All right. Good evening, everybody. I would like to go ahead and call tonight's meeting to order of
the county council. Today is Tuesday, February 24th, twenty twenty six. And present here in the net,
you know, we have counselors, Spido, Wilts, Deckard, Iverson's back in the building. And we also have DGH.
Councilmember Henry. So we are still waiting for Councilor Hawke to enter the building here soon. But
we have a quorum, so we will go ahead and get started. And next up, all those that are able to stand,
please stand for the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance.
with liberty and justice for all. Thank you all. All right. Next up is the adoption of tonight's agenda.
Is there anybody that would like to make amendments to tonight's agenda? And seeing none, we will just
roll on with the business. All right. Next up, we have our public
that are not on tonight's agenda. And so if you are a member of the public and you're here in the Net,
you help room and would like to make a public comment on items that are not on tonight's agenda, you
can come forward to the lectern here in the Net, you help room, state your name and you'll have up to
three minutes. Or if you are joining us virtually via teams, you can raise your hand and do the same
as well. So are there any takers here in the room for public comment?
seeing none. Are there any takers via teams that would like to make public comment on items not on tonight's
agenda? Okay. Seeing none, we will move on to the other. Um excuse me.
department updates. And so these are for departments to come here virtually or here or virtually rather
to give or updates on items not on the agenda. And each department will have up to 10 minutes to make
those department updates to the council. So are there any department that would like to see the auditor
has her hand up? So Miss Gregory? Yes. Thank you. Good evening, counsel. Good evening.
Just a quick update regarding the 2024 financial audit exit meeting that occurred last week, Wednesday,
February 18th. Representatives from the State Board of Accounts and Forbus, who was our outside audit
contractor, attended in person to review the audit results with us. I'm pleased to share that the county
received an excellent audit with no reportable findings. This is the strongest audit outcome the county
has achieved in a very long time.
And as you know, audit results play an important role in influencing bond ratings, grant opportunities,
and loan rates. This successful audit reflects the dedication, diligence, and fiscal responsibility
demonstrated across departments. It validates the hard work of my team and contributes to maintaining
the county's strong financial standing. So I just wanted to thank you for your continued support and
all the work we've done. Appreciate it. Thank you.
My apologies again for not being able to make that but Sounds good and congratulations to you and your
hard work and staff on that Really? It's a congratulations to all of us. It's all of us working together
to achieve this. So, thank you All right. Are there any questions or comments for miss Gregory?
Thank you, madam president and thank you auditor for that that's no small feat and I think you know
the last year we had that that rating
I don't Mr. Garrett has do you happen? You have a good history of the county. Do you happen to know
when we've had the last audit with no reportable findings?
It's it's been a really long time. I look forward to asking Mr. Gerritas later how many counties in
Monroe County enjoy that there are several counties in Indiana that enjoy that, you know, opportunity
there. And so it's a huge piece of making sure we can get the best possible rates with our bonds. It's
also a testament to how we manage our funds at the minimum fund balance to keep us there. So thank you
for the work. All right. And just for the record, Councillor Hawke has entered the room and she will
get situated. All right.
Are there any other further questions or comments for miss Gregory on her report? All right seeing none.
Thank you very much So I see some other department heads that are here so I want to go back and see
if there are any other department heads that would like to Give a department updates for items not on
tonight's agenda Right seeing none are there any department or
heads that are joining us via teams that would like to give a department update. Seeing none, we will
move forward. All right, next up is the citizen appointment with the one going for the Sophia Travis
Grant Committee. Council, I move to approve the citizen appointment of Catherine Hopkins to the Sophia
Travis Grants Committee.
to complete a two year term that expires December 31st, 2028. All right, we got a motion and a second,
and I'm going to look to my fellow Sophia Travis Grant Committee team members, counselors, Decker and
Fiddle to give an update on our applicant. Well, I just wanted to make a comment that
Catherine's with us today. Even if you want to come forward here to the table and say a couple words,
you're more than welcome just to say hi, not to put you on the spot, no pressure, but come on up. Yeah.
I'll start this and Councillor Fiddle, anything you want to add in. Folks, this is Catherine Hopkins
and she comes to us through our Sophia Travis grant.
process to be the new community member. We are excited that we had a chance to meet with her and to
talk with not only her, but of course other applicants, but in that process, Catherine's commitment
to this work as a citizen appointment, keeping that balance and that fairness in that process while
working alongside council was abundantly evident, and we're just so delighted that you are willing to
do this with us.
Yeah, I just want to say I'm grateful for the opportunity to serve. I am looking forward to serving
with you on this committee and honoring this role and the legacy that is this committee. So thank you
very much for placing your trust in me. So I'm looking forward to serving with Catherine. I've served
with her in several different capacities over the years. And this will just be another one. So I'm looking
forward to serving with you in that capacity, because I know you'll be great. It'll be a fun team.
All right. So are there any other questions or comments from the council? for our candidate for the
Sophia Travis grant committee All right and Seeing none because this is a citizen appointment. We don't
do public comment on this So I'm going to ask for a roll call vote, please Counselor cross Lee. Yes,
sir. Iverson. Yes, sir
Yes. Councillor Hawke. Yes. Councillor Wilts. Yes. Councillor Henry. Yes. Councillor Decker. Yes. Motion
passes unanimous. All right. Thank you and congratulations. And we'll see you in the next few weeks.
Thank you. All right. Next up on our agenda is the consent agenda items. Council, I move to approve
the council summary minutes of January the 13th and 27th in 2026.
Second. All right, we got a motion and a second. Is there any other discussion on our consent agenda
items as presented? All right, and seeing none, I will go to public comment on this item. If you have
public comment, you can come forward to the lectern here, the night, you know, room or raise your hand
via teams.
And seeing none, we can go ahead and do voice vote because all of us are here. So all those in favor
of approving the consent agenda items as presented signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed,
same sign. All right. Motion carries. Thank you so much for that. All right. Next up is item eight,
which is our budget review process. And we know that the state house is still doing some of the
little last minute things here, but we generally do this around February anyway. So I wanted to have
Greg Garitas, our financial, with financial solutions group come forward and give his presentation.
So welcome Mr. Garitas. Thank you and good evening. You should have three pages, pieces of paper in
front of you. We worked over the last couple of last week and
Yesterday when kind of putting these together to kind of give you where we're going And the key is also
we're working with the auditors numbers now on 2025 and updating our sustainability so in our next report
we will have Our next meeting we will have our sustainability which is the line-by-line revenue and
expenses and then projecting ahead in
twenty seven twenty twenty eight and twenty twenty nine. We are hoping that- boys and girls in downtown
Indianapolis leave soon and we'll be able to- I call it play damage control. Or maybe we'll be overwhelmingly
surprised and we get really good news
it's really kind of unknown until they leave. So at this point in time, I'd like to focus on the one
page that is labeled 2025 financial results. So as you know from my presentations last year, that we
were expecting the general fund to have expenses exceed revenues.
and you see the summary right there that it did exceed by 6.9. Now we also put into account or put on
this piece of paper a couple other key funds which went actually the other way as you see. At it, we
didn't spend any of the expenses in 2026 and that was as was expected, okay.
25 in 25 it was expected that you wouldn't spend anything in 26 when we get there Obviously, we're gonna
have a little different story in 25 for PSAP lit you can see that there we slightly overspent by $65,000
basically spending what we took in jail lit
for twenty twenty five we did not again we had a very positive six point nine million that was somewhat
but by design because as you know we were accumulating those monies in order to move forward on possible
new projects that were coming up. I also put the piece app lit for nine three three for a reason when
we get to a couple of the other pages
And as you can see there, you had a positive 215,000. Can I just clarify something? I think when you
mentioned the PS lit, you called it PSAP lit up above. So I just want to make sure that that is PS lit
up above. And that's what you were talking about up above. So the 1170 is public safety lit. 4933 is
public safety lit.
Is basically the piece app or the e911? Just think it got miss Spoken, I think you inverted the PS lit
with the PS AP left right earlier Okay So it's okay So PS lit public safety lit was positive. It was
a negative $65,000 public seat or PSAP lit 4933 was 215,000 positive
Thank you. Sure. And then you see down below, so I don't only focus on the change in revenues versus
expenses, but the cash balance that you ended up at the end of the year. And as of 12-31-2025,
subject to, I don't think you have any, Bree, you have any adjustments coming through at this point.
I don't think so. If anything, it would be very, very minimal as we go through and audit the CFA, which
is the federal award. So perfect. So you see that we ended the general fund with twenty three million
at it. Twenty three million also. Keep P.S. lit or public safety lit eleven seventy two point nine million
jail lit seven point one million.
PSAP lit 4933 2.9 million and then I put down the band capital. This is the bond anticipation note that
we issued in 25 for basically land purchase. Okay. And so when you look at those in comparison to our
top numbers there,
I feel like we are in good shape when you take all of those funds into account. And so questions on
kind of the 25 financial results until you get the actual line by line revenue expenses. We'll be putting
together in sustainability. Yes. Yes. Since we budgeted so much in
these other funds in the edit fund and the jail fund. I want to make sure that you've covered what we
projected to spend out of those budgets. I wouldn't want anybody to think this money is actually going
to be available for the jail. Not all of it, because we budgeted what was it, how much in the edit,
money as well as we budgeted in the jail lit for 2026. So even though you might see a balance there,
it's going to change drastically for this coming year because we budgeted it for 2026. That's why I
was going to go page two. OK, I just I'm just saying that I think if you just looked at this sheet,
you would. I know you don't want to just look at that one. You want to look at that.
The twenty five twenty six. Okay so the second page which is the twenty twenty six budget summary as
we know it today with and you do have I believe three you have some additional appropriations I always
caution on additional appropriations especially very early on but you can see that the general fund
26 estimated revenues is 52 million, 52 million and 8, and budget is 51-0 or 51-100, basically leaving
a balance or a difference between revenues and expenses at this point in time at 1.724953. Now, as you
additionally appropriate,
those funds will be less. Okay. And so, you know, that's what kind of catches up with you as time goes
on. And it really happens in every county. And at it, you see we are projecting estimated revenues of
12.7. The budgeted expenses and Councillor Hawke, I believe this is what you were kind of pointing at, is
estimated to be 4.6 or 4.7 million with a then estimate over revenue over expenses of about 8 million.
So that 4.7 or 4.688 is what you actually have budgeted out of edit to spend. And I've got the detailed
budget and I looked through it. There's two big items in there.
But with consultation with the auditor's office, we believe those are somewhat reoccurring, the bigger
ones in edit. And I'm sure you know your edit budget inside and out, but I've looked at each of those
line items. So to a certain degree, they're state. Yes, lit or public safety lit 1170, 3.6 million
4.7 you have more you're basically budgeting in to it the a cash reduction of 1 million dollars okay
so if you went back to the first page you would see that the balance in ps public safety lit and watch
that is 2.9 so you can get pretty close with utilizing one
1 million of that so I would advise you be very careful on additional appropriations there. Jail lit
in revenues 2.6 in budget leaving a revenues in excess of budget of 5.2 million. So that one was is safe in
and obviously then available as we go forward. And then again, we put down the PSAP lit 4933,
three million, 2.9, 100,000. And I think on that one, you generally pay out what you bring. So questions
on how 25 interacts with 26 and kind of where you've got your glide path going
or 2026 on these major funds. Councilor Henry, and then I'll go to Councilor Haag. Yeah, thank you for
that. I'm zeroing in on the 1.7 and the general fund net revenue because as you mentioned, we want to
avoid additional approves as long as we can. But one of the things we've experienced over the past year
are very large additional appropriations to shore up our health insurance in the county. We had a series
of those votes last year that
That doesn't feel like a lot of margin to work with if we're expecting or anticipating this similar
hit. So I keep looking at the auditor because I'm trying to remember what our sum total of those were
over last year. Do you have a ballpark on what that was? Some total of additionals? Yeah. Three million
sticking in my head, but I don't, I'm not positive I'll have to look. Michelle, do you happen to recall?
We can pull it. Okay, it's not small.
And so at that point, we're looking at what's then available. And I guess maybe the question, Greg,
is that if we are looking to continue our service offering that we do for health insurance and we're
looking at a general fund that's maybe tapped because the resource might not be there, it's possible
the edit would then be next in line to possibly use for that.
And there are other what other funds would you think might be available then to look out for that? Well,
well, let me point out that you did in in at it budget two million dollars. Right. So that that is there.
You know, I
Obviously, I did send Molly a message, you know, first place I go on, especially the doughnut counties,
is food and beverage, but yours is not available, my understanding, for those type of things. So what
you're going to have to do, and remember, we saw that glide path happening very, very strong last year.
I think we budgeted stronger this year to try and hopefully not have that same issue.
But quite frankly, it's eating every county alive. You know, left tipping a new county a couple weeks
ago, and they were, you know, they were up there. Cities have gone to 25,000 per, and now they're
experiencing 28. So it's one of those we just carefully have to watch. I was asking where we stood year
to date already, and we don't have that information yet.
but I think because it's a little early, but after February, we're gonna wanna know here to date how
we're doing. Okay. I'll go to the auditor and then I'll circle back to Councilor Hawk. I just wanted
to correct the number I mentioned. Michelle was able to pull it up faster than I can get logged in here.
It's about 3.9 million, so I was definitely off. Thank you. That's a lot. Okay, Councilor Hawk. Yes,
I think one of the,
things that the council did was we reduced the levies for the other levy control funds that we have
to really kind of think of as all being general fund because if you we have to cover some of these other
funds too and when we were doing that I think it was clear we had to make up that we had to put it back
you know and we had to put it back
It cannot stay where we put it. And of course, it has to stay that way for a year because you can't
move money back and forth during the year. But that means that our levy growth will not be realized
in the general fund to the extent that you might think it would be. And I'm not sure we know the levy
growth number.
Did they tell? We don't know that number yet as well, do we? He levy for for 2026 in the general fund.
Well, I'm talking about for for. I'm already thinking about 2027. We know what it was absolutely not.
Yeah, you you. I do know because we put together this comparison of your budget for January, January
7th of 2026.
and the general funds levy and that was one cautionary note I wanted to make on the 1.7 million for
the general fund is yes that levy went up 6.2 million okay so all points bulletin to you that 52 million
includes that and you did have a migration from 15 reassessment and a couple other funds
that you will have to make up more than likely in 27 or 28. Another one was aviation. And so that was,
did you give them a copy of our document that we put together for the comparison? I believe Ms. Sheldon,
I think it went directly to her. Okay, because that's what we put together and sent out early in the
year to confirm your budget. And that on the very back page 10 of that, it shows the migration of the dollars.
of your maximum levy. Keep up the great questions. I'm ready. Anybody else have any questions so far?
I just wanted to note that I think there was a consensus that we're aware that we're going to have to
shift some levy back. However, I think
We were trying to supplement the general fund to support as much as necessary and that's why we also
have that navigation of some expenses to the edit fund because we simply can't continue and support
all of our services with less so One thing that's not on here is the special purpose lit that we had
reduced but we likely should
increase back now because we were spending it down a little bit. And so I just wanted to throw that
out there. Since we've got the list of let's, it does seem like it might be worth remembering that.
That's for YSB. Yeah, the Chief and I'll remember that towards the end of budget season because they
were very concerned about needing to put that back next year or which is this year. Yeah.
So yeah, I believe the consensus was, I might not be remembering this correctly, but I thought the council
preferred to wait until we establish all those rights in 27. But we can do that, you know, this year,
next year. We just need to watch it very carefully. I think that was the general thing. So yeah. Okay.
Yes, Councillor Decker. I was just going to say that.
When we did that, we promised that we, to our judicial partners, that we would watch that vehemently.
And even when the concerns came up that we might not remedy that sooner, we promised again. And so that
cannot get lost off that radar because that is a winning system and nobody wants to break a car engine
that is running really well.
and I see a lot of nodding heads from some of our judicial friends that seem to agree with me. Yes,
Councillor Wilks. I have a naive question. Is there any logic, I believe I'm saying this out loud, but
is there any logic to putting that lit back up in place this year, knowing that we are
benefiting from some reductions and by we, I mean the glorious grand we of everybody from reductions
in property tax and we're headed toward likely increases in the future and maybe this eases us in the
future of income tax. Does that make sense? So it makes total sense to me
And that's why each of the councils that I work with, we say, let's review the lit rates each and every
year, even though, you know, SB, remember SB2 is coming to a theater near you and SB2 it won't be, but
I call it that, right? And so each and every year, and I think right on our schedule here, we should
say, we're gonna review that come June or July.
And I think it's, I call it lit migration. And you should look at how you're migrating lit versus what
you're migrating on property taxes and set the strategy. So each and every year, so that makes total
sense to me, whether you change it or not, that's one thing, but review it and set your course.
And oh, by the way, you gotta do it really early because the DLGF has been awful busy
And it has taken awful long time to review your ordinances or your resolutions and they get the right
to comment on it. And sometimes they take up 90 days. You always want to start early. Okay. Thank you.
And Mr. Gregory. Thank you. I completely agree with Councillor Wilts and I think our justice partners
would feel at ease if we could take care of that this year if the council does choose to do so.
And I did know about it, by the way. I consciously didn't put it on the sheet. I just want to comment
that the reason we did what we did was that the cash balance was much higher than what was needed for
the youth services and yet we were looking at trying to put together
dollars out of that jail tax. We had not taken that up to as far as the jail tax could go. We bumped
that up a little bit and reduced the YSB a little bit. But we promised that we would look at their cash
balances and
I'm not saying we have to return the full rate because that rate is bringing in more than what is needed.
But certainly look at their cash balance and making sure they are whole and that we have not done anything
to jeopardize their position. But every time you talk about percent in the rate,
We really need to look at what does that mean? What kind of revenue does that mean you're bringing in?
Because that's really what we're talking about. So whether or not you would reduce that jail rate again
and put it over into YSB, because that's what we did. We moved it there. Will we reduce it and move
it back? Or will we actually put a new additional rate on the people of this county?
And I do have the 1231 results. It is 4.2 million in special purpose lit 1114. 4.2. What was that number?
I'm sorry, 4.2. 4.2. Thank you. 4256697. I have one other page.
That staff said thought I should discuss tonight and this is the top part looks should look kind of
familiar to you because the top part is exactly what I covered within our sustainability and when we
kind of gave the update on SB one and as you know, current law is
And 27 you will review for 28 your introduction of your new county lit rate. What do I firmly believe?
I firmly believe that will become 28 review for 29 implementation. And I would say stay tuned for further
developments on that even. So as you know, we put in a break even and I believe
Breeze number also verified it, that we were a break even of .93. So that's what you see next door to
it, which says estimated minimum future lit. So meaning you would need 93 basis points out of the 120
basis points to break even on the rest would be your option.
Okay now obviously then what we've done now in the second part of this page is we've sat down and said
let's talk about where we sit if we were to do any type of financing for a new project going forward
using lit. If you look under the column that says county share 2026 certified lit
These are the LITs that you have exclusive again of the special purpose. So that totals up the 42,951.
Currently, you see right below that 10,000,737. Right now in SB1, and you remember this from last year,
you should,
that there is a limit of being able to obligate over and above 25%. You can only use up to 25% for any
debt payment. So what Jeff asked me to do was estimate a bond size based upon that, and that is 135
million. Significantly different, obviously, than the numbers that we had in the past.
Now, we also said, but that's one issue. If you circle that one, that's one issue in SB1. Now there's
also a practicality issue. And that is if you go to the far right-hand section, you will see what we've
done is we've said, okay, the estimated available lit for debt service after paying
budgetary expenses for 2026 means that really unobligated, we've got about 11,000,732. Again, that could
be plus or minus depending on how you do additional appropriations and things like that. And we also
added in obviously the negative 1,000,002. It means that we have to have when you do a revenue bond,
you know, you have to have 125 coverage.
You have to have $125 coming in for every $100 of debt service. You've heard me talk about that last
year. And so what we do is basically use 80% and we say $9.3 million is what you would have available
from leftover or remaining funds on an annual basis. It could be less than that as time goes on, but
that would estimate at about $117 million bond issue.
that's the one that we're truly at we believe okay unless you made some significant changes in the 26
budget or 27 budget obviously notice i said 27 budget then that might change that 11 million fairly
significantly but that's kind of trying to boil down where we are on sb1
requirement of not going over 25 basis or 25 percent and of your annual lit revenue and then also playing
it off on how does it format how's it look with the 26 budget and what would be a left left available
for debt service assuming no changes in rates of any kind obviously okay and so that's the two numbers that
We wanted to point out on where we are today, far from, like I said, where we were in the past, because
that was you enacting up to the max and other things. Questions on that? I'll go to Councillor Iverson
and then Henry next.
So for those of you watching, this is exactly why I think this council unanimously and bipartisanly
took a vote at the end of 2025 when we were looking at a facility to the size of 225 million dollars.
And tonight, I think we have the clearest enumeration of why that was the right decision. I mean, these
numbers are staggeringly smaller.
than the $225 million that we were asked to be spending. So not only appreciate the county share certified
lit, but also that third column, the estimated lit available for debt service. This helps put a very
fine point on what we are allowed to do
given what our friends in Indianapolis have passed in Senate Enrolled Act 1. So I really appreciate
this analysis. We've been looking for this for a while, and I'm glad we finally have it. Good point.
