- Good evening, everybody. I would like to call our meeting to order. Today is Tuesday, April 28th, 2026.
- The time is five o'clock. Here in the NETU Hill Room, we have Councilors Henry, Iverson,
- um, vital and wilt and other council members, I believe will be joining us here shortly. Uh, we kind
- of have a packed agenda, so I'm going to go ahead and get into the meat and potatoes of county council
- business. So we'll go ahead. Um, as seeing that we have a quorum. Um, so next up, all those that are
- able to stand, please stand for the pledge of allegiance.
- States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty
- and justice for all. Thank you very much for that. Next up is the adoption of tonight's agenda. Does
- anybody wish to amend tonight's agenda?
- know changes and we don't have any council members that are virtual we can do this by voice vote so
- all those that are in favor of adopting tonight's agenda as presented signify by saying aye aye all
- those opposed same sign okay motion carries
- Okay next up is item number four which is public comment and these are items that are not on tonight's
- agenda so if you'd like to make public comment again for items not on tonight's agenda you can raise
- your hand via teams you'll have up to three minutes or you can come forward to the lectern here in the
- net you hill room state your name for the record you'll have up to three minutes as well and we already
- have a taker here in the net you hill room please good evening madam president this is christopher mg from the
- Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce. I want to just say as a membership organization with 900 entities,
- 80% small businesses or nonprofits, that we have to evolve with the business community. And I want to
- invite you, the public, the staff, to our kickoff event next Wednesday, May 6th. It's going to be May
- already, 530 to 730. At the International Art Project Foundation, we'll be kicking off the Bloomington
- Rainbow Leadership Network.
- an initiative of the chamber focused on the LGBTQAI professionals, business owners, and allies across
- Monroe County. As with the chamber, more than 110 years in this community, we take seriously
- the responsibility to evolve the needs of our workforce and business community. The effort reflects
- that, strengthening connections, expanding economic opportunity in a way that's welcoming and inclusive
- that only Monroe County is.
- uniquely set to do. We'll have some brief remarks, time to connect, and of course, food and drinks.
- We'll be glad to see members of this body and the public there, so you can learn more about that at
- chamberbloomington.org. On a personal note, I want to go on my local high horse on local baseball. It's
- happening everywhere. Smithville, Unionville, Danny Smith, Ellitsville. I'll be at Winslow Park from
- 7 to 8, 45, Tuesdays and Thursdays. So if you ever want to reach me,
- Those are my office hours. I'll be in there enjoying a hot dog or a burger. But this is a great way
- to talk with community members, see the public, be just enjoying what is outdoors here before it gets
- really hot. And unlike, say, soccer or basketball, there's a lot of downtime in baseball for those sort
- of talks that you don't get with parents normally. So I would just encourage the council and anybody here
- catch a youth baseball game this year, just one at one of our fine locations. I was just at Smithville
- this weekend, had a lovely time, but I don't get there enough. So anyway, I just thought I'd give a
- quick little community plug and something to respite from some of the daily grind that is Monroe County
- government. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much.
- All right. Do we have anybody else here and then at you who room that would like to make public comment
- on items not on tonight's agenda or if you are attending virtually you can raise your hand via teams.
- All right. Seeing none we will move forward.
- Next up is item number five, which is department updates. And these are for items also not on tonight's
- agenda. So if you are a department head that would like to make an update, you can come forward to the
- lectern here in the NatU Hill room. Raise your hand via Teams. You'll have up to 10 minutes. And TSD,
- can we make sure that we have a timer on, please? All right. Looks like the health department is here,
- so go ahead. Yes.
- So good evening, Council. Just wanted to provide a really brief update about a project that we were
- able to complete last year in 2025. We have our Environmental Health Services Director, Mr. Kuzmka,
- here to help talk about this project and answer any questions that you might have. I did send a PowerPoint.
- I'm not sure if TSD is able to share that, but I just wanted to give you a brief overview. So essentially,
- the Health Department Environmental Health Services, we address testing
- and remediation for 12 properties that were identified as former methamphetamine lab sites by the Indiana
- State Police. So properties that were identified go back as far as 2009 with only one of those being
- vacant. So through the support of Health First Indiana funding in the amount of $50,000 and through
- approval with our local authorities, we were able to hire a contractor to complete this work. Through
- those efforts,
- 11 of the 12 properties were successfully addressed with those $50,000 in Health First Indiana funding.
- And so we really just hope that these efforts demonstrate a dedication to mitigating environmental health
- hazards, protecting residents, and maintaining compliance with state regulations. I do see the PowerPoint
- there. So I thought that, do you want to talk about, if you can't get it back up, that's okay.
- Let's talk a little bit about the details about the properties. Two of those properties were moved by
- the owners that owned the property, but five of those properties needed decontamination. After the initial
- testing, decontamination had to be done. Items from the property needed to be removed, like drywall,
- furniture, clothing, pictures, personal items, but then a follow-up testing, a final clearance testing
- had to be done as well. For the decon, with the removal of items, that could cost up to five.
- But for those properties, we're off the list from the first initial testing. Those properties removed
- from the list in 2025. Does anybody have any questions? Yes, Councillor Wilson. What happens to the
- items that are removed? I mean, how are they handled?
- Um, they're putting a roll off dumpster, but like if you're wanting to keep like a personal item, they
- could potentially be like laundered, like maybe it was like photographs or like a wedding dress. It'd
- have to be laundered like several times to see if it can pass that testing in order for the owner of
- the dress in order to keep it. So, okay. Any other questions? Yes. Council. I understand this might
- be addressed in the PowerPoint here. Uh, how many, uh, properties are on the list currently?
- So on the third slide, I tried to include a breakdown of what some of those costs are. So essentially
- we ran out of funds with that $50,000. The contractor was able to give us a little bit of a discount
- of the last one that was being worked on.
- It's hard to tell. The testing process could be around $500 to $1,200. But decontamination, it's really
- hard to predict what that cost could be. And we had Mike Bolton under contract from Aftermath to do
- those testing and the decontaminating. Aftermath. And for the record, we have Councillor Hawke here.
- Yes, Councillor Faital. So I see where it says that
- The properties were seized by the Indiana State Police as meth labs. Is that the only way you find out
- about meth labs? Indiana State Police puts them on the list and then we're notified. So you don't find
- out from the general public that somebody may report a meth lab? We get an occurrence report from the
- state police or then also checking the clandestine lab sheet on the IDH department website. Thank you.
- You're welcome. Any other questions?
- Can we see that third slide? What was that again? Third slide. That is the third slide. Oh,
- it might be the, I had sent a copy to TS. I can send those figures. It breaks it down per property,
- the cost for testing. Well, we appreciate that. Thank you very much. Thanks for your time. Thank you.
- I also believe we have an update from the auditor's office for a department update as well. So I'm going
- to look to Ms. Gregory and staff for that. Good evening, Council. We wanted to provide three quick updates
- on some tools that were created by our office. Some of these are going to be a little newer. Others
- have been around for a little while.
- lit special purpose tax. We have reviewed that fund and identified that that fund is scheduled to go
- negative by 2027. So just to put that on your radar, right now if we account for a 5% increase in both
- receipts and expenditures, we're looking at a negative balance by the end of 2027 of just over 2 million.
- Speaking of those values, we threw together
- an impact chart that will show you how any changes to that lit rate would impact not only the county
- but the taxpayers. So this has been emailed out to you. And this cell right here, this yellow cell,
- if you update that, that will update all of the values in the spreadsheet. Moving on, we have the SB1
- lit at impact. This has a little bit more nuance to it because
- there's a lot changing in the state. We know that there's likely more to change. But this is showing
- based on our current lit rates and anticipated with how the laws are structured right now, how we think
- that will impact both the citizens and the county. And again, this has been emailed out to you. The
- cells in yellow are the cells that you guys have the option to change at this point.
- The conversion spreadsheet should look familiar. All the way down at the bottom, you can see our reversions
- year over year. So our reversions for 2025 are listed in this cell. It's just over 19 million, almost
- 20 million. Our reversions in 2024 were about the same, but we are trending down. And then in 2023,
- we have trended down significantly for the funds that we track.
- That's all I had, unless you guys have questions. Thank you all for that. It's almost budget season
- time, so it's never too late to look at this. So thank you all for that. I'll look to my colleagues
- here to see if anybody has any questions for the auditor's office. All right, we appreciate it. Thank
- you very much.
- All right. Last call for any other department updates for items not on tonight's agenda. Again if you're
- via teams you can raise your hand or if you're here in person you can come forward to the lectern here
- in the room. Seeing none we'll move on. Thank you all for that.
- Next up is item number six. This is our discussion with our financial solutions group, also known as
- FSG. And we have Mr. Greg Garitas here that will provide us with an update. So welcome, sir. Thank you.
- And thank you very much. It's good to be here. And this is the third time I did a pledge allegiance today.
- and it never gets old today. Yeah, started in Hendricks County and then went to another. So thank you
- very much for having me. We have given you a document dated April 24th that was in your pocket. It is
- an update on the proposed justice center financing income tax bonds. And we're quite excited about,
- we've worked with the team and the Monroe County
- staff team and kind of put this together and we're as far as we're concerned we're ready kind of to
- start the process if you all are and that would be beginning the bond ordinances and things like that
- assuming you like what you see here tonight so let's go there
- Okay, so first page, the letter, we point out a couple things. We use number one, the certified 2026
- edit and jail lit revenues with the estimated future changes that we will show in the document.
- 2026 budget expenses for edit and lit will continue to be allowed in the future. In other words, we're
- continuing to fund those with certain estimated increases. So we didn't delete them or change that because
- We also have been very involved in the putting together the sustainability that will be talking at the
- next meeting about, but I've got a good handle on where all of your funds are. So page one, page one
- is a similar analysis that you've seen the last time I spoke, but we wanted to put this back in here.
- And as you know, from the very, very top here, the,
- current legislation is that you could have in the future for 2029, 1.2% as a lit rate, overall lit rate.
- We put on this document also then in order to break even with the 2026 lit numbers that are down below
- that we would basically need a 0.93. So what that is just telling you is there's breathing
- right? So and it does not if you look at the footnote one does not include the special purpose rate
- for the juvenile detention fund 1114 and I had them put the fund number so because there's so many different
- fund numbers sometimes that you may get mixed up or I do and the lit
- obviously for property tax relief was not included here. So these are, as you see, the COET Fund 1000,
- which is basically what goes into the general fund, PS lit, jail lit 1233, PSAP basically lit and added.
- And so we know that might've got confusing before when I spoke about this the last time, but you see
- now we've put the
- fund number. So now if we turn then to the next page, the next page is really the telling page,
- page two. So what we've done here is we have used the estimated or basically the lit revenue as of 2026,
- and you can see our footnotes, but we took
- the 2026 numbers and extended those to 2030, basically projecting out five years. And as again,
- as you know, what I've always called SB2 that's coming to a theater near you will be out there in 29.
- So we wanted to cover that period, not only the period, but beyond that period.
- down below, then you see the added fund expenses and the lit fund expenses. These are the expenses that
- were basically in the budget. And I know there was a lot of supplies included in added and moved over.
- I went through that in great detail. And so then you see what we've done as we've modeled in the proposed debt
- service. That proposed debt service comes from Kate's best schedule, schedule three. She loves
- the amortization schedule that kind of sets forth the debt service. Now, you'll notice that on page,
- if you go to page three,
- you'll notice the debt service is a little less in the beginning. What we're proposing as we would do
- this, if we do it as a basically a building corporation bond, we would basically have smaller lease
- rental, what I call interim lease rentals. We would use the current jail asset since it's unobligated
- as our asset and while we build the new building. And then when we build the new building,
- that the basically the obligated asset will be the new building. Okay, so we are able to kind of give
- us a little breathing room there and as you can see then back on page two, I'm gonna make you jump back
- to that Kim, page two then we factor in the proposed debt service. This is again just an estimate. You
- noticed on the amortization schedule we used
- interest rate, that is the coupon rate, and I've explained Finance 101 before, how the current rate,
- if you went out and bought a municipal bond right now, it would be around a $350, maybe a $370, and
- so the coupon rate would be five. They would pay you a little more. We would basically have a premium.
- Okay. And so we would get more than 135 million, but that is what the market wants for municipal bonds
- at this point in time. So you ultimately pay the 5%, but you ultimately get more money upfront to reconcile
- it back. So as you can see now, the important item that we wanted you to focus on is the net. As you can see,
- In 26, 27, and 28, we're very comfortable with the net. And we're comfortable in 2029, we haven't introduced
- the new lit rate or increased the lit rate at that point in time. Nowhere in this have we done that
- other than we've increased the lit revenues. The revenues obviously are the revenues you receive based
- upon adjusted gross income of you all.
- living here in working in Monroe County times the tax rate. And so we did raise those and we raised
- the expenses. And so we have made an assumption in the decrease in 2028 due to a possible Ellisville
- consolidation in Bloomington. So we really tried to take absolutely as much as we could into account.
- It is an estimate. There's no doubt about it.
- But you can see that we are very comfortable with getting to 20299 and then beyond that, we're still
- safe. And you could eliminate at some point in time some of the expenses that we assumed in 1112 or
- 1233. We did not decrease those, we increased those, so you could always switch those back right to
- the general fund.
- or something like that. So what we're saying at this point in time, then back to the amortization schedule,
- we've assumed $135 million for the principal. We have assumed that this would be an income tax bond
- with a property tax backup, just like we've done every financing here in Monroe County since I've been
- around. And the way we've done our TIF bonds too, meaning granddad,
- would basically be backing it. But as you can see here, uh, we wouldn't call on that backing. Also,
- you know, we got some legislative help in the last session that the let's say for some reason in 2030
- account, the county council totally changed that. They said we want a lit holiday for a year. We don't
- want to charge lit.
- very extreme right and you'll say well Greg then we'd have to have you know the property tax bill go
- up well no because what happened in the most recent late legislation is that they said your minimum
- no matter what the minimum lit rate would be 125 of your debt service remember if you went back to my
- presentation last year I said we were trying to get that
- because I have, I had Hendricks County go out on a $40 million road bond to finish Ronald Reagan and
- obviously Representative Thompson heard that. And so that's good. And I feel then, you know, the backup
- of the property taxes, remember that's only there to enhance the credit rating and make the value to
- the bond holder better and get us a better interest rate. It's not to,
- because we've got other safety nets now too. So I think we've got an awesome schematic design. So I'll
- open it up for questions and witnesses prepared for cross-examination. So go for it. Thank you very
- much. I serve as an expert witness in utility rates. Anybody have any questions for Mr. Garrett? Yes,
- Councilor.
- Let me open this up because I think I was lucky enough to be on a phone call with some of your folks
- where we decided that it would probably be best if you came tonight to talk about this because of our
- last long term finance committee meeting. We kind of talked a little bit about needing to look at the
- schedule for a jail bond and there just wasn't enough time to discuss it. And so tonight hopefully we
- have that time for discussion. And so I wanted to start kind of where we left off
- from long-term finance meeting, which I know you watched assiduously. But that is to say, we have received
- documentation suggesting that we need to move rather quickly on bond action, suggesting that we need
- to take action in June for this to go to bond council in July.
- have any thoughts about the timetable in which some of this needs to take place? I know you said that
- at the top of your remarks that, as far as you're concerned, we're good to go. Can you elucidate a little
- bit more on timeline? Sure. And I don't know who gave you that specific, you know, said you need it
- to go by June. But the answer is that we feel pretty certain that we know where the glide path is.
- This year Okay, and so we obviously the state legislature will come back again next year and you also
- have your Must group that you may or may not want to entertain going forward I firmly believe you should
- entertain it and and move forward And so, you know that will come later in my my opinion. That's something
- you do a little later
- But that will could change landscapes later on in 2029 and kind of set those stages. So I think the
- important thing is in the past, I said, we want to go unless a war breaks out. Guess what? Everybody
- said, wow, you've said that in a war broke out. Yes, it did.
- Now, as things are settling down, the market appears to be very settled down. Matter of fact, I'm going
- to Savannah, Georgia, after this meeting, heading down there to go to a national conference with Securities
- and Exchange Commission.
- And so we're gonna hear nationally the flavor out there. But I think the answer is that Yush, your architect
- should be telling you costs are still going up, interest rates are reasonable, we've got a good path
- between now and year end, so stalling anything off after that could totally change the picture.
- All right. So your first step by all means would be getting the bond documents started by bond Council
- Barnes and Thornburg and also then making sure that we've got
- And I know Brittany was mentioning earlier here, we'll be looking at, we got a good copy of
- the sustainability. We've got good minimum fund target balances, resolutions we're gonna revisit. So
- we've got a lot of our homework done for the state for standard and pores. And so it appears to be a
- good climate for them also, because we're also working with them on other projects too.
- I'm sorry if that was too long of answer, but there is so many things going on in this equation. It's
- a simultaneous equation. I think that echoes what we've heard that we, we can go, I don't want to use
- too colloquial terms here, but, but council could take action now and that would be more favorable than
- waiting because we just don't know what's going to be coming. Correct. I would say yes.
- Councilor Henry. Thank you, Greg, for being here and giving us the latest on it. I do have some questions
- that maybe all will eventually come together, but I'll just ask what's on my mind as we move through
- this. I didn't have the luxury of being in the other meeting there to hear it. So as I look at the estimated
- minimum future lit, .93, that leaves us .27 to play with. Presuming all else remains the same in the
- county in terms of our use of the lit.
