerk's point,
- the expectation of the public is to have those locations. If I'm hearing now that, well, at best we've
- provided funding for either, but, you know, because one of the arguments was the reduction of this,
- right? So the expectation as far as the robust was the 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. as opposed to 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- It's the early vote. So are we going to come back to talk about the actual election day? Because we
- didn't get into sheriffs and judges and clerks and all that.
- that wasn't on this agenda. As I said, when I gave the two lists, the 22 and 29 to the election board,
- they had moved forward with the 22. Maybe I'll rephrase. My expectation walking out of this room is
- that early voting will be the robust eight to six. It sounds like we're still not clear on the staffing
- with poll workers for election day and whether that is a full Monroe County way 29 or something less.
- And to the election board, both the 22 and 29 with how many workers we would need at every polling location
- and the cost of both 22 versus 29 primary and general and full year. So, I mean, moving forward, it'll
- just be the election board. Thank you for that. Okay. I have no issue with 29, but I am one of three. Okay.
- I just really hope I don't get disappointed in the meeting on Thursday after doing all of this and then
- we thought that what we were given from eight to six turns out not to be a unanimous vote. I really
- hope that we did not just sit here and go at it for almost over an hour and a half plus.
- and tried to compromise and had the amendment and tried to listen to everything and have Ms. Spears
- literally pour her heart out here for nothing. So I really, and I'll watch, but I really hope we aren't
- getting to, I'm gonna have good faith that that won't happen. I know Positive Patty Jen keeps, that's
- my theme. I had it yesterday and I'm still gonna keep having it.
- You know, it could have been part of the motion that the 5,000 was in order to cover an eight to six
- primary. I mean, put that in the motion so that we don't have to worry about them fussing about it at
- the election board meeting. Why should we go, you know, why should we go and be disappointed? Whatever.
- I mean, that's,
- She could make a friendly emotion or make a friendly amendment, right? Yeah. Well, you've already voted
- on it. You would have to like do another motion because you're right. You're right. You're right. There
- could be a new motion. We had it. So originally we did. No, we did the 5,000. We're on the overall overall
- right now. Right. And there was a motion to zero out all lines except for the overtime line.
- that's where we're at right now so somebody can do a general okay so yeah i'll just do counselor decker
- i don't know if you might be knowing where i'm going but go ahead i move that in addition to the lines
- as they have been adjusted in the amendment and that was adopted in the overall second amendment that
- took the other lines down to zero with the understanding that council and clerk's office will revisit
- may or june
- I would add to that, the sentiment of this council, we do this with the understanding that robust primary
- includes early voting hours of 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Second. All right. Any clarification from council? Any
- questions, comments or concerns? I think it's been banged out enough. Okay.
- Any public comment on this item? You can come forward to the lectern here in the NETU Hill room on the
- overall or on the motion or on the amendment to have an eight to six early voting time frame. You can
- come forward to the lectern here in the NETU Hill room or raise your hand via Teams. I'm graduating
- from Clearwater appropriately speaking now. So I'm happy to hear that we're going to have an eight to
- six election. That's really important.
- And I think we should also be thinking about other contingencies that might happen, that might need
- a lot more money. This is gonna be a, we could have ICE at these elections. And we have to prepare for
- that kind of, what are we gonna do if ICE comes to the election polls and tries to stop people from
- voting? And what I think is the November election starts the day after the primary.
- because everybody's gonna be thinking about it. And I think the election board and everybody's gonna
- have to really start thinking about what we are going to do. Todd Rokita has given all of our voting
- records to the federal government. How many people are not on voter rosters anymore? How many people
- are gonna be surprised when they go to vote in the primary and their name is not on that list? I think
- this is something we have to think about.
- And I think it's critical that we think about it now and plan for what we're going to do. It's,
- and you know, when I was thinking about budgeting, I can't really, and I understand your nervousness
- about not getting the money now. I can think, well, I hope I'm going to have enough to pay, I hope I'm
- going to have to have enough to pay all my bills. I have to have more than hope.
- And so hearing you all say that you're going to give this money, I really hope you do because, and we
- may need more than what's being asked for. So thank you. All right. Looks like we have somebody next.
- Again, state your name for the record and you'll have up to three minutes. Oh, yep. Thank you.
- Can you hear me? Yes. My name is Susan Brackney. Thanks for the opportunity to address you. I think
- this is going to surprise some of you, maybe. I hope not, but I think it might. This is not business
- as usual. This goes well beyond just making sure folks in Monroe County have access to early voting
- and extended polling hours.
- is now in a full-fledged authoritarian slide. Historians, political scientists, and even the NGO Human
- Rights Watch all agree our upcoming elections are gonna be one of the only opportunities we have left
- to shore up democracy itself.
- It will be one of our last chances to restore some much needed checks and balances that have been missing.
- I'm not the only voter who understands this, and I think voter turnout is expected to be at presidential
- election levels for primary and the whole enchilada, really. I see this as a legitimate emergency, like
- a hurricane, or it's not your usual day-to-day thing.
- one that deserves not just ample funding, but also extra planning and preparation. And to that point
- before, what if DHS sends their masked ice squads to protect the polls? We need plans put in place to
- manage this contingency and ensure the vote is not suppressed. We probably should have some kind of
- voter intimidation reporting
- Pipeline in place and and have that be stress tested beforehand before it's needed. I hope we don't
- need this stuff I really I really hope we don't but it's on my mind It's also worth noting that the
- old Napa building doesn't even exist anymore and there will be a new location to figure out and and
- there are many many many candidates running like more than normal as I understand it
- The other thing is some laws have changed that will probably lead to confusion and maybe some anger
- at the polls, like the student ID stuff. There are students who maybe are used to using that and now
- they're going to find out you can't. What are they going to do? Finally, if the ironically named Save
- America Act passes,
- voter roll purges and new ID restrictions will throw up some extra barriers, especially for women who've
- changed their names and that kind of thing. So how many previously eligible voters will show up at the
- polls only to discover they've been disenfranchised? Oh, here's your provisional ballot. You know, that's
- a bummer. But that also adds friction to the system. And it's already a pretty strange system from what
- I'm hearing. So I guess I would just say,
- All of this is going to be extra complex at an absolutely critical point in our nation's history. And
- that is your time. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Are there any other takers here for public comment
- on this item? You can again, raise your hand via Teams or come to the podium here in the night you whole room.
- My name is Tanner Dale Branham. I just want to make a comment in support of the additional funding,
- particularly in this amendment. I just, as others have said, this is a very important election, and
- it's important that we maintain our full early voting hours. And additional funds to support the overtime
- is very important. I trust that the council will make the best decision balancing your desire for a
- successful election and your fiscal responsibility. So yeah, thank you very much.
- Thank you. All right. I'll go to teams, because it looks like we have somebody who has their hand raised
- by the name of Sally Ledzinger. So if you can unmute, officially state your name for the record, you'll
- have up to three minutes. Hi. My name is Sally Ledzinger.
- I would just like to encourage you to flex a little bit with this budget to give assurances to all voters.
- You've said that the clerk's office has enough to get by, but confidence requires at least an impression
- of abundance. And you've said that you have to be accountable to the public and mentioned that
- that the Sheriff's Office and other departments have union representation, but I'd encourage you to
- please consider the registered voters of Monroe County to be members of the most important coalitions
- of this county. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Any last minute takers again, going okay. And if there
- are more, you can go ahead and start lining up and come into the podium here.
- Good evening. I'm Penny Githens. I serve on the election board and I've always supported the eight to
- six hours with this. And I had the impression at a recent election board meeting and perhaps my impression
- was wrong, but I had the impression that Mr. Shields also supported those hours because of the convenience
- to voters. And so I hope that Thursday will turn out the way that those of us in this room hope it will.
- But also it is also my impression
- that the training hours do not have to coincide with the hours that the clerk's office is open, and
- that is not, I'm not sure, but I do not think that takes a unanimous vote, and there's also a trainer
- who's responsible for that, that is B, so that not all the responsibility falls on Ms. Ferris, and that
- is in a different line item, it's not even in the election.
- board budget for that kind of thing. So anyway, I thank you for all the time and that you've devoted
- to this. I hope that this is a compromise that will work for people that we get the hours that we need
- for the voters of this county. It's what they deserve. Thank you. Thank you. Any other public comment
- on this item?
- will the screen name of Hillary please unmute yourself and you'll have up to three minutes. State your
- name for the record and you'll have up to three minutes. Hi, thank you for letting me speak. My name
- is Alda Hillary and I appreciate that the council is vocalizing support for the full eight to six voting
- hours and that you put that in the record. I understand that it's hard to trust that the money will
- be there in the future if you don't have it in your hand.
- I want to emphasize the first two speakers' points about the tenuous nature of these upcoming elections.
