Good morning. I'm going to call to order this meeting in Monroe County Board of Commissioners. I will
note for the record that Commissioner Madeira and myself are here and present in the Natu Hill room
and that Jones is not available today. We'll begin by reading our public statement.
We, the Monroe County Board of Commissioners, renew our commitment to welcome and protect the rights
of all people, regardless of age, race, color, creed, disability, sexual orientation, gender,
gender identity, marital status, economic status, and national origin. And we affirm the right of every
person to live peacefully and without fear, and we will fight and resist
at every step, discrimination and harmful policies, whatever their source. We believe in diversity,
equity, inclusion, and belonging, and we also stand in support of our county public school systems,
both RBB and MCCSC. And with that, we have our first agenda item. I'm going to move
to ratify the emergency order of last week. I second that. We have a motion and we have a second.
I don't, is it in the packet? It is. Okay, awesome. Any public comment on this item?
Good morning. Good morning. For the record, my name is David Henry. I'm a resident of Van Deeren Township.
I also serve on the Menor County Council as a member at large. I want to thank the Board of Commissioners
for ratifying the state of emergency for the county. It is the first step.
required for eligibility, as we know, for state and federal disaster assistance. As the public may know,
both Governor Braun and President Trump have already declared a state of emergency for the state of
Indiana. This is our step to get in line for that process, as we learned in county council on Tuesday
from Director Ridge that
about $300,000 in incurred costs to the county for the removal of snow over the snow emergency means
that I'm hopeful that we're eligible for funding and reimbursement from either the state or federal
government. This is, I know, sometimes a lottery we play, but it's one that is important. So thank you
for ratification. I wanted to say that emergencies we know expose vulnerability in our community. Anytime
that we have something that happens, we pull back the blanket and see that we may have some challenges
in how we address
things in our community. I've appeared in this room a few times in the past as a citizen, as a practitioner
academic at Indiana University on emergency management, and as a council member. And when we've had
the derecho, the tornado, the cybersecurity incident, all these cases expose opportunities for us to
grow and learn from the way we conduct our business in times of crisis. I want to focus on two things
with the moment I have. First is the access and public safety and our private developments in the county.
One of the challenges I think we've seen in media and in meetings is that we know that there are 60
developments in the county that are in various stages of build out and require some technical work between
our plan commission our county legal and how we address private road access. It's not really about contract
work between developers in the county at this point it's about the humans that live in those neighborhoods.
Humans that have access to public safety in times of crisis. I think there's other people in the audience
that will speak to that. And what an emergency order does in order to make sure we can get public safety
access to those communities. I also want to talk about second and third order effects when we have to,
when we can't plow certain neighborhoods. With 60 developments in the county, I came to learn that the
reason why our schools were closed, our public schools were closed for three days is they couldn't get
buses into them.
which means that children that rely on free and reduced lunches didn't get them and families had to
rearrange schedules to be at home and lose wages during that time as well. If all that relates to how
we work through our zoning and development in the Plan Commission, I think we need to revisit some of
those issues or look at ways that we can put a lien on property owners and developers to plow property.
So I'm sure there'll be other
comments as we go. But thank you for getting to work on this. And I look forward to working with the
commissioners in the capacity of being an EMAC member to answer some of these questions when it's warmer.
So we're prepared next time. Thank you. All right. With that, we'll go ahead and take a vote to ratify
the emergency order. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion carries, 2-0.
Uh, now we move on to department updates. We will begin with, uh, Ms. Kelly. I know she. Yeah, sorry.
Good morning, commissioner. According to the Indiana department of health as of January 27th emergency
department visits for COVID like illness remains stable. Waste water concentrations are trending down.
According to data by wastewater scan, we are seeing high levels of flu and RSV. The health department
is still transitioning our vaccination services. Currently, the public can reach the Morgan County Health
Department for vaccines by calling 765-342-6621. All right. Thank you so much. Comments or questions?
Commissioner Madura? No. Glad to hear that progress is being made on those transitions. Thank you so much.
Thanks for working on that. It's really important to bring that back to Monroe County. Thank you.
All right. Next department update will be from the Highway Department. Ms. Ridge. Good morning. I'll
just read a statement that I had read at the council meeting, given an update for the snow event that
we had this past weekend.
So I want to provide an update after the snow event. Our crews began at 5 p.m. on Saturday evening and
we sent them home on Monday evening at 5 p.m.
We had approximately 45 employees working during this time from management to mechanics, equipment operators,
and truck drivers. We rotated crews consistently so that we could provide rest for our crews when appropriate
and had assistance, but we also had assistance available 24-7 throughout this time. The average snowfall
across the county was 12 to 16 inches. The crew will be plowing all week trying to widen the roadways.
With extreme cold temperatures, the melting will be a slow process. We will continue to haul in more
materials and be ready for the next storm event. I personally think our crew did an excellent job with
the snowfall that we experienced. The cost of the event from Saturday to Monday for labor equipment
materials was $297,812.07. I also want to provide just a little information about snow removal and private
roads. Monroe County Highway Department receives their funding from Motor Vehicle Highway Administration
distribution. One of the factors that is part of this calculation is the road mileage that is maintained
by the county. When we officially accept a road for future maintenance it is sent to the state who then
adds this to our funding. Private roads do not bring any funding to the county highway until it's accepted.
We are very restricted on what our funds can be used for but most importantly it must be a county accepted road.