- You mentioned must, that committee. What would that variable look like if the committee of four decided
- to adopt a policy that moved or basically for lack of better terms keep the certified share kind of
- formula the city of Bloomington is looking for? How does that weigh in here as a variable if the must
- committee decides to allow a municipality to have more of that lit? Does that make sense?
- chewing on my tongue. So I think I understand what you asked. And so let me put it this way. So,
- you know, obviously, there's going to be a lot of, you know, where the total 2.9 should be shared out.
- And, you know, must if it if you put together, it's supposed to be unanimous. I'm telling some of the
- counties, if it's not unanimous, I'd still put my
- document in, you know, and so, but I think that will take a year or two to make it through the process.
- So, you know, how will it change? I think most counties have said it is very, very obvious we need our
- 1.2. We're going to have to stay the course on the 1.2. So either there's another sharing of another
- increment from someone else or
- maybe the cap has to change or something like that. But those are all hypotheticals that would really
- get created later in 27, maybe even as long as 28. But they would impact beyond 27, 28. It would impact,
- I think, what you put in effect in 28 for 29, which is the current timeline for the new let. All right.
- Thank you on that.
- We just heard the auditor's office before your presentation talk about some funds that were some lit
- that we're looking at economic development lit one of those. We have the look at the table. Do we have
- the current number on the current amount in the economic development what's been collected.
- The current cash balance as of today, okay, $24,175,882. So there's a presumption of using the debt
- service. So I'm looking at the H2 somewhere between 4.9 and 6.1 over five years of that. Stop accumulating
- in what year again?
- 2028 is the last year we'll receive collection. So after 2028, we're now burning something. We're no
- longer collecting an edit on 30. And we used a sizable amount of the edit to balance or to manage our
- budget this cycle. I guess my question is, Greg, if we're going to keep rating the edit or using the
- edit to do the business of the county, is that reflected in this estimate that if we keep using the
- edit for other things? Sure.
- Let me just back up because I did look at the cash balances too. So the cash balance that she just gave
- you is an isolated number at one point in time, okay? On page two, the added is going to bring in in
- 2026, estimated 12.3 million. So you've gotten some of that very, you know, it's last time I looked,
- We got four months, maybe January, February, March and April using my fingers and my toes. So didn't
- have to go to the toast. So I have put in then on page two, the budgetary expenses of 4.9. And I believe
- even in the jail lit, the note was during our discussion with staff,
- there was an additional that I that's why on page one or note one says edit fund and were actual budgeted
- expenses to April 30th. Okay, so we took that into account. So I am showing you on this
- That you keep a level of expenses and it does grow slightly. I would say it's not exponential growth.
- It is as we have projected right here. So at that point in time, in my opinion, the rubber meets the
- road here and we've got what we show here to be true without
- the calculation or implying or utilizing the 24 million cash balance. So that was going to be something
- that as we move forward, we could add to the 135, the cash balance both in audit or jail lit, but that's
- not been decided at this point in time.
- but would also serve as kind of a further buffer if we didn't use it or if we said, you know, let's
- not use 24, let's use 10, okay? That would give us 14 buffer just from that on top of the nine buffer
- that's in column 2026. Yeah, thank you for that last question, Madam President. I'll handle it, Mike.
- Let's talk about that 135 on page,
- was it three? So the, what's interesting about this number, what jumps out at me is, and this has nothing
- to do with Greg's analysis, your analysis, this is more about what has been stated in resolutions by
- the board of commissioners. So the question is, 135 is a number, it's a large number, but the board
- of commissioners in their resolution call for phasing of the project still in a way that
- And also a requirement for co-location eventually of whatever we do in terms of their choice of property.
- And so, you know, a co-located facility we know is well north of 135 million. This is, I guess, I'm
- not privy to the conversations you may have had with commissioners or their legal counsel. I mean, this
- only covers a phase one, right?
- I mean, it wouldn't be a 200. I don't know that for certain. With working with the staff and yes, legal
- counsel, your legal counsel, this was the amount that we felt comfortable and have been utilizing,
- I think, for several months now. And so, you know, the project, and again, we have not utilized or shown
- additional cash but we feel very comfortable that we can get this part started and do you would you
- have to face everybody has to face I'm facing a fairgrounds right now. Yeah it just takes me back full
- circle to the point two seven doesn't it because if we had to do another one of these for phase two
- in say five to ten years or however and I've got point two seven to work with at that point this this
- gets interesting
- Go ahead and I do have one and then I got to ask one last question. I'll give it up. But don't forget
- growth also. Well, that's the question I've got for you. So what's your assumption of growth in this
- document? Okay, it was it was fell down in the footnote. Yeah. So the expenses expenses in both edit
- and jail lit were estimated to increase 6% per year. Lit revenue was expected to increase five. What
- would the what would the population growth need to be to get that kind of growth in the county?
- I have not done that calculation, but I could. Yeah, I think it might be useful because I'm sure you're
- great at this stuff, but my concern is, well, you know, what's the county's economic and population
- growth to sustain a 20-year amortization table? That would be my last. Yeah. And I think we've had pretty,
- I've got the growth in the sustainability. I think we've had at that percent where we've been over the
- last several
- So, sorry, that was a lot. It's okay. Well, did you have a question of that? Under the notes at one,
- and you were saying that you were using the jail lit fund as expenses as a 430. So I'm not sure whether
- are you saying justice,
- actually already been spent out every month as of 430 or are you looking at what we've budgeted for
- the whole year? And the reason why I'm asking this is because we put in that jail medical in their contract
- and that was rather large. What was a million and a half? It was a lot of money. So it was meant to
- be. We on our discussion when we were having with staff,
- we said we put in the budget. Then we were made aware of, so it is a budget annual amount. We were aware
- that council had done an additional and one of the funds, I thought it was jail-lit, but I might be
- wrong, it might be unadded. So we wanted to include that, okay, rather than lowball the expenses, because
- my assumption is when you do an additional,
- Sometimes they seem to hang around the next year. So I wanted to make sure we kept. Well, if you're
- talking about the medical, it was supposed to have been included when we did our budget. And for some
- reason, it didn't get included. So that I believe, if I'm remembering right. So we just did that to
- correct that. I saw that in there. But I don't know whether we pay that monthly or we pay it quarterly
- or how it's paid. I don't think you're paying out of that.
- The expenses listed are the total appropriations allowed for the year as of that date. So that's going
- to be anything that is expended and anything that is allowed to be spent that has yet to be spent this
- year. So that is all of it. I just want to make sure because we do not have money
- in that property tax fund to cover, that's the reason why we moved that over there so that we knew that
- that was covered because that jail medical has really grown a great deal over time and I expect it will
- continue to grow even more. And so we need to make sure that those are expenses. Remember, it was at
- one time, you could only use 20% of it
- for operational and then like in that last year or so they said there was no longer a cap of what you
- could use for operational. And so I think we need to look long term. We build another jail. Certainly
- our operational is going to be a great deal more because you're going to have to have more staff. I
- know everybody thinks we're not going to build as big a jail, but then we all know what's going to really happen.
- So we have to count on what is it going to cost to operate that because it's got to come out of that.
- And of course, it's all going to be under the 1.2. We talk in separate buckets, but it's all part of
- the 1.2. If we actually go ahead and take it to the 1.2. And I did look it up. I stand corrected. It's
- $2 million in the $4 million budget that you passed in at it.
- Okay, the medical is $2 million? Yes, ma'am. I know it was a lot. Old-time self-insurance account $18,001.
- That's different. Okay, that's a self-insurance, $2 million. Okay, we talked about the same thing. Now,
- when I'm talking for the jail lid, I'm talking about the medical contract for folks inside the jail.
- How much is that? I believe the total budget that was accounted for, right? So in the jail lit, we'll
- keep our correct fund 1233. It's $1,675,277 in the $2.6 million.
- Okay, so a million six for the medical. It is labeled medical services number 34100. I just want to
- make sure that we understand that what we're counting as jail-lit is going to be part of the 1.2, but
- those operational costs are going to go up a great deal because we're going to have to have more staff
- And that medical is just not going to get cheaper. I mean, it just isn't. And I'm not trying to make
- it cheaper. I mean, that's something we have to do. So I just want to make sure that we're looking at
- that carefully and not planning on spending more. But maybe I guess I thought this was just going to
- be a discussion of where this might possibly go. But since we haven't really been given a budget of
- what they're going to do, I can't believe it. Is that correct or are you prepared to just go ahead and
- do this? Absolutely. Yeah, Councilor Williams. That goes straight to my question, which isn't necessarily
- one you have the answer to, but feel free to chime in, everyone else does. But the budget for whatever
- we're thinking might be built is what?
- Is it 135? Is that been said? Like where did that come from? I'm just, it's not, I'm not trying to be
- facetious. I'm literally asking. Council member said? Let me take a crack at it, Bree. Please. All right.
- The last estimate that we got, we were sitting in this room.
- And the last architectural rendering that we got was a quarter of a billion dollars. That was for a
- co-located facility that was both phases together. I have not seen an analysis that shows that $135
- million is phase one. And I will say, I know you've asked during a few different times during
- conversations that we've had joined earlier this year about like cost estimates for that. And as of
- April 28th, we still haven't received it. Okay, so basically, and that's the last thing I remember as
- well. We kind of said, okay, we'll take like about half or whatever of that number and assume we're
- building half of the project. So we take half of the budget
- But let's be real about the more expensive half, be your facility, right? So this is ridiculous.
- I'm sorry. I have a hard time. And it's not at all, obviously. I mean, thank you for this, because at
- least we know how we will or would. Or affordability. Yeah. But it's just insane, because we don't
- know what we're buying and how much it costs. If you go even further and you look at your favorite table
- and Mr. Garrett has this report, the amortization table, if you add in debt service to the principal,
- we're right back where we started. Yep. Yeah. The interest 223,104,875 dollars.
- And Michelle, if you could zoom in for old eyes. I'm not in charge of it. I'm not sure who's putting
- it up there, but they're doing a good job. They are doing a good job. Thank you, whoever's in charge
- of zooming. So the number I just referenced is that lower right-hand number. The total debt service.
- That's right. That's right. So even though we are essentially seeking to purchase a $135 million building,
- we're still investing $223 million.
- Just like when you buy a house, if you spend, you know, out of $35,000 for a house, it takes you a long
- time before you've really gained equity. And that's one of the things, since we really have not even
- chosen a spot yet, where this lovely, beautiful big jail's gonna be built, where we are monetarily.
- But what I call to your attention, if you scroll up to the top, the first like three years, okay, like
- see the first year is 3,375,000,000. That's for what's left of this year. And then after 2027,
- it would be 6,750,000. Now, the reason why I want to call that to your attention is,
- I was hearing from some of the folks on staff that if we didn't do this and moving forward with whatever
- happened with courts, I'm not afraid of ACLU, but some people are shaking, that we would be forced to
- move a certain population, which we've always agreed to from the beginning of the agreement,
- off to another facility, and that it might be as much as $1 million a year. Well, but if we do this,
- it is $6,750,000 while we are determining and putting together a known fact so the public knows where
- we're going and what we're spending. And so, yes, it could be more later to build.
- just like people's salaries are more as we go along. I get that. It's always more every year to operate
- county government. But I wanted to keep that in mind that when somebody says, oh, it might cost us a
- million dollars to move some of these folks someplace else, that shouldn't be the deciding moment
- figuring out what we're going to do. That doesn't mean we shouldn't do it when we've got all the numbers
- and so forth together. The other thing I would like to remind people is if it is the right thing to
- do, if we get overcrowded to move that, we surely are going to just do the right thing to do anyway,
- no matter who has a contract. I mean, if for some reason the folks that are in the facility, if that number
- grows by a large amount, that new jail is not going to be ready to move into tomorrow or even next year.
- So I just I don't want anybody to feel like you've got somebody putting a fire under you until we all
- know what we're doing. Very much agreed. Point taken. Yes, Councillor Iverson. So assuming that
- There's a lot of assumptions being built into this. We're going to have to make a pretty serious decision
- in the next two months. Are any of the assumptions in this document going to change in the next two
- months? No, other than the cash outlay that you may want to put into it, because I've assumed zero.
- And you have a cash balance that is growing. So in isolating your question just to that, I don't believe,
- as long as no other wars break out and the interest rates change. There's not. Say something positive.
- So they settle down and I think they'll be settling down. Okay, excellent. So therefore these numbers
- will be relevant for the decisions we need to make in the foreseeable future. Yeah, and I think that
- was the point. Come back
- get you jump started from where we were before, where we are now with the new legislation. And I think
- David asked kind of the question, you know, what's going to happen over the next six months? We should
- be status quo here. But beyond that, things are going to start hitting you again. And so, you know,
- and what I told you from our standpoint, yes, you need to decide on what your
- building the county as a whole. I think the guidance our guidance came from Jeff Cockrell and what he
- was trying to work out with the overall plan. And so we wanted to show you this schematic design on
- something that I believe is perceived to be able to work. But obviously I'm not the architect. I'm the
- numbers guy. We understand that. Yeah.
- Anybody else have anything to add? That's a lot of food for thought. So given the crunch time that we
- are on, so thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you very much. All right. Have a good evening.
- Thank you. A county council member burning up my phone. You can go handle that while it's still daylight.
- Thank you.
- All right, next up, we're going to go back into item number seven, which is our consent agenda items.
- Council, I move to approve the following summary minutes as presented January 13th, 2026 County Council
- Executive Session Meeting, May 10th, 2026 County Council Meeting, and the May 24th, 2026 County Council
- Meeting. Second. All right, we got a motion and a second. Are there any questions from council related
- to the consent agenda items?
- Seeing none, are there public comment on this item? You can come forward to the lectern here in the
- room or raise your hand via Teams. And still seeing none, we can do this by voice vote. All those in
- favor of approving consent agenda items as presented, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed,
- same sign. Okay, motion carries. Next up is item eight, which are the hire and freeze reviews for various
- departments. And we'll start with item eight, which is from the courts.
- Council, I move to open for discussion and possible approval of the court's request to be exempt from
- the hiring freeze and be allowed to make internal transfers and fund 1000-0225 County General Courts
- when the court administrator position becomes vacant in July. Second. All right. We got a motion and
- a second. We're joined by Judge DeKoff and Ms. Abraham. Welcome.
- Thank you. As I announced at the last meeting, I will be retiring, so myself along with the judges have
- been trying to figure out how to redo court administration so we don't lose a beat. The thing we came
- up with is to move the deputy court administrator up to take over my position since I've already trained
- her. That's what her job duties are when I'm not there.
- And that one goes from my level is a 25-year level, and she's currently at the 20. So that saves some
- there. And then promoting the case management coordinator up to the deputy. And that's a complete wash,
- because they're both at the 20-year level. So that would say the same. And then her position that is
- then vacant, which is a case management position, not filling at this time with the hiring freeze. They're
- trying to muddle through and see if they can keep that status quo until the hiring freeze is done, or
- they deem they really
- and then they'll be coming back for you. Keeping in mind, I've already lost my front person and we've
- refilled that with the part time. So I'm going basically from six full time now to four and a half.
- So trying our best to do the hiring freeze, but that's our proposal that we asked. Thank you for that.
- Any questions? Yes, Councillor Wilts. I do have a question, but first I just want to say that when I
- When I read your agenda requests, I'm just constantly between you and probation, just appreciative of
- the way you are approaching it. It feels as though we're all rowing in the same direction. And I just
- wanted to say thank you.
- The question is what does this case manager do? Her main thing is she's responsible for all the statistics
- that we have to send quarterly up to the state. She also has to make sure that we have an even caseload
- among the courts, which right now she's on overload because with us losing a court, we have to figure
- out how to redistribute all those cases. So that's what she does all the time is trying to figure out
- if we need to read readjust anything, do changes.
- So that's what her main, but she also is responsible for when we have mental health evaluations that
- anybody does, she has to get those scheduled, making sure we get the reports in. So then she backs up
- the jury coordinator. So we keep throwing more things and more things at her. So. Okay. And that's the
- position you. I keep it vacant. So when she goes to the deputy, she's going to try and take some of
- that and then disperse the other duties among the others in the office and fingers crossed that we get
- it all covered.
- And then I'll go to council. Thank you. Thank you for being here. I know you have a very busy schedule,
- so I'm glad you could sneak in at the very last second. I wanted to echo Councillor Wilts's remarks.
- The estimated fiscal impact of this is an actual decrease. So it's due to the different steps that people
- are on. But still, it's working. And we really appreciate all the work that you put into thinking about
- this. All the rules and keep our office running.
- Yes, I'd like to separate the question because I want to support moving forward with the court's
- administrator and I'd like to postpone making any decision about the deputy court administrator just
- for a bit, just to see where we are, because as we've already been, if you had time to listen, I know
- everybody's really busy schedule,
- We had a lot of information from Jamie Boesler at AIC and it was pretty clear that the message is hold
- tight. They've got information coming from what is it, something analytics so that we'll get better
- information.