- And so I won't repeat what they said, but I fully am concerned about that. I'm also concerned that the
- new location is going to create a lot of confusion for the public. I am a
- high consumer of local news. And I only just found out this week where the new location is. And so that's
- very concerning to me, that that's not being publicized. In one of Dave Askin's kind articles, he noted
- that funding was denied for actually publicizing the new location. And so, as a communicator myself,
- I find that really a problem, because the public is having a hard time paying attention because of the
- firehose of things that are coming at them. And so I think we will need
- need to be very targeted in letting them know where to go. And then I'm also concerned that if this
- is the north end of the showers building, those parking lots are traps. So if we do have ice coming
- to those buildings, people that are there voting are going to be trapped in those little parking lots.
- And that is a real concern for me. So I think logistically, you need to think about how you're going
- to protect your constituents. So thank you for the opportunity to speak. Thank you.
- All right, any other questions or I'm sorry, any other comments rather from the public on this item?
- I see another hand raised, nope. Anybody here in the NatU Hill room? And I guess I'll just do this as
- a point of clarification here. We originally said no to those things because there was a budget,
- There was no need for that because it was already in like the response that were there. So to be clear,
- the council did not deny funding for advertisement because there was already money in that budget. And
- in the spirit of conversations that we've said so many times tonight, departments such as the clerk
- can always come back and ask for additional appropriations should you need it.
- However, at the time, it was not needed because it was not spent. So I just want to clarify that for
- the public comment. All right, now that we've gotten that, we need to vote on the amendment. So I'm
- going to ask for a roll call vote on this one, please. Can we restate what it is we're voting on? Yes,
- I'll have Michelle do that. Thank you. I'll do the best I can. So this is a motion to zero out all account
- lines except for the account line
- 17101, which is overtime that is set for $5,000. It's not to zero out those lines in the budget to clear
- clarify request. Yeah, that has been presented. Yeah, that was also but that was no because we with
- Councilmember Decker that was to add the eight to six.
- Yeah, I haven't got there yet. Oh, I'm so sorry. That's OK. I'm sorry. That's OK. I thought we got there.
- Sorry. And then, OK, so this is just to zero out the additional appropriation account lines that had
- been presented by the clerk, except for the $5,000 of the overtime line, and that to ensure that this
- is to have a robust, robust
- primary with the voter early voting being scheduled from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. yes so is everybody clear
- and with that amendment okay all right oh and also that the legal will prepare an amendment to the overtime
- ordinance that was part of the okay so is all of that clarification maybe please have a roll call
- Councilor Henry. Oh, I'm sorry. Hi. We're in the middle of a roll call vote on the amendment. So are
- we after that? Yeah. I mean, we can come back for the overall word. It's on the amendment here. Sorry.
- Sorry. Councilor Henry. Yes. Councilor Decker. Yes.
- Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hawke? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Motion on
- the amendment passes unanimous. Okay. So now we come back to the overall, but there's really not anything
- to do because there is no, we've already done what we needed to do to satisfy that.
- But so I'm sorry, did you have public comment? Cause we were asking for public comments. So I wasn't
- sure. I'm sorry. Oh, okay. I'm so sorry. I missed you. So I will, as the chair, I will allow you to
- have three minutes to have public comment. And then we will move on from this since we already voted.
- So if you want to come up and quickly make your comment. Hi, my name is Jana Perot.
- And I agree with previous comments that this could be a disruptive election. It could be disruptive.
- It could be sabotaged. And I'm hearing from these people that they're already almost overworked, that
- they can't almost get their jobs done now. How are we coping with what these other issues
- that may arise. There needs to be planning. There needs to be people and money dedicated to thinking
- about what we can do to protect our election. I think that's just absolutely necessary to do that. We're
- a little blue dot in a red state. So we're going to be targeted if there's any targeting going on. So
- we need to think about that and we need money
- and we need people, experts, people who care to make sure that we actually have the election robust
- that we want. Okay, thanks. Okay, so now that we have exhausted all of that and we are now done, thank
- you very much. Thank you, thank you, thank you. We look forward to watching your meeting on Thursday.
- Did somebody have a clarification? Yes, Mr. Cockrell.
- When you say you're done, you mean you're ready to vote on the overall motion because we've only voted
- on amendments so far. Right. Yes. Right. Yep. Right. We're done with the amendments. That's what I was
- saying. Thank you. So this is for the overall vote on the final decision of the additional appropriations,
- which is a total of $5,000 only in the overtime line.
- Councillor Deckard. Yes. Councillor Crossley. Yes. Councillor Feidl. Yes. Councillor Hawke. Yes. Councillor
- Wilts. Yes. Councillor Henry. Yes. Motion passes unanimous. All right. Thank you very much. Have a good
- night. All right. Next up is item B from the Youth Services Bureau.
- As a reminder, this item was tabled from the January 27th meeting and moved to approve the Youth Services
- Bureau's request and fund 4100-0000 donations, youth shelter, to create account lines 21110, shelter
- resident supplies,
- 3-0 supplies and two three zero zero three grounds and simultaneously approve an additional appropriation
- of $2,500 in the supplies category Second all right. We got a motion in this second, and I'm gonna look
- to miss Woodruff for this item hello So this is pretty straightforward. They're just wanting to use
- their donation funds that have been given to them and Just let me know okay
- Council, do you have any questions on this particular item? I should not call for the vote. Okay.
- All right. Nobody? Anybody, Bueller? Okay. So no questions on this item. We're gonna go to the public.
- Since everybody really wants to come talk about this item, you can come forward to the lectern here
- in the Net-U-Hill room or raise your hand via Teams. And seeing none.
- in a dark room here. May we please have a roll call vote? Councillor Deckard? Yes. Councillor Crossley?
- Yes. Councillor Henry has left the meeting for the moment. Councillor Feidl? Yes. Councillor Hawke?
- Yes. Councillor Wills? Yes. Motion passes five to zero unanimous. All right.
- moving this county council train going, we will go to new business and we will go back to the coroner
- here. Council, I move to approve the coroner's request and fund 1000-0007 County General Coroner to
- create account lines 17801 part-time and simultaneously approve an additional appropriation of $8,612
- in the personnel category. Second. All right, we have Mr. Hall joining us again. Thank you for your
- patience. Yeah, thank you for having me back. And you may go ahead and get started. Sure. So this is
- just to get this new account line established for the newly elected part-time position for my office.
- Since there's not an existing account line, this would need to be established so that I could get this
- individual paid. And then as Kent pointed out to me,
- FICA also needs to be covered just because it is a paid position as well. All right. Questions or comments
- from council? What have you? This is a part-time. There's no other benefits available. Correct. Yes,
- ma'am. Other ones? Seeing none. And we have Mr. Henry back in the building.
- All right, so public comment would say you on this item, you can come forward to the lectern here, raise
- your hand, be your teams. And seeing no takers, may we please have a roll call vote. Councillor Crossley?
- Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes. Councillor Hawke? Yes. Councillor Wilts? Yes. Councillor Henry, would you like to
- Stand thank you. I wasn't in the room. Yes. Motion passes 101 or sorry. Five to zero one abstain.
- Thank you. Thank you. Thank you counselors. You're very welcome. Next up on at the table coming to the
- table is the highway department. So I will be combining items. BNC.
- into one motion. I move to approve the highway department's request and fund eight one seven six zero
- zero zero zero eagles and bridge number nine twenty two to de appropriate account line three seven four
- one one construction of eight hundred fifteen thousand six hundred sixteen
- and 92 cents and simultaneously approve a fund to fund transfer of cash of eight hundred fifteen thousand
- six hundred sixteen dollars and ninety two cents from fund eight one seven six dash zero zero zero zero
- eagles and bridge number nine twenty two to fund one one three five dash zero zero zero zero cumulative
- bridge second all right we got the fearless miss lisa ridge back good evening
- So actually, if you've read the narrative, we took over this project. Actually, we were reached out
- by NDOT a couple years ago. IU actually owned this bridge. It needed replaced. If we took over
- the construction for this project of 20%, then they, NDOT, stepped up and helped fund 80% of our karst
- farm trail extension that we completed. So we did that deal. So we were set, the bridge went to letting
- on the middle of January, our local match at that time would have been just under a million dollars.
- We were prepared, we had it budgeted to pay that. I think it was January 16th, NDOT called me on a Friday
- and asked if I knew how the letting went and I did. And they were going to go ahead and lower our match
- to about 3% instead of the 20%.
- and they were gonna fund the rest of it through a transportation bill. They saw that Monroe County had
- stepped up, took on the project. We didn't have to, but they wanted to go ahead instead of utilizing
- that money and spreading it out amongst three bridge projects across the state, they just went ahead
- and sent it all to Monroe County. It just goes to show the relationship that we have with NDOT. They
- didn't have to do that. I would have never even known the money was there. I was prepared to pay my match
- It also just goes to show that all of our projects aren't 80-20 split. They're not always 90-10. So
- it can change in a heartbeat from just one phone call. So that's why we're doing these transfers and
- putting the money back into Cume Bridge for our other, like Rockport Road is going to Leading tomorrow.
- So that's why we're back to move it back. Congratulations.
- All right. Look at you. All right. Any questions or comments? Councilor Decker. I just want to praise
- Lisa Ridge on this. Not me. It's a team. It is a team, but it's got good quarterback. And everybody
- knows around here these days that a good quarterback can go a long way. And I'll just make this comment.