Thank you. Peter just stole all my words. I will ask a question, because I completely agree with all
of that. We had great foresight up here, and I think it just showed for the community. I guess my question is on the
Estimated bond size and the debt service. So that's all bonds for the county not a particular project,
right? So if we have It is a particular project. Okay, that's new project. So that's not inclusive of
other bonds. All right No, sir No, that that's really the clarifying question. I had see Peter said
it better. Anyway, thanks keep in mind the ones that we
have our outstanding or majority of them are either redevelopment and or general obligation bonds. And
I would make the note that neither that the 135 nor the 117 included any type of cash balance that remains
in edit remains in jail lit or in the band capital. I didn't we would just add those two
A total project cost, but not a total debt service. Well, then the follow up there is that those additional
funds could be used for other projects in the county. Those are those are that's obviously so so I don't
want to give the impression that this new number plus those
Lits would equal some larger project that we would given just the fact we had a conversation about the
1.7 million in revenue for the general fund We may need those other lits to be able to do additional
appropriations So I appreciate that this one's about a specific project, but understand that those other
available lits We may be using for other things. Yeah Yes, councillor Hawk Yes, we won't know until
the people of the state says
They're through and this is where we set with the changes that they're making but one of the changes
was that they would have Sort of a committee set up with a representative of the county and a representative
of the Municipality so there would be one from the city one from town of Ellensville maybe one from
Steinsville. I don't know. But anyway, to decide how to split up the revenue that's coming in from lead
now. And so I think it's important that we recognize that that what we're trying to get in the legislation,
I hope it got in there, that it is a we it's up to the county council to call that meeting. And it is
a may and not a shall.
and that meeting where they decide to have to split up the revenue, it is merely a suggestion. It is
still up to the county council. Now, if that goes through and ends up being that way, this is why we
need to look at our future and know that we're not rolling here in the money and the city needs to recognize
that as well and the townships
Bloomington Transportation, et cetera, because they might have a feeling of the county is setting on
a lot of money. And we have to do things that they don't have to do. And this whole justice system is
not inexpensive. And I just want to throw that in there, because I know we've got a lot of people that's
watching or is following along that really are hoping that city
will be able to use a part of our revenue. And I think that's going to be difficult to do. Yes, Councillor
Decker. Thank you very much. Remind me again, I know you said at the start, when do you think the General
Assembly is roughly done for this time? Hopefully this week. If someone answered it, they'll be done
when they do the last vote. And the last vote, I think, has to occur by the end of this week. Yeah,
the 27th. Well, I guess the reason I ask that is they have some wiggle room there, right, to stick around
longer. They also have wiggle room if the governor and I believe the leaders of the chambers want it
to come back in throughout. And the reason I point that out is
Sometimes I've noticed there's a little bit of euphoria around, well, this bill didn't move forward,
and I think they're roughly done by this time. But if they want, they can insert language anywhere,
anyhow, anytime, any place, and sometimes not even known to the public for better or worse,
right or wrong. And so I am patient and curious when we will know
what we're dealing with and what we're not dealing with and whether they're coming back or not. I mean,
I saw, I know it's not related to this exactly, but I saw some jubilation yesterday that early voting
hours would stay at 28 days versus 16, but friends, you don't know that until they're done and they're home.
You don't know Jack until they're done in their home. And one of the things that I was, as I was listening
to just our comments here that I get very worried about is there's someone in Steinsville that will
need us to do something soon. And I'm not sure we know fully what that law is going to look like, how
that's going to be, or what gets worked out in some of the meetings that Councilor Hawks in, but they
may need that may to be a really willing
set of participants on this end, but not only that for that, but for public transportation and fire
protection and townships if they exist or whatever form they exist in. And that is a lot. I mean, and
I'll even hazard this to counselors. I have never before in this role thought budgetarily wise around
our school districts, but I think every
counselor up here has had some sort of conversation with one of our school districts because they also
are in a pickle and Kids got to get educated and you can't wave the flag on that So I throw it all out
there and that we're dealing with a gel and bonding and changes and a pause or not a pause or what have
you but this our years ahead and when I say our I mean everybody and
beyond these walls out in these subdivisions of government are gonna be different and very difficult
or even continuously changing. I do appreciate the clarity on your numbers as always and the passion
by which you bring them to us because you can tell you love what you do and that helps us to figure
out what we have to do. So thank you. I just, you know, once they quit moving the cheese, I love that.
I love that.
Then we'll know where the cheese is. We probably won't know flavors of the cheese until we get a little
further down the road, but stay tuned. Not all cheese is good too, right? OK, are there any other questions
or comments for Mr Garrett says? If that's my prepared, yeah, I was gonna say, do you have any final?
Nope, that's my prepared comments. We will like aside.
the sustainability we will kind of what we do want to wait until we see where the cheese lands and to
a certain degree and be able to put that into 28 29 and 30. But you've got a lot of work coming on the
27 budget. So I like to say start now. Yes, counselor. Yes, I think
We really don't know what our revenue is going to be this year. In 2026, we know that some of the estimates
was going to be a $300 reduction on all properties. We'll know it's not. It's 300, depending on the
price tag, or 10%, whichever is less. So we don't know what's going to happen with that. But there's
also a whole lot of credits out there. And remember, there's a
big difference between a deduction and a credit because a credit means it's straight off of the bottom.
Revenue, you know, good for the taxpayer. They're not going to pay it, but it also means less revenue
coming into the county. And they didn't even have to apply for this if they were already had a homestead
or if they were
already had the over 65. There are a lot of things that would just be automatically adjusted. And so
we I think it's really difficult to judge what we think our revenue is going to be for this year.
I mean, we'll. I know Miss Gregory had her hand raised and then I'll come back to Councilor Iverson.
Thank you. I'm sure it does. I just want to confirm, the estimated minimum future lit necessary, does
that include like expense increase projections and so forth? Oh, heck no. OK. So that's your room between
93 basis points and 120. OK. So then, I mean. It wasn't in yours, I don't believe. And it definitely
is not in ours. Right. OK. So then, with that in mind, I mean, we're going to have to be a lot closer
to that 1.2. Absolutely.
So thank you for coming. We always learn a lot when you come here. We really appreciate the report that
you sent in January. That was really helpful to prepare for this. And I want to I think in closing,
just note that on the second sheet that we talked about, the twenty twenty six budget summary, ninety
six point seven percent, that's greater than ninety five percent of our general fund revenues are already budgeted.
We have such little wiggle room for additional appropriations, folks. There's just such little wiggle
room. So when we're up here saying we need to figure out with our department heads how we're going to
work with the funds that we have, this is a really fine way of putting it that 96.7% of all of our revenues,
at least the estimated revenues are budgeted. There's not a lot of wiggle room this year.
And just one quick comment on that. Remember, that contained a pretty strong interest income. And I
still really believe that there may be a tide that will turn midyear this year. And I know everybody's
doing well, and we've got a strong balance. But that rate of interest may go down. If not, it will go
down in 27. All right.
Keep looking at our belts and see how tight we can make them. Yeah. Yes, Mr. Gregory. One final comment.
I am going to work with the treasurer, get all of the financial reports from her, the investment reports,
and send them to FSG. So we have that piece as well. Yeah, and I think it's something we ought to update
council each and every month on year to date earned interest income along with year to date expense
on insurance. Yeah.
very key ingredients. Yeah, yes. We provide a revenue report monthly and so that's part of that as well.
Yeah and one final thing is I really appreciate this third page bringing it home for us when we think
of our specific task that we have at hand. How much we have
like our budget versus our actuals. So that that's a lot of food for thought for some of the things
that we might have to do this evening. So I appreciate that. So thank you very much. Thank you. And
good evening. Yes. Any other questions? No. Yes. You get to have some daylight back. Thank you.
All right. Next up, council, we are getting into the county council business. And first up, we'll start
with item A, which is from courts.
Council, I move to open for discussion and possible approval of the court's request to be exempt from
the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire and fund 1000-0225 County General Courts, a part-time hourly
public service coordinator position. Second. Okay, and I see that we have Judge Seekoff and Ms.
Abraham here. Welcome. Thank you.
And we had about a month ago, a little over a month ago, a vacancy in our office. So we've done our
due diligence to not fund it, not do anything with it, which required my staff to basically have been
taking shifts, myself included. I was there almost all day to day at the front desk to do it. Because
some of the jobs that we have, though,
We have a jury trial. My other person has to do the jury trial. So it's kind of been a little hindrance
on us. So trying to find a workaround that I'm asking if we can maybe get a part-time position to help
out. I have the money in my part-time so it wouldn't be any additional funding.
for that. I do know I have a couple of people that have recently retired. One of them is interested
in doing it, which would be easy for the committee chair. We would know everything would be minimal
training. So, and like I said, only do six days, or six days, I'm sorry, six hours a day, three days
a week. So, excuse me, very, very minimal. So that's why we're asking you to ease a little burden of
my staff and myself to make sure that position and all of those duties get covered. Okay. Thank you for that.
This is also a prime example of what counselor Everson was saying earlier about how we have to figure
out how departments are working. I think in prepping for our meeting for this evening, you just said
you had it vacant for a month? Yes, I think the second week in January, I believe. You were able to
get us that fiscal impact of how much for that time frame that position remain vacant? Right.
I think Tim has said before that to her. Right. And I think we got it. We got it. And this was full-time
originally. It was a full-time position. So these are things that I think personally, myself, I'd like
to hear when we have people coming forth because you're obviously trying to say and state your case
of why you need this position, but you were able to, one,
look at how long that vacancy was able to. Two, we heard how everybody in office, including yourself,
are taking turns to figure out how you can manage that. And three, taking that from full time to part
time. And so that's the embodiment of trying to partner and figure out how we can do this and how to
work. So I just want to say,
Thank you for setting the bar for how these things should be going. Today was a little rough. I have
two people down out of five. Of course. One is getting ready for a conference this Friday. Another one
was getting ready for a jury, which left me. So I was the one at the front desk, so some stuff I could
not do at the front. So it's sitting. I'll try and tackle that tomorrow. Well, we appreciate that. And
thank you very much for that. All right. Any questions from counsel? Yes. Counselor Hawk. Yes.
We know at the end of this year, one of the courts will no longer be. And so we have to look at what
that percent of reduction needs to come from the court's budgets, because we can't just make up the
difference. If you've been paying attention to what we were told, we just can't. So I'm just wondering,
are you watching
people who are still employed in that court that will be going away for opportunities for them to move
to another slot someplace so that they don't have to just be laid off. Well, actually, we're doing that
right now. Our one judge did lose a court order, and she's the one that might be doing this part-time
one. And with that being in Judge Haunton's, we are not filling that because obviously we can't say
you're hired, but in nine months
you're fired again. So we are not filling that spot. We had another one that also retired into different
judges. So what we're going to do is the other court reporter from Judge Haughton is going to take over
to fill that vacancy at the end of the year in Judge Fawcett. So we will not need to hire any new ones.
So we already got those two that were leaving vacant the rest of this year. And then you'll get another
one because our official court reporter is retired in the year, which is for Judge Haughton.
No one's going to lose a job. So that's the nice thing. A question. So the part-time person then would
no longer receive insurance or any benefits? Correct. Yes? No? She will not receive any benefits at
all. She's already doing her insurance right now because she retired at the end of December. She already
has her own insurance. All right. Are there any other questions? Yes. Councillor Decker.
the title here, is this the role that years ago, Pat Haley, when she left office, that she kind of fulfilled
out there, kind of helping people? That's what she did, yes. That's one I already have a part time for
that spot. But yes, Pat Haley was a different one, but she's already, that was a part time one that
now Glenda Campbell fills in downstairs at the front desk. This is actually full time that's upstairs
in our office in court services. Gotcha, gotcha. I actually personally experienced kind of what that
role does in
in my private life as I was kind of entering that building. And for a lot of people, the intimidation
in there on am I doing the right thing? Am I in trouble? Am I blah, blah, blah, you know, and navigating
is a lot. So I kind of understand that. I also appreciate managing this around as you have described
well. I think sometimes people outside don't understand that on a public office, you can't just say,
well, we're a little low on this. We're just going to close the door.
on this and everybody's just not here. I mean, you can do that. You're not supposed to because the public
is paying for that. And so working through the time period is appreciated. Are there any other questions?
Yes, counselor. I think what we're going to see is we're going to see departments throughout county
government saying we're really missing this slot.
we really need that slot filled in because it's difficult to make a, you know, and try to figure out
how to make it work. And I said to another department head not long ago, that's your job, figure out
how to make it work. Our job is to try to make sure we're not spending money that is going to force
us to do more draconian cuts than what we want to do. And so,
I won't be supporting this because I just think people need to take turns filling that, you know, go
sit at that desk or do whatever, make it work. Don't ask us to come to you and say which one of your
people we can no longer support. We need to do it through attrition. It sounds easier when we just say,
let's do it through attrition. It's a lot harder when they come and say, no, I really need this lot filled.
So, okay. All right, anybody else? Yes, Councilor Woods. To that same point, I just wanted to indicate
that I will support this hire based on the efforts that have been made thus far.
taking something down to part time is not just reducing hours as Councillor Hock pointed out, it's the
benefits as well. So this is, I think, and I will support this higher, because I think it's been well
managed. Thank you.
Any other questions or comments for counsel on this item? All right, and seeing none, we'll open it
up to public comment. If you have public comment on this item, you can come forward to the lectern here,
or you can raise your hand via Teams. And seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor
Wilts? Yes. Councilor Haas? No. Councilor Henry?
Yes. Councillor Crossley? Yes. Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes. Motion passed six to
one majority. Right next up item B. Council I move to approve the court's request and fund 1213-0000
CASA-GAL grant an additional appropriation of $1,500 in the services category. Second.
Right. And you mentioned you were coming back because you had some good news and so grants today. So
this is great. Yeah. Costs inform me that they got another fifteen hundred dollars on their pass through
grant. So it's already been received in the auditor's office. So I'm just here to ask that we can get
appropriated so we can get them their money. All right. Looking to council colleagues to see if anybody
has any questions or comments on that. Of course congratulations on that.
All right, and seeing none, we'll go to public comment. If you have public comment, you can raise your
hand via Teams or come here to the lectern here in the room. And seeing none, may we please have a roll
call vote? Yes. Sir, Henry. Yes. Councillor Decker. Yes. Councillor Crossley. Yes. Councillor Iverson. Yes.
Yes, sir. Hawk. Yes motion passes unanimous. All right. Next up is item C Excuse me council. I move
to approve the court's request and fund 91 13-000 Family Court grant additional appropriations of $83,000
in the services category All right
This year, once again, we were lucky enough to get a family court grant, and we received $83,000 forward.
And I'm here to get it appropriated. And Judge Stafford is one who monitors that grant, so she has come
to speak on it. All right.
What do you have to say, Ms. Stafford, or Judge Stafford? Excuse me. That's all good. As long as it's
not a swear word, I'll answer it anyway. That's all good. That's what I tell people who come into court.
They're like, ma'am, sir, and I'm like, it's all good. No offense taken. Judge Stafford, yes?
Thank you. I am proud to say that we are the largest recipient of this type of grant in the state. We
are also one of the longest term grant recipients of this type of grant in the state. You all have heard
me say this before, so I'm going to keep it as brief as possible. You know that when people come to court for
when they are accused of a crime, that they have a right to appointment of counsel, that they have access
to probation officers. We don't have that in civil or family court. And this grant allows us to have
an attorney available to give advice only, not representation, not going to court with them, not going
to mediation with them, two afternoons a month for low-income people only on family cases. And I will
tell you, it's not enough.
but it helps and we're so grateful for the money. This grant actually helps not just Monroe County,
but Green, Lawrence, Owen, and Sullivan. And we are the financial manager of those funds. I monitor
and with the help of Lisa Abraham and Melissa in the court services office, we monitor the time sheets,
the mileage, we make sure everything is perfect before we do their monthly,
outputs and reimbursements and we have asked and gotten great cooperation from Pro Bono Indiana, used
to be known as District 10 who does the legal advice to make sure that they're tracking what kinds of
advice they're giving and how they're doing it and we're trying to really build a good partnership with
them. So we're always appreciative of that and as not just a department but of course a separate and
co-equal branch of government we appreciate the chance to receive this grant and move forward with it.
Thank you.
Thank you. And congratulations again. Any questions or comments for Council and Judge Stafford? I think
Councilor Hawk might have a question for you. Congratulations again. I see that the balance in February
20th is seven thousand seven thirty five. So your grant is in the amount of eighty three. And so
I don't know how much of that even though it says it's a balance it might already be appropriated to
my understand is that some of it was for December output I don't know if it had already gone through
yet and we generally in the past have rolled that over and they had a
of staff about a year and a half ago to two years ago that caused them to get behind on their request
to have that grant spent out. And we worked with them very closely to make sure that they were increasing
their hours and using the money that was funded, because we don't want to be in a position of losing
those funds. Right. I just wanted to know where you stood on that $7,000. So I'm sure everybody's watching
it. Oh, absolutely. Kim, I will look it up. I think that paid some of the January bill, because I don't
think there's enough right now.
We received the January bill, but we're holding it because there's not enough to pay it until this gets
appropriated. And we've told them that. We said, you'll get it after I get to counsel today. Don't want
to lose the penny of it, because if you don't spend it by the time the time's up, you could not agree
more. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Anything else? Yes. I just was going to offer a commentary, Judge,
and we say this a lot, but we're grateful for any
let alone our judicial branch going after grants to do things that are extremely beneficial to folks
that we otherwise financially probably could not do for ourselves. And we have a long track record,
a lot of folks even sitting out there in the audience that go after those and make that public service
component more complete for us. And I appreciate very much the court doing that, maintaining that. And
for taxpayers, that means that these fine folks are taking
additional time their own time to really chase things down out there in the world state federal. To
bring those dollars here versus somewhere else and that saves for us and it serves for us so thank you
so much. Yes counselor vital and I just want to say how much I truly appreciate the impact it has on families.
Thank you. It really does. And frankly, it makes my job easier from a very selfish perspective when
someone could get legal advice on what they should file and where they can file it and what they can
do. It helps every other case move more quickly. All right. And seeing no other questions or comments
from counsel, we'll move on to public comment. So if there's public comment on this item, you can come
forward to the lectern here or raise your hand via teams.
And seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor
Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Beidle? Yes. Councilor Locke? Yes. Councilor Williams?
Yes. Motion passed. Anonymous. Thank you. Next up is item D.
Council I move to approve the court's request and fund 9136-0000 court reform grant. An additional
appropriation of $12,453 in the services category. Second. All right. Okay, this court reform grant
is was up this year for a technology and what we did three years ago, we did a grant and we're able
to purchase with the grant money digital signage in our
justice building we have two downstairs and one upstairs and it gave us a three-year maintenance agreement
well that is up as of June of this year so we thought well let's try again so we tried and this will
cover then the next three years of the maintenance so that we can continue to use our digital signage
without having to cost the county anything so I'm asking this be appropriated and that pay
for our maintenance for the next three years congratulations again thank you very much all right any
questions or comments from council on this item
and seeing none, we'll go to public comment. Please come forward to the election here, raise your hand
via Teams. And seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councillor Decker? Yes. Councillor
Cross? Yes. Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes. Councillor Hogg? Yes. Councillor Wilts?
Yes. Councillor Henry? Yes.
Passes unanimous. All right, thank you very much. All right, we are done with courts and now we are
moving on to item E, which is from the probation department. Council, I move to open for discussion
and possible approval of the probation's request to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed
to hire and fund 9142-0000 Community Corrections Grant, account line 11493, legal secretary slash receptionist.
And joining us at the table again is Judge DeKoff and Ms. Linda Brady, our chief office. Thank you.
Good evening, county council. I want to give you a brief update about staffing in the probation department.
I've recently met with a couple of county counselors and they've asked me about our staffing levels.
and that sort of thing. So just to update you, before COVID, the pandemic, the staff turnover was very
low. For probation officers, we averaged about two probation officers a year leaving the department.
We did have a high turnover rate with our community corrections field officers, and any of you who've
gotten emails from me know that. Usually, I would lose about four officers a year out of a total of eight.
that staff. So that has traditionally been a high turnover position. But since the COVID pandemic, we've
had unprecedented turnover with all levels except for support staff. So since 2020, the only time we
have had full staff in 2024, we had three weeks for the whole year of 2024 with a full staff. And then
in 2025, we went three months, and that's been our record since COVID.
So we continue to have that as an issue. Prior to the hiring freeze, we employed 71 full-time employees
plus 16 part-time employees. And you all have our organizational chart. I had sent that through email.
So hopefully you have that. So at this time, to let you know, we have 18 staff vacancies in the probation
department. Can I please repeat that? 18. We have five full-time positions that are vacant.
One being the legal secretary, receptionist, two probation officers, two community corrections field
officers. We have 13 part-time positions that are vacant. 12 were probation officer assistants and one
probation officer that's a part-time is vacant. So again, 18 total. Also, we have two community corrections
field officers who've already advised us they will be leaving employment either in the next couple of
weeks or the next couple of months.
But one of them is up for a job, and we don't know the date he's going to be leaving us. The other,
as soon as she's applying for other jobs, and if she gets one, she's out. And no matter what, she's
leaving by May because her lease expires. So we're going to have a couple more very soon. So what I'm
not here to do is to ask to fill 18 positions. OK. I'm here to ask to fill one position.
the most crucial position, which is our Community Corrections Legal Secretary position. In late 2025,
when she resigned, our department, as you probably know, we have two separate offices, so we have a
receptionist in each of our offices. Since the person who left the position, we've been dividing up the
sitting at the receptionist's desk as much as we can with some part-time staff, but because we have
so many part-time vacancies, we're down to only two probation officer assistants in the community corrections
office, one male and one female, and they spend all of their time that they're allowed to work as part-timers
collecting urine for the department for our drug testing program. And so at this
At this point, we've been assigning some of those duties, other receptionist duties, to our
other receptionist in the other office. However, she is going on maternity leave in about a month. So
we have waited as long as we possibly can to fill this position. So we're here to ask to be able to
refill. The position is not funded by county general. It's funded by the community corrections grant
and community corrections user fees.
We've already got it budgeted for the year. And I noticed that another department came up and you asked
how many calls the receptionist answered. And in addition to the people walking in the office, we did
actually ask TSD to run a report for us. And our main office receptionist gets about 150 phone calls
a day on average. And at Community Corrections, we get about 108 calls a day on average. And that plus
the walk-in.
clientele, but that's what I got from technical services. So just wanted to give you something that
you had asked another department for. And so I'm asking for you to please consider approving this. Happy
to answer any questions. All right. Thank you for that. And you said this was vacant since late of 2020.
She resigned at the end of 2025. Then she had to be paid out for benefits and that sort of thing.
Okay, I'm gonna start over here with council member questions, and I'll go to Councilor Becker. Thank
you for the context, and you're always good about sending us the vacancy list and all that when I was
your liaison. I remember that. One question I have for you, and I should know this, but jog my memory.
On these 18 staff vacancies, which probably seems high to a lot of folks, especially yourself and that
department, those are in our budget now, but are sitting vacant.
Yes. It's been a while since I've been your liaison, but is that 18 number higher than normal, average
on normal? No, way higher. I mean, the probation officer assistants who run our drug testing and day
reporting program, we cut way back on that because they've been paid out primarily out of community
corrections user fees. And our more recent liaisons know we have been trying like crazy to keep that fund
in the black. That's why we haven't refilled that. We've tried reassigning and the judge has approved
this. We've reassigned some of those drug testing duties to our field officers. That is not what they
signed up for when they became field officers, but that's what they're doing. Part of the time, not
all of the time, but part of the time. Now we're starting to lose them and have the two vacancies out
of the positions and two more coming up.
We're just, it's stretched as about as thin as it can get. Let's see if anybody else has any questions.
Okay. I'll take it back over here. Councillor Hawk. Yes. Can you remind us again, uh, the reduction
you saw, uh, was it 10% reduction in revenue for this grant fund? Well, what was the reduction? You
said that you said that the state had
Reduced the amount of support for this program. Let this come what? This program is the Community Corrections
program and the Community Corrections program did not get reduced. It was flatlined This year it's been
flatlined is actually Reduction. Well, it's right. It's it's been flatlined for six years right, right,
right, so This is this is
Regretfully, this is a program that's going to have to not be able to provide the services that you
had in the past. It's just like for our funds, when we see a reduction in the revenue coming in, we
can't do what we would like to do in the past. I just wanted to ask a question. I thought sure, I heard
you say a 10% reduction.