- before we start moving forward with spending things. So as you know, I've been saying no to pretty much
- every request to get around the hiring freeze, but I think it's essential that they have the
- court administrator in place. And so that's what I'll support. And yes, I appreciate the fact
- that everybody's trying to watch the numbers, because we have to. I mean, we absolutely have to.
- And then, if come July, they look at the new numbers and say, you've got so much money, you'll never
- have to worry. Well, you know what I'd do? I'd say, OK, let's give some back to the public who's paying
- these taxes. But I know it's probably not going to be something that's going to fly. But I just think
- we ought to continue to be really, really cautious. So I'd like to split, and then you folks can just
- vote however you want on the second position.
- But I'd like to be able to support at least one of them. I will say the reason why we did that is like
- when I'm not here, the deputy obviously becomes me basically. So we were trying to look out that if
- we bump up the one and then because usually me and the deputy, we're hardly ever gone on the same day.
- So we have one there. So we're just afraid that if like I said, if the new court administrator is not
- there, we don't have a backup for that person.
- was our thinking going that route. So we still have somebody if something does come up, they can jump
- in and take over. I'd also like to say that we're in a unique position in that in all the years that
- I've been in in this this system in Monroe County, we have never lost a court. We are in the process
- of dealing with losing a court. We're doing that in the same year that we're losing Lisa. And that is
- a significant loss to our system. For us to we need the position of the
- We need her position. We need the deputy position. We're not going to fill. We're not asking to fill
- the third position right now. But we are at this time wrangling over there as to what we're going to
- do with that caseload and how that is going to look and what we're going to be doing. And we need the
- assistance of both the court administrator and the deputy court administrator to do that, especially
- going forward as we start looking at our budget to bring to you for 27 and how 27 is going to look.
- So I appreciate, and we do appreciate the idea that there is a freeze and we're all trying to look at
- saving money. But I would also remind you that in 27, there'll be one less court that you're funding.
- So. And from my understanding, if we want to separate the question here, Ms. Turner-King, we would have
- to have a second for this.
- That was a motion. Well, I was going to ask Councilor Honk if you wanted to make a motion on that, because
- technically you have to have a second. Yes. I would like to move that we separate the question. Second.
- Okay. All right. So we got a motion and a second. So is there, and so we'll deal with the first part,
- which is the Director of Courts Administrative Position. Is there any other further questions or comments
- on this, on that one?
- Seeing none, we'll move to public. You have to do a voice vote on the separation. Oh, sorry. Okay. So
- all those in favor of separating these two signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign.
- Aye. Okay. So we have one, two, three. Okay. So we got motion carries, majority. Do we need to change
- the motion?
- Uh-uh, because majority passed. Councilor Iverson was the name in that. Okay, so since there is no further
- questions on this item, I'll move to public comment. If there's public comment on the Director of Courts
- Administrator position, you can come forward to the lectern here in the room or raise your hand via
- Teams. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote.
- Okay this is just to reiterate this is for the court's administrator position only. Correct. Councilor
- Feidl. Yes. Councilor Hawk. Yes. Councilor Wilts. Yes. Councilor Henry. Yes. Councilor Crossley. Yes.
- Councilor Iverson. Yes. Motion passes unanimous.
- All right, and taking it back to the deputy court administrator, are there any other questions or comments
- on this item from council? Seeing none, I'll move 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 on approving the deputy court administrator position?
- Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Decker? Oh sorry. Councillor Henry? Yes. Councillor Wilz? Yes. Councillor
- Hawke? No. Councillor Feinstein? No. Motion passes majority five to one.
- Thank you very much. Before I leave, can I just say, I want to say thank you again publicly to Lisa
- for the work that she has done as our court administrator and the work she did before this. She has
- been exemplary. We will miss her. She did train Jemma. We're excited to have Jemma and Shannon now to
- help the courts. It helps us help you, but this will probably be the last
- I think this is probably gonna be, no, maybe not. I'm here in two weeks for a big grant that I just
- got, so. There you are. She'll be missed, and she's gonna miss us, too. I know. I won't be tuning in
- to very many county council meetings. See, you're not gonna... But I do tell my office they can call
- me anytime. When I get out of the pool, I'll call them back. We're leaving now. Take care of yourself.
- Thank you. Congratulations.
- All right. Next up is item B from the clerk's office. Council, I move to open for discussion and possible
- approval of the clerk's request to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire and fund
- 1215-0062 Election Fund Election Board, one part time voter registration clerk. Second. All right. We
- got a motion and a second. We're joined by Clerk Brown and Ms. Ferris. Welcome.
- All right, so 2026 total turnout on the 16th day of early voting was 2,848 votes compared to 2022 with
- a total of 1,740 votes. That is a 63% increase from last year's 2022 election versus this election.
- 2026 compared to the largest turnout year of a midterm election in 2018 was 2,295 votes for a total
- increase of 24 voters. Today we have ended the day with 90,405 registered voters with a 3.4% turnout
- for early voting. That's 3,068 total votes, 220 today for an average of 200 voters a day.
- For this role, it is one of our part-time employees. This is the individual who moved from the part-time
- to the full-time position to fill that. And then this is just us trying to make sure that we have the
- bipartisanship in all of our roles and to ensure that we have a smooth flow for the rest of the election
- and for in the fall. All right. Any questions? Yes, Councillor Hawke. Right.
- When I was there the other day, and there was a new face there, and if I understood right, said that
- she was the part-time replacement. And so I thought that surely she was the Republican replacement because
- there was a Democrat setting there, and you have to have. But no, we had in the room, I'm just saying,
- we have to be careful about this. In the room, there were two Democrats and no Republican.
- That may not sound like a big deal to you, but that's what we have to do. That's why we keep it like
- that. Now, I hadn't been there, but just a few minutes when I commented about that, all of a sudden
- the room was full of everybody. And I appreciate that, because that just means, yes, we're going to
- pay attention. But I wanted to call that to your attention, because it wasn't just me there. There was
- somebody with me. So they saw the same thing, and they understood.
- So there were only just two of us voting. It's set up so that if there's thousands show up at once,
- man, you can still run them right through. But we were the only ones there. It just seems like there
- was a lot of staff there during the time we were there. We were the only two voting.
- I don't know what you do to get people to get out and vote. It would help a lot if somebody would fill
- the ballot, wouldn't it?
- I just wanted to say the early voting space we have like slowly progressed the number of people that
- have been working We started at the very beginning with only having two poll books two print devices
- and two checkouts We are now up to having five check-ins and we are set up for ten if needed to be so
- that if we were to have a increase that we needed to bring in more people we could but we're not staffing
- all of them at this time and
- And then I think the incident that she's talking about with the two D's in the office was in our front
- office where we're normally handling voter registrations as they're coming in. I do know that that day
- I had a R helping a D in the back office so that did leave two D's in the front office.
- I just wanted to thank you as one of your liaisons for bringing this forward. Again, the fiscal impact
- on this is flat and that just so helpful as we're making these decisions. So thank you. All right. Seeing
- none, we'll move to public comment. If there's public comment on this item, you can come forward to
- the lectern here in the room or raise your hand via Teams.
- Seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councillor Hawke? Yes. Councillor Will? Yes. Councillor
- Henry? Yes. Councillor Crosley? Yes. Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Feinstein? Yes. Motion passes
- unanimous. Thank you.
- Next up is item C from the auditor's office. Council, I move to open for discussion possible approval
- of the auditor's request to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire and fund one thousand
- dash zero zero zero two county general auditor, a full time assistant property director. Second.
- All right. We got a motion and a second and we have the auditor have one table to the other table.
- you. This is Stephanie Carter, property director. So we're here today to request to hire one of her
- team members, actually her right hand. So we're here today to request to be exempt from the hiring freeze
- to hire the assistant property director. So as many of you know,
- All positions within the property division are essential to daily operations. These staff members provide
- direct assistance to the public and ensure that property deductions are accurate and up to date.
- As you know, that's particularly important right now. Always important, but as we go through these changes
- with SB1, we have a lot of work that's discarding.
- In addition, the division is responsible for the transfer of property records, plat mapping, parcel
- maintaining, coordination with economic development initiatives, and other critical functions like the
- abstract, tax bill calculation, corrections, certification of net assessments, and the auditor's role
- in tax sale, just doing a few of our different duties. So in particular, this position is responsible
- for coordination and implementation of the TIF neutralization study.
- coordination of an execution of all county tax sales Commissioner certificate sales and assisting with
- county abstract and settlement of taxes and correction of taxation errors all positions within The property
- division are cross-trained to back up one another but it is a small division of our team that touches
- all county properties
- real and personal. So it is a big job, and it is definitely a necessary one. And we'll entertain any
- questions you have. Thank you. And just for the record, we have Councillor Decker joining us this evening.
- Thank you. Any questions or comments for the auditor on this item? Councillor Hawke. Just not particularly
- a question, but just a note as a note, very recent.
- First I've seen this, and it's something we don't want to have to do. But Indiana University just announced
- a reduction in force. And so this, I don't think we should be surprised that we're going to see this.
- And this is what we're trying to avoid, is a reduction in force. And that's the reason why we haven't
- filled the empty slots, because we don't want to have to tell somebody to go when they're here.
- And so I hate being the guy who keeps saying no. But this is why. We just don't want to go to our employees
- that we already have and counting on that job to support their household and say, oh, by the way, we're
- going to have to cut. So one time we had an auditor telling us we had to cut 5% off of every budget.
- understand the budgets and so she was wrong. But we don't want to have to go through a summer like we
- did that summer. So the other question I would have is have you met with anybody or discussed further
- what I thought we were going to be talking about when we talked about the auditor staff, the fact that we've got
- two people setting in another department that should be under the auditor's staff so that when that
- one person is freed up a little, they can help out here or there or whatever, could learn some of these
- other jobs and be, you know, cross-training. And I think that fell on deaf ears. I mean, sometimes I
- think I'm just talking to myself. I don't know why I bother coming to these meetings.
- was supposed to be doing payroll. You tell me. I mean, you know what the rules are. You tell me. Past
- decisions made by this council and the commissioners that I didn't have any control over put those two
- positions under the commissioners. So I can't change job descriptions. That, thankfully, is under your
- purview. But you know I'm happy to take my statutory duties and handle them efficiently. Right. And
- I am not finding fault with you.
- There were errors made in my opinion that we should, and you know this, I've been harping about this
- for a long time, that those payroll positions need to be under the direction of our auditor. I had mentioned
- this at the last meeting. I thought we were going to get something and it's not included in this.
- I mean, I just regret that because I know you need to be full staff. Now, I know we're trying to cut
- every place, but I also know if you're following what's going on at the state, that the requirements
- of what's going to have to come out of that auditor's office just keeps growing and growing and growing.
- And the reason I know that is because our job is growing and growing and growing. There's just not enough
- hours in the day to learn all of it.
- I know you're going to be going to Auditor's Conference. When is it? Next week? Or when is it?
- It's coming up. So you'll be getting more of an update which will really be helping us to make some
- of these decisions. But I want to support your office because you've got to have full staff. It's not
- just for county. It's all, you know, they have to do the split of the money for the townships and the city
- Everything. It is the center of all of the finances is sitting right there on top of the shoulders of
- that lady sitting right there. And we have to make sure she has the staff to cover it.
- That is very much appreciated. And thankfully, I have an amazing team. But I have to have the staff.
- I have to have the team to be able to continue to provide the level of service we provide. And we feel
- like we provide very good service internally and externally. So we need to maintain that, because we
- do touch everything in the county. So as far as employee services and payroll, we've had conversations
- multiple times about this.
- I'm not opposed to taking that back, but you will not be receiving an agenda request from me to do so.
- That wouldn't be appropriate. It's not under me to do so. So that would be something maybe the council
- could discuss. And if you choose to change job descriptions, that's totally up to you. I think they
- do a fantastic job. I don't think anything's broken, but it is a statutory duty of the auditor that's
- recognized, understood, and welcomed in our office. And nor do I think that you should be the one requesting
- We're the ones that did this and we're the ones that need to fix it. I'm not saying at all we change
- the folks that's actually doing the work. It's just like just rewrite the job description who they report to.
- I'm going to get back to the agenda request. Thank you. You're welcome. So I was looking at the fiscal
- impact. And I think there's a slight increase on this position. What's in the packet is a little off.
- It's OK. But I'm showing something a little north of $92,000 for the
- So I'm seeing just a little bit of an increase. Do you have the correct fiscal impact in front of you?
- Or is that something that? I'm going to pull it up here in just a second. I was checking the math. I
- was doing that too, but I didn't get quite to the FICA or PERF, so I was making assumptions. So the
- plan is what we intend to do here is
- move another employee, if you grant us permission to do so, into this role. So it's an employee with
- more tenure than the previous employee. So there would be a slight impact here, absolutely. And then
- we're also, next item, requesting to hire the domino effect here for the position that will actually
- be vacant then, given approval. And so then you'll see,
- savings there because we intend to hire probably the minimum level more than likely. So give and take
- yes. So on the screen the current person position is at a twenty nine point zero one hourly rate. The
- new position will be thirty point seventeen and so you'll see a an increase but I'm assuming
- There's no, the perf didn't scroll down, hold on. So yeah, with the perf then it is 92, which means
- there's going to be an additional impact of 2,597. Okay, all right. And that increase was simply just
- explained by you as that someone with
- tenure within Monroe County government that is taking on this role. Got it. Okay. Any other questions
- or comments for the auditor on this item? Seeing none, we'll move to public comment. If there's public
- comment on this item, you can come forward to the lectern here in the room. Raise your hand via teams.
- Like we have a hand raised.
- Councillor Jeff McKim, so you can unmute yourself, state your name for the record, and you'll have up
- to three minutes. Thank you very much, Council. Jeff McKim. I will not take anywhere near three minutes.
- I just wanted to express my support for this request. I think it's really important the basic financial
- operations remain full staffed, and anything other than that I think would be a false economy. So please
- do support this request.
- Thank you. Any other further questions or comments on this item? Public comment. That's what I meant
- to say. All right. Seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councillor Wilz? Yes. Councillor
- Henry? Yes. Councillor Decker? Yes. Councillor Crossley? Yes. Councillor Iverson?
- Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Falk? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. All right next up also with the
- auditor's item, item D. You mean E.
- until I move to open for discussion and possible approval of the auditor's request to be exempt from
- the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire and fund 1000-0002 County General Auditor, a full-time economic
- development coordinator. Second. Great. Okay. As I began to tell you with the previous item, this is
- the position that will now be vacant since you've just given us permission to fill the other vacant position.
- So it's really just one request, if you understand what I'm saying. So this position is responsible
- for abatements, enterprise zones, taxation overpayments, refunds, coordinating taxation deductions,
- transient merchant licensure, and serving as an internal control for legal property transfers. So another
- big important job.
- within the county. So, just requesting again your permission and happy to entertain questions. Great.
- Any questions or comments for this item for the auditor? Okay. Seeing none, we'll move to public comment.
- If there's public comment on this item, you can come forward to the lectern here in the room or raise
- your hand via Teams.
- Seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councillor Henry? Yes. Councillor Deckard? Yes. Councillor
- Cronin? Yes. Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Feinstein? Yes. Councillor Holland? Yes. Councillor
- Wilts? Yes. Motion passes unanimous.
- Next up, item E is also still with the auditor's office. Council, I move to open for discussion and
- possible approval of the auditor's request to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire
- and fund 1000-0002 County General Auditor, a full-time property transfer coordinator. Second. Okay,
- who would you like to add on this item? Okay, we just received notification from a
- dear employee that they will be moving to Michigan. And we actually just today received the date. I
- believe her final anticipated date of employment would be on May 12th. So unfortunately for us, but
- a great transition for them, they are moving to Michigan to be close to family. And I guess the commute
- would be too severe.
- Okay. Is there any questions or comments for this item for council? Best of luck to the employee that's
- leaving. Thank you. All right. So seeing no questions or comments from council, we'll move to public
- comment. You can raise your hand via Teams or you can come forward to the lectern here in the room.
- And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote.
- Councillor Crawford? Yes. Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Feinberg? Yes. Councillor Wilz? Yes. Councillor
- Henry? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Thank you. Thank you very much, Council. Very much appreciated.
- You're welcome. I would say have a good night, but you're just popping back over there. Okay. Thank you.
- Next up is item nine, which is council business. And we'll start with item eight from the health department.
- Council as a reminder, this item was tabled from the April 14th council meeting. I moved to approve
- the health department's request and fund 11 59 dash 0000 health
- fund, the creation of account line 36998 COVID immunization expense and account line 4001 equipment
- and simultaneously approve an additional appropriation of $123,286.79 in the supplies category.
- $123,286 in the services category and $500,000 in the capital category for a total appropriation of
- $745,572.79. Second. All right. I was just looking at. Great. Do you see that? So on here.
- The total says $746,572.79. And then... I thought you said... Oh, it's off by... No, that's what I'm
- saying. It's off by $1,000. It says $746, and then what you read is $745. Sorry. Right. Which one is
- the right number? $746. Okay. Council, I amend my motion for a total appropriation of $746,572.79.
- have Ms. Kelly here. Welcome. Good evening again. So in September of 2025, the Health Department submitted
- an agenda request for the creation of these account lines and category transfers. So this is for funding
- that was received from COVID-19 vaccine administrations that were dispersed from the Indiana Department
- of Health.