- I've said this probably about five or six years now. Not all of us call up to Indianapolis and get what we want.
- And Lisa Ridge not only gets a lot for the people that we represent, but she gets it.
- in style and this is you know when I was first looking at this I was thinking you know all the things
- we've done what a good gamble it pays off it's not a good game when you have good people and they run
- the play so thank you for all that and all the stress and also like our election director for the passion
- that you bring into your job that you care about our you know when we see that it just it makes me feel
- better as a taxpayer and as a person on this side trying to figure out how to help you.
- I have to say, if any county in the state gets as much help as we do, it is only because they have cloned
- Lisa Rich and moved in there. You don't have a clone. Because she really has made, you do. I mean, everybody
- knows you at the state and if you ask for something, they know you figured it out and you'll make it work.
- And I can remember the time that we weren't real sure we would be able to get a lady in that member
- when she got that job and she did and she's rocked it. But with the help of all her great team, because
- she likes to say that she didn't do it on her own. Her team did it. So congratulations. Thank you. And
- I just want to stay for the record.
- After tonight, I definitely would like a clone of Lisa Ridge. That's all I have to say. So, that being
- said. Any other questions or comments from council? Seeing none, we'll go to public comment. You can
- come to the lectern here in the room or you can raise your hand via Teams. So funny. And seeing also
- none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Hawk? Yes. Councilor Feidl, would you like to?
- I know enough information. Yes. Councilor Wilkes. Yes. Councilor Henry. Yes. Councilor Deckard. Yes.
- Councilor Crossley. Yes. Motion passes unanimous. All right. Stay in with the Highway Department. Let's
- roll on down to Highway D. I mean, item D. Really hard.
- So I moved to approve the highway department's request and fund one one three five dash zero zero zero
- zero cumulative bridge for an additional appropriation of six hundred three thousand seven hundred ninety
- seven dollars in the services category. This project was awarded last summer but actually we put the
- project off due to the city having a project in that area. We didn't want to have too many detours and
- too many road
- roads closed. So we put our project out into the 2026. So we didn't budget for it back in the summer
- because we thought we might have had it done. So this is just to appropriate the project that's already
- been awarded for the bridge replacement. And this is the area by Jackson Creek Middle School.
- That's right. OK. I thought that was a headache over there. But yeah. All right. And you'll be a headache
- again. I mean, it's OK. It's OK. It's all right. So.
- Any questions or comments for Ms. Ridge on this item? Seeing none. Public comment, yes. If you have
- it, come forward to the elector here or raise your hand via Teams. I'm slap happy after tonight.
- All right, and seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Hawk? Yes. Councilor Wilts?
- Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes.
- Councillor Deckard? Yes. Councillor Crossley? Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Thank
- you very much. Have a good night. Now we are next up on the amended portions, which was item A, which
- is the transit conversation. So I will look to Councillor Deckard for that. Hi, council.
- perhaps not the best person to talk about this, but again, in the spirit of this evening, want to do
- something so that we avoid any any bad things happening in this community. And some of you may recall
- last year or in the last year, we were able to support through ARPA dollar use. I believe I've got that
- 100 percent right. An expansion, I think for the first time of the county in the
- the public transit system, specifically with Bloomington Transit. We were able to support Route 13 that
- is a pattern that goes between the city of Bloomington and Monroe County destinations, specifically
- Ivy Tech, Park 48 Businesses, and obviously as that area continues to expand into
- 26 with the Westgate housing complex and centers expansion, we will continue to see additional development
- there. But the point being is that the county match needs to be fulfilled in order to continue that
- route. And we have heard from Bloomington Transit that unless the county commits to that,
- The transit will not be able to continue that route past, I believe it's March 3rd. I may be wrong on
- that day, but it's early March. Transit's having two meetings this month to discuss this. But I think
- that, you know, if I were a wagering person, transit's looking over the county to kind of step up. The
- commissioners worked with us on this expansion in the past with ARPA. They've indicated through
- Commission President Julie Thomas, that it's to council to figure this out. We can't appropriate tonight
- because we're not following the law and guidelines for an appropriation, but it is my recommendation
- that council consider at our next meeting an appropriation out of ED lit. Am I saying?
- You wouldn't be able to appropriate it at the next meeting. So it would be. It has to be 10 days. Yeah,
- it would be March the 10th that we appropriate the March 10th meeting or early as possible in appropriation
- to fund that with our Bloomington Transit partners. The amount that I have on that maybe transit will
- correct this if I have it wrong.
- is one hundred and seventy seven thousand eight hundred eighty five dollars. And I know that right now
- we're in a time period between what. I had that email and I it's that was this year's number and it
- had gone up slightly I think it's a it's around a hundred eighty four for next hundred eighty four around
- that thank you.
- While these are not ideal times with our fiscal uncertainty, as has been said numerous times, the only
- way back for us is putting people into work, putting people into education to get to work, and getting
- families kind of moving about the county. As I often say, there's probably more transit in our future
- than less. I don't know how it goes backwards, and I think the county
- we need to do our part on this and not lose the route. There's been some arguments out there that route
- usership is small, but I want to point out that they had 12,857 passengers. Now, I don't know how many
- among the populace makes up that role, but that's 12,857 trips going to a place that needed to go to.
- And we have heard repeatedly from Ivy Tech and the folks on the west side
- that getting people out to these areas, which are one of our highest or developing highest job centers
- and particularly in the life science is crucial. So my recommendation to council is that we jump in
- here with a robust commitment to transit. We certainly cannot do that tonight, but I think that this
- is an example where council needs to lead. Commissioners have said that it's up to council to figure
- that out. To me, that council's got to lead here and point that way.
- and I'll be quiet at that. And seeing that we are at a bare minimum for quorum here. No, no, no, we're
- still good. We got it. So, Councilor Henry. Thank you for bringing to our attention. Of course,
- you know, I think we just went through an hour and a half of talking about scrutiny of line items and
- budgets. And so I'm trying to wrap my head around some stuff. So, Councilor Decker, you said 12,857
- trips. Yes. Divided by 365 days. Yes. Divided by
- Roundtrippers is roughly 17 and a half people a day, is that? I don't know, that's your math. I assume
- you're right. I mean, because it's trips versus humans, right? So I think it's trying to figure that
- out. Look, I live on the west side, I get it. And of course, I'm hopeful for development out our way,
- but that requires some significant work of the Planning Commission to start doing such a thing. But
- in the meantime, yeah, things are moving out there. I guess my question is, this is ARPA funded, right?
- So that was 2021, 22. Why wasn't this brought up during our budget cycle to try to get an appropriate
- line? This had to be like we knew the bus was coming in, I guess, to use the metaphor. I'm just trying
- to get my head around why now and not back in October when we assumed that funding would dry up. I think
- you've expressed a sentiment that I agree with. I think traditionally things work better on these parts.
- when a department is bringing the item before us. And as you can tell from that table right there, that
- table is blank. It's not normal, I think, it's not normal for someone to say council has to figure it
- out. So for example, if the clerk would have said tonight in her office, council's gotta figure this
- out and kind of just lob the ball, not anywhere, we probably would have a lot of angry people over there
- not doing anything. But the commissioners have,
- indeed done that. And we have had occasions where we've had to kind of step into the role and say, here's
- how life's going to be or not be. And I think this is one of those times for that. It would normally
- come under a budget, but we didn't get it in that. Well, that's fair. I'm just trying to understand
- that you mentioned there's an email. Can we get the correspondence on that? All I have on this in full
- disclosure is email from
- Cook a group and Ivy Tech about it. I've not heard anything from county is that something that can be
- shared with all of us, whatever the correspondence was. So we can all get a look at it. I might not
- have it but I just have stuff from outside partners. You want it displayed right now or either way but
- I mean it just nice to look at what we're looking at.
- Um, so the edit, did you mention, so, so the edit requires an amendment from the commissioners to, because
- we just went through that whole process with using the edit for the jail. Mr. Cockrell, is that the
- intention of the commissioners to amend the edit plan to allow for 180,000? I believe that plan already
- includes funding. For this? For transit. Yes. Was this the intent of that? Because I mean, I know when
- we were editing the plan, if you will, I don't remember if that was the intended use was this line for
- this particular line. Was that?
- I'm not a commissioner or council person, but I think it fits the category. I mean, it would either
- be for this or something with rural transit. I think we left it fairly open. I'm only asking because
- I remember how long it took us to get our appropriation and then the edit plan amended. There's a little
- back and forth there, so if it sounds like it's already in
- appropriate use of the edit. It really just sounds like the appropriation. Is that your interpretation,
- Councilor Decker? It's just the appropriate? Yeah. And in fact, when I began to get worried about this
- not coming to us, I verified with legal that this would fit in the edit plan, and they indicated it
- would by the amount. Is it OK to share the correspondence from Bloomington Transit with the body so
- we have it? I mean, just send the email to everybody. It's been sent. Thank you. That's it. It sounds,
- I mean, it's one of those things where, look,
- buses are subsidized, that's how we do transit, right? I mean, it's not, we're not gonna make money
- back on this, but it probably takes a very long time to get the culture around taking a bus through
- Whitehall on the way to Ivy Tech there, so yeah, it's gonna take time to grow it, it'll probably take
- time to get that ridership up. I appreciate it, yeah, thank you. Councilor Wilts. Can someone clarify
- for me, because I don't think we've been running this route for,
- Five years. It's one year. So it's only, we only have one year of ridership. That's not long to test
- out, you know, whether or not this is something that the people will climb onto. And yet it sounds like
- it's a regular, a regularly used route by at least some people.
