We will go ahead and get started because we have some things I think folks want to talk about this evening.
So welcome everybody to today's County Council meeting. Today is Tuesday, May 26, 2026. I will call
this meeting to order since we have a quorum. Here in the Natt U Hill room, we have Councilors Hawk,
Iverson, Deckard, Wilts, and Feidl.
I believe Council Member Henry is going to be joining us virtually. I don't see him as of yet, but I
believe he will be virtual. So all those that are able to stand, please stand for the reciting of the
Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the Black of the United States of America and to the Republic
for which it stands, one nation,
Under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, thank you very much. We will move on
to the adoption of tonight's agenda. Does anybody wish to amend tonight's agenda? All right, seeing
no amendments. And because we don't have Councilmember Henry just yet, we can do this by voice vote.
So all those in favor of adopting tonight's agenda as presented signify by saying aye. Aye. All those
opposed same sign. Okay. Motion carries.
Next up, we will have item number four, which is public comment. So those are usually, well, not usually
they are, for public comment for items not on the agenda. So if there are members of the public that
are here tonight that would like to speak to items not on tonight's agenda, you can come forward to
the lectern here in the NETU Hill Room, or if you are in Teams land, you can raise your hand. Each person
that would like to make a public comment on tonight, or items not on tonight's agenda,
You will state your name for the record and you'll have up to three minutes. Do we have anybody? No,
we will move this on. All right, so next up we will have department updates and oh, I thought I saw
a hand briefly. It was. Okay. All right.
going to keep going. I saw a little yellow hand raise up, and so I'm just going to keep going. OK, so
for department updates, those are items not on the agenda. So if there is a department update that's
present here in the NETU Hill Room, or if you are virtual, again, you can come forward to the lectern
here, and you'll have up to 10 minutes for items not on tonight's agenda.
Okay, so we will move on to our consent agenda items. And before we get into the meat and potatoes of
our meeting, I know that we have a lot of folks that are here present in the room and probably in virtual
land as well. So I asked my colleagues if we can expedite through this agenda so that we can get to
the heavy topic at hand.
All right, so next up is item number six, which is our consent agenda items. Council, please note that
there was a Scrivener's error with regards to the February 4th joint executive session minutes. The
correct date is April 2nd, which was included in the meeting packet. I move to approve the following
consent agenda items for May 26th. A, the approval of the following summary minutes as presented,
April 2nd, 2026 joint executive session of council and commissioners.
30th 2026 joint executive session of council and commissioners April 14th 2026 County Council meeting
April 28th 2026 County Council meeting and item be the highway department's request and find 1176 dash
zero zero zero zero motor vehicle highway for a category transfer of $4,000 from the services category
to the supplies category All right. We got a motion and a second. Is there any
Um, just further discussion from council members on this, uh, consent agenda items. And it also looks
like we have council member Henry that is joining us virtually as well. Okay. Seeing none, because we
need to do this, uh, as a roll call vote. Uh, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councillor Crossley. Yes. Yes.
Councillor Fiddle. Yes. Councillor Hawke. Yes. Councillor Wilts. Yes. Councillor Henry. Yes. It is his
face. There it is. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Councillor Decker. Yes. Motion passes unanimous.
Next up are items regarding the hiring freeze review, which is item number seven. Council, I move to
open for discussion and possible approval of the technical service department's request to be exempt
from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire in fund 1138-0000 cumulative capital development fund,
a full-time help desk slash remote desktop technician. Second. Okay. Welcome. Good evening, everyone.
Unfortunately we've had a position come open in our office that is one of our full time technical support
positions. The help desk remote support position is actually the first line of defense we have in our
office. When calls are placed to our main line number the help desk operator is the one answering that.
They typically address
smaller tickets, updates, things like that that they can help the user with remotely, anything above
that, they start dispatching onto the other techs, or if it's a web issue onto the web team
or telecommunications, whatever it needs dispatched to. This person in this position is also responsible
for one week of the every four week on-call rotation we have that's shared with the other three full-time
technicians that's in that section. So in the interim,
Because we have been without the position filled fully for a little while We've redistributed the duties
as best we could our webmaster our office manager Never hesitate to pick up the phone and answer when
people call to try to help out the on calls been moved around to try to keep certain to
keep our three techs from being overburdened with comp time or having to flex out which leaves us short
as well so this is a very vital position to our office which all are we don't have a lot of fat in our
budget there if you want to put it that way for lack of a better term and I do count on each and every
one of my people to be there and present so I'd appreciate the consideration to fill the vacancy thank
you very much does anybody have any questions
on this item. All right. Seeing none, we will move on to public comment. If there's public comment on
this item, you can raise your hand via Teams or come forward to the lectern here in the room. And seeing
none, may we please have a roll call vote? Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes. Councillor
Hock? Yes.
Councillor Henry? Yes. Councillor Deckard? Yes. Councillor Crossley? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Okay.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Up is county council business item number eight with emergency management.
Council I move to approve the Emergency Management Department's Request and Fund 4938-9626 Emergency
Management Duke Grant to create account lines 28900
CO emergency response supplies and 38350 grant distribution and simultaneously approve additional
appropriations of $150 in the supplies category and $5,350 in the services category for a total appropriation
of $5,500. Second. All right. We got a motion and a second and I see Mr. Baker is online.
So Mr. Baker, you should be able to unmute and you can go ahead with your presentation. Yes, good evening
council. This is a Duke grant that we got to help Manila Fire Protection District fulfill their water
safety and boating safety campaign that they're starting. And this will help them purchase life jacket
loaner stations throughout the county near bodies of water.
Their locations are still unknown at this time, but they are working with some more safety specialists
to get that going. So this will help keep people safe on the water, especially on Lake Monroe and Fifth
Lake and stuff. And leftover funds will help us purchase more flood radios to keep people alerted of
storms and stuff. Thank you very much for that.
Does anybody have any questions or comments for Mr. Baker on this item? Yes, Councilmember Decker. I
was very happy to see this come in and the emergency management alongside the fire protection district
were proactively talking about something that I think that haunts a lot of us and many families, particularly
as we enter a season where water traffic
increases and extends and so I appreciate very much that the folks who respond to emergencies are thinking
proactively about things that might assist us to have one less, two less, multiple less and I'm grateful
for that immensely. Any other questions or comments on this item?
All right, seeing none, we will move on to public comment. If there's public comment on this item, raise
your hand via Teams, or you can come forward to the lectern here in the room. And still seeing none,
maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Hawk? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes.
Councilor Henry? Yes. Councilor Decker?
Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson? Yes. Motion passes unanimous. All right. Next up is item
B from the Board of Commissioners. All right. This is a long one, so be patient. Council is a reminder
to everyone due to a lack of unanimous vote to the May 12th meeting, this is the second reading and
approval of ordinance 2026-17, fixing terms and conditions for the purchase of land as follows.
Whereas pursuant to the authority granted to the Monroe County Council, hereby after a council, by the
General Assembly of the State of Indiana under Indiana Code 36-2-2-20, the council quote, a conveyance
or purchase by a county of land having a value of $1,000 or more must be authorized by an ordinance
of the county fiscal body, fixing the terms and conditions of the transaction, end quote.
Whereas the Monroe County Board of Commissioners intend to purchase land from the Logan land development
LLC Hereafter seller under certain terms which are described in the attached and incorporated quote
contract for purchase of real estate in quote marked as quote exhibit one end quote and whereas exhibit
one indicates a purchase price of 11 million three hundred seventy three thousand dollars the
Eleven million three hundred seventy five thousand dollars. Thank you. The agreement requires council
approval pursuant to Indiana code thirty six one dash one dash ten dash five point five dash five and
Indiana code thirty six dash two dash two dash twenty now therefore be it ordained and established by
the Monroe County Council as follows section one the Monroe County Council
has been provided two appraisals for the property owned by the seller as shown in exhibit one.
Section two, the council wishes for Monroe County to acquire the property owned by seller and described
in exhibit one. As the fiscal body for Monroe County, this ordinance serves as the expression of the
council's interest in purchasing the land as required by Indiana code 36-1-10.5-5. Section three,
Per Indiana Code 36-2-2-20, the Council approves of all the terms and conditions described in the Contract
for Purchase of Real Estate, which is attached here, too, as Exhibit 1. The Council recognizes that
the purchase price does not exceed the average of the two appraisals received and accepted by the Council.
Section 4.
To the extent council approval is required, the council approves the execution and deliverance of any
and all documents necessary to approve the contract for purchase of real estate and authorizes officers
of the county to take any and all action necessary to ratify, approve, or finalize the transaction.
Second. All right, we got a motion and a second, and I don't know who's presenting, but somebody, go ahead.
Here at the table, so I'm assuming it's you. Hello, Sherrod. Good evening, council members and Madam
President. This past weekend, well, it was a long weekend, I spent a lot of time thinking about what
I was gonna present to the council. Gave a tremendous amount of thought. At one point, I gave some thought
in the sense of repeating the first president's
a PowerPoint presentation that I presented. And as I thought about that, I'm thinking, well, you really
showed that. And I also thought about, what about the photographs that presented before in the past?
So would I present those as a refresher? And well, you really did that as well. I even thought about
repeating some of the stories and what we have been through, the staff,
the residents in that facility and why is it that we need a brand new facility at this point? I'm thinking,
well, we have done that as well. So decided just to really talk about the facts and what you really
know and hopefully go from there. As you know, when I took over five years and a half ago, we discussed this.
very transparent and really thought about how to bring the council members up to speed as far
as constitutional job because we're at the borderline right now, not being constitutional. So my thought
process was knowing that there was a consent decree that's been in effect for 17 years, as you know,
Okay, how do we move forward? Because 17 years is quite a long time and believe it for the staff members
and for the people in that facility, that's a long time to make improvements. But the issue still remains.
We talk about being very caring and humane, but the lack of medical care that we could provide is not
there right now because of this lack of space.
The population for us is growing slowly. I can't tell you why. I just can't tell you. But I could tell
you when it does and we have people there that need medical care, we have to step up right. But it's
so difficult at this point because of the space. We're lacking space tremendously. And God forbid we
have to quarantine people. We won't be able to do it. We just don't have the space. Programs. I know
this county is very caring.
as the council members are, because you do talk about how do we provide assistance to people before
they end up in our facility, which is a very good concept, and I'm 100% behind that. We have to do both
at the same time, because the majority of the people that we have are people that need help. We're trying
to be a proactive team in the sense of trying to meet them where they're at, meaning not everyone is
the same, but the staff for us, the size remains the same.
It's a very, very difficult task for us, I could tell you. And when I come and sit in front of you and
I say to you, because I want, I'm gonna keep my word and be transparent, but to be fair to you, if I'm
gonna come to you and ask you for certain things, I need you to understand why. And I could tell you
right now, the numbers are concerning to me right now as they're creeping up, it really is.
I won't get too deep into that right now, but I assure you it is. And we cannot keep up trying to help
someone with programs if the numbers keep up and our staff numbers remain the same. It's just really
impossible to do that. And the thing is, we all agreed upon that we want to provide them with the best
programs in the system and assist them as much as we can. We all agree to that. We have that in common.
But I can sit here and tell you that
We're falling short. It's just it is what it is. I can't. The staff that we have are doing a phenomenal
job. We hold them to a very high standard. But when you're tired. You make mistakes. Our use of force
has dropped 80 percent. It has. But when you have people that are in a facility that's overcrowded,
tempers flare up.
And which means is the potential for our staff members to get hurt, the percentage rises. So I'm gonna
ask you for help in the sense of we have to do something, we have to do something fast because when
I said to you also, I don't know what tomorrow is gonna bring and it's coming fast. It truly is, it's
coming fast because we cannot keep up at the momentum that people are coming in, which we have no control
over, but it's there.
We also have the lack of the ADA providing people that need their service. We just don't have it. Um,
we are caring community. Yes, we are. We want to provide those services, but at the present time, we
just can't do it the level that we should be able to do it. I really touched on the safety of the staff
and, and, and the inmates.
That's something that I think about dramatically. So when I thought about what I'm gonna say to the
council, that forefront, that was one of the things I wanted to make repeat myself to you that it's
a situation that if I could bring them in and talk to themselves, you could hear from their voices the
stress that they're under.
but I can't because some of them have to go home to sleep to work the midnight shift or the second shift
or the third shift. So it's very difficult. So they're doing the very best that they can under
the circumstances. So for the new facility, one of the things that I thought about and I agree with
the council when you mentioned multiple time is what we need to do the first step is just build
the office, the sheriff's office, and to jail. I agree with you 100%. I really do. The time is now.
I always stood the ground that whatever we take position, we take whatever location we select, the fastest
that we could move at the present time. I always said that.
not to move forward at the present time is literally putting a tremendous amount of more stress on the
staff that are already stressed to a point that concerns me. It really does. So we all agree that we
want to treat people humanly. We agreed upon that. We also agreed that we want to have public safety
to the utmost. This is a public safety issue because we tried to do
is when they come in and provide specifically residents. Now I'm talking about is provided with all
the help that we can. So when they leave the facility, they don't go back to the same pattern or habits
that cause them to be in there. We're trying to be proactive, but here again, it keeps coming back to
the facility and the staff number. And when I say to you that when we release people and the numbers
are higher,
Releasing people that we know for fact need assistance And it takes time to provide that assistance
and we don't have the staff and or the size of facility to do that It concerns me because At what point
do we realize that? Once we hit that number that's the point of no return and we're creeping up to it
very quickly One of the things that I thought about this weekend as well
I mean, I'm not an attorney for what I'm about to say. I might ask Commissioner Maduro to step to come
up here for a minute in case I missed something that I didn't say properly, because I want to make sure
that I provide adequate information to you. I thought about this. Let's say the lawsuit goes through.
I know for a fact, testify.
I don't know if the fact is going to be the chief deputy. I don't know if the fact that the jail commander
is going to be, is going to be asked to testify as well. And once we do, if we go that route, in the
17 years of being given extension, a federal judge is going to look at the whole picture and lose.
And once we do, there's the part that I'm a little puzzled because my understanding, the main concern
for the council was being cost effective, and I agree with that 100%. But if it goes to a federal lawsuit,
it's gonna cost the county taxpayers a whole lot more money. We're gonna lose control of how we proceed forward.
Because at this point, it's going to be a court order telling us what to do and when to do it. And I
believe there will be deadlines. And there will be consequences if we don't meet those deadlines. So
I thought about that this weekend as well. I really wanted to make sure that the council understood
that. Because it could be you at one point also being subpoenaed to testify as well.
It won't have to be just us, it could be you as well, because you're the ones making the decision. So,
thinking that through, I don't know what else we'll be facing if that happens. And I don't know, maybe
Commissioner Madara, can you elaborate a little bit, if you have anything else you wanna add to this,
what I just said? Wanna add to it a little bit? The reason I'm asking,
As an attorney, I think I might be missing some of the steps, but I want them to fully understand what,
if we do get subpoenaed to testify, what will happen after that. Are you asking our county attorney
to make comments or the county commissioner? He's a county commissioner.
So I think many of you members of the public and colleagues have asked what comes next. The ACLU through
Ken Falk has stated its intentions clearly. They will file immediately, and they will seek summary judgment.
Summary judgment isn't a request for further negotiation or dialogue. It's a request for a court to
decide the ultimate legal question without a trial because the facts aren't meaningfully in dispute.
The question here will be, did Monroe County have an unconstitutional jail? I don't know that any elected
official in this room would say that it's not unconstitutional. In recent days, our population was as
high as 272. This jail has a functional capacity of 235. This is a structural problem. All the new services
in the world won't create new ADA cells, rec space, or alleviate overcrowding.
So if summary judgment is granted, the only remaining question is what remedy a federal court will impose
on Monroe County. We stop acting as one county and start acting as separate legal adversaries.
The commissioners, the sheriff, and the council will each retain separate attorneys, file separate briefs,
and present separate arguments. And from what I've seen of the record from the past 17 years, the ACLU
will prevail. Some have asked whether we can negotiate our way out at this point. We can't.
Mediation works when both sides are vulnerable, exposed to legal risk, and sit at the table as equals.
That's not Monroe County's situation. We've known for years that this jail is unconstitutional. We've
said so publicly, we've studied it repeatedly. We've agreed on the record that the current facility
cannot be repaired as a constitutional jail. We've even entered into a settlement agreement to resolve
prior litigation. That history doesn't give us leverage, it undermines it.
Once summary judgment is entered against us, we'll walk into a federal courtroom again as divided defendants.
The judge will ask the ACLU what relief it seeks and what recommendations it has. Then each county party,
the commissioners, the sheriff, and the council will be asked to respond, and then the judge will rule.
That ruling, as we've said before, could be sweeping. A court could order population reductions and
mandatory out of county transfers of at least $75 per person per day.
It could mandate specific staffing levels, medical care, mental health services, sanitation standards,
and safety measures. It could require us to make structural changes to the jail, which the transition
team has estimated would cost 3.5 to 13 million in 2026 dollars. It could impose outside monitoring
and rigorous reporting requirements lasting for years. It could set hard deadlines for site selection,
financing, design, and construction with tight benchmarks of 60 or 90 days.
A federal court might not be able to choose a site for us, but it can narrow our choices so severely
that local control becomes largely theoretical. At the best, it's compromise. That's court-supervised
compliance, and it's the opposite of negotiation or mediation. Litigation doesn't give us options we
don't already have. It takes options away. So this vote will define how Monroe County is remembered
on this issue, not the years of studies and stalled decisions, but what we choose to do right now.
And so while I'm here, I'd like to take a point of prerogative. That's OK with you, Sheriff? Yes, please.
I'm asking each council member to stand together and to end this before federal court ends it for us,
not because we're forced to, but because we're capable of governing, because the people living and working
in that jail are our neighbors and they deserve better. And because the residents of this county deserve
a government that can make hard decisions together rather than be driven apart by litigation.
The path forward requires all of us. It requires setting aside institutional defensiveness and past
disagreements. It necessitates moving with urgency that matches the seriousness of what we're facing.
