All right. Good evening, everybody. And welcome to what feels like spring. But it's still winter. Today
is Tuesday, March 10th, twenty twenty six. The time is five oh two. And I am calling the Monroe County
Council meeting to order. We have a quorum, so we will go ahead and get started. We have here in the
Natu Hill rooms. Council member D.G.H. David Henry, Decker, Wilts and Fiddle.
and we will go and it looks like we have Councilor Hawk that is also joining the building as well. So
all those that are able to please stand for the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance
to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God
All right. Thank you so much for that. All right. Next up is item number three, which is the adoption
of tonight's agenda. Would anybody like to make any changes to tonight's agenda? I certainly yes. Go ahead.
I'd like to move to add item 10b, a discussion and approval of resolution 2026-02 renewing the manure
county council's commitment regarding a new jail facility. Are we doing that? I didn't think we were.
But okay. Okay. It's it's what's on here. I mean, I mean, that's up to all the rest of us here to do
that. And I'm getting
glances at the table here. Oh, okay. All right. Um, so I think already have voted. I wasn't sure if
we're not going to do it. Okay. That's cool. Okay. I was just following up from last time. Okay. Um,
then there's the second, the request. You want me to do that? Yes.
We had a request to move the probation department's additional appropriation up on the agenda. So I
moved to have item seven H moved to follow immediately after item seven A on the agenda. Second. Okay.
We got a motion and a second to move the item seven H to seven A on the agenda. Are there any other
agenda amendments for tonight?
Seeing none, since we have a quorum and there's nobody participating virtually, all those in favor of
approving tonight's agenda as amended, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign.
Okay, motion carries. All right, next up, we see some friendly faces here in the Net-U-Hill room. And
so this is the items for public comment. And so public comment are for items that are not on tonight's
agenda. So those that are wishing to speak, you have the right to do so. But those again are for items
not on tonight's agenda. So if you've never spoken here in the Net-U-Hill room before or virtually,
you could come up to the lectern here in the room
You'll have up to three minutes and it'll be displayed on the TV monitors here. State your name for
the record. And again, you'll have up to three minutes. And if I didn't say so, there's a sign in sheet
there that you'll just need to sign in and write your name in. For those that are participating,
rather virtually, you can raise your hand via Teams, and then we will acknowledge you. So if there are
any takers here in the Night U Hill Room that would like to make public comment for items not on the
agenda, please go ahead and do so. Welcome. Hi, guys.
My name is Bryce. I am a member of DSA and a friend of some community members who are facing the loss
of their homes. I'm sure you all know about the Seminary Square issue. My main point here is to ask
why the county feels that it is unable to serve the affordable housing crisis in Monroe County. It seems
that if they were
interested in doing that, then these people wouldn't be being kicked out of their houses. At the very
least, I know Councillor Henry mentioned at an event recently that it would be a great opportunity for
the county to explore alternative models of building and expanding affordable housing by keeping these
houses under county control and keeping these people in their homes. Alternatively, different ways of
handling this would be to allow the people who are at that property to
or allow the property to be sold to an entity that would be willing to continue housing these people
and keeping them in their homes. So to my knowledge, there hasn't been any public reason given as to
why that's not an option. And I think that if members of the council are really interested in affordable
housing, as many of your constituents are, then I think that this issue would be at the forefront and
would be something that would be
Uh, seriously pursued and keeping these people in their houses would be a priority. Uh, that's all.
Thank you. Thank you. Excuse me. What is your last name for the record? Uh, green green with the knee
at the end. Thank you. I'll write it down here as well. Of you or anybody? Yes. I'm just just to clarify
the property that this person is talking about is not
Seminary Square, the park. It's right. It's very, very point. Right. Is it is a name? It's down south.
It's the one right next to my sister's closet. And the if I'm mistaken, that is the like a furniture
place, antique furniture place. It's very, very nice little place and has a lot of our friends. We appreciate
that. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next up, please.
Hi, I'm T. Randall. I'm a resident of one of the buildings set to be destroyed. I'm here to urge the
County Council not to displace residents who destroyed the Seminary Point apartments at the corner of
South College and Second Street. Mineral County is in the middle of an affordable housing crisis, and
every step should be taken to preserve and expand meaningfully affordable housing. If the county is unwilling
or unable to maintain the block, they should give it to someone who would be, whether that's a community
land trust, a cooperative, or some other structure. There's no shortage of funds available in this county
to preserve affordable housing for those who are willing. Thank you.
and I'm trying to log into Teams and I wanted to come back to Teams to see if there's anybody that wanted
to raise their hand to make public comment. Again, for items not on the agenda, you can raise your hand
via Teams. Seeing none, I'll go back to the room here to see if there are any takers for public comment
on items not on tonight's agenda.
My name is Barry Herbers, as you probably just heard. Everyone in the Seminary Point apartments just
found out that they are being forced out of their homes in July. And I mean just found out, like maybe
what, two, three weeks ago. This is a college town. That's bad enough on its own. But the Seminary Point
apartments are also the most affordable housing in their area. There are all kinds of people living
there, families with young children, recovering addicts trying to stay off the street, people
with disabilities on a fixed income,
They're struggling, but they're working hard and they're doing their best. The county, you guys, the
people in this room, are forcing these people out of their homes. This is not an annoyance. You're not
just making them move around. If you go through with this, it's gentrification. In the brief snippets
of communication we have been able to get from the county, each part of the government has
denied responsibility and pointed the finger everywhere but themselves.
I understand that nothing about running a county is simple, but you are failing at your most basic task,
which is taking care of your people, every single one of you. The county claims it is helping these
people find homes. The tenants I've spoken to disagree. One I spoke to, a father, told me he has no
idea what his family is going to do, told me he was recently laid off and that the Seminary Point apartment he has
has been a lifeline for his family in hard times. Why is the county forcing these people out of their
homes? This is not a rhetorical question. What are you going to do with this property? Why won't you
tell us when we've been asking for months? Why are you destroying the most affordable housing in our
downtown area? Because until you give us an answer, I'm going to assume it's so you can build a parking
lot for the subsidized hotel
that you're going to cost us millions of dollars. Maybe that's not true. So maybe you should tell us.
Who have been asking for months whether their leases would be renewed, whether their leases would be
renewed. What will you do to make these people whole? What will you do to help them decide their own
future? Their leases. And if you don't want to be a landlord,
then how about we think about letting these tenants decide the futures of their homes instead of destroying
what little tiny bit of affordable housing we have left. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Are there
any other takers? OK. And if there are more people that want to speak on items not on the agenda, you
can please start to line up as well.
Hi, my name is Louis Schwartz and I'm a member of the DSA and also someone who's looking for affordable
housing. I wanted to tell you that the county government shouldn't displace the residents or destroy
Seminary Point Apartments at the corner of South College Avenue and Second Street Monroe.
Midwell County is in the middle of an affordable housing crisis and every step should be taken to preserve
and expand meaningfully affordable housing.
If the county is unwilling to maintain the block, they should transfer to a grassroots partner and allow
residents to democratically control their own futures. Community land trusts demonstrate a model which
can guarantee permanently affordable housing through direct democratic processes.
Therefore, I urge the county to transfer ownership of the block to local organizations like Avalon Community
Land Trust or at the very least to the city. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, my name is Sarah Mosher and
I wanted to ask the members of the council not to destroy the seminary point apartments and I think it's a
good area right there, especially it has Artisan Alley and Friendly Beasts, Barbershop and the shops
and other businesses. It's a good place for the community to gather and replacing it with a parking
lot doesn't quite seem like the same kind of payout. And I'd also like to state just that my family
who has been in here for many generations, at one point my great grandparents, they didn't have a place
to live because they also struggled with affordable housing.
And when they finally did find some, they're able to settle down and build their business, which turned
into May's Greenhouse. It has been a small business implemented for a long time. And the more affordable
housing that we shut down, those are more families, like my family was, that were pushing out of the
county, whereas since they were able to finally find some affordable housing, they were able to settle
down, and now there's
dozens of my family who have been able to live here for generations and contribute to the county and
pay taxes and start businesses and contribute in that way so hopefully we can think of some alternative,
whether that's transferring it to a grassroots partner like has been mentioned, whether it's the Bloomington
Housing Collective or
the Bloomington Housing Authority that has a Summit Hill Land Trust, for example, if we could somehow
find a way to transfer it to a land trust that could preserve it and preserve that affordable housing
that could lead to other generations that continue to contribute to the county. So thank you. Thank you.
This is Lily Malcolm, first time resident here at Bloomington, just moved here two weeks ago and first
time participant here at a council meeting. When I first came to Bloomington, the brain draw, there
are many draws of this community, but one of the highest draws of Bloomington was the community's commitment
to one another to uplift each other's hopes and dreams and aspirations and support many businesses that
I simply never had access to where I came from.
I think when I think of the city I think of how quickly and earnestly I was welcomed I think about the
trials I faced also trying to attain affordable housing of my own and for my own family It should not
take as long as it surely did to obtain Affordable housing for myself and it certainly shouldn't be
as difficult as it is for my newly
my new neighbors that I have just met, and it should not be made any more difficult by projects such
as the Convention Center Hotel Project. Destroying the few buildings that exist for affordable housing
in Bloomington, which is facing an undeniable affordable housing crisis, and destroying the buildings
on a block that support local businesses is the antithesis of what I believe this city is about. I implore
you to transfer this block to a land trust.
what makes up the fabric and the heart of what Bloomington is. Take care of your neighbors and do not
succumb to a greed filled project. I implore that the council utilize the two properties that are already
being retained by this project. And I urge the county once again to transfer ownership of the block
to a local organization like a community land trust. Thank you. Thank you. And welcome to Bloomington.
My name is Hugh Farrell. I'm a long time Bloomington resident and I wanted to really focus on the ways
the communication around this project has been chaotic. That has been extremely unclear what the plan
is for these buildings and how this affects both residents.
I think others have already spoken to the ways that having an extremely short timeline, especially given
how structured the rental market is here, most people are signing leases September, October, November
these days, and it's what it means to have this short of a runway. And that there's then additionally
been very chaotic communication with the residents and assurances that people are being rehomed.
I mean, the kind of language that's been used is mostly how we talk about rehoming animals, but this
language is going around that residents are going to be rehomed, that it isn't going to have an impact
on them if there's a certain level of temporary subsidy to move into more expensive units elsewhere,
but that really there's huge amounts of research.
that show that displacing people from their long-time communities has decisive permanent impacts. And
when there's long-term residents here that are on fixed incomes who have been excluded from other forms
of housing, where you have elderly folks, cancer patients who've depended on walkable housing
in Bloomington's core, who are now going to be displaced and displaced from people they've known for
decades, that that is something that's going to have
you know, not just public health, but health impacts on these individuals, and that they've not received
clear communication at any point. And likewise, there's not been clear communication with the small
businesses, and this is just a total disaster, you know, for any of these businesses to survive.
You know, businesses that have been told that they will have until the end of the season are instead
being told now that they have to be out July 1st, you know,
I think season implies October, November already. This is very unclear, but again, it goes hand in hand
with a lack of clarity that's been displayed around this project, and now that's being moved up till
July 1st. This is the way that you successfully kill a local small business, is to take away beeline
fronting and replace it with uncertainty, replace it with quick turnarounds, and
damage the ability to communicate with their customer base. And so I just would really, really, really
appeal for clear communication from the county ASAP to figure out what is going on, who the decision
makers are, why is it that it seems as though one of the small businesses will be allowed to remain
until next February? Why is everyone else being forced out earlier? So given these inconsistencies,
just to have clear communication ASAP.
And I just really think in the next weeks, because otherwise people's lives are really going to be affected,
businesses will be destroyed, and it will be really clear that it will be on the county's hands that
this will have happened. So thank you all for your attention. I'm sure we can count on you all to deliver
that communication as well as real solutions. And I think real solutions mean not displacing people
and not destroying affordable housing. Thank you. Thank you.
I want to pop back to teams to see if there's still anybody that hasn't had a chance to speak. If so,
you can raise your hand and you'll have state your name for the record and you'll have up to three minutes.
And still seeing no takers.
We got one. Okay, so the name is Rowan. So if you are able to unmute, officially state your name for
the record and you'll have up to three minutes. Yeah, hi, I'm Rowan Morse, lifelong resident of Bloomington.
I just wanted to join in and have my support on the record for transferring it into a land trust. Thank you.