Or maybe that's in some meeting. As far as the 10 percent, you have a good memory, Marty. The state
reduced the community corrections budget line by 10 percent. So the community corrections grants in
the state budget was reduced by 10 percent this last. So that's a good good. I knew I wasn't making
that 10 percent. That was in the state budget. But what happened to us, though, was just a flatlining.
at this point. And you may also make another good point about if there's gonna be a reduction because
this is a system, the program isn't just, we don't just operate in a vacuum. We take people who otherwise
would be serving their time in jail, serving time on community corrections. So I don't know if you wanna
say anything about that. I would like to add that the group that I work with from the state have been
advocating
to not reduce the funds coming into there. Many of the counties rely heavily having to do with,
you know, a work release using these programs or so forth. And so it's heavily relied upon in the counties.
And so they're all having to reduce their staff and their budgets. And that's what's going to happen
throughout the state.
I didn't see a change this year of putting that money back in, did you? Well, this isn't a budget year,
but I did watch, there was a state JRAC meeting, which is called the Justice Reinvestment Advisory Council,
and it's run by Justice Goff, and I did watch it, it was on Friday, and every
Entity that was around the table was upset about this because it's affecting every county and it's affecting
sheriffs is affecting community corrections work really everything across the state and justice golf
actually is he's talked about getting a committee together to try to educate the legislature that here's
you did this and here's the impact and to try to get ready for the next budget session.
Any other questions or comments from council on this item? Councillor Wilts. First of all, that's a
lot of phone calls. Yes, it is. I was not expecting you to say that. I know. I heard the clerk's office
when they were up here saying that people call there for everything. People will call us what's the
number of the Monroe County Public Library or you name it. That's a lot. They know our phone number.
information that they need, whether it's for food pantries or treatment or I mean, there's just a lot
of people calling. And plus we have around 1500 people under community supervision with our department.
So if you think about that, that's a lot of people that are being supervised by our department. I just
wanted to pick up on something you said, which is that your community corrections
program doesn't operate in a vacuum, and in fact, if we were to cut back on that program, what we would
in fact be doing is putting people into jail. Is that right? Did I interpret what you said? It would
reduce the options that the judges have for community supervision if we don't have that program. I think
that's important for us to think about.
as we're looking at our options across the justice system, because pulling a string over here is going
to impact something on the other end. And we have to remember that we are doing a lot, and by we,
I mean you, but the county is doing a lot in
the form of diversion. We have these programs that are working really well by all accounts. And so I
guess I just wanted to make sure that that one little piece that you brought up was sort of laid out
a little bit. I like that analogy of pulling the string because I just think of something unraveling
and being a big deal. And as we
consider a lot of things related to that. That is a very valid and good point. I appreciate that. Thanks,
Counselor Wilts. Yes, Counselor Decker. Well, one thing, occasionally I hear things floated. I need
to go look at legislation and see what's happening, but I hear about problem-solving courts, some targets
on that. Judge, I don't want to speak for you, but I recall when you were talking about, I think recidivism numbers,
The record that Problem Solving Courts is amazing in what that does, but also at the same time, it's
keeping people from getting them out of our system. Am I right on that? We get them out of jail faster.
We keep them out of jail. We get them into treatment. We work on them getting housing. We work on them
getting jobs. We help them with their relationships.
So definitely, and we partner a lot with treatment providers, with other people in the community. We
have people working in various jobs through Center Stone has a program. I was just talking to, I was
in mental health court today. I have one of my participants who could not get a job and has a very promising
job opportunity. And we have heard
that problem-solving courts funding is going to be reduced in the community corrections grants. We don't
know that for sure, but that's what we've heard. And to go to Councilwoman Gwilts's point is I did a
sentencing today. I put the person on home detention and then probation. Had there not been their alternative,
alternative, but to incarcerate him. He had been out. He had been on home detention. He had been doing
well because of pre-trial. We had been monitoring him, and he's very, very well. He came to court with
a quiet day to speak for him.
That's the goal. The goal is to get people out of the system, to keep people out of incarceration, to
get them into treatment, to get them what they need. To do that, of course, we need to have programming
and we need to have people who can assist them and supervise them. And based upon how we do things,
we really work with individuals and work with
what they need in their lives because the impact is great. If you don't have those alternatives to offer,
then we have fewer choices as judges. And quite frankly, I like to have the choices to be able to help
people's lives. Thank you. I appreciate that.
Okay, if there are no other further questions or comments from Council, we'll move on to public comment.
If there's public comment on this item, you can come forward to the lectern here or raise your hand
via Teams. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Crossley?
Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feigl? Yes. Councilor Hawley? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor
Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Motion passes six to one. Great. We appreciate it. Thank you very
much. Have a good night. Thank you. All right. Next up is item F for, or next up is the aviation department
with item F.
Council I move to approve the aviation department's request and fund 4801 dash zero zero zero zero aviation
construction the creation of account line for one 104 vehicle purchase and Simultaneously transfer five
thousand dollars from the services category to the capital category second Good evening
At the January 27th council meeting, the department requested an additional appropriation to purchase
an SRE dump truck for $5,000. The department has discovered this purchase must come from a capital asset
line. Therefore, the department would like to set up 4801.41104 and do a transfer from 4801.30006. Pretty
straightforward.
Sounds like it, but maybe some folks got questions. So I will look to see if we got some questions for
Mr. Labarty. And yes, Councillor Decker. I don't have any question about this, but I think the elephant
in the room is what you have been through. And I'm sorry about that. But if you wanted to say anything
about it, I would love to hear more about that than this transfer, which seems appropriate.
Yeah, sure. Do you want to do it now or after my second item or whatever you want? Because you've had
the week, not me. Yeah, let's let's let's talk about it here after item G. I figured I figured we were
going to get to that tonight. OK, OK. All right. Yes, Council. Yes. As a reminder, this is coming from
the construction fund aviation construction. So it is not a part of what we can use for other things
that we're trying to save money for.
Thank you. It's always great for that reminder for me. All right. And seeing no other questions or comments
on this item, we will go to public comment. If there is public comment, you can come forward to the
lectern here or raise your hand via teams. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote.
This is a category transfer. You can do a voice. Oh, that's right. Thank you. So all those in favor
of this item signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. All right. Motion carries.
Next item, item G. Council, I move to approve the aviation department's request and fund 4801-0000 aviation
construction, an additional appropriation of $35,000 in the services category. Second.
Okay, what would you like to add to this item? The department seeking additional appropriation of $35,000
and from the airport in the airport construction fund to make repairs on the aircraft rescue firefighting
vehicle and two pieces of snow removal equipment Already this year we have a specialized airport rescue
fire truck That's required by the FAA for some of the airlines the airliners that we
we allowed to operate in and out of the airport, and it's had some significant
to keep it operational. That piece of equipment is already at approximately $25,000 in repairs, and
that is something that we have to keep operational. So when we know there's a problem with that truck,
we have to just pick up the phone right away and make those phone calls, and it's not cheap. It's a
specialized piece of equipment. So we're already at $25,000 there. And then for one of our runway snowblowers
And one of our runway plows, we have some transmission issues and these are really large pieces of equipment.
And so it takes another specialized vendor to service that stuff as well. So on top of the 25,000 that
we need for the fire truck, we'd like to appropriate $10,000 to make sure we have enough funds to make
a repair to the snow removal equipment that we have. Okay.
Once again, this is the airport construction fund. Any questions from anybody? Yes, Councillor Hawke.
Yeah. Is this the firetruck that I remember that's almost new? It seems like it's almost new. Time flies.
It was 2019 and we had you in it in the Fourth of July parade, I believe. Right. It's a huge piece of
equipment. Yeah. But you have to have it.
That's correct. This isn't like you have a choice. That is correct. And what we are looking for, we're
looking for another one on the used market, maybe 10, 15 years old that we can acquire secondhand, a
pretty good rate to kind of have as a backup spare. Because when this thing goes down, if charters cannot
operate out of Bloomington,
So this is a must have. Any other questions or comments? Now would you like to speak on the interest
in situation that happened last Thursday? Do you want to have a vote first? Let's vote on this first. OK.
I feel like I can do, but I do, because I sit in the seat. So I will listen to my colleagues here, since
everybody got all the things. And so I will move on to public comment. So if anybody has public comment
on this item, you can come forward to the lectern here in the night. You remember, raise your hand via
teams. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hogg? Yes.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
It came right over from Cave Creek Road. There's several homes over there that received extensive damage
and just kind of traversed right across airport property northeast from, yeah, the Cave Creek Road.
It went right over the runway, didn't cause any airfield runway damage.
but did destroy some hangers on the east side of the property. We're still assessing all of the damage
that occurred at the airport, but here's what we do know that we have damage. We have over 8,000 feet
of wildlife fence destroyed, and this is a specialized fence too. It's not your typical chain link fence.
It's eight feet tall, has barbed wire on top, but then it goes,
The chain link goes three feet underground as well to stop animals from burrowing. We had contractors
out the very next day affecting repairs on that, but that's gonna be ongoing for a very long time. We
had about 2,000 feet of fence go out last year from those straight line winds that we had, and that
took months. So for maybe approximately two miles of fence line, this is gonna be
This is going to be a very long project just in the fence itself. We had two pole barns that were destroyed
with everything that was inside of them. We had backup regulators for our airfield lighting system,
spare signs and lights for the airfield, other maintenance related equipment. We're still trying to
kind of get an inventory of everything that was in those pole barns.
We have a very large hanger that received extensive damage. It's the old Indiana University corporate
hanger that we now use for transient aircraft. It has some very big, very heavy accordion style doors
that shut.
laterally, they open and close, they're on a roller system. One of those panels was blown in and landed
on a plane that suffered minor damage, but it's still being assessed as far as that plane's damage.
But that whole hangar door assembly was compromised. We had engineers looking at it yesterday that specialize
in that type of system.
They basically said no one should really go in and out of that hanger until some emergency repairs can
be affected. And then they also called out a structural engineer to make sure that this hanger is still
square and is gonna be worth saving. So there are juries still out on that hanger. We had another smaller
box style hanger and the trusses on that were all pushed back. So that is unsafe at the moment.
Our tea hangers have minimal damage, but all of the gutters are destroyed on our tea hangers. And those
tea hangers are kind of very long structures. We have three different rows of that. So it's actually
a lot of gutter. We had several light poles, airport light poles destroyed, a significant amount of
airfield and landside signage destroyed, missing, blown away.
We had a bridge on the west side of the airport property that was actually picked up and thrown about
25 feet away from where it used to be. Multiple automated vehicle gates on our perimeter fence have
been destroyed, and those are significantly expensive for just one vehicle gate. There's debris.
All over the air, the airfield is actually good. The runways, taxiways, but once you get away from the
airfield and into the farm fields that we have and the trees, there's just a tremendous amount of debris
everywhere. We're gonna be cleaning that up for the rest of the year, if not longer. And we're kind
of concerned a little bit too about the cleanup because it's sharp pieces of metal. And we've had offers
from different organizations in the community to come
clean up here and there, but we're a little bit concerned about accepting that help because of the potential
hazards there could be with cuts and whatnot. There's a lot more damage also to other buildings all
over the airport. I've just kind of given you a rundown of what the airport-owned property is. The BMG
Jet Center received extensive damage. They had half of their roof blown off.
And they were describing to me what the engineers told them is gonna be required to return that building
to service. It's gonna be an extensive repair for them as well. The Cook FBO received some damage and
they're looking at that themselves. So it's gonna be a pretty long process for us to kind of clean up
and get all of our buildings and equipment
Where where they should be so we plan on working with the assurance company started a claim with us
on the day after The adjuster should be on site tomorrow at noon But we're looking at I think the wind
damage for our for our policy is about a hundred and fifty thousand dollar deductible but
We may come and ask later on for some other creative ideas on how we can affect the cleanup, because
I've only got a staff of five folks out there, and we've got a 1,300 acre property with debris all over
it, and we're still trying to put a game plan together. We're going to ask the insurance company if
they will fund any kind of cleanup, but I don't think that they will.
Like like a contractor to do debris cleanup because when we had the the issue last year with straight
line winds I think this question was raised then and I don't think that they allowed anything for that
But we're gonna ask again tomorrow But that's what I'm kind of worried about really is just getting
all of the debris cleaned up to a reasonable amount right now There's still stuff all over the place
But operationally
there was only a three hour period where we didn't have lights. So the airfield itself never really
closed. But from about 7.05 to about 10.30, we didn't have any lights for the airfield. But I can't
say enough about how quickly REMC crews got out there and restored power to the airport. I was really
surprised at how quickly the service was restored.
And the air traffic controller who was in the tower that night, he took shelter for about 10, 15 minutes.
And after that, he went back to the station. So the airport, really, a testament to the tower controllers
and our maintenance crews and all of the private entities that are also at the airport. But operationally,
we're doing pretty good. I appreciate you giving that.
or report on that, I was able to see the videos and the footage from when the tornado actually hit and,
of course, the damage done and the aftermath of it. So, yes, and I know I reached out to you and said,
anything that we can do to try to figure this out, let's try to figure this out together. Yeah, I printed
that email and I got it sitting on my desk.
Thank you. I'll be brief.
and didn't plan for it. It was a lot windier than I thought. You know, we'd be out there for a bit.
But, yeah, thank you for retelling that. And I think the news here about the insurance piece and the
IOU that's now framed in gold at your office that we'll be looking at later. Are we concerned about
the debris continuing to blow on the field? Are you having to do extra, like, passes over the airfield
to make sure that stuff's not keep blowing at this point? Yeah, we are. Okay. Yeah.
I guess I'm not going to do emergency management on the fly, but I will call Jamie to see what could
be done there. You're right to say that that's some specialized cleanup, and we don't want to create
another emergency with people getting lacerations from trying to touch some of that stuff. Yeah. Yeah.
I do want to say something about the community here. Friday morning was a busy, Friday was a busy day
for us, and my inbox was blowing up with a lot of requests for information.
And my and same thing for my phone, you know, text messages, it was blowing up all day. But I'll be
honest, the majority of those communications were from different individuals or different organizations
in the Monroe County community offering their support one way or another. You know, at that time, I
still wasn't ready and we're still not ready to figure out how to accept all of that help and support. But
It was very heartwarming and endearing and encouraging individuals and organizations that we the airport
never really even interacts with and It was just it was constant and I was still getting you know, some
of those messages over the weekend So that was that was really that was really awesome Counselor Hawk
I'm sure this is not at the top of your
thought processes right now. You've got so much on your plate. But at some point, someone will have
to look at lots of revenue and how that will affect your budget. And I'm not asking you to think about
it right now. You've got too much on your plate, but something we have to keep in mind that they count
on this revenue for the lease and for the farm ground and for whatever. And so
At some point in time, when you have time to think on that, then let us help you with what you need.
Yes, we can. Yeah, we're broke. I heard all that. Yeah, I heard all that just a minute ago. But that
is it is a conversation that we had today and it's a conversation we intend to have with the insurance
company if we're insured against loss, because
all of that debris, there's fiberglass insulation all over these ag fields that we have. And we haven't
spoken to the farmer yet, but that's gonna be a significant issue. And so yeah, we are concerned about
that loss of revenue. Yeah. Any other questions? Yes, Councilor Feidl. So speaking of insurance, and
you mentioned about it maybe not covering some of the things that you wanted, is there
a way to reevaluate your policy to see if you can change something that might help with any future claims
like that? Yeah, that's a that's a that is something that we'll have to talk about. I think with the
commissioners, you know, they do this kind of countywide policy that we get lumped into. And so I think
if we negotiate any kind of changes, we would probably have to work with the commissioner's office there.
I know that there's some other companies
that specialize in airport insurance. Maybe that's something that we could look at, entertain. But sure,
yeah, there's probably some things that we could tweak. I'm not advocating for one thing at this time,
but I definitely think it might be something worth taking a look at later on down the road. Evaluate
it and see what you might need for the future. Yes. Thank you. Any other questions or comments for Mr.
Leverty on
What just happened? Which is also really scary, because this is only February. And so to be serious,
a tornado in February when we already not even one year out of what we had last May is a little concerning.
So that's also something to keep in mind as we see the dollar signs float and as you cash in on your IOU.
Yeah, we had a tornado on Thursday, and then on Saturday, we were out there monitoring the snow conditions
at the airport. And the tornado that we had in May was visible from, you know, did everybody, was everybody
able to see the pictures that we collected? Okay, and you saw the video. So that same camera also captured
the tornado in May. We're thinking about changing the name of the airport.
I don't know, something about Tornado Alley in the name or something. He monetized the videos somehow,
maybe, I don't know. Yeah, we had Fox 59 out on Friday, and they were talking about, yeah, maybe we
should put a camera on this tower also.
Well, if you do that, let me know, because I want to be a storm chaser so bad. So seriously, but we
appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. Moving back into the agenda here,
we will start with the clerk's office with item H.
council I'm gonna be combining items H and I into one motion so I move to open for discussion and possible
approval of the Kirk's request to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire and fund 1000-0001
County General Clerk account line 12,000 chief deputy
and simultaneously create account line one six eight zero zero transitional temporary training to allow
for the crossover between the new and old chief deputy and amend the twenty twenty six salary ordinance
to add the temporary transitional account line. Second. All right. We got a motion and a second and
we have our county clerk, Nicole Brown and I see Mr. King has
something to say. I wanted to interject real quick before Miss Brown spoke to advise counsel. I do think
that statutorily the clerk is allowed to appoint a chief deputy and I wanted to make you aware of that
statute. We appreciate that. Thank you. Yes. Clark Brown.
Good evening, Madam President and members of the council. As somebody just pointed out, I don't have
anything nearly as exciting as what you just listened to. My effort to help last week was I stayed out
of the way so as not to impede cleanup efforts. But it may please the council to know that I am not
here this evening to ask for additional appropriations.
My former chief deputy left to pursue another professional avenue, and I am requesting to fill that
position. The clerk's office touches every other justice building office and justice agency, including
some of the members that you heard from this evening, as well as, of course, overseeing elections.
being allowed to appoint a new chief deputy would offer me the opportunity to face the headwinds that
are coming, not only with the courts and elections, but the move of election central to a new location,
and I am respectfully requesting to fill that. Now, I'm not as good with the fiscal piece of it, so
I asked Michelle if she would help me, but the county attorney explained it perfectly. We wanna be able
to pay out the previous chief deputy
but we understand we can't put people, two people in the same line and so this would allow me to do
that without asking for additional appropriations. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right, is there
any questions or comments for the clerk? Yes, Councilor Decker. And Councilor, stop me if anything I
say should not be something I say or she should answer or whatever, Ms. Turner King. Is the present occupant
in there now and roughly for how long will they be in there? The current deputy, she has left, but we
still have to pay out. And I got some guidance from HR and direction from Kim Shell as to how to ask
for what to do with that money, but she is not in the world at this time. OK, and the reason I asked
that just was I was trying to I was trying to figure out
Are you looking for that? You're not looking for her to train the incoming person in that role? No,
sir. Okay. Okay. That's what I missed. I see Ms. Turner King has something. To better clarify, I think
what Clerk Brown is saying is that the current or the
The chief deputy who is departing is not physically in the office every day, but she is using out some
vacation time before she's officially ending employment with Monroe County. So she's still in the position,
but not there. Yeah, right. And you want to fill it while she's got you. OK, all right. And to clarify
that, we are not allowed to pay two people out of that same line. So our only remedy is to use the temporary
training line.
Yes, Councillor Hawke. Yes. What's the date when you think that the person who's leaving will be complete
in all of her draw down of her benefit time or whatever she's? I'm not sure. That's what we need to
know so that we know what day she's going to the new person would start.
we're not paying two people out of the same line. It would be no different than if this chief deputy
who's leaving was actually on vacation. There's no difference. Just, you know, if it's going to be another
two weeks or a month, well, then that's how it just sits there and we'll pretend she's on vacation.
I think there's anything in statute says that we have to replace immediately. And further, it says when
we saw the fiscal, it said zero because they were going to transfer money up and down in that line.
Well, you know,
That is still a cost to the county because we don't, you know, every dime we spend out of each of those
lines that we would not have to, that is money that goes in to operate next year. So are we looking
at how long? Yeah, I'm trying to. Okay. And I don't think we have to use
we do this? Um, because we got some of the as you all are trying to find this out, um. I'm going to,
um recess for five minutes. So, um, we the time is 6 55. Um and we will come back promptly, promptly,
promptly at seven o'clock. So we'll recess for right now.
I'm going to call this back into order. Took a little bit longer than 705 or seven o'clock because we
had some technical difficulties with folks computers. And so before we raised us, we were trying to
get information from or regarding the length of time this person still has. And so I'm going to look
to Kim Schell and Ms Turner King for this information.
After Michelle checked the available folders where that information might be, and I tried to reach out
to human resources, but those efforts failed, so I don't think we have that information available for
council. We don't know what the last day is. So she would have just earned some vacation time, and we
believe that it's less than three weeks.
So the overlap would be minuscule in that I hope to have someone appointed in the position by March
9th. And our next meeting would be March 10th. So, three. Can we wait until that meeting? I mean, some
election things
start up next week. I would rather not if it pleased the council. I think the overlap would be very
small. Sorry. Very small. Yes, Councilor Rolts. Could we separate the item, approve the hiring so that
she can advertise
interview, get that together, paperwork, and let the person know that we will be meeting again on the
10th. They can start shortly thereafter pending, you know, if there's still an overlap or start once
the term of the previous person ends. But if we can separate the two so that we can just approve the higher
with the understanding that you can't really pay them yet. So essentially what we could do is we could
separate H and I, or yeah, H and I have a separate thing for H and table I until our March 10th meeting.
Yes. Okay. Yes. Councillor Decker. And I believed what Molly Turner King said is I, the clerk
is a constitutional elected official.
H is just us being nice, but that's her right to do anyway. Correct. Sorry, is there an official
Motion we're still and we're in the process. So I'm gonna go to counselor Henry and then I'll circle
back to vital and so that I guess that's where I'm when I saw it was his training I had a different
idea of what this was and now I have I understand this better but yeah because the incumbent is still
in place there is not technically a end of service yet, so so so Calling at a training position. It's
Not that we're training the person. I mean, we're creating a space here. And there's no dollar amount
associated other than in-house transfer. So I'm presuming the, like if we were to do this,
it's the pay, what we're paying the person is their rates as chief deputy clerk coming in, right? And
that dollar amount's of course not here for us to contemplate because you're using in-house transfer.