- This request was approved at the October 28th meeting. However, the purchase was not completed by the
- facilities and fleet department before the end of 2025. So essentially we're coming back to you to try
- to circle back around to being able to get these funds appropriated so that we could hopefully move
- forward with the purchase of the mobile unit to begin providing those services in the community.
- questions for Ms. Kelly on this item from Council. Yes, Council Iverson. Thank you for being here and
- thank you for supplying the information from Health First Indiana in our packet today as a reminder
- that that's where these dollars are coming from. That these Health First, you know, the stipulations
- coming from the state
- really do need us to be out and about and providing these services. So so thank you for providing that.
- My question to you is what have you heard from like where where would this mobile unit go. What have
- you heard from township trustees. What have you heard from other health units in the community.
- Yes, so currently we have six trustee and food pantry community locations that are interested in partnering
- with us to be able to provide these mobile health outreach services. So I have a list here that we've
- been working on collecting this information for where are these partnerships where we could go out and
- provide them. So the Benton, Bloomington trustee, Perry, Van Buren,
- the community kitchen pantry 279. So those are all current facilities that we're working with where
- we could actually have this mobile unit out providing those services. In addition, we did have a community
- survey that went out in the fall of 2025 trying to gather information from community members about what's
- really, what do they see the importance of the services that we could be providing.
- Access to vaccinations kept routinely coming up, communicable disease and infectious disease control,
- emergency preparedness. So those types of activities are the ones that would we would really be focusing
- on providing with this having this mobile unit. So we would be able to go out and provide those vaccinations.
- testing for communicable diseases and non-communicable diseases treatment referrals. And it would be
- really nice to also be able to have this that we could deploy if we had a surge with, for example,
- tuberculosis. And we needed to go provide testing for hundreds of individuals. It's going to be a lot
- easier to have a unit like this, to be able to go to another site rather than trying to
- get a few hundred people into the health department, given our limitations there with parking and access.
- The organizations that are on your list, did you just, you didn't just pick those like on Google Maps,
- like those are actual conversations you're having with community partners that want this service at
- their location. Am I understanding that correctly? Yes. Yes. Thank you. Yes.
- So with that in mind, you mentioned some of the townships, but could I could we assume that you'll be
- working with all the townships? Yes. So we've put out it's just a matter of what communications we've
- got back thus far. So I have someone that's working on communicating to find facilities and then working.
- So they're all kind of in different stages. Councillor Hawke.
- Yes, I'm really happy to hear that the plan is to go to the different townships and so forth because
- especially Van Buren's got a lovely place for you to go and provide those services. You really don't
- need a mobile unit to do that. But I'm glad that you're working with the community. But once again,
- for some reason,
- I must have misunderstood what Councilmember Iverson was saying. This Health 1159, that's in that frozen
- levy fund, right? 1159 is local property taxes. And while this was like sort of a one-time additional
- dollars that the state had sent in, and at that time,
- They had suggested since we're not going to be providing these extra dollars every year, you might want
- to consider doing just for one time that it was not required to do just the one time thing. And it's
- sitting there in that frozen levy so that it could literally be used to help shore up that fund for
- while we're trying because remember that fund is going to be covered under that one point to
- All of that is going to be coming into the 1.2. In other words, we're still going to have property tax,
- but that's going to be dwindling. It's not going to grow like it has in the past. And so a half million
- dollars could really help us over that extra dollars that we spent this year. We budgeted for spending
- this year that's more than we were spending in deficit.
- So I don't see anything here that's been budgeted for operational costs of a mobile facility, what the
- insurance is going to be, what the gas is going to be, where it's going to be stored, all of those things.
- And this is just like opening up a brand new business. If you were going to have a brand new business,
- you would have to have
- operational costs included. So I can't support this. I don't know how it got in there. I thought we
- all had sort of agreed that this was not the time to do this, but maybe we're going forward. I can speak
- a little bit to the core services and, you know, those required services. You know, although that that
- We had a pretty significant cut to Health First Indiana, but we are still required to be providing all
- of those services with those Health First Indiana dollars. Our state funds are essentially covering
- to make sure, but so I think that that's, we can't just not provide these Health First Indiana services
- because we have to make sure that even those funds were cut, that we're still
- meeting those requirements. Some questions have been raised about whether or not we should be treating
- public health like a business. And I want to push back a little bit on that because I think if we're
- going to be fully focused on building a car surreal building, that's one thing.
- But we have to be a little more broader in how we're thinking in providing different services. And so
- I also wanted to bring up another point. I think that what wasn't raised is that the folks that are
- going to be working on this mobile unit are already on staff. There's no request from you to fill vacant
- positions. That's my understanding. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct. So we have the staff to provide
- the services.
- I did gather some information to just about just services in general. We're talking about access to
- free public health services. So the Indiana University in Indianapolis recently conducted a study and
- this was examining improved service delivery under Health First Indiana. So essentially all of the data
- all of the core services that all of the health departments were submitting to
- to the state during the initial startup period. So this study revealed that over 14,000 Hoosiers
- undiagnosed hypertension high blood pressure were identified and nearly seven thousand Hoosiers were
- identified with undiagnosed high cholesterol. So these were all due to free health screenings being
- out and available to the community. So this study ended up
- with estimated over $700 million in healthcare cost savings due to these preventative health screenings.
- So this mobile unit is really going to give us this opportunity to be able to engage with more people
- than we can currently engage with in our department and help to be able to contribute to how can we help
- find those undiagnosed chronic conditions through free screening and testing interventions and connect
- those individuals to care. Yes, counselor vital. So I heard counselor Hawk talk about the operational
- expenses. I guess I'm wondering to follow up on that and ask where will the gasoline money come from?
- Where will the insurance money come from? What happens if you break down? Where are all those things
- coming from?
- So we do have funds from our revenue or from what we're getting from like fax care so we do receive
- some funding through that which would help cover these ongoing expenses and really the hope is that
- we would still continue getting some of that revenue through what we're billing for anyways and this
- is just from like our vaccine program and the services that we could bill for if we
- are able to get a position for that. Otherwise I think it will just change from year to year. So we
- did have we did talk to Ivy Tech last year about being able to store the facility there. My understanding
- is that facilities has spoken
- to the airport about being able to store the unit there. I did collect information from other health
- departments across the state that have a mobile unit who are routinely going out about some of their
- ongoing costs. Again, this was last fall, so I don't have all those numbers in the top of my head. That's
- why I sent you copies of that old proposal, because some of those figures were in there.
- I think it's completely manageable and from the other counties that I've talked to, they've had really
- good success. Any other questions or comments from? Yes, Councilor Hawk. Right. I would think it would
- be not that difficult to get a quote for the insurance.
- I think it's asking too much and I know I have a business head, but you know, I hope we all do. That's
- what we're doing here is looking at finding. But any rate, I'm not gonna support it, but I'm sorry that
- you didn't have ready for us the answers to those questions because we've asked you before. All right,
- anybody else? Yes, Councilor Henry. Thank you, thank you for coming in again.
- I was looking at the survey data. I think what I'm trying to understand, there's a strong case to do
- it. We've got strong partners in the community. We've got some locations we've scoped. The data you
- had, there were 46 respondents that said that out of 310 that they had aged the public health department
- in some way. There's percentages here, but I wanted to think about humans. And so 25 of those presented
- at the brick and mortar clinic.
- out of the 46% of that. 19 at a public event, I guess, where they would have engaged the desk somewhere,
- the tent or table. And six at a work or school, I guess, presentation or the health department's there.
- But what, I mean, so if the van is out and it goes to a part of the community, there's advertising,
- there's hopefully some lead time with community,
- Let folks know the van's going to be here for vaccination day. Like how do you envision those numbers
- going up? Because if it's like, and I know it's like a survey response. So do you have like a good handle
- on the number of people that have used the clinic historically, right? The brick and mortar. And then
- what we think that impact is going to be taking the vehicle out to the four corners of the county.
- I mean, it's a good idea. I'm just trying to wrap my head around some of this and trying to get to the
- obvious, you know,
- public health as a business versus what that means moving the vehicle. Can you help me understand that
- a little? Sure. So ultimately our goal would be to see some of those numbers increase with engaging
- with the community members. I think the challenge here is these answers were coming from when the nursing
- services were provided through the Miller Drive Clinic. So I think that that's going to be kind of one
- of the challenges of
- the data that we're able to capture now and moving forward versus that data that was more, that was
- reflective of the IU Health Services. Do you have a ballpark? Like, I mean, because out of 310 respondents,
- 46 said that they've used the County Health Department for anything. And then there's a split over in-person
- or, I mean, do you have a sense of what that could look like?
- I mean, definitely it would be nice to be able to increase that to at least 60% engaging with us. Well,
- thank you. Thank you for, yeah, I mean, I know it's spitballing, but yeah, thank you for helping. I
- think it would be helpful, too, the more that we can get the word out and the services and being able
- to have this unit to make ourselves more visible, to be able to show up to more places,
- just make that a little bit easier. Thank you. Than having to ask people to come to us at the Seventh
- Street location. I was reading the comments and the feedback that was in our packet and there was some
- real interesting ones in there as well. Oh boy. So but the one thing that somebody did say that in this
- conversation is kind of making me think of
- This question is, because this is something that you keep saying in terms of getting the word out, getting
- the word out, what do you envision that looks like? What would that entail? What would we need to do,
- or what would the health department need to do? The council could support whatever the case is. But
- I'm curious to know your thoughts on how do we get the word out about something like this? Because this
- is a big investment.
- It seems like a lot of people would benefit from it and people like the idea of this. But I'm just I'm
- curious to know if we don't get the word out. That's a lot that is invested in something that's really
- not living to to its potential. So I think we would really need to have a structured campaign
- plan communications plan. So in the
- old proposal there are some ideas about different strategies of communicating this message but essentially
- what are those can we work with the different universities how can we work with the city how can we
- work with our local community organizations so
- above and beyond just messaging through social media. So I have contacted employee resources. Is there
- a way that we could look at mailers? Are there radio advertisements? What are the different methods
- of being able to communicate this and use that more than just our website and social media?
- But I'll ask, is there anybody on your staff that could help assist with this as well? Yes. So our Director
- of Public Health Preparedness handles our external communications and all of our messaging. So this
- person could be working on that and is really excellent at doing that work and very creative. Okay.
- Thank you. Yes.
- The question I wondered about hours of operation for people utilize that it seems like we need to work
- around their working hours. I don't know strategy for that. Yes. And so in one of our one of one of
- the expectations for our state funding is that we do offer hours outside of our normal business hours
- for access to these services. So this would be going and
- providing services for a half day on a Saturday once a month, having some evening hours once a month
- at a certain location. And of course, you have to adjust employee schedules around that. And we have
- been working on that and looking at different ways to make some flexibility there for providing that.
- But essentially, it would be set days, times, locations. But outside of those normal hours, again, to
- also help just
- capture those who can't stop by because they're working Monday through Friday. So how long will this
- program last? The services you mean through the mobile clinics? Well, as long as I'm here and have the
- opportunity.
- I appreciate very much some of your comments here. And I think last time this was before us, one of
- the reference points I made is that whenever they started the Bookmobile, it probably was alien-like
- for people, but then became a regular feature. I mean, I look out my back window over at Country View
- Apartments right there. The green thing out there, that's the Bookmobile. It's now recognizable. But
- that's taken, I would say, since 60s, 70s.
- I think I remember that. But anyway, if this were working right, ideally that would be the kind of thing
- that somebody would see either in Trustee Barrow's parking lot or they'd see it down at the Smithville
- ballpark or wherever the township thinks that you could go there. If it were working right, it would
- look like that.
- I think that a lot of the comments that I'm seeing here kind of reflect a sentiment we hear on health
- matters generally. People don't have time to figure all these things out. They don't have the convenience,
- particularly if you're dealing with a health issue, they don't have the convenience to figure that out.
- Health is kind of a tortured process anyway. And I think that between this, Health Net, IU Health,
- what's offered by IU Health, not offered by IU Health, and our second hospital, Monroe Hospital, along
- with a whole lot of other folks, I think that that information about all of this, almost in a directional
- way, almost has to hit not only social media, but a almost like leaflet campaign that somehow we're
- gonna get out. Somehow we elected officials managed to get our mail pieces and door pieces at doors,
- don't always get basic services and maybe we help you with that. I don't know. But I think that that
- has to hit. And then the third thing is for all those students across that gate or even on the west
- side of this county at Ivy Tech, this is a tremendous opportunity to assist us
- in a project on helping to figure out how to get the word out, because these things just literally become
- community mysteries that only add to the haves and have nots. And I do think, Lori, I agree with you
- immensely on something. Everything being downtown within a stone's throw of this courthouse is not always
- reaching people where they're at. How, I don't know, presumptuous of us that we would think that it would.
- It's hard to sometimes get downtown for folks. Sometimes it's easier for others. But I think that things
- that start meeting them where they're at truly make absolute sense because, you know, one thing you
- do realize when you run for office in this county and you start delivering yard signs border to border,
- it's a massive
- County with a lot of people doing a lot of cool things in different ways. I think somehow our services
- have to penetrate that, not just when people are putting out yard signs, but when it matters when we're
- serving. For me, I could see this going that route. Is there additional information that we will need
- on this? Yeah, 100 percent, but good Lord, look at the survey responses.
- These are well thought out survey responses which you don't often see. I say that as a teacher reading
- online course questionnaire answers. These are really well thought out and people are consistently saying
- they don't know everything we do or they're surprised that we do or they really need it but would like
- to know this. They want good calls back and they want good reliable information. I think that somehow
- there's a lot of food for thought here.
- And so I hope some of my comments kind of add to that, but we got to meet people where they're at in
- their roughest time. And I think that hearing about the roughest time right there. And so I can add
- just a little bit because you made me kind of think of some previous conversations with Indiana University
- that just ongoing conversations, they've known
- you know, how much we've wanted these services. They have programs that are really focused on, you know,
- student engagements. We've had a lot of conversations about how can we work with them. They're data
- collecting experts, right, research experts. How can we create, how can we work together so we can collect
- data so that they can help us demonstrate our outcomes and maybe where we need to make improvements.
- how can we engage our students? I love nothing more than when we have the opportunity to work with students.
- We haven't had an intern or an extern for a few months and it's kind of sad. It's so, it's so
- It's such a great experience when you're able to bring students into the department, show them all of
- the services that we are providing, see them learn, grow, and develop. And so I think that that would
- be a really important aspect of this too, being able to how can we work and also bring our students
- into this and work with the university to be able to collect data so that we can actually demonstrate
- the outcomes from having these services.
- Do you see this actually being an appointment driven model or just drive up and park and be there certain
- hours or both? Both. Councilor Wilts? A couple of just tiny questions. Did you mention in the list of
- places you might go? Not in this most recent list, but it was we've
- talked with the schools before about working with their nursing programs and their students and being
- able to coordinate for health fairs. So I see that your target audiences, you have a list of like five
- there. And I'm wondering, you know, if trying to reach
- unhoused or the older population and some of these other hard to access. I'm going to guess and maybe
- you can correct me that the survey did not go to these populations. So really there's a bit of a disconnect
- there that you know it is what it is. But I would think that it would be
- useful to try to get more information from the target audience specifically, and whether it's direct
- or maybe going through agencies or organizations who are interfacing with those populations. However
- you get at it, I think obviously doing a community survey is fantastic, but I find
- in my day job that when you do that, it's often not exactly the information that the target population
- would give you. Just a thought. Absolutely. There's definitely ways that we wish and that we know now
- this year of how we can, and this was a very short time period, so we had, did we have paper forms in
- the office for people walked, when they walked in, sure, but you know, really,
- you're exactly right, it would be about getting it out to those community organizations and really being
- able to capture all that information, maybe having listening sessions in various formats to be able
- to capture the information. It could be something that McKeck could help with, because I know you've
- been involved with them, or an IU class as well.
- Thank you. Thank you for walking us through that. That triggers a question. You purchased the van and
- then we do the data collection to figure out the demand? I just want to capture that.
- I think so I think that we work off of the community partnerships that we've already started working
- on and engaging and we're always going to be adapting and evolving and changing direction with what
- our community needs are and what we're finding. You know our community health assessments done every
- three three years for example. So that'll be coming up in twenty twenty seven. But this is a this is
- a survey that's a little bit different but I think it's
- In public health, you're always going to be changing and kind of going down a different direction. I
- get that part against the core services, and I don't want to belabor this, but when I look at the survey
- results, I'd say high propensity for vaccination, infectious disease prevention, STI testing. I remember
- when the health officer was here, she talked about the capacity of the van to have
- I guess a chair with stirrups and a bed. She had some thoughts about other equipment in the vehicle
- that isn't captured in the survey, but then isn't captured from maybe the target population either.
- I might just be deep into this at this point, but I'm just trying to understand what the van does against
- what the data says, against what the demand is. Does that make sense? It does, but our focus would be on
- service-wise would be testing, screenings, vaccinations, referrals. Thanks for that. Thank you. It looks
- like the auditor had her hand up. Would you like to look at the 4B for this fund?
- Based on the budget that was approved during the budget sessions, we are slated to end this fund at
- the end of this year with $467,446. That is if all of our estimated revenue and the budgeted amount
- is fully expended as it was when the budget was approved. We appropriated for this when we did it. We
- made the appropriation, didn't we? Yes. Okay. Thanks. That's good. Thank you.
