- Good afternoon. It's just shortly after noon, and I'd like to call this collaborative justice project
- working subcommittee meeting to get to order. My name is Liz vital I'm the county council representative
- for this committee, and I'm the chair, I'm introducing Sydney's only from the city council mayor Carrie
- Thompson, Mayor of Bloomington April Wilson.
- the prosecutor's office and Karen Renbeck from the public defender's office with me here today. Thank
- you all for being here and thank you for those in person. All right, so we have our agenda in front
- of us. We need to adopt the agenda. Is there a motion to do that? So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye.
- Opposed? Okay.
- And then we got the minutes as presented in the packet. I presume people had reviewed those. And so
- we have the 24th of June, the 29th of June, July 1st, July 6th, and July 9th to approve. Is there someone
- who would make that motion? So moved. Second? I'll second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay, I've
- adopted or approved the minutes as presented.
- All right, so let's dig right in. We've got the property discussion for the five remaining properties
- that we came up with before. So let's just go from our spreadsheet there, how they're listed, and then
- that'll be no favoritism in my mind. So the Curry Building was on the
- off of that spreadsheet or the far left, I should say. Does somebody want to begin a discussion there?
- Councilmember Feidl, I thought we were going to start with the combined rankings and go down that list.
- I'm fine with that. Is that what we agreed to last time? We can do that, absolutely.
- That's fine with me. I didn't know if you want to jump right into that or discuss further about the
- properties where we do that. But maybe that'll come out if we do that. So combined rankings, maybe you
- can have Larry Allen present because he collected those, right? So up on your screen right now are the
- point totals for each of the five main sites that we had narrowed it down. This all five active members
- of the subcommittee voting, as you can see,
- The current site with expansion to Curry and Fiscus had the most total points with 22 points. That was
- five points for a first place vote and one point for a fifth place vote and distributed evenly in between.
- Fullerton or rather Thompson was the second place vote getter with 21, Tap Road South with 13, Fullerton with 10,
- and Tap Road North with the fewest votes at eight points. Actually, if you scroll down just a page,
- you can see the distribution of those votes. So how they came out is three members of the committee
- voted for the current site with the expansion as their top choice. One member voted as their second
- choice. One member is their third choice.
- the most popular second choice with four members voting that and one member voting that is their top
- choice. And then the others are distributed among three through five from there. And as part of the
- submissions, and if you want to go down one more, not trying to go too fast in this. If you have any
- questions, there were additional sites that were submitted, and so this this chart a little bit harder
- to read because of the smaller font.
- So I apologize for that. But there are three additional sites that were mentioned. Hopewell was mentioned
- twice as an additional preferred site. North Park once, and then a private site that we discussed in
- executive session once. Happy to take any questions based on the vote tallies that you may have. And
- all of these comments on additional sites came from members of the committee. Correct. These are not
- public comments. These are just from the committee members.
- as well as the votes, right? Correct. These are only votes from this committee. Okay, thank you. Digest
- this a little bit and see where we want to go from here. I have some questions about one of the properties
- since Mr. Cockrell is back. Would this be a good time to kind of sort through that? Yeah, I think.
- I don't know where else we'd put it, so you might want to go ahead. And I did bring a PowerPoint presentation
- for why I voted the way that I did also as well at any point, which I'll get into in my presentation.
- So one of the questions that I have for Thompson is regarding these power lines, where they're located.
- And it feels a little unclear about
- how the power lines ultimately will affect being able to construct. Now, I have received emails and
- information that you cannot, that there's gonna have to be some allowances from the power lines and
- that'll be determined later on. I also have some emails that say that you're not gonna be able to build
- until the power lines are done. But it's also my understanding that the Duke has not received proposed
- site plans
- or what the property would look like. And I was wondering if that's going to have an impact on the ability
- to start possibly building part of the justice facility, specifically the jail, and then later co-locating
- other additional pieces in a phasing design. Can you give me clarity? I don't think I can give you much
- clarity. I think it depends on the site design. And I think at the end of the day,
- this is a very generic understanding, right? The very generic understanding is that you can't really
- disturb the ground around the power lines because there's power lines and you don't want them to fall,
- right? And so depending on where your site plan is, you may or may not have the... I guess my feeling
- is that it's more likely than not that you would have to move the power lines before, but I'm not a
- designer or anything like that. If you could design
- the jail component so you didn't have to move the power lines to build it, then you wouldn't have to
- move the power lines to build it. But I think at the end of the day, if you're going to co-locate, by
- the time you co-locate, you'll have to move the power lines. I don't think you could fit both halves
- in an area that would not require the power lines be moved. There's an open question as to whether you
- could design the jail in such a way that you wouldn't have to move the power lines. I don't know.
