So it's just a couple minutes after six o'clock, and I'm Liz Fiddle, and I'm calling together, calling
to order this collaborative justice project working subcommittee meeting. And to my right, we have Carrie
Thompson, mayor of Bloomington. We have Sydney Zulek, city council rep. We have April Wilson from the
prosecutor's office, and we have Karen Renvet from the public defender's office. Welcome, and we shall
get started.
Let's adopt the agenda. I know it's not a complicated agenda. We're working on the site evaluation and
we can get a motion to adopt the agenda. Moved. Second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? All right,
we have an agenda. So let's dig right into it. I think we were the most up-to-date version of the metric
sheet that includes
many things filled in and maybe many things not filled in so we need we need to really buckle down and
go through this tonight so I think there is the larger paper version is the site evaluation metrics
and then Molly would you explain the smaller version document so all the um so the larger version
Okay, before added properties from the last meeting, all the properties fit on one page, but North Park.
But with the addition of the extra properties, we couldn't fit them all on one page. So the first page
is just the first 11 properties. And then the second page is the next five. I see. And then I tried
to put the questions so that you could still see them, but Excel was not cooperating.
So it's just the site matrix for all the properties, just broken down into two spreadsheets. Right.
So let me see here. So there's three pages on the small sheet, and there seems to be four pages on the
large sheet, right? It's because of spacing. Oh, it's because of spacing. OK. Now I understand.
All right. OK. Everybody kind of.
At least beginning to digest where we're at here tonight and. Take anyone's comments or suggestions
or maybe. Both of the attorneys or one of the attorneys or any of the attorneys would like to make any
comments about this before we delve any further into this. This work since I know you've been both working
on it in your own ways.
this is the first time we've seen this version of it. So if you had anything to explain as we begin
to digest it, that would be useful. What do you think is most useful as we begin to look at this? Is
there any comment on that? I'll just make a quick comment. I think that this does, because of the original
sheet, blend certain public properties and private properties. The private properties, as we've talked
a few times, we do at least have
Two on here that are not named that we took we'll discuss an executive session. I think it's probably
wise to discuss all the private properties together Just because of very similar Obstacles but also
steps that would need to be taken for purchase and negotiation of those properties. It's just a suggestion
There's significant amount of information on the publicly available properties either owned by the city
or the county, so that might be the most fruitful place to start and we can go down there. To the extent
that there are blanks still in this sheet, I think we can fill in most of them. I know that most of
the county properties, Molly and Jeff had worked on and then the city properties I had worked on. So
between the two of us, I think we at least have some information that we can answer those questions
as we go as well and fill in some of that information. Does that sound good to everybody on the committee?
any suggestions as we begin to tackle this. I'm just wondering if there are any properties on either
of these sheets that for one reason or another a committee member might want to suggest is not feasible
at all and then we don't have to go through the checklist. Very wise way of going about it. Thank you.
Yes I like that too.
is that something you're asking the committee or the attorneys or everybody, right? Yes, I think we
just asked the attorneys for their feedback. I'm asking the committee if anyone sees sites that are
not viable. Well, the Bloomington Transit Garage, it looks like the owner is not willing to sell the
property, so that would pretty much take it off the table. And it's in a floodway. And it's in a floodway.
We're going to take that one out. And as we go across,
the next one's okay or not okay. Could we just gray it out so that property on the list but we know
that we've screened it out. Would it be okay if we just grayed it out instead of removed it from the
list so that way we know. I think I got a nod over here. Thank you. Yeah thank you. So we'll gray that
out the Bloomington Transit garage. All right and the next one
So that would be the renovations of current building with Curry, right? What are we thinking about that
one? That one's definitely worth discussion. Okay, so leave it, right? Everybody agree? April and Karen
agree? Okay. Yeah, yes. Fell iron, been the lumber. Did we discern whether that property has been sold or not?
It looks like, so in just in April of 2026, so just recently, that went, at least the fell iron property
went through the planning approval process and it's been approved for apartment building construction.
So it's very unlikely that that's for sale. And these are two separate properties with two separate
owners actually go across the B line. So you're talking about kind of separated properties already.
Likely though, I mean, we can always,
peel off one part of that and consider the other but I don't think it's I don't think it's very likely
that's going to be for sale given the advanced stage of the planning process. So it sounds like we need
to take that one and gray it or take it out whatever we're calling that now. And then Hopewell West
that seems to be next. Yeah so I can speak a little bit to Hopewell West and East.
These are RDC owned properties and so an official decision would need to come from the RDC. I have done
some checking though and there is full plat complete which means as well as a park installed etc. So
there's significant planning already executed for residential and public promise of residential there.
Again, I won't speak for RDC if you want to make an official ask, but I would say it's unlikely. What
do we think we want to do with this property and the rest of the committee? I think it's still worth
discussing, but I will point out that in old B Square coverage,
Back from 2023, one of the other issues with Hopewell, apart from the Bloomington City Council
not necessarily being willing to part with the property. I believe there was also a big question about
the ability to co-locate on Hopewell. And so that would be another thing to keep in mind as we're discussing.
You mean the jail facility and other things? Yes. Okay. Just wanted to make sure. Yes, thank you.
Okay, so are we agreeing to leave it on with further discussion at least until it's not on anymore?