- We heard that with the North Park, the failed North Park proposal that it takes a while to plan a bus
- route. And then because there's years of planning for what that route looks like and where you stop.
- And then once the bus is live, then people start using it. So I guess maybe that's really quite like
- it might not be a question of matters tonight, but was ARPA funding used for the planning and preparation
- of the route, like to think through stops and acquisition of service or is it just we just it just started
- going and.
- Sorry, that's okay. Yeah, I appreciate it. Okay, that's it. I think it was a route that we just extended,
- right? To go out beyond city limit. Yes, because it was to go to Ivy Tech. Yeah. That was the big thing
- is that we didn't have anything that goes to that area and everybody was asking for it and such. So,
- yeah. This is, I mean, I'm sorry, may I please? Go for it. Go for it.
- Sorry, I'm blocked. This is a discussion. Go for it. That went out the window earlier. If I may.
- Go for it. I think this is I agree that public transit is something that we provide and we subsidize
- because it is a public good, especially when this one in particular is
- I think long overdue, it should have been in place years and decades ago with Ivy Tech being out there.
- So I really, I am very supportive of offering this. And I think in a couple of years, funding mechanisms
- are gonna be so different that it almost doesn't matter, but for the good of the order, I think it would
- be delightful if there was
- more communication and support across governmental sectors, quasi-governmental bodies, but also private
- and educational institutions on how we can better find efficiencies in these, in public transit
- in particular. So I've said that, with all the changes coming, those conversations maybe will be timely.
- Generally, I support this. I thank you for bringing it up. Yeah. And of course, yes, thank you to Councilor
- Decker to bring this up. But I don't think this should be incumbent upon you as a council member to
- have to bring this up. You know, I am thinking about a lot of things that we've gone over the past few
- weeks and in particular yesterday. You know, we have department updates for items not on the agenda
- for a reason.
- And that would have been a fine opportunity for, you know, our commissioners or at least someone from
- the commissioner's office to come and speak with us about this very item. It also makes me think too
- that as Councilor Wilts was saying, you know, the across
- across Kirkwood and Morton Street that we would have these types of conversations as well because I
- as council president was not privy to These conversations until it was brought up. So I appreciate counselor
- Decker doing that but it should be incumbent of other people who are not in this room and who were once on the
- Teams link here but seem to have dropped off so we get asked to explain ourselves oftentimes I think
- this would be a fun time to ask for other folks to explain as well also I think to.
- you know, to that point of, you know, low ridership, I think it would be a great, I'm curious to know,
- like, what is the advertisement of letting people know that there is a bus route? As a mom of a child
- that goes to Ivy Tech, my kid didn't even realize that there was a thing besides me having to express
- to her, get out the house, go catch the bus and go to,
- campus instead of being at home. So, you know, I'm very curious to know how we are getting that information
- out, how is Transit working and how could they work with us to make sure that we get that advertisement
- out to let people know that this is a big thing. People were talking about this for years, even before
- I was on council. And so this would help tremendously to get the word out and spread so that we could
- get that ridership up.
- So I appreciate the discussion here. Yes, Councilor Decker. One thing I just would add to this is, look,
- I want to make sure that we're doing everything we can to keep that route. If I've got to go, you know,
- paint somebody's fence to get that done, we'll do it. Also, though, we are still, and this has come
- back to us a few times, we're still dependent upon, you know, the realities that
- If there's an MOU involved in this for a new year or the last one expired, we need commissioners also
- to adopt that. And so I would just ask that as this moves forward, everybody with good nature and good
- heart moves forward on the route because these are people that need access to route services. And the
- way life is for a lot of things, the county, the city,
- the towns, fire protection, townships, definitely, transit, all that between now and wherever we're
- going in four to five years. There's like a bookend and who knows what's in the middle, but I suspect
- the bookends are a little different. I think we're gonna have to lean on each other through that period
- and even some awkwardness. I know this is much later than transit would like it.
- But we need them to do it. We want commissioners to agree with it if the appropriation passes. And it
- sounds to me like folks have that sentiment here. So I'll be quiet. Thank you for that. Councilor Hawke.
- Right. So obviously I missed the beginning of this conversation.
- I wonder if we have looked at, can we draw this? I don't know what the, is there a motion on the floor?
- No, it's just a discussion. I just remember a time when at the, just last year, I think, that at the
- state house that they wanted the commissioners to support allowing Ellisville to have their,
- what would be their portion of the food and beverage tax that is collected in that area to be used for
- transit. Oh, but the commissioners didn't want them to do that. But they don't mind using public dollars
- for transit. I don't mind using public dollars for transit. But I mean, maybe the commissioners could
- work with the food and beverage money.
- certainly Representative Mayfield did all she could to try to help get real transit dollars. And this
- county would not help her. So I'm just, I just had to throw that in. I think it's a part, it's all transit.
- But the other thing is, and maybe you've already discussed the fact that with Senate bill one, the point
- two, have you already discussed that? I alluded, but no.
- Well, anyway, we know that it's right now until they change it because they were discussing it just
- today and yesterday about being changed and people from the city, not our city, but just the city. They
- were just like, oh, crap, they're all going to go broke and whatever. But the representative from the
- counties was saying, you can work well with the cities, but
- Sounded me like what she was suggesting. We would do it like more like on a one time like it as you
- were saying like a contract or something so that was not permanent would not be expected to be permanent
- because We know that that point to has to be for the library the Bloomington Transit for the townships and
- What am I leaving out? Anyway, and we might not even be able to do point two. We might have to do point
- one because the total between the county and the city cannot be more than 2.9. So I don't really know
- what they're going to do about Bloomington Transit, but the county cannot take on Bloomington Transit
- permanently because we'd have to do it in part of our 1.2.
- even if we get that, because AAM wants us not to have 1.2. So I'm just throwing it out there. This is
- not something that's going to be fixed tonight. If I may. But you know, Marty, you watch all that up
- there closer than we do. You have more influence with some of those folks than some of us do. I would
- suspect it's all right every once in a while to tell them
- It's not the state driving that bus. It's not the state responding to these homes. It's not the state
- sitting in here right now trying to figure out this in this madness on what they're doing. I mean, we're
- ripping each other apart just trying to get two people on a bus and then make sure there's a pyramid.
- We still need to get more ambulances in this county, but I don't know where those dollars will come.
- And so for any of us that have any influence with that on our friends up there,
- This is where government actually happens and schools where kids get educated. And so some of this folks
- may have to ease up a little bit on the sugar or the miles they're traveling on these changes because
- literally we are not going to be able to do certain things that have got to get done. And I just offer
- that kind of frustration. I said, feel like sometimes we watch them like it's tennis. These are people's
- lives here.
- and I just offer that. But if I just throw this in here because I heard you mention ambulances and because
- that is part of what we're working on with the legislative group is to get emergency EMS covered under
- that point four that's for fire and EMS so that we and that it would be able to go to the county to
- help with ambulance services. Anyway, I'm sorry.
- sort of interrupted your bus transit. I mean, that's part of the discussion. So you're fine. It's OK.
- All right. Any other discussions related to transit? This will be an item on our March whatever agenda,
- and it'll be presented to us by ourselves.
- All righty. Just clarify. Thanks. All right. Well, moving on to the 10B, which is the, I wanted to open
- up a conversation to allow people to have thoughts after our joint meeting yesterday. What say you,
- you autocrats? Sorry.
- I'm sorry, I'm just saying. I told you I was slap happy. Okay, so I'll just say the reason why I say
- that is because there was a comment that was made during our meeting yesterday where we were addressed
- as being autocrats. And so when you look up the definition of that, that basically means that we took no
- No input from anybody at all. And I take issue with that because I think we did our due diligence. We
- did everything that we needed to do. And no is no. And it was a unanimous no. But again, we have a deadline.
- And instead of folks going back and trying to figure out what we did,
- and how we got to the point in October. I just hope that we can move forward with trying to get towards
- the finish line, because again, April 15th is coming. So again, it's coming, but I think the progress
- has to be made and we have to continue to move forward. And I will continue to say that it is kinda
- disappointing that we continue to keep bringing up North Park as a thing and no other options.
- or options that are being brought that seem to just kind of be dismissed as well. I just really think
- that we really need to look at what we already have and continue to move forward. I think that is progress.