- I know you just got back from vacation. There's an email that I shared that I got from a communication
- with the commissioner and Duke. That was what I'm trying to follow up on. So if you want a chance at
- it, I can ask later to use any nuance to that. I think what Duke has been very clear in that they need
- some kind of site design in order to make the determination of whether you need to move the power lines
- or not. I guess my feeling is that even if
- you don't necessarily have to move them for phase one. You'd probably want to move it pretty early anyway,
- just because at the end of the day, where the power lines are, are going to be a hindrance to wherever
- you end up doing. I think it opens up the property such that in 10 years, if you wanted to do the colocation,
- you'd want those out of the way already. In 10 years, if you want to do something else with the property,
- you'd want it out of the way. I think there's a factor with the power lines that
- And again, I am not saying you wouldn't have to move them prior to building the jail. I don't know,
- right? So I think, does that answer your question? Thank you. Mr. Cockrell, what was your earliest
- recollection of Thompson being considered as a site for the jail? I would say, I mean, I started in
- 2007. I think at that time, we all knew that it had been purchased for the purpose of building
- either a jail or a juvenile facility or something like that. I want to say 2008, they had a study done
- on the property that I don't think the community was real happy with, but I think it was clearly the
- thought was to put either a justice facility or a juvenile facility there. At what point were the power
- lines noticed to be an issue? I think when we looked at it seriously after we got the reports back in 2021,
- Okay, it's been five years since then. I guess I'm just curious why they haven't been moved since then,
- especially given that county council has failed the North Park property twice. I'm just, I'm a little
- bit curious as to why this work hasn't been done yet. And I would say that the council and commissioners
- have not expressed that they needed to be moved. Okay, thank you.
- I would like to comment on what I know, which is really just surface level knowledge of these power
- lines and this property in question. I know that at least when it was initially looked at the power
- lines were going to have to be moved in order to provide access to the facility.
- I think we need an assessment from somebody who actually completes construction projects to say whether
- or not we can start construction before they are moved. There is a considerable amount of site prep
- that needs to be done on this property, and site prep can take a much longer time than those of us who
- don't build large institutional buildings are aware of.
- So I took your timeline on moving those power lines, I think is probably realistically what it will
- take. And I think we just need to get somebody engaged who does manage these types of projects to take
- a look seriously at the project and see if construction could start before those power lines get moved.
- And I would imagine that
- Jeff is right that we could not disturb any of the ground beneath those power lines. They have a pretty
- strong easement there and wouldn't want to for safety. Any other comments about that part before we
- move on? Anything from the table over here about that?
- anything else from the table over here about that? I don't think so. Well, I don't know if we need an
- official motion or not, but it appears that we have two very strong contenders for our top choice. I
- would like to propose that we spend the bulk of our time discussing those two properties.
- with the potential of discussing the third at that point. Now maybe we want a complete conversation
- about Thompson and comments on Thompson and then move on to the downtown properties at Curry and maybe
- tap south or north, okay. All right, so anything else? Should we just focus on Thompson? I like that
- idea first.
- I do have a presentation that covers the properties, including Thompson. So would this be a cut? Can
- you focus on the Thompson property in your presentation? Would it be OK if I just complete the presentation?
- Because I think it explains my rankings. So you don't have maybe isolated in your presentation the Thompson
- piece? We do talk about the Thompson piece. OK. The piece which we're going to talk about.
- So can we do the Thompson first and then we'll move on to the Korean? We'll see if anybody else has
- Thompson, then we'll move on to the Korean. Is that possible? It is possible. It might be easier to
- do the presentation as a whole. It's not an inconvenience. Okay, so I'm okay with that. Is the rest
- of the committee okay? All right. Can you give us an idea of how long this presentation is? Yeah. It's
- 21 slides. Get brief.
- I figure since the county's getting ready to spend over $100 million, I wanted to make sure that I explained
- to the community what my thought process was and why I ranked them the way that it did, and I was trying
- to do it in the most transparent manner possible. I'll try to move through quickly, but up to you if
- you wanna have my presentation after we discuss Thompson, I'm happy to do that as well. So what are
- we thinking? Do we want to,
- I'm happy to hear what you have to say. I don't want to indicate that. But I also think that I'm wondering
- how it will help us get to the final thing, what we need to do, which is to send our rankings to the
- bigger group of people where they can then figure out what to do from here on. So I'm wondering how
- that is going to help with that. Because ultimately, we're going to have to vote. And I think it might
- be helpful understanding
- what parts of the property we found are concerning, because you might have insight that I might have
- missed. And I'm happy to hear that for any of the properties. I thought the rankings was just a starting
- point. OK. But like I said, I'm happy to wait till after our conversation about Thompson if you'd prefer
- that I do the presentation at that time. What are others thinking here? I'm not the only one here. I
- have another job that I'm going to have to go back to eventually. So it would be very, very helpful
- if I could be out of here by 1.30.
- have a little over an hour. How long do you think it would take you to do your slide presentation? Do
- you have any idea? No, but I'm sure I can move quickly if you would like. To be helpful to get started
- then. Yeah, let's just go ahead and if we need to, we'll we'll figure it out from then. OK, yeah, I
- understand. I appreciate it. Mr. Beck and I actually had court this afternoon, so we've. You also have
- to get back. No, we got coverage. We're here to be here to the end. OK, I.
- TSD, if you wouldn't mind promoting me. Did you hear a TSD, please? TSD, did you promote April Wilson,
- please? Yes. Oh, they might have to give her permission to share your screen.
- Okay, is that it? The one that's appearing now? Thank you. So I'll try to move quickly as requested.
- So these are the five properties we've already discussed that we have to consider under the limitations
- that we've been given by the county council. I wanted to share with you my least favorite property.
- I'll make this brief.
- because I know that doesn't seem like it's one, I think it's one we generally agree on. This is the
- Tap Road North. It was my number five, my least favorite. It's also the one I know the least about.
- The reason that I made this recommendation is based on some of the information here on the right-hand
- side. The site being fragmented, I have a concern about co-location being able to attach the buildings.
- Even though I will note the GIS information the commissioners gave said this was a maybe. So I'm not
- sure if this is a shall or maybe, but it's a concern.