My name is Graham Baker. I'm also here to voice my support for keeping the apartments or transferring
them to a land trust. I'm a student at IU and ever since I've gotten here, the Bloomington community
is just, it's really something special. There are so many amazing people here and it's been honestly
kind of a safe space for me
In a way that I really it's invaluable and the reason that I I care so much about these apartments I'm
from Culver and We've seen something kind of similar go on there. There's not a lot of affordable housing
in Culver Because we have we have a big private school and we have the lake there's a lot of a lot of
tourists and what we've been seeing in the past is a lot of
like housing for people, for residents in the town that are maybe middle class or lower class has over
time been bought up, it's been renovated, and then it's been sold. And so a lot of the remaining housing
in the town has been turned into housing for people to rent out during the school year and then leave.
I grew up in Culver. My dad grew up in Culver, my grandparents, my grandma lived in Culver for a long
time, and her parents too.
I think they had stories about this town, about Culver, about buildings that no longer exist. It was
a completely different place. And I think allowing affordable housing and space for small businesses
is the lifeblood of a town. And I still love Culver now, but it's completely different. A lot of businesses
only make it through the summer because there's no one around in the winter. I know this isn't the same, but
I've seen something like this before, and that's why I wanted to voice my support for making sure that
there's affordable housing in Bloomington. Thank you so much. Thank you. Hello. Hello. My name's Jessie.
I've lived in Bloomington for about six years, and most of what I want to say has already been said.
But I just think it's really important to preserve this very affordable housing that's in a really excellent
place in Bloomington. I mean, you don't have to have a car. You could walk to the grocery store across
the street. You can walk downtown. You can bike up and down the beeline. I just think that's really
important to think about. What are we prioritizing? Is it this affordable housing for people who don't
need to have cars, who can easily get around town, or is it
you know, a hotel that's going to have to be subsidized for its entire existence. Yeah, so I support
really not preserving the Seminary Point apartments. Thank you. All right. Any other takers for? Oh,
OK. Thank you for remembering.
Any other takers for anybody who hasn't had an opportunity to speak on items not on the agenda?
It's okay. Thank you for remembering. And as you all are doing that, I'm just gonna go back to teams
here to see if there is anybody else that would like to make comment for items on,
or make public comment for items not on the agenda. Raise your hand if you'd like to do so. All right.
Still seeing none. I'll pop back here one last time to see if there's anybody here that would like to
get their three minutes to speak here.
and seeing no more, we will move on. But before we move on, I just wanna say thank y'all for you all
to come out and speak. And I am going to ask my pro tem, Councilor Iverson to take over at this point
because T, I believe that you said, I actually wanna meet you out in the hallway to get some information.
So we will move on for here and I'll just pop out. So thank you.
We are going to move on. Before we move forward, and I want these folks to hear, is I'd like to hear
from our county attorney. Yeah. So that they have the ability to know who, the one of you asked who
has the ability to change this. So I'd like for our attorney to make sure we understand
That's actually a good point and so that's kind of another reason why I was going to try to pop out
here and get information because we all like you know the public is asking us and we need to be in the
know of making sure like we need to like
direct the question because in government, there's so many times that people get the run around. We've
got the run around when it came to the Thompson site and trying to figure out who's responsible for
what for the encampment that I want to remind people that's coming up around the corner here soon. April
is coming. So I think we deserve to know who's responsible for what. And I hate to put you on the spot,
but smile.
As far as whether the property is transferred out of county's name into a land trust or any other entity
that would require approval of both the commissioners and the council because the property is valued
over a thousand dollars.
In regards to whether the leases are renewed that would be a decision of the commissioners as the county
executives So the council would not have any way in on whether leases are extended or what happens with
the leases They would only have council would only have a way in on disposition of the property Yes,
yes, I'd like also to make it clear one of the reasons why this
was so delayed is because the city who removed the ability to place some of the development for the
Convention Center on some ground that they owed. And so this was a part of the delay and the confusion.
And believe me, I have a daughter going through the same thing right now. I spoke with Sarah just a
minute ago about that. So I understand.
you want to know and you want to have enough time to make decisions. But this ground was paid for, if
I recall correctly, with dollars that is tied to tourism dollars. And so that property must continue
to be used for that purpose. Now, if that's not correct, I hope somebody will correct us. But these
good people need to know whether or not
we could suddenly turn it over to Land Trust. I don't think we legally could do that, but then I'm not
a lawyer, so that's why I tried to get legal advice from others. But that property, all the property
that was paid for with a combination of innkeeper's tax, food and beverage tax, whatever, has requirements
set for it that I don't think we can just turn it over to Land Trust.
But if there's a way that somebody legally can figure that out, that's one thing. But they asked for
who the decision makers were. I do not believe it's the county council at this point. I think it would
be up to the board, the Convention and Visitors Bureau. It would be up to the commissioners. It would
be up to the people who represent the legal ownership of that property
and what we must use it for. So that's not an answer anybody wanted to hear, but I think it's better
to hear what we can and cannot do. So if we can do it, if you can find a way to do that, but I don't
think we do have. Sometimes it's following the laws, not much fun, but you know, that's what we have to do.
We would you like to respond to that? Counselor Hawk is correct. I do believe in keepers tax funds were
used for the properties and then there is statutory restrictions on what those funds can be used for
and I can look up the statute if you'd like right now, but I don't have it right in front of me. Well,
the question that I would have because somebody in their public comment made the comment about
the individual is Hugh, made the comment about a business being able to stay until February. But these
folks are having to be moved out as of July 1st. Who would be the decision maker who gets to stay, who
gets to say, rather, that the business gets to stay until February, but they got to go? The commissioners.
Ah, OK. Right. And when are the commissioners meetings?
I believe they have one this Thursday at 10 a.m. So, okay, yes, sure. All right, Councilor Decker. Call
me anything. Thanks for everyone that has come in here and spoken today. I not to try anything splashy
or anything. I've tried to get pretty solid answers on this, and I'm not getting solid answers.
I think if I'm not getting solid answers and the public's definitely not getting solid answers, particularly
the vested public, I think somebody at that decision-making board of commissioners, I think somebody
needs to come talk to individuals about this and also that there be parity on that between how we're
treating one affected individual and one affected business. This is what any human would expect given to them.
and the county doesn't need to add to misery or woe on this. But I am a little bit frustrated that I
hear, well, this, but I don't know about that, and if not about that. And when people want to live somewhere
or we're making a decision about it, how they're treated doesn't come down to a legal decision as much
as a safety. I mean, there's a whole ring of research on this, and I just think that
that the folks having those conversations with all these entities, the commissioners it sounds like,
that there needs to be a representative or somebody or them or whoever that is making this more clear
because I sitting here today, having made numerous inquiries on this, am not getting consistent straight
answers on this. And I get why people would be frustrated because I am too. I'm extremely.
I actually have a question that is probably best answered by an attorney. If you have an answer, Molly,
great. If not, I do understand that I'm just throwing out legal questions. The one question that I asked
when I did hear about this was,
whether or I guess why would we have to terminate leases just to transfer a property? I mean I've lived
in a property that ownership was transferred and the lease was transferred too. So why is that a thing
for this situation? It might just end up pushing, I get that it's just pushing the buck. Like the new
owner or it might make a
horrible decision for these folks. Or they might not. I don't see that we don't have all the information
either. But that was the question I asked a while back. And I can research it more. But I think that
would be indicative of both parties agreeing to the transfer of the lease. So if the new owner is not
willing to assume that responsibility, then
Council Henry and then Iverson next. Thank you Madam President again. Thank you for your public comment.
The only way we get sunshine on these things is to hear about them in this room. And so sometimes we
go down this path of revelation and I it is a one of many stories in the county government on how we
find out about stuff like this from across the hall. I have just the only information I can offer in
the room that I asked for today from county legal is that
My understanding is that the oldest lease is from 2019, one's from 2021, one's from 2022. I only thought,
and it may be the questions that one, if I were in your seats out there to bring to County Commission
on Thursday, would be to ask for all the documentation that's been allegedly communicated to you, because
what I'm being told at this point is that there has been communication to the lessors on an annual basis
about the nature of the lease. Now, if that's not,
your shared understanding, I think that's what I would like to know. And short of asking for documentation
in our packet of what these leases look like, so we have an understanding. If you don't have that shared
understanding, that would be my first question for all of you that you're to ask. And Ms. Turner, can
I just make it crystal clear on this, that the lease relationship is solely handled at the board.
But in theory even if the council had an interest in say preserving the land for other purposes We couldn't
issue new leases from here the property. It's there's the difference between the contract and the property,
correct? Correct. The leases would be the board of commissioners. So it sounds like Thursday It should
be an interesting day. But I mean I have information that says that that
The county, sorry, the way it was put is informed of the annual nature of the leases. So I don't know
what that term means, but there's clearly confusion at public comment about what the leases mean that
we just heard. I think that's just worth sharing what little I know at this point. I agree. Anybody
else that have any? Oh, sorry, I told you I was coming back to you. Sorry, Councillor Iverson.
with what we said here, and I've been very vocal about this, we need more housing in our community,
and the term affordable housing has been made absolutely meaningless by the inflationary nature of what's
been happening
And so we do need to have more housing in this community and it needs to be made available to folks
at a number of different income levels. I completely agree with what the commenters have been saying.
Now in what my understanding has been is that as folks have been notified of this change and a date
by which they needed to leave there has been
a number that folks can reach out to to seek advice on other areas of housing. Do we have, is that a
contract that the commissioners have? Do we have that number that we can display publicly in this meeting?
For folks who are really nervous about finding a place to go in July, can we at this time
that information? Ms. Muller-Turner-King, do you have that? Ms. Kimschel, do you have that? I don't
have the contact number. I do know that the county is working with Heading Home to create a list of
comparable properties and I think that's the number or the Heading Home contact that residents or tenants
had been provided and I can try to find that number but I don't have it really handy.
I would really encourage the county commissioners, and I know there's a couple that are watching here
today, you have robust, and I'm talking to the commissioners right now, you have robust social media.
Put this number out on your social media. There are people who are really scared right now and really
encourage you to get this information out there. Thank you. Madam President, I have a point of information
or question for the county. Mr. King, I think we talked about it,
And I remember in public reporting with CIB that the intention of the development was to move north.
I mean, that was the property the city was going to contribute. And so the process, the idea that the
southern parcels would be used any time soon, I think, was was not being considered. But with the city's.
The bunger property off off the menu for now, that that's the abrupt change that
perhaps triggered this communication to the current tenants? Because if we weren't using the property
many times soon, and then now the city has changed the position about how to go north on it. So I guess
what I'm really asking is, it seems like what there has been reporting, we weren't going to have a southern
movement of development, and now we are talking about those properties. Do we know if letters went out
to tenants
in the past few months on this that would have changed their perception about the nature of their leases?
I mean, or is it just July 3 is always the renewal date and it's just the options not being extended?
I'm not sure what letters or what information was communicated to the tenants. I mean, I'm happy to
check with the Commissioner's office. I just don't know that information. I know for settling that here
today, but I mean, clearly that's going to come up.
So thank you for indulging Yeah, well I Always like to say I'm shocked sometimes but it also doesn't
surprise me about the lack of communication because we don't yeah, I
I just, this is really frustrating, and I'm sorry that you all are having to see us process through
all of this at the same time, because we're also realizing all of this at the same time. So I just,
yeah, I don't know what else to say at this point.
So to kind of go back, Ms. Turner-King, and to kind of recap, basically what you're saying to us, we
the fiscal body, seven members of the county council, if we wanted to say, let's go with the land trust,
if that's what we, like, I'm just saying, just hypothetically speaking, if we wanted to do this, and
we didn't get the, like,
the green light or we would have to communicate that with the commissioners. Commissioners would have
to be in agreement with us, but ultimately they're in control of this. Is that what I'm hearing? I would
have to check whether transfer to a land trust would be applicable under the innkeeper's tax restrictions.
If it was an acceptable use of innkeeper's tax
Which I'm not saying it is because I have not looked up that law just to be clear Transferring the property
to a land trust require approval both the commissioners and the council Okay, but I'm still kind of
stuck on the fact that um a Business was okay with getting until February, but they were not I Just
want to know how that worked
I'm not saying that that's something that you, of course, can answer because you can't. But there are
folks that sit right behind us at 10 a.m. on Thursday that I'd like to have answered that as well. So,
yeah, so. OK, well, I'm still going to meet with you here, T, and I'm going to have Council Iverson
take over from here.
All right, that means we are moving on to section number five of tonight's agenda, which you can find
online, which is department updates. There will be a time limit of 10 minutes per Monroe County Department.
And I'm wondering if any of our department heads here in the NatU Hill Room or on Teams wishes to give
a department updates. Let's start with Bree Gregory, the Monroe County Auditor. Thank you, counsel.