- And that's all I'm going to say about that. And I'm going to look to my council and I already saw Councilor
- Hawk moving. So you go. Yes. This is something that
- We're all getting gray hair. Mine's growing out. Underneath this? Talking about the jail. And it seems
- that the other partner doesn't want to listen to us. Or maybe they think they can talk long enough and
- we will get tired and just give in. But it seems to me, but see, I'm afraid every time I open my mouth,
- say anything, I'll lose my
- I know what my point is, but I don't want to lose it. Don't want to lose votes for it. I'm just saying,
- if we make it clear to them, let's look at, give them two options. Right now, I'm thinking the two options
- is probably Fullerton and Thompson. I don't know. Give them whatever, two. And then say, commissioners,
- which of those two will you go for? Then we have made a decision.
- They can't make a decision. Let them talk to Mr. Faulk. We've done our part. I mean, that's negotiation.
- You know, when you get ready to sell real estate and you've showed them five houses, then you say, let's
- get that down to what's your top two. And then let's do the Ben Franklin T-clothes. Over here is all
- the reasons why you would, all the reasons why you wouldn't make a decision.
- I would have made a dime selling real estate if it took me five years to get somebody to buy a piece
- of property. This is ridiculous. Great, thank you. I agree with you. You are spot on, as the kids say,
- clocky. All right, Council Henry. Thank you, Madam President. I really want to say first, I appreciate
- those that were able to be at that meeting and speak your mind there and representing us at the table.
- You know we have a habit and maybe this is inside baseball but folks should know that you know a lot
- of these meetings are scheduled around the availability of one person and we all kind of have to schedule
- around it so Mondays are when I teach, I guess I'll just have to tune in from class but I'm glad you
- all were able to handle that.
- In my observations, I agree a lot with what Councilor Hawks said. I mean, in a resolution that we start
- to define what it is the council's tolerance is, locations are one thing, price point is another. And
- I gotta say, my reaction to listening to some of the commentary, especially from those that are not
- elected in this county and don't answer to voters directly, is a seeming idea that we have infinite
- resource. And I know I'm a little more pedantic up here than most, I'm in the Excel sheets,
- trying to get us on votes here. But the truth is that those of us that went to AIC last two weeks ago,
- we sat in a meeting that talked about future projections for what our local income tax will look like.
- It is my belief that what we got and what's coming in the next two or three years was an estimate that
- 50% of the local income tax, half of our local income tax moving forward will be required to keep us
- revenue neutral in the county. That means not raising taxes but maintaining our budget as we have it,
- just half of the lit there.
- Now, FSG's last numbers that they gave us before SB1, before all of this, suggested that we would need
- 0.41 of the 1.2% to fund the debt service, which is roughly like 38% at that point. So we're now up
- to 88% of our LITs going to bond debt service and funding the county government, which leaves us, I
- like key lime pie, this is a real thin slice at this point, of trying to figure out over 20 years,
- how we deal with cost of living adjustment, inflation, and any other projects that pop up like
- what we've heard this evening, a desire for things like an emergency medical service for the county,
- or potentially due to the decisions of the Supreme Court today building a Monroe County water system
- because we may have challenges connecting to the city of Bloomington in places that will not be annexed.
- We have 20 years of forecasting that we have this very small slice to work with. Or, as I think Councilor
- Wilts raised during the meeting, I heard you loud and clear on my phone at IU, that what is being suggested
- is a tax increase to cover some of this.
- We answer to the public on this. And the numbers confuse people. It's all plaid when we're talking about
- it. But it's just amazing to hear decision makers in this building not get that there is not infinite
- money. And so that takes me back to a resolution that says some of this needs to be in a resolution.
- And maybe another analysis from FSG. I mean, our auditor has already projected what some of this cost
- could be in the 26 and beyond, so we need that. And to really get back to what this lawsuit was about.
- which is capacity and programming and space for recreation. I will say that I said this on social media
- and I meant it and I'll bring it up again here. The project at inception, we don't have a shared goal.
- In fact, DLZ was selected in a process that was cited by the office with the open data or the open access
- counselor is problematic. The selection process from the jump wasn't very clear about the RFQ.
- The public has a lot of questions about this. I have people question our autocracy up here. I'm answering,
- this is the most democratic thing we've done in the county in a year, is being responsive to voters
- in the community that are afraid we can't afford it, or that the choices we're making to expend this
- kind of money are not actually keeping our jail empty. If we build it, are we gonna fill it? We don't
- have guarantees of that. We have a change management problem. For all those reasons, I think we need
- to vote on a thing, we give them the choices, define the terms and parameters, explain that this is
- the real budget. I know, Mr. Cockrell, you're in the room. I don't want to put you on the spot, but
- you threw out a number, I think, the other night of jail only or small version. I heard you say around
- 100-ish million. They asked me, and off the cuff, I said 150 million for a jail. And so to that point,
- I'll just give it up in a minute, we still have no
- No data points or display of the direct versus indirect costs of the facility. If Councillor Iverson
- were here, and I will put words in his mouth, he's asked for those since last year. What is the operational
- cost? We have speculation about what those will be from people, but that's not accurate. We have no
- projection of future cost. We know what it is now, but we expect overruns, and really no understanding
- of the impact on the lid at this point.
- aiming for what the ACLU is requiring of us is really important to me. But I didn't get to be here to
- say all that, but thank you for letting me go a little longer on that. Does anybody, Councillor Decker?
- I do, but I think I'll defer to others. I talked a lot about that. Well, we'll go Councillor Fiddle
- and then I'll just come back up. All right.
- So I didn't talk much yesterday, but I'm really committed to getting something done, but not enough
- negotiations to understand the 11th hour principle. I understand we're getting down to the wire.
- Not really. April 15th is still a fair amount of time off. And so I think it's a game, in my mind. In
- some ways, it's a game. So what does one player or a player
- Multitude of players wants what does the other ones want and how can we come together and figure out?
- What we can live with together to go on to also appease the public not just the ACLU We have a public
- here to appease and they expect us to do all the things that make it important county business work
- and so I'm committed to
- working together for however long it takes and however many times it takes to get something in place
- by April 15th. I just want to go on record and say that publicly. Yeah, thanks. I agree. I'm with you.
- I think I said that last night. I'll show up whenever, wherever. Let's work on this. I do have a couple
- of, well, I have one specific
- question, which is when we ask for information, who are we asking to provide it? Because getting these
- operational costs or the transportation-related costs, should we not co-locate? Those are important
- things, but if we keep just asking the ether, we're not going to get them.
- Something that I took away from last night is that perhaps we need to either have existing staff assigned
- to figure this out and present us with information or ask someone else outside of current staff to contract
- and provide us information. But I don't think it's coming.
- even though we keep asking for it. And so I just, I'm not sure who can advise us on where the best place
- to, I mean, I think obviously the sheriff would need to be involved in figuring out operational costs
- for his own office, but I don't know that he has the staff capacity to really provide us with that kind
- of detail. So I guess I want to acknowledge that
- We probably need to be specific and involve specific people to get the answer to that question. Since
- I raised this, can I try to take a shot of this? Of course. I mean, we're in a public space. I'm just
- going to say what I want to say. This is a project with a project manager that is leading it somewhere.
- And I got to say, I can pour, maybe it's in the DLZ very thick book they gave us in February or August.
- I can't tell you by name.
- The individuals that are making decisions on this path. I know some of them because we see it occasionally
- where, you know, county legal may say a thing or the commissioners may say a thing. I couldn't tell,
- if a voter asked me, who's really deciding this stuff? I mean, I guess Mr. Gibbons gave us a little
- bit of it yesterday when he spoke. But like, where's the list of the five or 10 people that have been
- meeting ever since CJRC?
- And which who is the person making the decisions about if it is DLC as the vendor that is leading the
- project it'd be very nice if we could speak directly with them but that has not been the case for us.
- If it is somebody in the commissioner's office that is hosting these meetings and having these weekly
- discussions it'd be really nice to know who that individual is. But maybe I missed it somewhere.
- And if I did it's possible we get a lot of email. But I couldn't I could not tell the public. These
- are the five people that ever since this council in November or October 24 decided on the process to
- move forward. Who has been behind closed doors making those decisions. And so to my answer that Councilor
- Wilts is I mean I think those individuals would be the people that would produce that information for
- us. And if we don't have a workflow or pathway this is one of the reasons why things have to change
- across the hall.
- But this is a serious thing. We're talking about this project ballooned to a quarter of a billion dollars,
- and I don't know where to direct the question. It kind of goes one way and then here, and then we've
- been in this room where it's been kind of by revelation. We find out, oh, we're still talking to the
- owners of North Park. Oh, we're still doing these things. Councilor Feil's point, you asked for a weekly
- report from whoever it is that's behind the door making these decisions.
- This is just basic stuff. We do not have a shared understanding of who's driving the bus here. Just
- a brief update. And we haven't gotten it. No, nothing yet. So if I sound exasperated, it's because I
- am. And that's my only, I mean, I don't know, I mean, I hope that brings some clarity. And no government
- project I've ever worked on, do I not know the name of the human being that is making the call on where
- we are in the process and where we are in the timeline and where the milestones are and where we are
- if we're over or under budget. I don't understand this piece.