We have multiple subdivisions in this county that are working along with the planning department that
includes issues of unfinished subdivisions, and we would be happy to share the list with anybody. It
could be a whole subdivision or a phase of a subdivision. It could be unfinished roads, trees, sidewalks,
ADA, curb ramps. There's many reasons why a developer has not finished the subdivision or just simply
walked away. When a developer is approved for a subdivision within the county,
Part of that agreement is that they will provide snow removal and all other maintenance until it is
accepted by the county. It is in their official agreement. I have nothing but sympathy for the homeowners
that are not aware that they might be living on a private road. We are unable to maintain all of these
subdivisions with private roadways. If you take over the snow plowing, which again, we're not allowed
to use our resources on private roads, it only makes the matter worse, giving developers more incentive
to not finish their improvements.
This has been an ongoing issue in the 38 years that I have worked in this county. We do have some great
developers in Monroe County, but as always, you always have a few of those bad apples. I hope there
can be a solution to this moving forward and it would make things a lot easier on homeowners and Monroe
County staff. I do want to add that over the past probably five or six years that I have taken over
more portion of the department. We haven't accepted any private roads, not any unfinished subdivisions
and we stick to that until it's completed. We've worked with approximately 10 subdivisions that their
developer did not finish the subdivision and we helped them get that subdivision completed with their
funds or what was left on bonds and got the road accepted into the county as we had always
promised when the road was finished. We are currently working with some subdivisions that have private
phases working and we did bids help put bids together and contractors and things. We also provide resources
to these private roads that we can offer as private contractors. We send the list every year to private
roads residents so that they can
hire a contractor and be able to provide snow removal on that private road. That is pretty much the
link that we can do on these private areas. Thank you so much Ms. Ridge and big kudos to the crews and
if anybody wants to complain about the width of roadways or that there's still a nice little patch of
snow here or there,
I will tell you the county roads look better than many I've seen around and it's impossible in this
cold weather to make this pristine because the salt only works to a certain temperature plus there's
also of course the salt shortage that we across the country are contending with. I'm not sure where
it all went but
you know, the cold weather, the cold air is not going to be very helpful. And then next week, when we
do have above freezing temperatures, we'll all be wearing shorts and excited and playing outside. But
even with that, when we have above freezing during the day, it drops below freezing at night. These
rows will all be
thawing and refreezing. We're going to have potholes galore. We can already see that writing on the
wall. So we're battling Mother Nature. Mother Nature always wins, at least in the short term. And hopefully,
in the long term, we will prevail.
But I really do want to thank you and Toby Turner. And your crews are amazing. They're just amazing.
And it was scheduled well. It really made a ton of sense. So big thanks from all of us. And I don't
know if Commissioner Madeira has anything she wants to add. Thank you so much to all of the county employees
that worked so hard.
Also, do we have any updates on when we might get additional resources in case we get additional winter
weather? We actually had more salt delivered this week, so we're good back on salt. Sand is probably
about, I think we have, we're about half. Of course, it's frozen, so you can't haul any in.
we'll be as ready as we can. We always that's what we do after and this is a this what we had over the
weekend was a major storm event. It's not something that happens every year in Monroe County. So it's
it's tricky on where do we push the snow. When's the snow going to melt? We have you know people complaining
of how high the snow that you know maybe the state has pushed it in at an intersection, but
Again, the tricky part is where do you put all that snow to get it out of the road? So there's a lot
of different hurdles when you're dealing with this type of snow event. Yes, excellent. Well, thank you
so very much. I also want to say I appreciate the work that you've been doing all along. I mean, it
wasn't just the storm. You get calls from private
folks who live on private roads. This isn't the first time that's ever happened. And I really appreciate
that you've worked with them and provided them with potential agencies, contractors, people they can
hire. What happens in planning is we are between the proverbial rock and a hard place because developers
will come in and say, well, I could do this development cheaper
the roads are private. If. I don't if the roads are private. Um and the assumption being that, of course,
that savings will be passed on to homeowners. Um who would then need to pay into an H away or have to
club in together in some informal
If we, on the other hand, require every single subdivision to have county road acceptance, meaning a
certain width, meeting guidelines regarding curbs and curbs and everything under the sun, that cost
does get passed along.
and developers will claim that we're over regulating them. So it is certainly not anything that we should
lay blame on the highway department for sure. They've done nothing wrong. In fact, they've gone above
and beyond to help people understand how they can manage this.
It certainly could be that the Plan Commission and the Board of Commissioners should, maybe we should
only allow developments where the roads can be accepted into county inventory. That's an option and
something that we should discuss. That doesn't help the people who are already in this situation.
My fear is that we have this sort of knee-jerk reaction of, well, let's do something. Well, I'd love
to do something. I don't know where that money would come from first. Second, it can't be county equipment
and personnel that provide the service.
So maybe we should just pay for private snow plowing services throughout the county on any private road.
But that's county taxpayer dollars. Is that fair? Are we subsidizing developers? Are we subsidizing
situa- I mean what about a long driveway? What if I have a super long driveway? Can I also have the
county come and do my driveway?
I don't know where that cutoff point is. And we have to look long-term. And we have to understand that
if the county steps in and provides with council money, which I didn't hear that presented this week,
but with council appropriating the county taxpayer dollars,
to provide this is, what is the emergency? Is it six inches of snow? Is it eight inches of snow? And
you can't bill people. They might as well just hire their own snow plow service, right? Because we can't
just turn around and try to bill people if we go into their subdivision and provide that. We can't just
turn around and try to bill them. There's no mechanism. There's no, they should just do this. So in a sense,
What we've now done by doing that is we've now set the stage for no HOA to ever deal with snow plowing.
And there are some HOAs out there that are doing what they're supposed to be doing. They're clearing
the subdivisions. The residents are putting money together. That's what an HOA does. Or people who live
on a particular street club together and pay for plowing.