- also concerned about minimal opportunity for site development circulation and access as well as the
- fact that the properties at least as proposed look a little close to the waterway and it being so far
- from the center of downtown as a totality made me eliminate that property. Fullerton it sounds like
- we're not going to be focusing on also I'll just quickly skip to the next slide but I'm happy to discuss
- it further. It comes down to access concerns
- If I remember correctly, there's only one way to get in and out, and I'm really concerned about everyone
- leaving at the exact same time emergency view support. So that moves us to Curry, which sounds like
- we're gonna focus on those two today. So if you don't mind, I'll move through there. I wanted to start
- with being really clear about the wording that we're using for Curry, because I know we'd gone back
- and forth on this. This is an image that I got off GIS. On the right-hand side, we have the Justice Building,
- on this yellow, this is what I mean when I say Curry. And here in the green rectangle is what we consider
- Fiscus. Green is where the public defenders are. I'd also note that there is a small courtyard in this
- left-hand corner, which if we were seriously considering Curry, I wanted to make sure we figured out
- what our space would be. And so I also included a calculation of the base square footage.
- I've received two different numbers on the total square footage of the Justice building, and this is
- all floors. The highest one was 137,800 square feet, so that is the one that I used. In terms of the
- Curry, my understanding is the base is 10,406. Legal was kind enough to provide that number for me.
- The square footage of the base of Fiscus is 4920. At least that's the best information I have at this
- time. And this patio, I went with 2984. I understand that there is an indication of the patio at 2000,
- but I'm not sure if that includes what you see to the right of that orange box, which is enclosed. But
- to be the most fair to the property, I included the highest number.
- So what that means is we have a base square footage of Curry Fiske's courtyard of 18,310 square feet
- approximately. We talked about utilizing the August 29th, 2025 Jail Justice Campus total square footage.
- So this is all of it. And that was 2,237,161 gross square footage.
- Do you think it's important to note there's a difference between net square footage and gross square
- footage? At times, I received numbers and I don't know which one I received. When I do know, I have
- marked it accordingly. My understanding of net square footage is if you go in a room and literally measure
- it, but gross square footage is the extra that goes into the walls and other spaces.
- Using that numbers the gross square footage if the justice building stays at its current square footage
- of 137,800 square feet, this will leave 99,361 square feet for the remaining justice departments. I
- think that that if you divide that by their 18 310 that gives us about five and a half floors, which
- would have to be six.
- I wanted to share that I think there's some caveats in my calculations. First of all, I am not a processional
- site evaluator. Someone needs to do that. But I also don't know if we can take away the courtyard. That's
- something that is beyond information I have at this time. I don't know if there's going to be setbacks
- that might also take away squared footage. And like I said, the numbers varied a little bit, so the
- footage may change as well. I tried to be as generous to the proposal as I could in this presentation.
- The other thing to consider is that the original project at North Park was based predominantly on a
- single floor design, so I think we have to acknowledge to the public that that single floor. Now, if
- it's a multi story, it may make the square footage increase one you're gonna have to have elevators.
- You're also going to have stairwells that weren't originally planned. That might cut into our square
- footage. And there's also, I would argue, going to have to be designed redundancies with both the jail
- and remaining justice departments. An example for that is if you have a multi-story jail, are you going
- to need additional spaces for medical on different floors? That might have been accounted for in a single
- floor, but I don't know if there's going to be changes. You're also going to have redundancies in justice
- departments. I'm thinking public bathrooms.
- as an example where you might have multiple floors. So this square footage may increase. I also have
- questions about whether or not the square footage includes the election division. That might take a
- little bit of the square footage off. And I do not believe, but I am not sure, that the outdoor recreational
- space on that August 29th presentation looked like it was outside. So I do not believe that square footage
- was included. On a multi-story design,
- I think outdoor recreation was something that came up, so that was something I wanted to raise as a
- concern. I would also note that the parking garage has 240 parking spots right now. We still have overflow
- in two different locations. That means if we stay where we are, we have to consider parking long-term
- for future employees. There's also the question of whether the City Council will approve a seven-story
- Justice slash Curry building.
- Then I have some information of inflammation, mutation, and costs. If you would like, I can keep going
- through that, or I can skip to Thompson just to go through it. I'd like to come back to the costs when
- we get to that conversation, because I think it's important. Chair Feidl, would you like me to do that
- now, or? Well, I think there's a part of me that's a little concerned about how some of this is based
- on how it's all going to be built, and our charge is to pick a location.
- So I would really like to refocus that in the rest of your presentation going forward if we can. I'm
- glad you brought that up because I think one of the concerns I have is if we pick a site like Currie,
- we are pinning in the design options. We are making particular choices that will have an effect long-term.
- So I think it's pretty integral. My position would be it's pretty integral to site design. And by example,
- I think we're getting into cost. So one of the things that I heard about the Curry site is that some
- people have argued we should use the sites the county already owns because those will be cheaper than
- purchasing another property we don't own. And I don't want to mislead the public that there aren't going
- to be additional costs in using some of the county sites that we do own like Thompson and Curry. Curry
- is a really good example.
- If we go to the RQAW, this is page 158, they specifically say, and this is just the RQAW, that renovating
- the existing Monroe County Jail will require relocating the existing courts for two years during
- construction. It will also require relocating and transporting the existing inmates to other county
- jails around the state.