The courthouse door isn't yet closed, and we can still avoid walking through it altogether.
And as a lawyer, I'm really scared of being dragged through it separately without my colleagues, without
you guys. I'm ready to do whatever it takes to make the site work alongside you, my commissioner colleagues,
the sheriff, the mayor, and the city council.
So let's resolve this together on our terms before a federal judge resolves it on theirs. I also want
to add that however tonight ends, it's a given that our relationship, our collaboration, and our work
together continues. Monroe County faces real challenges that will outlast this litigation. In combating
homelessness, building infrastructure, improving public health, making housing attainable, accelerating
economic development,
delivering basic services to our residents. None of these challenges can be solved by anyone office
or any one branch of county government acting alone. They require the same commissioners, the same sheriff
and the same council working in good faith towards shared goals. So the habits we build now of communicating
early, treating each other as partners rather than adversaries, bringing problems to the table before
they become crises are the habits that will determine what kind of county government we are for the
next generation.
A protracted legal battle leaves scars, breeds distrust, drains resources, and makes every subsequent
conversation harder. A collaborative resolution demonstrates to our constituents and to ourselves that
we're capable of so much more than managed dysfunction. But whatever happens, I stand as your colleague,
and we'll still get down to the hard business of governing together. I fear that it limits resources,
and that will just make it much, much harder. So when I was getting ready for tonight, I realized that
the situation reminded me of one of my favorite songs, Kenny Rogers, The Gambler. The chorus of the
song is short.
You've got to know when to hold them, know when to fold them, know when to walk away, and know when
to run. You never count your money when you're sitting at the table. There'll be time enough for counting
when the dealing's done. We have the hand we're dealt. It isn't great, but we do still hold the get
out of court card free with the jail. So what this is about to me is human dignity and constitutional
responsibility, legal obligations. One of the things that I also consider before
talking to the council. I thought about this weekend, the tremendous responsibility of the correctional
officers and the deputies. We haven't had a chance to talk to you about the role of deputies, but we
will in the future, and explain to you what I mean by that. We, at the department within itself, we're
in a position that it's crucial that we move forward with this. It really is. Clear than that,
I cannot be. We are at a certain point,
that is going to hurt this office worse than where we are right now. So we cannot repair that jail,
we just can't at the point where right now. North Park is ready, so I strongly recommend that we move
forward at this point. The commission mentioned something which is so true. I know for a fact that for
me to do my job and be successful in what we do, my staff, excuse me, and to provide the best programs
to the residents in that facility, I need you. There's just no way around it. I need you to help me
do what I need to do with my job in the sense of providing certain services. And I also need the commissions
as well. So we all need each other. And I acknowledge that. And also, I also wanted to
consider and be respectful to the council. I wanted to make sure that I did not miss anything legally,
and I knew she could explain it better than I can, in a sense, meaning Commissioner Medora.
So with that, I'm going to conclude my statement here, because I really wanna be respectful of your
time, I really do, but also I want to make a fully educational decision for this evening, because we're
at a point that
I don't want it to be said, we never came to you and explained every single thing that we're dealing
with right now because it's not fair to you. But at the same time, I really want you to consider the
people that are working in there. This weekend, we had a long weekend, but guess what? A good portion
of my staff did not enjoy this weekend. They were in that facility dealing with a large number of people
that I don't want to get graphic right now that they had to deal with.
to deal with that large number of people in there. And I assure you, no one, council member wanted to
go through that. No one, council member's family, you would want them in there this past weekend because
it was really bad. It just was. I'm not going to shoot a code. So I need you to help us to do our job
professionally and we will continue to do what we need to do, but we need help.
If you have questions for me, I'd be more than happy to answer. If not, to be respectful of your time,
I conclude my speech. Thank you. I'm going to look to my council members here to see if anybody has
any questions or comments from what we just heard. Council Member Hawke? Well, I look forward to hearing
what our county attorney has to say about
legal advice because that's who we pay to give us legal advice. But I don't want to take up your time
for it now. I think perhaps there were some things advice given to us was really sounded like, you know,
come and agree with us because you can get a smack down if you don't. But at any rate, I appreciate
everything that you said. And I just think that you need to know
from what I've heard over and over again from the members of this council, we want to move forward with
the jail. What we're talking about right now is where's that jail going to be? You shouldn't ever take
it into your thoughts that we don't plan to move forward and help to make sure that jail is a better place.
best it can be while we're still using it, but make that a short time and be able to move forward with
a new one. And every time we spend millions of dollars on a location where we could get one millions
of dollars for less money, that just means there's gonna be more square foot for you folks and more
operational dollars for you folks. And I hope that you'll all learn how the budgets work
because it's all coming out of the same pot of money. So I'd be happy to sit down and go over this,
every bit of this income tax money so that you can understand if we can save millions, we can put it
where you want it to be, which includes your salaries. Well, I'm not gonna tell the council how to do
their job. I'm not. Please consider that.
We know what we're doing. I know specifically what I'm referring to. The statement that you just made,
it's not gonna change the fact of what we faced, continue to face, at the rate that we're going. Any
other questions or comments? Got the public that's here, so I think
it might be safe to say that we might be in agreement that we want to hear from our public before so
how about this we will move to public comment and then maybe we'll come back for um further discussion
is it or i i had a few things i wanted to say i might i'm sorry so yeah thank you and then we'll go
to public comment yep
I just want to quickly remind everyone that we have two deadlines facing us. The first one is Friday's
ACLU deadline. The other is the bond council's deadline to initiate a bond in July. Anything other than
North Park at this moment means we miss both deadlines. We've heard from Commissioner Madera what that
could mean in terms of legal cases. We've had time. We've had a lot of years, especially
lately uh but four council members have not yet pointed to a different location it's not clear to me
why the council would abdicate its responsibility and rights at this moment to a federal judge who can
make a range of decisions we don't know
Two thirds of the elected bodies that are required to choose the property have done so. It's the sheriff's
office and the board of commissioners. If the purchase of North Park is not supported today, we're going
to be squandering both time and money. And that money that's going to be squandered is a sunk cost.
It's not a capital investment into anything, right? It would be,
treading water and that's something the community will pay the price for. Meanwhile, correctional officers
continue to work in an unsafe system which may be made worse if transfers are required and individuals
will remain in a facility that we have all agreed does not meet the community's standard of care. So
I ask you to please consider this
with all the weight and gravity that it has. Thank you. Thank you. So next up, we will move on to public
comment. So if you have public comment, you can come forward to the lectern here. And again, you will
have up to three minutes. After three minutes are up, your time is over. And then we will alternate
back and forth between here and on Teams. So it looks like I already see
A couple of hands via Teams. I already see we have someone here in the room. So I'll do two here and
two via Teams and I'll start here in the room. Thank you. Thank you. Greetings, county colleagues. Isabel
Piedmont-Smith, City Council District 1. First, I want to start by saying that
Council President Isaka sorry does not speak for me on this issue You received a letter that was signed
by him recently. Just wanted to clarify that Commissioner Madeira said that she would like to have a
collaborative approach to resolving this issue and I hold that The county commissioners perhaps not
her in particular since she is new but as about
The county commissioners have not engaged in a collaborative approach for many years. Sorry, I have
some disparate thoughts, so it's not going to flow so great. But I agree with the letter that was sent
to you by former Mayor John Hamilton when he was in office. He and I did not always agree.
I really feel strongly that our county government has not done enough to prevent people going into the
jail through funding mental health care, addiction treatment, reentry support. I know some of the funds
have been used for that, but not nearly as much as have been used already for planning for the jail.
The consultant the commissioners used is also someone who builds large jails, so it's not an impartial
consultant.
Overall, the jail proposal at the North Park site is a poor use of taxpayer money. We're not only burdening
future generations with debt, but we're also burdening them with a status quo criminal justice system
that is focused on punishment and where it should be focused on prevention. This is an opportunity to
change this system, which I've been saying for years, but due to the non-collaborative nature of the
commissioners on this, it was ignored. And many in the community have been saying the same thing.
Any facility, as the current proposal is, that has a significantly higher number of beds will be, could
very well be used by ICE, could be used by the federal government, which is repressing American citizens
and legal immigrants to this country across the board. Public safety is not arresting people and putting
them in jail. Public safety rests on the principle that true
Safety comes only from racial and economic justice where residents have the resources and stability
they need to survive and hopefully to thrive. You are in a very difficult situation. I do not envy you.
I'm kind of glad I'm not up there. But this situation was caused by our county commissioners and they
should have acted and one of them has been on the board of commissioners since 2012.
had plenty of time to act sooner, in a more collaborative fashion, to come up with a solution that furthers
justice and is supported by the members of this community. You're at a dead end now where none of that
is true, and I don't envy you, but I still think you should vote no. Thank you.
Next up in the room and then we'll go to teams next. Hello, I am Heather Bland. Good evening council
members. My name is Heather Bland and I'm a Monroe County resident and the director at New Leaf New
Life. I'm here today to ask you to vote no on the proposed North Park jail location. I want to share
a story about a man I'll never forget. He came to New Leaf New Life.
He'd just been released from incarceration. He didn't have an ID. He didn't have a home. He didn't have
a job. And honestly, he didn't have much hope left either. But he showed up. And because he could physically
get to us, because we were accessible, he kept showing up. At first, it was small steps, sitting down
with someone that would actually listen, getting a bus pass so he could make it to appointments, and
starting the process to get his birth certificate. And then we were able to get him into substance use
treatment.
From there, he moved into sober living somewhere safe, structured, and supportive. It wasn't instant.
It wasn't easy. There were setbacks, and there were days he almost gave up. But over time, something
shifted. He found a job, and then he kept that job. He started rebuilding relationships with his family.
He began to believe that his life could look different. And eventually, he wasn't just surviving. He
was stable.
He was giving back. He became someone other people could look at and say, if he can do it, maybe I can
too. That didn't happen because the system worked perfectly. It happened because he had access, real,
consistent, direct access to support, to transportation, and to people who could walk alongside him
when it mattered the most. And that's what's at risk at North Park. We all know the current jail conditions
are not where they need to be, and that's real.
But moving people farther away from resources, farther away from transportation, and farther away from
community support does not fix that. It creates a new problem. Because distance isn't just distance.
Distance is missed appointments. Distance is lost opportunities, and distance is disconnection. And
disconnection is where people fall through the cracks. This is one man's story, but it represents thousands
of community members that we've served at New Leaf New Life over the past 20 plus years. We've seen
what works, and what works is access.
What works is connection. What works is meeting people where they are, not placing them further out
of reach. This proposal has been denied before and for good reason. And a threat of lawsuit is not worth
the long-term impact this decision will have on real people trying to rebuild their lives. We can do
better than this. We can invest in solutions that reduce recidivism, strengthen our community, and actually
support the people in changing their lives. I urge you to vote no on this North Park location. Thank
you for your time.
Thank you. Next up, we will go to the two and teams that are saw first. First up is Matt Jacobs, you
should be able to unmute, state your name for the record and you'll have up to three minutes. TSD.
Yeah, we can hear you. Go ahead and state your name for the record. You have up to three minutes. My
name is Matt Jacobs and. In Indiana, it's called statement of economic interest or conflict of interest
disclosure. For county council members specifically, if the vote financially benefits their employer,
a family member or a business they're affiliated with, they're required to verbally disclosed. Conflict
on record before the vote abstain from voting.
filed Indiana Ethics Commission as it involves a state matter. The relevant Indiana code is IC 35-44.1-1-4
for official misconduct and it's Indiana code 4-2-6 for ethics violations by public servants. The IU
affiliation, if any council member has employment contractual or financial ties to IU and IU benefits
from this vote, which it does because of the land that's adjacent
will then be provided with utility access that it has not had. That's a disclosable conflict. Same for
the Crider bonds. Crider's selling the land, Crider owns the bonds, and Crider will presumably be doing
the infrastructure. As every council member with a financial or employment relationship to any entity
that benefits from this vote filed a conflict of interest disclosure, I'd like that confirmed on record
before any vote is taken.
Also, additionally, has every elected official in that room filed their CAN-12 document? Because I can
only find eight of those on record in the county clerk's office. Also, has a structural engineer ever
looked at the jail? We have two PhDs in criminal justice,
and an architect that did jail report. So the jail's falling down is based on people that are great
at creating rehabilitation programs for criminals, but they're not at all engineers. And we already
have land that's available, that's already on the bus route behind the old RCA or Catalan or whatever
it's called this week.
You know, only Ms. Hawk is the only one in that room that doesn't have an affiliation with IU. And IU
stands for their land to substantially be worth more money after we spend millions and millions of dollars
creating the generational debt. That's really all I have to say about it. I've already submitted the
letters and all this to the ACLU. And I think the ACLU and a federal judge
would do a better job than y'all have done in the last 18 years. I know some of you are pretty new,
and so I'm not putting this all on you, but my family's been here for over 100 years. I can take you
to buildings where my father and my grandfather's hand touched the limestone. I've worked on many of
these buildings myself. My niece and my nephew, they've wired these buildings, they've put pipes in
these buildings. You know, how many people are from here that are voting on this? Thank you,
that's your time.
All right, next up we have Sarah Mosher. So if you want to be able or you should be able to unmute,
state your name for the record and you have up to three minutes. Thank you. I just wanted to encourage
you to vote no on the North Park location for the same reasons that
Matt Jacobs and the director of New Leaf New Life and Isabel Piedmont-Smith mentioned. Honestly, at
this point, I think if there was a lawsuit and a federal judge or someone else perhaps required that
the jail be located more centrally, that would benefit the folks that are incarcerated. And we should
be, if we really are,
wanting to be collaborative, we should be collaborating with New Leaf New Life and others to not arrest
so many people in the first place, rather than build a bigger jail. And perhaps Professor Madera, I
know she's a law professor at IU, maybe she knows more about how likely it is that the federal government
would pick a location or
make us pick a location that's closer to things than the North Park site. But it's already been discussed
why that site isn't good. So that's all I had to say. Please vote no on the North Park site. And can
you state your name for the record one more time, please? I don't think you said it. Oh, I'm sorry.
I'm Sarah Mosier. I'm a resident of Bloomington and Monroe County. OK, thank you so much. I appreciate that.
Next up, we'll go to two more here, and then at you, Hoveram. Hello. Hi there. My name is Zach Ammerman.
I emailed all of you earlier today, but I'm here to talk at your face now. I just jotted down some thoughts.
I don't have a speech prepared or anything, but I'm just going to read through a couple thoughts. One
of the things I emailed to you is one thing I want to read.
And that is, according to data that I got from the Vera Institute of Justice, there is no county in
the state of Indiana that has managed to increase its population adjusted jail size, so the number of
beds adjusted for the number of people in the county, without also increasing its per capita incarceration
rate. Not a single one. Adding more beds absolutely means those beds will be filled at a greater rate
than they are today.
The data across the state proves that. I also looked at data from counties all over the country to the
thousands of counties across the country. It's the same trend. It's a straight up line. You add more
beds per capita, the incarceration rate goes up, period. So doing that in the context of ICE and rising
authoritarianism is frankly insane. I think it's nuts. So I'm asking you to please hold the line and
vote no again. The fact that we're here again,
asking you to vote no is not your fault, it's the county commissioner's fault, is ridiculous because
I think there is no way in hell that this would pass a referendum in the county. The people, the population
of this county would not vote in favor of what you're being asked to vote in favor of tonight. I think
you know that, or you should know that. You are here to represent them. So I ask that you would please
do what the people of this county obviously and very clearly and loudly have said repeatedly.
And that's not to vote in favor of a giant jumbo jail that allows the county to continue incarceration
first policies. I've got a minute left. So what this all really comes down to is you've already voted
against this more than once. Nothing materially has changed since you voted against this, except that
the county commissioners have failed to understand what the words NO means.
You've told them no repeatedly. Nothing has changed since you told them no, really. I'm sorry, the situation
that we're in is crappy, but it's entirely their fault. If they had understood what no meant and had
gotten to work and found another site, of which there are several, we wouldn't be here today. Yeah,
so any time that has been squandered was done entirely on the part of the commissioners, not you. And
so I ask you to vote no again.
hopefully for the last time on this land deal. And I also wanna thank a couple of members who I know
have, Marty Hawk, Council Member Crossley and Council Member Henry who a bit stood publicly and said
no repeatedly. Thank you for your work on this and I hope the other three members of the council on
this side will follow their lead. So thank you. Good evening.
My name is Janet Johnson and I'm a resident of Monroe County. I don't have a lot to add. I just wanted
to agree with everyone that's been here thus far. And I did want to add one additional thing that I've
not heard discussed, which is transportation for the people, not the inmates, but the families of the
inmates that might visit. I don't know how many people
visit the jail. But I do feel like being in jail, you're isolated somewhat. And I've heard it bandied
about that an Uber would be about $20, which doesn't sound that substantial to many of us in the room.
But for the families of people that are in jail, that could be a real impact. And so I want you to consider
the impact that would have on the families as well as the inmates, because I think that that could increase
isolation, which is not going to lead to good incomes.
I heard the sheriff talk a lot about why we need to move forward with this, and we do need to have a
new jail. I'll go with that, or at least to do something about the jail. But a lot of what he discussed
this evening sounded to me like staffing issues. I think if we build this giant new jail with the price
tag that it's got, I don't see how there's gonna be any room left to increase staff. So that seems a
little confusing to me. And then I just wanted to close by saying that
action for the sake of action to avoid this potential lawsuit seems like a really irresponsible plan
of action to me. Anytime you do something just for the sake of taking action, it tends to not have a
great result. That's it for me. Thank you. Next, I'm going to pop back onto teams. So screen name, Mindy.
You should be able to unmute and state your name for the record you have up to three minutes. Hi Mindy
flat Monroe County resident.
and I stand with them and honestly I say vote no and let a judge take this out because they're a hundred
percent not going to put it far away from town and all the resources for the people who are incarcerated
and the people who are affected by this. So vote no please. Thank you. Next up on team's land. Screen
name Jay Burrell.