Well, why should they bother if we're just going to step in and do it? Now, look into the future even
further. What developer in their right mind would want to pay to have their road meet county standards
if they can just count on us to do the work anyway? Maybe we shouldn't even have that issue. So you
always have to look medium term,
immediate, immediate term, long term. So folks knew the storm was coming. Folks know that they live
on a private road. HOAs know what their responsibilities are. Residents who live on private roads know
what their responsibilities are. We are not going to come and patch your potholes. This was a decision
made by the developer. Hopefully, they pass the savings on when they sold you your home. That's all
I could say.
It is a terrible situation. It is a terrible situation. But I don't think that this is the answer of,
oh, well, let's just use an emergency fund that we don't have. And well, we do have it. I guess we could
use the emergency management funding out of, oh, rainy day, I guess.
I don't know. Uh. Is it Do we just pick the roads? Do we wait for them to call? I don't know. I mean.
It just it just. It puts so many responsibilities on the county in the future that these developers
chose us not to have. And I don't know that a
out there, hire somebody. The highway department is happy to provide the names of reputable contractors
in the community who do this work all the time on roads. They're not, you know, not going out there
with snow blower. They're going out with snow plows. You know, I and get it done and get it done. Do
you have anything else? Yes.
it's a really complex, really unfortunate issue. And it's really hard to point to, I think, a scapegoat
when these things happen. I think snow should never be an emergency. And it's always foreseeable. But
there are these human interest moments when things fall through. And there might come a time when we
as a county have to look at the human interests. I don't think this is the moment because
Now the situation is wrapping up. The snow is melting. We do have to look to see how we can address
this problem, if there is a problem. And I think that's the question right now. I think I'm not convinced
right now that there is a problem. I know that we're working with neighborhoods diligently
to get them into inventory quickly. I think we need to make sure that we're working as diligently as
we can with all the neighborhoods we can to get them into inventory and that neighborhoods aren't falling
through the cracks. And so I think the storm has passed, the storm emergency has passed, but I'd also like to
see if County Legal has anything they can contribute as well because I think that I've had a couple
conversations this week with them that have opened my eyes to some interesting dimensions of this problem.
Mr. Cockrell, please. Sure, and I noticed Mr. Verratti is in the back if he wants to come up.
I'll start off with saying that I'm not going to speak of any individual subdivision. Some of them are
in litigation, some are not. It's just not appropriate to talk about things that are in litigation.
But I guess generally speaking, and I spoke with Ms. Ridge the other day, we have 40 to 41 subdivisions
out there that have private roads. And I think that 41 only includes the ones that weren't always designed
at the beginning to be private. There's some subdivisions that were created
to have private roads. And so they have private roads. These are the ones that were once, once everything
gets into compliance, we would accept into our inventory, right? There are some subdivisions like we
don't, we don't want to be part of the county infrastructure. We don't want to be part of the county
road systems. And that's fine. I mean, that's how it was designed and how it goes through, but each
one of those has an issue at this point where we cannot accept it into our road system because it doesn't
meet our standards.
And in order for it to be accepted, we have made the saying, is it has to meet our standards. And that's
what kind of triggers the ability to use your MVH funds and be able to use kind of the gas tax that
we get. And so those are kind of the, I think those are the ones we're really talking about. And there's
41 of them. I guess in my mind, until that road is accepted, I've always seen them more as a private drive.
We don't regulate speed, we don't regulate stop signs, we don't regulate anything like that and so from
I think the highways perspective and I think from the county legal's perspective they are essentially
private driveways and everybody's expected to, I shoveled my own driveway so I think that's kind of
how we look at these things and again I'm not going to speak of any specific one because I know some
are in litigation. I mean is that helpful?
Very, very, excuse me. And yes, and by just to clarify, when I said earlier, I'm not aware of any problems
at this time, I know that there were some problems. I did not mean that. I think that all of the people
who need to be plowed out are nail plowed out. That's what I meant. But I think, thank you very much.
I think that clarifies some things that I was not aware of before. But yes, that's. Mr. Rodney, would
you like to add something?
Thank you for being here. Absolutely. I have nothing much more to add other than what Mr. Cockrell and
Ms. Ridge has already said. We do have some subdivisions that are currently in litigation, including
the ones that I believe we're talking about. Much of that information is available through the My Case
system. Several of these we have, trial dates, discovery deadlines, deposition sets. So we're moving
forward. In many cases, when we're involved in litigation, it doesn't go as quickly as
people would like, myself included. In several of these, we've been attempting to negotiate with multiple
parties, including developers, subcontractors, in the hopes that we could come to a resolution. In some
of these cases, we were able to, and many of the cases were not. I believe in the one we're talking
about now, we're probably going to move forward towards some sort of judicial remedy at this point,
but we are currently scheduled as quickly as I could reasonably get that in. Okay. Thank you so much.
I appreciate that.
And really, this comes down to the developers. And oftentimes, it is something where if you have a private
road that is finished, the subdivision's finished, and you didn't realize you'd bought a house on a
private road, you have other remedies besides calling
the county and asking us to do the work. And so I just want to encourage people to think about the cause
of the problem, the root cause. And I do think we need to have a discussion about whether or not to
ever do private roads again. And I don't know even if that's an option legally, statutorily with the
state to even bar that option, but I think it's
it would be interesting to have that discussion with the planning commission and then have that discussion
here. And I see that Ms. Nesterjell and the director of planning is online. Would you like to add anything?
Good morning, commissioners. First, I want to just commend Lisa and her department for, of course, the
snow removal, but also being clear with people about the limited ability to use MVH funds on private
roads. I don't think that we've been unclear to people and it's brought up a lot of challenging
conversations. I also want to bring to your attention that the planning commission is not just putting
this list aside.