How will we find out it's not on? Officially you would need to get it on the RDC agenda with an official
proposal. I guess my suggested process for that would be if it floats up to be one of our top three,
knowing it's unlikely we did ask them to consider that okay that sound good to the rest of the committee
yep okay so it's gonna remain on for now it sounds all right the HT building it's for sale as I remember
so I know it's for sale I think do you know if Jeff updated us on the
It was under a letter of intent for purchase by an arts group. I think they were supposed to have that
answer. My understanding is Jeff was gonna fill that in. It's been in due diligence phase for potential
sale. Again, it could be left on for now until we confirm for sure that it's not and very similar to
Hopewell what we said. If you all decide that it's one of your top targets, then of course we can do
a lot more digging into the staff.
Okay. Just as a note on that site, again, partial unusability of part of the site. It is in a floodway
and part of, I mean, by floodway, I mean a creek in part of the site. There's extensive demolition,
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera on that site. So there are challenges there, notwithstanding the potential
sale. Okay. I will leave it on for now and not shade it out ultimately at this point, right?
and south of the post office. That looks like that's in a floodway as I can see, right? We know we can't
build in a floodway. It seems like we should gray that out similar to the Bloomington Transit Garage.
Yes, is that right? We're gonna take that one out. Okay. Tap Road North. Looks like it's partially in
a floodway.
what percentage of that would be and how it would impact the building that we need to build. Like there's
107 acres at that site. Can you help me understand the degree at which, yes, partially is affecting
the property? It's not significant enough that it would affect the buildable area really.
practically for you all. Probably the bigger consideration for North is it's a
It's adjacent, I'm sorry to use these types of terms, but it's adjacent to a karst area. It is planned
for building out though. Significant hills, there's a lot of infrastructure that needs to be built in.
The city's at least transportation plan has called for a relocation of Weimar Road for that
to be straightened out across this property, which would require the building of a bridge.
on the property because of the photography, but neither the floodway nor the being adjacent to Karst
area prevents you from building on. I mean, as we noted here, it's a hundred acres. It's not a significant
portion of it. It's just a small sliver. And because it crossed the property boundary, we said that
it did. Okay. So it seems minimal, right? Yes. And this property is on the north side of Tap Road.
Jason to Wapahani. Okay, correct. Anything else about the tap road north before we go on? With the owner
willing to sell the property being listed as unknown, at what point would we know? We still need to
reach out to the owners and find a definite answer to see if there's any interest there at all.
Okay. Ready for Tap Road South now. Tap Road South. Did somebody say something? I'm sorry. I just said
it's big, 95 acres. It is big, 95.29 acres it says. It doesn't look like there's anything on here to
just qualify it. That's right, thank you.
Thompson? Disqualified. Say that one more time. Nothing to disqualify from the preliminary round. Okay,
thank you. I'll leave that on, right? Then we'll go over to the next set of papers. South State Road,
37 and Fullerton.
the screening questions. I'm sorry, say that again. It's the screening questions. Is agree nothing to
disqualify. I think we can leave it on. Is North Park great out for a reason and private lot too? It's
great out specifically because it's outside of the city. So beyond the purview of this particular committee,
same with private lot too.
We're gonna leave Fullerton on, I presume? Yes. Okay. And North Park will stay on there, but grayed
out. And City Hall parking lot. I would just say that, yeah, I would say that there's no viable solution
for city parking if we were to get rid of that. It's not a short-term,
resolution to come up with that. And so I would say for the purpose of this group, it's not really a
viable discussion at this point. And we will gray that out. It seems I would agree with that assessment.
Yes, I will push back a little bit just because one of my colleagues, I believe council member Flaherty
put put this forward. So I feel like as the representative
It might be worth just keeping it on the list, not saying that that's going to be the option we go with.
Am I reading it right where it says 1.3 acres? Not big enough. I don't know how what we have to fit
would fit there, right? Physically. I can reach out to Councilmember Flaherty. Can you see if he has
a better idea how he thought that was going to fit? Yeah. That would be great. I would say the same
for Convention Center parking lot. They're both... Same signs.
Subpar for space. It's also overflow for county employees parking because the county parking garage
is smaller than needed at times. Then so let's go back to the City Hall parking lot. Are we gonna gray
that out or for now like just like the Convention Center or not? Councilmember Zulik said she well sorry go ahead.
bring it back. I think the point about the square footage is well taken and I'm happy to leave it off
as well. Okay so we can gray that out along with the convention center and then if that changes you
can let us know right? Absolutely. Yeah okay. Will do. We don't have a final recommendation yet so we
have some time. Thank you. So private lot one so again that's 1.6 acres from what I can see right? I
would also say it doesn't meet the minimum
square footage unless it's adjacent to something else so without being an executive session i'm not
sure what this is but we're happy to present that to you thursday just to give you a little bit more
information about the location and the pros and cons of like the others i think we can gray it out for
now and bring it back if we need to will that work so we're kind of consistent on that philosophy right
i'll just ask the attorneys to proactively bring it back to us in executive session if it's
Directly adjacent to another property that we're discussing and could be added Yes, that will that will
take care of that. Thank you And then private lot two that is 30 acres Okay, so let's tally up what
we have left here from what I can tell what I wrote down Building with curry the curry building
The Tap Road North, Tap Road South, Thompson, Fullerton. About it, right? I think we still have question
marks on Hopewell. East, West, and HT is, according to my notes, we did not choose to gray them out,
although they all sound like long shots. Yeah. In some ways, I'd be happy with graying them out, and
then we can bring them back. I kind of like that at some point.
Was that a comfortable way to do it for others or do you like just putting question marks there for
now? I'm fine either way actually, but. I think we have a week left and we need to. If we really want
to chase our highest prospects. We should do a lot of due diligence on the highest prospects. Yeah,
my vote is great amount for now. That OK with folks? I agree.