Okay. Now I concur with the idea of dividing the question here just because, I mean, the person's still
in the job.
I know it's tight to the election. I'm glad to hear that the chief deputy would be put to work on the
election once they are brought on, because I think I heard that correctly. So yeah, I would agree with
the idea of dividing the question and hopefully getting this passed on the 10th. I'll go to Fidel and
then I'll go back to Iris in next. So I heard you talk about the vacation payout, right? And so I don't
know, I don't remember, have all the policies
So is there a payout for a sick time or any other payouts? You don't get paid out for a sick.
None of that. Okay. So that would be the only payout would be for the vacation. Yes. Okay. Thanks. Not
really a payout if someone's taking the vacation though. There won't be a lump sum payout. She's using
the vacation time. Okay. Yeah.
We don't owe her money for her vacation. So I'm gonna bring it back here and then Yes clarifying questions
because I mean gosh, this is so in the weeds But the person is drawing on vacation pay because they're
still on benefits for the county They're not cashing out their vacation. I'm leaving right. Okay, right
sounds like Okay councilor Iverson Council I move to divide the question between items H and I second
All right. We got a motion and various seconds. Is there any further question from council? Councillor
Hock, did you have a question on this? Well, I don't know. Now that they've called the question that
I can ask this, let's go ahead and vote. But I want to discuss the second part.
the question. Yeah, we're dividing that, and that's where we can go. OK, so if there is no further question
or comments on this, all those in favor of dividing the question signify or separate in H and I signify
by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. OK, motion carries. All right, so we'll go with the
first part here with the request to fill a vacancy and any other further questions or comments from
Council on that?
All right, seeing none, we'll go to public comment. If there's public comment on this item, you can
come forward to the lectern here in the night. You know, room or raise your hand via teams. And seeing
none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councillor Hawk. And this is just to separate the question,
correct? No, they've already already done that. This is to age.
This is to allow the clerk to hire for the chief deputy. But are we going to give it? How are we going
to give her the time frame? Are we going to do it as as Councilman World said? Because if they're if
they're hired eight is tomorrow, there will be no money to pay it.
Well, that's with the next where the item I can come in and that's where we can discuss that. But this
motion right now is to give the clerk approval to go ahead and start the process for the chief deputy.
Or a higher at a later date. Point of information? Yes. Not tomorrow. Councilor Decker. I think it's
moot because H is
H is just ceremonial anyway. It's us saying the clerk is the constitutional officer that hires a chief
deputy as the Indiana law allows. I'm trying to summarize that. So H is like, if we said no, she still
retains that. The timing in the second part, that is kind of more of the detail. Correct. So can we
please still? Yes. I think to clarify.
The timing issue, I think H is ceremonial. The clerk does have the statutory authority to appoint her
chief deputy. The timing bit of it comes in with the fact that two people can't be paid out of that
same line. So until that line is vacated, someone else wouldn't be able to be hired in and paid from
it. Which is why the separator, because we'll move on to I. So can we please finish with the roll call?
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
So item I currently be asking for a temporary training line to be instated and then used to pay a new
chief deputy should that person be hired prior to the current chief deputies term ending. And we do not know
the end date, which is what we were trying to find out is like, you know, what are we talking about
here? It sounds like it might be really small, but it sounded like it might be a hurdle for council
to wrap their heads around. So I wanted to separate it so that we could support you in moving forward.
And then maybe we want to table this until the 10th.
Just so we know what we need. Like, I mean, if we come back on the 10th and you're like, it's a moot
point. Never mind. You know, her vacation ended yesterday and I'm hiring the guy tomorrow or whatnot.
Great. If you come back and you say, hey, there's a whole other week. I've got the person lined up.
They agreed. Can we start them before the end of this? And it's, you know, then we could vote on that.
Does it help you to know that I do have someone lined up?
And if I can just, you know, in the spirit of no good deed going unpunished, I wanted to make sure she
left with what she had earned during her service. I reached out to HR for guidance. That was the guidance
that I was given to do what I've done today and that Michelle would help me to explain it. So there
is a precedent for having
done this in the past because I wouldn't have known how to do it. I don't know that we've used it this
way but I think I get why it was suggested. It allows you to do this. So I was following the guidance
that I was given and this person is ready, willing and able to start on March 9th. We don't know
how long the overlap would be. That's the question. Right. Okay. I thought I heard and saw some other
questions or comments from this council. Yes, Councillor Decker. I looked at the packet. My original
email said that the I think this is where I got confused that the position would go I'm not looking
at the wrong I'm sorry here. Now here we go. That the position
would be vacant on the 23rd, which was yesterday. And I guess my question is, is it possible for the
leaving chief deputy to do the weakest part of that? And then that would, since there's not a cross training
purpose and you're trying to honor some of the time that this person has. Let them finish off this week,
start the next person on the 9th, and then we kind of take care of this. I don't know how long that
kind of window of days is out there, and that makes me a little hesitant in some ways, unless somebody
can kind of convince me otherwise just to have it kind of ongoing forever without a different plan.
And then there's the concern of paying two people at the same time when we are telling most people,
hey, be really tight with the budget. Okay. So because we like, this is the one thing again, we just
hired us or this evening and we were trying to be very mindful of what we are doing in terms of tightening
our budget.
and what not. And I think that. Maybe as a compromise. Um. Because you have the green light and staturally,
you also had it to, um to have this person and mind and then come back the very next day on the 10th. And
I think it's a little less just like that shouldn't be a very long. That meeting there should just be
a quick once we can gather information and figure out when this person is officially done and have moved
on because I can see the concern that everybody has in terms of paying somebody out of that same line
at the same time for that. Um
So because you have the nice or this person can, you know, go. But then we have the 10th, which is the
very next day. Could you I will be returning from the clerks, the Southern District Clerk's Spring Conference
on the 10th. I mean, typically it lets out by four o'clock and it's in terrible. I expect that I would
be back by five. I'm not, you know. Could you attend virtually?
for us or, and maybe not necessarily you, perhaps somebody from our office, and we've done this before,
where if you're not here, that should allow for somebody else to be able to give that clarifying point
that we're all asking for in terms of when is this person vacating? So if you can't be here, then I
would look to staff to see if we can get that clarifying point in your stead.
That part that piece would be fine I guess the only other piece that I would be wondering is if we learn
tomorrow after speaking with HR that It's sooner rather than later And I'd like that person to start
on the 9th Do I have options to start If if that's not an issue if the if the crossing is not an issue,
yeah, we just approved going ahead and hiring so
Yes, if it's if it's vacant to me, the Constitution making you a constitutional officer is your ability
to say I have a new chief deputy when it is vacant. So I mean, literally right now, if the current walked
in here and said, I'm done, I think we would have to honor whoever you say. However, H.R. would figure
out the next starting day. So because it is the big as I understand it, you have to start them at the beginning
of a pay period, that's... Unnecessarily. No. Do you? No. My understanding is employee service doesn't
want you transferring people from a position to a position mid payroll, but you can start a new employee
anytime. So Ms. Turner-King, so to clarify this,
It to counselor decades point if we end up table in the second part to March 10th in two weeks and say,
for example, we hear somebody say like this person at the end of the week is dying. And we've already
given her the green light and statutory. She already has that in her purview. Does she need to come back if?
for the tabled item if this person vacates earlier than March 10th. I just got a text that her last
day is the 27th. Does that help you today? I think we should probably confirm. Yeah, I think we need
to confirm with HR just to make sure everything is all clear. And I'm happy to confirm that tomorrow.
I think that the return to a council meeting on the 10th
only as necessary if the leaving chief's deputies. Last day is after March 9th, which is when the new
person is committed to being able to start. If her last day is indeed the twenty seventh, then you're
clear. I'm sorry. I got a qualifying text that it is March twenty seventh. Oh, so then I'm going to
ask for this. So
Sounds like that is opening up a can of worms. And so we need to get with HR and employees, well, employee
services to figure out when this is because this is becoming a little sticky. And so I'm going to say
council and we don't have any objections. I would like to table item I until March 10th so that we can
get clarifying question or clarifying response. Second.
Okay, we got a motion in a second. And again, if that means if we get clarifying response that says.
If we check with employee services and they say that, you know, actually this person is done as of February
27th, then. They blend is moot and then you can go about it. However, that's something that we need
to take up on. All right. So is there any other further questions or comments on council for in table
in this decision?
Okay. So all those in favor of table in item I until March 10th signify by saying aye. Aye. All those
opposed same sign. Okay. Thank you. Motion carries. All right. Next up we got item J council. I moved
to open for discussion and approval of the clerk's request be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed
to hire and fund 12 15 dash 0062 election fund election board.
the 473 positions as outlined on the agenda. Second. And we still have the clerk and we have Miss Ferris
here. Hello. Hello. So I want to tell you, I'm a little bit embarrassed. The last hiring freeze that
I remember, which would have been during the pandemic, we were still able to hire poll workers. And so
just like a recent elected official came and told you that they did not it did not occur to them that
they would not be able to pay an intern and considered them employees. It never occurred to me that
the hiring freeze froze out our poll workers. And so tonight we're here obviously to be able to navigate
the election. We will need our invaluable
early absentee and Election Day poll workers, and so we are asking to be able to hire those people,
and we need them as soon as next week. Yeah, so a couple of these, the absentee worker B,
There it shows that there are four individual sorry absentee workers see there's eight individuals four
of those generally would start March 3rd. That's where they've started in the past so they should have.
been starting next week on Tuesday. These are all the individuals who process the applications for vote
by mail, military overseas, and the first round of ballots of anybody who had filed an application as
of December 1st until March 21st have to be out by March 21st. So those four, for sure, I'm going to
have to try to get in as quickly as possible in order for us to meet that deadline.
Also looking at this, I noticed on poll worker B that number four for total is my minimum. So questioning
on how, if I need backups, what will that process look like as well? Yes, Councillor Henry. Thank you.
And thank you for bringing this one back. I gotta say, this isn't directed at you, this is more
into the ether and hopefully it hits the right office in the building. This is the fourth time this
cycle, right, that we've had a conversation about temporary workers in the county that are getting jammed
up in our HR process. So it was the treasurer, it was the parks, it was the courts, and now it's you
all with elections. And that's the process change, right? This is something that's affecting yet another
temporary hire. So when these folks are hired by you all for the primary,
Are you going to have to fire them so and rehire them for the general election at this point? Yeah,
so we'll have to terminate between the primary and the general and we'll have to go through the process
of the paperwork Again, so and then we're hearing are you hearing from those poll workers like some
frustration? Are we concerned about filling out w2s? And then we're gonna be doing a lot of paperwork.
This is a lot of this is a lot of paperwork
Yeah, we've had some back and forth on this. Another thing that is starting to concern them as well
is the background checks through the process of the hiring as well. So we're waiting on background checks
for people to work a few hours. Okay.
Ms. Turner King, can you walk me through one more time why we're going through this process? Actually,
I'm going to do a point of order because this was something that I had asked because I know that was
a concern that the clerk had and I had reached out to E from employee services and I can read for the
record what was sent to me and it says when a full or part time employee leaves employment,
We terminate them in payroll in all systems after their final paycheck. Election workers and part-time
property tax employees in the treasurer's office are the only workers that have fixed spring and fall
employment periods, meaning we keep them active during that brief time between periods and remove them
from payroll at the end of the year. So we should only have to go through this hiring process once if
they request enough to cover both spring and fall.
employees. And so. Based on those prior challenges term in these employees at the end of the year helps
us avoid all costly mistakes. So technically, um, it like they could do. Like we could get through our
primary right now with hiring for primary, and if I'm working primary and I want to work in general, I get to
Is that my understanding? That is also my understanding from HR. I guess that's some good news tonight.
I'll just scream into the ether about the other ones then. I just had two other questions here. Well,
one's a comment. I want to thank Ms. Ferris for giving me a little nickel tour of the current state
of things in voter registration and sort of where things are heading in the showers building.
I wanted to say, having served on the election board as a president, I have a lot of concerns about
what I saw, and I would encourage
fellow colleagues to go toward the current state of things and voter registration. Some of the things
that got my attention were the fact that I did not see a secure space. There was cabinetry that's not
secure, that you have boxes everywhere. Also the fact that we don't have phone lines in that space.
So as a result, people will be calling cell phones to try to get information during voting when we used
to just transfer phone numbers. Can you
Maybe walk through the impact on these people that we're hiring on what that's gonna look like upstairs
for you all. I think it's important to get into space. Would you rather? You're fine. You know, this
is a sore spot for me. Some of you may recall a council or not a council, pardon me, commissioner meeting
last year where I was given one opportunity to weigh in on
the space that we were being given in the showers building. At the time, of course, the variables were
a bit different in that you were talking about building a new justice complex. And so I I had been hopeful
not only looking at current but future the future needs of the clerk's office to be able to look at
more spaces. I was
told this is this is the space that you have. We have weighed in with our concerns. I have mentioned
accessibility concerns for some of the older people who have to navigate those stairs because we're
not fully on the first floor. We meet regularly with Mr. Crider who gives us updates. I never ever believe that
Deadline was a true deadline. I've never seen anything finished, any construction finished when you
say it's going to be finished unless there's a financial incentive to do so. And I know good, as my
grandmother would have said, good and teen well that the council is not paying financial incentives
to get us in this space early. So, you know, I've said to other incarnations of the council,
We make it work with what you give us. That's what we do. That doesn't mean that it's in the best interest
of the people that we ask to come and work for us. So if there is something that can be done to make
it easier for my staff to to get our people in and make sure they're comfortable and able to do the
work, I would welcome that. Is that a fair? That's fair. And I know, Mr. Iverson, I have been
And disposed over the past week. But again, I would encourage all the members to take a look at what's
going on there. You're going to be in the upstairs space through the primary. Is that right?
Yeah, as of right now, we're looking at being in the upstairs space through June. We've been working
with Krider to see if there's a possibility of us being in the downstairs space on election day. But
right now, it's kind of a back and forth on trying to figure out how things are going to go furniture
wise and just trying to get some of the
details squared away. The phone line is one of the biggest issues right now just because of the amount
of calls that we've had coming in within the past couple of weeks. We have myself and two our two full-time
employees have county cell phones that are being transferred from the current lines that were voter
registration and if it is
multiple callers coming in at one time, it's going straight to a voicemail instead of going to an answering
machine. And so then they're just assuming it's a number that was not connected to the county. One more
question then. And it's related to this is all related because these people are going to be working
in this space, right? You you have do you have complete access to the whole floor that you were given
or is there's been there's urban square footage that's been held back like
Are you able to use all the suite at this point? Or is it being used? On the top. The top. So part of
it, we do have access to. The other part, we don't currently. Last thing, the precinct sheriffs, is
that new this year? Can you walk through with this? I thought there was a maybe this is an account line
item. Are there any new positions listed here from the last election cycle? I think it's a courier line.
And that's the one that we are also on the agenda for tonight. That's not a new. I mean, we've always
had couriers. We just haven't filled.
We have. It was in the same line as travel board because they were essentially doing the same things.
Thank you for that. That's all, Madam President. Thank you. Yes, Councillor Decker. I want to go back
to the phones that Councillor Henry raised. Have you been given an estimate on phone lines when that
No, in the upstairs space, we're running off of some splits that they put in for temporary just because
they know that we're going to be there temporarily. I'm still waiting on some communication about some
extra computers for the lead staff as well. Okay. Well, just based on what past issues have been, when
all these people start filing in there,
that's going to be a headache. So whoever in Etherland, as I said, is listening to this that might have
authority on this, and I think we can follow up too, that is a logistical nightmare of one kind and
another, and particularly as the election, which is what you all do for a living, starts to become its
thing. It won't
It won't make life any easier for anybody, let alone the public. So anything we could do on that one
would be one in the ether that would help tremendously. And I do want to add that in the 2024 election,
we had 10 phone lines. All of these phones answered to the same line. So anybody in the office could
pick up that line at any time. And so we're going from 10 to having
three and two of them are posted on the county website. And the third one is my desk number that not
a lot of people call very often. They normally were transferred to my line. So that's another instance
of where we're having to go get the other cell phone instead of being able to be transferred. And as
I understood you, it's a lot of calls now. We're getting a lot of calls asking about the SAVE Act. We're
getting a lot of calls as we're ready to, you know,
prepare for early voting in elections. And so a lot of calls are going to board up, excuse me, voicemail
that would otherwise not have. Correct. So the only other question that I have, because I thought and
preparing for tonight, seeing this number and seeing some previous numbers for all of these positions,
is this for both primary and general, or is this
for just primary. This is primary. This is just primary. Okay. Okay. And I will say that a couple of
these spots, we will be getting pretty close to what we'll need. And that's why I was kind of questioning
about for backups, because I mean, on election day, up until like the hour before we're opening, we're
still replacing people who have called in or just didn't show up at all to a polling location. Other
questions or comments from Council on this item? Yes, Council votes.
I'm in no position to impede your ability to make these hires. So that's not what this question is about
at all. I am really just curious about what these positions represent, because it only comes up for
me maybe once a year or less. So bear with me.
The inspectors, you have 28 of those, and that is on election day, and it looks like you probably have
one-ish per precinct. So it's one per precinct. They are the manager of the poll. So that is the main
individual who's contacting our office. So if there's an issue, they call us instead of it being all
of the individuals at each polling location trying to contact our office.
That makes sense. And so you have 28 listed. You said you were anticipating 22. The election board moved
forward with 28 polling locations. Okay. Awesome. Okay. You're welcome. Yeah. But then judges, you probably
have to have two, one from each party. Yes. So it's a minimum of two. Some of the polling locations
will have four based on the number of registered voters that will be going to that precinct.
everyone else just bored to tears because I need my civics lesson. So then you have the sheriff's looks
like one per but it's still at 22 not 28. Yeah. So some of the locations will not have any sheriffs
whatsoever. We generally only use them in the general but we have looked at potentially having some
during the primary. Like I said they help with the flow they go out if the inspector at one
Three times the day, the sheriff will go outside and count how many people's in line, and we have to
have that reported back to us. So they really help with filling in in different roles. When people are
taking breaks, making sure that the poll's running smoothly, helping whenever there's a backup somewhere,
just making sure that we're getting things processed pretty quickly. OK, but not every polling place
will have one. So Burgoon don't need no sheriff.
very small. They take great care of themselves. I would want that job just so I could be sheriff for
the day, right? That's the one you want. It's a fun job. And then you have a lot of clerks slash student
workers and that's day of election and those are the folks that are just
get doing all the work, right? Those are the folks that are checking every individual in as they're
coming in to vote. So those poll books that are at the front, we have to have a bipartisan team at each
one of those. So depending on the size of the location, how many registered voters are each one. I think
the smallest one we have three, no, Burgoon has two poll books. The second one is a backup. The first
one is the only one that they really use. And then Saint
St. John's in Elksville is our largest location and they normally have about 14 clerks there. Okay.
All right. And then we have craziness. We have 90 absentee worker A's.
Yes. So those are going to be, again, your check-in, your printers. They are the main bulk of processing
individuals in and out. They also take care of checkout. So if you go to early voting, they check you
in at the poll books, they print your ballot, or they're checking you out at the end of the day. And
they're going to be paid hourly now after we kind of made the thing up a few years ago. Okay. Absentee boards.
The counters are on Election Day. They are the individuals who open up the absentee early voting ballots
and separate the envelope from the ballot itself for the ballots to be processed and counted. Can somebody
be more than one of these positions if like there's an Election Day one and then there's a
So you could work at early voting as an absentee A, B, or C, and work on election day. But the absentee
counters are on election day, so they would not be able to hold more than one of those. And then B and
C, absentee B is going to be travel board and reconcilers. We generally have one to two teams for the
travel board.
And then we have two reconcilers that are at early voting every day. And they come in and reconcile
the ballots from the day before. They're the ones that organize the ballots in alphabetical order by
precinct, by date, and ensure that every ballot is accounted for.
are the leads. So we have four early voting, four in the office at voter registration. The four early
voting are essentially your inspectors on election day. They're the manager of the early voting location
and really are the main communication back and forth between our office and their
down at early voting if they need help with anything or if they're running out of something. And then
the four that are in our office take care of mail-in ballots, military overseas, voters with
print disability, getting together the travel board individuals to go out and processing applications.
OK. And so then you have two people who are recruiters. And my understanding from the note on the page
in our packet is that those folks are working
about five and a half weeks ahead
Generally, they would normally start around the second week to the third week of March, and then they
would work all the way up until Election Day. They are the ones who will be calling the individuals
if they don't show up to a polling location and replacing them out for us. That takes a lot of stress
off of our office on Election Day, but we do sometimes still get those calls and then have to communicate
with the recruiters themselves. Why are they paid daily instead of
hourly? Because they get paid, whether they make one call or a hundred calls, they get paid a daily
rate. They're given the number of positions that need to be filled. You know, and some of them like
we've had recruiters that say while they were waiting for Easter dinner to be prepared, they were making
calls. I see. So it's almost like having them on call.
Yeah, as long as the positions get filled. Yeah, so if they get a phone call, they're supposed to take
it. Because generally, it is one of the individuals who's wanting to work. I do know that last year,
I actually had one of our recruiters send me a text message at 3 AM saying they just got off the phone
with somebody. So they are constantly working around the clock. OK. Right. And then I know what a courier
does. Yep. Because I've seen those folks zooming up
when I've been outside. Okay, that's everybody. I appreciate you going through each of them with me.
Okay. Are there any other questions or comments on this item? All right. And seeing none, I'd like to
go to public comment. Raise your hand via Teams or come forward to the lectern here in the Nightingale
room. And seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote?
Councillor Henry. Yes. Councillor Decker. Yes. Councillor Cronin. Yes. Councillor Iverson. Yes. Councillor
Feidl. Yes. Councillor Hock. Yes. Councillor Quilts. Yes. Motion passes unanimous. All right. Next up
is item K. Council, I move to approve the clerk's request on 1215-0062.
Election fund, election board, the creation of account line one seven five one two election board couriers.
Second. All right. We got a motion and a second on this item. Seems like we have to do this because
of what we just did in the previous item. But if you have anything else to add, please do. So, I mean,
this is one where someone higher than me
We we had them in the same lines in previous years because they did the same thing. Travel and getting
the different things to where they needed to be. And someone decided that the couriers had to be delineated
from the travel board. And so we didn't know what we didn't know. And so we're not asking for additional
money. We're just asking to be able to pay couriers and and travel board.
It seems self-explanatory, but I'll look to council colleagues to see if anybody has any questions or
comments. All right. Seeing none, we'll go to public comment. You can come forward to the lectern here
or raise your hand via Teams. I just want to also say that this is just for the creation of the line.
It is already in the salary ordinance, so we don't have to add it to the salary ordinance. Right. Okay.