Good evening. I just have a very brief update for you.
The financial team and I have submitted the AFR, that's the annual financial report. This is an annual
report available on the Indiana Gateway. It's available to the public. Because this AFR has been completed,
we were able to close the 2025 financials, and that means I will soon be able to provide you with a
reversion report, which will be very helpful with budgetary planning that we need soon.
Additionally it's reporting season for us. We are also working on completion of our gap report. So the
entire financial team contributes to this process. We work with an outside compiler as well and it's
kind of all hands on deck until we submit that end of May. So we'll keep you posted on progress related to that.
On the other side of my office, the property team is hard at work on finalizing the abstract for submission
to the DLGF, the Department of Local Government Finance.
The due date is coming up on the 15th here. So we've had a lot of statutory changes, as we're all aware.
So we've been working with vendors on LAO, for example, as our financial and property vendor. We've
been working with them on updates necessary in our software. We're also working with another outside
consultant on some TIF questions and changes.
But that will be completed shortly and submitted. Just for the public, the abstract is kind of like
a snapshot of 2025 payable, 2026 excessive values, TIFFs, and taxes. And then regarding taxes, the treasurer
is graciously allowing us to include
a little slip of paper for the public that will kind of describe all of the statutory changes that affect
taxpayers. We're also including contact information, so if they have further questions, they are welcome
to reach out for clarification. So, yeah, thank you. Thank you, Ms. Gregory. Are there any other departments
online or here in the NatU Hill Room? All right, I'm going to go
I saw a council member down here. First I'll go to my right and then I'll go to my left. I wanted to
comment on the auditor's report and congratulations for getting as far along as you have. But for us
to understand, that abstract is everything. And that is one of the things that our advisor from the AIC,
Jamie had suggested that we don't move forward with these plans to meet with the city and so forth having
to do with the changes from Senate Bill 1 from 2025 until we get further information and this abstract
was a big part
of that further information. So we're not ready right now, as we said today, to make any long-term plans
until we all understand what the abstract is going to tell us and the other figures that we put together.
We just simply would be making a huge mistake to be doing anything large right now because we don't
have the numbers. Boring as it may be. Thank you for that reminder. I saw Mr. Deckard next.
I was just going to ask the auditor, can we get a copy of that little slip that's going out? I think
it will be helpful for us to stay on the same page on the language we use as what you all that actually
have a counter and interactions with the public.
Absolutely. We just kind of finalized and had legal approved today, just the consolidation.
We had information that was too large to go with the tax bill. And we have the consolidated version
that I can send to you all later today, even during the meeting. Thank you. All right, Mr. Henry.
Thank you, Mr. President. So, Bree, if you can remind us how last year's opinion was on how well we're
doing with the
It generally accepted accounting principles or gap. There's an extra a in there. But would you mind
reminding us how great we are. I would love to share the county had an excellent audit no reportable
findings and we are in wonderful shape as far as our reporting. Sorry I got excited about gap with two
ways. Thank you very much. Anybody else want to nerd out. All right. Seeing no hands. Are there.
I'll go back here. Any other departments? Seeing none, let's move on to our consent agenda items. I'll
start with A, with the clerk's office. Mr. Deckard, would you mind reading the motion? Absolutely, Mr.
President. Council's reminder, this item was tabled from the February 24th council meeting. I move to
open for discussion and possible approval the clerk's request.
in Fund 1000 0001 County General Clerk to create a count line 16800 transitional temporary training
position. Second. We have a motion and a second and I think Kim Schell or Molly King you're going to
walk us through this. So this is a request that was originally presented at the last council meeting
at that meeting. The clerk's office was approved as an exemption to hire a new chief deputy
there was a question as to when the exiting chief deputies last day was. And so after the council meeting,
we were able to confirm that the exiting chief deputies last day will be March 27th and that there will
not be any cross training between incoming and exiting chief deputies. Excellent. Anything to add, Ms.
Kim Schell? No. All right. I think in that case, are there any questions from council I see down here, Ms. Hawk?
Yes, can you remind us, since the one that's exiting on March 27th, I think you said, when does the
new one start? Will that be starting like 28th or when? Unless the transitional training line is approved
by council today, the two people cannot be paid out of that same account line.
the incoming chief deputy would start on March 30th because the exiting chief deputy's last day is on
a Friday. So it would be the following Monday. Thank you very much. Any other questions, comments? Mr.
Henry. Thank you, Mr. President. I think given that this has been overcome by events a little bit, I
would recommend in motion that we table the item indefinitely. Second hearing a motion and a second.
Is there any further conversation?
public comment all right I think we need a we can do a voice vote on this can't we all right all those
in favor please say aye aye all those opposed the ayes have it unanimously all right we're gonna move
next into council business and we're gonna start with our technical services department mr. Greg Crone
can someone please read the motion
Council, I moved open for discussion and possible approval of the technical service department's request
to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire and fund one thousand zero one zero six county
general technical services, a part time sport technician position. Second. All right. And we have with
us Greg Crone, chief technology officer and director. It's a nice title. Tell us what's going on here.
Good evening, everyone. And I appreciate you taking the consideration and hearing me on my request.
So I won't read you the whole summary that I have here, but I will start out by explaining a little
bit what our part-time positions are responsible for. In our office, part-time does not mean half work.
They actually are performing the same duties that our full-time employees are expected to carry out.
Their primary focus is the day and night meeting coverage. One example is sitting above you right now
in the choir loft carrying out the meeting. When they are not covering meetings, they are expected to
with the other full time techs. They're building computers. They're deploying equipment. They're handling
themselves and conducting themselves in the same fashion. When we interview we actually expect the same
skill set and we only take those employees that show that same skill set as our full time employees.
In 2025 we were averaging 65 hours out of our full time staffing
But due to some personal changes for some of our staff and the availability of others, that number has
been reduced about 44 hours now. I'm merely seeking to recoup those 21 hours that we've lost in the
last several months. The funding is already there for the for those hours paid. Our part time money
comes out of one pool out of county general. So this wouldn't come at any additional cost to the county.
All right. Council, do we have any comments or questions? Mr. Cronin. Mr. Henry. Thank you, Mr. President,
and thank you, Greg, for coming in. As liaison to TSD, we had a good conversation about this, and really
it's one of those slow accumulation of things that get
You can kind of get behind, you know, in terms of what happens when you just don't have those hours.
Could you maybe describe a little bit what's happened in terms of anything that's been delayed in your
office as a result of having the extra part-time or is it just getting things, it's really spread thin
or can you help us understand that a little bit? Well, you should understand when part-time positions
aren't available to cover these meetings, that's pulling full-time staff off of that. The county has
over the years since I've taken over increased
staffing loads in other departments. So we've had an increased volume that we have to support. What
we're seeing is delayed response time, sometimes of a couple of days just because of availability of
staffing to do it. So that's created some issues for probation department. It's delayed computer setups
for voter edge by a few days, things like that. So we're seeing a buildup of that. You have to also
understand that my full time staff are required to do 24 seven on call rotations. So you have that
comp buildup. So whenever the part-time staff isn't available, we really feel that impact even greater
because then I'm out a full-time tech who's had to comp or flex out and I don't have the full-time people
to cover that difference. Thank you for sharing that.
Yes, due to the fact that so many of these hours are spent covering meetings, of course it wouldn't
be as many hours if our meetings didn't last so long, but also because every time you add another board
or commission, and by that I mean it's the ones that we choose to put together, not one that's required
by law, but if we choose to have a board or commission, whatever, and they meet here
or in one of the meeting rooms where we feel like we have to cover it with your staff and other staff.
And if it's after 5 o'clock, then there's other staff that has to cover it. So there's meeting rooms,
many available, if I understand correctly, at the library and other places where those different groups
could meet, and it would not
the county, the kind of money it costs to cover these different. So I think it would be good if we saw
a list of the commissions of boards that were required by law to cover, like the Board of Health and
those, and see if there's any way we can reduce some of the expenses. But that's not up to you to do.
That's up to the commissioners.
They're the ones who put together how many boards and commissions we're going to have. But just throwing
that out there is a suggestion as we're going through trying to make sure that we're working as most
cost effectively as we can. But in the meantime, you're stuck with what you're given. I would say many
of the boards and
It's been with the help of the commissioner's executive. We've reached out to some of the boards and
where they can self-support on these meetings, they have done so. We've given them training. We've given
them access. We've given them the ability to do it. So there's been a lot of work to try to reduce the
number that we are having to cover, absolutely. All right. Way down on the left here. So I'll just say
for the public record, I hear
Talk about the other location like the library, but they've had to cut back also their hours and open
times and they are open only now I think until 7 p.m. So if something goes past that that wouldn't be
a viable location either. I just want to get that out there Excellent point. All right, mr. Dickie one
thing I always appreciate thinking about when TSD comes in here is how much this all the
the things you all have to manage on behalf of the county that I'm not sure anybody in life picked those
things to come up, but technology, other things that change over time that now take more hours for you
all. I mean, I look in this room since 2019, even with the pandemic in there, the way this
room is configured, the way that all this is available, that we were able to literally take team's testimony
today, we once had Zoom testimony,
That is additional hours and services that we did not do that we currently do, and that the people in
this community truly value and expect. They want to be able to weigh in on that. And the other example
I always give, it's not necessarily tied directly to you, although I know you have to deal with it,
is the body cams. Any political stripe wants a body cam on an officer, a jailer, they want that
of all different beliefs, literally our predecessors did not have any of that consideration. That's
something that it all will evolve. Five, 10 years, it'll be something else and 25 more things. And we
know a couple of years ago, you were also dealing with external things I won't talk about, but these
things are just coming to it. So as people always want to talk about how we cut, cut, cut the demands of
society keep increasing, and we're only skimming past it. So it's just something that I think people
in our roles have to talk about, because back in the day when this all started, it was not like that
at all. But everything changes. People expect more, and you got to deal with more demands, too. So I
appreciate that.
My office has done very well. The staff in my office have been very diligent to try to find ways to
streamline processes, automate processes, do anything we can do to improve service without increasing
costs to the county government. So we're looking at every nook and cranny we can to try to find a way
to make things flow better, but there's only so much you can do. Councilmember Wilts. Yeah. I haven't
seen your department come up on the comp time reports that we get.
And so that says to me that you don't have comp time overage. But I'm not sure, like, can you tell me,
like, how would I know how much comp time you all have been using? Well, I can provide those numbers.
We do our best to keep everyone under the 40-hour cap. Now, we've had, have been contacted by HR that
we've got people coming, going over that 40-hour mark. So that's where we keep,
I've even put myself on the on-call rotation to take some of my staff. Otherwise, they'd be on call
every third week for my full-time people. So to try to give them some breathing room and lower that
comp time, I've picked up an on-call rotation myself. So they're flexing out, they're comping out, and
we just keep getting a little bit further behind with our tickets and things because we're trying to
cover that and stay under that 40-hour comp time limit.
just so you know, you're only seeing reports of departments where they're over the 40 hours. So if they're
staying under, then you're not gonna see that. We blade around a lot with that. All right, any other
comments or questions? And let's see, do we do public comment on hiring freeze? Yeah, is there any public comment?
I don't see any on teams, none in and at U-Hill. In that case, can we please have a roll call vote?
Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Filion? Yes. Councillor Wilts? Yes. Councillor Hogg? Yes. Councillor
Henry? Yes. Councillor Deckard? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. It's very much appreciated.
We'll see you up in the loft. All right. Next, we have a slew of highway department items. Let's go
ahead and start with. Sorry. I'm sorry. We moved the probation. Sorry. We amended the agenda. I'm sorry.
I wasn't here for the beginning. That's my fault. Are then moving to the probation department, which
is item number H.
As Council I move to approve the Probation Department's request and fund 81609626 Justice Partner SIM
93.788 for the creation of account lines 30006 Contractual Services and 30028 Training Travel
and simultaneously approve an additional appropriation of $40,000 in the services category.
Second. We have a motion and a second. Mr. Anthony Williams here with us today. Tell us what we need
to know. Thank you. I think many of you are aware that we've been receiving a grant from the Indiana
Office of Court Services since around 2019 to provide some services. Over the last few years we've been
bringing Centerstone into our office.
to complete intakes with our clients, whether than sending them off to Centerstone. That helps increase
the attendance rate on that. So we're continuing to do that. This year, they did reduce the amount of
funds that we are receiving, but we're grateful that we're still getting some funds. We have $30,000
to continue to pay Centerstone. They've been gracious to continue doing this project while we awaited
the grant money. And then we have an additional $10,000
to spend in travel and training to help save in some of the other budgets and spending. Great. This
sounds wonderful. Are there any comments or questions from council going over to my right? Yes. When
I was going over these numbers, I was trying to figure out that it said that there was no matching dollars
and that you received 30,000, but you're asking to spend 40,000.