- And then they give calculations. I won't go into the details because we're moving quickly. But the cost
- to renovate the jail in the same study on a different page had it between $58 million and $67 million
- as a range. And the cost to move inmates during the renovation was about $11 million, $3 million. And
- then in moving the employees of the justice building was another $5 million and some change. And that
- does not account for the cost to build a new jail if it was an annex and the administrative offices on top.
- So I do think as a result of this particular design, the financing, I think you're gonna have to look
- at how the design is gonna affect. I think this will be very expensive. And I think it's more expensive
- than maybe we've previously talked about in a public meeting. And ultimately the council and commissioners
- may do that. But I just wanted to make sure that we had an honest conversation of how picking the site
- may ultimately be more expensive.
- besides the fact that you are going to disrupt the most of the justice system to accomplish it, moving
- out all the employees. So I gave an option two, which I'll skip, but I wanted to make sure we talked
- about that. In terms of Thompson, I will tell you I voted for this to be my second property. It really
- is in my heart, my favorite one. I've really struggled with, I've gone back and forth between my top
- recommendation and Thompson.
- And I saw from the rankings that actually there's at least, as the mayor was saying, I think we're starting
- to gather around at least that as a property.
- The reason I like this property is because it's close to downtown, it's close to transportation, it's
- the ability to be able to walk from here to some of the services. I like the fact that you can co-locate
- in the future. I think that checks a lot of really important priority boxes for me. But ultimately,
- the reason that I made it second is because I'm concerned about the power lines. I frankly am
- quite concerned about delay. So I have more to my presentation. I'm going to pause here so that way
- we can talk about Thompson. And then if it's OK, I'd like to come back to my property when we get a
- chance. The rest of it. Does someone else want to talk about Thompson at this point? I think I've said
- the majority of what I'd like to say about Thompson, but it is very frustrating that
- this property has been under consideration for as long as we've been talking about building a new jail,
- and yet integral infrastructure things that need to change have not been accomplished. So it is frustrating
- because I do feel that this would be a very strong contender to be the next jail location. And because
- due diligence was not done prior to this moment, it doesn't feel like we can.
- Tomson also was my number two choice. I think if for some reason there is a foregone conclusion, which
- is not my understanding that it is a must to have everything on one floor, Tomson would be my top choice.
- That's obviously not possible at Curry, which was my top choice.
- And so the ask is a is a minimal ask. Same process acknowledging that. Um, and I think. Even with an
- accelerated time frame, you're two years out from, um, from
- probably beyond that. So starting the move of the power lines now would be prudent. Making that property
- marketable in the future for the county is going to necessitate moving those power lines anyway. So
- my recommendation would be get those power lines taken care of. It's a great housing site as people
- in the community probably already know.
- purchased the first part of Osage Place when I was still director at Habitat, looked at the entire property.
- It's a great residential development and opportunity, but those power lines are going to need to be
- moved anyway to make the most of that. Okay. Anyone else about Thompson? Renbeck, did you have anything?
- I have more to say about Curry, but Thompson was my top choice.
- anything else about Thompson. This Wilson. Did have well, I agree with the concerns about the power
- lines. I did have one little question about this parcel right here. There was some discussion at some
- point about that needing to be purchased.
- you're shaking your head, Mr. Cockrell, that no longer needs, and that's my understanding as of today
- is that it does not need to be purchased in order to move forward. That property that you've got highlighted
- in black was never intended to be purchased. It's the one immediately to the left of that. Okay. Kind
- of right behind what is now Norvo Nordisk. Thank you. So it's that little one just immediately to the
- left. Okay. You might have to point.
- Oh, thank you. Small rectangle immediately to the left of the pink. And that would be contingent on
- whether you need access off strong drive that would if you and there. There are some environmental issues
- that would need to be explored in that area, whether I mean there's. There are environmental things
- there that you would need to look at.
- random things to add on location on Thompson and I guess I ran ran the numbers, not just for what's
- in city limits, but what's the actual distance from the courthouse, which is what I think we can all
- identify as.
- the center of downtown. The current jail is 0.2 miles away. The Thompson property is 1.6 miles away
- from the courthouse. Tap Road North is 2.9 miles. Tap Road South is 3.2 miles and Fullerton is 4.2 miles.
- So as the downtown representative, I just want to put that out there because something can be in city
- limits without close access to anything. And so I just wanted to
- share that. Additionally, according to our metrics, Thompson and the Curry plus renovations are the
- only two properties that currently have access to public transportation. So just some things to keep
- in mind as we're moving forward. Anyone else? Any further thoughts about Thompson? So shall we proceed with
- or do we just want to focus on these two? I would move that we shift our conversation to Curry now and
- then move to the other three properties as time allows. Second. All in favor? Aye. All right,
- Curry it is. Who wants to go and talk about Curry? I can open our discussion with Curry. This was my
- top choice.
- It's a top choice with caveats, though. As I mentioned in the last meeting, we really do need an expert
- to come in and tell us what's feasible in this area to work with city planning department to figure
- out exactly what's going to be required in terms of zoning. I have a vision of this combined property
- as being able to construct
- part of the building without disrupting the current jail, get that inhabitable, and then begin renovations
- of the existing justice center. I have no idea if that's feasible. And we really do need experts to
- come in and opine on that. Additionally, I think there's potentially connectivity
- over that alley, that would create logistical ease in many cases if that's possible. And I think that
- as we're talking about square footages, et cetera,
- we have to know how high we can go there. And the cost benefit analysis of going significantly high,
- what is best practice in terms of where the jail goes versus the office buildings, et cetera. There
- are other office spaces available and
- you know, easily accessible to this area should we end up moving the justice, essentially expanding
- the justice center where it is with an expansion of of curry. So I am, you know, I think we could probably
- develop a similar scenario to what we have, which is fairly adjacent office space for
- for folks that are already adjacent and perhaps some others as well. I do want to comment, we've had
- a lot of public comments about the need to be close to services. To my knowledge, those services have
- not been defined.