We have a list of the 41 subdivisions as Mister Cockrell mentioned, and we have at least 10 of these
subdivisions and phases of those coming to the Planning Commission just this year. So we're talking
about them on a routine basis. We're working with these developers and often it's
pulling teeth because it comes down to they don't actually want to do the development. We've added an
inflation adjustment of 10% every year they extend their timeline, which has gotten people to move a
lot quicker. And as Lisa mentioned, we've ultimately gotten quite a few kind of knocked off the list
and people have gotten things accepted into inventory.
We are taking this seriously. We are working with people. There's just some subdivisions where the amount
of money that is left to now do the work is so exorbitant because of inflation and the time that they've
waited, in some instances, 30 years, that now it's just a money problem. And so we're trying to work
with the homeowners and developers before they walk away, or if they've walked away, we're working with
our legal department. So I just want to bring that to your attention. It's not an issue that we
sleep under the rug, we're constantly thinking about it. Yeah, I appreciate you raising that. We did
change the rules a few years back where developers have bonds set on their development and we now do
an inflation rated
a system where they are asked to deposit additional monies toward their bonds because the cost of everything
goes up. We found ourselves in a few situations where something hadn't been completed, and the amount
of the bond would have done like a third of the project. We had to finish the project because we had
to finish the project. We don't want to get in that position again. There are some developers that walk
away, they lose interest,
They move, whatever they've done. I really commend our planning staff, Director Jelen, our highway department
for constantly and consistently working to try to get these resolved as quickly as possible. It's not
always easy. We certainly, once again, would hate to reward bad behavior.
and put county taxpayer dollars into completing roads and projects that were promised in order to receive
approval on a development. But I really appreciate that you've raised that. There are also, I know that
there are folks who have moved into subdivisions that are complete, but the subdivision was designed
to have private roads.
we get those calls cannot help I'm sorry that is this is where you need to talk to your HOA your developer
whoever and and get this straightened out I you know I'm not going to offer advice but certainly expecting
county residents to do this is is a bit rich and it and it does not
And it does not do anything to ensure that any developer finishes a development in the future. It basically
says, we'll make it easy for you. We'll take care of it, even though that is your responsibility. I
know it's enormously, enormously frustrating, aside from this planning situation, for the residents
who are caught in this situation, too, of trying to comply just with these strictures and who are just
left in the lurch.
you know, aside from this plow situation, this is just one more extension of that. So that's a really
good point. And I do worry about all of this and how folks are going to manage it. And this is a huge
responsibility to be part of an HOA, to live in a private road development.
have a heavy responsibility with it. And some people were not ever made aware. Some people, maybe their
HOA is underfunded. I'm hearing it. And I feel for you. But we can't send county trucks in to help.
We just can't do it. And that's the unfortunate thing. Because that would actually go against
state statute and the use of motor vehicle highway funds, which is how we fund our snowplow system.
Terrible, terrible, terrible. I feel horrible for these folks. My heart goes out to them, especially
those who didn't know or those who have an HOA that's not doing their job, whatever it might be.
I am sorry, especially if this is the storm where you found that out for the first time. If this is
the first time anything went wrong. Terrible.
What we can do is encourage these developers to get these subdivisions done, to get them done right.
And again, we need to have that conversation about, do we ever do private road developments again? And
that's the next question. All right, I've gone on too long. Any other department updates?
seeing none, we'll go ahead and open this up to public comment. This is the section of the meeting for
public comment on items not on our agenda. We ask commenters to limit their time to three minutes per
person. Please provide your name and county of residence as you speak. And good morning. Good morning.
My name's Lynn Coyne, longtime resident
Monroe County. I'd originally wanted to speak to you for clarification on funding for the Highway Department,
as I understand the gas tax funds highway road maintenance. Are you saying that we cannot use county
tax dollars to maintain county roads, that that's our only source to maintain county streets and roads?
That's my question. The word maintain is a bit big. Are you talking about plowing?
anything. Okay. Ms. Rich, do you want to address it? Again, we get our money from motor vehicle highway.
It's very restricted on what we can use it for. It is to be for county maintained roads that have been
accepted into our system, which that's how our funding is calculated. We don't, we have a local road
and street budget. You can't use, you cannot pay any labor out of that fund. That's our two biggest
sources of income in highway.
I do understand that. Is that the only source of funds? There's no county tax dollars. You can't spend
county tax dollars to do any of that work. I don't over tax dollars. It's a be up to the council to
do that. I guess maybe the answer to the question is that I think in the past we have used county general
funds for things like buying by two minutes or something like that. So county general funds clearly
could be used for maintaining county grants. Thank you for that.
Part two, which I didn't intend to do, but because of commissioners Thomas's remarks, I feel compelled
to do this. I speak for myself, only myself as a lot owner in a subdivision that has not been accepted
by the county. I do not speak for my homeowners association or anybody else. I want that to be clear.
I do not understand. My developer installed the streets, sidewalks and improvements in my subdivision
in accordance with the county specification at the time they were installed. That's very clear. They
were inspected and a bond was posted at that time for any deficiencies. Okay.
Now what's going on is the county has moved the finish line. They have changed your specifications and
you are applying new specifications to those roads. I do not believe, and I would like Mr. Cockrell
to explain how you can apply today's standards to the approved standards at the time they were installed.
That is the root of the problem in my subdivision.
It's not that we don't want to do it. I'm sure they're doing a good job. Our streets got plowed by them
and all that. But how is it that streets, sidewalks and so forth built to the standards that were approved
at the time they were installed are no longer acceptable to you? I don't understand that. You drew money
from the bond, the county drew money from our bond, built an ADA crosswalk
all under the standing that you were doing this to accept these streets. You then came back and inspected
your own work and rejected it. You have inspected these streets multiple times and each time you change
the rules on us. I don't know how anybody can tolerate that situation or comply with it. It baffles
me. Plus, is it legal to apply post facto these new standards, for example, the sidewalk standards?