It's Jennifer Burrell. I'm speaking only as a Monroe County resident today and I just want to add into
the conversation another voice that is asking you to vote no. I have engaged with you all multiple times
via email when I can outside of work. The only individuals who have interacted with me have been
those on council. So thank you, Jennifer Crossley, David Henry and Marty Hawk. I'm very disappointed
that no commissioners, despite their continued action for pushing the site have not interacted with
community members. That has continued in my individual experience as well with actually taking the time
to reach out. So as I was asked by some council members to speak, I'm here doing that.
It's really disappointing because I have also heard many people, including the commissioners tonight,
talk about determining the government for the next generation and state a lot of things about how this
will impact another generation. I am one of those. You all were the leaders that I didn't know about
as I was a child in this town. When this issue was ongoing and could have already been worked on, a
jail could have been built at another location and could have been done before I was here of voting
age with my own family.
Now I'm speaking because my daughter is running around while I am taking the time out of my night to
make sure that I can tell her later that I told them no please don't build an enlarged expanded jail
over on the northwest side of town. There are lots of reasons as everybody else has mentioned and continues
to mention for it to not be at the North Park location. I stand by that as well.
I also just took various notes again while everybody was speaking today. Um, and the only additional
thing I have to add is just that, uh, saying that squandering time and money by saying no tonight is
a bit insulting. Um, because saying the community will pay the price, I feel so the community will pay
the price of the vote is yes tonight. Um, so again, I'm just asking for you all to vote no, um, hope,
hope everybody can come to that agreement tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, we'll go back to the
room here. Hi, my name is Barry. It is my understanding from the mayor's state of the city a few months
back that the state of Indiana recently more or less criminalized not having a house to sleep in. We're
in a housing crisis, but our city, county, and state have failed to build or even maintain the super
affordable housing and public housing that could actually help people get on their feet.
Instead, the housing solution put forward appears to be, put them all in jail. That's probably unintentional,
and it won't happen overnight. In fact, it'll probably happen so slowly a lot of us don't even notice.
But if it is a crime to become too poor, and the jail has vacancies, who do you think is going to end
up in that jail? Supposedly, this is about safety. I live right near Seminary Square. I walked next
to unhoused people every day. Some of them pet my dog.
They do not make me feel unsafe. But at night, I watch them get tased, followed, harassed, and arrested.
It's an everyday occurrence. One night recently, I got home late and opened my car door to hear screaming
and shouting. It was the police. Something like 10 cop cars and a bunch of officers were surrounding
a man who was kneeling on the ground in the rally's parking lot, and they were tasing him. I felt unsafe
because a dozen police officers were across the street shouting at a man while they attacked him.
but it does not need to be crushed with a bigger fist. Every dollar spent on this jail is a dollar that
will not be spent on housing and social services for the people who need them, and it's going to be
a lot of dollars. As I understand it, this jail and the necessary amenities are so extraordinarily expensive
that the local government are not even allowed to take out enough money to construct everything it wants,
and will instead be spending further tens of millions of dollars for like a decade. When people need
help, they need housing first,
That's where the money needs to go, not incarceration. Thank you. Please. Good evening. My name is Sarah
Rider Band. I am the county health officer and I am here because I represent
all of Monroe County, their health and their wellbeing, including those who are incarcerated. This is
not a question of how, this is a matter of when. This jail has been under consideration for a number
of years, ever since we learned it was inadequate. COVID proved we cannot easily isolate
individuals within our current jail. The health issues that I envision when you cannot isolate individuals
with communicable diseases is serious. It is not a question of whether incarceration is good or bad.
I don't think there are too many of us in this room who would say, yeah, let's incarcerate more people.
This is not homelessness. I don't think any of us support homelessness. But there are people in this
community who need to be incarcerated. If people want to fight, then they should be looking at the laws.
They should be speaking to our legislators who create these laws. They should be looking to our jurors
and to our jurists, those
actually put people in jail. It is not a matter of whether or not we need this jail. It is a matter
of having a facility that will allow us to actually do some of the rehabilitation that I've heard about
this evening. Access isn't really the big issue. When we were going to build the hospital out at North
Park, we already talked about creating a new bus line to North Park.
We have looked at all of sites within the city bounds. It is not feasible. Either the city has not allowed
it, the neighbors have not allowed it, whatever it is, it is not feasible to do that within the city.
We cannot also afford city prices. And I'd be happy to tear down many of the housing units
that have students in them, but I don't think that's gonna happen either. So let's be realistic. We
have a piece of land, we have people who need to be in our jail, and we need that jail to be safe and
manageable. And it needs to be within the same area as our new courthouses. We cannot afford to let
our current people
be sent out to other counties. The transportation back is, again, a safety issue for all of those. And
that is your time. Thank you. Next up, we will go back to virtual land. Looks like screen name Jack,
you are first.
Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. I have a question and a comment. How is whatever you do with
the new jail, how is the bond paid for income taxes or property taxes? Well, this is not a time for
a back and forth, so we can maybe address that. But again, I'll give you a little bit more of your time
back. But again, state your name for the record and go ahead with your comment.
Okay, Jack speaker. I think we all have noticed that there's been a significant shift to the right in
the federal judiciary. I think it might be worth letting the judge decide it because the council and
the commission have been working on it for a long time and haven't found an answer that anybody really
likes. That's all I have. Okay, thank you. Next.
Curtis Cummings. Hello there. My name is Curtis Cummings and I work in human social services here in
Monroe County.
I'm in and out of our courts and jail system, working with individuals and families involved in some
of the most difficult moments of their lives. So I want to begin by acknowledging something clearly
like I did last meeting, and that the concerns surrounding the jail are very real. Safe and constitutional
conditions do matter. Staff safety matters. Human dignity matters. Monroe County does have a responsibility
to act. And I also recognize that current leadership inherited a pretty difficult situation.
You know, we can't change what previous leadership was or was not able to accomplish over the last several
years, but the County can't continue kicking this problem down the road. I believe leadership is not
only about solving today's crisis, but it's about solving today's crisis without limiting tomorrow's
opportunities.
And that's where my concern about North Park comes in. From the perspective of many of the individuals
and families I work with every day, many are facing poverty, transportation issues, not being able to
afford bus passes, mental health challenges and addiction. I do not believe North Park is the best long-term
location. At the same time, North Park may also be one of the county's most strategically valuable future
development corridors for jobs and retail restaurants and long-term tax-based growth.
A jail is a very permanent land use commitment. The lawsuit may explain why action is necessary, but
it does not automatically answer whether this is the best long-term location. And I also struggle with
the idea that site readiness is fixed and not movable. In the private sector, developers create readiness
and urgency all the time while still balancing budgets, building infrastructure, and meeting aggressive
timelines when the long-term value justifies the investment.
I can see a Chicago apartment complex get built in Bloomington in less than a year, and it's taken us
this long to build a jail. So I think it's fair for the public to ask whether North Park became the
ready option, partly because momentum had already formed around it earlier in the process. And again,
I wanna be clear, I'm not suggesting the county stop moving forward, but I think current leadership
now has to put its developmental hat on
and aggressively move this progress forward with urgency, accountability, and transparency. But responsible
leadership is not choosing between urgency and strategic planning. Responsible leadership is creating
a process that can accomplish both. At the end of the day, my final words are that urgency should inform
decision-making. It should not replace strategic planning. Thank you very much. Thank you.
We'll go back to the room here, so you're in. Hi, I'm Misty James. I work for New Leaf New Life. I'm
the assistant director there. I know I have a real polished story to tell you guys, but I have a couple
real human stories to tell you. I had a client who was released from a rural county jail in the middle
of the evening. He walked from that county to here. It took him nine hours.
to get here. The weather conditions were terrible. He told me today that he thought he would probably
die walking. People drove by him, they did not stop and he walked all the way back to Monroe County.
He still lives in this county and he met me at my desk that day and he took his glove off of his hand
and his hand was so frostbitten that we couldn't continue with the appointment and that we had to take
him to the hospital because of his exposure. It is absolutely dangerous.
I know this because I work with people who are released from county rule places who have no transportation
or no way to get anywhere. And we talk about Ubers and we talk about all the things, but I can assure
you that my time in county jail, I had no one to call to come and get me. The second human story I wanna
tell you about is if you think about this, I want you guys to think about two blocks, okay? Two blocks,
there was a girl,
who was a victim of the opioid crisis, who was overprescribed to oxycodone. And that oxycodone later
turned into a heroin addiction that made her unhoused, that kept her sleeping outside for over five
years. She went to jail, rinse, wash, repeat numerous times, so many times that I cannot count. And
she was released for the last time
And the difference this time was two blocks. I walked from the county jail door. That person was me.
It's me. I walked from the county jail door, two blocks. Two blocks, you guys. Damn it, this. Had I
had to walk from Ellisville, you'd think I would've went. If I had to find a way from another county,
you'd think I would've went. And I'm like,
So I think I am well respected in this community, but there was a time when I had nobody to call to
come and get me from jail, you guys. Nobody. I beg you guys not to do this to our community members.
There is other answers. Pour in the resources. There are so many misties sitting in that jail that two
blocks will change their life in their direction.
Thank you for your time. Sorry for crying. It was really weird.
Hi, my name is Matthew Joseph. I've been a resident here for seven years, first school and then after.
I speak in disapproval of a new jail. Let's not be speculative about what the outcome of a new jail
is. Let's look at what other communities have already gone through when this has happened. In Missouri,
they faced the exact same problem, an overcrowded jail. They spent more than hundreds of millions of
dollars on a new jail with the hope that it would maintain capacity.
for more than 10 years. It was overcrowded again in two years. They again had to spend hundreds of millions
of dollars on another bigger jail. Please look up this happened. And so I want you to imagine us all
sitting here again in two years after this gets built being in the exact same scenario. And why did
this happen?
How do they accelerate so quickly, right, 10 to 2? And it's already been talked about, right? Research
has shown that police are tougher on crime when a jail has lots of space. But why does that happen?
OK, consider this. Look at all that we have gone through to make this decision. You know that they're
going to make it their mission to justify the fact that we paid hundreds of millions of dollars and
burdened our tax paying community.
We are incentivizing him to say, we need a new jail. See, guys? See, county council members? See, general
public? We need a new jail. We are incarcerating more and more people, and we're getting full. His budget
and his name relies on this being a successful project. And success means another filled jail. And what
are the other options? This is what I want us to consider. We already have that visionary.
diversionary programs, problem-solving court, et cetera. If we put a fraction of this money into those,
I think that would be an incredible option. And why not assess who's in the jail currently? Who's there
for petty theft? Who's there for marijuana? Who needs substance use? Currently, I actually do intakes
at the probation office. I met a lady today who was in jail for stealing a car while she was in active psychosis
and actively grieving the death of three family members who died in the matter of weeks from each other.
Jail did not help. You know what she said helped? EMDR, an evidence-based treatment for trauma. What?
Wow. Fascinating. So can we let this moment make us question how we incarcerate? We can put pressure
on our community to think about new options.
We can get creative in this simple-minded and expensive excuse for a solution. Pick us in two years
facing the exact same problem today if we don't make a right decision today. Let's not make a mistake
that other communities have already learned. We're a smart city. We're a creative city. That is your
time. Thank you. Thank you. OK. Next up, we will go back to teams. Hopi?
you now should be able to unmute and state your name for the record and you'll have up to three minutes.
Hi this is Hopi Stasberg and I am city council representative for district three and I just want to
say you know about a month ago city council passed a resolution continuing to support the no vote that
that you guys originally had regarding North Park. We had lots of reasons why and community members
have shared a lot of those reasons tonight. And I'm sure that you guys have read the resolution. So
I don't need to repeat that, but I do need to say that I was dismayed when I saw a press release that
had the council president listed as though the council had made some sort of different decision or as
though he represents more than just himself. Okay. So city council, just like county council,
We all represent ourselves. We cannot represent the whole body unless the whole body has had some sort
of an action or resolution about it or a public discussion about it. And our last public discussion
about it was, I believe, unanimously in support of a no vote on North Park and the support of keeping
jail within the city limits as close to centrally located as possible. And I just wanted to make that
clear tonight that the statement put out yesterday does not
represent me and as it was written only represents one council member and other City Council members
can make whatever decisions they want to on this but I wanted to make that clear about myself. Thank
you very much and have a great night. Thank you. Next up is Richard Garza.
Yes. Thank you for your time. My name is Richard Garza. I worked in the Justice Center last summer.
My comments right now are about buying the land. I hear a lot of conversation tonight about the merits
of arresting less people, improving public services, jails in general, and the incarceration process.
My comments are only about buying the land. Please vote yes. In August, the estimated
cost of building this facility was $224 million. The inflation rate between then and April is about 2.79%,
about $6.2 million just because of inaction, which breaks down to about $966 an hour just because this
is still being deliberated. It will cost taxpayers even more if you vote no. Why would bus routes go
to an empty field? It's going to take a lot of
It can take about five years to build this thing, so I'm sure a bus stop can be added in that time.
The incarceration rate is low because the beds don't exist. They're either being moved somewhere else
or perhaps released before they should be. I've heard a lot of finger pointing going on tonight. I point
my finger at everyone who has kicked the can down the road. Everyone that has spoken up today against
the jail or against buying the property, they should run for office.
They should volunteer their time at the jail or maybe even open up their homes to those who shouldn't
be in jail and just need a place to get back on their feet. A standard is not what is communicated.
A standard is what is tolerated. If it was not for this lawsuit and our constitution, the county probably
would not have done anything to improve the conditions for those incarcerated individuals or the people
who have worked in that building since the lawsuit started. That to me does not sound concerning, caring
or humane.
If this process to build the jail had started 10 years ago, imagine what the county could have done
with all that time, money, and energy spent on this issue that applied to other things. Everything that
could have been has been wasted on circular conversations that end up being forgotten because whoever
asked those questions and made decisions along the way, they're no longer in office, and each generation
of officials has
just kick the can down the road asking critical questions and waiting for answers. But apparently those
answers hasn't been shared with future officials. And for other people in the room that have heard,
you know, there's a, there's enough procedural checks, balances, and obstacles in place that have forced
the decision making process to take this long. Every question that has been asked tonight has been asked
and answered before. We are here today as a result of those questions, answers, and decisions. The questions
I hear are great.
But they've been asked an answer before. Enough is enough. Approve the purchase agreement. Thank you.
Thanks. All right. Next up, we had two already. So I'll go here to the NetEU room. So there, again,
please go ahead and start lining up. And you'll sign your name. State your name for the record. You'll
have up to three minutes.
Hello, my name is Sam Holdeman. I am here to ask you to vote no on North Park. I think we need to start
by understanding why people are in jail, as other public commenters have brought up. People are in jail
because we live in a state and a society that has criminalized poverty. What I hear is that you are
scared about what a federal judge could force you to do, and so you are preemptively doing more than
they could ever force you to.
They cannot force you to build on a specific site, they cannot force you to build a specific size jail,
and they cannot force you to build a new jail, period. The logic seems to be that if you placate them
now, they will treat you kindly in the future. That will not work. What they will do is make use of
the giant jail you hand them to lock up anybody they don't like.
A new jail is being presented as a final solution, as a way of washing our hands of this whole not once
and for all. And I get why you would want to do that. It's taken up a lot of your time. It's not an
easy problem. But a new jail is not actually a final solution. We don't get to build a new jail and
then walk away from it and the issue is solved. The new jail will be full.
very quickly, we will be facing overcrowding again. We will be open to fresh litigation as soon as a
new jail is built. Boating a new jail does not mean that we're like magically no longer under any legal
obligations or immune to lawsuit. But I'm also not asking you to do nothing. As Council Member Piedmont-Smith
mentioned earlier,
I'm paraphrasing approximately, but public safety is not arresting people. Public safety is providing
access to housing, to healthcare, to jobs, to transportation, and you as the council, as the county's
financial body, have the power to do that. So I am asking you to make a decisive commitment to
funding, housing, healthcare, transportation, and our overall economic prosperity in this county. If
you build a giant new jail, you simply will not be able to do that. Your hands will be tied and you'll
be left figuring out how to make the most of the change that has left you. So I ask you to take the
decisive step and vote no
on North Park and instead to vote towards spending our county resources on our community. Thank you.
Hello, my name is Seth Mutchler, resident of Monroe County. I'm going to try to keep this kind of brief,
I know it's a long night. I have the privilege of actually serving on the board of directors of New
Leaf New Life, so I just want to take a moment to say thank you so much to Heather and Misty
for sharing their stories and I can tell you that that is only really the tip of the iceberg of their
knowledge and their expertise and their compassion and the gifts that they give to this community and
to the people who have previously been incarcerated or are incarcerated in Monroe County. I really am
kind of struck by, there's kind of two different things being said here. The people who are asking you
to vote yes, notably the commissioners and the sheriff,
are really speaking about a lot of what ifs, a lot of could bes. Well, we don't know what a judge could
make us do. We don't know what could happen. But what I'm hearing from a lot of the people who are speaking
and asking you to vote no on this is a lot of concrete. It's those personal anecdotes that you heard.
It's the facts.
and figures given by people and it's the actual solutions that will make our community better. And so
I just would ask you please to listen to sort of the folks here who are bringing these sort of real
tangible solutions to this problem and not to sort of give in to what I'm just going to say plainly
and simply.
as threats and fear mongering from the other sort of side of this discussions. I hope that you vote
no on this North Park purchase today. Thank you so much for your time. OK. Next I'll pop back over to
teams. So first person up is John Hamilton. Again state your name for the record you have up to three
minutes. Thank you very much. Can you see me and hear me.
It's John, John Hamilton. Thank you. I'm a county resident and former mayor. I appreciate everybody
their time. There are many, many good people in the room tonight doing good things. Uh, I'm sorry, I
can't be there in person, but I just wanted to make a few points. Uh, I did submit a written statement
to many of you. I hope it could be included in the record. I won't read it. Um, but one of the most
important things was just reminding us the late Charlotte Zitlow.
and I and many other people seven months ago discussed the same issue and urged that we not buy the
big property for a big new jail and the County Council unanimously agreed and I greatly appreciate that
as the City Council unanimously spoke. I guess I might want to say I'm asking you to vote no on this
again but I also think that no vote can include several yeses because it is important to move forward
together as been said.