- So somebody has identified the Bloomington bike project as a service that people use. I understand New
- Leaf New Life also is a service that people access. I haven't run the numbers, but I would actually
- guess that New Leaf New Life is a quicker walk from Thompson than it is from the existing justice building.
- So same with Community Kitchen.
- If we want to truly assess the affinity to services, we need to identify the services we're talking
- about. But I felt like both of these choices, Thompson and the existing Justice Center, are proximate
- to the services that I know about that people are accessing. It also ought to be said, many services
- have located close to the Justice Center
- that's where the justice center is. And I expect that some of those would move. So I think that needs
- to be said. It's not a downtown or nothing in terms of access to services. I will add a couple of things
- in regard to Miss Wilson's question about whether or not the City Council would vote to approve a seven
- story variance. I can't
- you know, say one way or another, but I will just read that in our last resolution, um, Resolution 202607,
- a resolution in support of county council counterparts efforts to keep the county's criminal justice
- building within city limits and close proximity to social services. Section two states the common council
- will work with the county
- council and the county commissioners to support an expedited zoning and permitting process
- for the construction of a new jail within city limits. So while I can't explicitly confirm one way or
- another how that body would vote, I believe we did with a 9-0 vote, confirm our intentions to work with
- the county to make this work. That include irrelevant of what the bed count is?
- I would not be able to answer that for all my colleagues. For yourself, like if you get a 448 bed, very
- building, is that going to be something that working with county commission? It will be something that.
- I don't personally believe that. 148.
- beds, but I recognize that I'm one member of many different bodies that are working towards this, and
- I'm happy to make compromises as needed. That is not what I would like to see in the end, but if it's
- down to City Council has to vote for a variance, we need to. I appreciate the conversation.
- Sorry, people keep wanting to look at people. I appreciate the conversation about Courier. Could we
- talk a little bit, Mayor, you were talking about there was some other offices that are close by that
- it could be used. So one of the concerns that I have is it feels a little like we might be repeating
- the same conversation that happened 40 years ago. And,
- And we've kind of boxed everyone in in that building. It's not just that the jail is overcrowded. It's
- that the county offices below don't have enough space as well. And it seems like if an alternative or
- an option for Curry is, well, there's other places we can move us, in some ways it's also acknowledging
- the concern that maybe it's really not enough space to be able to have all the justice partners by each other.
- And that's where I think I'm a little concerned, or very concerned, is I think it will cost a lot more
- than anyone expects. I think by nature of doing the project the way that we're doing it, you're going
- to have to do more of it than you intend in phasing. If you build a jail annex, you're going to have
- to move all the employees out of Curry Fiscus. And then when you put the jail annex, you're going to
- have to put all those employees back. Unless you choose to put them someplace else,
- And then that means the site wasn't originally big enough. And so that's why I think I was trying to
- explore what the ideal was, because I think either option we go with, I think we just don't have enough
- space. And I think we're gonna have additional costs of personnel if we split up the jail between two
- different places. Inmates have to be checked on every hour,
- and not at a regular time, right? So that's going to vary. That means you're going to have more personnel
- if we already have a multi-story jail. We're going to have more personnel if we have them in two locations.
- And I think what I'm worried about is I think one of our shared values is we want more money going to
- services. And if we're spending more money on personnel costs, if we're spending more money on forcing
- the jail to be in Curry Fiscus, that's also money that's not going
- to rehabilitation services. And it feels like putting people in other buildings is a conceit that it's
- not big enough. I was wondering what your thoughts were on trying to work through that. I'm not convinced
- that everything can't go on the Curry Fiscus Justice Center site. Again, I think none of us are professionals
- in space planning or
- or construction logistics. Admittedly, any time you are renovating a space or building new, you will
- have to have temporarily relocating offices. So that's going to be true if we went with this site no
- matter what. So those offices will have to be temporarily relocated.
- I don't work in the justice center. I thankfully have stayed out of the justice building mostly. And
- I don't know the implications of having public defender and some prosecuting offices in the building
- behind. So if it's not ideal, it's not ideal.
- It just appears to me to be the best case scenario and most efficient to move forward is this site,
- especially given the challenges at Thompson in terms of timing. So when it came down to a vote for me,
- that is why this got my top vote. I'm not sold on the justice building needing to be downtown. It's
- not part of why I voted that way.
- I just want to say a little something about the Curry building. And if we did something and put up a
- multi-story building for the jail, we have elevators now, but who's to say we can't have escalators?
- I was just in a building. I was in the CBS building downtown here recently, and there's escalators in
- there. Why can't we have escalators? Why does it have to be an elevator to move everything up and down
- floors? Because the escalator could turn into steps if it wasn't moving.
- So I don't understand why we're hung up on the elevator issue. I just wanted to bring that up a little.
- I mean, one issue is the meals that are brought to inmates are brought in carts on wheels. So that wouldn't
- work on an escalator. And so do we know that escalators can't be built with bigger treads? I don't know
- the answer to that. It also is a security issue. I was in the jail this weekend. You don't have the
- ability to call the elevator yourself.