You have completely different sidewalk and crosswalk standards now than you did at the time you approved
the subdivision. You are applying the new standards and want all the crosswalks torn out and rebuilt.
Tell me how that's fair. You can blame developers, you can blame anybody, but I think you need to look
in the mirror here. Thank you. Thank you. I hope that we can look into this a bit more because this
raises an interesting
So we would need, if you could send, I don't know which development it is, if you could send that on
email and we can have more information. We can dig through that information and see what's actually
going on on the ground. I appreciate you bringing it. Thank you.
Hi, my name is Lynn Barrett. I live on Geranium Lane. I had a house built seven years ago, not knowing
that this was a private road. And I honestly didn't find out that it was a private road until last year.
Dave Blackwell is the one that I had to go through to purchase the lot from Don Grubbs. I have my deed
here that they signed, that everything was on the up and up of the subdivision.
I believe that that's fraudulent now. There are approximately 55 homeowners in this subdivision. None
of us knew that this was a private road. In 2021 when we had a large snow, I called Dave Blackwell and
asked him, you know, can you clear the streets? And he told me that Grubbs was the person that
would be responsible for that, but he would get somebody out there, and he did. And the reason is because
some of the lots had not been built on, so therefore it wasn't complete. My question also is similar
to the gentleman that just spoke, that Don Grubbs said that he posted a bond 20 years ago, and some
of the neighbors that have lived there 20 years have said the same thing, and that it was approved.
Now you're not approving it. There is a case against him and I have all the improvements that Mr. Cockrell
has sent and it's over $500,000 that is going to take to bring our streets up to code. A couple of days
ago, our roads were impassable until yesterday. A couple of days ago, I found somebody on another street
that was just
A gentleman that could clean the street part of the street I hired him to take one swipe down petunia
and then one swipe down geranium because I have a neighbor that is just going through cancer treatments,
they are trying to adopt three little kids and she needs to get out for that so.
at least they could get out at that point. Another homeowner yesterday hired Abels to clean off the
east side of the street, and then another company came last night. They didn't charge anything to clean
our section off, but one of our neighbors gave them money just to be out there. You mentioned
that you give a list to homeowners. I've never received a list of private companies that could come
and clean our streets. And I'm not sure that other people in my neighborhood have also, but I would
like you to send me the list. I would appreciate that. People that we can call to clean off our streets.
Last year, I called your office, Mr. Cockrell, and I was told that you represent the county
you do not represent individuals. So I never got to talk to you. We have this year, we have put things
on Facebook. We've got a state representative that is trying to help us. We've called Rafael Sanchez.
He's trying to help us. We've called attorneys. We don't know what to do at this point. The streets
were clean a couple of years when I first moved there. And it was when I found out about that,
That was because there was somebody new on the job and they mistakenly cleaned Geranium Street because
it butts up against Jaffa, Java subdivision and it butts up against Aloha subdivision. Your time is
up, but I appreciate you coming in, really do.
We can't comment because this is a litigation. We cannot offer comment to you, but we do encourage anyone
in your situation to call the Highway Department. Lisa Ridge, what is the phone number? 812. 803-6810
sorry 812-803-6810. 6810 and I.
talked with Justin a couple days ago, and he has sent the list of contractors. I don't know if it's
to you, multiple times over the past year also. So I'm not, and I don't have your email. So call, give
us your email. We'll get you the list. Bachelor has the list. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for coming
in. Otherwise we can't comment because this is something for litigation and we're in that position where
we can't, we cannot comment on it. Thank you.
Good morning, commissioners. My name is Trent Deckard. I'm an at-large member of the Monroe County Council.
It's always good to be back in this room at a different time. I just want to say a couple things on
this complex issue. Sometimes on a complex issue, I always think back to the old saying that the buck
stops here. It stops with us as elected officials. We have magnificent
department heads who pursue their work with all the folks in their charge. They do this day in and day
out. And we need a wider solution to the complexities here than I think what they are either empowered
to give or can give due to the complexities of either federal state or local regulation. And if ever
there was a call for taking a look at some of those to make sure that all of those make sense, this
might be a good example.
I do think it's extremely appropriate to say a big shout out and thank you to Highway and to our first
responders and to our parks folks who are all still actively doing all these things, as well as other
folks that I'm sure I've not mentioned, including our colleagues and friends over at the city, town
of Eltsville. It's important in this room that we say that.
But on this more massive issue where we've got a cross between a planning series of events and we've
got very tight restrictions on how motor vehicle can do, we need some outside the box considerations
for solutions. And I think it's only going to come from elected officials. I said in our council meeting
the other day,
that we would respond in flooding with emergency management response. We would respond in that kind
of a weather event with a response. I think as we ease our way towards the door, trying to find the
doorknob, trying to find the solution, trying to get people moving in neighborhoods, I think it's important
we do not get tripped both in the snow and in our own strings and attachments.
I, as an elected official, I struggle in this job when there's someone suffering for which I have not
done everything I can do to get them moving. I was pleased yesterday to be able to drive on Geranium
Lane. I keep calling this a Geranium issue. My understanding is it's the Java Heights neighborhood.