And seeing none, because this is a creation of a line and all of us are present here, we can do a voice
vote. So all those in favor of approving this account line signify by saying aye. All those opposed,
same sign. OK, motion carries. We have a question before we go. So on item J,
I'm not sure that I got clarification on. If we go over the numbers that were on here, do we need to
come back or? Much more do you think you need? Well, the absentee B line, I'm definitely going to more
than likely need to come back because we only put down four on that line. And if we have a team for
travel board and a team for reconcilers for during early voting,
then we might need an additional travel board team if we have a high number of travel board requests.
So, Madam President, when you and I spoke and we were talking about primary and general versus just
primary and just general, I wanted to have that wiggle room if we needed more people to be able to pull
them in without having to come back. And I don't think we're talking about a significant number.
No, so in 2024, the primary, we ended up with I think it was two or three teams that were going out
at one time for travel board just because of the vast difference of directions. We had one team that
was in Indianapolis, one team that was in Anderson, and another team that was down south towards Lexington.
OK. Did they go that far? If somebody's out of town and they're in a hospital and the election board
approves it, they can go to that far. We stopped short of Chicago. We did deny that one.
because that's all that team would have done all day. But we have, you know, people who get in car wrecks
or, you know, have an unexpected emergency surgery. You'd be surprised if it's out of state. We generally
I literally just heard the story today that Charlize Theron asked for a ballot the day before she died.
So, OK, I'm going to go to counselor because we just got done and we need to really kind of
keep moving on the agenda here. Councillor Decker, I would draw no comment. OK, I. I would think you
would need to come back because we approved what we have here. Is that? I think that would be correct
if they're going to need more than what was just approved. There have to be a subsequent request. OK,
so it sounds like. You'll need to come back if you need more.
Okay, all right. Well, we. No, I was thinking, do we have we missed the window if she wanted to come
back on the 10th? Um, you can get with Kim Schell and if needed, that could be added. Okay. Okay.
Thank you. All right. Thank you. All right. Moving along here, I will go to L, which is from the highway
department.
Council, I move to approve the Highway Department's request and fund 11 35 dash 0000 cumulative bridge
and additional appropriation of $42,000 in the services category. Second. OK, and we got a motion and
a second. And I think Miss Ridge is online, so her hand is raised. You should be able to unmute and
go ahead. OK, can you hear me? Yes.
Okay, this is pretty straightforward. I was contacted by in dot last fall about taking over 100% of
the responsibility for the right way on this project. So I agree to that. It's kind of our relationship
of a give and take. So I'm just needing to create request that additional appropriation.
All right, thank you for that. Council, look into everybody to see if anybody has any questions or comments
on this item from Ms. Ridge. All right. And seeing none, we'll go to public comment. If there's public
comment, raise your hand via Teams or come here to the podium. And seeing none, may we please have a
roll call vote? Councillor Crossley.
Councillor Iverson. Yes. Councillor Feidl. Yes. Noting for the record that Councillor Hawke has left
the meeting. Councillor Wilts. Yes. Councillor Henry. Yes. Councillor Decker. Yes. Motion passes unanimous
6-0. Okay. Next up is item M.
council I move to approve the highway department's request and fund 1176 dash zero zero zero zero motor
vehicle highway an additional appropriation of one hundred thousand dollars in the personnel category
and thirty thousand dollars in the services category for a total appropriation of one hundred thirty
thousand dollars second all right we got a motion in a second what can you tell us about this miss ridge
Well, I think you know why I'm asking for overtime at this time of year. We usually do typically come
in and ask for an additional throughout the year. If we don't, I don't think we used all of our additional
last year when we came in. We try and use it wisely, but when we had the big snowstorm in January and
then a tornado last week, we just want to be prepared with their upcoming spring storms.
that we are prepared, if need be, to pay our employees if they need to work overtime. Thank you.
All right. And fingers crossed on the insurance. Yep. Yeah, we just we're just given an estimate. I
think we increased it by 10%, but our our insurance went was a little bit more than that. So that's
what that's for. OK, and hopefully no major storms. Anytime soon. We hope not. Yes, fingers crossed.
All right.
I Lisa, I know that we had text a little bit night up, but was with that proximity to the airport was
the highway garage largely OK or were there issues there? Actually, actually we saw no damage.
at the garage. I did not go out there because I was I lived by the airport so I was at home dealing
with my own issues but we did have a crew out. Toby was out the entire evening checking the facility
and being available with our crews for whatever help was needed. I think they stayed out till midnight
then we sent all the crews out the next day going to the troubled areas making sure that if we needed to move
trees in the roadway or whatever. A lot of times we have to wait for the utility services to remove
the lines out of the trees. So yeah, luckily the garage facility was not touched. Alright, are there
any other questions or comments from Council on this item? Seeing none, we'll move on to public comment.
There's public comment. You can raise your hand via teams or come forward to the lectern in the room.
Seeing none, may we please have a roll-call vote? Councillor Iverson. Yes. Councillor Feidl. Yes. Councillor
Wilts. Yes. Councillor Henry. Yes. Councillor Decker. Yes. Councillor Crossley. Yes. Motion passes unanimous
6-0. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Ridge. All right. Next up we are going to items
from the Health Department with item in.
I move to approve the Health Department's request and fund 8111-9623 local public health services grant.
The creation of account line 10124 COVID-19 school liaison.
and simultaneously transfer $17,539.39 from the supplies category and $63,075.61 from the services category
for a total appropriation transfer of $80,615 into the personnel category. Second. All right, we got
a motion and a second. Yes, Ms. Kelly.
So this is some old grant funding that we're continuing to spend down We do have our public health nurse
and school liaison that started with us just this week So essentially we're just trying to move these
funds to cover those salary expenses Thank you for that any questions or comments from council on this
item Right seeing none we'll go to public comment you can raise your hand via teams or come forward
to the lectern and
and seeing none, we can do a voice vote on this item since we all are in person. So all those in favor
of approving this item as presented signify by saying aye. All those opposed, same sign. All right,
motion carries. Next up is item O.
I move to open for discussion and possible approval of the health department's request to be exempt
from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire and fund 1161-9626 local public health services. Account
line 10177, health services director position. Second. All right. Ms. Kelly?
So this is a request to be able to recruit and fill for the position of our health services director.
So this position is really important for overseeing the operations of our entire health services division.
In addition, we'll serve as additional capacity with the services that are being provided. So vaccination
services, health screenings, communicable disease investigations. This position does serve as our VFC
coordinator, which is required for our vaccine program through the Indiana Department of Health. And
since we currently do not have a position to do patient intake and answer the phone schedule and do
billing, the thought was that this position would be really crucial for being able to cover those front
office duties while the nurses are doing their day to day activities. So providing those vaccines, doing
the health screenings and the case investigations.
Questions or comments from council related to this item? Seeing none, we'll move on to public comment.
If there's public comment, you can make your way to the podium here in the night, you hill room or raise
your hand via teams. And seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote. Councillor Wilts? Yes. Councillor
Henry? Yes.
Yes, sir. Cross. Councillor Iverson. Yes. Idol. Yes. Motion passes unanimous six zero. OK, thank you.
Next up is item P. Council, I move to approve the health department's request and fund ninety one thirty
dash ninety six twenty six syringe services program grant the creation of account line two zero zero
one one other supplies and simultaneously approve an additional appropriation of twenty five thousand
dollars in the supplies category.
Second. All right. So this is grant funding that the department has been receiving for many years. So
this helps to support the purchase of the syringes that are used for the syringe service program and
related supplies. There is a shorter period for spending for using these funds just due to some of the
changes that may be coming with the operation of the syringe service program. So we'll really just have to be
Diligently making sure that we can you just utilize these funds Yes, I will look to council comment
or yes and already saw almost did it again Council Henry almost called you DGH. That's fine Thank you
for that so I think since probably this item got added to the agenda and now My understanding is the
General Assembly did pass to continue the search program at the state level
Is that your understanding that have you heard about legislation moving in the past week that that program's
continuing? I've just heard about some of the changes that were being discussed. And so I guess one
question I have is the program has a lot of merit, obviously, for reduction of spread of disease in
the community. But then at the same time, we do have sharps that are left around town for a variety
of reasons. Is there a programmatic opportunity to
Purchase drop boxes for sharps in public spaces here. I guess maybe another way of asking is the department
thought about how to reduce the risk or mitigate the syringes that are distributed but then do not get
disposed of properly in the community? Yes, so we do try to encourage providing containers and offering
education to individuals. And individuals can come into the health department to get syringe containers.
also at the Indiana Recovery Alliance. And I've also been speaking with our program coordinator recently
about really ensuring that she is going out and doing those site visits when these services are actually
being conducted. So are we following the protocols about asking for the number of syringes that an individual
needs and helping to, again, just encourage some of that education around that? So those that are taking
syringes from the program, they're known persons?
Is that right, or at least the providers that are getting the syringes for distribution, they're known
to the county, is that right? That are working the program? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. It's a gap that
I know we've been trying to close for years in the community. I don't know if it's literally just buying
drop boxes or red boxes and putting them on county property to encourage that. I know that's not related
per se, but yeah, I'm just kind of curious about that piece of it, especially if the program has been
renewed and we know it will be with us for a bit, so that's it.
I definitely think that's something that we can further explore those additional opportunities.
Thank you. Are there any other questions or comments on this item? Seeing none, I'll move on to public
comment. If there's public comment, you can come forward to the lectern here, raise your hand via Teams.
And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councillor Wilz? Yes.
Councillor Decker. Yes. Councillor Cronk. Yes. Councillor Iverson. Yes. Councillor Fiddle. Yes. Motion
passes 6-0. Thank you very much. All right. Next up is item Q from the auditor's office.
Council, I move to open for discussion and possible approval of the auditor's request to be exempt from
the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire and fund 1000-0002 County General Auditor, the Accounts Payable
Financial Administrator position. Second. All right, we got a motion and a second. I see Ms.
Gregory is here. Yes, thank you, Council.
Okay, so I'd like to provide a little context regarding the claims position within my office and the
operational necessity necessity for maintaining both roles So currently there are two claims positions
and both are essential to completing the weekly camp
claims cycle. The full claims process requires approximately one and a half to 1.75 to full-time equivalence
to complete accurately and on time. The process includes receiving claims from departments, auditing
claims for accuracy and compliance, communicating and resolving corrective actions when needed, processing
approved claims, printing checks, auditing printing checks, preparing docket reports for commissioners,
and mailing or distributing checks following docket approval.
So, one position is dedicated 100 percent to claims processing. The second position dedicates approximately
50 to 75 percent of its time to claims, with the remaining responsibilities including assistance with
GAAP and AFR reporting, which those are just two annual reports that we have to do, drafting and implementing
financial policies and procedures, general auditing, and maintaining financial records.
So not filling this position would create a significant bottleneck of the claims process and result
in a lapse in internal controls. This would also limit our ability to continue strengthening financial
oversight, policy development, and departmental partnerships. Ultimately, this would be a disservice
to the county as a whole.
So my team and I have made meaningful progress in tightening internal controls improving processes enhancing
collaboration with departments on financial matters However, we cannot sustain or build upon that progress
with reduced staffing I mean I spoke to you earlier during department updates like clearly we made great
progress and are doing well and I'm looking to you to allow that to continue so happy to answer questions
Okay, I'm sorry if I may just one more note. This is actually this I'm coming to you with this request
Because I had requested to fill my internal auditor position Last year at some point and I did fill
that successfully. However, because I filled it internally So I don't need the internal auditor role
now, but I need this role
if that makes sense. So it's not really an additional ask. It's just this instead of that. With this
request, I'm asking to fill any subsequent roles that become available if I do fill this internally.
All right. Makes sense. Thank you very much. Looking to counsel to see if anybody has any questions
or comments for the auditor on her request. And seeing none.
I'll go to public comment on this item. If you have comment, you can come forward to the lectern here.
You can raise your hand via teams. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councillor Henry?
Yes. Councillor Deckard? Yes. Councillor Crossley? Yes. Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes.
Councillor Wilts? Yes.
Motion passes unanimous. All right, thank you. Thank you very much. All right. Next up, we don't have
any items for presentations or discussions, but we do have a couple of you remain in County Council
business items, which will start with item A. Council, I move to open for discussion possible approval
of resolution 2025-41A amendment to the use of overtime budget and reporting. Second.
And I'm going to look to Mr. King for this item because the agenda tells me. So I have displayed on
the screen the draft and what this draft does is amend the overtime resolution that was passed in September
of last year to encompass the account line that was approved by for the clerk's office at the last meeting. So
The editor in red, so it changes the title and I've added a
after the 41 to ensure that it's an amended version and then under one it says in addition to the departments
listed above the clerk's office will be provided an overtime line along with an appropriation in said
line in the amount of $5,000 into fund and it identifies the election fund for the stated use
of administration of elections. Transfers into this overtime line is governed by section two of this
resolution and section two prohibits in-house transfers into the overtime line.
council approval and it outlines the process to obtaining council approval. And then the only other
change is at the end where we add the amendment date if adopted. So this is just basically solidifying
what we did way back when at the last meeting. Correct. Way back. It seems like February feels like
it has 32 days in it right now. OK. All right. Any questions or comments from council on this item seems like
We all should remember what we did a few weeks ago. Yes, Councilor Decker. I appreciate this. This is
sort of an editorial comment I'm just going to make because we're always talking about budget constraints
and how do we reduce things we are becoming. And this is not a critique of legal or anything, but we
are becoming a very resolution intensive county. And I would love to know the 91 other brother and sister
counties out there.
How many of them do as many resolutions as us? And the reason I say this is legal's got a lot of headaches
and constraints. And I feel like they're always having to chase one resolution or another for us. And
no one does them better than Molly Turner King. She's like the resolution champ.
One of the first instincts, as I said to fellow councilor earlier today, is we have a problem in the
community. Let's go drop a resolution and perhaps we'll end this conflict that's happening across the
globe. And I just think as we think about what we ask department heads to do with part-time hours, we
may have to think about economies of scale on things like resolutions
when Ms. Turner-King could be thinking of any number of things, and that maybe are more substance.
I mean, as we were sitting here, several of us were going, is this that thing we did last time? So I
just offer that. It's just an editorial comment about something we've got to think about, because if
the, you know, FSG, if the buckle is tightening on
all spinning. We have to think about how long we leave the people up in cats up there, the demands on
them, demands on TSD, demands on all this tech that we have, other things that perhaps we've grown accustomed
to but may not be able to. So I'll be quiet. All right. Yes, Councillor Feidl.
I'm just asking a procedure question, so I see it's labeled 2025-41A. So how would someone who's looking
at something we did in 2026 find this? I left it as 2025-41A because I think it's easier to find the
amendments to the original
resolution than getting a new resolution order or number. So if I got a new number for this amendment,
it's going to be like 2603. And then you have to reference back the previous document. So there are
two ways to do it. We can leave it the 2025 number. Or in the future, I can just have you keep re-adopting
a new resolution under a different number and then put language in there that says, this is the current
version. Any previous versions is now repelled.
It's really a council preference, but I think they're labeled pretty clearly as to what the resolution
title is, so that if departments are looking on the P drive, S drive actually, they can find the overtime
resolution. And if any department's looking for it, they can easily reach out to myself or Kim for also
guidance. Yes, I was wondering more about how
the timeline of it all, right? So if I'm thinking about what we did in whatever time period it was,
and thinking about this one, how would I know it was done in 2026 when it actually is coded under 2025?
Oh, like is there an as amended? Is there a placeholder in 2026 that refers back to this? No.
At the end of the resolution, it's always going to have presented in the date that it was approved.
So it'll have that 2026 date. But if you look at the whole chronology of resolutions for 2026, this
will not show up, or am I incorrect? It would not be in the list of 2026 resolutions. That's what I'm asking.
I wonder if we could talk to Miss Freeman who maintains that list and have her like put 2025 41 a approved
on Today's date on the list her chronologically. I'm happy to have that very happy with that.
Thank you. I'm happy to have that conversation with her tomorrow
Miss Gregory, I may just add I believe she normally like it will be in the original You know 2023 folder,
but then she'll actually add it to the current folder as well because it's like two versions And I can
confirm that but that's my understanding Okay. Thank you Are there any other further questions or comments
from council on this item? All right
Seeing none, we'll go to public comment. If there's public comment, you can raise your hand via Teams
or you can come forward to the lectern here. And seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote?
Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Williams? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor
Decker? Yes. Motion passes unanimous six zero. All right. Thank you. And it's the moment folks have
all been waiting for. All right. It is the next item, which is item B.
Council I move to open for discussion and possible approval of resolution 20 26-0 to Renewing the Monroe
County Council's commitment regarding a new jail facility Second all right. We got a motion in a second
and I'm gonna look to miss Turner King because I'm sure you will Share on the screen there
If I may, I'm trying to switch it between the last document and the next resolution. So just give me a second.
Oh, the resolution itself.
Okay, I'm now displaying this resolution. This is a resolution that I drafted based on the responses
I got from council members regarding what you would like to see in this resolution. So in essence, this
is a Frankenstein document piecing together the responses that I did get.
And what I did was I looked through the responses. And if there was a common theme among two of the
responses, I wrote a whereas clause. Now, I recognize that two responses is not a majority. But if there
was a reoccurring thought, I wanted to somehow incorporate it in the resolution. There was a version
in the packet. But then after I was looking at this this morning, and with the help of Councilor Wilts,
there was some grammatical errors that my brain read differently. So I did correct those in red.
only the clause about how the exhibit is attached, but it doesn't have any context changes. So that's
how this draft came about. I'm happy to edit accordingly based on discussion. Oh, do you really want
me to read this into record? I mean, I'm happy.
It is in the amended packet that was posted on Monday. But I'm happy to read this. Big changes first.
Yeah, let's look at it first before we do that. I mean, we have it. It's posted. And so I know the biggest
thing that folks were asking for is to have the resolution ahead of time to read it. And if, yep, so
it's good. Get it, get it, good. We're good.
All right, so I'm going to look to council colleagues to see. Yes, Councilor Seidel, and then I'll circle
back. So could the edited version be, the changes be highlighted verbally? Yeah, usually that's what
we do when we... Oh, sorry. No, no, no, that's fine. When Ms. Turner-King is editing something that
we are asking, like we'll see it in red in real time there. Did she not have things already in red,
or did I mistake that?
I do have some things in red. These are the grammatical corrections. As the clause on how the exhibit
A was attached was half a thought, so I completed that. Is it just procedurally, do you want me to keep
the resolution displayed, or do you want me to take down the resolution, make the edits so that
the public viewing sees council or do you want them to be looking at the document? I think this is totally
fine. Um, I think the biggest thing is to have people read along as they are at home and they can see
our faces later. Um, okay. So I'm in a yes. And the only thing is I would ask that is if anybody makes
a motion, um, can we like complete that motion and do that and not have people talk
on top of the other. It makes it really hard to keep up with in the notes. So and with. Yes. Just a
suggestion. Procedurally, we could just go where like clause by clause. And I can say like the first
whereas clause, is there any issues or edits? And then that might structure the conversation. Yep.
All right. No objections there. Nope. I put my hand. OK. So did you have no. I agree with this approach.
Let's do this. This could take all night. And I think we should do it this way.
So the first whereas clause just acknowledges the statutory responsibility of the councils. Is there
any proposed amendments to that whereas clause? OK, the second whereas clause also further elaborates
on council responsibilities as it pertains to adopting the annual budget, fixing tax rates and appropriating
public funds. Any proposed amendments?
I'm not seeing any, so I'm going to keep moving. The third whereas clause, maybe I can count, relates
to the private settlement agreement in Richardson v. Moore. It in part states what that case requires.
It acknowledges that it's been extended multiple times, and that is currently extended till April 15th
of 2026. Any thoughts? OK.
No head shakes, so keep moving. Fourth, it acknowledges in 2024, a purchase agreement was brought to
the council for a property referred as North Park and that that was voted down in 2025. Yes, Mr. Well,
I think Mr. Henry has a comment, but I don't I'm I don't know that I should recognize him president.
Yeah, OK. I took the wheel there. Yes. Thank you, counselor. Sorry.
It's a comment more than an edit. It has been a subject in joint meetings with the board of commissioners
that they're looking for qualifications as to the why of that vote. I would just say that I find this
phrase to be sufficient because we only went to about midnight that night discussing the various whys
of different members of the body as to their objection to moving forward with that. So I'm fine with
leaving it. I just want to make, I'm just kind of curious of the sentiments of others that
if we need to qualify this any farther other than we did it. No, and the other thing that I'll add to
that before I move on with other council comments is the fact that I think Councilor Iverson said something
earlier on in this meeting that basically solidified what we were presented with F.S.G. And I would
recommend that anybody else that has any questions, comments, concerns of what happened nearly five
months ago to either go back to October 28th
or see this earlier meeting where we talked about financially, that was a thing. So, Councilor Decker.
Well, one of the things that I do hear out there is that there is there's dispute about why something
was moving forward and then not moving forward. I think we all know something was moving forward and
then not moving forward based on a variety of these conditions that
changed in that time period. And so I guess if you're not trying to illustrate to the other side of
this, Mr. Falk and the public, that it was just flippant, like we just randomly switched on that.
I mean, you could always, for a variety of reasons, that phrase alone could encapsulate a little bit
more of what happened or for a variety of said reasons, because it wasn't just
We were going to get cheeseburgers, and then suddenly, no, we decided we want hot dogs. There was a
whole host of things that involved one painful process going into a second painful process.
Am I misremembering any of that? No, but you just made me hungry. I'm starved. I am starved. Sorry.
Maybe this bridges the two.
comments I'm not sure but my thought was we did just receive very specific confirmation of our financial
restraint so maybe there's a little bit of a opportunity to put that directly in either this whereas
clause or it's on its own but that it relates so it would go right next to it in some fashion that just says hey
And we found out we could only afford half of what was being sold. I was going to offer that as an operative
clause later. I think the FSG validated what our suspicions have been. I was going to offer that as
an operative clause later. But if there's an edit that would fit here, I think that's fine, too. Councillor
Decker? I think literally in that third sentence when it says not
In October of 2025, the council voted against the appropriation for a variety of stated reasons. I think
after North Park property in the fourth line for a variety of stated reasons in that and subsequent meetings.
And I say for a variety because I think, yes, what Councilor Wilts has raised is a valid concern, but
I think that I heard a lot of things that night. It was flying out of the walls. And when people asked
me, why did this thing happen this way? I'd tell, well, there's a whole lot going on there with that
council and that vote and everybody kind of gets to that point, but that vote became unanimous in that sense.