So where did the other 10,000, what fund did the other 10,000 come from? So there's 40,000 total, 30,000
of that is in contractual and 10,000 is in travel training. Oh, then what we have here is incorrect.
I have it correct on my sheet. It says, I mean, read it.
says in no circuit court received $30,000 in grant funding. And so then when I looked at it, it says,
OK, but you want to spend $40,000. So I wondered if maybe the $10,000 was dollars left over, or did
you really receive $40,000? No, I think maybe there's just a typo in the summary section. It's a typo
in the summary, yes. Yeah, it just was omitted from the narrative.
And in the request for the creation of new count lines, the math is correct It does show the $30,000
in contractual $10,000 returning travel in the packet and that is on page 103 And point information,
please understand there's a difference when when When it says that you're receiving 30
And you must spend 40 and I would have liked to have been told that this was a mistake and it would
save me a great deal of time today. Thank you very much. All right. We're recognizing Mr. Deckard, please.
So the point of information just for the public watching the packet was
item or lines 3006 contractual services, $30,000 as a new account line. And then also line 30028 training
travel, $10,000 for a total appropriation of 40,000. And then my motion I read also matches that for
the creation of account line 3006 contractual services and 30028 training travel.
and simultaneously approve an additional appropriation of $40,000 in the services category. Thank you,
Mr. Decker. And Ms. Kim Schell, would you like to weigh in quickly? Yes. So yes, the narrative, Anthony
says $30,000, but the, if you can look on the screen, do what I asked it to do. One moment. Say this again.
So on the screen, you have 30,000 and 10,000. So what is correct? 40,000. 40,000 is correct, with 30,000
being contractual, 10,000 being training travel. Correct. Thank you. All right, Ms. Kate Wilts. So the
entire grant is 40,000. Correct. Thank you. Ms. Kate Wilts. No wonder. Okay, I think I understand now.
I just want to reiterate, what's in our packet is an MOU for that 30,000. We don't have documentation
of the actual award, which is fine as long as it's gone through the right channels to arrive here in
front of us. But I think that's where the confusion kind of came. But it is legit, according to y'all.
that there's a $40,000 award. Our auditor is raising her hand. And I will recognize Ms. Brie Gregory.
Thank you. Could you please confirm there's been a completed grant contract? Yes, there have seen it
come through. I just want to confirm the money's already came through as well. OK, I see the account
has a $20,000 balance of the rest is reimbursable, right? Correct. All right. And does anybody have
last minute clarifications on this? All right.
We'll then go to the public. Do you have any questions or comments on this agenda item? Seeing none,
we welcome Councilmember Crossley back to us. All right. I think this can we then have a roll call vote?
Can I just one clarification from Ms. Gregory? There's a $20,000 balance because they only drop the money in
So the additional money will come later. It's not necessarily reimbursable. That makes sense. I knew
there was a another piece missing. OK, we've got a motion, a second public comment. Council questions.
Can we have that vote? Yes. Councillor Crossley, would you like to vote on this idea? Cause I did my
homework on this and so I'm going to say yes. Thank you. You're welcome.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. All right. I'm backing in like
a bad sequel. Okay. Next up is item B, which will be a lot of items from the highway department.
Council I move to approve the Highway Department's request for the creation of a new account line 31255
sample road in fund 1169-0000 local road and streets. Second. All right and Ms. Ridge you're in for
a marathon so welcome. What can you tell us about this? This is actually we're going to have some costs
possibly to finish out this project so and that
there's a chance that it will not be some of the change orders will not be participating items that
would be reimbursement through the grant. So we're creating the line in the local road and streets and
we'll be able to pay those costs out of that fund. Thank you very much. I'm looking to my colleagues
here to see if anybody has any questions or comments on this item.
All right, and so we'll go to public comment. If there's public comment, you can come forward to the
lectern here in the room or raise your hand via Teams. And seeing none, Councilor Iverson, thank you
for taking over while I was out. My pleasure. We could do a voice vote. You can do a voice vote because
this is a new account line only. Oh, that's right. Okay. So all those in favor of approving this item
as presented signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign.
Okay. Motion carries. Next up item C. Council, I want to note for the record that the fund on the agenda
is incorrect for the request submitted by the department, which can be found in the packet. Therefore,
I move to open for discussion and possible approval by the highway department's request to be exempt
from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire in fund 1197-0000 stormwater management two part-time
intern positions.
Ms. Ridge. So we have been participating in this program for many years now. We usually have the interns
from May to August when school starts. They will be no more than the 28 hours a week that is allowed
at $18 per hour. I attached a brief job description of what we post, of what some of the duties are,
updating our counties,
online permitting portal, open gov, assisting with implementation of countywide storm drain marking
program, water quality monitoring, updating public education and outreach materials. So they're just
great assistance to the full-time staff in the department. So we're just requesting to participate in
that program and hire the two part-time interns for the summer. Okay. Thank you. Questions or comments
from council on this item?
Yes, I'm happy to support this for this year, but we have to keep a close eye on this budget because
we know if portions of this county is no longer if it joins another municipality, we will not have the
revenue from that. As a reminder, the revenue for storm water comes only from those
properties that sit outside of municipalities. So we would not receive that stormwater. So we want to
make sure that we're not trying to do any of the stormwater projects inside the city or any
other municipality, which would be Ellitsville, because they have their own way of providing for that,
and they charge it in a different way. Ours is charged through the tax system. It's not a tax.
really, but we have to put it on the tax bills because that's our only method of charging the folks
since we don't operate utilities. Just as a reminder, if we start losing any major portion of where
that revenue comes from, then this revenue would not
and we would always look at that. This is just two part time, so it's nothing that's permanent. So if
we have to make adjustments in the future, we will do so. Are there any other, excuse me, questions
or comments from council on this item? All right. Seeing none, we'll move on to public comment. If there's
public comment on this item, you can raise your hand via Teams or come forward to the lectern here in
the room. And seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote?
Councillor Hawke? Yes. Councillor Wilk? Yes. Councillor Henry? Yes. Councillor Decker? Yes. Councillor
Cross? Yes. Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. All right. Next
up are items D and E.
Council, I will be combining items D and E into one motion. I move to approve the Highway Department's
request and fund 8168-0000.
2022 to 2025 bridge inspection to approve an additional appropriation of $42,669.19 in the services
category and simultaneously approve a fund to fund transfer of cash of $8,534 from fund 1135-0000 cumulative
bridge to fund 8168-0000 2022 to 2025 bridge inspection.
So we are wrapping up our 2022 to 2025 bridge inspections. We're appropriating what's left on the contract,
not that we will be spending the full amount and then the cash to cash transfer is our 20% of our local
responsibility to finish out those bridge inspections. Okay. Thank you for that. Any questions or comments
from council on this item?
Seeing none, we'll move on to public comment. You can raise your hand via Teams or come forward to the
lectern here in the room. Seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councillor Henry? Yes. Councillor
Deckard? Yes. Councillor Crosby? Yes. Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes. Councillor Hawke? Yes.
Yes. Motion passes unanimous. All right. Item F. Council, I'll be combining items F and G into one motion.
Therefore, I move to approve the Highway Department's request and fund 9106-0000 community crossing
grant program or CCMG to create a count line three zero zero zero six contractual services and simultaneously
approve an additional appropriation of one million dollars in the services category.
Plus a fund to fund transfer of cash of $1 million from fund 1112-0530 economic development lit highway
to fund 9106-0000CCMG. Second. Okay. Would you like to tell us about this one? So this is part of the
CCMG grant. It's moving over everything into that grant fund. So it is good.
easy for tracking. We did just receive the million dollars from in dot this week. So I think it's on
the April meeting I just turned in to come and appropriate that million to put it into the line. The
projects have already been awarded to a contractor. We're prepping the roads so we're ready to go as
soon as the plants open to release the roads and get the work done. Congratulations. All right. Any
other questions or comments from council on this item.
none. We will move on to public comment. If there's public comment, you can entertain us by doing so
by raising your hand via Teams or coming forward to the lectern here in the room. And seeing none, maybe
please have a roll call vote. Councillor Crossley? Yes. Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes.
Councillor Hawke? Yes.
Yes. Councillor Henry. Yes. Councillor Deckard. Yes. Motion passes unanimous. All right. Thank you.
May I ask the question? It's on an item back, but it's about what was in our packet. Sure. So I think
this is neither here nor there, but in the packet you have the inspection contract, which I'm
Guessing is almost concluded, is that right? Is it almost complete? Yeah. Yeah, so the remainder of
that is that $42,000. It's a four-year contract. We are required to do a four-year cycle on
bridge inspections. So this, go ahead. There's a significant typo in the contract itself, but if it's
a contract term, it probably doesn't
It just has the wrong county at one point, not obviously up top. And maybe I pulled it, maybe it was
corrected after that. I think our financial manager had put this together and it could have been a contract
overlap and we had it corrected. I can double check though too. It's page 12 of the 15 of the contract.
I just wanted to make sure that you were aware, but I couldn't tell. I don't know. It might not happen.
All right. Any other questions or comments for Ms. Ridge before she leaves? Okay. Yes, Ms. Hall. Yes.
And I'm only mentioning this to you now since you'll probably be leaving and not hearing the discussion
about the jail, et cetera.
But just for you to know, and some of the information you sent to me, and I started looking some things
up, what Allen County did, when we're saying, well, look, what Allen County did, whatever, they took
away, they took away their Cunebridge fund and used the money that would have come in to Cunebridge
and put it to their jail project.
because a court said they had to build something. And then they tied all those expenses that would normally
be paid from Kuhn Bridge over into Major Bridge. Now, that's a part of the legislation that was all
tied to Allen County. But we have to recognize when we say, oh, well, look, Allen County did it and
whatever, but not saying how they did it to hurt the rest of the departments.
I wanted you to hear that now. I didn't want you to hear it from me later. I didn't want you to hear
it by accident. We have discussed, there's only approximately, I believe, six to eight counties in the
state of Indiana that have a major bridge fund that meet the criteria to have a major bridge fund. We
started out with six bridges over that 200 foot length. Now we will probably have
at least 10 bridges of that length in the next four years. We have, I think, two of them under design.
It would be great if the restriction was moved for all those six counties to meet and be able to use
those funds like Allen County. How you have to get that through legislative, I'm not. That's way out
of my realm. But do what I support that? Absolutely, I would support it. Bridges get expensive.
more expensive every single day to maintain. I don't think the funds should be tied just to the length
of the bridge. I think it should be available to be used to make all your bridges safe for the traveling
public, whether it be major bridge or cum bridge. And again, the cost and what DNR requires you on the
length of bridges to be built in certain areas, that plays a big factor into that.
I am aware of the Allen Allen County and that, but I don't know how to get that restriction moved off
there. So I think that we should work with the state to make sure that we're using that major bridge
revenue to its highest and best use. And if there's more dollars there right now, you can only use that
outside of Allen County in the construction of a of a new bridge. You cannot use it for anything that's
overhead or anything.
towards anything else. It just has to be for construction. So it's very restricted fun. The reason we
had this conversation to begin with was because one of the positions that needs to be paid for, for
the highway department, I was trying to see
Could we perhaps get it out of that major bridge fund? And by the way, for everybody who thinks I hate
new taxes, guess who did the research to get the major bridge fund to begin with? We used to call it
the Marty Hawk tax on the people of this county. But I'm telling you, everybody who lives in this county
will eventually go across bridges. And our school buses do, and so forth. So we have to have safe bridges.
and grateful for the leadership we have in our highway department to make sure we're all staying as
safe as we can. Of course. And on that note, we are going to give you back your time so you can go forth
in the evening. Thank you, Miss Ridge. All right. Next up, we are going to jump back. We move. We've
already done item H. And so next up is item I with the board of commissioners.
Council I move to approve the commissioner's request and fund that forty nine thirty two dash zero zero
zero zero food and beverage tax county to create a count line for two five zero two parks dash improvements
and simultaneously approve an additional appropriation of nine hundred and five thousand dollars in
the capital category.
Okay, we got a motion and a second. We are joined here by Ms. Kelly Whitmer and virtually Ms.
Angie Purdy. Welcome. Thank you. This is the commissioner's line, so if Angie needs to speak, I'm just
here to answer any questions that are in my area. Okay, Ms. Purdy, proceed.