I believe this is a really important pivot point for our community, and the yeses can include the following.
The yes should include a uniform, unanimous view that we want constitutional incarceration services.
We are all committed to that. Some may think that exists now. Those who think it does not exist now,
I believe, should be asking for more money, more staff,
Many of us, Charlotte and I, and many of you have been urging that money be invested in better services
years ago. And that should be a yes today. We are committed to constitutional services. The jail we
have is going to be the jail we have for several years. So we ought to be doing that kind of investment.
And that should be a yes tonight from all of us. Another yes should be we ought to immediately invest in funds.
to improve the human services. There are many people in our community doing great things to improve
the lives of people who otherwise might be incarcerated. You've heard from several of them. Again, for
many years, many of us have been urging that that money, 20 million a year that's coming in now, should
be invested now to improve those services. That's a yes that can happen. Another yes that can happen
is to say, let's set a goal. Let's say we want 150 residents in our
in our jail in 10 years. Not the 200 plus that we have now, certainly not the 300 that we had several
years ago. Let's set a positive goal and yes, what will it take to get us there? And if we set that
kind of goal, we have a very, very different process which can begin. How would we build a jail for
150 people in 10 years and what kind of services will get us there? The last other thing I would say is a yes,
and some of us averged this for some time too, is to just say, for every dollar we put into new incarceration
costs, let's be sure we put a new dollar into diversion and service costs that will reduce incarceration.
You are being told that you have no choice. That is just not true. A no vote is really important, moving
us in the right direction. Charlotte and I talked about that. Many of you in the room did as well. And
that is your time.
Thank you very much. Thank you. Next up, screen name, Alice Silver. Can you hear me? Yes, if you can
speak up a little bit, because it's a little faint. OK, right there.
Yes, just state your name for the record and you'll have up to three minutes. Okay, good evening. My
name is Alice Silver. I'm a resident and I'm a mom of four small children and I live three minutes from
the North Park location. We keep hearing officials just fear to justify this project. They say people
shouldn't be released because of safety, but at the same time, they want to place these facilities near
our neighborhoods and near our children.
three minutes from where my children play. If these individuals are not safe, then why are residents
expected to feel safe with this happening in the middle of our neighborhoods? And let's be honest, I
have another concern and a lot of our neighbors have the same concern. How can we know this is not gonna
become a nice detention facility or just be used to target the immigrant population or the own house
communities?
We need to know what agencies can be involved once you build this giant facility, who is involved, and
what protection exists for residents. Instead of pushing this jail to get done, you should be pushing
new businesses, new facilities, things that make our life easier and better. You also keep referencing
the ACLU, but
Where in that lawsuit says that we need brand new state of the art courtrooms, chair of office, or a
millionaire style government complex. Improving conditions for inmate is one thing, but building new
expensive spaces is something different. Right now, a lot of people feel ignored, but we want safe neighborhoods
And we want honest answers. And that's not extreme. People need to know that this money to buy this
and to build this does not exist. We don't have the money. This is debt. That's all. Thank you.
Thank you. Next up in the room.
Good evening, counselors. My name is Susan Easton. I'm a resident of the Stony Brook neighborhood, and
my husband and I have lived there for the past 22 and a half years. Along with the with the 23 other
residences in Stony Brook, I stand opposed to the new jail located at the North Park site. We believe
that the Thompson site is the better choice for the taxpayer are documented
and loudly repeats what other taxpaying citizens and social services organizations have stated. Firstly,
fiscal stability. Secondly, accessibility and social justice, which is a key factor in reducing recidivism
and helping to improve public safety. And thirdly, concurrent progress versus sequential delay. I was
up here two weeks ago. Tonight, I'm up here really to thank you.
for your extreme patience as the county commissioners continuously attempt to promote North Park versus
other logical thought processes. Secondly want to thank you for your continued request of financial
data as you fight for each taxpayer dollar being spent now and in future generations. And lastly and
ultimately thank you for your perseverance.
in opposing and your opposition to the new jail for those of you that continue to vote no and the impending
justice complex center that will come in the future. It's not just the new jail today. Thank you.
Thank you. Anybody here in the net who would like to make public comment on this item?
Thank you for letting me speak this evening. My name is Mike Shields. Born in Bloomington, Indiana,
1946. Stayed in Bloomington, Indiana, 1926. Have no plans to leave. Love my city. I back the police.
I really do love the police. Behind them 100%. I don't know what the answer to this is, but I can tell
you what the answer's not. Building on North Park.
43 years ago I built a new home one mile from there. Quiet. Today we have a real nice facility with
ambulances 24 7 sirens sirens sirens. We're going to get the same thing from the Police Department right
here in this article. It says the Council, the staff, Sheriff and the Board of Commissioners can can
comment securing better safety and more constitutional conditions for the people housed in Monroe County Jail.
while in protecting Monroe County from the financial and legal consequences of further delay. How about
the people who live around there? We're not even mentioned. You're going to take care of the people
in the jail. What about the residents? I don't think we can feel safe with that out there like that.
You've got a real traffic problem. Highway 46, nobody's mentioned that. I can't imagine what that would
be. And then you've got an elderly facility real close by that that will affect. We probably need a jail.
but we probably need to be a little more reasonable about what we're doing here. That's a lot of money.
My taxes are gonna go up. I'm old, I'm retired. I don't wanna pay more taxes. I wanna be safe, but I
don't wanna pay more taxes. And all I can say is North Park is not it. Find something better. I don't
know what the answer is. And I hope we find something, but this is not it.
I'm going to pop back here to team's screen name, Cheryl. Hello. Hi, we can hear you. Can you hear me?
My name is Cheryl Langdon. I'm a citizen of Monroe County. I was there the last meeting.
Again, I'm going to point out a couple of things that I agree with. I agree with Mr. Garza. I think
he made a lot of great logical points and it sounds understandable. The last gentleman that just spoke
made some great points because here on Vernal Pike, we were put up by two different
Chambers of Commerce, Bloomington, and Ellisville and thrown under the bus as a Hail Mary. No one cared
about that being in our front yard, backyard, and bedroom windows. So it's funny how it's not my backyard
for everybody, but I agree with that last gentleman. And then John Hamilton, the ex-mayor, gee,
I don't know, yet opened up the door to welcome people that have addiction problems.
that are homeless that are struggling. And now the Monroe County taxpayers have to pay for the Welcome
Act that Mr. Hamilton put out there. So with all that being said, you know, maybe it is better that
a federal judge has something to say. I didn't have a problem with it being at North Park because we
are going to grow. I don't see an issue with the whole ice thing. I think that's paranoia.
One minute someone doesn't want it in their yard, but they're trying to say that it's going to be used
for ICE. Are you saying that what ICE does and who they pick up is dangerous or not dangerous? I'm a
little confused because everyone is in every direction. So honestly, I don't want it over here outside
of the city of Bloomington. Mayor Hamilton made that all happen. If you stay in the city of Bloomington,
in my opinion,
and keep it their problem. Mayor Hamilton made that happen. Thank you. Thank you. So next up we have,
excuse me, R. Miller. R. Miller, you should be able to unmute yourself.
And you hear me now? Yes, stay your name for the record. You'll have up to three minutes. Great, I was
having a hard time unmuting. It's OK. Renee Miller, thank you for your time this evening. I appreciate
it. This body has already voted no on this location, and the people are pushed and bullied or scared.
They vote in ways not always in all's best interest. I think we see that on a national level,
don't we? So surely by now,
people know what no means. I know as a woman, I sure as heck know what the word no means. It's a refusal.
Stop asking our county government to waste their time yet again on this poor location. We need social
services close by. This isn't going to work. Also, I'd just like to point out, just because someone
is arrested does not mean they are guilty.
Statistics show that over 70% of people being held in jail haven't been convicted of any crimes. So
I want you to think about that. We don't need a larger jail. We certainly don't need one farther away
from the downtown area. Thank you for your time. I will come back to the room here. Hi, my name is Jamie
Ford. I'm a Monroe County resident.
Good evening, counsel. I've been following this jail issue for a long time now, and since I wasn't even
living in Indiana at the time this lawsuit was originally filed, I've tried to do my own research and
read up on the history of this whole thing. Based on what I've seen both historically and in statements
from the commissioners, I have more questions than answers.
first in the 12th May council meeting commissioner Madeira makes the statement about the Thompson property
saying which I'm quoting from the cats TV YouTube transcript of the meeting quote here are the issues
with that property speaking out Thompson the City Plan Commission and the City Council must approve
a change to the plan unit development or PUD we can't proceed without that approval my question is is
the city of Bloomington's quote ordinance
02-16 to amend the preliminary plan for the Thompson area planned unit development that was passed and
signed in August of 2002 still in effect. Granted, I don't know specifically what exact area track D
of the Thompson property is or how big it is, but the synopsis on the second page underneath the signatures
from the then
Common Council President, Clerk, and Mayor, it states, quote, this ordinance amends the preliminary
plan for Track D of the Thompson area planned unit development to allow for juvenile and adult corrections
and rehabilitative facilities and a range of institutional uses. This ordinance also changes the shape
of Track D and amends some of the developmental conditions, end quote.
This means that, in addition to the county purchasing the Thompson property for a jail, as confirmed
by a Herald Times article dated December 14, 2002, the city of Bloomington, at least at one time, approved
a PUD change for the purposes of building a jail on the Thompson property. Is this PUD still valid?
Did the commissioners try to renew or update it? If not, why?
Second, I'm disturbed by what can be at best described as a misrepresentation of the truth or,
in my opinion, an outright lie from the commissioners. At the last council meeting on May 12th, Commissioner
Madari gave the following statement, which again I'm quoting from the CATS TV YouTube transcript.
quote, we've done our due diligence investigating properties across the county, end quote. She then
mentions the Fullerton and Thompson properties, et cetera, and the various issues. Yet in the comment
section of a post related to the jail lawsuit on her own public Facebook page approximately a week later,
she contradicts what she said in the meeting. A fellow Monroe County resident was asking questions and
making statements in favor of choosing the Thompson property since the county already owns it. Commissioner
Madera responds, citing the most recent ACLU extension agreement, as well as, quote, a decision for
Thompson at this point is
responsible since we don't have our due diligence done on that site." End quote. The Monroe County resident
responds again still in favor of Thompson. Commissioner Madera replies, quote, that's one reason why
we're in this situation. North Park is the only site we have due diligence on. It's the site that the
county chose beforehand. End quote.
Again, in a statement to this council in a public government meeting, Commissioner Madeira said that
the commissioners had done their due diligence on various properties and commissioners Thomas and Jones
didn't correct her or didn't amend it or say it was accurate. Yet on a public social media page a week
later, Commissioner Madeira states that the only due diligence was done for North Park.
My question for that is, what is the truth? Have they done their due diligence or have they not? It
seems that Monroe County does already have the property and if the PUD is valid, then we have what we
need to proceed with the Thompson property. I'll point out that to the best of my knowledge,
the commissioners have not proposed a plan to remedy the currently unconstitutional conditions. And
that is your time, unfortunately. Thank you. All right, thank you. All right, next up.
My name is Kathleen Paquette. I'm a resident of Monroe County. I'm sorry, my thoughts might be a little
bit jumbled today. I've just been taking notes as we've been sitting here. But I think it's important
to point out for those watching online that Commissioner Thomas left as soon as public comment started.
I think that that's telling. The sheriff's presentation was intended to convince you all to move forward
with North Park. For me, it did the opposite. I'm sorry, sheriff.
The sheriff says that the numbers are going up. To me, that's the crisis that needs intervention. He
talks about public safety. We are in a housing unaffordability crisis, and our state has just passed
a law criminalizing homelessness. That is the crisis that needs intervention. Our most vulnerable neighbors
are in danger of being thrown into jail. That is the crisis that needs intervention. I understand that
lawsuits are expensive and scary,
But I can't help but wonder if some of this is a little bit of a manufactured crisis to force consent
for this. Because to me, I see crises elsewhere. And considering the amounts of money we're talking
about with hundreds and hundreds of million dollars on a new jail, the lawsuit seems cheaper. Also,
The statement issued by the commissioners, City Council President Asari and Mayor Thompson says that
no one should pretend that North Park is the outcome anyone hoped for. And that continues to outline
all of the reasons that North Park is a bad site. There's an admission in that document that this is
a doubling down of a bad decision. I've seen you all listen. Thank you for listening to us all tonight.
Thank you all for being here and speaking. I'm sorry that your colleagues are throwing you under the
bus with this. But please continue to vote no on North Park. Thank you. I don't see any hands raised
via Zoom. So we'll keep going in here until we have it.
Um, so we just had one just popped up, but then we got, it's okay. You're here. So we'll, we'll go back.
Good evening council. My name is Kayden Smith. I'm a resident of the county, but.
more importantly, a taxpayer. I have five points to make, so I got to go quickly. So first, I'm going
to respond to the commissioner's comments. And I want to say why I have to respond is because I can't
attend a 10 AM meeting on a Thursday. Like most of the people here, I work on Thursdays, and I don't
have time. And I'm often late to these meetings because I work until 5 PM. So firstly, Commissioner
Medeo is top.
comments. She says she wants to work collaboratively, but if the council voted no in October, why are
you bringing it back again? Shouldn't you bring something different? It doesn't sound like you're working
collaboratively to me. And like other people said, if the council voted no, I just don't believe the
commissioners can really accept that. And that's why they're continuously bringing this back. And then
I'll also highlight the grip that the commissioners have on the government. When the sheriff turns to
Commissioner Medillo in her personal life as an attorney, rather than
the two attorneys that I'm looking at over on the side table over here, because the sheriff and the
commissioners are really tight, apparently. My second point on to Commissioner Thomas, the fact that
she left the room because she doesn't... The meetings are at 10 a.m. because she doesn't want to hear
from the public, and she doesn't want to hear from the public now because she left the room.
And to restate, she's been in county government since 2008. Isn't that when the lawsuit started? And
now she wants the council to solve the problems in two seconds. And thirdly, I'll go into public transit,
which is something I reiterated before. And Commissioner Thomas doesn't know how to solve it. She admitted
that we'll figure it out later, but why should I figure it out later? I'd like to know what I'm voting
on now. And she was like, I don't want to have a bus line to a cornfield.
I'm sorry, if we're gonna have a bus line, isn't it gonna go to more places than a cornfield? I just
feel like Commissioner Thomas doesn't understand how public transit works, which is honestly frightening.
And also, just to add that the location is just abysmal, which is gonna have sprawling neighborhoods
and large interstates, which just decreases public safety and walkability to the jail.
As many people said, I'm willing to vote yes on something, but I think the Thompson site looks a lot
more likely because we do need to solve something quickly. Forwardly, back to the federal judge issue.
The threat of a federal judge is way more likely than we think. And I'm honestly looking forward to
the fact, instead of paying $200 million in taxpayers because I don't want my taxes to increase, I think
that's one thing that I can agree with the commissioners on.
And finally, before my time runs out, I'll reiterate. In case you forgot what I was saying, I would
like a vote no. And I agree with what Councilmember Isabel P. Mott-Smith said, but I'm going to disagree
with one thing. When she said she wasn't envious, I actually am, because I would sit in your seat and
vote no. So I want you to consider that. Thank you. OK.
I'll pop back to teams and if there are other people that want to raise their hand via teams and want
to speak, go ahead and do that. Don Johnson, unmute yourself and you'll have up to three minutes. Hello,
thank you for this opportunity. I'm not going to repeat all of the, any of the comments previously made
urging you to vote no again.
I want to make just one additional point. So I'm Dawn Johnson. I'm a constitutional law professor at
Indiana University. And I've worked many years at the Department of Justice, the United States Department
of Justice. I just want to put this in a national context briefly and say I started my career as a lawyer
for the American Civil Liberties Union back in 1988.
the national organization, the national office. And at that time, I actually worked with the ACLU of
Indiana on at least three cases. But going back to the national position that I believe reflects the
view of our community in Monroe County, the National ACLU, if you look at their website, is very clear
about what we should be doing. And I agree.
completely about this. We should be reducing the rate of incarceration and focusing our resources on
that. Addiction services, affordable housing. And I just want to read just a couple sentences from the
ACLU national website on mass incarceration. And here's a quote. I urge you all to look at the full
statement. Despite making up close to 5% of the population of the world,
The US has more than 20% of the world's prison population. Since 1970, our incarcerated population has
increased by 500%. It includes our prison system costs taxpayers $80 billion per year. This money should
be spent building up, not further harming communities. Investments, not incarceration, is how we improve
safety. So of course, we need a constitutional jail.
But what we should be doing and should have been doing, and now let's start today, is investing in decreasing
the number of our fellow residents that we incarcerate. Thank you for this opportunity. Thank you. Anybody
else on teams that would like to make comment?
So while people deliberate on teams, because there's lots of y'all out there, I'll come back to the
room here. So if you'd like to make comment, please go ahead and step up.
My name is Christian Easton. My wife Susan spoke earlier. I was the last to speak last time, last week,
I think. I'm probably gonna say almost exactly the same thing. The sheriff needs a jail. So you had
a chance last week to take a vote and be two weeks ahead of the game. Moving down this, I mean, I don't
understand, you can't even get,
You can't get the vote right. I mean, so when I were here again doing this, talking about this, I thought
that the council had decided last week what they thought about the North Park. They could have then
moved on to where is the jail going to be? I worked in this town as a police officer for 32 years.
I trained officers. I did a lot of things. I was in the jail and out of the jail. I go to jail and ministry
and stuff like that. So I think I know how all that stuff works. A lot of people get their own ticket
to jail because they evidently want to go there. Policemen don't drive down the street looking for people
to grab. They're not going around looking for trouble to slow somebody in a jail to overcrowd the jail.