Is Wilson, you're okay with that? Yes. Okay, all right. So, that brings us down to... Sorry, fell iron
bender lumber also was categorized as a pretty long shot. Grate that out as well. That's what I have
on my notes. Yes. Okay, yes. So there's one, two.
left is that the tally I get that everybody on the same page there yes counting yeah renovations with
three as separate from curry yes we're down to six okay so I'm just gonna number them so I don't get
lost here renovations is gonna be one for me Curry's gonna be two
be three that's north tap road north tap road south is going to be four thompson will be five everybody
got that everybody with me yep okay all right we're down to six so let's proceed down our list here
so um can i ask a quick question oh sure
So our one and two on this list, one is renovations of current building with Curry, and number two is
Curry Building. Can someone tell me what the vision is of the difference between those two columns?
I think maybe somebody over there might be able to help more than me. Do you know the difference between
these two projects? Well enough to speak about it? I mean, I know there's a difference, but I don't
know if I'm well enough to speak about it. I think the difference between the two columns is,
The first column, the renovation, incorporates reusing the current justice building. The second column
uses Curry alone. I don't know that the space with it would be Curry and Fiscus. The Curry and Fiscus
building alone provides enough square footage. And so I think the only viable option would probably
be with the use of the current justice building. Which would be the new number one? It would be the
first column. First viable column.
and we should eliminate two under that. Is that correct? Do you know the size of the Curry Fiscus alone?
Or can we look that up potentially? I can try to look it up. I know that we asked our GIS division to
do a map of all the properties with square footage and then to put the overlays to show usable square
footage and they're currently working on them. We hope to have it by the next meeting, but I also don't
want to commit the surveyors office to the undeliverable. Sure.
be helpful to clarify whether we're just talking about the Curry Building or any other county adjacent
owned property to it as well. The Curry Building itself is a separate parcel which is relatively small
and it does it is not historically designated surprisingly even though it's renovated as a historic
building but there is other county property obviously to the immediate west of the Curry Building as
well which could expand out that.
It's the fifth biggest building that Molly mentioned. That's the public defender's office. Yeah.
So Ms. Zulek, I think you added the curry. Did you have a vision of how that would, when we're evaluating
the property, it might be helpful to get a sense of what was the proposed? Sure. That came about from
a lot of conversations I had with other county council members.
happy to reach back out to them. But honestly, I do think. Well, let me back up. I agree that the Curry
building itself will not be. Just want to focus on the one and not two. I'm fine with that as well.
Did the Curry building in the number two we had at one point with did that include the Fiscus? Is that
what she was saying? I believe so, but I can confer.
That's what I thought I heard the table over here mentioned. There's just no way you'd leave the viscous
building. It just wouldn't make sense. I don't know if it's a separate property or not in terms of the
GIS, but it wouldn't make any sense to leave just the much smaller viscous building. So you're saying
it would be the curry? I think it has to be both. If you're going to do anything with curry, I think
it has to be both because that's all county owned right there.
I also have an answer on the historic preservation aspect of Curry, so I'm happy to speak to that one.
Let's do that. Okay. So I spoke to the chair of the historic preservation commission, and this is a
process that could happen at the exact same time as the rezoning process would odds are it takes much
less time than the rezoning process would take. Essentially, it would go to the historic preservation
commission, they would
It's only on the national registry. It's not considered on our local registry. And so essentially, it
would go to the Historic Preservation Commission for a potential demolition delay. If that demolition
delay was voted for, it would then come to council who has the final vote to vote it up or down. So
ultimately, I do think that my colleagues on council would be
favor of maybe doing something to preserve the facade, but certainly not getting in the way of building
a new jail. And just to be clear, that will move much more quickly than the zoning process. So that's
not something that's going to rub up against us with the timeline.
Larry Allen, did you mention that there was no historical designation? So. Just exactly what council
members like just said, which is it's not designated under the city. It may be federal, but federal.
Replaces, but it's not designated by the city of Wilmington as a district. And how do you approach that
national historic designation? How does that work? I'm not sure I know.
on record and say this, but I'm fairly certain that it's a contributing building and that the National
Registry has much less strict rules for contributing buildings than our local code does. Okay, so it
depends on what kind of historic designation it is. I would love to get a confirmation from Attorney
Allen. Would that be available on the GIS? Do we know? Does that appear there? It isn't, but I'll look
it up and I'll get back to you with that information. Thank you. Okay.
I have a question on timeline, though. So if it needs to go to the historic preservation commission
or committee, what has to be prepared in order for it to get to the historic preservation committee?
Do we need a design? Do we need a proposal? What are the steps to accomplish that? I think it would
be demolition approval for the current building.
You would need to know enough of the design to know how much of the current building, especially the
facade, will be demolished. So if we were gonna... So one of the challenges, I think, with making a
Curry building into a jail, if that's the plan, and it sounds like you're gonna follow up on what the
proposed plan is for Curry, retrofitting it would probably be the less desirable instead of
removing the building entirely and building up from the ground issues for building construction issues.
That's why I was trying to figure out, sorry. You're probably going to have to level the building and
start from scratch to be short. So I wasn't sure how much of a design or information would be needed
to what committee and how long that would take. And one of the things in the resolution was to kind
of work through the procedural steps.
maybe that's something we could find out by this meeting so we could be able to share that. So I would
like to just state the elephant in the room here, which is that we all agreed to serve on the subcommittee.