All right, thank you. This is kind of a housekeeping, if you will, type situation from last year during
the whole bond process and trying to determine the best use of county funds for the various projects
that needed to be completed. And at that time it was agreed by, I believe, both boards that the food
and beverage funds would be the, you know,
There's not been a word out of that dog all night. I'm sorry till I start talking. Um, and so this is
just to help ensure, um, Kelly's able to do what she needs to do with her, um, with the, with the nature
preserve. All right. Is that it? Okay. All right. Um,
And I'm gonna look to my colleagues here to see if anybody has questions. Councilor Iverson has his
hand raised first, so proceed. This is a question for Ms. Whitmer, as I'm pecking towards you that no
one else can see. I don't know what I'm doing. It says in the narrative here that the Monroe County
Parks and Recreation Department will act as a general contractor and provide labor with the engineering
firm. And so my question to you is, what is the timeline of all of this?
pending the approval, what can the public be expected to see out there? My question is more about the
timeline and when things are going to get going. Our goal is to have it open to the public next year.
What month? I don't know. We have a very important meeting with NDOT in a few weeks and that will determine
where our entrance is going and that will determine how fast we can go. But our staff is ready to go.
We have everything lined up as soon as
Hopefully you approve this. And we are going to move as fast as we possibly can. And we have our engineer
on board. We'll go through planning and building and storm water and get all of our permits. And we
will move fast. Good to hear. Thank you. Yes, DGH. Madam P.
Kelly, can you maybe just remind me how the selection process for the firm works? So BRCJ, is that a
contract that supports the entire parks department or were they selected for the nature reserve? How
does that work?
Has all of our maps and all of our engineering for all of our parks So it makes sense to us to continue
working with them. They have given us Extremely good service at a very reasonable price As I would say
I can't afford Lisa ridges Engineers, so this is a local group who uses our parks So they care deeply
about what they do and sometimes they've worked for free so
We can't do better. We really can't. Thanks for sharing that. I appreciate it. Yes, Councillor. Yes,
of course, the folks are not here now, but the ones who were here earlier, very upset that some other
friends were being told they had to be out by a certain time frame. And we know
that the same thing has happened here on this property where a lovely couple who'd lived there in that
house for so long and they were told, you know, it's time for you to move on. Just as a reminder, that's
not a decision the county council makes. So I just wanted to bring it back to how we started the meeting
and where we are now. So, and to be clear,
We cannot, because of the way we accepted the ground, we cannot build low income housing, affordable
housing there. We can't turn it over to a land trust to build housing. I want to make sure that I'm
repeating that correctly. That's correct. Thank you. Yes, Councillor Wilts. I'm interested in the ways
in which you've been working with
other entities both in the county and external to kind of bring in all kinds of expertise on this because
I've heard snippets here and there. And anyway, if you could just enlighten us. We are so excited that
we're working with Monroe County Soil and Water, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife, the U.S. Department of
Agriculture, the Indiana Department of Agriculture, Purdue University, the watershed for Monroe County,
Clear Creek, and
We call her the pheasant and quail gal. I can't remember what organization she's with. But we all meet
every two weeks, and we are going forward with an absolutely gorgeous, beautiful plan that will bring
tourism to this particular park. We'll be having prairies, trees, wildflowers, some cover crops.
things that we actually don't have in this community. And we also will show things of like how farming
was done and talk about corn and beans. And we're really melting it in to nice to the community. And
all these people who are helping us with all these expertise plans, it's all free.
And we are so excited because what this is going to give the community in the future will be drop dead
gorgeous. And it's not like any of the other parks or places, Pain Town, it's not going to be like any
of that. It's going to be our own little goose pond without the pond. So, you know, we want color.
We want beautiful things out there that people can see. We will have wildlife like you wouldn't believe.
Wild turkeys and deer and every little creature that you can think of lives on this 400 acres. So it
will be unique because it's right next to the city of Bloomington. You know how fortunate that is? It's
not yonder, it's right here.
that you can go into a different world and experience with your family and your kids and come back and
go home and probably talk about what you saw out there. So it takes time, but we have a great plan and
we're going to work the plan. You know, we're also coming with money to help us. I mean, they're like,
they're so excited because they've never had 400 acres to work
Usually it's like five acres, 10 acres. So they're like, this is special. This will be for decades,
will be for generations to come. So Nancy Huntington, who owned the land, she just had one provision,
recreational purposes. That's it. So no condominiums, no apartments, no this or that, recreation. So
a lot of trails.
going to have what I call an ADA patio where if you don't have mobility, I want you to be able to get
on this patio, you know, to have and look at the birds and everything. You can do everything your family
can do. If you can't move around, you'll have some beautiful place to sit and look at everything. So,
you know, we're very conscientious about that to make sure it is enjoyed by people of all abilities.
So I really like this plan a whole lot. And so I intend to take my family there when it arises. But
I also wanted to know, you mentioned 400 acres. I wanted to know if the whole 400 acres is dedicated
to this, or what portion would be dedicated to this whole morphing of it? The whole what? The whole
turning into whatever this is going to be. Is it the whole 400 acres? The whole 409 acres. Great.
Thank you. And there's already an established woods there. That's a very healthy woods.
Oh yeah, the whole, every inch of it. Thank you. Any other questions or comments from council? I'll
go to Councilor Decker and then I'll turn back to Councilor Hawke. I'll be quick, Councilor Hawke. Sometimes
I pick up from constituents an interest in trailage that matches what we see on the west side, kind
of over on the east side. Councilor Iverson probably could write a book on that.
Do you ever see a time way down the lane, I suspect, where that might be a source of heading into that
property, where trails might coming from the nearby community, nearby area, similar to what we see out
like at Karst? Like trails connecting to the preserve? Oh, yes, I'm glad you asked about that. NDOT
has a property from Brewster's Ice Cream to this property. We already have another sidewalk.
right at our property border that we will hook up to. And then we'll, by Hyde Park, there's also a trail
there that we're going to probably hook up to. So you can walk into this park from four different directions,
most likely. You don't have to bring a car. You know, you don't have to have a bike. You can walk in.
So very fortunate. I think that's a, just my little
opinion and 25 cents will get you not much. I think that is a message that people should hear out there
on this property because they're getting it in their head for the first time whereas something like
cars we've lived with all our lives so we see that and I just think it's awesome. So thanks. And this
is different. I can't emphasize how different this is going to be. You have me at Brewster's. All right.
As a reminder, I mentioned this briefly at the last council meeting. But who knows? Might be somebody
else listening. Our next thing we're going to be talking about is money coming out of the economic
development tax, which is the same thing as it's coming out of the county general. And that has to do
with transportation.
State Representative Peggy Mayfield had worked on legislation to encourage the use of this food and
beverage tax, the portion of it that would have been collected in the town of Ellsville, would go to
the town of Ellsville for which they could use it for transportation projects. And the county commissioners
refused, refused to
accept that or support it in any way, they just said no. And so I just, I mean, there's ways we can
work better together than we did. And so I'm just saying, I know that this park, that's lovely, the
parks are lovely, but rural transit would have also been a great thing to assist with that food and
beverage money.
and we did not get any support from across the hall. All right, is there any other questions or comments
on this item? Yes, Councilor Pio. So just one other question about what will be at the facility itself.
Will there be like benches to kind of sit and relax if you want to do that and enjoy the space? Yes.
Okay, all throughout the space or? Yes, we've actually bought 40
benches from Penitentiary I think I remember it's the suicide prevention. Well, yes, we liked them so
much we put in another order of 40 Okay, so there's gonna be so many trails We will be putting benches
around. Thank you. And like I said, there's gonna be an ADA patio. That's You can do a lot there
on. We'll move on to public comment. If there's public comment on this item, you can come forward to
the lectern here in the Nattie Hill room or raise your hand via Teams. And seeing none, maybe please
have a roll call vote. Councillor Fiddle? Yes. Councillor Hawk? Yes. Councillor Wilts? Yes. Councillor
Henry? Yes.
Yes. Councillor Crossley. Yes. Councillor Iverson. Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Thank you. All right.
Thank you. Next up is item J.
Council, I move to approve the Council's office's request and fund 1112-0068 Economic Development Lit
Commissioners to create a count line 33113, Bloomington Transit Line 13, and simultaneously approve
an additional appropriation of $195,000 in the services category. Second. All right. And we still have
Ms. Purgey from or sorry.
Ms. Purdy from the commissioner's office and then Michelle as well. So one of you ladies will be able
to take it away. I'll go ahead and start. It was mentioned at the last council meeting maybe February
10th or somewhere along through there to have this amount advertised to be brought forth to the council
for approval. So the amount
that I discussed originally with the Commissioner's office was 195,000. Ms. Herdy has sent me an email
and that amount needs to be adjusted to 184,104. Yes, Councillor Iverson, sorry.
Council, I move to amend my agenda to that number $184,104. Okay. Proceed. Is it appropriate to ask
why now? Why would that need to change? Angie, can you answer that? I think it's due to the interlocal
or something. I'm not sure what the question is.
So what is the, so from 195 to 184, is that the question? Can you give me? Just in general, right? I
think there might've been some feedback and so I don't know if she was able to hear. Yes, that was the question.
question why from 195 to 184 something it's not unusual for us to do that kind of situation we don't
know the amount so we did not know the amount of the so just everybody wants to advertise high so that
it's covered
So this is the actual amount then what's being asked to change now? Yes, that is on the new interlocal
that will be heard by the commissioners on Thursday. And I see the auditor has her hand up. But I think
my understanding is you always want to advertise higher because in the event that we do get the official
number, therefore,
Like if we advertise at a lower rate, we wouldn't be able to discuss it. And we'd have to have, what,
like 10 days for this to have to be advertised if we got the rate. So I'm still going to go, oh,
look at me. I'm learning. You're learning. Oh, no. OK. Anybody? Yes. Councilor, I'm so sorry. So for
those of us on the east side who don't pay a lot of attention to west side bus routes, what, guys, Dave
just left us weird, what
Can someone please explain to me that the reason why this is coming to the council office now and the
budget, the packet information only suggests that this needs to support the continuation of the transit
line. So is this money supporting the continuation for a year? Is it supporting it for five years? What
exactly are we approving today?
This is a one-year interlocal agreement. And my understanding is why it's coming here is despite numerous
conversations, I know that the commissioners tried to bring it up during the budget session that council
needed to consider the appropriation of funds for this particular route. I know there was something
in December on the council's agenda got removed after
rural transit received their funding that they needed from the state. And I think also given the fact
that there was no point in getting appropriation for the Bloomington Transit in December of 2025, because
we just have to come back in in 2026. And so I believe that my understanding is Mr. Thomas and Council
Member Trent
have been involved in these communications with Bloomington Transit. And this is a continuation of last
year's program for line 13. Yeah, I agree with the assessment that was given there on this. And I think
where this got problematic is that we just didn't have it
budget time, and then the Council's not kind of used to scheduling that sort of a scheduling that sort
of an appropriation out for something like this that's not coming from the department. And probably
that's a lesson moving forward that it just always needs to be coming from the department because we
will miss the gaps, the cues or
Bloomington Transit communicated very clearly we have to be paid to run a line that you all support
That's when we've gone to work here to offer this remedy and get this reinstated I will say also I have
heard from several different constituency groups about the importance on this I communicated that a
little bit last time that we talked about it, but I've always said this that
what we're doing on transportation in this community is probably not really gonna go backwards, meaning
that needs that you have, particularly for that west side life sciences corridor, the west side IV tech
location, all of this is probably not going backwards. And even for Councilor Iverson in the east side,
people have to keep their eyes to these things
as everything changes with how things are funded, et cetera, because again, our constituents are looking
for ways to get to work. And as we heard from a constituent, or at least I did in particular on this
route, this is something that they rely on and ridership increases over time when something becomes
reliable. So I wanted to kind of add that to that discussion. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, Councilor Henry.
Thank you, Madam President.
Well, I find that to be clear as mud. So maybe there's some things that were obvious to some folks at
the table here over the past six months, but I don't have that narrative in front of me. What I understand
was during the October budget process, I believe a comment was made at the table during the commissioner's
presentation that we may need to address this. Of course, that presentation occurred at a time when
we were not
considering the economic development lit for any funding of anything, it would have been a general fund
at that point, contribution at least. And then the next I heard about it was in our February 10th meeting.