- Yes, I think what we looked at was this is one of the funds that we're going to have to add more money
- into from that frozen levy because this fund has been spent down too far and we moved some of the money
- around to cover what we need to cover in general and we've got to take from general and put it back
- into these other funds. Am I stating that correctly?
- You are this is a fund that has had reversions and just based on that trend We were able to reduce the
- levy a little bit Right, but but aren't you? We were told that we can count on when we do budgets for
- this coming year That we will have to put more money in there than we did this year Which means if you
- do more for there, you've got to do less for general
- I mean, I'm just saying that's what we did. And so if we didn't do this mobile unit, that would leave
- enough cash in the balance when you do the 4B to help them get through next year a little bit. It would
- just help us get through this budget time. But you know what? We've talked this thing to death. I'm
- ready to vote. Councilor Iverson? I agree. So when you do get this vehicle, would you let us know so
- we can go out with your staff? I would absolutely love to put you to work. Thanks.
- All right, so I will go to public comment. So public comment, if you have something to say on this item,
- you can come forward to the lectern here in the room or raise your hand via Teams. And seeing none,
- maybe please have a roll call. Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes.
- Councillor Hawke? No. Councillor Wilts? Yes. Councillor Henry? Yes. Councillor Dick? Yes. Motion passes
- majority six to one. Thank you. All right. Thank you. All right. Next up is item B from the highway
- department.
- Council, I move to open for discussion and possible approval of the Highway Department's request to
- be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire and fund 1176-00001 part-time maintenance laborer.
- Second. All right, we got a motion and a second. And it looks like Ms. Ridge, oh, okay, so she is there.
- I wasn't sure if she was
- or made it to presenter yet. But since you have, you can go ahead and get started. Hello. Good evening.
- So we have a full-time employee that is going to stop working full-time. So we are requesting to move
- this employee to a part-time position that is open. We have it in our approved budget for a part-time
- line and we would not be filling the full-time position at this time. He's a great employee. He actually
- retired from the county after 30 plus years of service, came back to us in this full-time labor position,
- maintenance, and we'd like to bring him back just as a part-time hourly, no more than 28 hours a week,
- and then not fill the full-time position, which should be a cost savings overall.
- just can't stay away. Exactly. Any questions or comments on this item from council? All right.
- Seeing none, we'll take public comment. If there's public comment on this item, 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. Councillor Iverson? Yes.
- Councillor Hawke. Yes. Councillor Wilts. Yes. Councillor Henry. Yes. Councillor Deckard. Yes. Councillor
- Crossley. Yes. Motion passes unanimous. All right. Next up item C. Council, I move to approve the highway
- department's request and fund 1112-0530 economic development lit highway to de-appropriate $1 million
- in the services category.
- All right, we got a motion in the second, Ms. Ridge. This is just basically some housekeeping work.
- We had included this in our paperwork, I think, last month, and we all just overlooked at getting on
- the agenda to de-appropriate it. We've already moved the funds and created the line in the CCMG account
- for tracking purposes. So just to de-appropriate it.
- Any questions or comments from council on this item? Seeing none, we'll move to public comment. You
- can come forward to the lectern here in the room or raise your hand via Teams. Seeing none, may we please
- have a roll call vote? Councillor Fein. Yes. Councillor Hawk. Yes. Councillor Wilk.
- Yes. Councillor Deckard. Yes. Councillor Crossley. Yes. Councillor Iverson. Yes. Motion passes unanimous.
- Thank you. A couple of items from the auditor's office again, starting with item D. Council, I move
- to approve the auditor's request and fund 4922-0000 Fullerton Pike Economic Development slash TIFF.
- the creation of account line 32751, interest other debt, and account line 32776, principal other debt,
- and simultaneously approve an additional appropriation of $300,001 in the services category. Second.
- All right, we got a motion and a second, Ms. Gregor. Or Ms. Woodruff. Whichever one.
- We received word from FSG that the county's redevelopment commission pledged 50% of the Fullerton Pike
- area TIF to the 2023 county bridge payments. So in order to make these payments, we're requesting the
- appropriation in that fund just to carry out their wishes. Thank you. Any questions or comments on this
- item from council? Yes, council I understand. How many years is that bond payment? Is that a 20 year?
- I can get that for you.
- No hurry. You can email is fine. I believe it is but we'll get it to you. Email is fine. Any other questions
- or comments on this item? Seeing none, we'll move to public comment. You can raise your hand via Teams
- or come forward to the lectern in the room. And seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councillor
- Hock? Yes. Councillor Wilts?
- Henry. Yes. Councillor Deckard. Yes. Councillor Crossley. Yes. Councillor Iverson. Yes. Councillor Fiddle.
- Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Great. Next up item E.
- Council I move to approve the auditor's request and fund 1000 dash zero zero zero two county general
- auditor the creation of account line three three zero zero one timber sales distributions and Simultaneously
- appropriate an additional appropriation of twenty five thousand seven hundred and nineteen dollars in
- this services category Okay, we got a motion in a second
- We received $51,437.97 from the Department of Natural Resources. This is 15% of the net proceeds from
- timber sales in the county. Statute says that we are required to distribute
- 50 percent of this to certain fire districts. And so we have the Beam Blossom Township Fire District,
- the Bloomington Fire District and Ellisville and then Monroe Fire Protection District. All four of those
- are expected to get equal payment amounts. Statute does also say that
- We are capped at $1,000 per unit unless the commissioners approve otherwise. I believe they have intention
- to approve, give that approval at a meeting later this month or early next month. Questions or comments
- from council on this item? Yes, councilor. This message is for Ms. Turner King. Do we need to make our
- motion conditional then on a commissioner action or is the motion
- find the way it is. I think it's safe to make it conditional. Okay. All right. Council, I do amend my
- motion to make it conditional on Monroe County Board of Commissioners action. Okay. Seconded.
- Thank you. Okay.
- received $51,000. So my question is, what happened? Where's that going to go? That money was deposited
- into County General. Okay, so it's just County General, it's like
- this is something that the dollar amount is what the commissioners have said that they, we believe this
- is what they want? I did receive confirmation from the administrator that they do intend to approve
- that. Again, that wasn't directly from the commissioners. That's just from their administrator. I mean,
- they might possibly say we'll distribute all of it to the
- However, I'm going to support that. Oh, I mean, but you're just going by what they're straighter said, not.
- Correct, and I don't believe the statute would automatically distribute that. The statute's very clear
- and it says that we're required to give 50%, but then also puts that cap at $1,000 unless the commissioners
- allow for the 50%. I mean, so it is up to the commissioners. Correct. Got it. Yes, Councilor Wilts.
- I apologize if you've told me this, but I'm learning that I didn't read everything that was in the pack.
- Do you know where this timber harvest took place? That is information I did not receive. I know that
- it was a while back that we communicated via email about this and then it kind of wandered through the
- county getting figures.
- There's just, you know, limited state forested areas within Monroe County. I believe Morgan County also
- got this money. So I would assume it's the Morgan Monroe State Forestry, but that is a pure assumption
- based on conversation that I had with that county.
- I would have to assume as well, because I don't think Yellowwood has even harvested anything. Sorry.
- Councilor Decker. One question I had, I'm struggling institutionally to just to remember us dealing
- with this in the last few years, but I may be really wrong on that. Do you all remember much?
- Whenever I looked at the ledger, I believe it was 22 or 23 that was the last time we received these
- kind of funds. And we did distribute the full 50% at that time. Well, I just, I think for the own public
- good on our end, just kind of acknowledging that a lot of us get fired up one way or the other. I did
- not mean to say it that way, but about
- There's I've heard from constituents both sides who does it when they do it, why they're doing it. And
- so just the I'm struggling to remember us talking about it. And I'm just wondering if this is just indicative
- of the larger numbers that have come through. But that's me misremembering. Yes, Councillor Hock. Right.
- It would be lovely if we found out that the commissioners are going to use the other half of the money.
- for the parks department and perhaps they could plant some trees with that and then make everybody feel
- really good. That's all feel really good about it. This is my funding environmentalist down there.
- All right. Seeing no other questions or comments from council on this item.
- We'll move to public comment. If there's public comment, you can raise your hand via Teams or come forward
- to the lectern here in the room. I need to remind you there needs to be a vote. That's right. Yes, because
- you made your motion or unconditional. So before we move to public comment, I totally forgot about that.
- All those in favor of what Councilor Iverson presented as amended signify by saying aye. Aye. All those
- opposed, same sign.
- That was the amendment for the conditional. All right. So we'll go to public comment next. Again, seeing
- if there is any in the room or on Teams. Oh, we got a hand raise. So you will unmute yourself, state
- your name for the record. And TSD, please make sure we have the timer up. You'll have up to three minutes.
- Hello, can you hear me? Yes. This is Kelly Whitmer. I'm the director of Monroe County Parks and Recreation.
- And we do have a park space available for additional trees. So I just wanted to make sure you knew that.
- And we'd be more than happy to plan. I love it. That's all. I'm done. Thank you. Trees to go around.
- All right.
- Are there any other public comments on this item? Thank you for the trees. All right. Seeing none, may
- we please have a roll call vote? Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes.
- Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hawke? Yes. Motion
- passes unanimous.
- Thank you. All right, next up is item F, which is from council office. Council, I move to open for discussion
- and possible approval and fund 1000-0061 County General Council, a request for an additional appropriation
- of $30,000 in the services category. Second. All right, we got a motion and a second, and I will go
- ahead and take a comment at this.
- I wanted to bring this to the council's attention just considering all the moving pieces that we have
- in front of us with respect to a potential purchase of North Park and we all got the memo what back
- in a couple of weeks ago on April 10th.
- basically laying out the conditions of should council not do certain things that we could potentially
- get into further litigation. I wanted to bring this to the council's attention. Nothing crazy or weird
- happened that was behind the scenes or any of that. This was me asking the auditor to go ahead to
- put this out here for a discussion. So I know there was a mass email that went out to the county in
- relation to this, and I just want to say, checked with the auditor's office to make sure that we didn't
- do anything that was weird, and would apologize if we did, but it seems like, according to the email,
- we did not. Okay, so thank you, appreciate that. According to the statute,
- It does state that we can, should we choose to do so, have our own legal representation. I do know for
- a fact that other elected bodies in this particular county have had that as an option to them because
- we also are an elected body. That is just something that I wanted to bring to the attention of my colleagues
- to say, should we feel like we get to this point
- where further litigation might ensue, that we would have this as a placeholder for us to do what we
- might need to do should we get to that level. I hope that we don't. I really hope that we don't.
- But again, as council president, I'm thinking of all things considering, and I just wanted to bring
- this to the attention of the council for a discussion, again, should we have to go down this route.
- So I'm willing to open it up for any other further questions or comments on this. I'm gonna start over
- here and then I'm gonna work my way back. So Councilor Wills. So if I'm understanding what you're saying
- correctly, the intent is that this money would not be spent though there was a compelling, like a lawsuit,
- or are we thinking that
- money might be used in advance to get a consultation from outside counsel or some other. What's the
- use case? Well, I mean, that's open for a discussion, but my idea is because we have that stipulation
- that was put into the extension agreement, should we not
- It seems like counsel could also be applied to this lawsuit should litigation go further. And so my
- idea is to see why and protect ourselves from anything. Again, this is not to say anything bad about,
- you know, I know we have Ms. Turner King that is our assigned attorney, not to say anything at all.
- So I also want to debunk that as well.
- But what I'm just saying is, this is just our way of saying, should we get to this level? Again, I really
- hope to the higher powers that be, we don't. But should we? Maybe that's something that we could enact.
- But if we need to have a consultation or anything like that, again, that's up to this body to have that
- conversation. Let others go first.
- Yes, I think when you go to the meeting coming up in a few weeks, for those of you who are able to go
- to that meeting, you're going to find out that this is the way a majority of the counties will handle
- their legal representation. They do it by contract. Certainly, you're not going to find very many counties
- that have four full-time attorneys working in a legal department.
- So, and as a reminder, we did have our own county attorney that worked in our office that was, we handled
- it with a salary because we have the authority. We don't have to go ask somebody else. That's our choice
- to put an additional person in the council budget and put it in the salary ordinance. We don't have
- to have permission for that.
- But if we wish to do it in the form of a contract, you'll just find that in many, many, many counties
- that's how they handle it. So it's nothing unusual. It really is not. It just may seem unusual to us
- because we've handled it differently for too long. That brings another question to mind because what
- I'm hearing is unusual in that we're
- we're not eschewing our current council. We're getting extra. So it's not that we're switching from
- one model to another. We're keeping what we have and adding on. And the adding on is, and then I guess
- that kind of goes back to the first question, which is I get that we need to discuss, but the adding
- on is because
- whatever an external council brings, we've decided that's important that it's an external perspective,
- if I'm understanding the arguments. So, okay, that's just, I just wanted to make sure I was understanding.
- Madam President, and when you look at what we're allowed to do, it's written in the language, you know,
- it's legal language that we're allowed to do this.
- But what I'd like to say, it's a lot like we have our financial person, but then we hire some expert
- advice when we need it from somebody else. It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with what we've got.
- It means it's just something added to and able to answer questions that we have that might be different
- than what others might have.
- I want to make two points, at least at this point in the conversation. The first point is, I really
- like this conversation so far. If you had gone back to our previous meeting, it sure seemed a lot different.
- And I'm glad to hear that at this point, this council seems to be in agreement that there is nothing
- wrong with the current legal representation that we are receiving. And I just want to be really clear
- with that, that this is not
- an attempt to replace the legal advice we're getting. All right. That is absolutely correct. And I feel
- like it has been twisted in a way that just totally dismantling what we have. And that is not the case,
- which is quite frustrating that this is all twisted up into he say she say
- Yes, because all I'm trying to do is bring to you all, we got a situation that is coming down the pike
- really, really soon. And it is really important to us. And we need to look at what we potentially could
- possibly do. So if and when that time comes where we have to act on something right away, we have already
- done what we need to do. And we can go instead of waiting.
- should we get to again, should we get to that point? OK, that leads me to my second point. I have not
- received any assurances from the board of commissioners that this action would go through. If anybody
- has received something from the board of commissioners saying that they're willing to work with us on
- this, I would love to hear it. But I don't think that that's coming, and I'm really concerned
- that any claims that go forward would be subject to their approval. Any contract that goes forward would
- be subject to their approval. So I do have some concern along those lines. And is there more to add
- from the bench?
- service contract would have to be approved by the commissioners but in the event that the commissioners
- would deny that contract there is a process that council could engage in since this is a statutory right
- that would allow it's a it's a process that allows the contract to be approved despite commissioner
- rejection.
- That's what was sent to us yesterday by Mr. Schilling from Legal, which again, all we're trying to do
- is enact on our constitutional right to legal representation. Yes, Councilor Decker. Thank you. Thank
- you very much. I appreciate the way that President Crosley has described this.
- but I have no questions for anyone. I have comments, if that's appropriate at this time. This one has
- been something that's kind of, to be honest, I have struggled mightily with, and I'm just gonna make
- comments on it. I'll try to be really quick here, but I got things that I wanna say. The description
- that I've heard this evening, to be very honest, is not a description that I have heard out in the parking
- lots of this county about this issue.
- And I'll just be blunt about that. And sometimes when we come to a decision where folks start to come
- together, I think people may come to those decisions for different reasons, which is legitimate when
- you're elected by different people or at different times. But I think some of those conversations reflect
- different thoughts on that. Every counselor's got a right to have those thoughts. But I think maybe
- people come to different argumentation on that.
- And I won't repeat all that argumentation because people need to offer that on their own. I'm not going
- to be their spokesperson. But one thing on this generally is where I struggle with this is I get the
- need to prepare for day two of day one not going well or if you're following this jail discussion, day
- depending on who you ask, day 432 or 4,432, I get that. I get it completely. But ultimately, I still
- come down to some simple math on two different sides of this. Councilor Iverson kind of mentioned before
- the math on this contract, the steps it needs to go through to get passage adoption.
- with our partners in the commissioner's office. What I kind of come down to is the math just on the
- overall issue. And I'm going to start saying this a lot more because I think that we've got to, this
- has to get to the focus. We have an issue that I believe I'm hearing everyone agrees is a constitutional
- care issue. And that issue needs the focus of counselors and commissioners around majorities
- around solutions. And in both bodies, I mean, the public can count the number of people up here. In
- both bodies, that means four here agreeing around something, ideally seven agreeing on something, but
- I haven't seen anything controversial in here to get much higher than a six. But it means a majority
- doing something, and it means when the commissioners are in here doing their meeting, two out of three
- And I think ideally for them, they'd say three, but it means them moving around a majority towards the
- overall solution. And that would be location, that would be cost, and that would be, to me personally,
- how you engage the public on all that, because I don't think people follow very much other than what
- sort of is their niche like kind of buy in here or anger here. And I think that there's public that doesn't,
- kind of know that. To me, in my honest, humble opinion, that is the math I would rather spend the next
- few weeks on, trying to conquer rather than a prelude to legal representation that may send different
- signals than what I'm hearing and that we don't necessarily want. And I worry
- mightily that entering two tough negotiation discussions among the 13 others that will emerge tomorrow
- when another storm hits or somebody needs this and we've not done it or somebody's not rung the bell
- at the right time, I worry that we just give ourselves maybe the wrong work. I also say that we've had
- a lot of action from our city colleagues, but really all that
- with respect to everyone doesn't change the fact that it still comes down to four in one chamber and
- two in another, ideally unanimous in both, but we know that's hard, moving towards a solution that starts
- to move us towards constitutional care. And that's kind of the rub of it on it. We as a body seem to
- get in trouble when our answer, which has multiple meanings for multiple people,
- turns into an answer that's universal for all. I think it's hard to maintain that majority around something
- under that kind of vein. Council Henry. Madam President, and thank you for bringing forward the discussion.