- So I want it. So that whoever that is, and maybe Jeff or Mr. Cockrell, I don't mean to be any of you.
- If you know those humans, could we get that list of people and then perhaps have a conversation with
- them at this table to begin the meeting so we can get there? Because that would be helpful. Well, because
- also to that point before you go, Mr. Cockrell, no, no, no, that's fine. Because I wrote down in my
- notes, we got asked to do the cost risk.
- cost assessment of what that would look like if we wanted to do things, particularly in phases. And
- I do recall, according to my notes that I have here, it was asked for maybe council staff to do some
- of that, and I don't know how that's something that we could do. Like, we got enough going on in our
- office, and so I guess, again, to that point, and I guess we look to you, like, yeah, would you like
- to answer that?
- And I hate to put you on the spot, but I guess I'm going to turn this way. I mean, you act like there's
- a group of people who are making all these decisions when really it's Scott or friends at DLC are working
- with each department that's affected. You know, the sheriff has a has the transition team that's really
- worked a lot on the jail and the sheriff's space. Each of the other departments, the courts, the
- prosecutor, public defender, they all had individual meetings with each one of those. And then taking
- all that information, DLC comes up with the design. And then they come back and we say, too expensive.
- And then they go back to all the departments again and say, hey, what about this? What about that? And
- then it gets presented to you and move on. The other question I think you're asking is about the transition
- if we didn't do co-location,
- Well, up until October, I think everybody just assumed we were going to do colocation. So I don't know
- if we ever really worked out dollars and cents exactly what that was going to be. To everybody. I mean,
- this is a serious question because you just described a thing here where DLZ does things, but that's
- not where we had two meetings on it in February and August. One meeting the commissioners didn't come
- to. So somewhere there's who's the we and who's everybody is by name.
- When we went through and it started at the CJRC, which during that process, I would ask you to look
- at the website and look at the CJRC and go through that. That was kind of a consensus of the sheriff,
- the board of judges, the commissioners, and the council that co-location was preferred. I think that's
- curious. With all due respect.
- Who is picking up the phone from DLZ in this building when they call about adjustments to the schedule,
- the plan, where they are in the progress? Is it the county legal? Is it the commissioner, county
- administrator? Who's the human that has the direct interface with DLZ? I think Angie Purdy and I have
- it. So if that's, then I would say, okay, thank you for that. So now I know where to go with that question.
- Okay. I'll go to Wilton, then Decker next. Thanks.
- So I appreciate you're providing that perspective. I feel like I am going to say something that I've
- said a hundred times, and I hate to be that person. I don't think that the process of having DLZ meet
- with all the different departments
- and put something together and then just show it to us twice in a two and a half year long relationship
- is working. I mean, if the budget is important at all, wouldn't we be one of the groups that they would
- talk to? And we were prevented from talking to them specifically when we asked for them to come talk with us.
- What you're hearing, unfortunately, you're getting kind of a bunch of frustration, and it's a process
- that is frustrating. County government is set up to kind of be this way. I do understand that. It is
- truly unfortunate, though, that we haven't figured out a way to take the contracted project management
- if you will, and really have them be a project manager that we can all rely on to get regular updates
- and provide us with information. Just the fact that we don't even get meeting summaries when we have
- these joint meetings. There's nothing to take away unless we
- call up Dave and see what he wrote about it, which thank you, because it's helpful. But I guess I'll
- stop complaining. That's what I got out of it. Before anybody puts a motion on the floor, I want to
- say something. Is somebody about to put a motion on the floor? I don't think you can put a motion on
- the floor. I'm not going to put a motion on the floor.
- make sure I get to say this before this is a discussion. So you go ahead. I don't want to jump ahead
- of anybody. Okay. So then I'll go Decker and then I'll come back to you. Yeah. If there were a motion
- that would fix this sucker, man, I'd read that son of a gun till six AM. Um, here's probably take that
- long. Here's what I'll say. I got a comment from someone who kind of watched the meeting last night
- out in the public. And it's something that I pick up a lot.
- And it's that sometimes this gets to be a circular firing squad. And the guns seem to point inwardly.
- And the thing that's in the very center of that is the project. And I get the consternation that everybody
- has. I bet the staff alone, the consternation they have when those garage doors close at night and they
- pull in, I bet the swear words couldn't be printed.
- that we're going to have to do- legally. But what I will say is. What we have before us. Is a deadline
- that looms. Around whether or not the ACLU. Will move forward with the responding party here- every
- indicator looks like that would be we have a deadline to show. Some sort of credible action so I
- in the world that could help with portions of that, but those have to run their course. One thing I
- would say is we heard from a lot of stakeholders last night about things that concern them. So I think
- that for me, my priority, and I said this to someone today, I was the last to say that, I believe I
- was the last counselor to say that phasing may be the option.
- It's probably pride. Pride goes before the fall. But I thought we had a plan. Legislature changed things.
- I know that people disagree with elements of that plan. They will disagree with the elements.
- By the way, counselors have the plan that comes out of this. If we have no plan, they'll disagree with
- that, too. So everybody get ready, because that happens. That's life. And I can tell you that from being
- on this council and in government for a minute. But to me, the goal is,
- that we hit a facility that has constitutional care or that we say, here's how we get to that facility.
- That's part one. Part two is that we begin to account for some of the things that members of the public
- who intimately watch the court system and the justice system, I should say, have already talked about.
- And that is how do you operate that in some semblance of it's not co-location, but it's attempting to
- mimic, approach, ignore. How do you do that in a feasible way? But to me, the first thing is, what is
- your place? What is the money required to have a constitutional care jail? That's bare minimum. And
- then around that, you figure out the secondary things. And then you start to figure out a couple
- you know the other incidentals that happen and if we're planning right you can say that well some of
- these co-location things start to get taken care of through the phasing that folks have talked about
- for a long time and that I was literally I was the last to go to that because I like I like the the
- plan of having everything together. The last thing I'll just say is I think there's always going to
- be continuously be communication issues in our system.
- As long as there's humans ego and other things. But ultimately that goal that deadline that's the guide
- because if we don't hit that and there's a lot of people to say that we will not. I'm not ready to say
- we will not but I'm you know the but if we do not we then begin to plan for appropriation lines. We
- took an hour and 20 minutes to figure out overtime lines on a clerk's office.
- Can you imagine the overtime hours we will have to figure out on staff processing to deal with the legal
- ramifications on this? So I just think that that's kind of our goal. It would have helped in the beginning
- if we would have done what I teach my undergrads, a team charter, who's responsible, who's at the table,
- who's all that. Maybe it was done. Maybe it just gets hardened with practice. But the ultimate goal
- is to figure out
- constitutional. And I think that we've got to be very careful getting so into processes that we start
- to choke the actual process that's got to occur. Because ultimately, folks kind of watch this and say,
- you know that you have to do something. Folks that are on both sides of that, they know something must be done.
- I think that there's hope through certain solutions out there. I don't necessarily say that you say
- these two properties, take it early. I think that might work in real estate. I think in the government
- nuance with all the headaches and divorce we have amongst various bodies, I don't know that that'll
- work here. So anyway, that's not much, but that I think is where the focus is. Yes.
- Generally, when you get ready to buy a property or build a house or whatever, you say, this is how much
- money I have. This is what we're going to have to work with. Now, I understand. I heard Mr.
- Cockrell mention, oh, we've got the money. I want to see the hands of, well, you don't have to admit
- if you don't want to. The folks who have read the information from AIC
- representing the councils that made it clear that numbers that had been used before were in error. And
- so I don't know whether county legals read the AIC information. I don't know what the commissioners
- have. Hopefully the auditor's office has. I sent them copies, I keep sending. Look at this, this is
- really important.
- So what we might think we had before does not mean that's where we are now, at all. Because we have
- to look at how much our property tax is, the growth in property tax is coming down when you've got the
- income taxes going up. And further, just because we could, and let's say if we could figure out a way
- to come up with a quarter of a billion dollars from the people who live in this county, who has the
- gall to do that?
- hopefully no one on this council. Because that's just too much, too much. Okay. So thank you all very
- much for those conversations. I think the other thing that I would add to that is
- Council will said something that kind of jarred my memory here because if I do recall, I do think that
- Council had been trying to figure out how to get DLC in here to speak to Council, and it was said to
- us by Commissioner staff, and maybe even a commissioner.
- and I stand corrected, but I swear it came from the office, that because the contract is with DLZ or
- through DLZ is through commissioners, we had to get permission to have conversations. Let that sink
- in because if we are also the other half and deciding body of that, I don't think that it is appropriate
- to say, mother, may I?
- It should be, hey, we have a question, and we'd like to have them to come in. And so I think if we are
- going to do this together, then I think we need to have some type of ability to understand it.
- Thank you, Councilor Feidl. And to, I'm not even gonna say a compromise, because that's not
- even a compromise. An ability and understanding that if we have to ask,
- for updates and things like that, and DOZ to come in to have conversations. It should not be an ask
- of Mother Mayor, Council, or Commissioner, whomever, can we have them come in? It should be, hey, we'd
- like to have them come to the meeting. And the next step is, okay, what date? And so I would just recommend
- to anybody listening, I don't know if Mr. Cockro, if you could take that back, or if we need to send an email,
- of some sort and make it abundantly clear that that is something that we would like to have as well.