And so to the extent that there were conversations going on that were not shared with the totality of
the body or the public, it puts us in that place where we
We're doing transportation policy by firefighting where, you know, a bus line is going to run out of
funding. We have only so many meetings to meet to decide how we're going to fund it. And, you know,
I got to say, I mean, we do fund other things through the commissioner's office. So I guess my question,
as I'm prefacing here, is this account line as part of the economic development, is it being, is this,
is the owner of the,
Relationship in the board of commissioners office the same way. We'd have a center stone contract or
something else at this point Like who's the owner like is it is it the board of commissioners? Okay,
that would have been the presentation we ought to have had in October or November or December or January
or February, okay I'll yield back in a moment You know, I mean I support the goal We got a patch where
we got a patch, but I think to counselor Hawks comment earlier It's an inconsistent message to the county
about how we're doing regional transit
And I do think of the town of Ellsville who had a similar issue with rural transit where the county
went to Ellsville and said we need a 60 40 match in order to continue your line. And now we're offering
100 percent funding for the route 13 line. I don't really care about the particulars of it. It's how
we're building a regional transit approach. So
If this is a short-term fix, great. We all know that it has a lifetime, a short lifetime as well. It's
about the same time the ARPA funding was frankly at this point. So we're going to be back here in a
few years trying to figure out how to do a long-term sustainable regional transit approach. Sounds to
me like that might belong to the MPO or the Metropolitan Planning Organization as a home.
I mean of course we're going to support people to get to their work. Of course we're going to support
the public trying to rely on public bus services that they're building into their lives. But the process
is important to protect the public so they know that the bus is literally going to run on time month
after month year after year. So I mean so I don't I don't think it's fair to say well this is known
to the public or this was a known thing. And clearly we don't have a regional transit approach so we're
approaching it. But it sounds like we need to start working on that.
That's my opening thoughts on that matter, President. Okay. Councillor Wilks. Yeah, I want to say that
the timeline from budget sessions in the fall through now, I agree. We heard briefly, didn't know, but
we're working with a lot of moving parts here, and I guess
I'm really excited that we're able to just help facilitate the continuing public transit in this part
of the county that is critical to our economic development right now and frankly has been discussed
in the public and by the public for years. I mean this has been in the works for
almost a decade at least that I've been involved. So I, you know, I was not privy to any conversations
that brought this agenda item to us this evening, but I'm thankful that it was here and I appreciate
those who were in those conversations and I'm happy to support this. I agree that we have a lot of work
to do in being strategic about our regional
public transit. Agreed. Okay. All right. Yes, Councillor Hawke. Yes. Can you tell us, tell the public
what it is we're getting for our money? Do you have a map to show us exactly where this line is? Is
it where we thought it was before? Is it coming back and going down Vernal? I mean, is it going out
and then back and then
Coming back out Vernal, where is the map for? It's on their website, Councilor Hotpoint information.
This is not a new route. I want to see it here. I'm not going to be looking at that. Do you have your
computer? It's on the left. But what I would like to suggest is that in future, that we take a look
at the different groups that will benefit by this. If I was looking at a map, I might be able to tell
you which ones.
For instance, the larger residential areas, apartment buildings, something where maybe they want to
assist, or maybe even with some of the nursing homes that's out that direction, maybe Ivy Tech, so that
there'd be a consortium of folks who might want to assist with this.
because this is actually just saying this is coming out of County General because we know it's all going
to be melded together before we get turned around. There is special money set aside unless, you know,
unless changes were made. But this is last minute changes, by the way, of what we thought we were doing
with the DLJF bill. But at that point, too,
that was supposed to, one of the things we could cover with that was assistance for Bloomington Transit.
So we don't know what's gonna happen with that, but there's really not gonna be money available for
that for, what, two, three years? So we need to figure out how we're gonna get from point A to point
B. And so, I mean, I want to make sure that
as we continue to grow the need for it. And people know they can rely on it. So then they won't be thinking
about, well, I have to have two cars because my partner's going one direction, the other one another
for their family. So I think it's something that we need to try. But I do not think it should be for
more than one year.
And then we'll see where we are with the rest of our revenue. What can we afford to do? Because as the
commissioners keep trying to push us, make a decision, make a decision about the jail, and yet this
is a part of the money. They want to spend a couple hundred thousand dollars a year. It's like, what
is it you want? Oh, you want it all. I get that. I want it all, too.
So a couple of things, and I see hands raised, and so I'll go to Councilor Decker, and I see the auditor
has her hands up. One, from my understanding, and reading the packet, and I thought it was mentioned,
this is just a one-year term. So this isn't a multi-year, this is just a one-year, and this is something
that we could talk about, too.
The other thing is from my understanding and looking at the Bloomington Transit website, nothing has
changed with this route. So there's nothing new or nefarious or anything with that. It's the same route.
Bloomington Transit dot com and I believe it is route 13 that it is. And again, thankful as a mom of
a child who goes to Ivy Tech.
This is another thing if she doesn't have her parents car that she could go to one of these stops in
and going over to the west side. So I'll go to Councilor Decker and then I'll circle back to the auditor.
I appreciate the opportunity to bring us back to the public good and talk about this route. And I just
want to note this is the second year of this route and this is a one year appropriation.
for this, so let's take this. If we were taking, let's say we're downtown at our transit center, and
I'm not able to share my screen because I'm not hooked up for that, but if someone on the bench over
there wants to do it, it's fine, I'll walk you through it. So this route departs from the transit center
and it goes to Walnut Street and 14th Street here in Bloomington. It then goes to its next stop at Will
Detmer Park before heading on
past that to Ivy Tech, which is located on the west side, of course. It goes then to Simtra at Curry
Pike, an employer that we've worked with here a couple of times, I think, at least, then on to Garden
Hill at Vernal Pike, then goes to 17th Street and Lismore Drive before heading to College Avenue and
11th Street and then back at the Transit Center. Now, if there's any change to that, Transit would need
to speak to that.
I'd heard some rumblings about some tightening on it, but that is literally the route. I saw the Ivy
Tech Chancellor today. He wanted to encourage this council to support this. My understanding is that
some of the life sciences employers also are greatly concerned about it. And I've spent the better part
of two to three weeks trying to calm fears on that. And I would really urge all counselors in their
dialogue and in their discussions
about this issue and a lot of others, let's try to return maybe, maybe, I don't know, maybe it's not
time, but to calming the public around resources and trying to direct them to them with information.
And so this one is, this area is well known, there's more TIFs out there than you could shake a stick
at, and the focus of this county has been off and on for 20 years there. Some of us think we need to
get back to that area.
Thank you. Ms. Gregory? President Crosley, you once again covered my notes, so thank you. Sorry.
All right. Any other? Yes, Councillor Henry. Thank you. I guess the question I have then moving forward
is so the cost model for Bloomington 13 moving forward is going to be 100% funding, I guess, for this fiscal.
this council were asked to consider reviving, like if I were in the town of Ellsville right now and
I wasn't calm but concerned that we didn't have that offer of 100% funding, are we pursuing other cost
models for other modes of transit, urban to urban, urban to rural, outside of the city limit? Now I'm
asking it to the ether, but if Ms. Purdy, is it still on,
I mean, what prevents us from reconsidering funding rural transit at the same 100% that's being asked
to do here out of economic development? Do you see any obstacle to that? Well, the fact that they don't
need it because they're being funded from INDOT. Sure. And they negate that need. So after rural transit,
Eltsville couldn't afford the match. They went to attempted legislation.
And then got a grant from the state so they couldn't rely on their home county in the same generous
way. So my concern is equity across the county for for.
transit outside of limits. And this is why, again, I think it's a competence question, and I get calm
when I know things are working well. And so I think our community deserves that conversation, that we
can handle the big boy conversations of this table, frankly. But my concern here is that we have a community
that was told one thing two years ago about how to fund transit, and we are working on this solution
here. And of course, again, I'm very much for keeping the Ivy Tech line running. I'm just trying to
work on how we get to a place where there's
consistency in how we're doing county transit. So I guess I'll just come back to the question. We're
considering fully funding one route. We've tried other models in the past two years to fund transit
outside of the city of Bloomington or Bloomington to Ellsville. Would the commissioners be open to an
opportunity to revisit funding other transit once that grant runs out in Ellsville next year? Definitely,
I think that they would have that conversation about what the need would be for Ellsville next year.
But at this point in time, they don't have the need this year. And then I would like to note that the
county did, through ARPA funds, support the rural transit, urban to urban route through ARPA solely.
And initially, the town of Bellisville did do some assistance
But then they elected, I believe, not to follow up with that the following year and maybe losing track
of time. But I do want to note that this county has funded that urban to urban route of rural transit
up until this point when it was made known to us that they did not need that funding.
It's possible that, you know, in 23, we weren't using edit for those types of things. Now that edits
on the table is a resource that maybe there's a whole new opportunity to reimagine what rural transit
is for economic development in the county. I'd be very open to discussing that as other parties in the
county see an opportunity to follow in the footsteps of Bloomington Transit today. So.
Thank you, Madam President. I would recommend having a conversation with Chris Myers because the rural
transit, the only part that's not funded is the urban to urban. They do have their 5311 and the other
one granting that they get from INDOT every year that provides the rural transit routes. If you want
to expand that, I think that would be a conversation that you should have with rural transit.
My conversation derives from the town of Elksville Town Council, but thank you for that anyway.
Thank you, Madam President. Okay, all right. Miss Purdy, did you have something else to add to that
or? No. Okay. All right. All right. I think we are going to move on a public comment now. So if there's
public comment. Oh, I'm so sorry. Okay. I'm so sorry. We need to vote on the amendment.
And then we can come back for the overall. Okay. All right. So let's vote on the amendment first and
then I'll come back to that here. Okay. Okay. So this is on the amendment to lower the appropriation
amount from one hundred and ninety five thousand to one hundred eighty four thousand one hundred and
four dollars. Correct. Councilor Wilts. Yes.
Councillor Henry. Yes. Councillor Decker. Yes. Councillor Lee. Yes. Councillor Iverson. Yes. Councillor
Hock. Yes. Motion passes unanimous on the amendment. Okay. Thank you, Michelle, for reminding us about
that. And Councillor Decker. Just one thing that I would welcome
folks from transit or legal or really anyone to clarify if I say this incorrectly but my understanding
on this route is that while and this is from the original inception of it while that it that bus is
in the city that's not the portion that we're paying for correct so when when that transit bus
leaves the city and goes out into the county which is something a transit bus traditionally and by tradition
I mean historically all the time has not done that county that that transit bus is leaving that's what
we're paying for friends and so I don't I appreciate counselor Henry's commitment to opening up transit
discussions with Elton I will join you in that I'm sure along with most of the folks here
but we're only picking up that bus going out into the county as the constituents, industries, economic
development leaders have demanded of us, not to mention the residents, for about 20 years or so I've
heard this. So I want that to be out there because I don't want there to be a myth that transit's getting something
that we couldn't enter into a discussion with Elstville as well as we did with rural transit when we
made several trips out there to keep that going when that service was threatened from loss. All right.
Yes, Councillor Hawke. Before we vote on the final issue, just as a matter of curiosity,
Where are the county commissioners? I mean, it says here that the council is requesting this on behalf
of the commissioners, on behalf of the board of commissioners. The county council office is requesting
this. Well, I guess they just don't have enough to do and or maybe they have too much to do and can't
be bothered.
but this is kind of a big issue and I think they can reset through this meeting. I'd like to address
that. Yes, Ms. Purdy. Yeah, thank you. The reason it was done that way is my understanding is that Council
Member Deckard brought it up during a council meeting the need to have the appropriation put into place
and as a result of that Ms. Schell did the agenda request and things of that nature. The commissioners
Once they have the appropriation, we'll sign an interlocal agreement, which I believe is on their agenda
for Thursday. Okay, there's a major confusion here from somebody. This council does not put together
an appropriation request from any other budget than from our own budget. That's the way it works. Don't
do this again, period.
There's ways it's supposed to work. We don't put in an appropriation request from us that the money
is coming out of some other fund. We just don't do it. It's not the way it works. No wonder I had a
question. OK. So at this time, I'm going to move on to public comment. And so if there's public comment,
you can please raise your hand and come
Raise your hand via teams, or you can come forward to the lectern here. And seeing that no one is left
here in the room and no hands are raised, may we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Henry? Yes.
Decker? Yes. Councilor Cross? Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl?
Yes, sir. Hawk. Yes, sir. Well, motion passes unanimous. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
All right. All right. Next up is item 10. Oh, no. Sorry. Item K.
Council, I move to amend the twenty twenty six salary ordinance at account line one seven eight zero
one part time hourly to fund one thousand dash zero zero zero seven county general coroner with a range
rate of fourteen dollars to thirty five dollars seventy two cents hourly with an effective date of February
the eighth twenty twenty six. Second. All right, Michelle, I notice we are looking to you because the
coroner is not here.