I think I'm saying that right. I also want to thank Nextphase Construction and Cleaning that got out
there to kind of finish the job that the last speaker talked about, but ultimately,
I think we've got to think beyond the box, and we cannot get tripped in what we can do and cannot do,
because I think that's a federal and state game of keeping local officials from doing the one thing
that matters the most, being neighbors to each other, reaching over, figuring this out. And look, if
we do the wrong thing in that process, someone will surely tell us, but I think that for our constituents,
we have a duty bound to do that. So commissioners,
As a county council member, I look forward to working with you on a caring solution. We do have $1 million
we put into rainy day funds towards emergency management needs. I think that we've got to think pretty
creatively and take this burden from department heads and do our job. So thank you so much. Thank you.
Yeah, we also have. Mr Spoonmore.
on teams. He could I promote him so he can speak you 3 minutes, Mister Spoonmore. Yes, good morning
missioners this is Eric Spoonmore president greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce also a Monroe County
resident and taxpayer appreciate being able to attend these meetings and speak plainly and bluntly about
the issues within Monroe County government but
Before I get to some of the concerns, I want to recognize a resounding success that we've heard already.
We should all be very proud of. That's our first rate highway department. The workers there and the
management, including Director Ridge, did a superb job of handling the historic severe winter weather
event we just endured. The entire department deserves our highest praise for their dedication to duty
and service. With the extreme weather and the
snow that piled up, we saw how this exposed some gaps in services that our taxpayers receive, again,
at no fault of our county highway department, but seemingly due to administrative paperwork based denials
for certain roads and subdivisions. And so God bless Dave Cochran and Nextphase Construction and Cleaning
Services who saw these conversations and issues unfolding on social media like we all did.
And knowing Dave, I think his moral compass just directed him to go help the residents on Geranium Lane
who were stranded and up to 15 inches of snow. And so this is just another example to me of our business
community stepping up when government can't or just won't. And it reminds me of a similar recent situation
when the business community stepped up to help feed needy school children despite the commissioner's
denial of local government social service grant dollars designed
for that very purpose. It's the business community here in Bloomington and Monroe County that is consistently
and generously helping our neighbors and at times when they need help the most. And I think that's an
important thing to recognize. We should always look for the helpers, especially in emergency situations.
These are the difference makers that do good in our community. So thanks so much to Dave Cochran and
the Nextphase team for doing this work pro bono. So the residents of Java Heights area can
now get to the grocery store, they can get to their medical appointments, they can get back to work
so they can pay taxes, hopefully get the full range of services they deserve for those taxes in the
future. And then I'll just close with this point. If you all could just spend a fraction of the time
that you spent on trying to purchase North Park for a $250 million jail and instead focus on fixing
this issue with the snow and subdivisions, I think county government would score a lot more points for
themselves
and with our residents. So, thank you. Thank you. Next, please. Thank you, David Henry, Van Buren Township.
I was so excited about the state of emergency being ratified and listening to the conversation. I felt
compelled to come back up and share a few thoughts from the hat I wear as an emergency management faculty
at IU. My reading of Indiana code is that a declared state of emergency would give
some authorities down to a state and local level. We don't have a lot of local ordinances built around
states of emergency. We'd have to lean on state code for that. But I think the novel solution to consider
in the future for developments that
for developers that refuse to do this work, is to treat it no differently than we would nuisance objects
on private property that would be affecting the public health and safety. We've done that through plan
commission this year already. And to the argument that if we do it for one, we do it for all, I don't
find to be particularly credible. There are a lot of HOAs and developers that are doing their part to
maintain their neighborhoods and neighbors maintaining their neighborhoods. But I think this conversation
would be very different today if we found out someone died in their house this week.
And I wonder if that changes the tone or blame or finger pointing if we were dealing with a fatality
because we couldn't find a way to deal with the nuisance snow that was in the way of some of
these neighborhoods. I'm glad that's not the conversation today, but I think I'll leave it there. The
second point I want to raise is one I've raised multiple times from this podium since the derecho, and
it's one that we either
Haven't learned the lesson from or you're not choosing to and it's pretty much this we have an emergency
management agency there is a binder on a shelf somewhere that is the county's emergency management plan
that calls for some point of contact for the who what where when and why of what we're doing in this
building and time and again.
The media finds out piecemeal what the states of emergencies are. The fellow elected officials in this
community do not get the information they need to understand how to participate or to propose funding
for ideas. And so we need to get better at this. It is a systems failure at this point. It's not just
ignorance. And I get it. I teach this for a living. My students have never heard of emergency management
before they take my class. But I expect a little more of my county government.
to operate as FEMA has intended through its best practice training and that we must do and certify to
the state that we know what we're doing locally with emergency management. We need a public information
officer that's talking to the public. It's not an elected official. It's a point of contact.
that is getting the information out routinely. We have a Facebook page maintained by the Board
of Commissioners by private contract. Sometimes it's updated, sometimes it's not. We have some information
coming from the body, sometimes we do, sometimes it's not. We learn things in public comment, sometimes
we do, sometimes we don't.
I am again willing as an EMAC member to start to get under the hood of this, but I don't know how many
more near misses we get until one really hits and we have to backtrack and explain ourselves to the
public as why we couldn't get the right information out to who needed it and when they needed it.
Thank you. And just to be clear, the Board of Commissioners does not supervise, manage or control the
emergency management.
department. That department is under the supervision and control of the Emergency Management Commission,
Advisory Commission. And I know Mr. Henry is a member of that, as is Commissioner Jones. So I think,
or are you doing it? I think it's still Commissioner Jones. Remember what we just did appointments two
weeks ago. Anyway, so just to be clear, it is not
possible for us to direct or manage or supervise that department. It's the way that it's been set up
by state statutes. All right. Let's see. I don't see any other comments, so let's move on to our next
agenda item, please. I would like to move approval of the minutes for January 22nd, 2026. I will second that.