They're just not doing that. That just happens to be part of life right now. And it's getting worse
instead of better. And so the jail,
will have to be a little larger. And I think the facility needs to have all the tools there nearby for
the court, for the offices that are gonna be in that jail or need to furnish the people in the jail
their rights. They have to go to court, they have to have the hearing, they need judges, they need public
defenders, and they need medical attention. Now, as far as the other things that have been mentioned,
I don't know about taking them out of jail and letting them be told the things that they should have
known to do in public to begin with. But I think if they want to, the jail can accommodate that, that
would be right. But those are the things that need to be designed into the new facility and be put in
place and realize that from that point on, if you don't want the thing to be gone, like some people
say two years, it'll be, if you want it to be gone in 50 years, I mean, you start taking care of it.
because you can make that building last. They have lasted. If they're designed right and you get in
and you build it right and then the money and the staff and then the way it's operated, it can work,
but it can't be done if you don't start. And I'm urging you to quit talking about it and start doing
it, okay? This is probably the last time you ought to talk about this and have a vote, have a lot of
people come up here and stand and vent and frustrate about the way things go in life.
I know the man's got, he would like to see North Park because it's close to being decided. It's not.
You have property. I live in North Park. I don't care if you build there, but I just think that if you've
already got something, you better start building on it now. Thank you. Appreciate you. Thank you. Next
up in the room.
My name is Stacey Dawski and I want to thank you guys for letting us speak again. I was here two weeks
ago and I'm really not going to repeat everything that I said last week. There's a lot I'm going to
beg you to vote no and to continue. I know that you've done that in the past and it's ridiculous that
we're here again. To the county commissioners. The fact that you brought up. You need to use your mic.
The fact that you
brought up this lawsuit and basically threatening everybody about what's going to happen and what could
happen and all of these things is a joke. Because this could have been resolved months ago, years ago,
when they said no to this site, another site could have already been selected. We could have been moving
forward instead of just sitting here not doing anything.
They've already said no. The people have already said no. And yet, here we are. You've brought it back
up. I do believe that you need resources, space, services. We have the Thompson site. It's out there.
Why are we spending more money, throwing more money away? And I know I said I wasn't going to talk about
what I said last week or two weeks ago.
I really just want to thank you guys for the support that you've given us in the past and I really hope
that you're listening to the community and you're voting with your hearts and that you vote no. Thank you.
Good evening. My name is Andrew Henry. I'm a Monroe County resident. We heard that the sheriff needs
a jail and the sheriff has a jail. It's in terrible shape and it did not get that way overnight. This
entire process has been a slow motion train wreck over years where the jail we have has ended up in
this current condition and now we feel that we have an emergency and we have to act. The commissioners
have said that we have to
play the hand we're dealt and yet it seems that every opportunity they draw three more cards and now
haven't they've given us an uno hand full of problem cards. It's called going on tilt if we don't have
a good hand and I don't believe North Park is a good hand I urge the council to vote no on North Park.
There isn't an easy solution to this problem but the fact that it is dragged on for so long means that
rather than abdication the recognition that
The current organs of government in this county are not able to reach a workable solution. Maybe a federal
judge has to tie break that because we have a responsibility to our residents who are incarcerated to
put them in a safe and humane facility. If we don't have that, we have to provide it. Spending an inordinate
amount of money on the North Park site is no solution at all to the actual problem. It just creates
much larger, bigger problems down the road. So I urge the council to vote no on it. The last comment
was Commissioner Madera specifically has repeatedly said, both online and in previous meetings and here,
that the lawsuit is a foregone conclusion. We don't have a leg to stand on. And at the same time seems
to be saying, and yet we're going to have to spend a ludicrous amount of money continuing to fight the
lawsuit that we know we can't win. If we can't win the lawsuit,
The responsible action would be to take the shortest possible path to concede that lawsuit and move
on to whatever actions a federal judge enforces on the county. It would be ridiculously irresponsible
to continue to burn more taxpayer money trying to fight a lawsuit that we've already admitted we can't
win. So I urge the council to vote no on North Park. Thank you.
I'll go to one more here, and then it looks like we got a hand raised via Teams. Steve Olin.
The commissioners are solely responsible for initiating the construction of a jail. The county council
did not have authority to draw up plans and present them. When you rejected this proposal, did they
work assiduously to present another option?
Did they do any soul searching to ask why so many of their prior proposals were rejected? Did they listen
to anyone? They did not. They came back to you with the same objectionable proposal. There is no one
else who prefers this location for a jail. The sheriff will tell you we need a jail. The newest commissioner
will tell you we no longer have a choice. Their responses are understandable. Yet those do not constitute
endorsements of this site as inherently good.
there simply attempts to deal with the problem the other commissioners created. Because no one has said
this site is preferable on the merits except commissioners Thomas and Jones. They ignored the will of
this body and have doubled down. For years, they've ignored the opinions of everyone else who weighed
in on the merits. I was a city council member when the commissioners floated Fullerton Pike as a location.
That body, the city council rejected the site 90, which is really saying something about that contentious body.
But it wasn't because the city collectively was unwilling to work with the commissioners. We all were.
I personally authored the ordinance allowing Bloomington Transit to go outside the city. Thompson was
always a viable site that could have been converted long ago. It was that the commissioners weren't
even willing to follow the spirit of our zoning law, let alone the letter. It was because they didn't
ask, what can we get done together? They asked, why can't you do what we say?
Either the commissioners aren't competent to fulfill their duties, or they've been dealing with you
in bad faith. They're counting on you to overlook their failure of imagination, their incompetence,
their many years of unwillingness to brook dissent, however politely. If you approve this, you'll show
that if the commissioners drag their feet long enough, they'll get their druthers in the face of all
evidence that shows it's a bad idea. You'll reward their negligence, their intransigence, even their
contempt for you,
for the city of Bloomington, the people of Monroe County, and most of all, the incarcerated, whom the
commissioners could have spared an unconstitutional jail years ago if only they had applied an ounce
of diplomacy. Whatever your vote tonight, do not take responsibility for a failure that rests solely
with the commissioners. Send the message that the county must not be subjected to a reorganization of
its physical plant that will be permanent, catastrophic, and avoidable.
If this was the best they had to offer, let their next act be to send a message that might get the ACLU
to back off. Let them do the honorable thing and resign their seats. Thank you. Okay, we will go back to
So Jason Funk, please go ahead and unmute and you'll have up to three minutes. Jason, you should be
able to unmute.
We're going to move on to the other public comment, and then we'll go back to Jason. Tracy, you should
also be able to unmute, state your name for the record. You have 30 minutes. Hi, yes. My name is Tracy
Hutchings-Gatz. Hi.
I'm actually calling in from the airport because this is so important to me. I testified previously
in opposition to the North Park location and shared some of my family's own experience, which was really
about underscoring the human impact of moving these services out away from where the majority of people
in the county live and the majority of services reside. So if you'll recall, my uncle Wally,
who had been experiencing homelessness at the time, struggled with addiction, struggled with
jail incarceration, never was actually sent, you know, like convicted, but spent a lot of time in and
out of jails because he was someone who was struggling with his mental health and his addiction. And
he is someone who walking home tripped and fell and broke his neck. And these are the kinds of experiences
that if we commit to this North Park location are going to increase
for our residents and their loved ones if we insist on building far away from where people are and the
services that they need. So I'm just calling in again to underscore my opposition to this particular
location and my profound disappointment and frustration that we have not yet been able to find a solution
when this litigation has been ongoing for, you know, over a decade at this point. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Okay, we're gonna go back to Jason. Are you able to unmute? TSD, are we able to help him?
TSD, hello.
Um. Is he able to unmute TSD or okay. All right. So I'm going to pop back over. Um, while that's still
a work in progress and see if there's anybody else that's here that want to make public comment. In
the net you hillbilly.
Okay, I will pop back over to teams to see if there is anybody on teams that would like to make final
public comment on this item. And to see if screen name Jason Funk is still able to unmute and make public
comment. Oh, okay.
way anybody's ability to not be able to speak. Okay. So with that being said, I'm going to go ahead
and close public comment. And I'm going to bring it back to council members for final questions and
or comments before we take a vote on this. Yes, Councillor. I'd like to offer my statement. Madam President.
I am optimistic about the future of Monroe County. What follows are my thoughts on this problem. This
window of opportunity presented this ordinance in my mind is the only path forward in 17 years of decrepit
discussion and move us toward action based on an ancient requirement that we might do justice, that
we might love mercy, and that we might walk humbly.
ahead of this vote, I have done what I feel is my due diligence. I have discussed this vote with as
many constituents as I can from as many diverse backgrounds as I can. This includes clergy, first responders,
mental health professionals, public safety professionals, county employees, former and current elected
officials, attorneys, and more. What I'm hearing from folks out in the first district is they want us
to end 17 years of indecision.
What I'm hearing is that they want action. What I detail now is the way that I see this issue through
an intersectionality lens. Thanks to these constituent conversations, I now think in four commingled
categories, financing, timing, the law, and community values. I hope that you'll agree with me that
affirmative action tonight is not the ideal choice, but it is the optimal one. First, finances.
We do have a viable fiscal path forward. And this is the cheapest option for the people of Monroe County.
I call this the affirmative option. In October 2025, this body correctly and unanimously rejected a
purchase agreement for this property because the state restricted our funding. We simply could not afford
the jail project as designed. This would change just six months later.
At the April 28th, 2026 meeting, this council meeting, a path opened. In the presentation with the Financial
Solutions Group, our community learned about a $135 million bond. Council asked questions, and it was
clear that it was an opportunity to move forward. The media covered this topic. CATS recorded it. It
was reposted on YouTube. I wrote an explainer on my website. And this financing allows us to at last,
after 17 years, move forward. There is a counter option.
that relies on litigation to solve this problem. This is the litigation option. This option is initially
attractive because it offers a solution that avoids commissioner control. But on further examination,
the litigation option is much more costly. But it would mean that the following costs we added to the
taxpayer burden, millions of dollars in current building renovations throughout the lawsuits,
millions of dollars in prisoner transfers throughout the lawsuits, and millions of dollars in legal
fees. And what happens at the end of litigation? We will still have construction costs. We will still
have bond interest to pay. We will still have other costs associated with various locations to pay.
The point is that adding no adds dollar amounts, millions of dollars, to an already outrageous budget.
But since I mentioned the deadline, let me move on to timing, my second point. This is a complicated
project, we all know this. We've been talking about it for 17 years, but now an opening does appear,
converging at least four deadlines in an opportunity to act. And for those of you who don't think that
we have a reason to act other than false urgency, the most urgent deadline is the most important to
me. This deadline has passed, time is up.
This is the deadline set by those who are the most forgotten. This is the deadline set by our neighbors
who are most ignored. It is those who are incarcerated, the 263 persons who slept in the jail last night.
They are experiencing the worst harms and has been explained over and over again by those working in
those facility
We need to move folks out now. We don't have time to wait for the litigation option. We are far, far
behind in this inmate deadline and action is needed tonight. The second clear deadline is the ACLU deadline.
We've talked about this ad nauseam. I don't need to discuss it. The third is the legislative deadline.
According to both FSG and excuse me, Barnes and Thornburg,
They recommend action before the biannual budget session later this year. Only the affirmative option
allows us to stay on track with the legislative timeline. The final deadline is the lengthy bonding
timeline. According to Barnes and Thornburg, the bonding process, the incorporation of a building
corporation, the leasing processes, these complicated in and of themselves will take up to five months
to complete. Thus, action is recommended by July.
meaning that our action tonight on the purchase agreement allows us to adhere to this timeline. It should
be clear now that I feel that the window for action is tonight. It has to be tonight. The litigation
option misses every single one of these deadlines. And the most egregious part in my mind is that a
vote for this option looks into the eyes of those hundreds of people that slept in the jail last night
and says that you are still forgotten.
The litigation option has no timelines. And for those of you saying, oh, hold on, Peter, hold on. You're
being too binary. There's more than two options. I appreciate this. And I understand that we're looking
at more than one location. But we haven't seen a viable timeline for any other location. We haven't
seen a timeline for Thompson. We haven't seen a timeline for Fullerton. We don't have a timeline for
the litigation option that we can go to.
excuse me, the sheriff or the correctional officers to say, this is how much longer you have to wait.
We do have a timeline for this ordinance. We do know how long folks are going to have to linger in the
jail. From a purely timeline perspective, my vote is to stop ignoring the inmates and those that work
in this building. And my vote is to give hope that this council understands that this hard decision
is a just decision.
Now let me move on to my fourth point, my final point, which is community values. I reflected on this
at a past church service that I attended where there's a passage that says that I am eager to do good.
And I wanted to raise this because I think that's what unifies all of us in this room. I think that
all of us come to the table with a desire to do good.
I've seen it in the JFAC meetings. I've seen it in numerous meetings that we've been in together, that
there is a desire to do good. And in fact, I wanted to highlight that in 2023, together with a lot of
people in this room, we enumerated community values using the sequential intercept model. We know where
we need to go. Community services, and some of you are in this audience right now that are doing great
work. Reentry from jail. How do we do this and how do we do it better?
Community Corrections has the right people right now. They just need more resources. Diversity, Equity,
Inclusion. We know that there's an over-representation of African Americans in our jail. We know that
ICE is racially profiling people on the streets in our cities. Treatment. The Substance Use Disorder
Advisory Commission is right now putting the finishing drafts on recommendations to the county commissioners
for treatment facilities. We are putting dollar amounts on facilities as we speak. That is coming.
also made recommendations regarding justice building system-wide topics. We know that our community
values, these seven areas of values, are important long-term work. And we know that our time on this
dais in public service is short, that we can only do the best while we're here. But friends, we cannot
continue to enact these community value recommendations if we spend three more years arguing, not in
front of the public, not in recorded sessions, but in court.
We must act affirmatively to do justice. The time for debate is over. The time to do is now. So let
me conclude that I think it's clear that I plan to vote yes on this ordinance because I believe that
the confluence of financing, timing, local control, and community values demand that we vote and act
decisively, not because of a false urgency.
but because and on behalf of those incarcerated. My vision is that we can influence decisions toward
mercy, that this council can end 17 years of stalemate by doing justice, that this council can move
with humility, knowing that our role in this messy process is important. And let me repeat, there are
no ideal choices here.
This is a terrible decision to be making right now. A vote for the litigation option is kicking the
can down the road at least three years. A vote for the affirmative option presents a solution
that perpetuates a system that jails too many people. There are no ideal solutions to us tonight, but
there is a marginally optimal one. This evening, we have a viable path forward to end 17
years of stalemate. Sit with that for a second. We have an opportunity to end a stalemate that predates
all of our service. It's available today and I affirmatively to do justice, to love mercy while walking
humbly is now. Thank you, Madam President.
to hearing what others said. We have not heard from Council Member Deckard, but he wasn't present at
our last meeting. And we missed you. So I'll be able to- Sure. I'll just go and those that wish to speak
can speak. So go ahead. First, I wrote some notes out here.
about three pages. I never read anything for anyone that's ever watched me in a meeting and I'm going
to try that for once because I think it's an important night. We've heard a lot of tremendous comments
and I want to thank all the constituents that have weighed in on this. Some of you over the years, I
see Seth out there, others at different times. I want to thank you for that. I also want to thank the
county officials who have reached out to me numerous times
over the weeks and particularly the last week with a whole range of opinions on this purchase agreement.
It is not easy for any constituent to walk into a room like this or go on to a team's meeting like that
and to talk. It's not. And I can remember when I was in the opposite side of that, it can be intimidating
not to mention the time required to track something we struggled to track and struggle to follow
is hard enough. But I do appreciate all those emails, phone calls, public comments. And when I was council
president, and Councilor Crossley is our president in her second year has really kept us up. I always
was insistent that we welcome public comments that the day that Nat U Hill doesn't have people in it
is the day that we probably need to call it quits on this democracy, but there's something here worth
fighting for. My day job did take me away.
at our last council meeting. I have earnestly watched those proceedings. I listened to all those thoughts.
So everyone that said something, I heard that, I read your emails, and I've seen that. We have been
talking about this a long time. Some of the comments that I've heard over the years, I could almost
kind of say, well, I think that this is going to go like this, and sometimes
that's why we have public. Comment we've had a supporters and detractors- from this very purchase agreement
and to me tonight is about. This purchase agreement I voted no on the original purchase agreement last
October's party believe is last October. I did so at that time because a whole host of issues vex the council
Regardless of those opinions that each of those council members had, we always have to remember this.
This gets lost in the shuffle, and I'll say this as a person that's been a candidate for another office
in recent months. It should never be lost that county council members truly represent the voice of taxpayers
before significant public decisions.
through the seven souls that say on that funding, based on that whole crowd of 140,000 behind me, some
that voted for and some that voted against, I think we need to do that. This is not an easy burden to
just kind of shrug off. A county council has to consider how things are funded, what that looks like,
and where that gets to. And some of these counselors here have heard, some of you in the public have
heard me say,
any movement forward has to get to four votes in this body out of seven. It has to get to two votes
in the other body, the commissioners. And of course, the sheriff whose input we've heard throughout
this process and leadership we've seen has weighed in over time, but those are kind of the bodies. Anything
that's not hitting four, hitting two and getting a nod out of that sheriff is sort of like,
I don't know, putting water on that light socket over there. And unfortunately, the county, we spend
a lot of time putting water on light sockets. And I wish that weren't so. I wish I could change that,
but it's probably the nature of how we're built when the state built us this way. But regardless,
in October, there was concern. At that time, it was a unanimous agreement
of council not to move forward and in time we've continued to hear opinions from taxpayers regarding
this site that some of which that was added in to tonight that keep the community from having peace
with the North Park site. We've heard that regardless. I think
much of that discord comes from many comments and questions we continue to get. And I'm not going to
belabor all of them, because this audience covered them well. But logistically, there are strong discussions
of which folks are not satisfied. And I would have to bet my mortgage tonight to say, based on conversations
I've had, based on furrow brows, that four votes are not necessarily forthcoming to have peace on some of this.