- I think we're in a storm. I don't think it's on its way. I think we're already in it. When we have an
- agreement that has added stipulations that
- the council's choices. And that's new language that has not existed in the 17 years of that agreement.
- It needs evaluation. And as I said at the comment that we had at the last meeting, you know, at the
- conclusion of our last meeting, I do think that we have a timeline that's counting down that eventually
- there will be a purchase agreement presumably passed by two or three votes on the commissioner's side
- that will be in this room.
- That's a calendar, those are dates, that is happening, right? And there's a timeline that is clicking
- and ticking on that. What we have, I think in this conversation is something interesting since the idea
- was proposed that we consider outside council to help us navigate conditions that might be in that agreement
- and the implication it means for our statutory right to make fiscal decisions as a county is a,
- a discussion from the council or the county attorney that is, you know, it's hard to navigate. You know,
- if we have a contract, then there's a claim, and if it's rejected, you know, what happens then? What
- happens then? And we end up running out of clock where we don't actually get to talk to some other attorney
- before the deadline, if you will, on the agreement. So those are realities. Like, those clocks are all
- ticking. And to Councillor Hawks' point, you know, there's another way to go, which was
- never before the commissioners, which is we actually bring back the council into county council's employment
- as a matter of a HR practice in defining the job description. I wasn't here when the council decided
- to move away from having its own in-house attorney that was budgeted for as a salary. As I understand
- it, some of that was more unconditional about the individual and not
- and then the opportunity that arrived from the board of commissioners at that time to offer an attorney
- from the pool that could support the council's work and review law and the like. But the question is
- really in protecting our county legal department for me. And this is how I look at it. An attorney has
- to serve one master and can't serve two. And so when we have a schism or a disagreement between two
- bodies that are borrowing from one set of lawyers that
- are employed by one elected body, not the other, it puts them all in a hard spot. You know,
- at what point, if we do find ourselves in a place where we're being deposed in a court, you know, who
- is guiding us on that, right? Who's guiding the council's statutory, or protecting the council's statutory
- role in this decision-making process? And not just councils, by the way, the taxpayers of Monroe County.
- who's protecting that interest if there's a disagreement between two bodies and we're borrowing from
- the same law department. I want to protect our county attorneys in this respect. I think the opportunity
- to go explore this idea as a contract idea is not new. We would not be the first county in Indiana to
- have a contracted attorney to the body. But we have to face some real realities here. And as much as
- I would like to work on the meta problem, the reality is we have a
- It's an agreement that has a time clock on it. And we have to address that in the conditions that were
- placed before us and the votes that will be coming to us. And we would have as much information as we
- can to make the best possible informed decision for the community. Thank you. Yes, Councilor Woods.
- Maybe I'm beating a dead horse. Maybe this isn't as relevant
- as I initially am thinking. But it sounds like to me that we're talking about two different things.
- One is obtaining outside counsel to review something that has been given to us or, you know, the
- to us or to review the conditions under which we are asked to sign said purchase agreement. And then
- what I thought I heard as also a possibility is that this is really to have in case we make, you know,
- we are sued, you know, as a result of decision or, you know,
- the ACL he makes. And those seem like two very different things to me. So I guess before I would want
- to vote on this, I would really like to understand what the intent is. And maybe it's different for
- different people. Maybe that's what I'm hearing. To Councillor Decker's point, we all come at things
- from different
- So if it's different for different people, then the next step would be, I just want to kind of play
- through what would happen. And I guess this, if we appropriate, it's just, it hangs there until then
- we have a contract
- And when we have a contract that has to be done via the commissioners. And that starts that process
- that's been referred to that is like they might say no. And then if they did, we would appeal back.
- And it seemed complicated. And that seems like it would take a bit of time. So if we were waiting to be
- to use this. I guess my ultimate question, I've had like three in the course of this, but my ultimate
- question then would be wouldn't the whole county have outside counsel at that point? I mean I think
- I've heard from our county legal that that is a likely scenario. What would likely happen is we would
- submit it to our insurance company and each entity or body would risk
- potentially receive outside counsel. What I will say is what I anticipate from an ACLU lawsuit is injunctive
- relief and not damages, but I mean they could ask for damages. Insurance has been, I'm gonna say inconsistent
- on whether they will provide outside counsel for injunctive relief. We have outs, they've been inconsistent.
- We also have a new insurance company. So I don't know their stance on if they would provide counsel
- for injunctive relief. But typically what would happen is we would submit this to the insurance company,
- and if they will provide outside counsel, they would. And if they don't, each entity would have to obtain
- counsel. Would they be providing if they decided yes? Is it reasonable to expect they would provide
- outside counsel
- separately for each yes I'll go to counselor vital and then I'll turn back around so I guess I think
- I understand but not totally they're still ambiguity to me in some ways and I don't know I have the
- questions formulated to ask that but I do want to ask about the thirty thousand dollars is that
- the max, or are we talking about 30,000 now and maybe some later, or what are we talking about here?
- The 30,000 was just simply a placeholder to get the appropriation. I think obviously we would probably
- be looking at a lot more, potentially. But again, that's just a placeholder for the appropriation should
- we need to act. That's where that came from.
- If I had to decide at this moment, I think it's really hard for me to think about appropriating more
- money since we've been on the budget less, less, less with every department that we've talked to this
- past budget year. And I just think it's almost hypocritical for us to think that we're going to go into
- litigation based on that fact.
- I was going to ask a very similar question to Councillor Faital as to whether or not one of the questions
- I would want to ask should we move forward is, is the $30,000 placeholder intended to retain council
- or is it intended to eventually hire council? And I think that needs to be answered as well. Are we
- going to be using our salary ordinance to hire an individual who is going to work
- who's going to be working in the council office, or are we using funds to simply use a local law firm
- for a short period of time or a medium period of time to conduct our business? And I think that needs
- to be explored as well. Correct. Which, again, it is just simply just a placeholder. This is for us
- to say, if we want to go into a contract,
- That is something that we can do. And then we can figure out after the fact, should we explore and go
- further how much this would cost? I guess at the end of the day, what I'm just trying to do is just
- have the conversation. And if we wanted, initially coming in, I was saying, in the event that this goes
- further, because I'll just rip the bandaid off with a lot of this right now.
- We obviously, majority of us, at least maybe, I don't know, I'll speak for myself. I don't necessarily
- agree with how we are moving down this train in terms of North Park, North Park, North Park.
- That's it. And so what I'm also thinking is, what do we do? Because if anybody's read their email today
- in the commissioner's packet, their purchase agreement is on the agenda this Thursday.
- And then in looking at our agenda requests that we've gotten, they're wanting this to come back around
- to council on May 12th. And I remind everybody the memo that we got, April 10th says, should you not
- do this by May 29th? This is what we're looking at. So I guess in my mind, what I was thinking is coming
- in here, should we
- get down to this point where there is a no vote again like we did back in October, again, this time
- frame around, and should this go further, ideally, again, what I'd like to do in a perfect world is
- sit down with our colleagues in the city, sit down with the commissioners, sit down with everybody to
- figure out what are we doing here and next steps as we are working through this.
- That's what they wanted to do last week, but should we not go down this route, all I'm saying is, I'd
- rather be a little bit more proactive in this. Now, hey, come time around, like if the powers that be
- and the skies open up and everything is sunshine and gravy, if we don't go down this route, then this
- is mute, this is not necessary. But that's what I was just looking for for this. That's all. Councilor Henry.
- I really appreciate you bringing that clarity and it strikes me that You're the one in these meetings,
- you know, you're the one if you're the one saying this is your comfort and you're concerned about Path
- and whether or not your view and sensibly our view is properly voiced and and is also brought to the vendor to
- I mean, however it is that you're operating those meetings as council president, and if you're telling
- this body you need that representation, I think that's a pretty clear-cut statement. I'm not in all
- those meetings, and if you're signaling that that's the concern, I don't know why we would deny the
- council president an opportunity to seek out council to allay that concern. So, I hear you. As a point
- of information, though, or maybe, are we taking public comment on this tonight,
- I would allow it. You would allow public comment tonight? Okay. I just want to make sure, obviously,
- this is an interesting topic, but thank you for the clarity you offer. I'm supporting you as I've heard
- it. Yeah. Any other? Yes, Councillor Haug. I would just like to say that when you're in need of something,
- it's much better to plan for it and have it ready than to say, oh, now I need it and I didn't get it ready.
- So I'll support this. If we don't need it, it's just going to sit there and it'll just stay in the cash.
- It doesn't like we're throwing that money away. And we're talking about a gigantic major decision. This
- is not the kind of decision we'll be making every year. It's the biggest one that we've made since I've
- been on the council, and that was before some of you children were born. So I'm just saying this is
- a big deal.
- And we seem to have a difference of opinion of how we should move forward or not. But it certainly would
- not hurt when somebody has to go into these meetings to think they could reach out and say, what if?
- Help me out with this. We're not attorneys here. We're not seven attorneys sitting here. Councillor Wilks.
- So we were to say, yes, let's appropriate $30,000. Then do you, I assume we would have to vote on whether
- or not we wanted a contract. That wouldn't happen until May 12th, correct? Is that our next meeting?
- And at that point, we would submit something, I'm just reading from the email that we received. We would
- submit a copy of the contract to the auditor and make a request to the commissioners for review. And
- then also, so the county attorney would get them, get the documentation.
- Then it says within 20 days of request filing, the county commissioners in the county review the proposed
- contract and notify the council of the results of the review. So that puts it at June. So the idea of
- contracting
- Council prior to the deadline that's given to us for making the decision we need to make doesn't seem
- viable. I mean, yes, they don't have to wait 20 days. But if the motivation behind this is disagreement
- with that body, it does seem likely. I'm sorry. I think the 20 days that you're referring to comes into
- play if the commissioners rejected the contract.
- originally what would happen just like any other department is you would submit the contract
- to a commissioners meeting and they would consider it at their next meeting and then if it's rejected
- that's the process that you're describing. That's not what the email says but I will defer. You have
- the same email I do.
- I do have the same email that you do. When you look at number three on that email. That's the process
- for if the commissioners reject the contract. So for example, the clerk is having a contract on this
- commissioners meeting for advertising radio ads of the election. She didn't have to go through the 20
- day process. She's submitting it to the commissioners for consideration.
- If they reject it that then then that's the process. But the standard operation procedure is fill out
- a commissioner's request and then they review then they consider the contract. Within that contract
- you need to know who you want to hire. Right. And it has to be a contract contract. Right. That contract
- is still reviewed by county legal.
- just to make sure it has all of our standard clauses such as indemnification, independent contractor,
- workers' comp, and all of that is governed by county code. Which is why we would start looking now.
- Should we do that? The earliest the commissioners could hear this would be their meeting on the 14th
- if they're meeting. Depending on the outcome of our vote, we may want to pursue this.
- The problem for some folks might be, I don't know if I share that with everybody, but we vote, and then
- there's an outcome of that vote, one outcome puts us on this path. I'm sorry, is there an interruption?
- One path, we may require some additional help, another path we don't, and I hope that folks aren't feeling
- biased or pressured on one way or another to vote on a purchase agreement
- full understanding of what we're talking about, but either way on the other side of that vote are two
- places we go. One may require the legwork we're talking about right now to prepare outcomes. I mean,
- the calendar is what it is. I mean, we should have talked about this a year and a half ago when some
- of us had thought we should have been bringing our own council in at that point, but we are. I mean,
- I agree with you.
- that we've got to move and we've got some big decisions coming up that we need help with. I'm looking
- at the calendar and even if we moved forward today with a contract, we would still be beyond the point
- in which we're most likely going to be hearing a purchase agreement. The other thing that I want to
- make a point is if that's the case where the calendar is working against us here, we do have
- legal representation sitting right here.
- From where I'm sitting is doing a fantastic job. If I may, I think the commissioners could actually
- consider a contract on May 7th. I checked. I don't think they've canceled that May 7th meeting.
- So I mean, if you had a contract ready by May 7th, they could approve it. But I think that contract's
- going to have to outline who you're meeting with, a price.
- And then I think there are two differing thoughts here on when you would consult. The May 7th meeting
- is still on the calendar for the commissioners. That's helpful. Thank you. So the urgency is the concern
- for my fellow council member. We could just put the job description out and hire the position again,
- couldn't we? Couldn't we advertise and just hire the position and go directly that route?
- up for it and hired. $90,000. And this in, I just want to say this in is where the mud of this has been
- all week. I'm hearing multiple different things. And sometimes I'm hearing some individuals using multiple
- arguments in one setting. Is it about preparing for life after us not doing the math right on four
- and two in both chambers. Is it about preparing for life after that? Is it about preparing so that the
- council president or the leadership or whoever goes into a meeting has an attorney that's not from county
- legal there? Is it about returning to the olden day of us having our own council? I'm hearing all of
- this and I'm kind of looking at it and what is
- worrying me a little bit more. And granted, it's not me anymore in those meetings. But I also had a
- lot of meetings over the years where a county legal drove me up one wall and the commissioners down
- the other. And then they'd alternate the next time. And I'm sure I did the same to them. But I just,
- when I look at this, what is this about? And Councilor Hawke, to kind of speak to some of the things
- you discussed earlier today,
- When a department really wants something, the arguments always really sound good about spending extra
- money because you have to prepare ahead and you can't do this. I kind of hear this argument here on
- this that we would not necessarily permit another county department to do on extra funding. And I'm
- not negating all the causes that folks come to this at, but I still believe that the pressure of the
- system is about
- Fixing a look finding a location in looking that realistically both bodies have got to agree to that
- to do it and then under certain conditions so do our municipal counterparts Right, and if there's a
- different different location that starts factoring other things in it would fall under that jurisdiction
- But I don't think anyone's talking about any of that, but it really comes down to just that and
- One thing, having been deposed or whatever, those council situations do start to work out at those points
- and it is a miserable process, but it also is when people can't reach to an agreement on something.
- So I just, I'm hearing like multiple things on this and I am struggling to get what it's really about
- and I don't like anything that's,
- vague with what it's about, because I don't want that to become Trent Deckard's vote yes on this opened
- the sea gate of hell for three different options. I think the public's looking to us for less of that.
- I also will just say this. A constituent said this to me at a door. If you all go down that route, is
- this going to be another one body suing another? And I said, well, it would. And then I was like, I
- don't know.
- I honestly don't know. And I don't even know if the legal mechanisms for that are possible to even do
- that, but I think it's about figuring out what is this, where do we go to get it, to get to the agreement.
- And maybe I'm wrong on that, but I just, that's kind of a perennial thought here. So the only thing
- I'll say is I think
- It's okay to have, you know, other different types of conversations of what this could look like, because
- initially, again, as I came in thinking, my brain is to think about what would happen if, again, we
- get to the end of May and we didn't agree, commissioners approved,
- Council denied again, and then we're back at square one. But the idea that I heard earlier is,
- should we, you know, could we potentially go into these conversations saying, you know, like, to just
- seek advice. Obviously, that would cost money for us to seek advice. I'm not, again, not saying that
- we don't have great representation. I'm not saying that at all, and I hope Ms. Turner-King does not,
- hear me say that and I hope anybody else is listening here in the room or online or whenever you go
- back and watch it. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm just saying simply is it is just us seeking
- outside advice of what we should do should we get to next level mayhem because again as I'm being honest
- I've not heard anything
- that would suggest that we could potentially agree on the train to North Park right now. I don't.
- But again, I'm willing to work with our city counterparts, but again, it is
- Today, April 28th, we got, again, as I said, we have a meeting. They have a meeting on the 30th. This
- is coming to them. We have a meeting on the 12th that is coming to us. That is all of the moving pieces
- before the time bomb clicks at zero. Again, it's just if we prepare and we, again, find that we're
- and Councilor Everson's words sometimes, if we sing kumbaya and we're all being together on this and
- we are one, then we don't have to go down this route. I wish to God that we don't have to go down this
- route. But should we do, that is my intent of just trying to prepare ourselves for what is coming because
- I don't want to get into the mindset of, uh-oh, May 29th comes around, this is stuck now, now we have to do
- If we want to go down the route of trying to seek out legal counsel, now we are at that point. Yeah,
- that's a good segue. That's where we would go. That's the only thing that I'm saying. It is tiresome.
- I have spent so much time on a lot of this. That was my mission.
- doing this all over again to really try to see this project through. I think we all are extremely frustrated
- with all of this. I think commissioners would agree on saying that, too. But that's all I'm just asking,
- which is why I just simply wanted to have a discussion. It's out there. We don't do it. We don't do
- it. But it will be what it will be after that point. That's all I'm saying. Yes, Councilor Feidl.
