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.