- the guards have to call down and order the elevator to come. So in terms of security and inmates not
- being able to move themselves, my guess would be it's an integral part of the system. OK. All right.
- Well, I just wanted to brought out there and discussed. Remember, those elevators are not just moving
- food and inmates to court.
- But if medical is on a different floor in a multi-story jail, you might have to move someone through
- those elevators. So if you have someone, for example, one of the big concerns I have about the justice
- building in jail right now is lack of ADA compliance. It is very hard and disheartening, honestly, to
- work in a building where you know it's not ADA compliant. And you have people who are coming in with
- disabilities trying to access a courtroom, and they have issues navigating with a wheelchair. If you
- have someone in the jail,
- and that elevator breaks down and you have to get them to another floor, I think that is one of those
- practical aspects of a multi-story facility that I'd like to keep in mind when we're picking a jail
- site. And that goes back to kind of my concern. I think the space is so small. You might be forcing
- it in a way to achieve one goal and really hurting the people who are gonna be in it at that cost.
- so anything else about um we've been talking about or should we move on or anything from you miss man
- back wayman heard much from you um i want to talk about i can give my thoughts on curry i suppose um
- so i chose as i said i chose thompson first and curry second um the primary reason for putting curry
- second is i still have a lot of unanswered questions about curry i still don't
- fully understand what's, and I know we are not designers or architects or construction people, but I
- still am unclear what exactly would be put in that space. Which offices, would it be a jail, would it
- be a jail annex? I've not really had an answer of what would happen with any of the departments currently
- there. And the big one we haven't really talked about is probation. The entire probation department
- is in Curry right now on the second floor. And that's a big department. And it's something that the
- public would need to be able to access.
- even if it was moved temporarily. I also haven't heard much renovation of the justice building would
- actually cost. I know there's been prior estimates from several years ago, but I'm not for sure what
- was involved in those estimates and also how costs may have risen since then. And then I don't know
- whether inmates would need to be relocated to other jails for the entire length of renovation. And at
- least from the public defender's office perspective,
- I don't think I can support really any plan that would require clients to be moved out of county. That
- eliminates their access to attorneys, access to courts, and I think that creates a lot of challenges
- transportation-wise. The important metrics for us are access, access to clients, clients getting access
- to us, and then we also would support anything that has adequate space for future co-location, even
- if it's not right at this moment.
- I chose Thompson first, Curry second, because of all those questions I just kind of ran through. And
- then to me, the last three are all relatively similar, just to finish my ranking. All those last three
- are pretty similar in their distance to downtown. They're all privately owned. They all have sort of
- similar access to utilities. But yeah, so that's my opinion. OK, anyone else before we proceed?
- to answer one more question. I think the mayor was asking about services. So the two big services I
- would say that our clients use a lot are Beacon and Centerstone. So I know Beacon is moving at some
- point. And I don't know, I didn't run the numbers either to know which is closer, Thompson or downtown
- to Centerstone or to Beacon. But I think there's a good chance that things may relocate. Sure, I would
- agree with that. I doubt either
- one of those two would relocate with the justice center move. Beacon's been planning this for years
- and centers pretty established. I can just offer quick comments on the other three properties sort of
- in a group. My third choice was Fullerton.
- for a couple of reasons. Once you get that far out, I didn't see a major difference between TAP North,
- South, and Fullerton. And Fullerton's been fully laid out in terms of site design for a potential jail.
- It's gone through the full planning process until the city council turned it down. It was an old city council.
- the same people on the council now. Let's just call them former. Former city council. And so the legwork
- on that has been done and my understanding is it was the top choice of many for a long time. So that
- got my number three.
- number four was tap road south, because I think logistically and topographically, it ekes out tap north.
- But frankly, if I had the ability to give those both an equal score coming in tied for last, that's
- what I would have done. And again, those Fullerton tap and
- both camps are all private. Correct. I shared a lot of reasonings with Mayor Thompson. Fullerton was
- also my third choice. Just because of the Patriot report and phase one and phase two studies that have
- been done in regard to the geotechnical and environmental studies that would need to be completed. It
- looks like
- there are a lot of unknowns for the rest of the properties, excluding Thompson, but it looks like more
- will need to be done. And so Fullerton got my three points. So Fullerton was one that was presented
- to the city council and the vote
- it was presented I think in October of 22 and the vote voting it down was I think December 21st of 2022.
- It seems like the city might be more open to that property is what you're saying now. Because one of
- the points was that it was an entry point to Bloomington. That was one of the things that was said.
- Just trying to get a sense of how you felt about that as of this moment. That's true. I certainly
- I'm not aggressively opposed to it. There are four council members out of nine who would have voted
- on that proposal one way or another. But I don't recall it being a unanimous vote. And so there may
- be some flexibility. It was. I'm pretty sure. Well, there are still five new council members. So there
- could be a lot of flexibility in terms of that. And it's been four years. So there's also the potential that
- Some of my colleagues have changed their minds since then. I have heard from some of the colleagues
- that given the situation now, they would view Fullerton differently, not a commitment to vote differently,
- just they view it differently. But definitely point taken on the entryway into Bloomington. I think
- that's a great aspect of Fullerton.
- plan commission that took that position. So I want to share their position for raising it. All right.