Any comments, corrections, edits? I did not either. All those in favor of approving minutes for January
22nd, 2026, signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion carries to zero. Next item, please. I would like to move
approval of the claims docket for accounts payable for January 29th, 2026. I will second that. Tell
us all about it, please, Ms. Moser.
Good morning. The accounts payable claims docket for January 29th, 2026 totals $12,142,138.29. This
includes all emergency claims and adjustments. Thank you so much. Any comments, corrections, edits?
I don't. Either any public comment on this item. You can raise your hand in teams or come to the podium.
All those in favor of approving the claim stock and accounts payable January 29, 2026 signify by saying
aye. Motion carries two zero. We did not receive any reports. And so we will move on to new business,
please. I would like to move approval for blood. So Rygert, Cooper, James on call service agreement,
fund names, food and beverage, parks, non-reverting and county general.
fund numbers, 4932, 4113, 1178, 1179, and 1000 in the amount of not to exceed $10,000. I will second
that. Ms. Whitmer, good morning. Good morning. The Parks Board approved to hire BRCJ for on-call services.
If we don't need them, we won't use them. But things just pop up once in a while that we don't have
the expertise in. All right. Thank you so much.
Just to clarify, the reason the food and beverage is listed is if ever the on-call relates to Huntington.
Correct. The Monroe County Nature Preserve. Correct. Thank you. I just want to clarify that. Any questions
here? Any public comment on this item? You can raise your hand on teams or come to the podium.
All right. Seeing none, all those in favor of approving the on-call service agreement with Bledsoe,
Rieger, Cooper, and James, signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion carries 2-0. Next item. Yes, I would like
to move approval for Bledsoe, Rieger, Cooper, James Engineering Service Agreement. Fund names, food
and beverage, parks and honor reverting, and county general.
Fund numbers, 4932, 4113, 1178, 1179, and 1000 in the amount of not to exceed $79,300. I will second
that. Tell us about this one, please. This is for the Monroe County Nature Preserve design so we can
get an entrance, a maintenance building, a dog park, and all the amenities that we need to make that happen.
We as our department will be the general contractor, which is probably going to save a million dollars
to the county taxpayer for us doing that. BRCJ is going to help us get all the permits working through
planning, building, legal and stormwater to get everything that we need to go and make sure we're doing,
our staff is doing what we need to do. So we find this a more economical way to do it. Great. Excellent.
Excellent.
If we can chat after the meeting today, I'd like to set a time to meet with you. Any questions or comments?
No. All right. I don't either. Let's see if there's any public comment on this item. You can raise your
hand on Teams or come to the podium. All right. Seeing none, all those in favor of approving the Bloods
of Rigor Cooper James Engineering Service Agreement signify by saying aye.
Aye. Motion carries, 2-0. Thank you, ma'am. Next item, please. I would like to move approval with the
ratification of the settlement agreement with IU Health. I will second that. I assume you're doing this,
Mr. Cockrell, for us. Yes, I think I can handle this. We discussed this pretty thoroughly at last week's
work session. This and essentially the next item are kind of similar.
We had run the public health clinic out of the Miller Drive area that the county had funded that. Part
of that funding included the purchase and installation of a generator. The generator is installed in
the building. So the first is a settlement agreement where they get to keep the generator but compensate
us for its value. Great. Thank you so much.
And this is all part of moving the vaccination program into our health building where it really belongs.
All right. Any questions? No. All right. Any public comment on this item? You raise your hand on teams
or come to the podium. Seeing none, all those in favor of ratifying the settlement agreement with IU
Health signify by saying aye.
Aye. Motion carries. 2-0. Next item, please. I would like to move approval to ratify the elite electric
memorandum of understanding, fund name, crisis coag supplemental workforce, fund number 8111 in the
amount not to exceed $25,000. I will second that. Mr. Cockrell.
Yes, and we still need to keep the vaccines and other medicines temperature controlled. This generator
would allow the coolers and the refrigerators and the freezers to maintain operations even if we lost
power. All right. Thank you so much. Comments or questions? No. And this is a higher price, although
it's not to exceed amount because
There are other elements that need to be completed in order to install. So we're just accounting for
that with the not to exceed amount. All right. Thank you. Any public comment on this item? You raise
your hand in teams or come to the podium. None. All those in favor of ratifying the elite electric memorandum
of understanding signify by saying aye.
Aye. Motion carries 2-0. Next item, please. I would like to move approval for ordinance 2025-45, the
Monroe Nature Preserve Rezone. I will second that, Mr. Brown. Good morning. Good morning. So this is
regarding a rezone of the Monroe County Nature Reserve from Conservation Residential 2.5 to Institutional Public.
The petitioner is the Board of Commissioners, and the planning commission for this petition under petition
number REZ-25-6 to the commissioners with a positive recommendation by a vote of seven to zero. In November
of 2023, Nancy Huntington passed away, and upon her passing, she dated 409 acres to Maduro County for
recreational purposes only.
To determine the language of the trust, including the meaning of recreational purposes, a hearing order
was enacted as follows. Would the board like me to run through this? We did hear this last week as well.
I don't if it's up to you. Are you OK? Yes, I'm totally OK. OK, we're good. Thank you. All right, so
the county is limited in using the nature preserve
only for the uses that fall under the definition as recreational purposes as shown in the order. There
are existing structures on the property currently, including some that were previously used residentially.
Discussion about the lease buildings on the property was discussed by Commissioner Jody Madera on August
14th, 2025 Board of Commissioners meeting. Also, these lease properties did not meet the judge's order
on the definition of what the property could be used for by the county.