Correct. This is a housekeeping item with regards to you approved the corner having a part time hourly
person within our salary ordinance. We normally have part time hourly.
lines already established but with his department he's never had this before and so this was missed
when the request came to add this to the budget. So this is just to allow him to have this in the salary
ordinance so we can pay that part-time hourly person out of the budget. All right any questions or comments
for Michelle on this item?
Seeing none. We'll move on to public comment. So if there's public comment you can come forward to the
lectern here in the room or you can raise your hand via teams. And seeing none. Maybe please have a
roll call vote. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Eikerson? Yes.
Councillor Henry? Yes. Councillor Crosley? Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes. Motion passes unanimous.
Thank you. All right. Next up is now item 10. Council, I move to open a discussion of the hiring freeze.
Second. Okay. I want to look at Michelle for this item because we all in front of us have
a very colorful chart and I'm sure she's gonna display it on the screen here momentarily. Right, so
I was tasked, requested to put together a summary of the duration of positions that are out there, that
are vacant, that have been gone through the hiring freeze and that kind of thing. So I'm gonna go ahead
and put it on the,
display I Gave it to you a copy because I know it's going to be kind of tiny and hard to see all the
way across as well, so The hiring freeze was established and approved by the council on September the 30th and
And so I had to have a starting date with regards to the like where to start with. So I did a September
1st date and so this is a reflection of what I received from the HR department of any terminations as
of September 1st as well as any new hires
as for September 1st. And so you see that we have several departments that have come to council, requested
a position, and then I gave you a duration of how long that that position was vacant. So on some of it,
You can see here at the very beginning, for example, the auditor's office had the internal auditor.
It was vacant for three months and 24 days. And this is with regards to it was filled in-house. So when
someone slid into that position and finally took it over, it was three months, 24 days.
There's some others down here where the TSD had come in and asked for a support technician and it was
for a full-time position. That position, when it was finally the person terminated in September, council
approved it in October the 8th, that position was only vacant seven days.
Um, we have another one that was, you know, that was well over a year and that was in the health department.
Um, so another one that was less than 30 days, um, is, was one of the mechanics in the highway and where,
um, with regards to Lisa Ridge is always real good as soon as some, she knows somebody's going to be
moving on.
She's here and asking. So those two positions, one was 11 days, another one was 10 days. The majority
of everyone that you have approved thus far has been at least a month or more. So like I said, I've
highlighted there, there's only three of them where they were less than 30 days.
This is just kind of giving you an idea. This is where we're at. Does it capture every vacant position?
No, because I started with September, which was when we put this hiring freeze into that. So is there
any questions with regards to this? Yes, Councilor Iverson. Kim Schell, as you were putting this together
and as we're trying to answer the question of, is this hiring freeze working?
Which columns are you looking at to help answer that question? I'm looking at where it would be columns
J and K. Why? Well, maybe just this whole section right here. Because you're going to see the date that
was terminated and the dates that they were filled. You can see where we have several still that are
still vacant. If they have not, like this one right here, which is a clerk's position, it was vacated
back in August, and then it was approved to be filled in September.
Let's throw one, sorry. It was the front counter clerk. That one was vacated in October. You chose as
a council to deny this, and it's still vacant. So there are, you know, several that we have.
What is it? Did we come up with 17, I think, on this that are still vacant? Departments are not, I want to say.
Not all departments are rushing here to get things filled. So and like I said this is just a snapshot
of from September on. So I guess to put a finer point on this that the hiring freeze is working in that
vacancies are not being filled quickly or immediately and that and that is giving folks at least this
council some idea of
of where we are not having to fill these positions quite as quickly as we otherwise would have? Yes.
And the ones that are vacant are generally the full-time. What we're seeing vacant are the full-time
positions. I don't have time right at this moment to go and do a deep dive with regards to part-time hourly.
you know, because that's a whole different animal because people do tend to come and go a lot with the
part-time hourly. So I concentrated mostly on the full-time where I think you're going to see the biggest
impact with regards to, you know, are we saving money? And I think that's what you guys wanted to see
was, you know, people need to, you know, reallocate duties.
with regards to, you know, these positions or, you know, just leave it vacant so that, you know, can
you live without this position? Because I know that you guys are going to be, you know, having to make
hard decisions later on. So with regards to positions. And, Madam President, let me just conclude. As
PAC President, I know we're not meeting right now, but if you had asked me if there were this many vacancies
still, I would have not guessed it was this many. So, yeah.
Hi, I'm the problem. It's me. I was the one that made the comment at one of the meetings about maybe
this isn't freezing like we thought it was. And so this gives a clearer picture with the full-time vacancies.
It just feels like a lot.
Um, you know, because every agenda now, um, because of that pack pause, uh, we are having consistent
requests. However, I will say I appreciate, um, once again, like the court reporters that were going
down into the full-time and the part-time, um, and it looks like departments are trying to really figure
out what they need versus what they, you know, could manage before coming to the council for those particular asks.
So any other questions or comments on this? So thank you, Michelle, for giving us an opportunity to
take a look at it. And my question is, do you want me to continue keeping this updated and maybe report
back again in like another three months or so where we're at? Along that same line,
up with a form that I hope will help you with regards to the hiring freeze. As we've gone through this,
we have, and I say we loosely, the council has been asking certain questions and this kind of thing.
So we don't technically have a request form for hiring freeze.
what the departments are doing is they send in an email to the council office saying, hey, you know,
we have this position. So I've come up with this form to maybe help facilitate some of those questions.
So the department will fill this out. It's going to, you know, ask what is the position, what is the
status if it's a full or a part-time kind of thing. They will ask, you know, is this a,
Permanent part-time is a comment with the classifications, how many hours per week, and then the fund
and that kind of thing. And then give a brief narrative with that. So then also with that, I thought
these are the questions that you have asked several times is like, when will this position be vacated?
So that would be one of the questions. Requested effective date for this position to be filled.
You're always, you're asking,
Can you hold off as long as possible? And if this is not a permanent part-time position, which we have
run into, what is the duration timeline for this position? So if it's a seasonal, what are you looking
at? If it's temporary part-time, what are you looking at?
Do you anticipate a period of cross-training? This has come up a couple times. If yes, how long is that
cross-training going to last? Is this a grant-funded position? That's been asked a few times by different
counselors. Yes or no. Does the grant cover self-insurance? Okay. If no, what fund will cover
the self-insurance? Have you attempted to distribute these duties among current office personnel?
Yes or no. That has come up.
Could you utilize part-time personnel to cover these duties? That one I just recently added because
we had one department come in. They have a full-time position, but they chose to fill it with a part-time
position instead. So also, do you have a part-time hourly line in your budget? This is just to make
sure that we're covering all our bases. Do you have a part-time hourly line in the salary ordinance?
And then the last one is,
If this is approved or with regards to part-time hourly and this kind of stuff, can in-house or category
transfers supply the appropriation if needed? If you guys think of any other questions that you would
like to see on this, I would like to start utilizing this, but this was just what I've seen you guys
have asked several times over the course of this hiring freeze process.
This is something I would like to start using when those requests come in. So I, to help you along in
the meetings. Hopefully, you know, answer some questions before we get to this point in the meeting.
I saw some hands down to the left, so I will go to Councilor Pfeiffer and we'll see. So, I don't know,
can we go back to the other chart that you already did?
I'd be interested if there's a way to figure out how much we have saved. Is that data available somehow?
How would we figure that out? That would probably have to come from HR to see, we would have to know
what classification or level that person was at and where the, and the new ones are mostly, unless it's
a transfer, will be, you know, at the minimum. So yeah, I mean, that would take me, or maybe HR a little
bit to do, you know. The auditor has her hand up.
Yeah, I believe you had the account lines noted. I think what I could do is pull one of those reports
that say, like, percents unused, which would give us an idea. And that's fairly simple. And I'm willing
to do that for you. I would like that very much. Thank you. Sure. Of course. And by the way, this is
really good. I like efficiencies, and this will help. OK. Dream work makes the dream work. OK. Councilor
Wilts. I need to pass because I got distracted. I had something in my eye.
Okay, anybody else have any other questions or comments on this item? You still need to pass council
will tour. Yes. Thank you. Okay. Okay. It's beautiful. Thanks for providing it. Okay. Oh, sorry, Councillor Hawk.
Right, as hearing this reviewed, I do think one of the biggest things we have to look at, because we
saw how we struggled, how we were going to pay for that huge increase in health costs. And so this business
is this position covered with insurance, with what we call county general, or elsewhere.
I think that there needs to be and should be available a list of how many positions that we have that
are grant funded or funded in some other way other than local property tax that we are actually picking
up the expenses of the health, whether we moved it to economic development, whatever it was, because
that was a gigantic increase in our expenditures.
If there's been a report such as that, I guess I missed it. And I would like to see it if there is one
that says this is how many grant positions we have and how many. And for some people to say, well, we're
not allowed and Monroe County must pay for this.
Must because there's not enough room in the grant or must because the state says or whoever's giving
us this grant says you cannot pay any benefits out of this. No insurance, nothing. And if they say that,
then show me. Show me what says that in grant. Don't expect us to just here say I'm going to see it
in the grant that says you can't do it.
because I'm just saying if you've got X dollars in a grant, then you reduce some of your other expenses
in some way and cover that health insurance in that grant. Because every time you're looking at around
at another county employee whose job may not be able to be funded if we keep going down a track we were
going, we need to make sure we're being responsible.
with these dollars. And of course, we really don't know where we are until we get all of the updates
on that DLGF bill and any other bills that were all of that last minute stuff. Didn't I say when FSG
was here before, we're not at the finish line yet and we weren't. So we've got a lot that we have to
go through. I understand. All right. Is there anybody else that has any questions or comments?
All right. And I'm looking for some. OK, so again, thank you, Michelle, for putting that together and
helping us get a clearer view of what that all entails here. And. OK, I was looking for something else,
but I realize we are at item 11, which is
council ladies on updates and comments. So I am going to start over to my left here. And I know Councillor
Fiddle already has her paper out and I saw her at another event this past weekend and I'm sure she'll
make comment about that. So proceed. Okay. So my update is the things that I think were important and
relevant to our work here and things that I thought
were worth reporting on that I've done since we last met here. So did the beam signing event at the
Convention Center, which I thought was just lovely. There were several of us there for that. And so
that will be visible. I think somehow I haven't quite figured that all out yet, but I guess we'll figure
that out when they get the whole building put together. County Fair Association met recently
And I just wanted to highlight that they did work with the Red Cross and Monroe County Emergency Management
Services about the most recent tornado. So I thought that was worth mentioning right now. They're currently
looking for fair sponsors for this year and announced that they received their county appropriations
for this year and are appreciative.
I've been going to the Ellisville, almost all of them, if not at least listen to the Ellisville Richland
reorganization meetings. And at the last one on March 4th, numerous citizens had questions. So it was
good to see people coming forward and giving their concerns and getting things clarified right there
in person. I like that. The five subcommittees that were put together, they had given their reports
about their finding
One of them was finance. One was planning and zoning one parks, wrecks and cemeteries. One was public
safety. One was local governance and all of those reports now are on the Ellisville Richland info.org
subcommittee draft report section. I'm going to be meeting weekly now on Wednesdays at six until the
end of May or June when the public hearings begin.
I went to the fire protection territory meetings. They're having a series of three of those I went on
February 18th, but the 25th of February and March 11th are all the same as the 18th or 25th So they're
all three the same so you don't need to go to all three there. It's gonna be at 7 March 5th I attended the BEDC
annual meeting, and there were 115 members. They have 115 members now, and 54 are sponsors, 54 are general,
and their special membership are seven. And the annual meeting drew 160 attendees, so more than just
the membership, so that was good to see. The facial meeting met, did that.
And then the other thing I think that I was really impressed with that I attended was the IU Health
Open House for Electeds, which others attended as well on Miller Drive. A whole host of services there
that I think are worth repeating and mentioning, including car seat fitting, which is free, cribs for
kids, which is free. They do outreach on things like
blood pressure, diabetes, cardiovascular, and those are on Monday and Tuesday, 8 to 4.30. The Safe Sister
classes for young teens, grades six through eight happens. The Stop the Bleed is a free training workplace.
You can have that done in your workplace or a collaborative organization. They also do vaccinations
and safe sleep, and I think that they do more things, but those are the things that really stuck in
my mind and I made a note of.
The other thing they handed out at that event was a chart, or actually a handout, which highlighted
the community benefit that IO Health does in this area. And it's a total of $55,656,698. And that includes
financial assistance, unreimbursed Medicaid,
community health improvement services, community benefit operations, health professions, subsidized
health services, community building activities and unreimbursed Medicare as well as bad debt. So that's
occupying my time. Thank you. Councillor Williams. Thank you. As usual I cannot compete with my neighbor.