Go ahead. To that whereas clause, I just added language that Councilor Deckard cited, which is for a
variety of stated reasons at that meeting and subsequent meetings. That seems sufficient. Does anybody
have any objections to that? Councilor Fiddle? We're not going to mention anything about what we heard
today or that'll be somewhere else. I think that's what Councilor Henry was alluding to is maybe,
you know, I think
we could get through the rest of the resolution and figure out where if we find it necessary to bring
it back here or if we find it in a different spot. I do think that maybe we should spell it out for
the folks that need to have it spelled out for our things here and just kind of go from there. But that
is a good point. Yes, Councilor Woods. I just really would really prefer if you switch the two words
stated in reason so that it.
Please. I accept that. I know about my problems. I am. I'm sorry. And if you wish major wanted to incorporate
the FSG presentation, I think you could easily say for a variety of reasons stated at that meeting and
somewhat subsequent meetings, including the meeting on February 26th or 24th. I don't know the date
either. 24th of 2026. County Council meeting where FSG made a budgetary presentation.
or you could do it as a separate class? Yeah, let's get through the rest of this and then we can kind
of go for it. So I saw one other hand. Is there any more comments on this whereas clause? Yeah, I continue
to think that it would be better sort of like we were talking about the whereas before and that other
one about having it all together, the things that apply to this. And I think today's meeting applies
to that. So I would like to have it all together. I'll continue to.
advocate for that. Okay. All right. So I have to zoom out a little. The next whereas clause reads in
October of 2025 the City Council provided the County Council with a letter requesting that the County
Council not move forward with the purchase of North Park in addition to the letter representative of
the City Council committed to working alongside the Monroe County Council to find a solution
And the quoted language was what was stated at the meeting, which was rooted in justice and that meets
the needs of every residents of Monroe County. Is there any edits to that works close? Yes, I'm not
questioning what happens with the City Council or what that was. But when we say a representative of
the Bloomington City Council, we make that sound like they designated that individual to be a rep committing
to that. I would.
To be clear, I would just say a member of the Bloomington City Council. Of the Bloomington Common Council.
Yeah. I agree. Just to be safe. Yeah. We don't want to assume their policies. Oh, sorry. Yes, Councillor
Henry. Yeah, I can see that being a good clarification. I also just wonder if the second sentence is
even necessary because one was a matter of public comment.
And one's a formal communication. I know we just had a discussion about the value of resolutions and
letters, but that's the way governments communicate with each other. So we had a formal communication
in the first sentence. The second was a matter of public comment from one of the nine, right? So I'm
not sure the second one has the weight of the formal letter from counsel, if that makes sense to others.
Yeah. I guess this is...
what I remember and what I recall from watching their meeting at the time, they actually discussed this
and voted on passing this through to present to us. So I think maybe we just need to simplify, like
we got correspondence with them that have kind of really pinpointed who did what and when. And I can
give you the rationale as
to why I included the second sentence. So the letter itself just talks about not purchasing North Park
and there isn't any reference in there to what I believe is the city's commitment to work with the council.
That came from the public comment when the letter was presented. And so I think if you delete the second
sentence, I would suggest some
reference to the commitment from the city that to work with us. And the only reason I say that is because
I included that second sentence because under the now therefore clause there is a clause that discusses
pursuing that partnership.
So yeah, I would agree. I like the change to member though. Yeah, so you got the member. Okay. No objections?
The next whereas clause reference Senate Bill 1, what Senate Bill 1 did to residential property taxes,
personal property taxes, and the reform to local income tax structures that is going to be forthcoming.
It references Senate bills prohibition on our bonding capacity, which is limited at 25% of its local
income tax and that the significant changes implemented by this bill of how it impacted our ability
to move forward with the project. Any questions, comments or concerns on this one? Yes, Councillor Decker.
Normally it's not me doing this, so I apologize. Trent talks a lot tonight. But I mean, this could be
a place where we reference confirmation of the FSG presentation because this was the fear. Then he came
in tonight and he said, your fear was correct. So that could go somewhere in here. And then you kind
of close the loop. I've said a few times to folks, there's a question of what you can actually do
versus what you would do if you could do anything. All right. And Councillor Henry. So I would be okay
with a reference here as long as there's a parallel clause operatively later that references what we
heard which in my view was the cap, right, because we had a presentation that said here's the finite
amount on the bond.
right, so if there are perceptions by those in this building that somehow 257 million is still conceivable,
I think Mr. Guirata has put that to bed this evening. It might be useful to start the reference point
here if we're going to add a clause later that suggests this is really the risk tolerance of council.
Well, and what we heard in our joint meeting too a while back, anything is possible.
But there's going to be a cost for it. And so that would mean that we'd have to implement a tax, which
was something that Councilor Williams had mentioned as well. So not that she wanted to tax. No, absolutely
not. I don't either. So there were adding this is the red language here. I think that.
This is where former council member McKim would say this is how the sausage is getting made. Sorry.
So the sentence in red just I placed it at the end of the paragraph and it says the impact of Senate
Bill one was further confirmed by the financial solutions group presentation at the February 24th, 2026
Monroe County Council meeting. Yeah.
going to be further explained what that dollar amount is somewhere. I think the dollar I would like
to see the dollar amounts. You want that down in there? Where do we going to put that? Well, maybe if
that is something that you would like to see counselor vital, which I think that is not a bad idea.
I think maybe we put a pin for that and kind of get through and maybe see where it falls. Exactly. Oh,
that's fine.
Yes. I think one way to incorporate that budget amount in the presentation is you could say the impact
of Senate Bill one was further elaborated on by the Financial Solution Group presentation at the council
meeting and you could attach the FSG document. We could incorporate the FSG document as an exhibit into
the resolution. I like that even better. All right. All right. Look at that. Move this train along.
better than watching the starts in 20 minutes.
So I added that last sentence. The FSG presentation is attached to this resolution as Exhibit A acknowledging
there's another Exhibit A and when we get down there I'll fix it. Incorporate it here in and made part
of this resolution.
Thank you. Okay. The next whereas clause acknowledges that anticipation of the private settlement agreement
that being Richardson expiring Mr. Falk, the attorney for the ACLU provided counsel with orders from
two other federal cases that outline specific benchmarks that the defendants in those cases were going
to complete those tasks by.
I'm not seeing any comments. I'm gonna keep moving. So then it's now therefore be it resolved by the
Monroe County Council that one, the County Council is no longer wishes to consider the North Park property
for the location of the new facility. I think Mr. Iverson. Yes. I would move to strike this. Delete
this clause. And would you like to say why? Okay. Well, I didn't know if we were gonna talk about it
before a second.
There's two reasons. Number one, the second clause seems to contradict it. It could be read as contradictory.
And I think we need to keep that in mind. And the second reason is we've all been through the location
debates before. And the location we thought was not going to be the location became the location. I
do not want to get into the prediction game. I understand why this clause is here. But I'm also worried
that we might need it. And if this is in there, that might stymie our efforts.
but then that would kind of suggest that we might need North Park. And I think. And I like where we
already have mentioned earlier for various reasons why we decided to say no North Park. I think my personal
thing would be I want to stick with the idea of since we keep hearing that North Park is coming back
around the circle is that I would like to express
That I think we can look at other places and our no to north park Should be abundantly clear Yes, councillor
decker, so I recognize that the phrase north park is the great Difficult subject area for a lot of folks
a lot of different reasons, but when I look at this document
the importance and strength of this document is that we're saying we have to tell Mr. Falk and the public
that are watching this, that a constitutional care jail matters and that that is a priority of the council.
So I guess I would question why the number one that we have now, whether or not that stays in, and I'm
sure the council's gonna debate that in a second, why does that have to be number one? I mean, I get
that that is a,
massive point in this contextual time, but we're dealing with a lawsuit that or a private settlement
agreement that has been going on since 2009 and we're trying to communicate to the other party that
the most important thing is that we're moving forward with this facility in this kind of new life is
here with all these situations outlined in the whereas and we
to do that we're committed to this. Whether or not it stays in or not or just moves down, to me that's
the prime message I think that has to be sent because this is clearly to illustrate we're not giving
up on this, we're moving on this. I think that that's what, if that weren't for this, that timeline
and those things, we would be in a different situation but we're trying to illustrate that even though
the law change,
that circumstances change, the council's changed, that despite all that, we are still committed
to constitutional care. And we want to talk about that to this in the folks on the other side, as well
as the public. So Henry or Councillor Henry's hand. So I'll go Henry and then I will go to Iverson next.
So I would agree that the pecking order of where we discuss where the council's desires are doesn't
have this doesn't have to be the first thing.
but I would say that the only, there are more consumers of the resolution than just ACLU. One of the
consumers of this resolution is the board of commissioners who still, or at least some have an impression
or keep floating an idea that there's viability in this location. Frankly, I wasn't here when you all
took the vote. I know that some folks might be having heartburn about taking a vote and then two years
later having to go a different direction.
It's my view from this seat, I pretty much left a no hole in the wall when we had this vote, that this
has never been a good solution for this project. For so many reasons, not least of which, uprooting
the entire economic activity of the court system three miles north. That's how we ended up back in this.
So some of us have different reasons on that. And I appreciate, again, some people are having some heartburn
about it, but this is, for me,
It's almost a non sequitur. It's almost obvious at this point that this is not a space that we would
be pursuing. And it's not good for the future of the county to close off an interstate exit with a jail
facility that the plan commission has worked very hard over the past year to down zone so nothing else
gets built there. There's some other things that went on in that purchase agreement. It's really important
that, you know, like if we're going to have the debate about north parking, fine, but it doesn't have
to be the primal
statement but I don't want to leave a door open on that space when we have an executive session to find
and found some other opportunities that address the other clauses here that would answer the public's
overriding concern that facility design for that location is too expensive and a desire to keep the
justice enterprise close to services and the county seat that is the city of Bloomington.
I'm okay with moving it down, but I'm not okay with not saying it out loud that we're not for that.
All right. Councillor Iverson. I'm going to reiterate my motion that we take out number one for the
rationale that the only clause I think we need is clause number five. I'm going to second that motion
just so we can take that. Yeah, let's make that decision. Are we to remove or not remove? Okay.
Sorry. So the motion is to strike clause number one and the rationale is the only clause we need is
clause number five. It's number five. It's the constitutional care is the overwhelming why we need a
facility. Is there discussion now? Yeah, because there was a motion and a second. So anybody Council
fighter, do you have something? So I just want to
Make sure I understand we're eliminating one through four then, is that correct? No, just one. Just
what happens two through four? Nothing. We'll discuss in a second. So you're saying that five then we
will serve the purpose of one. I'm going to make the same motion for the next subsequent ones, but we've
agreed that we're going to go line by line. Oh, I see. OK, never mind then. I'm with you. Never mind.
I'm with you. Thank you for bringing me up.
Any other further question or comment? I'll vote no on it because I feel like for a reason stated with
Council Henry, what he was saying, I just, again, maybe not the order of how it is initially, but I
want it to be abundantly clear because we keep hearing people in meetings and commissioners, we've had
two joint meetings where it's like, tell us more, tell us more. At the end of the day,
My whole thing is I want this to be spelled out for any kind of questions that I've left remain on unsolved.
This is it. And so I think that's important to me. And so I'm in favor of keeping this and not striking
it. Yes, Councilor Williams. So I am part of the motion, meaning that I will support removing this
from the resolution, because I do think it's important that we move gingerly forward and that this vote
will likely lay bare how we feel. This discussion is laying bare how we feel. This resolution maybe
was called for by the commissioners in some senses,
It's not the result of the commissioners and it's not for the commissioners. And those are the folks
that I think, you know, y'all are talking to. And so anyway, I've said. Molly, did you have your hand?
I have a thought that kind of goes toward what Councilor Wilt is saying, but I think that I will save
it until after the
Discussion of whether to leave this closet in or out One thing I would just say is I want the best document
that gets this damn thing done And I want anyone watching this to know that we're committed to getting
this damn thing done Because we have dragged on forever Part of my frustration counselor final had to
hear me say this at lunch. But part of my frustration is we had a plan and
And then everybody started changing the plan and that's fine. That's fine. But one thing about this
is I would say for anyone observing that live in this county or otherwise, it is abundantly clear with
problem solving type eyeballs watching that it's not going to be at North Park. We could not resuscitate
that corpse of a concept. Pardon me. We could not resuscitate that.
with the best of magic and the holiest of our faiths. So to me, whether one is in there or not, and
to get council okay with it, I'm probably gonna vote to keep that in there, but that ship has sailed
so hard that it's crashed into the shore. I am surprised that I hear it, but then again, people come
to me with all sorts of things on this facility, but again,
There once was a dream that's called North Park, and it doesn't appear that that dream is going to be
for this. As Councilor Henry said, it may be other things. So kind of with that in mind, I do want to
make sure that someone looking at this says, whether it's commissioners or otherwise, we are committed
to getting this damn thing done. Thanks. I think that's a good point, and I appreciate you saying that.
I just think to add to that point once before,
We've heard now twice in our meetings that we all thought North Park was done, and we have heard several
times that North Park continues to be something that commissioners potentially are still working on,
even after the purchase agreement is expired, even after our, you know, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
How many more ways can we spell and say no? That's why I'm just advocating for this is I think at the
end of the day, I definitely, I think all seven of us wanna get it done. I would hope and think that
all the commissioners wanna have it done. And I don't think this is for them. I think honestly, this
is more for us because we have talked about this type of resolution for so long in some way,
shape or fashion. And the community has been asking us because it's been
you know, charged us balls in your court. What are you doing? And this is the final result of all of
these things being thrown at us. And it's sticking now. And this is what we're doing. So I appreciate
those comments there. So all right. So we had a motion and a second to strike item one from this resolution.
Is there any other questions or comments on this? You have to do public comment.
I think you can do public comment on the entire resolution. Got it. Okay. All right. So before we vote
on this, just to be clear again, this motion that Councilor Iverson may and was seconded by Councilor
Wilt is to strike item one from the resolution. So may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Iverson?
Yes. Councilor Feidl? No.
Councillor Wilts. Yes. Councillor Henry. No. Councillor Deckard. No. Councillor Crossley. No.
Motion passes. No. No. Motion fails. Two to four. Yes, Councillor Deckard. Madam President, I move that
Item one be moved to bottom of the clauses and remain there despite editing. Second. All right. We got
a motion and a second to move this to the very end of the resolution. Is there any further discussion
on this item? Okay. All right. Seeing none, can we please have a roll call vote? I'm catching up. I
can do the roll call. Councillor Henry.
Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Crossley? Yes. Councillor Decker? Yes. Councillor Wilts? Yes. Councillor
Feidl? Yes. Who made the second? You. Look at that. Okay. All right. It was unanimous motion passes
unanimously to move it to the bottom.
Prior to moving off this clause, now recognizing that it's at the bottom, I did want to offer maybe
a comment that I think, like a suggestion for council consideration that goes to Councilor Wilts' comments
about proceeding gingerly. I think you could amend the clause to say the Monroe County Council no longer
wishes to consider the North Park property
for the location of the new facility unless there's a substantial change in circumstances. We don't
know what's going to happen in the future. If I did, I win the lottery and it'd be a different story
here. But so I I'll be I understand. And I think it is very clear what counsel's position is. But that's
just a suggestion for consideration. Well, and to that point, though, we can if we don't know it, we
don't know. And, you know,
If some catastrophic moment happens where we, I mean, we could come back to revisit that. But the intent
that it sounds like we want to send a very clear message that I always know on North Park. Anybody else
have any questions or comments on that? I'm just that's just my opinion that I think, you know, that's
that's just me, J.C.
Oh, sorry. And maybe I'll hop in. Yeah, I guess we're doing this. Maybe my only comment on that, I concur.
And I appreciate the spirit in which that was offered. I think that's a quote that I actually I'd never,
that's Kate Wills' thing. And I just said it, the spirit in which that was offered. But actually, I
was kind of in a different direction. Is this an opportunity then to lead with a clause that addresses
the dollar amount?
So I mean, there's comment by Councillor Fiddle about where to put the dollar amount. Should we lead
a clause one here with the dollar amount that FSG had given us this evening? Councillor Wilks. Two things.
I don't think we should lead with the dollar amount. Because I think, in my opinion, we should lead
with what we collectively
ultimately will agree on is the most important point and That well that is the most Maybe important
reason or at least the Reason that's right here in front of us. It's not the most important point in
the now therefore as part So I think we should have a
quick rundown of like which of these or what is our main main point so that we can get to this because
Molly did an amazing job of laying out as I could think of I don't know how you did that and then and
then putting together a set of here's here's what we feel and I think that it reflects what we said
but what's missing is we need to put a point on
what we're saying. So I guess I'm just asking y'all, what's your most important hill for this resolution
to say? That made no sense. Yes, Councillor Iverson. The new, yeah, what's highlighted on the screen.
We all took an oath to defend the constitutions of Indiana and the United States, and right now, this,
I think, is
utmost importance that we provide constitutional levels of care for those who are inmates within our
facilities and within our lives. This is primary. I think everything else can go away. Everything else
is less than this. This clause of itself talks about needing a location to build a new facility. This
clause talks about needing the funding
to build that new facility. This is it. In my humble opinion and my sole opinion, I think this is the
only clause we need in this section. Would it be helpful that I read the clause that Mr. Iverson is
referencing?
I just want to point information first. Clause four that he's referring to, two paragraphs, right? It's
the one paragraph highlighted. It's in the draft resolution, formally clause five, because we moved.
Okay. For clarity, I'm going to read the clause.
The Monroe County Council recognizes that providing constitutional care within the jail facility is
an utmost priority that must be met and that Monroe County is in need of a new jail facility to provide
adequate medical care, mental health treatment, classification opportunities, humane living conditions
and to ensure the safety of inmates and staff within the facility. The Monroe County Council commits
to funding the construction of a new jail facility, which is what the Richardson lawsuit necessitates
and funding the staff thereof to ensure that inmates housed within the Monroe County Jail will receive
said constitutional care. What more do you need?
Let's say you. No, I'm just asking if anybody. Yes, Councillor Henry. Probably goes without saying that
the fourth line that I don't think this is a contrary position among all of us that the statement that
funding the construction of a new jail facility. Now the question is whether or not the Richardson lawsuit
necessitates that. I don't think it's actually mentioned in Richardson that a
facility is what's required but we are committing to saying that in this sentence but Mr. King that's
not a requirement in Richardson it's Mr. Falkas says as much that he's not saying we have to build a
new Jane so make sure that phrase we're saying that which is fine I think I'm just not sure Richardson
says that can we be crystal clear on that nitpicky but important
And I can clarify that sentence. The intent of the sentence was to state that, as Mr. Falk has indicated,
Richardson addresses the jail. Which is what the Richardson lawsuit, but that clause references to the
previous, the funding of the construction of a new jail facility. Unless I'm misreading that, I might
be getting into a crammer here. Does anyone else read it that way? And if that's the case, then it's
not clear and we gotta be clear.
I was reading it the way you were reading. I did too. I guess we could get rid of that phrase, which
is what the Richardson lawsuit necessitates. But I would maybe and I agree number five is the important
one. I don't know if we voted on that. No, I just I said it very passionately.
Yeah, well, it sounded like a vote. It was that way. Does anyone else, is there any interest in putting
a timeline in here? Putting a date or, you know, we commit to fund it, you know, maybe it's on a date,
maybe, yeah, go ahead.
It kind of jumped around clauses. But I do think there is a date in clause three and it says no later
than April 7th of twenty twenty six. I picked that date because that is the last council meeting before
before the 15th deadline or no. I even highlighted that you don't have a selection of property yet.
Is it conceivable to have a purchase agreement in 45 days?
We could possibly meet that. That's not on us. The language says that we'll be working towards. Working
toward executing. It's not requiring the execution of a purchase agreement because I do think that's
virtually impossible. We've essentially identified the funding sources tonight. Yep. Yes, Councillor
Darkin. Well, at one time some of my suggestions that you see in here, I think you see in here, Mr.
King's better than I am at these things.
they were meant to illustrate that we were moving towards things and giving us kind of the urgency of
the situation. I mean, we've sat at a round table in the middle of that room and we've heard from different
parties as well as ourselves why a commitment to those is important. I think five is the current five
that Councillor Iverson talked about. I do think it's important. I just worry at times
that it sounds very consistent with where generally every council and commissioner has been since 2009.
I mean, they all had a dream to do it. And I know that when you get detail, you get issues that can
become part of other things. I know that. I get that. I've heard that from numerous people repeatedly.
But I also know that the dude on the other side who is
literally been in this private settlement agreement since 2009, he's looking for a bunch of politicians
to do something on this. And whether you like North Park or not, or this side, or where at, or city
council thinks or not, he just wants to make sure that, not to speak for him, but this is the gist I
took, he doesn't care. I said to him at one point, and some of you recall this, I think I've said it twice,
You know, the General Assembly keeps messing in our kitchen here so we can't serve dinner. Do you want
to add them as a party? And he basically was like, I get it. They're problematic. But you took the oath,
brother. And so I think that for me, when I think about both site selection, maybe a reference to best
possible towards death, that's why I kind of wanted that in there so that you're showing
I'm not just saying, yeah, of course, this is a resolution, we love this, but that we have it. So that's
where my worry is. I don't know, do you say, do you reference some of that into five so that you're
showing your own teeth? Because I worry that if it's too bland, it's like, well, of course you want
to build one. You're no different than whoever took the oath in your seat in 2010.
Are you saying that we should put the timeline? I think that you, he's, our ultimate deadline's what,
April 14th? 15th. 15th, tax day. The private lawsuit, the private settlement agreement expires on April
15th. Now, do I know if Mr. Falk is going to file a new lawsuit on April 15th? No, could he? Yes, it
just depends on communication between
which consists of inmates. I do know inmates have requested a letter to send back to Mr. Falk, but I
don't know the nature of those communications. So can I say April 15th is the day we get sued? No. I
just think you've got to show the advance of that. We're trying to move quick, which, you know, I know
we can't talk about everything out in the world, but I think there are entities in this county trying to do
many of these things to get this moving again. I'll go Wilt and then I'll come back to Henry.
First question, does everything that we do to this have to be done through a motion? Or can I just ask
for like consent on an idea that way we don't have to burden with the whole roll call vote? And if it
gets like obvious disagreement, like I felt like we had some disagreement we needed to clarify earlier, but
in that sphere, if you think that's okay. I was gonna say, as long as staff can keep up with... Our
staff left. I think it is clear with a motion, but I don't think a motion is required. Okay. I am going
to suggest that acknowledging that we still have work to do on wording or moving around, that we make
current number four
up to the top at number one. So it is a very clear statement of, hey, we recognize that we got to do
something followed by the one that has the date in it. So put number four first and followed by the,
on our drafts, it's five and four.