- The other thing that I want to say, and I said this yesterday too, as we were kind of recapping and
- kind of going over this and Councilor Henry said it as well too, we got our marching orders.
- We heard what we wanted to hear and we got all the things. And I think now it's time for us as county
- council members to, the ask is, you tell us, you tell us what we need to do. Okay, so we're gonna stay
- in our council lane. You know, I say it every meeting. And so we are going to do that. And I ask that
- we come prepared on what, February 24th?
- to put forth a resolution, to give out, to let folks know since they are asking and looking at us to
- figure out, make next steps. Bob's in our court, Commissioner Thomas Todus, so now I'm dribbling, and
- now I'm gonna pass it to everybody else on this council dais right now to figure out how we can make
- this work. Yes. I have a procedural question about that. Sure. So it's been my experience sitting here
- that resolutions are generated by our county legal person.
- and then we sort of make edits on the margins on a screen. Is that the only way to go at that? I mean,
- I'm thinking that we would probably need to submit our own whereas clauses and expectations into either,
- I don't know if it's sending it to, you know, the attorneys to polish for, you know, votes, but I want
- to make sure that it's,
- that all of our voices are in that document with different ideas. And I don't think we've created resolutions
- in that way in a while, right? Usually the resolutions present an almost 80% baked. So do you have some
- thoughts about how we can assure that the document is capturing all of the things we want to see and
- then we can amend it? I'm just kind of curious what your thoughts are. I do. And I think with that being said,
- Kind of like with the next item, because we got one more item before we wrap up, we have the higher
- end freeze resolution amendment. And so I know that Ms. Turner King, who looks like she's online right
- now, had sent us an email to ask us questions of what we want to see in that. And so I think that could
- be of the same sentiment that whatever we think of,
- could be sent and have a reasonable deadline to give to Ms. Turner King to provide. So if there's anything
- that folks are very much interested in wanting to have that we collaborate, send that to her if that
- is okay. And then on the 24th, we can come prepared with
- looking at that in real time and if there's any types of things that we need to do to make right then
- and there instead of, cause we've done it before, but we've tried to do it on the fly and it just kind
- of went kaput. And so I think it would be, I stress highly to all seven of us, cause I'm sure council
- Everson will watch later that myself included that, you know, we send any suggestions to Ms. Turner
- King and we make that available and ready to go on the 24th.
- as we talk about that resolution. Does that make? Okay. Any last minute thoughts, questions, comments,
- concerns? Yes, Mr. Cockerill. And I heard what you just said, and I think the important thing there
- was setting a deadline to get that information to her. So I think that's, I mean, if we receive stuff
- the day of or the day before, it's hard for us to process it. It's true, it is.
- So if you guys want to discuss what that deadline would be, I think that would be great. Anybody got
- a deadline that they'd like to throw out? Because we have, what, the 24th? So what I will say is the
- meetings, you're going to discuss this on the 24th. We need to have what you believe you want to look
- at for the packet no later than the end of the day Thursday, the 19th. So if you want her to be able to,
- get everything together for that it you know I mean earlier in the week would be better so instead of
- waiting until because she may need to ask you guys questions well maybe she's not understanding or something
- so um that my my recommendation would be at least by the end of the day on the 17th I mean next Tuesday
- 17 at the latest yeah okay
- So is everybody good with the 17th? Molly's got her hand up. Ms. Turner-King. Hi. Kim said exactly what
- I was going to say. I was going to suggest the 17th. Thank you. All right. 17th it is. And yes, Councilor
- Fido. So just to clarify what we're sending Molly with the goal of a resolution that will say what we
- want. Yes.
- for we need to spell it out for the folks in the back and anybody else so that we can present because
- as we again as we heard they are looking to us to figure out so if that means we give a set dollar amount
- of what can needs to be spent if we say a location and that I know I'm just throwing all things out
- not saying that that's what we know all the parameters that might impact the jail is that what we're
- talking about in the project yep I've got you
- asking ye shall receive. That's what the good books say. All right, so that being said, I appreciate
- that. And moving on. Okay, last part of the meeting, we have some county council business, which is
- something that Councilor Woltz made. Council, I move to open for discussion and possible approval the
- legal department's request
- to consider the possibility of an amendment to the hiring freeze resolution that would implement probationary
- period exception. All right. We got a motion and a second and Mr. King is online. Hi, can you hear me?
- Yes. Okay, so this is a discussion regarding hiring freeze amendment to address the possibility of adding
- a probationary period for employees. So in essence, our, our personnel policy says that newly hired
- employees are probationary periods or probationary for 90 days, unless you're a transfer firm, another
- department, or if you're transferring part time to full time. In essence, what has occurred in a couple instances
- relating to the hiring freeze is that a department will hire someone. They'll come to council, follow
- the procedure, get permission to hire a position, and then for some reason, whether it's an involuntary
- or voluntary termination, the person that they hired in that requested position doesn't work out within
- those 90 days. So the question is, if a department follows the procedure, comes to council, gets permission
- to hire someone, but then
- you know, that position becomes vacant again in 90 days, is the department expected to come back to
- council to ask again to hire the same position in short session? And so I think council has three options
- on how to deal with this situation and I proposed a minimum. The first option is leave, do nothing to
- the resolution. And yes, the departments have to come back a second time. Option A is to,
- make a probationary exception and make it follow our personnel policy, which treats transfers slightly
- different. Or the third option is to create a probationary exception and just say for everyone, including
- transfers, there's this 90-day period. Thank you for that. I'll just say this out loud.
- I think personally, departments still need to come back to us because I will just say this, and I was
- planning on saying this in council comment, but I'll say it now since we were doing this. The freeze
- ain't freezing, y'all. It really is not. We really had the intent to really try to get underneath, to
- hold on as much as possible to do what we need to do. We said that in last budget.
- last year in January, February, we really need to start rolling out ways to really tighten our belts
- when it comes to spending. And we, honestly, we got to get a better grip on it before this year gets
- away from us. We're already midway through February. And before you know it, spring will happen. And
- then it will be time to think about budgets again.
- I personally think that we should have departments come back to us. But I also want to throw out there
- that we need to also figure out how we can really work on this higher-end freeze. And so I'll go to
- Councilor Hawkins just kind of going down. Well, I think you pretty much said what I was going to say.
- I think if a lot can happen in three months, they're saying it'd be 90 days. So a lot can happen. And
- we've been learning more every week.
- And we're watching, well, I'm watching because that's what I do, what's going on at the state. And if
- that's not enough to wake you up, folks, and I don't think, we have to be really firm so that they don't
- come and think that we're being mean to them if they understand we're being mean to everyone. I mean,
- we're doing our job.
- So no, I think if somebody comes and they stay for 30 days and they leave, the department needs to come
- back because something might have happened in that 30 days. Something else might be higher and better
- use for that dollar amount in the personnel. So that's my thoughts before I go home. I appreciate Councilor
- Hawke's comments and President Cross's comments there too. It's interesting because we just had this whole
- conversation tonight. I mean, and I did raise this during one of our items that, yeah, I was calling
- around the county today and I bumped into three different ways people pick up the phone around here.
- One was automated, one hasn't, yeah, it's a voicemail that hasn't been emptied in a while, apparently
- another office has three people that pick up the phone. And we haven't, I mean, I think part of the
- reason why my vote's when we have people come before us and
- you know, appeal the hiring freeze and ask to fill a position comes from the fact that we haven't been
- absolutely clear yet about what's coming, right? And so, you know, we have this, but then, you know,
- when we've had staff mention to us, well, you know, I don't know what council, but they think what programs
- are going to cut or what personnel are gonna cut, it's like, well, it's not gonna be us. It will have
- to be department heads that will have to figure out the world of work that they live in, you know, how
- many hours is required to run their office, and it will be those things that say, well, maybe that's the,
- this position is an attrition position. Filling that part-time role, even though it's been customary
- to have it, that might be the give back to the county. And we just haven't been crystal clear with that
- yet. But that has come, especially once we've learned, I think what really is coming from the State
- House, and as Councilor Hawk mentioned, the AAC numbers we had were vulnerable. We have to get amended
- numbers, even on the estimates of revenue.
- So I mean, I know that's a little bit of a tangent on where we are, but this is serious stuff because
- we are doing serious stuff. It's not aspirational and visionary. It really is getting into the weeds
- of saying, you know, there's a finite resource to deliver services in the community, and we're going
- to have to get creative as a community. But we haven't messaged that yet to the departments. This is
- part of that messaging. So that's my thoughts on that tonight. Thank you. Down yonder to see if anybody
- has any questions.
- Yes, Councillor Feidl. So I think the only thing I was concerned about, and I go back to my labor roots
- here, and that is that I would just want to make sure that we weren't talking about having the employees
- serve another probationary period. And I don't think that's what we're talking about. That's right.