Speaking for myself, I don't have a lot of extra bandwidth right now to do the homework that it takes
to figure out the answers to these questions.
who are we expecting to do that? For instance, Larry has been chasing a lot of these details for us,
and I think some procedural things, and Molly, thank you, I think some of the procedural things we can
track down, but when it comes to
more specific technical questions about if you want to preserve the facade on the Curry building, I
think we actually need a construction expert to come in and give us some idea of exactly what's needed
there. The ability to fill out the sheet is
going to be challenging by next week. I think that's correct if you're if you're looking for an opinion
I guess reaction to your statement in terms of what we can do and what we can't do. One of the challenges
here I think are twofold. One is my understanding and Molly can correct me if I'm wrong is my understanding
is we don't have a contractor like DLZ under contract anymore by the county and so
Because the purview of this particular subcommittee doesn't seem to come with expenditure funds, it's
very hard to then hire or get that expert to participate in this.
I think just as a practical reason, I think the natural tendency here is when we're looking at sites
is to want to also start to do the design, i.e. multi-floor, single-floor, all those things. There's
a lot of information on the sheet, and this is not to dodge that information. We are trying to get the
best information that we possibly can at this stage.
But a lot of it does come later, even in the due diligence process, much later, honestly, in the due
diligence process to talk about cost of remediation, what remediation is needed. Some of these things
we have a good idea on only if they've been developed or redeveloped fairly recently. My example of
this would be Hopewell, you know, is a good example of the city has put tremendous amount of money
into it similar to the county with looking at both the rogers property the thompson property and north
park and so those sites we do have some information on we have the geotechnical we have the environmental
so we have a sense of what we're getting into
If the property has been sitting with a use for several decades at this point, it's very possible that
that documentation is just so out of date and just doesn't exist for us in a readily findable format.
Of course, we can find things like environmentally restrictive covenants, things that are publicly recorded,
but in terms of getting down to
Where is bedrock? Is it even across the site? What kind of soils on the site? What kind of hydrology
do we have on the site? All of that comes almost when you're at the groundbreaking phase close to it,
because even when you're doing due diligence for the purchase, and I'm sure all of you can attest who's
been part of projects, is that you do some amount of potholing and due diligence during the purchase
phase, only to find out during construction that that potholing
just pick the perfect places to miss the key areas that you needed to know for expenses. So I'm saying
that not to delay, but just to acknowledge the reality that there are a lot of these details that are
just going to be unknowable at this phase without the expenditure of significant amount of money, not
only for the professional construction agency to give their best bet, but also for them to have that
information and to be on site and to actually do some analysis.
I would say I appreciate that. There's a lot of questions I know that we're not gonna be able to answer
until the project gets further along. I think with this particular issue though, the resolution said
we had to look at properties within the city limits. By nature of that, that also means that there's
gonna have to be city processes we're gonna have to go through. And one of the foundational questions
that we have is how quickly we'll be able to build the property, which is of particular relevance, because
we know we're gonna get sued.
And besides the fact that there are 200 plus human beings in that building, and every day they're in
that justice building or in that jail, they're being exposed to conditions that have to change. So time
is one of our most critical, if not the most critical factor we have. So I was hoping we could explore
a little bit more about how long the city process takes. If it has to be the Historic Preservation
Commission, and then we have to go to the county council,
I know we have council member Zulek here, but I know she can only speak for herself. And then there
might be other people that I don't know what their positions are going to be. But knowing that process
and how long it takes will impact how quickly the project can move, which is I think some of these properties
we're going to eliminate because we're concerned about time. So if we can figure out the steps,
time period. I'm happy to make calls. You tell me who to call. I will follow up and put the hours in
if we need to. But whatever way I can help, I'm happy to help. And I'm very sorry and I didn't mean
to cause any confusion with my answer. I believe that the city processes are the most noble thing here.
The parts that are unknowable are honestly
some of the detailed site conditions and and when we're talking about is it appropriate for a particular
type of building that's where I'm talking about the difficulty you're you're 100% right about the city
processes and and we do have time estimates as we go down the sheet we have time estimates now those
can be sped up a little bit I think with cooperation and clear clear togetherness from the city and
the county you know on estimate
Just if you don't mind me taking another point of privilege. So when we're talking about these properties,
all of these properties across the board, not one of them exist in a zoning area that allows for a jail.
So the city of Bloomington has two zoning areas that allow jails as a conditional use. Those are an
institutional zoning area and then an employment zoning area.
None of these are in either of those types of zoning so so each of the properties that are considered
on this list would require some type of rezoning that usually is going to take between three and six
months to do from beginning to end now. The good thing is, I mean the good thing is that that process can run.
sort of parallel with some other processes. When we're talking about historic designation or rezoning
and potential, as we're getting closer to site plan approvals and things like that, some of those can
kind of run in conjunction to each other to shorten that ultimate timeline. So what would normally be
potentially and conservatively a 12-month, and I think you see this listed here, a 12-month
Timeline for full approvals. I think can be shortened quite a bit. It does take a lot of coordination
It takes some some some heightened coordination, but it's very possible Regardless the the process you're
gonna have to go through for the rezoning is go before the Board of Zoning Appeals Site plan goes before
the Plan Commission all of these require there to be some
documents like construction documents that are ready to go so that they can be reviewed by planning
staff, that they can have comments back and forth and then get submitted to the planning, the plan commission
and the BZA as appropriate, plus public notice of hearings, which are usually 21 days in advance at
minimum. So there's, when we're talking about that three month timeline, that's really a, it is a tight
timeline. It seems like a long time, but for staff, that's a fairly tight timeline.
Is it doable? I think so. I think with, it's very helpful to have the mayor here, and certainly with
her cooperation, it's doable. But just to understand, that timeline's very knowable because we have
some experience with projects. And we know that each of these sites will need some type of rezoning.