So that we immediately then get to that, hey, and this is what we're going to do. We saw that we had
some benchmarks. And then I would like to strengthen that language. But for right now, it makes sense
to me to go ahead and put what used to be the last paragraph first, because it's so important, followed
by something that contains some detail, meat, something on the how. OK. I consent.
and then I'm gonna go to Councillor Henry. Yeah, thanks. I'm gonna withdraw. I think we just made some
progress there. Okay. And Ms. Turner-King. I guess I'm just waiting for guidance on do you want me to
cut this and move it to the top? Yes. Actually, I remember.
All right. So it actually was related to what Mr. Hurricane was talking about. So I mean, we're speculating
on what happens on April 16th. Isn't it also possible that a current inmate would straight of process
to claim a constitutional violation that this sheriff can investigate and try to resolve, or maybe the
sheriffs didn't in 2009? I mean, it's not necessarily that it goes right to court. It could trigger
the whole administrative process again, where a
find a new variety of things. And so we're not really talking about April 16th at that point. It's working
through the legal process that is under the administrative process before we get to litigation. Isn't
that also a possibility? I mean, I think, yes, I do think there is a process that inmates would have
to follow when alleging violations. There's an internal grievance policy.
I cannot say right now where if there's a complaint in that grievance policy, where that complaint is
at in that grievance policy, and if that complaint results in a lawsuit. If I had a magic ball that
predicted when we're going to get sued, I would definitely be sharing that date, but I don't have that
magic ball. I'm just saying that the 16th is a possibility, but there are a lot of other. There's a
lot of possibilities. We're very much speculating after the 15th is what I'm getting at.
Councilor Becker. When I would just say, depending on the nature of the complaint, and I think some
of us have heard this from the sheriff, some of us have heard this on the tour with Mr. Fogg, depending
on the nature of the complaint, there are things for which a sheriff can do and things for which if
the sheriff could do them, they'd already been done. So just depending on that, and depending on what
a council would say to their party,
that could quickly get guided. So I think that that date is a really live environment for those things.
Without instructing people myself, that, yeah. Okay, so I've amended it so that what was formerly clause
five in the draft is now clause one. Before moving on to the new number two, are you
all okay and I just want to make sure with the highlighted sentence that there might have been concern
about whether the language that reads which is what the Richardson lawsuit necessitates needs to be
there. Do you want me to remove that which is what Richardson necessitates? And I think that all depends
on if you think that clause is modifying the construction of the new jail facility. It's the cleanest
cut from my seat otherwise we have to
qualify by saying this is what the council thinks answers that. So I think it's just better to cut it.
I agree. Cut it. And we had also agreed to move number four to be right after. Is that correct? Where
we talked about the date? Yeah.
Because I think that might have been where Molly was going next. Yeah. I moved number. I moved the last
clause. And now the question is, do you want to move this highlighted clause to two? OK. Both parts.
So on this one, I view
that last sentence is almost like a checklist, right? Actively work toward executing purchase agreement,
identify funding source, I guess it's two check boxes. So I feel like if that whole sentence is about
the momentum that Councilor Decker described, right? But is not, but it's, oh, it's,
not restrictive in a way that forces us to have it all figured out by the seventh. It's that
we're identifying the source and working toward the execution of. I'm comfortable with that. I'm hopeful
others are. Yes. And I would also point out the exhibit A, I think the new exhibit A, which is this
document FSG showed tonight, lists out the funding sources.
Bostiff? Maybe not. But there's enough here where FSG thinks that we can have an estimated bond size
of 135 million to 117 million. Exhibit A reaches what was being said here. Anybody else have any questions
or comments? Yes, Councillor Wilks. Move your microphone, please.
Okay, we are now in the No, we aren't We're not doing the one that god. This is so hard to read it.
We kind of skipped around When we get to the one that references the other lawsuits, let me know. I
Don't think we're there yet, right? We're there we are well
that we're debating whether to move up to the second one, it incorporates an exhibit. The second paragraph
of that clause. Got it. So in that, is there any interest in instead of incorporating with the exhibit
the big long pile of ruling, couldn't we just cut out the two lists of benchmarks that we're talking about?
And so that, because it took me a little bit of time to sort through and be like, where are the benchmarks?
And it just would make it clearer. And then we could say, hey, and these are the things we're going
to do. I like that idea. I agree. That would be a good point. Yes. The Word version, I could do it real quick.
Oh, I have a second version that incorporates the benchmarks in preparation for this exact thought.
So give me two seconds. Molly, you're amazing. So all the while we do this, I would just like to kind
of make a general comment of is this accomplishing the goals that we want to have happen here? You know
what I mean? Are we drifting apart and getting way too specific and
not leaving ourselves any wiggle room, and how will this impact any potential lawsuit in the future?
What will that do to us if all this is written down? Yes, Councilor. That was my argument, is that the
only thing we need is the first clause. And I think Mr. Deckard very eloquently stated the opposing
side of that, that we have very eloquently been saying, we're gonna do something for a long time, and
it's time to put some teeth to it.
I'm just worried about the coming back to bite us part, right? Will this document ever be able to come
back and bite us should things not go well and we don't get where we need to be by April 7th or 15th
or whatever? I mean, even if we don't, it's not like, I guess, with the April 15th deadline, if it comes
and goes, are we just supposed to stop working?
Um, no, I think we have to, you know, obviously still keep going and moving forward. Right. So I think
adding the benchmarks and personally, I just think being specific.
of what it is that we are trying to accomplish because people have been looking at us. We've gotten
lots of emails, phone calls. I've seen meetings where people are asking. I was in an interview last
fall with Commissioner Thomas and Mr. Spoonmore for the Greater Chamber of Commerce where it's been
mentioned to us several times that the ball is in our court. I think as the fiscal body, we have a lot of
responsibility that we don't realize we have until this very moment and so for us to be very clear and
to spell it out for people and to express this is what you know people have been asking us for and been
on council since December of 21 this is the closest that I've ever seen us really try to
get to this point where council has really kind of set the tone for a lot of things. I think we all
had intentions of doing things by way of CJRC and JPEC and all the other acronym meetings that we have
here in the county. But this specific moment that we were in right now, there's a call and now we have
to respond. And so do I think anything could be held against us? I mean, our words can, but
this document, this is spelling out specifically what it is that we are looking to do. And some of these
recommendations have come from JFAC and other different types of things. So I think this to me, like,
ooh, I'm gonna say it, mission accomplished with, I just said it, with what it is that we are attempting to do.
as the fiscal body of the county council. I just am interested to know about any potential ramifications,
that's all. I think that all possibilities are endless. But my goal is, like I've said before in previous
meetings, and I know some people are, you know, think I'm a, or maybe I'm a positive patty autocrat,
I don't know. But what I do know is that I think
despite whatever happens when April 15th comes and goes, we still, I just want to keep going. I feel
the same way. But I just want to prevent any potential bad things that could happen to the county as
a result of what some of this may or may not say. And I think, you know, to Councillor Deckard's point
earlier, we kept, you know, we've been in this since 2009. And so we, you know,
lots of things have happened since then. But that being said, I think inactions had led us to this point,
and this is the most that I've seen any council kind of really get to action. And so I think
the ramifications is,
You know, we got the information back in January of this is what's happening. This is how this is going
to be. And we did nothing. But I would make the argument of we are doing something, which is sitting
here almost four and a half hours into our evening and really trying to get to the meat and potatoes
of how we progress forward and how we're sending the message. So that's my strong standpoint on that.
I'm definitely interested in action. I don't want to imply that at all. Oh, of course. Listen. I don't know.
One thing I'll just say generally as kind of an observation commentary before we go to wherever we're
going next, but a lot of times in our comments, and I'm guilty of it, others here, I think I recall
you doing it too, but I'll just say I'm guilty of it, we will go back to whoever didn't do what over
the years to remedy this. Even when I came into office, people were kind of like,
You know, that one is whatever. And I would say on this issue, because of that, sometimes we always
cast stones that way. And sometimes there's great things with that, and sometimes there's not. I'll
say on this particular issue, it kind of reminds me of sometimes when people talk about a reason they
wouldn't give a raise to someone. They're like, well, right now it's not good because of this.
And then later, not good becomes something else, and something else, and something else.
I think there were always in this county a lot of good reasons not to do anything. I think we're now
hitting a point in current events where the not doing anything because of the circumstances and many
others starts to become exceedingly convenient. And I think that probably every county is going through
this on a different scale with some project or or whatnot.
I think because of that, there's even more focus on us. Because if you haven't done it for a variety
of reasons before, now under the pressure, the only thing that will get you to do it is to hold you
accountable in a court of law for constitutional care.
And so we all talk about values and things like that. However, this ends up tonight, I think that that's
kind of the paradigm that we're under on constitutional care. What will you get done for those folks
in there versus what you will not do? And that's part of why we're being held to something where we're
trying to figure out what communicates best to all entities.
I did edit that was the previous clause and referenced the incorporation of the federal cases. And so
now it reads the Monroe County Council recognizes that the federal cases provided by Mr. Kinfolk and
referenced in the whereas clauses above outline the following benchmarks. And then there's the benchmarks
listed within the federal cases. And then I did not change, I removed all the previous language.
left the last sentence which says the Monroe County Council commits to working in conjunction with the
Monroe County Commissioners, the Monroe County Sheriff's Office and the Monroe County Board of Judges
along with other justice stakeholders to develop a plan that establishes a timeline for completion and
for clarity. I'm going to add of these benchmarks. Scroll up. Once you got it.
that I can get all of the edited language in there without making it smaller. So where are we at as
far as what remains besides what you've just read? If you don't mind, I just want to take a look at
these clauses you added, if we can just pause here for a second. Yeah.
Do we understand the word facility to mean the same thing as jail? Is that consistent? Because I just
want to be clear that when we say facility, we're talking about jail, which is the ACLU's, that's the
purpose of why, that's what we're under, right? I mean, so it's a consistency question about what building
type we're talking about. Does that make sense? It does, but I'm gonna,
clarify that in the use of facility in there that's a copy and paste of the benchmarks that are in the
federal case that was previously incorporated. The second question that I have is and maybe this is
more of a style thing but I mean we refer to the attorney and not the organization that has brought
suit against the county. Is there value in saying ACLU Indiana as opposed to referencing the attorney?
I appreciate he's a significant
I referenced the attorney just because he's the individual who handed me those cases. So in this case
you're saying that that makes sense but like we have referenced Falk and other places where it really
is ACLU Indiana, right? I mean in the whereas clause it acknowledges that Mr. Falk's the attorney for
the ACLU. Would your reference in Mr. Falk
because of the benchmarks that he. He's the one who emailed me the cases that I was going to incorporate.
Got it. Okay. Okay. Any other questions, comments or concerns on this item? Are we going to reorder
this so that it's below clause one? This is the new clause two.
If you if that's the direction you're providing me, didn't yes. Yeah, we had it. Yeah, we had agreed
on that. We direct you. It's very direct. Right. That's what happens after nine o'clock. OK, so I'm
going to go. Clock one used to be four and we're OK with how it reads. Clause two is now what used to be
I don't remember what number in the original draft but we just moved it up. Are there any other additional
edits to clause two? The new clause two. Anybody? Do you want me to read it or? Thank you.
My dream world. I would be more specific but I don't feel like there's an appetite for that in my
when you say specific what on dates and but I feel like and I respect others who don't want to be you
like that's a separate document okay yeah because there there are benchmarks we can commit to as a council
we cannot necessarily assure that the other partners and I agree with mr. Henry's point which is why
that last clause says that you'll work in conjunction because I think some of those benchmarks are out
of council control
So the first paragraph in clause two acknowledges that there are two explicit, there are two benchmarks
explicitly that require council approval and those benchmarks are the financing for the project and
the execution of the purchase agreement. But that latter one isn't just council. I know. Those are the
two that do require us but that number two differs from number one in that it really requires another
body as well.
Correct, which is why it says council actively work towards the execution of a purchase agreement.
All right. So moving on, moving on, we have not discussed what is now the current three. It talks about
council evaluating properties and then that properties currently owned by Monroe County within
the geographical vicinity, which
is close to the current justice facilities and service providers will be considered as possible locations.
Are there any concerns, edits to that? Clause. Anybody? It's probably fine, but that last sentence is
where I believe we have an opportunity to honor the concerns of
not just internal stakeholders, but the public. We get very close to the idea with that with the phrase
public interest. There's been a lot of public interest, and what's in the public interest is maybe an
opportunity to acknowledge that that external input, because I mean, it's my view that this whole part
of why we're in this position today is that we had funneled
who the stakeholder set was, which is always dangerous once you start excluding stakeholders. I've always
believed stakeholders are stakeholders, whether you think they are or not, and a lot of the agita in
the community came from people being excluded at a certain point. There's something about that. I think
public interest is enough, or public interest of citizens. I wonder if there's some stronger language
to honor that we heard people.
and verbs at this moment, but I'm curious if others share that thought. I feel like that's encapsulated
in that sentence. I'm sorry, Mr. Decker. No, go. That's all I needed to say. Okay. Councillor Decker.
I understand kind of that sentiment there. One thing that I'll just offer is that when a new site emerges,
it will have those who support it and those who disagree with it.
And that's why I say there's always a reason people, this is a hard thing that we're dealing with. This
isn't an ice cream stand or a scholarship announcement. This is a thing that is a very, it is what it
is. And I just say that, I say that because we're gonna have to buckle up because it is, the public
interest on this will,
change and who is happy today will be unhappy tomorrow and it will be difficult. And I think that's
incorporated in there just as in a lot of these different discussions. Various things have been shaped
over time. That will continue with whatever site it is. What was once good will become not good. I mean,
it's just going to be what it's been. Every site we've had has had what I call an El Dorado moment where
people said, yes,
And then later, oh, I can't even believe that. And that will happen again and again. So yes, you try
to incorporate as much of that as possible, but at the end of the day, there will be some hard way to
define this. Well, being one of the former stakeholders that tried to guide that during CJRC as a stakeholder
in the room, I appreciate that thought. But it's the funneling that got us here.
So of course, we're always going to find someone who doesn't like its proximity. It's just my firm belief
that the moment we close the door even on this council where decision making is being made by unelected
persons on the size scope and floor, that's where we lost the narrative with the public. But I'm okay
with Councillor Iverson's observation if he feels it's sufficient to leave it.
Yes, Councillor. I have a suggestion. This is the location clause. About taking clause number five and
appending it into this clause. Keeping location stuff together. We keep constitution stuff together.
I actually like that a lot. Yeah, good call.
Highlighting it in red, not that the closet changed, but its place did. I said I highlighted it in red
so it's easier to find that we moved it there. OK, I see it. OK. So I would. Yes, I don't know. Again,
revisiting that price point, I mean, Mr. Iverson said, hey, the exhibit says 117 through 135 or whatever from SFG.
So just as that phrase indicates a specificity, and I do think this, I mean, I don't know how others
feel about this on council, but I do believe from my understanding, what was reported in the media when
you all took the vote in October of 24, that you did not expect that in February of 25, the bill came
back at 257. And I might be wrong, but as a, you know, just citizen at that point,
I think that was surprising to a lot of people, and we have tried a few times as counsel to signal our
risk tolerance that that number has been a problem. In fact, when we submitted our version of the edit
plan to the Board of Commissioners, we tried to lower that dollar amount to pretty much what FSG just
told us, almost to the nickel, almost, 125, whatever.
We've tried to signal this a few times, right, that we were anticipating this and it turns out we were
validated this evening. Is this the place to say that, to say, look, there is sort of a, it's not the
ceiling, but anything beyond a certain dollar amount, we can't have a plan that comes back a few months
from now that's a 200 million when we just heard that we really can't bond for it. I would hate for
DLZ to design a new facility that is over cost.
Should we not say the number in this resolution? Two thoughts. I'm not opposed to it. But number one,
it bears pointing out that the numbers are estimated lit numbers. We do not know the concrete number,
so it's an estimate. Number two is a good one. I lost it.
I actually got so distracted by that first point that they are estimates. We need to keep that in mind
and I think they're already in there by reference. Yeah, as the exhibit. I think it's good.
I think it's good. I would just add for considering a
Consideration during this conversation that bonding capacity changes the 25% cap is not forever more
It's true as well Because I have to say I mean this respectfully I know that's the opinion of other
people in County legal. I know some folks in County legal Asserted repeatedly this that the 257 is a
number that we can sustain and If they really believe that they need to run to sit up here and make
that decision
There's a big difference between being able to say that from the sidelines and being up here. I don't
believe that's your position there, Mr. Henry King, but I know it's shared by others in that office.
So having said that, our job is to be able to maintain the totality of what we bring in revenue. Some
of us went to AIC, right?
heard our estimates from our organization saying that we're going to need half of that lit just to keep
revenue neutral. I went through this before. I mentioned key lime pie last time. If we were saying something
like 30% is going to be necessary to meet the bond, which we now know is not the case. In fact, it's
not going to be a 19 million bond debt service. We just heard that tonight. We also need to think about
everything else that we have to pay for in the county.
So it's one thing to say, oh, you know, that number can change and we can accommodate that. But relative
to everything else, which includes COLA for our employees, which includes maintenance of, I mean, so
we're not in a place where we can say, I think, with any confidence.
that our revenue is going to be, that we can meet that number. If we came back and here's the 250 million
plan again and say, well, you know, you could, but relative to other things. So we have to throttle
that or else we will not have resource for 20 years to do anything else in the county if we have an
emergency at risk. And that's just the view I have. Yeah, good point. Councillor Wilts. I recognize
that you are correct. It's not going to be percent.
And for clarity and legislative update, as we go along, it just got passed. It's twenty twenty nine.
So our capacity will change in twenty twenty nine. Well, we have to figure out stuff now is the is our
problem. And I mean, now, as in like this coming month would be ideal. And to Councillor Henry's point,
it reminds me a whole lot when
we were buying a house and told we could afford X, right? And everybody, and this was back in the day,
but everybody's like, oh, you can afford to spend this much on your house. And you start looking around
and you're like, but I would love to be able to put curtains on the windows, you know? It makes you
house poor. And what we're saying here, and this is actually, I'm glad you're using this analogy.
I'm sorry, I'm getting excited. I had all that Snickers or whatever we're handing around here.
But this is a serious point, right? Because we could buy the house, but in terms of prevention
and restorative justice programs and diversion programs and things that keep it empty, we will not have
the resource to do that. So we will build it and have a very not justice center the way that we think
about it. I mean, we do need to reserve back on that to think about other ways to put that money to
work. I can't max out the credit card on it. I mean, that's it.
I don't know, so I guess we're back to is this the place to say it explicitly or is it the sentiment
of my peers here that the exhibit does the job without saying here's your number? Yeah. Yes, Councillor
Decker. Well, and one thing I believe, by the way, the house poor kind of reference really resonates
with me because pre-financial crisis, I mean, good heavens, you could walk in with no work and the things
they would guarantee.
And it was creepy. It was creepy. But that said, I think here's another thing that we have to be kind
of circulating really heavily through our brains on this, is we've heard from our entire justice system,
not just the jail, that wherever you end up, you have to have operational costs that truly understand,
even though I'm not sure folks necessarily
believe we'll ever fully understand how you operate the other portions of the system that are not in
the jail and make that work. And the operational costs to do that, what that looks like, how that is,
et cetera. And whether we're in a phased status where you're operating
right now jail's here and we're doing this where you're in a accelerated phase status or really super,
we're trying to replace co-location with as close to co-located, whatever it is, it's going to have
a cost because we've been in a co-location system since 1986, approximately, maybe longer. And so it's
gonna, there's a factor to that that you, we're gonna have to have the wiggle room
to respond to it, just like tonight, the entire night has been wiggle room as elections change, court
administration changes, grants change, and that's just one night. So anyway, I just want to throw that
into the mix because there's a lot of folks watching who want to make sure that we're not losing sight
of that in the scheme of things. How do you operate that beyond?
Are we in agreement that I cannot, readers and I can't see anything anymore. Sorry. No, no, no,
you're fine. And the screen is just too far away for me. Are we in agreement that the exhibit of what
was presented to us today clears this up? Just to reference, I know there's a strike through with the
word exhibit up above. It's still there, right?
That just strikes exhibit what was B. That was the federal case exhibit. The exhibit referencing FSG's
presentation is incorporated within the whereas clauses. Got it. All right. Thank you. Okay. So it seems
like everybody is good to go with the exhibit being the tangible concrete evidence of the amount. Okay.
So. Then I think there's just one. Excuse me. One last clause that we haven't talked about.
Which is the clause that says the council pursue opportunities with its local government colleagues
at the city to advance selection Zoning and purchase of a property for the purpose for the purpose of
constructing a new facility And we continue to rely on said partnerships to further design and construction
of the new facility. Yep The only thing i'll add to this is I know council hawk has said this repeatedly
that you know, there's
They're not so new anymore, considering they're in year three, but we have new administration in the
city as well as majority new council on city council as well. I have shouted this from all the meetings
from CJRC, JFAC, even gone to city council, even had city council meetings with city council representatives.
Like they want to help assist with us understanding that this is
our project. However, we always talk in both city and county about how great we are at collaboration.
And as the kids say, call Cap on that. This is the moment right now.
that we can do this together, just like we did everything with the CIB and look at how the convention
center got moving and look how fast that's moving as opposed to what's been sitting in front of us since
2009. If we take egos out, that is as big as this building.
and really get it back down to size, I truly believe in my little five foot heart that if we work with,
if we truly want to work with city, and I do believe that the city wants to work with us, that we can
make this happen. And that's all I'll say about that. Yes, Councillor Henry. Thank you. And thank you
for that. I I'll just say it because I think I think this is being offered in in goodwill.
The last phrase to further design and construction of the new facility, is it meant to suggest that
the City Council would have input into design? It's one thing to say selection zone purchase because
by all means we're going to need variances and the like if it isn't city limits but that design and
construction I'm just curious what others may think about it. That's a good point.
You're in those city council meetings. That room is teal and I don't like the color of it. The whole
building is weird now. You get what I'm saying. I don't know what we're saying. Are we offering up something
that we really don't need to and that we just need to just say that they are our partners and we want
to work with them with the zoning and planning part? I think you could change design and construction
to say we'll continue to rely on said partnerships to further progress on the new facility. Or just
say take out the whole. Or do you just take out the everything from two all the way down to facility
and just keep said partnerships? Because that's the intent is to just be partners. The kiss method.
That's the last whereas clause. So I don't know if you want me to read this. It is displayed and we
were doing all the edits live or you want to add things that are in there or? So Council, as we have
gone through all of this, is there any further adds? Yes, Councillor Henry. No further adds. I would
just say I think this is a good compromise document.
that in being here and also my observations as a person that's lived here during this entire ordeal
that we are the closest we've gotten. I know I provided in my notes a rather robust resolution. And
that's just my style. But I think there are opportunities to revisit some ideas here. We're going to
be in a period of a few years regardless once shovels are in the ground where
We have an inner inner regnum here of trying to get folks moved and taken care of. We do have I think
after tonight I mean we learned that our resources are going to get thinner over the next few years.