At this point in time, I believe we actually just heard some of the plans for the nature preserve via
Kelly Whitmer. And questions about the nature reserve can be directed towards the Monroe County Parks
and Recreational Department at their phone number 812-349-2800. And here are just some maps of the property
showing the location as well as its role and comprehensive plan designations.
as well as just the general zoning map. Here's the images of the property. The one on the left is taken
from State Road 446, showing looking west towards the property. The image on the right is, I believe,
a proposal by Kelly Whitmer to finish a driveway that is going to extend directly onto South Nightridge
Road. And that's an image of the Anglican Way Drive.
These are two images showing a current structure on the property. The one on the left is the entrance
from South Nitridge Road, while the one on the right is the structure itself. And here are some existing
properties on the existing structures on the property as well. And this shows a list of the uses that
are currently allowed permitted in the Conservation Residential 2.5 Zoning District.
and on the right is our uses that are allowed in the institutional and public zoning district. Here
are comments from other departments. Ben Ayers with the Highway Department said no right of way activity
application has been submitted for disposition. A proposed driveway entrance was. I apologize, jeez.
was approved back in June 13th, 2025, and will be approved off of South Night Ridge Road. He has to
submit a right-of-way activity permits for the driveway entrance prior to site plan review. Erica Pena
from Stormwater said no comments or concerns regarding this rezoned and that a Stormwater grading permit
and stake applicability will be reviewed at the time of development. We did receive a letter of support
for this, which was,
presented to the planning commission during their meeting. We have received no letters of remonstrance.
And so once again, the Monroe County Planning Commission forwarded this petition under petition number
REZ-25-6 to the Monroe County County Commissioners with a positive recommendation by a vote of seven
to zero. And staff recommends approval of the rezone of the Monroe County Nature Preserve from conservation
residential 2.5
to institutional public based on the findings of that comprehensive plan analysis that were included
in the Plan Commission packet. And I'll take any questions. Thank you so much, Mr. Brown. Questions
or comments? Commissioner Madeira? I don't have any either. We're really excited about this and appreciate
you bringing this forward. I really could have sworn we'd already heard this.
Thank you so much for being here. Because we've been talking so much about it. So thank you for bringing
this to us for the official vote. Let's see if there's anybody here or online who wishes to speak in
favor of this petition. You may raise your hand on teams or come to the podium. And by the way, I guess
we are the petitioner.
Thank you. Does anybody wish to speak in opposition to this petition? Again, let me raise your hand
on teams or come to the podium. Any general public comment? Seeing none, are you ready for a vote?
All right. All those in favor of approving ordinance 2025-45 signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion carries.
2-0. These are all reappointments. Yeah, I'm good with that. Thank you all. Thank you, Mr. Brown.
Thank you, planning staff for working on this with us.
It's nice that they made a recommendation to us as the petitioner to approve it. They appreciate it.
All right. Appointments. Yes, we have some reappointments. For SUDAC, Ashley Collins, Steve Malone,
and Melanie Rebecca Bichlage.
And I believe that Peter Iverson and myself are going to be reappointed from county council and myself
as county commissioner. We already did that. Did we? Yeah. See, it must be in the water. Yeah,
that's OK. That's OK. We did that. But I will ratify that. We're just making it very sure that we're
appointed. We're just in concrete. You got it. I will go ahead and second it. Those are one-year
appointments? Yes. OK. Excellent.
And so those can move forward. And we can continue doing our good work on that commission. There's much
to do. Yes. So much to do. And exciting work, too. Yes. Substance Use Disorder Awareness Commission.
Yes. And if anybody has questions about this or other items, please contact them. All those in favor
of approving the appointment, signify by saying aye.
I motion carries two zero and that is a good segue to your reminder that we still have some key positions
available on boards and commissions including the library board and animal management so if anyone's
interested or considering applying please do so as soon as possible you can call our office for further
information
or find the application on our website. Just look up boards and commissions. Please sign up for the
Monroe County alert notification system. This is how people were aware of various travel advisories
in our county and any emergency notifications will go over those airways and it could be sent to you by text.
You can receive a phone call or you can receive an email or all three. And we do encourage residents
to sign up. It's free and it could be a lifesaver. We continue to host our virtual office hours via
Teams each month.
There are six of those office hours every month. Just check out the calendar and drop in and we will
chat. The next blood drives that we're co-sponsoring with Ivy Tech and the Red Cross will be Wednesday,
February 11th from 1 to 6 p.m. and Thursday, February 12th from 10 a.m. to 3. That's at Ivy Tech rooms
C130A and B. We encourage folks to make an appointment at redcross.org, but appointments probably aren't
necessary, but you might have to wait a few minutes. All right. Anything else for the good of the order?
Just expressing appreciation to all the county employees who worked so hard, again, through the storm
and through all the residents who were patient.
It takes a lot to clear all of that, and the clearing will continue because we have just mounds of snow
out there. We do. We do. And just a good reminder to folks to be vigilant and careful. Yes, there's
snow piled up at some intersections. You might have to creep up a little bit to make sure that you can
pull out into traffic. You're not pulling out into traffic. And just be aware that as the snow melts,
It will refreeze at night. It's going to be a cycle that will go on for quite some time. And just, just
be careful driving. That's pretty much all we could say is be careful driving. And especially once schools
back in and those kids are out there. So all right. So anything else for the good of the order?
Um, I did not see a work session packet. Am I right? You may not have, but I have two items. All right.
Good. All right. So we will come back at, um, 11 50. Can we do that? 10 minutes to noon. Is that good
for, okay. Great. We'll come back at one, one five zero and we will, um, have our work session.
Thanks Angie. All right.
Our next meeting is February 2nd and with that we are adjourned. Thanks everyone.