But I have been busy.
this weekend. I attended the Soil and Water Conservation District annual meeting. Several of my colleagues
were there. Councilor Iverson and Councilor Deckard specifically. It was a raucous good time as it always
is. It was out at the fairgrounds and we heard about all the good work and
Projects going on throughout the county and this is the same organization or one of the organizations
that our parks department referred to tonight in terms of collaboration and Providing free services
because soil and water conservation districts are landowner connectors to federal funding for conservation
practices, so
Close to my heart, but also nice to see all the work going on with the government and with our landowners.
Another thing that we did, I also attended the open house portion of the IU health clinic, community
health clinic and learned a lot. I won't go into that because you covered that level very well.
I did want to say that we received, all of us on council have received an email from Mary Morgan of
heading home referring to the beginning of our meeting. So I just wanted to pass along some information
from her saying that they have indeed been working with the landlord there for those apartments at,
is it called, what's it called?
Seminary Point, yes. And they are standing ready to help in any way that they can. There are resources
listed on the Heading Home Guide website, which is headinghomeguide.org. And if you don't have access
to a computer, you can always call.
to ask for some assistance and that number is 812-955-0538. But yes, they are involved and heading home
is a great resource for anyone who is concerned about their housing stability. So hopefully folks can
be connected with resources and have
alternatives as we work from the opposite side on these same things. Speaking of heading home, they're
having a housing summit in this community on April 14th and it's gonna be a day long event at the convention
center with lots of different sessions across various sectors all working in various aspects of housing.
And I would encourage anyone interested in housing solutions in our community to attend. And that again
is April 14th. And I'm sure they have information on the Heading Home website. The last thing I want
to say is that Perry Township precincts have been doing meetings that
I'm going to be speaking at one of them coming up here. And I didn't even know they were going on. So
I'm learning more about it. But they're at the Southwest branch of the library. And I would love to
tell you when the next one is. I believe it is March 10th. But I'd love it if somebody wanted to correct
me. Well, that's today. That's today? Yeah. April 12th.
I don't even know what time of day it is. I'm sorry. I don't have much information on that, but I thought
it was really cool that they were doing informational meetings to focus in on people at that kind of
like that that township level. So I'm interested to go just to hear what what they want and what they
want to talk about. So that's all I got.
Thank you. Councilor Decker. Thank you very much. I'm trying to keep up with the first two reports here,
and I may add a little bit to some of those. But first, I just want to start and congratulate Vam Buren
Township Trustee Rita Barrow on a tremendous Saturday cleanup. I'm also losing track of dates, Councilor
Wilts, but my record is telling me the 28th.
the Saturday morning of the 28th, she had a tremendous cleanup, 125 people came out, and it was just
for as bad as our aftermath of the tornado has been, it was awesome to see neighbors and folks getting
together and assisting, and Rita was just absolutely masterful working with the COAD, Randy Rogers,
United Way there,
in making that happen. I also want to congratulate the city of Bloomington on a beautiful Black History
Month gala that concluded Black History Month. There is a video out there of sponsors accepting sponsor
designations and to do that, sponsors had to dance. There's a video out there somewhere of me dancing
up to accept it. If that gets loose, my heaven's in the community. I'm excited about Sophia Travis Grant
season. We have our new member that was added last meeting for us, Katie Hopkins, and she is already
hitting the ground running already with our other community member. And so I'm excited to
that we're just going to be doing this, and I'll let others say more on that. I also had a chance to
attend the IU Health Open House, and I'll add to that discussion, my gosh, the patients and the questions
we all were asking between Counselor Iverson, Counselor Feitel-Wilts, everybody. They asked tremendous
questions in the amount of care that was there.
Sometimes when these jobs get hard to hear that other people are also worried about the things we're
worried about and to give you a really good example of that I had an offer I don't know if other counselors
did but I have an opportunity to hold a baby or a simulation of a baby that was experiencing withdrawal
symptoms and it was
I said at the time I said if everyone in the county could hold this baby for a second there's a lot
of things we'd understand and I was really impressed with how the nurse the nursing and professional
staff that are walked us through
Now here's what's happening. This is what this means in a home. This is what this means. And it was
an eye on on experience in the community that I think really benefited all of us. I want to add to the
soil and water conservation annual meeting district discussion just to say I was very proud to be there
with other counselors and particularly I was very proud that this year
In addition to all the tremendous things that Martha and friends do there and the gathering of neighbors
that were there, they gave out the first annual Sheryl Munson Friendly Conservation Award. And it was
a beautiful opportunity to remember Sheryl, but also to honor Kevin McConnell, the recipient. And Kevin
McConnell has been involved in soil and water conservation efforts on that board of supervisors.
and working with Cheryl directly since at least 1987. And I had the privilege to present the award out
on behalf of the other counselors and Commissioner Madera that were there. What I didn't say was when
Kevin started that, I was 10. But as I was up there and thinking about that, that's a tremendous thing
that someone who loves the community has done that long. Some of us, we get mad an hour into a meeting
and we just don't go back.
Kevin has stuck it out over the years with us and Martha as well has been patient in all that. So a
lot happening, a lot going on. I'm starting to believe that March is the new April with activities and
various things, but here we go. Thank you. And I'm going to just roll on down the train here. All right.
Thank you, Madam President. I have five things today.
I wanted to note that at the soil and water meeting that has been discussed today, we talked a lot about
the agricultural benefits to the Indian economy. And I don't think that can be overstated that there
were a lot of cattle farmers in the room. And we're just so thankful that folks are here in this county
who continue
to provide the economic benefit of producing the food that we rely on. So thanks to Soil and Water for
having that meeting. The IU Health Community Health meeting was very eye-opening. I think there's going
to be a bunch of meetings that come from that, in particular around ways that IU Health
and the Monroe County Health Department can find synergies in providing healthcare for people here in
Monroe County. That was really eye-opening. I did want to also refer folks to the third item is that
if you are indeed experiencing an eviction, particularly from Monroe County government or from, or any other
folks that there is a resource, a referral resource on Heading Home's website. It's on the top banner.
It says referral. Click on that. You can make a self-referral and that'll get you the help that you
need. You can also call Heading Home directly at 812-955-0538. So again,
If you're needing help finding a new place because of this eviction crisis, you can go to the Heading
Home website, click on that referral form, or call that number. The fourth item that I want to talk
about is a huge thank you to Jennifer Crossley. President Crossley has been taking on the helm of trying
to find ways to make progress with this jail.
We're not there yet. We're not anywhere close to there yet, but we could not be making the progress
that we were making without her leadership, and that needs to be recognized. Here here. The fifth item
that I want to to bring up is a huge thank you to Molly Turner King. The upcoming Recovery Summit was
in danger of losing its keynote speaker. And Ms Molly Turner King stepped up. She stepped in.
and she made something that seemed impossible happen. So thank you. I don't have enough credit for all
the work that you do behind the scenes. And this is one instance where the Recovery Summit that's going
to happen on September 1st and 2nd, right here at our Convention Center, is now going to have a keynote
speaker. A few people are going to be able to get their CEUs. They're going to be able to get their
credits. And it's because of people like Molly Turner King, who's doing this good work. So lots of good
things happening in Monroe County. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam President. Just some notes on some liaison stuff. So first is related to emergency
management. I had the good fortune to join Newton Edition. I was the 27th, I think, for their show on
the tornado. I'm joining Mr. Krebs from the Humane Association and Steve Higgs, who had co-written Karp
Combs' assessment of the May tornado of last year. And it was a good program to really help the public
kind of what happened with tornadoes in February. One of the positives of that was mentioning the Van
Buren cleanup and getting calls after I was on to where is that happening and sending people in that
direction which was I guess folks listen to WFIU which is great.
I would raise to the council's attention that aviation was working through their assessment with insurance
on the damage to the airport. I would anticipate that not only aviation but maybe other parts of the
county may be reaching to us for a rainy day fund support. And so we might want to start wrapping our
mind around what appropriations from rainy day might look like as we start to see those assessments
come in in the coming weeks.
I think, you know, I think I'll leave it with those two. Of course, we did have a statewide tornado
drill today, followed by actual severe weather coming in, so stay dry, everybody. And I'll just say
on a maybe personal note that for the past year, I've signed every form that's come down this desk with
my full name, including Junior. And it was the first night I've done that since my dad had passed away
this past week. And, you know, it's those things that appear every once in a while.
And that was one that snuck up on me tonight as I sign these things that we do up here hour after hour
So, um, thank you for that indulgence and have a good evening everybody Counselor Henry, I just want
you on you to know that our thoughts and well wishes are with you and your family and Having been down
that road just a couple of years ago two years next month
I know you've been dealing with a lot. And so I just wanted to say that we appreciate you and your work
that you're doing here and that our thoughts are with you on the loss of your dad. It's OK.
On that note, it sounds like all of us really went to this health fair. And I won't indulge a lot.
because a lot of it has been said, but the one thing that I will say that stuck out to me the most is
a program where there are nurses that are literally going to homes of pregnant women, and I believe
it starts at 28 weeks, and they see them all the way up to two years. Oh my God. That was the most
that I spent I think and I saw the former health administrator Penny Cottle and she was also walking
with me in the rooms too and we were sitting there talking and I think that's the room that I spent
the most in and that room touched me so much because as a mom and have you know had some you know
We all know the struggles of being a mom. Well, I'm not going to say we all, but those of us that are
very fortunate and blessed to be there.
There there was a lot with that and the fact that we actually have people who you know have you know
down on their luck they serve women that are in shelters substance use disorders those women who wouldn't
really seek help they literally come to them and again have that.
service provided to them until the child reaches two years. And I believe her name was Camille. That
was one of the nurses that I spoke to. She was very touched by dealing with the clients that she's dealt
with. And in particular, there was one nurse, and I'm sorry I can't remember her name, but she actually
was a client and then turned into
being one of those individuals that help. So I just, man, I wish that that was something that we really
knew a little bit more about and that could be broadcasted, but that was the thing that touched me the
most out of being there on Saturday. So I appreciate that.
The other thing that I was going to say is, yeah, as Councillor Deckard and Fiddle are members of the
Sophia Travis grant committee meeting, there is one meeting tomorrow. It's our grant kickoff. And folks
are probably looking at us going, wow, you're doing a great kickoff now? Yes. As it was talked about
last year, we've kind of moved all that up so it doesn't
bump up against our most wonderful time of the year, budget season. And so tomorrow here in this historic
NatU Hill Room, we will be doing our grant kickoff meeting. And so all those that are able to, you can
come in person, or you can watch virtually via Teams, or you can watch it back via CATS once it airs.
But again, this is a really good season. I am very much excited. Our team met last week, and we
are probably going to see the same things that we've seen over the past couple of years with budget
cuts and restraints, and our food deserts that are happening, and our pantries that have been depleted,
and some of the after effects of those that have experienced issues related to the tornado. I'm sure
we're going to see a lot of that. So I'm really excited to see all this kick off. And again, that is
tomorrow at 5 PM here in the room.
The other thing that I would like to say, I wouldn't be remiss if I've been thinking about this because
I think I've mentioned this for the past couple of years and just like a bad scream cycle or sequel
rather. It has come back around again. And so the state has now passed into law.
You know putting the pressure on local municipalities and counties to do something with our unhoused
folks and You know, I know we keep hearing things that we can't just gel our way through this problem.
Yeah That's true. But what are we gonna do about it? And I'm just really disappointed in
why we are here last year and died. But again, it came back again. And they got the green light by the
Supreme Court. And they've seen other things happening in other states. And so now this is a challenge
that we will have. And I am definitely concerned and afraid that our jail is going to be filled up with
folks who cannot help themselves. I believe I read that this is a way for people to try
force themselves into treatment. Well, if I'm down on my luck, you know, my house forced me into jail.
And, you know, so I wish that, you know, I know the commissioners that did a body of folks and Council
votes, I believe is on that.
meeting where we're supposed to have a member of council and some other community stakeholders to talk
about this. And I really hope that this is a conversation that we are being had. I know folks are already
talking about what they will do and things like that, but I really wish we can have those conversations
as well and we be included in that too as it all relates to that. And yeah, without that,
That's all, folks, as Warner Brothers says. And so take your medicine. And allergies are real because
I am definitely affected by it right now. And it's super early. So without that being said, it's almost
spring break. Be safe wherever you go. TSA will have long wait lines, so be prepared. And without that
being said, we are adjourned. Thank you.