So thank you. So if I understand, then say we picked a property where there hasn't been any environmental
studies, none of those reports have been completed.
In order for us to get to zoning, we would have to have some type of design for the property.
Is that right? So certainly for site plan approval before you can break ground, you're going to have
to have a fairly good plan. For those that need purchasing, so if you're buying from a private, and
if I'm saying something that's really obvious and everybody knows this, please stop me in the middle.
I'm very sorry. If you're buying from a private property,
You know, you're going to talk about the restrictions for governmental purchase, so we're not even talking
about the financing necessarily of it. You need to allow for a couple of things to happen again kind
of simultaneously. Those would include two independent appraisals of the value of the property if they're
held in private hands. Those take roughly 30 days.
45 days is common as well so 30 to 45 days depending on the appraiser to get those reports completed
those are necessary by law to complete at that same time you could be negotiating potentially you know
non-binding letter of intent that could really inform a very good purchase agreement you could also
get permission to run some of the phase one environmentals when you're talking about phase one environmentals
when you say
Are there environmental on the site? Again, minimum 30 days, it really depends on the season and the
environmental consultant. Just to be frank, in a really busy building season, sometimes it can be hard
to schedule them, and those can get pushed out to 60 to 90 days just to get your phase ones done. Typically,
a phase two is going to be common, particularly when you're talking about a governmental entity and
a use that's this important where you're involving
So you get to extend that, maybe double it for it. You take phase one is typically done, a phase one
environmental analysis.
just for some background is done on historic documents largely. There may be some site investigation,
but it's fairly limited. So usually what the environmental consultant will do is go out there, see if
anything's been recorded, what the historic uses of the site is. You'll get a report. This is what's
been on that site. Here's where we see potential problems coming. If there's been any other recorded
environmental reports, they'll find those and they'll try to flag.
A phase two is where you really get into the investigation of the site itself. So beyond the historic
documentation, that's where you're going to get taking core samples and soil samples. That takes,
you know, again, doubling that period of time, conservatively, 120 days, potentially just for environmentals.
If someone has a different experience recently, please, please let me know. But that's been my experience
is that that's about how long it takes.
building season, those environmental consultants are at a premium, particularly if you want
a good environmental consultant and you potentially have any problems with the site, any kind
of contamination whatsoever. There are sites where we do have those. We know that they have them. Typically,
if it's been sold or bought recently, you'll have some sort of phase one minimum
provided because that can get you what's considered a bona fide purchaser protection under the environmental
laws. So it's a baseline. All of this is kind of what you should have done. You should have the phase
one, the appraisals, all of that would need to be done before any kind of purchase agreement is solidified
and certainly before you close on the property.
That process shortens a little bit if you're going government to government because the liabilities
are a little bit different and some of that's taken care of. You also can shorten. Sometimes you can
only get away with only one. The law only requires one appraisal, for instance, so you don't have to
worry about two appraisals. So in terms of that timeline, what we're talking about, I think conservatively,
You know, we've said three to six months to get some of the city planning, the rezoning aspects. I think
it's probably about the same, probably that three months to four month period to get your due diligence
to negotiate an LOI and to get to the point of purchasing if this is owned by any separate entity than
the county. Thank you. That was really helpful. I appreciate that. Any other comments before we decide
to talk about something else?
to suggest that while we're in this preliminary process, we may just come up with a formula for ballparking
how long it is to ground break without trying to troubleshoot every detail of every property. We've
just heard from Mr. Allen that it's going to take three or four months longer to do
any purchase of a private property. We know that the historic review sounds like it can happen
contemporaneously with zoning. So that time point wise may not be an issue, et cetera. I think we can
come up with an algorithm that works for each. Anybody else have feedback on that?
So where do we go now? I would recommend that we come up with a critical path of questions that we need
answered before our next meeting, and who's going to get them answered. That's a really good idea. So
that we were really strategic in what we're hitting. And so we're down to five properties now.
old number two out. So then what areas do we still need help with then? Let's see. Looks like we're
down. Constitutional care didn't get much attention from what I can see on the screen for questions.
The process for securing utilities will be really important. One page two.
8B. You have to contact the utilities for each of the properties remaining, right? Unless, I mean, I
do see that under 8C, it says how long will those steps take, and none of them say longer than construction,
with the exception of the Thompson property.
necessary if that's the case. Yes, it is necessary because you will encounter some that have
major infrastructure lacking. Some will have sewer mains right in front of them, for instance, and water and Duke.
others you'll have to put in the preliminary infrastructure before you can even consider tapping. So
8B I think is a worthy question. I think no longer than construction is probably what C will say for
everything because that's how long it's going to take. So if we're happy with that answer, I think we
could eliminate 8C.
I think that's fine. I would like to revisit D1 adequate usable space for 448 beds. I don't think it's
our charge to decide what the bed count should be. If we're going to talk about size, let's do square
footage. I don't want to get us into a situation where we have more beds than we need. Sorry, where
did you get 884? Oh, 448. Okay, great. Did I say 884?
I don't know, I could have heard it wrong. Is there something in the lawsuit that says 448 is the number?
No, that number was from the Ray Report, which the county commissioned several years ago. Okay.