But there is also an opportunity to really lean into some of the values that I know others of this body
had tried to get into the original design of prevention programs and other programs to if we're going
to build the facility to try to keep it empty.
Right. And so while I don't think they fit in this resolution I do think that we should really think
about ways we can use the edit and resources we have to put it to the test that if our partners in the
community are saying a moonshot funding of prevention programs may help to reduce incarceration we should
try for that.
especially in light that we've had legislation now moving through the General Assembly this evening
while we're sitting here that criminalizes homelessness. It's going to the governor's desk. We're going
to be five years from now looking at a facility that may be housing people very differently. So I'll
just end it there to say this is a good start, but I will maybe hold some of my language back for future
I hate to say it, Councillor Decker, resolutions, because that's the way governments communicate that
may express the will of council to fund some of these programs that really our partners are saying we
need in the community. Thank you for that. Appreciate that. And yes, Councillor Pio. So I'm wondering
about Mr. Falk and will he be receiving a copy of this? Or is that the intent? Or what do we think about that?
If the council wishes for me to distribute it to Mr. Falk, I am glad to email it to him tomorrow. Would
you take out the red line part? Yes, the red line was for tracking purposes of the meeting, so I'll
take out the. He could get an update of this is what we've is that necessary?
We could deliver it to Mr. Falk via email but I have a sneaking suspicion he's probably watching these
meetings and is going to be aware of what you did even if you don't send it to him. Yeah. I think that's
kind of what I was thinking. Yes, Councillor Decker. I would say that were you done? Did I cut you off?
No, you I don't want to cut I was just gonna say I just think in an attempt to be really Communicative
about this with him. I think it would be a good professional thing to do. That's all I was gonna finish
with I Would jump on that with counselor vital and say that would show the county being
upfront with where you're at and proactive. And I think it could be communicated with the spirit of
that. I think council, there's a respect between Mr. Falk and council based on what I picked up. And
much like when Lisa Ridge goes up to NDOT, you send your best person to do that. But I think that can
be communicated. The other thing I'll say is this. I had a lot of comments earlier about resolutions.
Resolutions are only as good as what happens next.
for Mr. Falk, he's watched a process already by which we got to the edge of something. He now wants
to see the movie that looks like that with this script and all the other parties there. So I just,
I wanna be, I want us to be mindful of that because it doesn't just end with this. This is a process
that goes on and we have to listen to how others within our own county and by both the public
and the other officials begin to react to this. And I know we've all heard little things here and there
already, but like this is this is now a doing thing. Yeah, and I guess I could get on board with us
delivering something because again, this is again showing
progress and what it is that we are doing that we're not sitting here dwindling until, you know,
April 15th. Lots of good things happen in April, which is my birthday. But, you know, that being said,
like we are delivering like. And it is the county council who is really
Like we are really sitting here five, almost five hours in now and really trying to make an effort to
say this is what we are trying to do here. So yeah, yes. Can I do a point of information just to know
we're at six out of seven of us. The roll call on this, if we adopt this tonight, which I assume that's
where we're heading, that roll call is going to show six.
And one not here unless she's online. I don't I don't know counselor hot. My recommendation is that
we not only adopt this time, but it come back to the top for adoption. So the a admit a new copy of
this could go with all seven counselors because I wouldn't want to send any signal that this is not
where this council's at.
And if it's not where the council's at, I think that's something that has to be articulated on the public
because, again, we're all rowing on this together. I agree. And no, she is not online. I thought she
was, but she's not. Anybody else have any final questions, comments or concerns? Okay.
He made a motion with it was a discussion and possible approval. Right. So we should need a motion to
adopt. First, I think you need a motion to adopt all the changes that we made because we made all those
amendments and ultimately we said we would
adopt them all in one motion. So I think you should do a motion to amend the document as reflected by
the conversation and on screen. And then if you're going to move to adoption, you would take public
comment. Right. That's that's kind of where I was getting. Of course, obviously, I think we got folks
here that might have have public comment and then we definitely have some online. So, yeah, so.
Council I move to adopt all the changes that we made to this document as displayed on the screen second
All right. We got a motion and a second to Adopt the changes on screen any additional further questions
or comments All right We can do this by voice vote To make the amendments. Yes. Okay. All right. So although
Those in favor of approving the resolution as amended signify by saying aye. All those opposed,
same sign. Okay. Motion carries. Council, I move to adopt the updated resolution 2026-02. Is that zero?
We got a motion and a second, and the second was by Councilor Decker. All right. Any last final comments
or questions from Council on this?
Okay. Seeing none. Um this is the time for the public to, um, make your comment on our resolution as
presented. Um and amended. So this is your time to speak. So if you have time to speak, you can come
forward to the lectern here in the night.
up to three minutes and three minutes only. And so if you want to also raise your hand via Teams, you
can do so as well. Yes. Prior to Miss Wilson providing public comment, do you want me to stop sharing
so that? Yeah, yes. Thank you. But again, if you are on Teams and you want to make public comment, go
ahead and raise your hand and we'll alternate back and forth between our room here and via Teams.
So welcome. Hi. Good evening.
My name is April Wilson. I live in Bloomington, and I'm a Monroe County resident. Although I work for
the Monroe County Prosecutor's Office, I wish to be clear that all statements made herein are my own
and made in my personal capacity. I really appreciate the discussion tonight around this resolution.
However, it remains honestly unclear how the resolution will help solve the problem. Respectfully, the
problem is at North Park,
And the problem isn't funding. Funding goes to the scope of the project. Respectfully, it's also not
the fact that there is a lawsuit. The lawsuit is a symptom. The problem is that there is about 230 souls
in a building down the street from us, and they will continue to be in that building when all of us
go home tonight. And there has been a report in front of this council, in front of this government,
that has shared that it's not providing constitutional standards of care.
Now the question of cost came up several different times tonight in a lot of different capacities, and
I want to come back to that. Whether the county takes action or fails to take action, there will be
a cost. The question is what that cost, how much is going to be, and at whose expense? Failure to build
a jail has been a cost borne by some of the most vulnerable in our community.
On December 29, 2025, Ken Falk said, I cannot in good conscience agree to extend the PSA for another
year at this point, as doing so would make me complicit in allowing conditions to continue that are
obviously dangerous and unacceptable. Respectfully, this problem is not gonna be solved with resolutions.
At the end of the day, it's gonna be solved by a county council and commissioners that are gonna sit
down and jointly work together to start making tough decisions.
Resolutions don't have to be the only way that governments communicate. It's not just identifying benchmarks,
it's about meeting them. I remain hopeful, as you know, I remain hopeful that the council will take
concrete and meaningful steps to start addressing these dangerous and unacceptable conditions that are
affecting members of our community. And I respectfully request that you please move forward and please
build a constitutional jail. Thank you.
Okay. Are there any takers here in the night? You Hill room. How about online via teams? Please raise
your hand. Okay. All right. And so seeing no more takers here in the night, you know,
Councillor Wilz. Yes. Councillor Henry. Yes. Councillor Decker. Yes. Councillor Cronin. Yes. Councillor
Iverson. Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Yes, Ms. Turner-King. With the passage of this motion, I just want to
for the guidance do you want me to send this to mr. Falk tomorrow via email or do you want to wait to
readopt it at the next council meeting so full council will be included on the signature page assume
well not full council so that the signature page will reflect councilmember Hawks vote could we say
to him that this is like
because she had she left early could we just go ahead and send it and then once we circle back here's
a completion of what we've done with all seven signatures should she sign on to it I'll send him an
email clarifying that six members were present and that this will be reconsidered by the seven the full
council at the next meeting got it okay thank you
And also as a clarification, because I think I've heard a lot of times that sometimes what we do here
on Tuesday night does not get met or a clear message gets sent to the commissioners. Is there anything
that we need to do to send to them to let them know this is what we've done? I know we've had some online,
but just because they are doing it online, I would like to formally do it.
Because I watch meetings online too, but that's a more of an informal thing I think the idea is I've
heard them say in meetings They didn't know certain things and so this is no excuse now to say that
they don't know Now, you know by way of delivery If this the council's wishes I can make sure I can
email the commissioners a copy of the resolution to
as an alternative, there is a commissioners meeting on Thursday where it can be provided to commissioners.
It just depends on what the wishes of the council is. And I personally am not going to go to any like at 10 a.m.
when all of us really have lots of things to do at 10 a.m. I think this is a cleaner way of just sending
an email and therefore there is a copy that is being sent to them and they have it and it is acknowledged
by way of saying it here.
while they are watching or like live or we'll watch later and by way of email too. Okay. All right.
Thank you very much. Yes. I'm just wondering if I could request that the full council receive a copy
of what we just adopted as a resolution as well. Yeah, of course. All right. Well, thank you all for
that. Okay.
So last but not least, we are on council comment and liaison updates as well. So because it has been
a very long night. Of which again, this is something that we knew was going to happen, and I appreciate
that. So that being said, I'm going to start down here to my left and just keep on going. I'm ready.
Okay, I'm color coded and ready to go. Let's go.
So I keep getting conflicting remarks about House Bill 1359, which is the early voting issue,
28 to 16, that's part of it. And as others have said before, it's still going to be put under something
else, even if that one fails. So until all the votes are in, so to speak, we won't know about that for
a while. But I'm very concerned about that.
I've been working with numerous constituents regarding their snow plow service and the lack thereof.
I'm still very concerned about the 60 neighborhood situations, which doesn't include their roads being
plowed and road service being done where they live in our area. I think that one of the main things
I think about now is the fact that everyone probably pays
gas tax and as I understand that is the funding where these services come from they're not getting their
gas tax benefit so to speak and so I'm very concerned about that so for the long haul I'd like to think
about that at some point working on that and going to the Kirkwood Avenue meeting group and in open
if you don't know that already happy to
to work on the Sophia Travis grant committee and adopted tonight Katie Hopkins who is going to serve
in that role for us there. I did attend the Perry Township Trustee Dan Combs celebration of life on
the 15th of February and that was a lovely, lovely event. I'm happy to be there. I've known Dan for
a long time. I miss him a lot.
We had the joint session of the county council and commissioners on the 16th, Monday the 16th. That
was the third one we had. I felt like that one was a really positive, probably the best session in my
experience of that whole series of events. Attended the BEDC annual meeting, got to meet the bison and
touch the trophy. So that was kind of cool.
Then I've been doing all these Ellitsville Richland Township meetings. And now they're having a series
of three fire protection joint hearings. I went to one on the 18th and the next two will be on the 25th
and March 11th, but they're the same as the 18th. So if you heard at that time, you don't need to go
to the other two. The next meeting of the Township joint hearing or the joint reorganization is
every other Wednesday and that'll be March 4th. They do have their subcommittees and their committees
and all those things now and the contact information on their website now. So I'm very happy about that.
And that website is Ellisville Richland info.org. So there'll be the committee reports are due back
to the reorganization committee by the 27th of February.
The recommendations then will be done and voted on on the March 4th by the committee. The council itself
and the township will vote in June. Each one of those entities, as I understand it, has to have 50%
plus one to make it happen. Then I did want to mention that as part of the Downtown Bloomington Inc.
group board that I serve on,
There is hard hat videos of the Convention Center project. And it's at monroecib.com. And those are
just kind of fun to look at. So that's what I've been doing and thinking about. Councillor Woods. Would
say you. I saw the latest installment of those hard hat videos.
Just yesterday, I hadn't realized they were a thing and it somehow popped up. It was quite fun. Yeah,
definitely. See John Weickart having fun out there on the construction site. It's pretty fun. So I've
been spending a lot of time thinking about our community and how we respond or don't respond.
after crises, specifically tornadoes or snowstorms. And I think we have a glaring opportunity. I'll
call it a glaring opportunity to do better. And I'm not sure how to proceed, but it's clear to me that
We don't have the structure or the protocols to take care of each other after a tragedy of any sort
in our community. And I'm looking at you, because I know you're just like, yeah, see, I told you. But
after last week's tornado, I went back and I looked at the report that Dan Combs had put together. And
he's sitting in it.
plan is day, we aren't ready. I think one thing that we did really well was that we pre-appropriated
emergency funding so that it's ready to go. And so to me, I feel like, okay, we've made a step, but
there's more to do. And it has to do with not just accounting for damages, but accounting for people.
in the aftermath and so I'd like to challenge us to think on that and like I said the tornadoes was
sort of the impetus but I'm thinking about this in terms of how we respond to our neighbors who get
snowed in and can't leave their neighborhoods. We have to think about things a little bit more in terms
of people and a little bit less in terms of
you know, highway miles and, you know, fence lines that might need repair. So that's where my head is
right now. Thank you. Thank you very much. I know it's late. I'll try to be really quick, but there's
a lot going on and I want to be I want to talk about it just for a second. Number one, it was a pleasure
to join Councillor Fiddle in the Sophia Travis
Grants interviews for a community member that we celebrated tonight That's always a positive thing in
this service that we have and I I appreciate it very much a light-hearted note in a light-hearted week
or in a not light-hearted week the reality of last week is as counselor cross Lee said earlier either
in this meeting or today or some point we went and
Last week during the weather, we went from decent weather to a tornado in February to then back to snow.
I was talking to my students who were very like kind of upset about the weather changes. And I said,
I'd like to tell you that this doesn't happen all the time, but it seems like some bad weather event
of one kind or the other is all over the place, whether it's May, June, et cetera. And CARP comes and
Council Henry
have talked about these things at length over time. I also have to say, I was in Whitehall, which is,
you know, the farthest reaches of what we have, the at larges and Councilor Hawk. I was in Whitehall
and the fog was so absolutely thick and absolutely creepy right after that event. The hell so thick on
a car that it looked like a car had literally gone through at that gas station, had gone through a snow
pile. And I was like, good lord, this is what just hit our airport and beyond. And so one thing is,
when I was talking with neighbors, somebody said something, you know, I always like to be available
to kind of figure out what's going on and to assist where I can.
But knowing that it's just me standing there with my loafers on, and that's probably not much other
than that I care, and I'll try to give someone a bottle of water. The first thing someone said to me,
particularly just east of the airport, was when I said, people were walking around with pin lights.
I said, has someone been through here? And they said, you know, immediately after that event happened,
they were at our doors.
saying, everybody okay in here, what's going on? I think our emergency responders in that initial, they
do a tremendous job in getting right to it, whether that's the fire folks, our law enforcement, all
the folks that come out. But one thing that going to what Councilor Wilts just said that concerns me
is we always have this gap between the long-term and immediately afterwards. And I think that's where
families hit that struggle.
and they abundantly struggle with, how am I gonna get to point A, point B? I'm gonna point out something
here. Trustee Rita Barrow, Van Buren Township, who has notoriously worked these since, I can recall
in 2008, I remember she had an awful tornado that went down Weaver Road, but she posted earlier today
that there's cleanup opportunities in Fieldstone and Stonechase where they need volunteers for Van Buren
cleanup, 9.30 a.m.,
228, so this Friday, or this Saturday, and to meet at the community center, which is located at 352
South Fieldstone Boulevard. I see this being shared like a million times out there, which is awesome
and good. But that gap between that immediate moment, how's everybody doing, and beyond, that uncertainty
for those families, even me just kind of observing this and my family was fine, that's the thing I think
that we've got to
We've got to get in there and know and also know who has truly been displaced here. I feel like we don't,
I feel like the gap between that looks really bad, but I'm hearing that no one's displaced. I'd like
to see that be something that we make more professional. I said years ago that emergency management
issues will continue to professionalize and expand and respond to the moment. Council Henry could write
the book on that, but I think we're kind of at that point.
we're at that point where that's what we do and what's expected is just gonna be larger, not to make
it harder on anyone, but to make it easier on those families. So I wanna thank everyone that helped
with all that. I'll note that the helping is still going on and then there's a longer term process that
kicks in, doesn't kick in, et cetera. And Councilor Henry.
Love this chorus. Welcome to the choir, everybody. It's never too late. I'm going to talk about some
other stuff before I get to that. Some of my liaisons were here tonight. So speaking in terms of Carlos,
with aviation, he told us the story out there with Clerk Brown. We talked a little bit about the concerns
I have with early voting and voter edge in the current showers building. And I think we've covered that.
that's been surfaced. I want to talk about Plan Commission a little bit, because Councilor Wilts, you
brought it up. Really, this is going to take an education, not just for the first responders that do
a great job in our community, the volunteer networks that are trying to help people. I'll be honest.
We were in Plan Commission talking about the snow removal piece a few weeks ago, and there are members
of the Plan Commission that don't get it. They're caught up in the idea that a developer that has not
completed the
the mirror checklist of things and the county development ordinance can't move a road in inventory.
This is after, of course, the county takes the bond. We'll take the money, but we won't take the roads.
And there's a lot of finger pointing. And it's almost, well, it's a point of frustration. I mean, because
inside those neighborhoods are humans and those humans are trying to get the things. And so there's
a learning curve among people that are very specialized in their bucket
You know, but maybe can't see the force for the trees and what we're really trying to do as a community
here. I think that education is going to have to continue, but those comments are made in the public
and can be played on cats TV all night long if you want to watch them. But there's got there's some
work to be done. I think in some of our partner commissions to understand truly what it means to.
you know, either be part of the county or not when we get into this discussion there. I will say, ironically,
the EMAC was canceled last week due to a lack of quorum, which there's some irony with that in the sense
that, you know, I think to get to the point about, you know, are we proactively thinking about hazards
in the community if our appointees don't show up to the meeting to have the conversation to plan for things.
We have a challenge there. I'm not going to call out who and where, but the core partners that usually
go to that meeting, like our public health department, our emergency manager, our partners at IU, they
were there. That body has a very large membership. If we can't meet, then we can't prepare. If we can't
prepare, then we shouldn't be surprised when we have challenges.
mindset shift that has to happen for us to get to what some folks have talked about tonight, which is
in the off season, you have to fund and prepare for these things. Tonight, as the folks in Washington
are discussing the State of the Union when they start cutting FEMA funding, that is half our budget
for our staff in emergency management in this county.
So we may need to be in a place where we're using resources here to fund things like exercises that
educate everybody on their roles and responsibilities. I'm glad folks are joining in the choir here
with this. I want to say only two things about the tornado. I appreciate Councilor Decker making comments
about volunteers this weekend in Van Buren there. That was one I was going to mention. But also in my
observations going out to take a look at things in that neighborhood, I think the public's aware that
the Mountain Row County Humane Association had a particularly
a nasty hit from the tornado, and there have been an incredible amount of outpouring and outreach to
donate to them to rebuild that facility. That's one of the good news stories, but, you know, having,
being, you know, in the moments on scene there, seeing the damage was shocking, and I know those images
have been out over media.
If you want to nerd out on what happened, I met with a surveyor this week and our G.I.S. coordinator
for the county, Dr. Baten, has created a dashboard in Esri that outlines all the paths of all the tornadoes
going back 20 years. And this is the data that should get our attention. We have had five touchdowns
in Monroe County since 2019 and two in the last 11 months.
And that should be the wake up call that this is our new normal, that we are in tornado alley and it
is moving east as climate change affects our continent. And it shouldn't be surprising, it's not an
if, it's a when. And so I guess that's the message tonight. I will leave one note to say one opportunity
I think we should pursue, maybe talking about opportunities, Councilor Wilts, is I've learned a lot
tonight and in the past few weeks about
People coming to us to ask for funding for things in their office, phone operators, people picking up
the phone. We've heard multiple times about staff saying, well, we're basically a 411. People get the
first county phone number they can find and start asking questions that have nothing to do with their
office. We may need to really look into what a 411 number looks like for this county.
Because it's not going to be EMA taking the phone calls. I mean, where can you call to get the basic
information about government? And I know others have brought that up. Boy, I've heard it all week long.
You know, if it's people texting us as elected officials to find out where the dumpster is for their
neighborhood, we may need to consolidate this with some creativity in the future. But that's way too
much. Thanks, Joan. J.C., back to you. J.C., thanks. All right.
So one thing that I will say is I want to give a special thanks to Ms. Turner-King for compiling all
of our thoughts and putting everything all together. I know that was not an easy task because all of
that could be a lot, and I could assume that it was. And so I just want to say thank you for doing that.
I'm so grateful for all of you for putting it together and working through with us on that, so I appreciate
that. I also want to say I do appreciate every single last one of my council colleagues here. Even Council
Haku isn't here. Hopefully she'll go back and watch it. But I do appreciate the conversations that we
continue to have, and we are really trying to do our job and look out for the best interest
I do have one less mentioned here is that as a reminder that. The Sophia Travis Grant Committee is doing
a kickoff earlier this year, and so the 2026 Sophia Travis Grant Committee kickoff this year will be
on Wednesday when March 11th, starting at 5 PM here in the net you
For those that are watching or will watch back later, you can go and like our Facebook page and share
it. I humbly ask our council colleagues here, if you would so help us to get the word out about that,
to share our page as well and that post related to the Sophia Travis. Speaking of the Monroe County
Humane Association, they are usually recipients of Sophia Travis, so I'm sure
we'll see them again this year, considering all things. So major thank you to anybody and everybody
that had anything to do with the work of the tornado. I was downtown working, and it was a little scary
having the shelter in place. And then I saw another photo of just where I work at versus where the tornado
actually hit. And it was a very sobering experience. So this is now twice.
where I have been in the path of a tornado because on the south side back in May, literally had kids
frantically calling saying that they saw a tornado, you know, on FaceTime. And so climate change is
real and that's something that we should not forget because we had a tornado in February. Lastly,
the public comment. The only thing that I will say about you know this resolution that we passed here
since it was mentioned in our comment here and public comment is that I think all of us are committed
to doing what we need to do, and I think we acknowledge that. Um we 234 is the pops, uh, count that
I saw this morning is 6 45. When it came in,
are needing to do for those that are housed in that building every day as we go home and are fortunate
enough. So I don't want that to think that, and we sat here for a really long time trying to put together
a resolution to speak on that very issue of trying to make sure that we acknowledge that we are committed
to having a humane and constitutional facility. All of that cost though.
And so the fiscal body is responsible for making those costs. And so I hope that it is incumbent of
all of us that are in the criminal justice system in the city and county to work together to make that
happen. But, you know, just as we have human costs, there's a lot of different costs that are associated
with that. But I don't want anybody to think that any of us sat here and don't have that in mind because
We do, we seriously do. And if people think that, I welcome all any conversations via emails, coffee,
and whatever we need to do. But I would love to have that conversation. So happy 24th day of Black History
Month. And with that being said, I thank you all for your time and service this evening, and we are
adjourned.