- So keeping us on track. Is there more that we need to present before we consider a final recommendation
- or we exhausted our ability to talk about it all here? I just want to point out that
- It looks like additional roadway will be needed on every single property, with the exception of keeping
- the current building, renovating it, and adding the curry and fiscus properties. So I'm not pushing
- one way or another with that. I just would like to raise it. That would be an additional expense. An
- additional expense, certainly, especially with the price of concrete. I just have one other thing.
- I think it's important that we also address the elephant in the room. And that is that the lawsuit that
- we were talking about is now here. It has been filed. And I want to just read a couple of the pieces
- of it and then share how that impacts our conversation. So this is just selections of it as well. I
- got this from the B-Square bulletins. You can look at it there.
- in reference to make sure I quoted it correctly. The Monroe County Jail is outdated, overcrowded, dangerous,
- and grossly inadequate. The jail population is always or nearly always above its functional capacity.
- The overcrowded conditions prevent adequate classification, producing dangerous conditions. Both blocks,
- they're talking about A and B, contain more prisoners than there are beds,
- As a result, prisoners are forced to sleep on mattresses on the floors of cells, three inmates to a
- cell, because the other two beds in the cells are occupied. Some cells are large enough that the mattresses
- on the floor can be placed in plastic containers called boats. However, some of the cells are too small
- for that and the mattresses are placed directly on the floor.
- Because of the size of the cells, prisoners must sleep directly next to the toilet slash sink units
- in each cell. Therefore, prisoners must step over to use the toilet or sink unit and are frequently
- splashed with toilet water from the toilets being used. The day rooms contain tables with stools attached,
- but there are far fewer stools than prisoners in many of the cell blocks. All meals are served to the
- prisoners in their cell blocks, and therefore those prisoners who do not have stools
- Meals are eaten standing up or in the cells. Talks about frequent fights, paragraph 45. These fights
- are often not observed by the staff as there are no direct lines into the prisoners' living areas from
- any controlled areas where staff may be located. Instead, the jail depends on cameras in the blocks
- and hourly checks by the staff. However, there are many areas that are not viewable on the cameras.
- Therefore, fights and assaults occur that staff never know about.
- It has serious HVAC problems such that some blocks are so hot in the summer and cold in the winter that
- prisoners' health is put in jeopardy. Fairgrounds 49, the facility is literally falling apart as cracks
- are visible in the walls and prisoners have been able to dislodge pieces of cement that can be used
- to injure others. Plumbing fixtures are old, outdated, leak, and are difficult, if not impossible, to repair.
- There is only one ADA accessible cell in the entire facility and it is in the mail only block. I understand
- that this process has been really difficult and it has been long. And I'm very grateful to have been
- on the committee with all of you. I've appreciated the conversations we've had. And I know ultimately
- this decision is gonna be up to the county commissioners and county council.
- appreciate the county council wants the building to be in the city. I understand that. I wish it could
- be Thompson. I really do. But I feel like I can't in good conscience not acknowledge that by choosing
- to build within the city you are choosing delay. And ultimately that may be what the county council
- and county commissioners decide. I understand that. But
- These allegations are what is alleged to be happening now. And when we talk about delay, we're also
- talking about cost. And it's not just financial cost, it's human cost.
- If we choose to build in the city, we are choosing for there to be inflation and construction costs.
- We're choosing for reinvestment and redesign, costs and new site evaluations and preparation, litigation
- and fees or attorney fees. The longer the lawsuit continues, at some point it's going to be an impact
- to the community. There's also transportation costs and case delay.
- Miss Rembeck was sharing, once you start moving inmates, right, that is a problem for the public defender's
- office. They're not gonna be able to talk to their clients, it's gonna slow cases down, people are gonna
- stay in jail longer. And I just, I don't think in good conscience, I couldn't bring up the fact that
- I, what the county council commissioners choose to do, I understand is their choice, but it is a choice
- to delay this and to keep this
- this situation not be remedied as quickly as possible. So although I did vote for Thompson as my second,
- I hear that Ms. Renbeck has voted first. If I have to choose within the city from our discussions, I
- will choose the Thompson property as my lead choice. But if I could choose all of the sites that are
- available, I would choose North Park. And then that's not because I want North Park, it's because
- that there are human beings in that building. And you can't move enough inmates to other jails to resolve
- the fact that the facility is crumbling. And I just believe people deserve a basic standard of care
- and being treated with dignity. And I think every day we delay. So I'm going to vote for Thompson with
- the caveat, with full honesty, that I would ask the council to reconsider North Park.
- in a phased way that would still allow access to some services downtown, but would start to get people
- outside of the jail into a healthier and constitutional environment. Thank you for your comments. I'll
- just add a little something, and that is that, as we all know, this has been going on for a long time.
- And so these conditions just didn't happen overnight. It's been aware for a very long time, and this
- is where we're at today. And so we have to make the best decision with what we've got today.
- So is there a feeling from the committee now we're ready to do our rankings, our final rankings, and
- push through what it is we're advocating for, or is there more discussion needed? Okay, go ahead.
- Thank you, Ms. Wilson, and points well taken, and this comment is not to you, so please don't take it
- as it's to you. The settlement agreement has been in place since 2008. I was six.
- in 2008. Somebody could have had a child in 2008. That child would be eligible to vote this year. The
- county has failed to build a new jail. There are fabricated false choices that we are currently experiencing
- because elected officials failed to do their due diligence. I'm talking about the Thompson property.