I have kept an open mind I've suspended judgment I've tried to put this matter in the best light, ultimately
this evening, I will vote the way I voted in October and I will vote no. That said, that said I want
to be clear by my nature.
by the nature of how I think, and you can hear this four and this two, which I've said over and over,
and the sheriff in the mix with that, I believe you solve problems, you don't extend them. And so while
I appreciate very much what my colleague, Councilor Iverson, who's a strong leader and a tremendous
voice for this council, has said about tonight, to me, we're continuing to solve this problem.
I'm sure that many people will say voting no extends the problem, and that's fair. I'll take that. I'll
take that punch on the chin. But respectfully, that zero-sum kind of argument is what's killing us in
politics and in this county, particularly when we're in a time when people are not only counting us
on to move, but honor a constitution which says you have to move.
One thing I have said consistently in this process, or I've tried, our sheriff has done a remarkable
job in improving our jail. He's gone above, beyond, and remarkably transparent in talking about the
changes that have been made. His staff comes in here with passion, including the commander there. They
come in here with a passion that I would hope everyone would have for their work.
and that's made a huge difference. No one can reasonably question that reality. But a solution to this
problem to get to four-year, two in the other, has to be feasible, believable, fiscally sustainable.
It has to contend with long-term realities and bring peace for folks making that decision. And too often,
friends, too often, I hear murmurings that say,
It's a decent and well, I don't know that it's a decent choice, but it's got a lot of issues. I don't
know how this is gonna work. That's not been put to peace, okay? So the solution that we come up with
has to have answers to big questions on logistics within the community and it has to ultimately get
to that passage. So again, peace comes in the form of four here, two in there. Now, some people say,
well, when you want four here,
and two there on an ideal side, that's looking for perfection. That's not perfection. Perfection would
be seven here, three there. And if perfection is so hard that we can't get to majority vote, we need
to redefine our use of perfection. We gotta work harder. So what do we do now? In my opinion, I'm sorry
for going so long here, but I wanna make sure I cover what I need to. I think we move forward in earnest,
continuing
our talks between what site works for a location. We've had before us North Park four times, three,
four times. It's clearly not working. And I wish for all the passion around it, I wish I had a different
answer, but we've had colleagues that have mentioned the Thompson site. I remember our Fullerton discussion
And I have to admit that while both of those sites have problems, I think that eyesight on them changes
over time as we continue to examine this. If I had a preference there, and I know this is probably not
popular with a lot of folks, to me it's more Fullerton than not, because I think that there's issues
that we've not addressed. But again, regardless of what I think, one of these sites has to get to four here
and two in the other body with agreement with our sheriff. A newer city council has indicated it wants
to help. We've heard the mayor weigh in and President Asari. We've also heard from other council members
that have other thoughts. I take that on face value that they wanna help, that they want to do things.
They've talked about expediting, but regardless, a willingness to get to a solution
Wherever it is, I think doesn't end tonight on one boat. I think it continues towards what we do. And
the last thing I'll just say, and then I'm going to shut up. We all talk a lot about collaboration.
I spent just the last four or five months talking about collaboration. Some people like that. Some people
doubt it. Tonight, I've heard it three million times.
And collaboration means that you got one body offering something to another body, another body offering
it back in a give and take there with that and a whole lot of host of other actors. The county has got
to make that the order of the day. Friends, we are spending a lot, all our bodies are spending a long
time in public meetings where things aren't going well. And I think it's pretty predictable if that
collaborative tone doesn't start at the right time in the right place
among all people. So with that I'll be quiet. Thank you. Okay. I have like notes put everywhere. And
I think that that I've you know like my colleagues I've been thinking about what are the key
important considerations when you're faced with a decision that feels as big as this one. And I think
what I go to is the idea of representation. Like Councillor Packard said, you know, we represent you.
We represent our neighbors. We represent the community. We represent the folks living and working in the jail.
And I go to, what would Monroe County do? If this were put out there, what would the decision of the
people be? And I think months, if not actually years of seeking out input, talking with folks about
the problems and the concerns with our jail and our criminal justice system
as a whole has really been a Journey and has really informed. I think you know where we are tonight
Yeah, it's it's been a lot and it's and it's been important but the part of course of being on County
Council is the idea of fiscal stewardship you've heard this already and I
I think that's a mandate that we have to live up to if we're going to spend vast amounts of money. And
no mistake, we will. That's what, either way. It should be for the things that reflect our values. It
should be for what we want to see in our community.
So let's be clear, our community is going to pay the price regardless. Income taxes will be the revenue
source. And no matter which route we take, there will be more money than most of us think is reasonable,
spent to solve these very complicated problems. It's a daunting reality. It is reality. So that brings us to,
If we're spending the money and we want it to be reflective of values and the community values, how
are we doing that? We're collecting evidence, we're thinking empathetically. And that's sort of my third
consideration in all of the decisions is how do I balance evidence and empathy and really
I know that a vote against this site is going to cost a lot of money. And that doesn't change, you know,
that's not all that different to me from a vote for this site. The current jail,
the conditions there, the people working there and residing there, all of that is, it weighs on my soul.
It really does. And it must be fixed. And it must be fixed quickly. And yes, we've wasted a lot of time,
most notably since our council vote in October, if you ask me, I think that we've squandered
several months where we could have really been working on fixing these problems. These problems and
the remedies for them must be done on a continual basis while we also are collaboratively working on
the long-term solution that is actively and transparently undertaken. I think we can do that.
I don't see it as a dichotomy of North Park or we just give up. This is a process and we're working
through it. We have no timeline for Thompson per Councilor Iverson or other locations. And that's because
we have not been using that collaborative
active, transparent approach. And I am aghast and appalled, and it has not been the approach of those
who hold the cards moving forward. Sincerely, that my vote no, with my colleagues' vote no,
And I hope that it's a clear message that we want a solution, but North Park is not the right solution.
Thanks. I'm the new me here still.
I understand that I could vote yes, I understand I could vote no, and it probably wouldn't change much
of anything here, but I want to go on the record of saying that I come from a representative world.
So I was in the union business representing people on the job for a very long time, either with the
union itself or in the community representing people on the job, place from workplaces, whatever it
was they needed, I got involved in.
If I put my representative hat on, and that's my most familiar hat, I vote no. I don't think that having
it far away as we've heard others tonight and before and all during emails or texts or whatever that
I've gotten messages of, I don't think it's the right service for the community. I just don't. It really
doesn't have anything to do with the fact that it
that North Park is there and it's on the way to Ellisville has everything to the fact that it's far
from services for me. It's just far. People can't get, we heard testimony this evening about how that
two blocks made such a difference in a life. Well, I don't wanna be on record as not supporting something
that could help someone. And I think being closer to those services is very important to me. I was at
United Way for, in some capacity, for 25 years.
They're working with labor in United Way or working on the board with United Way. And so for me, it's
about services. For me, it's about, and I'm like, Councillor Wilk said, we have to get what we have
now fixed. We can't go through this whole thing of not taking care of the people who work in the current
justice building, as well as who are inmates in that building.
We have to figure out right now going forward and make a commitment to do so, to remedy the situation
at the same time while we find another site immediately and go forward. So I'm all about going forward.
Councillor Hock, I'll go to you before I go to Councilmember Henry. Hello. Good evening, everybody.
And thank you for everyone's words in the room, my colleagues, our county government partners,
and the public. I want to start by saying and directing my attention to the public this evening who's
spent time and trying to understand this issue in the press and in the room. I think my vote is well
known. I've been a no vote on this since before I became an elected official.
And I think tonight back to October and the promise that I made to Charlotte Zitlow and working through
and maintaining our community values to make sure we do not put this facility at North Park. And I hope
tonight we see through what Charlotte would do. And I think that's really important to bring into this
room again. Again, we have to bring them to this room. I want to say I don't question the sincerity
of my colleagues in the city.
in the county, in their views and their concerns about people in the jail today, about the ethics that
we've been put into. No one doubts that the conditions in the current jail are serious. The people living
there and working there deserve safety. They deserve dignity. They deserve constitutional conditions.
No one's disputing that. But what is a dispute is the urgency and whether or not that urgency has been
manufactured.
has been created and forcing a decision of this body and its fiscal authority to help our community
and our taxpayers make the best decisions that we can for the community. So I wanna focus my attention
on our duty, on that question of fiscal oversight, which as Councilor Wills pointed out, we've been
denied on many occasions because we never get all the information. Things are handed out piecemeal.
a transportation plan sent out in an email right before Memorial Day weekend that's shared with council
but not the public that may or may not be an answer. This way of doing business has to end and I think
our oversight responsibility is the first stepping stone to getting that regardless of lawsuits. It
has been alleged that we will lose local control but I look at the public and tell you I don't think
you've ever quite had local control over this project.
I certainly don't believe the county council has had local control over this project. When people talk
about local control, I want to know whose control they're speaking of. And I do believe it is the board
of commissioners, the longer they've sat there that are concerned that stakeholders that have contrary
opinions cannot voice them or put them into the conversation. I've heard members of city council this
evening going back a decade or more speak to their frustration about being a stakeholder with interest
that has been kept outside that door.
So, local controls interesting concept as we move forward. But here's where I land and I think on the
fiscal questions that we have asked for weeks now about valuation assumptions and land use assumptions
and the realities of infrastructure.
and the operational impacts that the sheriff has raised. We've only asked for the cost of running this
facility for over a year. And what the public forgets is that one of the reasons we voted no in October
of 25 was it took a year to get information out of the board of commissioners and DLZ, the designers
of the facility, of the rising costs and why they were rising. We didn't have the information to work
with then.
I don't believe we're going to have that information working forward in good faith, which leads me to
my last thought. And it really does address the authors of the letter that came out this afternoon.
No one doubts, as Councilor Deckard has pointed out, the need for collaboration in the county.
But to me, collaboration without any compromise at all is not consensus building. It is a little more
than just painting public comity over consciousness. And that is the part that I have a hard time with.
So let us collaborate but not at the tail end of a decision already made, but one that we really do
need to make together including the voices in this room that want to see that Monroe County answer to
this problem. I don't want to go on and make this a debate club.
I think that there has been legion of words, dumps in social media and in this room. And the community
deserves the full debate someday as to why and how we got here. But the only thing I got to worry about
tonight is the fact that the taxpayers of this community, especially the working people, they're going
to be asked to pay not for one, but two phases at a project that will eventually reach 400 million with
interest over 20 years is too much of a burden for working people in this community that cannot afford
groceries or gas at this time.
I'm a no vote and I continue to be a no vote. Thank you very much. I prayed about this. God was listening.
I do believe that the choice that for the people that's in that jail now and the ones who will be there
in the future,
is one that we have to make with full knowledge that we save millions going someplace else, going closer
to services. Those millions can be spent on services within that jail. I really believe that this was
meant to go to a location closer to services. And I'm just grateful for the people who showed up to say,
Let's get it closer to services and I am so thankful for the council colleagues here because believe
me, this has not been an easy road. It really has not. I agree that this is not just a no to North Park.
This is a yes to moving forward in the future and we need to make a decision on another location and
I mean quickly. I think we've already heard
And I appreciate what council member Deckard had to say because he recalls that when we met the offering
on Fullerton, we had the sheriff on board for Fullerton, we had the courts on board for Fullerton, we
had the county commissioners on board for Fullerton, we had the county council on board for Fullerton,
the offer was made that seller, we were,
You know, go to the seller. The seller agreed to it. It was all ready to go. At the time, under a different
administration, the city planning said no. That does not mean they would say no now. But I've been told
that the county commissioners had not even, unless I spoke with the mayor, the mayor said nobody had
been to even inquire from the county.
So that is a lack of moving forward with options. Now, Thompson's already paid for, if that would work,
that's fine. That's close to services, et cetera. But if what we've got to do is get all of those people
to agree to move forward, if it takes Fullerton, boy, I'm on board for that, if that's what it takes.
And thank you everyone for being here tonight.
So I guess it's my turn. I want to thank the public for coming back out yet again. And it looks like
there were 33 people that showed up tonight, both via Teams and in person. And two weeks ago, we had
a little under 25 people. You came back, and we heard you yet again.
To the sheriff and his staff for your presentation that you continue to give, I appreciate all the things
that you have continued to do in our current jail with what little you have to make it as humane as
possible. He shed a light, him and his staff shed a light on what it looked like beforehand
how it looks like now is complete night and day. And I think that should be very commend, like you should
be commended for that because you've tried. Here's a couple of things that I heard in this entire process.
And it's very frustrating. As council president, it has been extremely frustrating to be in conversations
where we feel, I think,
heard from Commissioner Thomas, board members have not said which location they would like to have it
be. And I guess I didn't need, I didn't think that we needed to spell it out because I think it has
been, we have been continuous to say no to North Park. You cannot spell North Park without no. So that
being said, that's where we are.
And I don't have any notes or anything like that that I have. I'm just kind of going off the cliff of
my head here. So let me go ahead and spell it out for people. If you didn't already know, now you know,
because you're hearing it from me. I think we need to look at what we already have. The public has made
comments about what we already have. Use what we already have. And years ago, that was a Thompson site.
And I looked at some all.
All things considered, way back when, when studies were done, that that was supposed to be a juvenile
justice facility. And back then, in the term of the economic crisis that we were facing then, my times
have changed, that we needed to do something then because costs will continue to skyrocket and will
increase. And here we are, yet again, those costs are skyrocketed and increased with building and all
of the above.
I think with this whole fight of SB1, where we are kind of taking a look back, and some of us have continued
to say that SB1 is the part where we can't do certain things and we're restricted with our funding and
our lit rates and all of those different things. I think that was the moment where we collaboratively,
not just talking it, but just actually doing it, could have said, let's take a step back here, let's
see what we are really doing, and let us do with what we have.
How many of us have struggled to make ends meet and have really different upbringings, whether it's
now or past or whatever the case is, and you look at what you have in your cupboards, you've looked
at what you have in your bank accounts, and you see the ask, and then you see what you actually have.
And then you go, I think we need to make do with what we have. That's all of this right now. We gotta
make do with what we have.
It is fiscally irresponsible with a capital I for me to continue to say, let's say yes to a $11 million
purchase agreement when we already have things that we could be using right now. So again, if it's not known,
I would like for us to seriously look at yet again Thompson. And if you don't want me to keep talking
about Thompson, please make me shut up so I don't have to keep talking about it. But I tend to believe
that our city colleagues
will work and what we need to do with getting that PUD. By the way, it is not county council that is
responsible for submitting that PUD request. It is the commissioners that can do that. So if anybody
has anything to say, then that is where that goes with. I think I heard something two weeks ago or I
almost kind of alluded that we were responsible. The hell we're not. No, we are not. We are not responsible for that.
The last thing that I'll say, because I think we've heard enough and then we need to take our roll call
vote here, is this has meant so much to me. This has meant I wake up literally at 5 a.m. and I go downstairs
and I do all the things that I do in the morning before the rest of my house wakes up. I eat, sleep,
breathe these conversations. Today is my son's birthday. I was supposed to be out of town.
I cancel all plans.
to be in this room with all of y'all tonight. That's why it matters to me. The last thing I'll say about
what really matters to me is a couple of weeks ago, we had our meeting on March 12th, or May 12th, and
then the next day we had our Sophia Travis Grant Committee meeting. And I felt real broken. And at that
moment I was like, can I say,
Can I dare to say yes to North Park? Is there something that I can really find in my heart? Jen,
is there, like, take all your biases away that you might have on this site, separate those from facts,
and try to look at and see what you can say yes to. And Heather Bland actually came in our Sophia Travis
Grant Committee, and she talked about a story about
what New Life does for their clients, and it was the ask that she said, and she made a comment about
a client needing to be helped, and then she said that the client was her. That has stuck with me for
the past two weeks, and then Misty comes in here and wants to make everybody cry that has a heart, and
say that two-block radius can make and break a difference.
I want my name to attach to not a building in this county that will screw people over for years to come,
period. I am raising children in this community that will have to pay for this if they choose to live
here or if they want to ride off into the sunset and go somewhere else. That's what we really want people
to do. That's what we really want people to take care of. I understand the human concept. I understand
the people that are working in that building.
Yes, I understand. So please don't anybody at me and try to tell me I don't because I do. I take all
things into consideration. But this is the part right now where I feel like this is a moment where we
can either do well or we can screw it over. And I was a no back in October. I was a no back in a couple
of weeks ago. And I'm still a no. But again, here's where I can say yes.
I can say yes to true active collaboration. I can say yes to really getting down in the trenches.
Like today, like after this is all, well, maybe not today, because I literally want to spend a little
bit of time with my son. Or the next day, where we can come back in a room and say, let's figure this
out. Mr. Richardson back there has continued to say, let's talk about this. Let's talk about this. I
can tell you, we are trying to talk about it. Whether or not other people really want to come to the
table and really want to talk to us about it, that's a whole other subject.
But again, I think about, as Council Member Henry has said before, Charlotte's last conversations were,
you all can do hard things, you just need to know how to do it and go do it. Since we are quoting songs,
I really like to think of songs as well to get me through hard times. And a great lyricist by the name
of Tupac said,
I want to say one thing. For every dark night, there's a bright day. And after that, so no matter how
hard it gets, stick your chest out, keep your head up and handle it. Colleagues, that's what we got
to keep doing. County commissioners, that's what we have to keep doing. City colleagues, sheriff here,
like that's what we have to keep doing. Yes, I understand the repercussions. I come from people who
understand consequences of many things that have come up against them.
But this right here, this is where we are. So with that being said, may we please have a roll call vote?
Councillor Hawk. I continue to be no. I was no from the beginning.