For clarity, that number also comes from two other reports that the county commissioned.
most recently I think it's RQF-AW. I'll just say that one way to approach this is that we're not condoning
the number of beds but it is an apples to apples way to look at something if we're not discussing design
like single story, multi story. Is there a way to get a certain number of beds and
I agree, I'm not, I don't have enough information and haven't studied enough to say how many beds are
needed. This is not my expertise. I would just suggest we come up with some number. We have a number
here and just look at apples to apples. It's not gonna be our job to decide how big the jail is. It's
not within our purview. I'm not even sure that needs to be on there because of that, you know? I agree.
size for the jail, maybe we just take the square footage of the building, right? That's under B4. It's
total estimated usable square footage. Well, it's kind of under that. That's for the land. Right. For
the building. That would be, yeah, that'd be maximum, of course. What square footage then would you
be proposing that we use? Say that again, I'm sorry? If the idea is to replace the 448 beds,
the rubric that's in here. Yeah. What square footage then are you proposing for the jail? Is it what
was proposed at the August 29th, 2025 DLZ presentation? We certainly have data on that. We do. Yeah.
And come back with some square footage numbers. I know the jail and sheriff's office is currently around
32,000 square feet.
Obviously it will need to be bigger than that, but I'm not convinced that the numbers we saw for North
Park and the North Park square feet were as big as they needed to be for the charge of what we're here
to do. You think the North Park numbers needed to be bigger? No, I think they needed to be smaller.
So I guess because that the North Park already included co-location, is that correct? So if we're not
doing it all,
we're just doing the jail in the sheriff's office, it wouldn't need to be as big as North Park from
what I understand. That is correct. One of the factors, and I think picking a site, is what that site's
gonna be used for in the future. Whether that be five years, 10 years, 40 years. Right. I would agree.
I didn't include the 448 because I was making a judgment on what the bed number would be.
I was looking at the Ray report, page 62, that had a finding that a 30 year jail bed capacity estimate
indicates that Monroe County needs 448 to 450 jail beds by the year 2049. So if the site is going to
have the longevity to be able to have space for the next 30 years,
I think that's the number we need to make sure there's enough adequate square footage for, not the size
of the current jail, which is too small already. I think everyone agrees that the current jail is too
small, but I don't agree with the inevitability that we'll have more and more and more inmates. I think
that if we as a community, especially as
community leaders are doing our job that number should fall it shouldn't be rising and so how can we
as a community reinvest in prevention methods that keep people out of jail because ultimately that should
be our goal. I agree that is the that is a goal we should all be working towards and I want to be careful
to stick to
For my part, stick to the charge that we have, which is to secure viable sites and not to discuss or
get into the elements needed in a jail. I think that's worthy discussion. If we want to partner with
the county on that in the future, perhaps we can find a path to do that. I would just say our job is
evaluating sites and seeing if they are adequate for the jail that is- That we know we have to build.
That we have to build. Yes. So what square footage? I guess that's fine if we want to use a different
number. We just have to pick a number. So I guess if you want to eliminate the 448, can we use the proposed
square footage of the design that was presented on August 29th, 2025
for the jail and jail administration as at least a minimum marker. Now the challenge I will tell you
is if you are proposing Curry, there are many other departments in Curry. So we're gonna probably get
into square footage of other departments as well once we get into discussing that property. But we do
need a minimum. And so if you wanna get rid of the 448, I would ask that we use the square footage that
has been proposed.
Well, I know we have that number from the August 29th report. I know that's available. So we'll just
compromise and thank you. So we're just going to put based on before we'll just put based on the August
29th data from that report, right?
and we're gonna take out the 448 number, is that correct? Yes. Thank you. All right, so. I'm back up
into the screening questions where it talks about the site meets the requirement of the constitutional
care. What answers do we, what questions do we need answered to best be able to answer
that screening question. Can you tell us what you were thinking April when you asked? I'm happy to share.
So one of the places I think we can look is the Kenray study and another place is the ACLU letter from
December 29th of 2025. I shared that a couple meetings back. If possible, if we could put that ACLU
letter on our subcommittee website so that the community has access to it. There are several things
that are listed in the letter.
And in addition, I would direct the committee's attention to the RAISE study when you have an opportunity.
In particular, if we could look at facility assessment, which starts on page 84. And throughout the
pages that follow, if you look on page 85, it gets into several different things that are 53 problem
areas related to safety and security, health, compliance with industry standards, structural and systems,
operational effectiveness,
inmate care and custody and environmental conditions. So that's, I think, a great place as we're evaluating
sites, those subsequent pages. I think that'll come out in discussion, but one of the most important
aspects is space, which I think comes back to our square footage issue. Maybe a question I have is,
would the North Park section that was just the jail and the sheriff's office, would it have met the
constitutional care requirement, do we know?
Well, I think it would have addressed several of the issues, like we have inadequate counseling areas,
inadequate housing, inadequate housing for segregation. I could go through the list, but I think space
is one of the most difficult pieces. As I remember, it probably met that criteria, right? No, I can't
speak to every single one, but I would say we'd have an improvement in several. It looks like Ms. Turner-King
had some. Oh, sorry, I'm ignoring you. It's okay. So if you use the,
square footage from the August 29th 2025 meeting, that blueprint was based on a design that remedies
these constitutional conditions. And so in essence, if you're using that square footage, then it would
meet constitutional care. Thank you. Thank you.
So then, is there anything else on the second page of these questions that needs some more discussion
or more help trying to figure out, get what we need? Question seven, additional costs. This B7, uh-huh.
Oh, I'm so sorry, B7. So there's some of those have answers in them.
The renovations of the current building with Curry. So it says to be determined, right? Yes, so for
those who don't work in the Curry or the Curry-Fiscus building, as Ms. Renbeck was sharing, the Fiscus
building has the public defender's office, which has several employees. And then the Curry building
has several different departments, and it actually has our magistrate as well as the part of the prosecutor's
office that deals with child support.