- What happens if we don't do this then? How would that play out? Tell me the whole other scenario, right?
- If we don't do what? If we don't have this placeholder and we get sued, how does that play out? Is it
- too late to get counsel at the end of when we have to have this all done by May 29th? No, I don't think
- so by any means. But again, it's just taking that proactive step, right? It's just when you're in the
- thick of something,
- in an emergency setting, the idea is, oh crap, not to have an afterthought of, should we have put a
- tarp on the thing before it started raining, and boom, it's raining. That's the thing, is just trying
- to be proactive. Should we get to this point? Because there's going to be a lot of other things that
- I would assume that would be coming to us. One more question. So let's say this money is a placeholder.
- Where does it go if it isn't used? Where does the money go if it doesn't need to be used? It reverts
- back. Oh, it will revert back? I hadn't heard that yet. If you don't spend it, I mean, it'll just hang
- out in our account line. And then at the end of the year, if you don't spend it, it just reverts back.
- It's kind of like what happened with Sophia Travis, and we tried to spend the money, and then it reversed
- that. I just want to make sure this particular placeholder was the same.
- I just said that I was going to open up for public comment. Um, so, cause I know we still have a few
- more items on the agenda. So I'll open it up for public comment. If you have public comment on this
- item, um, you can come forward to the lectern here in the room, or you can raise your hand via teams
- and, um, you can state your name for the record and you'll have up to three minutes. Good evening.
- My name is April Wilson. I live in Bloomington and I'm a Monroe County resident. Although I work at
- the Monroe County Prosecutor's Office, I wish to be clear that these statements are made in my personal
- capacity. The county is currently under a hiring freeze. The justice building is being regularly tested
- for mold, and it is now two weeks after Ken Falk's deadline for clear movement on the jail. And any
- coordinated plans in the jail have proved elusive.
- It is in this context that this Council is now evaluating or asking for $30,000 to get an extra attorney.
- I recognize that this process has been difficult or high. I would like to share with you a phrase, though,
- that I frequently come back to as an attorney and in my personal capacity. Sometimes you can be right
- or sometimes you can be married.
- You can either continue to focus on relitigating offenses or you can start solving the problem. Appropriating
- this money is not a step toward solving the problem. Solving this problem means starting to have joint
- public meetings rather than speaking about it through resolutions or on social media.
- It means sitting across from each other and talking about the budget and design, rather than solely
- expressing frustration that you don't know what the answer to that question is. It means spending the
- time you spent tonight on whether or not you're going to get an extra attorney on figuring out how to
- move forward. Please deny this appropriation and start working to solve this problem. Someone said tonight
- they are trying to protect themselves, and I appreciate that. What I'm asking is that you start doing
- the same for those in the Justice Building, which is what brought us here. Thank you.
- Thank you. My name is Jeff Richardson. First, Council President Crosley, thank you for being at the
- City Council meeting the other night. That was really important. And having Julie Thomas and Jody Madera
- call in was also helpful. It was the first time in years that I actually heard
- city and county talking to each other. And so that was a positive thing. Some of this, Jennifer, you've,
- President Crosley, you've heard. I think this whole debacle is the case study and failed leadership.
- I mean, 16 years. Some are counting as 17 years and still going. So I just want to acknowledge that.
- And Trent, you mentioned people having a hard time figuring what's going on.
- just harking back to what our friend just said here, is that there seems to be no acknowledgement of
- that. I mean, we're talking, we're moving pieces around on the chessboard or on the Titanic,
- the deck chairs. But the problem is, is that we dropped the ball. And suggestions that somehow ACLU
- is taking away our local control. We've ceded our local control. We've given it away. And it almost
- screams out for, like another situation,
- we have with the conventions that are not to bring up another topic, but do we need someone who can
- actually govern? Do we need a third body that can come in, an entity, and say, we'll do this for you
- because you folks can't do it? So one of the things that was actually the catalyst by President Crossley
- going to the city council is Isaac Azari, the president of the city council, said,
- Let's get together. Let's roll up our sleeves and not talk about what's going to happen at the next
- meeting. Even tonight, as it was to happen at the City Council, I said the same thing to my friends
- there, is we always think in the terms of the next meeting, what do we need to do? But my question is,
- what do we do between meetings? What are we doing now, right now, like tomorrow, during the weekend?
- What's the plan? So that concerns me, is what is
- the plan, what's the timeline, and what's the desired outcome. And I fear sometimes where some of my
- older friends might remember this, but the old Pogo cartoon that said we've met the enemy and the enemy
- is us. And I feel in many ways there has to be an acknowledgement that we've had some difficulties in
- making decisions, and now we've got to do the hard work. So I have no position, incidentally.
- on North Park versus Thompson or Fullerton, if that comes back up. I have no position whether you hire
- this attorney or not, but I feel just back to several of you said this, the public, I was having, you
- folks were saying you have a hard time figuring things out and I'm trying to follow this. I'm very concerned
- about this. I had a hard time following what's going on. So I feel if nothing else, please provide some
- clarity of what is the desired outcome
- What's the end game? And what are you doing in between meetings? And can we frame this in a way that
- collectively, let's figure this out rather than having someone like Ken Falk, for example, be the fall
- guy. We can do this. We've got great people on both councils, on the mayor, the commissioner. We're
- such a blessed city to have the people we have as elected officials. I am confident that we can figure this out.
- and I pray that we do so. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to go before I go back to the room here, I'm
- going to go to teams. So someone by the screen name of Janet, you can unmute yourself, state your name
- for the record and you'll have up to three minutes.
- name Janet can you are you able to unmute yourself? DSD can we help this individual out? I'm gonna I'm gonna
- Go back to that individual. I see another person's hand raised via Teams. So I'll let this person screen
- name Eric Spoonmore. You can go ahead and speak and then we'll come back to Janet to see if they are
- able to unmute. So state your name for the record and you'll have up to three minutes. Hi, good evening,
- Council. Eric Spoonmore. Been watching the meeting all night.
- planning to comment on this item, but I think it's been a really productive and good discussion. And
- I just kind of wanted to weigh in from my prior experience as a Monroe County Council member and also
- president of the Council not too long ago. You know, I was there at that time when the decision was made to
- relinquish the attorney that worked for the Council. And I can tell you, you know, I have a lot of very
- wonderful memories of my time working on Council and a lot of things that I'm really proud of that were
- accomplished. One of my greatest regrets is that we made that decision to relinquish our own legal Council.
- And there were colleagues that I had that
- at the time had advised me to think differently about that. And looking back, I wish I would have listened.
- I look at this request here as kind of more of an insurance policy than anything. This is the biggest
- project in the history of Monroe County. And if we're in an adversarial kind of situation, which it
- looks like we are, we've got seven unanimous
- County council members who have decided to not go to North Park and we have a majority of the commissioners
- who. Seemingly want to do that. I think it's inevitable that there's going to be some conflict here
- and you know, I really appreciate what I heard from some council members tonight. This is nothing about
- county legal. This is to protect them. There is an inherent conflict there. I think and in the private
- sector, an attorney would have to admit that conflict.
- when they're representing one client yet beholden to another client. And so to me, this just seems like
- an insurance policy. Get your ducks in a row because when you get involved in these kinds of situations,
- this is gonna impact the community for decades. You wanna be represented and you wanna know that your
- best interests are being represented. And I think that's what the community elected you all to do as a check.
- and balance in county government. Thank you. Thank you. I'm gonna go and I'll pop back to Janet online.
- State your name for the record and you'll have up to three minutes. Hi, my name is Kaden Smith. I'm
- a resident of the county. Good evening. I appreciate you all on these very long meetings.
- But I think it's important that the council votes.
- no on this. I think the county and the state were at a time where we're trying to be financially responsible
- as the council is the fiscal body. I think approving additional funds for ourselves while we're telling
- other departments to continuously cut back is very hypocritical of ourselves. I support many of the
- words that Councilor Feidl said. And I also raise the point that this additional $30,000 is
- quite arbitrarily and I respect the idea of a placeholder but I'm concerned about the fiscal impact
- if we don't exactly know what we're voting on when it could be
- a lot more or it could be a lot less. And then finally, I'll also state that the $30,000 still doesn't
- solve the problem that we have a constitutional key requirement and that while we're here having a healthy
- conversation about whether we should or should not approve the money, there's still people sitting in
- a jail like two blocks from here that don't have that constitutional right
- Being protected right now and we need to discuss further places rather than Continue then trying to
- hire an attorney when the council already has a legal Attorney that's sitting across the room from me
- so I would encourage the council's vote now on this Resolution or amendment
- Thank you. All right. I'm going to go back to Teams and is Janet able to unmute? TSD, are you able to
- help this individual? Okay.
- Oh, can you hear me now? Yes, yes, we can hear you again. State your name for the record and you'll
- have up to three minutes. My name is Janet Johnson and I live in the county and I just want to say that
- I agree that you need the representation. I think Mr Spoonford Spoonmore did a very good job of reiterating
- some of the points that were brought up earlier as far as conflict of interest with the county attorneys
- like you. I have no doubt they're doing a good job.
- and are perfectly capable, but I think there's a conflict of interest there that needs to be exposed
- and it needs to be covered. You need to have your own representation. I agree with the other people
- who spoke on the fact that we just need to work together and get this done. I mean, it's obscene that
- it's gone on so long, but it just needs to get fixed. People need to sit down and
- no matter what the decision is, nobody's gonna love it. If somebody is really happy, that means too
- many other people are unhappy. So there just needs to be true negotiation and a good spirit to get that
- done. And I'd like to see everybody come to the table and get a resolution quickly. But I believe that
- you need to protect yourself because I think you should stand strong that what they wanna do is not
- the best choice. That's really all I have, thank you.
- Please go ahead and state your name for the record and you'll have up to three minutes. My name is Leigh
- Kroon-Tayfer.
- I know, and as other people have spoken, we really need to come together and talk. But many years ago
- now, the commissioners took the ball and ran and told us, the taxpayers, to stay in our lane. Well,
- and I just want to say that I applaud each of you for protecting the taxpayer from
- a bad idea. And we've said this many times and many ways to get the commissioners to come to the table
- and start a real, true negotiation. And if it takes outside counsel to do that, that's unfortunate,
- but it needs to be done. It needs to be done. Thank you. All right. Last call for public comment before
- we move on.
- Raise your hand via Teams. Great. Seeing no other further comment on, or public comment rather, I'll
- take final comment and then we can wrap up. So did I see a hand here? Council Hock, did you have something?
- Right, I'm just wondering if we're going to vote on this this evening and before it's morning.
- Well, I think the idea is there was a discussion, so somebody would have to make a motion. I'm sorry,
- it was on the mic. I can make a motion, Madam President. Council, I move to approve the additional
- appropriation of $30,000 for contractual legal services and to authorize the Council President to identify
- and solicit proposals from qualified outside Council
- and to bring a recommended engagement, including scope and terms, back to council for approval with
- any contract to be executed in accordance with applicable Indiana law. Okay. All right. We got a motion
- and a second. Is there any other final comment from council on this item? I have a lot. Could we read
- that motion again? Yep. Let's catch it on transcript. I'll leave the Pittsburghese at home.
- I move to approve the additional appropriation of $30,000 for contractual legal services and to authorize
- the Council President to identify and solicit proposals from qualified outside Council and to bring
- a recommended engagement, including scope and terms, back to Council for approval with any contract
- to be executed in accordance with applicable Indiana law.
- a lawyer to interpret what you said? It's three clauses. No, just the last part. All right. Well,
- I mean, we just got to do it in accordance with law. Isn't that a given? I don't know. OK. It'd be like
- he's saying he's made a motion to approve this and to have the president bring the information back
- to us, and then we can vote on it then. And boom, we're done. Let's not make such a big deal out of this.
- Any other further questions or comments? We may not even need it. Yeah, to that point, I know we're
- all out of place, but to that point, Madam President, to defend the motion, that we're not spending
- it. We're just putting it there so she can go forth and look. And she asked, and I'm going to take her
- word that she needs it. And I'm just going to stand by what I said earlier. The varied reasons, it does
- not require a linear conversation. And all of us have different conclusions. But the council president asked,
- This is a way for her to move forward to go solicit and figure it out and bring it back to us. So a
- question about how the president will select an organization and have the scope and the other qualifiers
- that were in that clause that I don't remember off the top of my head, can that email or does that have
- to be done in a council meeting? Because we would have to vote on that
- It's that organization, right? You would have to approve the contract in a council meeting. But if you
- are delegating, you know, the initial conversations to get the terms of the contract and contract
- negotiations to one person, then that doesn't have to occur in a council meeting. The end result of
- those conversations would have to be approved in council. So the council president would be negotiating
- the full contract with
- term by themselves? I think that was Mr. Henry's motion, but I hear him saying no, so I'm not exactly
- sure. No, I'm saying that's the intent here is to empower the council president, that we have a precedent
- in the other body to empower the commission president to go forth and do. I'm simply trying to answer
- her request and go forth and do. Bring it back. And you're not authorized to spend a nickel until you
- bring it back. So bring it back. Let us know what the proposal is. And just to follow up, that would
- be brought back on the
- Our meeting of the 12th, correct? She does all that work by the 12th. I mean, if it takes longer, it
- takes longer. I appreciate all the questions. I mean, it's very static here, but the truth is that,
- you know, Council President asked, there's a timeline. Preparedness is a good idea. Go forth and do
- is all I'm saying here. Any other questions or comments?
- Again, it's just gathering information and bringing it back. Much like other conversations that I've
- had, it's gathering information and bringing it back. That's it. Yes, Councillor Wilts. First, I want
- to thank you, Councillor Crossley, for bringing this to us so that we can have the discussion.
- It's important that we kind of think through our options. And I do trust that you can do many things
- at once. I've seen you do it. So I am going to trust that you can go and find outside council and put
- something together for us to consider. I would add, please don't
- that to the exclusion of trying to work on the bigger picture. I don't think you will, but I feel like
- in public comment on something, I need to just say the reason I'm going to support you is because I
- know that it's not to the exclusion of doing these other bigger picture things and having the conversations
- with our city colleagues and the commissioners and those who
- We'll listen. So I just wanted to say that. Thanks. Any other questions or comments? The only thing
- else that I would say is, and I thank the public commenter for a couple of public commenters tonight,
- is I'm not going out to seek, oh, well, this person needs to be on our side because all of this is going
- to happen.
- No, absolutely not. I think at the end of the day, like one of the public commenters made when I went
- to last week's city council meeting is the fact that we have folks that really want to sit down and
- talk with us. And I understand the deadline that we are on. I've been on council since December of 21.
- And we're still working towards a solution like folks party in like it was 2008. But here we are.
- Yes, I understand that we could do these things and we're not thinking about people in that building.
- We think about folks in that building every single day. Wouldn't be in there fighting as hard as we
- are for those types of things. So yes, I am doing that. I do that publicly and go into other things,
- whether we have
- a lot of things that are happening. I want to be able to have those conversations with commissioners,
- with city council, with the mayor, all of us here to sit down and figure out what we can be doing. But
- in the event that things go sideways, this is my way of trying to say, hey, council, I'm just bringing
- this back to you all. And it could be that I bring it back to you all and it doesn't work.
- And it is what it is, and that's fine. I've worked at it. I'm a mom. I multitask. I do all the things.
- That's what the good book says. I can do all things. So that's all I'm trying to do. I'm not trying
- to take power or ownership of any of this. This is just something I've been working my ass off for.
- Excuse me. And I'm just trying to do
- what we can for taxpayers, because we have had the conversations. We've had the CJRC meetings. We've
- had the JFEX. We've had all of those things. But yet, we are still having this conversation right now.
- And so I would hope that my colleagues would trust me enough to know that I'm not going to go in a room
- and do something weird, and I come back in that whole different ball game. All I'm just saying is, I
- just want to go gather, and then that's it.
- I'll say to that. So without that being said, can we please have a roll call vote? Councillor Iverson?
- Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes. Councillor Hawke? Yes. Councillor Decker? No. Councillor Wilts? Yes. Councillor Henry?
- Councillor Crossley. Yes. Motion passes majority six to one. Yeah, I appreciate that. All right. Next
- up is item G from the legal department. Council I move to approve resolution 2026 dash 15 approving
- the renewal of the inner local cooperation agreement between the city of Bloomington Monroe County regarding
- building code authority.
- We got a motion and a second, Ms. Turner-King. So this resolution is council's approval on the proposed
- interlocal
- building code authority. What I will note is that there are a few changes from previous years. Otherwise,
- it's the same as it has been since 1995. The changes include that previously the interlocal was for
- a period of two years. It's been extended to five years. However, it contains a clause that either party
- may terminate by providing written notice so long as the other party has been notified by July 1st and
- then termination would be effective the following year.
- It agrees to honor the city's fee waiver. However, the city must provide a fee waiver document and identify
- the respective projects for which the fee waiver is applicable. And in regards to stop orders, the county
- will issue stop orders upon the request of city planning, but they must identify the code or ordinance
- violation for which the stop order is being requested. These changes basically are codifying the practices
- that have been in place.
- Yes, Councillor Hawke. The only thing I noticed on that is it sounded like it was extending it much
- longer than normal and it won't be the same people at all involved. I mean, because it's taking it out
- so long. So I don't know why we would do that because in the meantime, we're going to be a whole different
- financial structure. But, you know, you folks do whatever.