First, second, third, and fourth vote have many votes. It's been no. Councillor Iverson. Yes. Councillor
Deckard. No. Councillor Henry. No. Councillor Crossley. No. Councillor Wilts. No. Councillor Feidl. No.
fails one to six. Council colleagues as a way to make sure like we still got a couple of more things
on the agenda. As a point of privilege, I want to be able to take a five minute recess. So I think we
could take a five minute recess
Let's be back at 806 promptly at 806 so we can finish up with this meeting. Thank you And we are back
oh I'd like to note for the record that we do not have Councilmember Henry anymore and so we will proceed
with the rest of the agenda here and I saw councilmember Decker has his hands raised and
Madam President, based on my studying of the agenda, I believe item C should probably be now removed
from this agenda. And if that were the will of the body, I'd take a second for that and a vote if you
want. But I think we have to have a denial, or how does that? So we could combine. So I would second that.
And then I would like to offer another motion after we, I guess we have to discuss one at a time. What
is the attorney thing? Is this the right way to do it? Yeah, I would just I would just call it up. And
if he meant to be unneeded, didn't die. Yeah. Okay, draw my motion. Oh, okay. All right. I feel like
there are two there's actually
There are two things. There's the item C appropriation, which we don't need and could just drop, right?
And I'm here to request it be removed from the agenda. There you go. I think that's one thing. But I
think we also, just to be very clear and to avoid what happened in October, we need to add an item to
clarify our most recent vote. So we, instead of just voting
no or against approval of the resolution, we should have a vote to deny the resolution. If you recall,
last October we had to come back just to make ourselves clear, and I think it might be a good idea to
get that out there. Do you agree? Sorry.
That was something that we did at the very end of the lengthy meeting is that Ms. Turner King had us
go back and do that. So, okay, so yeah. Council, I move to remove item C from the board of commissioners
from today's agenda. Second. All right, we got a motion and a second. Any further debate or comment
on this item from council? None.
I would just say it concerns me that we don't just deny it, but. Oh, we will. Yeah, that's what we,
I think that's what we're moving towards next. She meant deny this one and you meant deny the ordinance.
Okay. Is there a difference? If you deny the appropriation, they can't budget it. I mean, if it's bold,
And you haven't tabled it to a different meeting, it can't go anywhere. If it's not continued,
it's dead. It's dead even if we take it. Because it'd have to be re-advertised. You can deny it too,
if that's what your preference is. But if not approving it and not continuing it would kill it as well,
because you'd have to re-advertise. My motion would mean that they would need to have to re-advertise
it. So yeah. I think it's good. Yeah. Okay.
So motion is to strike it. Is there any other further question or comments? Yes. Oh, would it ever come
back or only if they submit another request and could they submit another request no matter what we
do? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, you can submit a request for an additional appropriation any time. How many times?
Yeah. All right. Okay.
So seeing no other further question or comment on this, we can do a voice vote. Okay, so all those in
favor of removing this from our agenda, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Yes,
motion, so motion carries. Yes, Councilor Iverson. Council, I move to deny ordinance 2026-17. Second.
All right, we got a motion and a second to deny the resolution. Is there any other further question
or comment? Yes, council. I do want to make a quick comment. I did vote against or for the resolution,
and I am going to make a different vote on denial. It doesn't mean that I've changed my mind,
but it is, I think, important to say I understand the will of council and I want to move forward with
the community.
So this is not me changing my vote. This is simply a different topic in my mind. Any other further questions
or comments? Seeing none, all those in favor of denying resolution? I believe that should be a roll
call vote. May we please have a roll call vote? Thank you. You're welcome.
Yes to deny. Yes to deny. Councillor Deckard. Yes. Councillor Crossley. Yes. Councillor Iverson. Yes.
Councillor Feidl. Yes. Councillor Hock. Yes for denial. Yes. Motion passes unanimous. 6-0. So next up
we jump back into our
County business with the Health Department. Council, I move to open for discussion and possible approval
of the Health Department's request to be exempt from the hiring freeze and be allowed to hire and fund
8111-9623 Crisis COAG Supports Workforce, a full-time public health nurse school liaison. Second.
All right, we have a motion and a second. Our joined by Ms. Kelly and board member Lisa Robinson. Welcome.
Welcome and good evening. So this request is just essentially to backfill our public health nurse and
school liaison position. This just recently, unfortunately, became a vacant position, but it is crucial
to supporting our school health services, our public health nursing services, and meeting those core
service requirements for Health First Indiana. Any questions or comments from council on this item?
Seeing none, we will move on to public comment. There's 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, maybe please have a roll
call vote. Councillor Deckard? Yes. Councillor Crossley? Yes. Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes.
I move to approve the Health Department's request and fund 8112-9626, sexually transmitted
disease strengthening prevention grant, a category transfer of $164.99 from the supplies category
$15,533.77 from the services category and $12,500 from the capital category for a total appropriation
of $28,198.76 into the personnel category.
We got a motion and a second. What would you like to tell us about this? So this is basically just a
housekeeping item. So we're looking at the remaining grant funds that we have and made some decisions
that we're going to be running short on our personnel lines. So just these category transfers will help
us to cover those personnel expenses. We do have a new grant that was just recently approved by the
county commissioners. So that will be coming to you soon just to continue receiving this funding.
Thank you for that. Any questions or comments? As she said, it's pretty much bookkeeping. Yes, Councillor
Wilks. Do you anticipate then needing to move money back once you get the new funding or is this, I'm
just looking at some of the lines here, equipment, training, travel, they're pretty large amounts. So
do you anticipate needing to come to us to refill those accounts at some point?
So when we receive the new executed grant, we will have funding that set aside specifically for some
of these other areas. We do spend a lot in mileage. So a large portion of that will be going to the
training and travel. OK, thank you. Other further questions or comments on this item?
Seeing none, we'll move to public comment. If there is public comment on this item, you can come forward
to the lectern in the room or raise your hand via Teams. May we please have a roll call vote? Councillor
Deckard? Yes. Councillor Crossley? Yes. Councillor Iverson? Yes. Councillor Feidl? Yes.
say no. Councilor Wilts. Yes. Motion passes five to one. Majority. Okay. Next up is item F. Council,
I move to approve the health department's request to approve the creation of a new position
and simultaneously approve the job description for the clinical assistant. Second.
I'm sorry. We got a motion and a second. And what would you like to add to this item. So back in March
of this year we came before you all to ask for an approval to create a job description for a clinical
assistant position. So this clinical assistant position will help to support our nursing services and
maternal child health services.
So one thing that I just want to make sure that's very clear. This is more than just a front desk role.
This is really a critical position for our daily operations and help to ensure that our services are
functioning effectively, legally and safely for Monroe County residents.
This role is really going to serve as the operational backbone of our clinical services. It will ensure
that patients can access care, maintain medical records, and billing for Medicaid services.
sorry, will support nearly every patient interaction. So from when patients are walking through the
door, they will be checking them in, they will be checking them out, helping to oversee our inventory
for our health supplies, and really being able to support our nurses and our maternal child
health coordinator. So the request tonight is for the county council to consider approving us to move
forward with hiring this position.
I just wanna add, oh, go ahead. I just wanna add, I wanna remind council that we lost our contract with
IU Health. And so we are in the, we are trying to recreate our infrastructure to provide services for
the county residents. And so this is part of that movement. This person is the equivalent of someone
who is front lines there to talk with the patients, schedule patients,
They are an MA, so they can provide vaccines. And so they're doing a lot of different roles. But again,
in our effort to replace that infrastructure and have people to do it and provide care. Thank you. Questions
or comments? Yes, Councilor Iverson. I'm really happy to see this come to fruition. I think we've been
talking about this for months.
And so there's been a lot of hard work. Kim Schell worked on this job description. I know Molly Turner
King worked on this job description. You all worked hard on this job description. It's gone before with.
So I'm really excited this is coming here. And I guess for those who haven't seen the latest health
board meeting, the health board has reviewed this and this is good to go. Yes. Excellent. Yes.
So maybe, can you tell me how it's been working up this new, I mean, how many people have been filling
in instead of this one create? Well, so we had, so when IU was providing all of these services, they
had probably the equivalent, we're not sure exactly because we kept trying to get information that maybe
for people providing services and covering for each other. And so we are literally trying to create
those positions in order to provide the services. So right now, Lori has actually been filling in and
trying to do her job and provide cross coverage, which is obviously not ideal. Okay, thank you.
So if there's no other further questions or comments from council, I'll move to public comment. If there
is public comment, 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. Oh, are you? Councilor Crossley? Yes. Councilor Iverson?
Councilor Hawk, do you wanna vote? Okay. Councilor Hawk is leaving the meeting. Councilor Wilts? Yes.
Councilor Deckard? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Motion passes five to zero. Okay. And now we're to the
bare bones of corn.
So next up is item G. Council, I move to approve the health department's request and fund 1159-0000
health fund, the creation of account line 10190, clinical assistant, and simultaneously approve a category
transfer of $41,351 from the services category to the personnel category. Second. Okay, Ms. Kelly.
So this request is essentially we are taking some of the funding that was set aside for the IU health
contract. It will be transferring those funds to be able to support the funding of this position moving
forward. Okay. Any questions or comments from council on this item? Very helpful. Seeing none.
We'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. Seeing none, maybe please have a roll call vote. Councilor
Iverson? Yes. Councilor Feidl? Yes. Councilor Wilts? Yes. Councilor Decker? Yes. Councilor Crossley?
Yes. Motion passes unanimous.
Council, I move to approve the health department's request to amend the 2026 salary ordinance to add
in fund 1159-0000, health fund, account line 10190, clinical assistant, Comet B, 35 hours, non-exempt
level. Second. All right, we got a motion and a second. I think this is basically just a housekeeping
item to ensure that we have this added to the salary ordinance. All right, any questions or comments
from council on this item?
Seeing none, we'll once again go back to public comment. If there's public comment on this item, you
can come forward to the room here or raise your hand via Teams. Still seeing none. May we please have
a roll call vote? Councillor Feidl? Yes. Councillor Wilz? Yes. Councillor Decker?
Councillor Crossley. Yes. Councillor Iverson. Yes. Motion passes unanimous. All right. Next up is item
I. I'd like to open for discussion the reclassification of the health services director position. Second.
All right. We got a motion and a second.
So recently we had the pleasure of meeting with counselor Iverson and during that time we discussed
some different strategies for really being able to recruit the best fit for this health services director
position. So while we have received applicants and we have been actively interviewing it's been extremely
challenging to find a candidate with years of experience that come come in through the door at that
entry level pay rate.
So really the discussion that we had with Councillor Iverson was to bring this to the full council to
discuss options for being able to reclassify this position to change the pay rate and what options that
we would have available just to be able to widen the candidates that we could potentially bring in for
this position.
I would like to add, we currently are paying this position $34 an hour. For comparison, Allen County
pays their person $39 an hour. The real issue we run into is that we are competing against IU Health,
who they offer usually a $30,000 bonus for RNs to come on board with them. So we
we have the only way we can be competitive really is to increase the dollar amount per hour. So our
thinking and we discussed this at our board meeting was, you know, we may be coming to you asking for
maybe $36 an hour, but the best way to approach that is to change the pay structure. So that's the that's.
I think since my name is invoked in the agenda, as the liaison to this department, I do want to point
out that there is a lot of documentation in your packet. There is a there's all sorts of information
about what other counties do and and in particular, I if this is earlier in the meeting, I'd ask for
this to be displayed.
but take a look at page 92 in the packet. It's the org chart for Allen County. Can you talk a little
bit about why you included the org chart for Allen County in the packet? Yes. So the population for
Allen County is around 430,000 and our
By comparison, Monroe County is about 30%. If you look at the org chart, they have 23 full-time clinical
staff to support their population. We think that eventually we will need, as a percentage, eight full-time
employees to support the health department in what we're doing, and that makes sense with having
again lost our contract, so we're just using Allen County structure. If you also see there, there are
two positions, full-time positions they have for data management and IT management, and eventually those
positions we will be discussing more with you all, because those are gonna be critical to our maintaining
our funding,
with the state, so we're just trying to get the number of people we have to serve Monroe County kind
of in line with other counties per population. And to give you, so you don't panic, we currently have,
I would say, four full-time folks
and eventually we'll need four additional full-time folks, which we've just asked for another one of
those positions here. So we are just behind in trying to provide these services that are required by
law for our county. Thank you. The other thing that's in the packet
is a job description from Allen County. Are we to interpret that that is similar to what the director
job description looks like? Yes and no I would say. So I think that part of it is there is some crossover
with some of those duties but there's also a position under that like a nurse supervisor and really if you
Again, if we're trying to compare, we're trying to replace these services through IU Health, through
those contracted positions. They had three nursing positions that were covering vaccinations and our
communicable disease, our lead and our health screenings. We were funding a full time school health
liaison. They also then had a nurse supervisor. So the health services director for the health department
had already been created
specifically for the health department as separate from overseeing nurses and nurse duties. So some
of those additional duties had to kind of be combined into this health services director position and
some of these nursing positions, again, because we really are trying to be respectful of the hiring
freeze. We know that, you know, finances are tough. So, you know, kind of trying to weigh and balance
how can we combine
multiple kind of positions and duties into positions instead of just asking for more positions. But
it is also becoming very challenging for us just to be able to get services really up and going and
to have layers of protection. So when I look at our
organizational chart and some of the proposed changes. If you look at our environmental health services,
you can see, when I see that, I see layers of protection because they have a director and then they
have three different subcategories of environmental health services that have those senior positions,
so that team lead, that supervisor, and then they have positions under that. It's very similar with
our vital records. Those are two of our
best functioning areas in the health department. And really that's because they have those layers of
protection, those people who can fill in and cover gaps, cover absences, cover vacations, really have
this wealth of knowledge, but they're also more subject matter experts. So what we're kind of running
into is how do we balance
fulfilling these nursing services and these maternal child health services because at some point it's
going to be a question of do we want jack of all trades but masters of none? Or do we want subject matter
experts who can also be able to somewhat fill in the gaps from time to time? So in an ideal scenario
in the future,
we would have a nurse supervisor who is that first nurse supervisor overseeing our three public health
nurses, and then we would have the health services director. For example, we need at least two clinical
or nursing positions who is our
primary vaccine coordinator for our Vaccines for Children program, and we need at least one backup.
We really just need more positions available to be able to fill those roles. Other questions or comments?
Yes, Councillor Decker. Anytime we have something that's
a little bit complicated and it's a bit jump ball for us. It's often like watching the movie 2001 when
the apes were like around the monolith, because it's hard for us to, I think, construct it. And my hope
is that we can get some sort of solution, recommendation that we can play around with. One question
I have is, going back, Doctor, you had mentioned that we compete with IU Health just generally.
for that nursing bonus, would you say it was 30,000? It's 20 to 30,000, I believe. Some RNs are getting,
so we just can't compete. And we had actually someone apply to one of our positions, and they were perfect.
And their quote was, well, I just can't do that. I mean, I can't feed my family. I can't do that.
more money elsewhere. So I think the difficulty is you all are facing budget cuts, of course, but I
think we are here to say we sort of have to do this. And the other thing I will remind you is that we
have this money in the health fund currently. So we're just asking for a reclassification. We have the funds.
thank you on all this. And that bonus is something someone like me should know, and I had no idea about
that. If we reclassify this, does it start triggering any other movement on the chain? Any time I see
a... Well, I guess we're saying we are going to be having discussions over the next few months to try
to create our infrastructure. So yes, perhaps.
This is an important start, and we worked with Peter to try to figure out what was the best solution
for right now. Okay. Yes, Councillor Wolk. I was pointing at him. Oh, okay. I talked too much. Why don't
you go? I guess my question is, and I don't know who or if
there's answering happening. So feel free to just ignore me if this isn't answerable. But my concern,
and it's been expressed before by others, is the sustainability of the health fund and what is going
to happen. And I guess my question is, what's your thinking on that topic?
Well, it's a catch 22, right? Because if we don't meet the criteria, we're going to lose the funding.
And I believe it's the commissioners that accepted the funding and made that decision in the first place.
So if we don't meet criteria, we're going to lose the funding. So I can't answer that. I don't know
what the legislature is going to do.
Do you in your opinion is the funding that's currently? allocated enough to sustain a Your current but
also this vision of expansion that you have Well, I think we have to work through that I I think Monroe
County is underserved in the realm of public health I I think we have been behind for a while I think the
pulling out of IU from the contract has now brought that to light acutely. And I think it's
our responsibility to work through that and figure that out. Good luck. It just, yeah, it's daunting.
Go ahead. Can I ask a follow up to that, doctor? Sure. Do you think the IU health contract kind of masks
some of that?
the underfunding for a while now, this is bringing it to light. I would love any thoughts on that. I
think that we continue to ask for data to try to figure out exactly how much money was coming in for
their services, how much they were charging patients, their co-pays, et cetera. And then in addition
to that, also trying to figure out
how many exactly, how many people were providing these services and we never could sort of get answers.
So I'm not sure how to answer that. We're trying to, that's kind of behind us now. So here's where we
are and we're thankful that you all and Peter are willing to listen and hopefully work with us.
All right, so next steps.
I've heard a vision that's articulated or Laura you articulated where you've got a job an org chart
for our health department here in Monroe County where you've got a three deep system where there's backups
to the backup. I've heard now we've got this admin we've voted that in so you've got an admin you can
go out and hire and we're thinking about a director here to kind of get that clinic structure going
up and running so you don't have to do everything.
What would be the next step, Michelle? Okay, this is our current org chart.
This is the section here that we're talking about. Here's the health services director. And then here
are the three public health nurses. So if I'm understanding this correctly, you're wanting the health
services director. Then under that, to have that tiered system, you're wanting a
Senior I'll just call it a senior public health nurse and then under that would then be these three
positions along with the clinic Assistant that was just hired. Is that correct? Correct. Okay, so that
means that would be a new position and we would have to Do just like what we did with the clinical assistant
is create work together create a job description and
that has the supervisory duties, probably other nursing duties as well, because I'm assuming the senior
public health nurse would also be doing seeing patients, giving vaccines, that kind of thing. So we
would have to create that job description and either come back to you and go to whip, you know,
and say, hey, we're ready or,
We, you guys give us the go-ahead, we get it together, and then we send it off to WIS. Is that amenable?