- I just wanted to make sure of that. Thank you. So, Councillor Wilson, did you have your hand raised?
- No. No, I know. OK. So what I gather from my colleagues is that we are OK with this hiring freeze as
- it stands right now and that there is no other amendments and that we will have to have people continue
- to come back to us. OK. Pretty much. OK. Well, that's cool. But I also think one thing I'll throw out
- there before we move on for a final comment is I do think that
- it might be something that PAC could look into. I know last year there was a conversation that was supposed
- to happen related to PAC in terms of looking at how we could go about the hiring freeze to like bring
- back to the full council to come, because I know it was like, you know, before we do a position, let's
- hold off for 60 days and whatnot. So I think that would be something to my PAC colleagues here to figure out like,
- maybe at a next meeting of some sort to try to think about that and bring that back to the full account.
- So. Pack isn't meeting. Pack is on a pause, so you would have to approve. I've been asking for us to
- meet. Yeah. My bad. No worries. I would love for us to meet. That would be great. I think that is a
- thing that I would like to see how we can do that. Pack's not supposed to do budgetary things.
- That's not PAC's role at all. That's true. Okay. Well, I stand corrected. PAC is to decide what the
- class, you know, to get the job descriptions together and for them to decide whether or not they even
- want to do it, to send it on to WIS. But it is not, they are not there to make budgetary decisions.
- unless you want to change the rules, Pat. I don't care. I don't want to do any of that at all. Yes,
- Councilor Decker. Sometimes I get frustrated on process discussions, particularly around PAC. When we
- talk about PAC is like a different body than us, technically it is a different body, but it's three
- of us in a meeting. So there's three members of this council that do it. And look,
- If we were to assign PAC something or three members of this body, they could go work on something. And
- the other thing I'll just say about PAC, and I served I think two years as PAC Chair, right? This is
- the hardest work of my, no, roofing was the hardest work of my life. But the PAC's pretty tricky. And
- the three members that are on there now and in the past will know this. PAC is notorious for saying,
- That's for counsel when they don't want to touch something, and they're also notorious for saying, we'll
- take that when they do want to touch it. Look, we can get into all that process, but we're talking about
- three people from this body and all that. If the council president says, what if they were to look at
- it, or Kate says it, or I don't know, somebody, they could go off and do it because usually they're
- pretty smart folks.
- because they come from us now. I think we got to be careful on that rigidity. There was a couple of
- times where we started hitting the third person kind of references on PAC, and it's just three of us
- doing something so that seven of us are not, and that might be the model that you use for something
- that we can't do out in open court like this. Usually, and this has just been my observation since 2019,
- when something's not figured out,
- And kind of like there's a solution to that change or edit. Council will sit with it for three days
- and struggle in the in the moment. So that might be something that they were somebody long term.
- I don't know. Somebody goes after. All right. Well, because there was no motions or amendments or anything
- to that, then that conversation is done. OK.
- next up council liaison updates and comments and I will look to my right at miss Hawk you got any updates
- besides legislators if I don't say anything you think that I've not been doing anything all this time
- let me tell you I am working at this but you don't want to hear all of it so so next week or in a couple
- of weeks you'll give it to us okay got it
- Well, you know, I mean, it is 60. It was 62 today. I mean, that's enough hot air, I think, for tonight.
- I have an EMAC meeting next week and we have planning commission next week as well. I'm happy to report
- back on outcomes from there. Thank you. Looking down, just going on down. Yeah, Councilor Decker. I
- attended the Bloomington Chamber's legislative committee where certain
- entities, business owners, the superintendent, other public bodies. They get to go in and hear
- our legislators talk. Many of us didn't get it on Saturday mornings here, there, and everywhere else,
- but I attended that. I do want to say really quick, I was able to kind of sneak into a meeting of our
- local NAACP, and I would say that I appreciate very much
- the way the members of the NAACP figure out all the things in the community that kind of run in circles
- around what we do. I also want to congratulate the city of Bloomington on a very beautiful, robust,
- and packed Black History Month kickoff that had some of the finest music I think I've ever seen in my
- life. And it blew my mind. It was so good. Some of us almost passed out.
- Anyway, congratulations to the city on doing that. I think we need to have some of those words in this
- chamber a little bit more often First of all, I would like to thank tic tacs for supporting this meeting
- and getting me through No in in all seriousness
- I was able to attend the AIC legislative conference with Councillor Feidl and Councillor Henry attended
- as well. And I haven't done many of those. It was actually I think the second time in the entire time
- I've been on council that I've gone up to one of those. And I really appreciated the time to focus on
- these issues because I think, you guys, this is a lot. I don't know. It's a lot. And it deserves our
- focus. And I don't know about y'all, but I have a lot of other things going on. And this is a part-time
- gig. And sometimes it feels like I'm not giving this enough attention.
- sharing to kind of, I don't know, make that confession and maybe hold myself a little bit accountable
- for taking time to focus more often and not just waiting for someone to drive me to Indianapolis and
- stick me in a hotel conference room for a day. This meeting in particular, I think, has highlighted
- for me the
- just that there aren't too many things that county government does that are optional. We have so many
- different responsibilities and every single one of them deserves everything we can give them to to go
- out there and make our community safe and productive and
- healthy and Involved and so I guess I just want to I just want to say that you know, I really appreciate
- all of the county employees that work really hard at trying to do more with less because I I feel for
- them and It's certainly something that
- that I think on and don't take lightly, so. That's where I am, thank you. So, I might have a list. And
- just about the meetings that I attended in the community, I did go to the Monroe County School Corporation
- forum they had on the H-Team building, what they were gonna do.
- There weren't many there at the public meeting that I went to. However, they did say that they got about
- 350 responses electronically. So they'll be processed forward with that, either to renovate it,
- to sell it, whatever they're going to end up doing. So I look forward to hearing about that. I usually
- participate and did again on the legislative updates that the league does. There were two state elected
- officials there from our area and we heard updates.
- most of the things we've touched on. Like Kate said, I was with her at the Association of Indiana Counties
- Conference. We heard from the governor and numerous other elected officials up there. But one of the
- biggest things I think I enjoyed was going over to the state house and seeing, we saw the treasurer's
- office and interacted with that person. We saw the secretary of state's office.
- We saw the attorney general's office and the comptroller's office and it was just all fascinating to
- be in that one of the best safes I think I've ever seen most antique and best looking not looking but
- very impressively designed safes that house the money you know I think at some point. So that was really
- cool to get to see. There's lots of
- Interest I know in data centers around the state and that continues to be a controversy and Coming into
- terms with it positively some were coming to terms with it negatively I don't know what will happen
- if we have to decide one here. We'd have to decide Then locally again also I've been attending almost
- all well if not in person online all the meetings with the Ellisville Richland Township
- or potential merger and the postcards did go out that one myself I live in Richland Township and at
- the last public meeting they had people had gotten their postcards and they're showing up now so we're
- getting public input so I'm excited about that. There'll be also meetings coming up about the fire district
- there before meetings and I intend to go to that so that's kind of where I'm at.
- Thank you for that. And a couple of council liaison update and committee assignments. Councilor Wilts
- mentioned this and I totally spaced it at the last meeting that remember the time that the commissioners
- a while back recently just convened a working group to have stakeholders come to talk about issues related
- to homelessness. And it was asked by Commissioner Madera because she is also head in that group to
- Since somebody from council and I had mentioned that councillor Woods Would be able to go to attend
- and so I'm assuming we've not had any of those meetings just yet But I know that in good faith as soon
- as we know you'll know because you will come back and report during council updates So all of those
- things are true. Yes, I have received a communication that we will have a meeting I
- So I'm looking forward to that meeting. And the other thing is, Councillor Iverson and I are trying
- to give up some things off of our plates as we head into year
- to for president and pro tem. And so I have decided to step down from being on the long-term finance
- committee meeting. And because he wants to have emphasis and wants to be able to do that, I am letting
- Mr. Iverson go ahead and take on that as we kind of give up some things here.
- And then the last thing is we have been asking for Sophia Travis grant applications and we got some
- and we need to do some applications. However, we need to make sure that we do that without a quorum
- of council members. And so I as chair and as president of council would like to designate two people
- that are not quorum related to be able to do that since because
- If we were going to do it the way, like it would have been a really bad thing and we'd have to notice
- it and we didn't do it. So. And this is to do what? To interview for Sophia Travis grant committee people.
- Oh. So I would like to designate Councilor Vidal and Decker, would you be okay with doing that? If not,
- I know there was a schedule in conflict, but if you can't then,
- he or I will be able to do that. So we'll work it out. So we will hope to have a Sophia Travis grant
- committee community member join us very shortly. Yeah. And so I said all I needed to say today, I'm
- looking forward to the election board conversation, a meeting, and I hope they will deliver on the promise
- that took over an hour plus. Sorry, are you going to have a third person on that? Just two.
- Yeah, it's just two because yeah. So that being said, I appreciate all the conversations and everything
- that we did tonight and nothing else that needs to be said except for we are adjourned. Thank you.