- I'm talking about renovations that could have been made to the current location. This notion that
- now we have to rush after 18 years of pretty much stalemate is infuriating. And to all the young people
- who are listening, I hope our generation does a better job at serving our community. Anyone else? To
- be my comments focused on our charge, which is selection of top
- the top jail site within the city. I will have really only one thing to add that has not been added
- by one of our colleagues, which is it is true that there is some assumption that because you own the
- property, it is more affordable to develop it. It's not always true.
- frequently not true. But site control does pave the way frequently to quicker development. And so in
- the model of time is money, having site control, which you by nature have if you own the property, is
- something that I have considered in my selections. I'll end my comment with
- By varying from my original comment, I know our charge is to choose one site. It may behoove the process
- that the council and commissioners are about to go through to recommend one site and one backup.
- All right, anything else?
- Just a question about site control. When you talk about site control, you're about whether or not we
- own it. But now all of the properties in the city, we have to go through city, we're gonna hit city,
- we're gonna hit rezoning, is that right? That's right. Okay. Site control means you can do things on
- it now. Right, which is where I think, so now there's three governmental bodies in a room that have
- to agree, right? You have to have the city council to agree, which they would like it in the city limits,
- because we're building in the city limits, which is what the county council has asked.
- and then you need the commissioners to agree as well. And I think the commissioners have shared in different
- formats, the desire for a single floor jail and this concern about the ability to co-locate. I raise
- that because if you talk about doing a backup, my first choice based under the current constraints we
- were given was actually Tap Road South. And that's because it fits, if you're trying to find consensus,
- It is in within the city limits. It is large enough for co-location. We do not have the delay. Now you're
- still gonna have the delay by choosing to build within the city. So now we have the fourth person in
- the room and that's the court. And frankly, they're gonna have a lot more input at this point than had
- been anticipated. So that's what would be my backup choices, Tap Road South.
- you have anything before we make our recommendation? Thank you. Right, so. Did we do this and do we
- have any advice over here? So if somebody would like if you'd like to vote for a primary in a backup,
- there's one of two ways you could do this. One is just form a motion for.
- I would like to vote that this site is our primary, this site is our backup, and that could be voted
- on altogether. Or you could separate out that vote to first vote on the primary and then vote on the
- secondary in a second vote. What's the committee's preference? I guess I'll suggest that we separate
- them because our second choice may be impacted by the outcome of the first choice.
- And I will tie that to a motion that we choose Curry and existing as our top choice. Second. All those
- in favor? Aye. Opposed? No. Can we do a roll call? Yeah, just to clarify. Let's do the roll call. So
- first choice is Curry.
- That's the motion, right? And that's what we're voting on. We'll do the roll. Yes. Getting myself situated
- here. Okay. Okay. Mr. In back. Ms. April. No. Mayor Thompson.
- Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
- So then we wanted to separate that out, as I remember. And so now we need to, does someone have a second?
- Or do you have something else? Councilmember Feidl? I move that this body considers or approves the
- Thompson property as our second choice. Second for this motion. Second. All those in favor? Oh,
- pardon me. Roll call. I guess we'll do a roll call. We haven't done this for a while. Okay, we'll do
- a roll call.
- Ms. Wilson. Yes. Mayor Thompson. Yes. Ms. Zulek. Yes. Councilor Feidl. Thank you, yes. Ms. Rinbeck.
- Yes, thank you. Motion passes unanimous. All right, so we have our first and second
- choices here as a committee to recommend to the larger body now that body will need to come together
- and be pulled to find out when they can come together and then we'll present that our recommendation
- to that larger body so what else do we need to do here anything well there'd been talk about a cover
- letter and other things what are our thoughts on that i'm sorry did that again there had been talk at
- previous meetings about a cover letter listing the properties we considered
- Okay. I don't I don't know who would be drafting such a thing. My recommendation and take this or leave
- it since that we have been uploading those documents to the website and that exists. My suggestion would
- be to simplify that and maybe just have a recommendation letter that you all could authorize.
- Subcommittee Chair Feidl to sign on behalf of the committee certifying the vote and then pointing to
- the website for those materials to look at all sites that were covered, the materials, and even to the
- extent of the preliminary vote today, we're gonna upload those to the website as well. So all those
- materials will be gathered together in one place, I think as desired by the subcommittee. Do we need
- to make a motion to have that happen?
- That would be fine if you'd like to just authorize you to write a short letter. We could draft that
- and have you sign it today. I move to authorize Chair Feidl to write and sign a letter on behalf of
- the Collaborative Justice Project Working Subcommittee on our final recommendations and cover letter.
- Did that cover it? OK. Second. All right.
- Any discussion I should say? All those in favor? Hi. Hi. Hi. Wait, do we need a roll call? Okay. I don't
- know when we need one when we don't. Okay. All those in favor? I'm sorry again. Hi. So I think we're
- unanimous on that. Thank you. So as far as I can tell, we're adjourned unless somebody has... Oh, wait
- a minute. There's a comment. I'll just say I had a really fun time working with all of you. This is
- a new experience for me, especially with
- a local subcommittee and just thank you for all of your time and especially um the work that everyone
- put into this i know it was a lot of it i guess the only thing i'd ask is that we be told whenever the
- the collaborative yeah or whatever i don't know the larger joint meeting is going to be a larger group
- meeting so that we can also sure i'd be happy to pass that along to this subcommittee yeah all right
- i'll just echo it was uh great to work in collaboration with a
- city county public defender prosecutor team. It was a delight being here and trying to shepherd you
- all through this. The city and county working together. All right so I think we're adjourned right?
- Okay thank you so much.