Yes, and I really, I mean, that's really the structure that we need to be able to operate the
most efficiently for the department. Have we, have you considered
Taking one of those three positions and, I mean, basically not creating a new position and working with
just the three, but make one the supervisor with two under and the assistant. We've tried. Well,
go ahead. Yes, it's just not working. It's too much to just keep combining and compiling all of these
different areas.
Perhaps we could try to make it work and come back in another six months or so. But again, to be able
to kind of replace some of that structure that was in place previously, we really just need that additional
layer to help support these services.
really challenging as well. We had the health services director previously again before we knew that
we were going to be taking on these services. We had a really great candidate the that was going to
come into that position. Then we learned of the changes and how that job description was going to be
modified to absorb these additional duties. And I mean that alone was they were no longer interested. It's just
too much, there's no increase in pay and a lot for that role to take on. And that's the very top purple.
Correct. But that would be alleviated by creating a position under it that then supported from above
kind of the rest of the nursing.
So we are talking, I just want to clarify, because this has been a long night and I think I'm a little
slow. We're talking about creating a new position and also at the same time making the health services
director an SO. Correct. And I believe within the request, there was, they were asking to change this
health services
your position from a 35 hour to a 40 hour as well. Correct. Correct. Again, just trying to think of
different strategies that we could discuss to be able to help kind of absorb some of these duties. Do
I think that that would be needed with the supervisor? No. But again, really just trying to be respectful
that we need to be mindful of our finances.
And how can we balance that with also providing the best services that we can for the community? I just
want to remind council that our next pandemic is, I hope not, but just around the corner. Things like
Ebola, which
was contained in the DRC and now is in Italy and now there are 220 cases in there, et cetera, et cetera.
So we are just trying to get our ducks in a row so that we are more prepared if anyone could be prepared
for things that we may not even be aware of at this time. There's a recent scare in our own case.
Correct. Yes. And I really just think that that emphasizes how important it is. I really just want to
take a moment to to just really stress how wonderful it is that we do have health department staff who
will step up and fulfill whatever capacity that they can. And in that situation we were able to
call upon to other employees to help us navigate and work through that situation. But that won't always
be the case because we do have certain services that require that nursing credential to be able to provide
those very specific services. Okay. Are there any other questions?
Did I understand your answer to Councillor Iverson's question to be that you didn't necessarily think
that the health services director needed 40 hours a week, but that was a strategy that you were putting
forth? If we had a supervisor, again, if we had that three tier system, because that would help to balance
that workload.
just offer that current position of the health services director for 2026 when they come in at minimum
that hourly rate is 3252 so they're up they requested 36 which would be at the close to the three year
because the
The pat D for three years, actually a 36 is 36 14 and out. The 35 hour, yeah. And all of those are pat
D's across the top. The health services director is a pat D. What are the other directors? Pat D's.
Yeah, they're all pat D's. And they're at 40? Just one, is that 40? No, no, no, I'm sorry, two.
Two are and two are not. A little bit more challenging not being able to have that flexibility to possibly
offer the midpoint hiring rate. So again, that's just one of the challenges that we're trying to navigate
with recruiting. Health services director is a Pat D. The environmental health services director is a Pat D.
and public health preparedness director is a pat D at 40 hours and the vital records director is a pat
D at 40 hours. It's not unheard of within their department. I've talked before about those types of
positions trying to make them more equivalent in terms of I think. And that's kind of how the preparedness position
came into the 40 hours because there was discussion of, hey, should we make all of these 40 hours? Should
we move to that point? That's something that we could do until perhaps we have more options. I mean,
it's not to the exclusion of other things you've suggested, just,
I just want to say that if you put somebody at 40 hours and you hire them on, it's more difficult to
move them back to a 35 hour. Why would I do that? Well, that's what I'm saying. I mean, you know, if
you're going to go ahead with that model, I mean, if you're going to add another position, she's saying
the 40 hour would be great if we're not going to have that
senior. Are there any other further questions or does anybody wish to make a motion regarding this?
I think the next step is that we're going to just simply work together. Well, no, this is on the SO, isn't it?
Yeah, right now we are talking about the reclassification of the Health Services Director position.
And part of their request was for the reclassification as well as the hours. So if you do the
reclassification to an SO, you also have to set an hourly rate at the same time. And you had mentioned
one earlier in the meeting, I think, correct?
Or was I imagining that? No, they said 36. Or to suspend our midpoint higher. Oh, that's Pandora's box,
isn't it? Are you going to do that for every position? Is this too much on the fly?
I mean, he gets down on paper and do a fiscal impact and all that. Until our next meeting, I don't want
to stay. I just think that maybe. About the equity of the position. And I'm not sure.
if I'm the only one who's thinking that. All right, council, I move to reclassify the health services
director to an SO at $36 an hour. Second. All right, we got a motion and a second. Is there other questions
or comments from council on this item? Yes, Michelle. Are we keeping it at 35?
hours. Yes? That would be acceptable. Yes. Okay. So for now we'll keep it at 35. That way it at least
gives you a jumping off. That's good with me. Okay. So not my decision. We'll work on reclassifying
and come back. Is that right here? Okay.
Okay, so no other further questions or comments. Can we recap what it is we're doing here, please? Yes.
So essentially, we are moving to reclassify this as a SO position. And we're going to keep it. Tell
me the hourly rate again. 36. 36? For right now, we are not going to do anything with the hours. We're
going to keep it at 35. I just didn't get the hours. I should have just asked that. Thank you.
So we're there. All right.
Who seconded? I'm sorry. Council member. Thank you. Okay. Um, I'll see if there's any public comment.
There's public item. Please come forward to the lectern here in the room or raise your hand via teams.
Sauntering up. Evening council. Sarah writer banter community Monroe County health officer.
I encourage you to support this. I went to a state symposium now two weeks ago. And when I went to all
of the tables of all of the counties in our state and asked how to get public health nurses, they just
looked at me and laughed.
It is next to impossible, which is why we need to be paying any nurse $36 an hour. Indeed, across the
state, IU and other hospitals are offering $30,000 sign-on bonuses and then are paying $36 to $38 an hour.
I then went looking to see what other health services are recruiting nurses and at what pay scale, and
it's above that. So for us to be at all competitive, for us to be able to serve the people of Monroe
County with the nursing care that our public health nurses have provided for the last 60 years,
in conjunction with the hospital, we need to be paying them what the going rate is. I wish it were otherwise.
I wish that everyone simply wanted to serve the community and that it didn't make a difference, but
we also know how expensive it is and how much more it becomes expensive to support a family in this
community or anywhere in the state. Thank you.
Okay, any other questions or sorry, any other public comment? And seeing none, Michelle, maybe please
have a roll call vote. This is a vote to reclassify the Health Services Director position as an SO at
a $36 an hour rate.
Councillor Wilz. Yes. Councillor Deckard. Yes. Councillor Crossley. Yes. Councillor Iverson. Yes. Councillor
Feidl. Yes. Motion passes unanimous. Find someone good. Thank you. Thank you for sticking through a
long meeting. Have a good night. You too.
All right, next up we are almost done. So we are going to, it's that time of year again, yay, where
we have to look at the president's letter. And so I'm gonna look to Michelle as she gladly will display
it on screen.
So we were a little delayed in getting this out. My apologies. And thanks for staff and the patients
with me. I hope everybody had a chance and an opportunity to take a look at the letter. Again, this
was just really reiterating the fact that SB1, the sequel trilogy, still loom in our budgets.
So this time around, we are asking for folks to budget on a flat. Budget time this time around, the
other biggest thing that we have in this letter is the fact that we are asking for people to put in,
I know we would have that factored in as people would do that, that doesn't necessarily mean that
There won't be a COLA, however, I think we need to get through all of our budget items first to kind
of take a look at that. With longevity, I know that was a big controversial thing that happened towards
the end of our budget season last time around, but I've asked Councilor Iverson and the Long-Term Finance
Committee team to take a look at that, and I believe that is something that will happen in the...
Do a meeting, why am I going back to February? So we are not going back. So that is another thing as
well. And overall, I think the sentiment is, much like we did last year, is help us like departments
again. We had a lot of departments that kind of did a lot of work on the fly to really try to continue
with that same kind of spirit.
as we try to keep the county moving forward as we still deal with our budget concerns going. That been
budget cycle. Did I miss anything Michelle? The only thing that I want to say is with regards to the
full time self insurance we are
or asking for the departments to appropriate high. We're going with 18,000 per position. Right now the
current amount is 16,005. I've been speaking with the Commissioner's Administrator as well as the Employee
Services Department. And we will get a good idea come June on
how that amount that we settled for last year, because we really kicked it up last year to 16-5, and
how that amount is working with the budget for 2026. So June will give us at least a half of a year
to see how the claims have been coming in and what's been going out. Like the commissioner's administrator
believes that not stay at 18,
But they really don't want to guess anything until they get that mid-year review. So once we get that
done, we'll come back before the end of the budgets. But for right now, we're just going to have everybody
do it at the 18th. The only other thing I want to say is
Crossley did say that she wanted, you know, that the budgets are to be flat. Also, what we put in here
is for 2026, departments, well, council moved the supplies as well as travel and training into the edit
fund. So to get a true
look at what the budget is going to cost, we would like those amounts put back into your original request
so that we can see what needs to be moved, you know, at all, that kind of thing. So we're asking everyone
that has an edit fund budget to put those amounts back into their original requested budget.
And in that way, that's gonna give you a good estimate on this is what the budget would look like without
the edit funding. So. So earlier tonight, we heard people invoke gas prices and grocery prices. Could
you talk a little bit about your thinking around COLA? Well, you all have a long-term finance committee
meeting that is coming up.
I know last year the conversation was, we gave a COLA, let's look at how other things kind of play out
with this year, and that's the same sentiment. From my understanding, Mr. Garitas is supposed to give
you all like a review, like a pre-budget review, and so I was thinking along with longevity, if that's
something that could be discussed in terms of COLA increase,
that could be brought up and then be brought to the council as we consider that for budget cycle. Because
last year I know the COLA, to give a COLA barely passed. And so with this year and a lot of prices going
up and up and people really wanna be able to sustain and retain our employees as much as possible.
That's a way for us to kind of look at all things. I hope nobody will look at this and go, oh, she's
talking about getting rid of people. No, I'm not, no, I'm not, no, I'm not. I'm just saying what we
talked about last year is also something that we should look at this year for 2027. So as we are prepping
that in June and whatnot, we can have those conversations now instead of September, October, when we
get a room full of people again, we talk about something.
It's better to start proceeding and letting people know ahead of time what our thoughts are. We said
we would do that a lot earlier this year. Obviously lots of other things have taken hold of Council's
attention so far. And so now as we kind of move all over the place, that's the idea there. I think that's
helpful. Thank you.
still working on trying to get you a fiscal impact of what a no cola for next year would look like,
but it also includes the step increases where everybody's going to be at come next year based on a snapshot.
You know, so I do know that we've got a couple people that are retiring, you know, that kind of thing.
So, but like I said, it'll be based on a snapshot of a particular period of time.
and I will get you, you know, what I can to show what a no cola with the step increases, because I know
that one council member had mentioned maybe not even allowing people to have their step increases.
So we'll, you know, that kind of thing, which might end would be a nightmare. That is not in the president's
letter. No, but I want to, you know, but the president's letter does say, you know, budget,
with no COLA, include all the step increases and this kind of thing. But I wanted to get you that information
and it will be forthcoming hopefully before the long-term finance so that we can review it at that time.
Look at us working together. And then as well as the longevity. I'm working on a reduction kind of thing.
That's right. Either full turkey or over the years. What that fiscal impact would look like.
Good, okay. And in plenty of time for budget season, right? We don't want to leave that to the last
second. That's too emotional. And then the other thing that we, what I thought, it sounded like the
feedback that I got from last budget cycle was the fact that we met with, as liaisons with departments
a lot earlier to kind of explain things. I hope that went okay. Right again this year.
And, you know, so liaisons can help people out in case there is any other things that we need to talk
about. But again, I thought that was, I thought it went fine. I think we could do it again. And this
is my last president letter, because I ain't doing president. Yay. Happy. You are. Yes, Ms. Gregory.
Just a quick comment that my team and I will continue to update our self insurance fund analysis. And
that kind of shows the trend as well because we do know like more people meet their deductible in the
second half of the year is more heavy as far as expenses for the county. It's okay. It's true.
Thank you. All those last minute surgeries. All right.
There is no other further questions that are needed, so Michelle will kind of get together and that'll
go out. And those departments are working through, because it will be June in about another week. And
before you know it, we'll be sitting here for long hours yet again. Yeah. Thanks for doing the letter.
Thanks for doing the letter. You're welcome. My pleasure.
staff that was kind of kicking me for it. So I appreciate that. Okay. Thank you. All right. Now is the
moment we've all been waiting for is Council liaison updates and comments. I know last meeting and because
Councillor Henry is not here, we had to give up some of his duties. And so I think Councillor Frido,
you might have been thinking about it.
I probably should hold off on that another time. I don't know that somebody's reported when they meet.
Yeah. I would need to know that before I decide. We'll just hold off and we'll wait on that. Thank you.
But I'm going to look down to the left over here and see if we have any final liaison comments as before
we adjourn. I do not come with my color-coded time. First time, I think, in probably three or four months.
And so I'll just say jail, jail, jail. Yeah.
I just have a comment that I just have been reflecting on in the in the kind of rest of this meeting
which is you know earlier mission Madeira I think it was said that this this
decision and vote that we made today really is taken in the context of how we wish to be remembered.
And I've been thinking on that and I hope that we and this time are remembered as people who knew the
importance of deliberation
and intentional system change. I hope that we're seen as people who have thought outside of the typical
parameters of how we do things because that's the opportunity that we have right now. And in that vein,
I would really like to call on the commissioners to seize the day and perhaps call a meeting where we
or at least some of us could participate with them and the mayor and the common council and the sheriff to really
the possibilities and not not the past but the future and do it this week I mean let's let's let's just
look toward what we can do
be really quick I want to give a shout out to a my council colleagues I was gone for work part of some
of what a lot of us do is we have jobs that are our day jobs and then we have this is the other job
and I was gone with students to Greece for
part of my duties, an assigned duty about a year. And I appreciate all my council colleagues who pitched
in and did their work in a meeting where you don't wanna see empty chairs. They saw one next to them.
And I know that we're gonna have plenty more meetings where we do lots of things. I did wanna mention
an effort, a pamphlet here that I've kind of been looking at the last month or so.
And this pamphlet may seem a little bit odd, but it actually is appropriate for our time because it's
a pamphlet about the Revolutionary War Patriots of Monroe County. And as a person that descended from
one of them, so many people have had to hear that I come from a nine-generation family that they're
probably gagged when they hear it. But as a person that comes from one of those families,
One of the things that sometimes when you grow up in a family like that, where things were not written,
people were poor and couldn't pass it down, is you never knew that. But we have these individual, I
didn't know until I was in my 20s, that there wasn't even a remote connection. And some great folks,
including Barbara Hawkins, there's some sponsors that assisted with it. They put together a pamphlet
that really memorialized some of these souls
that are buried here in the community, including not only men, but women that are remembered. And so
you can get these at the courthouse, the history center, it's the Revolutionary War, Patriots of Mineral
County, you can visit many of these gravesites. But when I think about people doing the hard and the
impossible, I look at some of the conditions that they overcame when things did not look very
Normal at all and it's kind of a reminder that all throughout our time You just we got to go back to
work and I know there's probably a lot of sore everything But we got to do it. So anyway, I'll stop
talking and thank you Nothing I need to say is I heard there's a birthday tonight and I think we should
get going. Oh, yeah Yes
Ms. Turner-King has a birthday, and she's not here, but yes. Oh, I wasn't talking about that one. No.
I'm talking about that one. My poor team. So that being said, I don't think I have anything else to
add. I think Councillor Wilts was very, very spot on in what she said, and I think that work starts
now. I think, you know, perhaps, I don't know if that's something that we could do together
with commissioners. I think that's the moment that we are in.
And it's been asked for and I think that's, vote tonight should not mean that we just sit here and we
stop. I think we need to continue to keep, we've heard the sheriff say all the things. I think we all
are in agreement that we do need to do something. Our community is asking us to do something. There's
just a site that just didn't work tonight. So that being said, I appreciate everybody
and all the work that we've done. Oh, one other thing I would like to say, one other thing is I think
we have some conflicts with June 9th. June 9th is the second Tuesday that we have. And so Councilor
Iverson is out and I actually will be out as well.
Oh, yes, yeah. And so last year, I remember I was saying that I think we should try to put in a recess
for that reason, just in case we have people that need to do things. And so I am going to say that we
are going to cancel June 9th. So did I have it down correct that we're supposed to do this if he had
traveled that night?
Well, we could bump that to the 23rd. Yeah. Especially because we are really, really early with Sophia
Travis. Shout out to staff for making that work and easy. And we have a meeting this upcoming Friday.
OK, so if you cancel the meeting, I would like to have that in a motion just so that we
Council, I move to cancel the June 9th County Council meeting. Second. Okay, we got a motion and a second.
Does anybody just want to sit here and have a meeting without the President and the Pro-10?
You can do it. All right, so all those in favor of canceling the June 9th meeting signify by saying
aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Okay, June 9th is officially canceled. Yes, Councilor Feidl.
I'm really neglected to mention that I enjoyed the Memorial Day service this week, yesterday, right?
It hadn't been that long ago. So I was at the Rose Hill Cemetery with others, Councillor Crossley and
Councillor Decker, and then proceeded to go to the cemetery also, and it was just
what an expansive event that was. I wasn't expecting quite to be a big deal, but it turned out to be
quite the production and the speaker was just fantastic. So I think there was just a lot of heartfelt
messages there and appreciation for our veterans and my granddaughter serves in the Air Force now. So
I have two people close to my heart that I just wanted to say how much I appreciated doing part of that.
And that's Stephen and Andrew.
So thank you for putting that on and being able to get out and show support. Made the ultimate sacrifice.
All right, so with that being said, we are adjourned. Happy birthday, Mason.