And so if this were to be considered, you're going to have to move everyone in that building. So that's
why it would be helpful to understand what the proposal would be for that space as an extension
or replacement to be able to start looking at numbers for our next meeting. That's why I was hoping
to better understand, is it going to be an extension of the jail? Are all the administrative offices
going to fit on the Curry Fiscus? Or footage?
I wasn't sure what the proposal was. So do we need any additional help then on the seven question? I
don't know if there are additional costs without knowing the proposal. I think because we're not putting
dollar values to these additional costs anyway,
we can just list relocation or co-location of existing departments. Let's take the easy path out of
that. I mean, we don't have bids on the roadways either, so. No bids, right. Does that make sense?
All right. So then moving down the line there,
about the process for securing utilities already. Who is doing that? I think we were relying on historic
information. So based on what we already knew about the sites, just generally, Mary, you made an excellent
point earlier though, in terms of the utilities that we do need a little bit more information. So I
think it's gonna be wise of us to reach out to both the CBU and Duke to try to get a sense
In some cases, where you've seen a longer timeline, that's because of Duke. With CBU, it's a little
bit harder because that's more of a flow and capacity issue that we know when we open up the ground
to have a conversation with them that we're going to be using that site. Yes, I think flow and capacity
are being consistently evaluated as developments come up and we have some development room. I think
if we just answered,
you know, is there a main there? How far away is it? We can do that means Larry's doing that, or?
I think so. Okay. I hear a volunteer, Mr. Allen. Ms. Turner King is going on vacation, I believe this
Wednesday, so. That's correct.
been an amount here. All right. So then are we on the next page then? Let's see. The answer
on the geotechnical and environmental studies, whether or not they've been completed would be helpful.
And what number and letter is that? Where are you at now? Oh, I'm sorry. E1. E1. That would be on the
next page. It's on page four. Yep. E1. The bottom. Yep. It's like the renovations of current building
with Curry is unknown, as well as the two Hopewell locations and... Sorry, looking at my other side
of my sheet. It looks like the two...
for Fullerton and North Park are completed. So we just need some information on whether or
not the geotechnical and environmental studies have been completed for the renovations of the current
building with Curry and then Hopewell, West and East. Oh, not Hopewell, West and East. I just can't
read. Okay. I believe the tap road locations though do need an answer there.
Is that along with Thompson? And is that something feasible to think that Larry could help us with or
not? I think there's some estimates, you know, based on like
For Thompson, for Hopewell, the geotechnical does exist. I think you may have just said that, that you
saw that on the list, yeah. For the Currie building, because you have a current building on there, I mean,
likely you're not going to need a lot more geotechnical, it depends on how high you're building and
what that structure is and what weight. But I do think it's probably fair to assume that that will support,
you know, a building being that you have a relatively large structures adjacent to it, which would not
be able to stay if you didn't have at least some adequate geotechnical abilities, i.e. you have a
fairly large parking garage in the jail itself that are adjacent to it. So if nothing else, I don't
think there's gonna be anything that would be shocking on that particular site. So I think we could
mark, although it's marked as an unknown, I don't think it's as much of an unknown as they, the tap
road area is probably more of an unknown because we have not done any of that due diligence and we don't
know how much the owner has done.
And we ask that the ones that you think maybe more than just unknown be amended here so that we get
that information on our metrics. We can amend those in that information. Thank you. All right. Those
are all my comments.
here. Mr. Allen.
Sorry. Would it be possible on the very last section, question eight, will the site require additional
preparation? For the yes, is there any extra notation for renovations of Curry Building with Curry?
I see the other ones have a bit of a note, but I wasn't sure on the square.
Can I repeat the question to make sure I understand what it is? Just what is the additional site preparation
when there is a yes mark for the Curry building specifically? Would it be okay if we added that between
now and the next meeting? Would that be all right? Yeah, I think not only is it okay, I think so part
of those, anytime there's a structure standing, when you talk about additional site preparation, large
part that's gonna involve also demolition. So that site preparation is gonna involve demolition at least of
One or part of those buildings in addition to foundation those kind of things are additional site preparation
as we go across And we talk about you know, hope well has very specific Infrastructure needs that we
know about because the city has done that work has plotted out Understand that's a long shot And that's
very similarly, you know, there's you know tap road where it says
grade changes but also when we're talking about is all road infrastructure any place that does not currently
uh at a crossroads or immediate access is all going to have to road construction of some kind so that's
site preparation the other site preparation that could could occur on the remote sites is any kind of
grading soil remediation that kind of thing point of clarification what is the difference between um seven
and seven question does site have additional costs and eight will the site require additional preparation.
I think we should combine those two unless it was intended to be differentiation if there was
some differentiation let's spell it out.
I think sometimes there was just a road would be needed, but you could call that development too. We
could put in the same. Yeah, I think that's good. Combining seven and eight. Yeah. And then I'm trying
to figure out what the difference is between six and seven. And that's B, it's B seven and B eight,
I believe.
Yeah, B7 and E8. Oh, B7. There we go. Thank you. I was looking at the wrong seven for bingo cards.
All right. Yes, thank you. I'm with you now.
need to go over here or still down to the five properties right right I think we have five properties
and we have determined the most critical things to fill in before our next meeting I would suggest we
spend a few minutes determining how we're going to conduct this next meeting so that we can actually
process through some
I know we have executive committee, then we have, it'll be our last meeting where we really have discussion
before public comment and then we're making a decision. We'll have the executive public comment, right?
Next time. So what else do we need to add to that agenda besides those three things?