- I think it's very strange, and are you advising us that it is proper and appropriate that we, given
- the financial changes that we will see during that time, that we would do an interlocal agreement that
- locks us into something?
- Well, although the interlocal is for a longer duration and period of time, it's five years instead of
- two, there is that clause that allows either party to terminate with the proper notice. So I mean, it
- doesn't lock you in without an exit plan. Well, I understand that it just, I mean, by that time you
- have different commissioners, you could have different mayor. It just seems to me we should just leave
- it at the two years. Why would we?
- You know, it's sort of like you're trying to rule from the grave is the way we used to put it when you
- tried to do contracts that was beyond your time being there. I just thought I'd say that sounded problematic,
- but maybe everything's cool. Do we have other contracts that go five years? I don't know. I mean. Or more.
- have to look at some of our inter locals. I'm not sure how long the I think animal management is a year.
- Um, so I can't think of any inter local off the top of my head that goes in this duration, but I will
- note that all of the changes that were in essence proposed were proposed by the county, um, county building
- and city was an agreement. Do you have any concerns about committing us?
- to this type of agreement for this? I don't because of the clause that allows you to terminate.
- Thank you. Yes, go ahead. One of the things that we were told by AIC, the list of things that we needed
- to look at was what kind of interlocal agreements that we might have moving into this time period of
- it using more of the income tax stop rate and that's when you have time to review that and I know this
- is a busy time for everybody but it is in the list of things that we are supposed to look at was the
- inner local agreement so I just find it curious indeed I don't know whose idea it was to take it to
- five years was it the city was it the commissioners I do not know but I would
- I just think it's curious that we're doing this at a time of so much information that we're waiting
- to get. And as Jamie Boesler said, we should know more come July, August, something like that. But maybe
- this is all fine. I don't mean to be throwing whatever.
- Pretty much unheard of in reading the whereas clauses in the building interlocal I would note that it
- the third whereas is whereas in 1996 the city and county entered into a five year interlocal. So in
- the 90s it was also a five year interlocal. I don't know when the shift became to have a two year it
- might have just been during the extension process. But for this interlocal the five year period does
- not seem to be abnormal.
- If we thought that perhaps it would be in our interest to only do a two year, could we make that change
- here now and approve it or does it need to be taken back? I think I would recommend taking it back and getting
- rewritten because I know that Mr. Schilling, the city and the building department have had
- ongoing conversations and so I wouldn't want to make that change without I mean I wasn't involved in
- those conversations so there might have been some in depth discussion as why they wanted to do a five
- year change and so I know the commissioners are considering this on Thursday and then I don't know if
- the City Council has approved it yet but instead of making a unilateral change I would like to have
- those parties discuss it.
- What I'll say is it is also retroactive, so it looks like our current building code agreement is going
- to expire. But I mean, since this one is going to be retroactive to the data expiration, I don't think
- it would be problematic to go back to them and say, would you consider a two year? Why didn't we do
- a two year? Any other further questions or comments on this item?
- Yes. There's clearly a question about the five and there's clearly not an ability to get agreement on
- that five. I lost mine. And Councillor Hogg's not here. Does this have to happen right now? It seems
- like of all the buses that are careening towards this building, this one's not the one that I had on
- my mind when I walked in here, Councillor. What do you think? I mean, other than the fact that our current
- interlocal is going to expire, I don't ‑‑
- Under an interlocal, I guess they could tip it. Each party would have the right to be like, we're not
- under an interlocal. We don't have to operate under what has been our procedure for some time. Do I
- anticipate that happening? No. The last thing we need right now is anything that looks like we're not
- doing some of the things we regularly do well together, that that needs to stop. So if we had to buy
- billboards for that, I would be OK with an additional appropriation. But I take that under account.
- You know, the, yeah, sometimes the creating things that are coming towards us aren't necessarily always.
- Other further questions or comments? Okay. Seeing none, I'll take public comment on this item. If you
- have public comment on this item, you can come forward to the lectern here in the room or raise your
- hand via Teams.
- And seeing none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councillor Deckard? Yes. Councillor Crossley?
- Yes. Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes. Councillor Hawke has left the meeting. Councillor Wilts?
- Councillor Henry. Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Item H. Council, I move to approve resolution 2026-16,
- establishing meal allowance for absentee board members. Second. All right, we got motion and second,
- Ms. Turner-King.
- So statutorily there are some election workers whose compensation is established by the council and
- some established by the commissioners. The council is in charge of establishing compensation for absentee
- board members. However the compensation that was established by resolution I think it was in 2024 did
- not contemplate absentee board members receiving a meal allowance in the same way that
- Precinct election workers who work day of election receive a meal allowance. It came to our attention
- that there are some absentee board members who work election day, and the practice has always been that
- they've been getting a meal allowance. And so this resolution is just codifying the practice that has
- been taking place for quite some time. Any questions or comments on this item from council?
- Um, we will take public comment. Um, you can come forward to the lectern here in the room or raise your
- hand via teams. And seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councillor Crossley. Yes. Councillor
- Iverson. Yes. Councillor Feidl. Yes. Councillor Wilts. Yes. Councillor Henry. Yes. Councillor Decker.
- Yes. Motion passes unanimous.
- Thank you. Next up is item 10 presentations discussions from the Auditor's Office. And that's me. I'm
- going to look to the Auditor's Office, Ms. Gregory and Ms. Woodruff for your presentation on the ARPA project.
- So hopefully this spreadsheet looks familiar. This is the ARPA update we've been sending out pretty
- regularly since we started the ARPA programs. On your screen you should see a bunch of gray cells that
- have a zero dollar unexpended balance. These are completed projects. And as we scroll down, we will
- see some green cells that are current open projects.
- We have received notification that at least two of these projects are scheduled to come in under budget,
- which means that we need to figure out how those dollars are going to be re-obligated, re-obligate them
- and then spend those dollars before the end of this year. We are against the time clock with these because
- we are legally required to spend them before the end of the year. Or if we don't spend these dollars,
- we would have to be returned.
- turning those to the federal. Those two projects that are expected to come in under budget are highlighted
- in red. That's the septic project and the jail locks project. Right now, we are just looking for some
- questions that you may have about what we need to research before we come together with the commissioners
- in a joint session to figure out how we're going to proceed with these projects.
- The auditor's recommendation is to keep any obligation changes within the green cells. So within line
- 44 to 54, if you're looking at the Excel spreadsheet, that is going to be the simplest process
- for re-obligating and reporting. We do know that this will be heavily tracked and monitored during our
- single audit. And so we want to do things as easy and clean as we possibly can.
- We have received some additional requests for funding and those were emailed. Right now I believe the
- list includes jail plumbing. There's a county parks request that would fall under the drainage project
- for the airport. There's a second parks request for some paving that is needed as a result of the turf
- project that is ongoing.
- We have a fire district request for some additional funding. And then we also have Beacon. It looks
- like I received a request to research that a little bit. Thank you. And so if I understand you correctly,
- what's highlighted in green, what you're saying is ideally the best way is to keep this, like if we
- wanted to take some of the money and put it towards anything, ideally we
- would do it within this category instead of popping back up here. We would keep it within those open
- projects. Got it, yeah. OK. OK. Any questions or comments on these items from council? Yes,
- Council Iverson. It seems to me that some of these green line items were already done or the fire district
- ambulances, that really seems to me like we
- You tackled that a long time ago. They have roughly $5,000 unexpended, and they do have a request for
- some additional funding. Okay, so do you want to explain further? Sure. So my understanding is what
- you provided and they're very grateful for is we provided ambulance, right, but we did not provide
- everything to outfit the ambulance, all the supplies and things necessary. So there's other expenses
- that they've incurred, and this could go toward that cause, which obviously would aid the community.
- So we're bringing it forward to you as was requested by the fire district. Okay. So in all of the green
- sections, folks are working toward expending all of these. They're just in process. Yes.
- And if you notice to the very far right column, it has an expected end date for each project to show
- that they are on track for the most part. Yes, Councilor Williams. So right now, the fire.
- Fire Protection District is planning to have spent $5,100 more by October. Is that? Yeah, and whenever
- I talk to Lori, she mentioned that she has spent those dollars. They just haven't requested the reimbursement
- from us yet. I think that's in the works of what's happening.
- So it would be adding a view. We would be adding on to that project if we were to move things around
- in response to their request. So that's one of the options. And then the other thing that we might be
- adding on to would be the Karst Fields project.
- I'm just trying to highlight the ones that we haven't have options for so far. And then you had mentioned
- that would be paving. Would the stormwater one be the airport or would it also? Yes, so we would try
- the first project for the parks that would be for the water runoff. They've already spent that money.
- It would be a correction in our ledger.
- for last year, an expense that incurred, that was out of the parks fund. So we would move that expense
- from the parks fund into that airport drainage account. And by doing that, we would utilize the ARPA
- dollars and free up the expended dollars from the parks fund. Which then they could use to pay. Yes.
- That is a lie. Can you point me to the correct cell that shows how many dollars we think we're going
- to have left over giving back to the federal government as of December 31st? That's a loaded question.
- So the unexpended dollars are here. Line 55, J55, those are the unexpended dollars as of right now.
- do not expect that that will be the unexpended dollars at the end of this year. Let me ask a better
- question. I'm sorry. That was a loaded question. Do you expect that number will be zero at the end of
- this year? I would like it to be zero. That's our goal. That's why we're coming to you now. We came
- to you last year and we keep bringing this up so we can have a plan to re obligate the funding. Obviously
- there's a lot of need and anything that goes back
- to the government is not staying in our community. I completely agree. The money needs to stay here.
- Let me try and ask my question. I'm just not good at asking questions tonight. The sum of the green
- lines, I didn't do that math, I'm sorry. Is that more or less than the unexpended total? I'm sorry,
- which column for the sum?
- I'm so sorry. All right, so the unexpended cells, that's column J. Yeah, what is that sum that you have
- highlighted? The 2.13. Okay, great. Excellent. Okay. Is there a question? Yeah, exactly. Is there a
- question? Yeah. Sorry. My fear was that if you added up all of those cells that you were just highlighted, the total
- would be either more than or less than that bottom number. This bottom number is a sum function. Excellent.
- For those numbers. Yes, Councillor Decker. Would it help on this? Because I can tell we're kind of...
- And it's not just us on this. It's us and the commissioners. It would help if we offered
- to our counterparts, a date in you all for your comfort, a date certain to just finalize it's this or
- not. Yes, that would be fantastic. And we did lay out in the cells over here the plan of what we would
- need from both bodies combined and then each body individually. You have a date certain that you
- like because we're like my students, we work well with, well, we don't always work well with deadlines,
- but we might try on this. Do you have one you want? Like June 15th or something? No, is that too late?
- Okay, all right. I would say by mid to late May, we would need some definite answers as to how to proceed.
- Just curious about that.
- Yeah, go ahead and then I'll go to Councillor Feidl. This is helpful, thank you. I know that you've
- emailed it to us. I assume you're going to talk or have talked with the commissioners, same topic? The
- same information has been provided to both bodies. The plan is to go to their meeting. I don't believe
- we can make it this week, but next week. Okay.
- get to that date so if you're able to talk with them next week and then maybe we let them know that
- we are ready to at least you know have a vote because I guess the question is do we need to meet with
- them in public to have a conversation or
- have a conversation and then they have a conversation. We've always done it jointly. Together. Yes.
- So that you guys could say, you know, hey, we need to deappropriate this, appropriate,
- you know, deappropriate that. I mean, we've always held a joint ARPA meeting, so. But if council wanted
- to make a recommendation, we could try that avenue.
- not going to be talking with them until first week of May. And I'm just saying you just said you needed
- it fairly quickly. So wait till after that to then like let's schedule a group meeting. And then oh
- we decided so now we have to appropriate. Oh wait we have to put notice out for that. You know it's
- a lot of time going. So maybe we could
- actually advertise maybe we could might say let's pull it out like you know how we used to do super
- big appropriation the appropriation amounts can we do that so that we're ready to roll in three weeks
- or whenever however long it takes what big number you gonna choose million dollars I'm sorry so
- We can't appropriate or advertise by categories anymore, so we would need to know what exact line you
- guys would like advertised. It's not a request. Yeah, DLGF has changed the way we can do that, so now
- we can't just do a blanket amount. Couldn't you just advertise all of them and just do it that way,
- just in case? All the green ones? Yeah. So if we did it that way.
- We can have those lines open if we choose to put those things in. Did all the green ones or all of them?
- Well, I think ideally they were saying all the green ones because that would be the easy, more palatable
- way in doing this since the ones in gray are done technically.
- So what I'm hearing is we can do additional appropriation and the appropriation for all of the green.
- We'll just say for a million dollars. We won't hit that. We won't use it. But it will be a flat amount
- that we have plenty of wiggle room. I don't have anything now. Okay. Do we vote on this? Okay. All right.
- Any other questions or comments from council on this item?
- We direct staff to work on setting up a joint meeting with the committee sometime after their next meeting.
- Just as soon as possible? Yeah, after they present. So not a week from Thursday is when I think they're
- going to talk to them, right? This coming Thursday?
- I'm so sorry. I have an obligation on Thursday. I can't be at that meeting right now. I was saying a
- week from this Thursday is when you you're going to. So if you could start now because you know how
- we are to set up something for after a week from Thursday Thursday the 7th is that what you're saying.
- Yes. OK. So after the 7th OK. Oh busy.
- Unless you guys have any further questions that you want us to research between now and that joint meeting,
- I think that's all we have. That would be appreciated. Thank you. Anybody else got anything? Okay. Can
- I ask a question? Yes. Since this is going to be a joint meeting, are we looking at an evening time
- or during the daytime? I think evening probably would be best.
- considering folks work during the day. And usually that's been what we've done before. Yeah. Okay. I
- just want to make sure you do it at seven a.m. Well, thank you all for that. Lastly, can I can I have
- one other question? Yes. What if we did a
- maybe a joint meeting like before the May 12th or during the May 12th meeting. I will not be available.
- That is a very busy day personally for me. So I won't be available. But don't let one person stop the
- show. So that's just one out of seven. So I will not be available.
- Yeah, I think that's completely fine. You're going to be able to make it. Yeah, yeah. But not before.
- But not before. Yeah, let me. The 12th is a really bad day. But no, no, no. But again, like I got some
- things that outside of here that I've been pushing off for way too long with a lot of other things.
- And so it's all kind of piling up on the 12th. So but again, that's just me. Like if I'm not.
- available, I'm totally fine with, so if it works for a majority of people, I think we could just send
- it out and if it works for a majority of people, then it works and I just won't be here. I was just
- trying to feel everyone out, see, yeah. Okay. All right. Well, thank you. Next up, we have the council
- liaison updates and comments. But first and foremost, we have a women's commission.
- Councilor Feidl has some scheduling conflicts with the Women's Commission meeting and will need to step
- down. So if there is anybody here that would like to be the new liaison to the Women's Commission, speak
- now or forever hold your peace. Usually Thursdays. Thursday at 5.30. Is it second Thursday?
- I thought it was the third. Councillor Deckard has volunteered himself to the Tribune. All right. Well,
- thank you so much. All right. So next up, we've had a long meeting this evening, but we will go to Councillor
- updates and comments. So I will look down to my left here because I already see the paper color.
- coming out, so you go for it. Okay, so I've done several meetings and activities and I'll focus on them
- and go along after that. So I went to the BEDC board meeting where they sort of did lessons learned
- on the Skyforge project. They worked on which they didn't get to do because
- came a readiness issue. So there's infrastructure problems and all kinds of other things that made the
- company decide to locate elsewhere instead of out at the airport. So that was disappointing. So there's
- been two downtown Bloomington meetings. They have 27 conventions scheduled for 27, 2020. And then the
- current convention center will now be closed January of 2027.
- through July of 2027 for renovations. Then there is a survey on the public art for the new convention
- center. I don't know if people got that, but I can read to you the string that performs the execution
- of that to make a link. It's HTTPS colon front slash front slash FORM dot TY dot
- p e r f or excuse me dot p e f o r dot com front slash t o front slash v l r l excuse me k l k i know
- it's confusing and then plus sign and k
- So I'm sure you can get that if you go on to the current convention website. That's really what I would
- do. But that's how I got it, was using that one. But I know it exists. And so there's a survey. There's
- four different public art projects that have been submitted. And so people can choose which one they
- like the best by May 1st. And I think if you have trouble finding it, I think I would just call the
- convention center themselves.
- Somebody there will know how to do that. So somebody announced that Merth is doubling in size downtown
- with the addition of Ellie Mays space. The elect connect event with the chamber I thought was really
- good on the 21st for the candidate forum there.
- Just personally, I just wanted to say I really enjoyed my first ever glamping weekend with my grandson's
- wedding this past weekend in Irwin, Tennessee. That's all I got. Congratulations. Yeah, let's see. I
- am exhausted, and so are you. So I will just say that I appreciate everyone's hard work.
- at it. We'll also pass tonight. Thank you. I'm also passing tonight. Thank you. It's graduation time,
- so congratulations to all the graduates that will be graduating.
- Yeah, Townie Summer is upon us by the time we convene for our next meeting. So with that being said,
- we are adjourned. Thank you.