The executive committee will be talking about the private properties, right? I heard some feedback last
week about how we maybe should wait some of the criterion. We could have that conversation now. Okay.
Just really quickly, we also have a request just for the audience and everybody who's watching. Just
because we have gone back and forth between properties,
Could the chair somebody read out loud the five properties that are still in contention and what we're
specifically talking about To narrow it down so that everybody's clear. Thank you. Sorry council members
like I think these could be done together, but I Can read so I have I'm wrong you tell me okay, I'm
counting on the committee for this I have renovations of current building with curry and
north I have tap road south I have Thompson and I have Fullerton okay thank you that okay with a note
that I believe we put Hopewell West and East in half gray in case we have to return but it is unlikely
right HT I think we did the
the same thing for each t yeah the ht is dependent on the future property owner or potential future
property owner all right so we've got the five properties identified remaining in our work you all mind
if i restate i i'm very sorry this is more for my notes at this point
If that's okay, I don't mean to delay you further. Go right ahead. So the five properties in main contention,
which are not grayed out whatsoever, that we're considering is the Curry building with renovations to
the current site. The second one is Tap Road North. The third one is Tap Road South. The fourth is the
Thompson property. And then the fifth is the Fullerton property. And then as property alternates,
for consideration, if none of those work out or we need more information, those include potentially
Hopewell West, Hopewell East, the HT building, and then potentially private lot one, depending on what
happens in executive session. Is that correct? Yes. Thank you very much. That's what I have. To council
members Zulik's point, I would suggest that we try to develop
as uncomplicated as possible, weighted rubric, which also highlights any criteria that could possibly
disqualify a site immediately. And the ability to score those, I would feel most comfortable not scoring
them until, or waiting on the scoring until we hear the full public comment.
But perhaps we could come up with a formula and agree upon that at the next meeting. Do that first and
then discuss any new information that we have on the sites.
We could do a 3-2-1 system, where it's three points for any piece of criteria that directly relates
to the unconstitutionality of the jail. Two could be anything adjacent, and then one could be that we
have as a community, but not necessarily related to the constitutionality of care with jail. That way
we can add weight to things that aren't necessarily required.
So you're saying the numbers you would use to add to the points of value would be three, two, and one?
So you're saying that those things have different values, right? Yes, and so ultimately we could add
up the points for each property at the end. I get that part, but I don't understand how you've come
up with the weighted system for the categories.
I get the categories, but I don't know why that is three. I don't know why two is two. Why are the categories
weighted the way they are? That's my question. I think the weighting system is a great idea, and it's
one that at DLC actually used if you go back to the first packet. Challenge, though, is we're all going
to come at that at different perspectives, right?
We might spend a lot of time debating a three or a two when we're under such close constraints and we
need to figure out the information for each site and from our individual perspectives, you know, take
a vote from that. I think it's just, I don't think we're going to agree in the next two meetings on
which one's a three and which one's a two. But I do want to give voice to our individual concerns and
maybe we do that when we talk about the properties.
That's also fine with me. So we would have a waiting system or not? No, okay. Always only. Yeah, okay.
All right. Yeah. Thank you. All right. So by the next meeting, we would have a mostly complete spreadsheet,
primarily looking at five properties
And we shift the five over to the left. So that would be great. Yeah. So can we shift the five remaining
over to the left so that we can have all the ones we're working with viable at this point in one little
section of the whole chart here rather than having them all mixed up. I'd like to see that fine tuned.
Does that make sense? Did you hear that, Larry? I imagine you're going to be the one since Ms. Turner
King will be gone.
right now so to move all the properties in main contention to the left. All the remaining viable properties
to the left so that it's great out to the right of those. Yes, and even the potential alternative. Maybe
there should be three different sections, right? Maybe a current very viable, maybe alternative and
then the gray area, right? Different color designation. Yeah, that would be great. Does that make sense?
then we've got our categories of properties. All right. And what else? So the next meeting, we will
have an executive session and talk about the private properties. Talked about maybe talking about the
meeting agenda for the regular session. Do we wanna confer on that now? What would the regular session
agenda look like? It wasn't complicated this time because we were going over the site evaluations. Is
that still what that should be or should it be something different? I believe we'll still be doing site
evaluations. Anything in addition to that? I'd like to start talking about the property. All of that
on that Monday. Following Monday? After a public comment?
I know we're going to vote on Monday. I just wasn't sure if like to start talking about individual properties
on Thursday or wait. So would that come after public comment, you think? Thinking site evaluations,
start discussing properties and then open it to public. Okay. That would require a very quick moving
meeting. Say that again, I'm sorry. That will require a very quick moving meeting because we will be
starting public comment at seven. Exactly. That's exactly right.
I would suggest that we all come prepared with some comments about the properties. I would value hearing
from this subcommittee what their main concerns and priorities are with each of the properties
and considering those over next weekend along with the public comment that we're going to hear.
And I think that could advance our process for getting to a vote in the final meeting. But some concise.
Yeah, I think now that we're down to five, it's probably going to be somewhat manageable, right? And
then trying to keep however many there were to begin with all. Trying to figure out where you're at
with them all. Leave shortly. Is there anything else that anyone needs from me?
Well, we have a corn even if you leave. So is anyone else need to leave or is it just Sydney? Okay.
Couple minutes, but just there. Okay. So what else before we finish our work for tonight? It wrapped
up a little quicker than I thought. I must tell you this part of it. So I'm happy with where we're at
time wise tonight. I thought it was going to go on way long.
Anybody else have anything before we call this session adjourned? Any legal comments or suggestions?
I think I'm going to call the meeting adjourned then. Thank you.