- Good morning. I'm going to call to order this meeting of the Monroe County Board of Commissioners. It
- is Thursday, May 21st, and we will begin. I will note for the record that all three commissioners are
- here and present in the NatU Hill Room, and we'll begin with our public statement read by Commissioner
- Madera. 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. We also stand in support of our county public
- school systems, both RBB and MCCSE. Great. Thank you so much. And it's the last day of school. It is.
- All right, now we will move on to our department updates. First, we have Ms. Kelly joining us from the
- health department. Good morning. Good morning, commissioners. According to the Indiana Department of
- Health, we have not seen any changes in wastewater concentrations for COVID and wastewater scan data
- for Monroe County shows very low levels. Flu activity is still minimal, but the health department does
- still have free
- flu and COVID tests available for the public. The health department will be offering free walk-in testing
- and treatment services for chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis on June 25th from 3 to 6 p.m. We will
- also have free rapid HIV and hepatitis C testing services during this time. That's what I have for you today.
- Great. Thank you so much. Comments or questions? Commissioner Madura? I have one. Thank you. Commissioner
- Jones? No, I don't. All right. Thank you so much. Thanks for joining us. We don't have captions. TSD,
- we don't have captions up here. Thank you. Next we have Stephen Miller, our Director of Veterans Affairs.
- Good morning.
- Good morning to you. I had just two quick things I wanted to kind of give a little update on Memorial
- Day weekend coming up and there's a number of a number of activities going on. The first are some volunteer
- opportunities for flag placement, the American Legion.
- family post 18 is doing on Saturday, May 23rd at 8 a.m. at Rose Hill Cemetery and at White Oak Cemetery
- to follow flag placing. There'll be more flag placing on Saturday the 23rd by the VFW family at 9 a.m.
- at the Clear Creek Cemetery. Then actually today, an hour ago, there was the first
- Excuse me, the Presbyterian Cemetery in Ellisville. And then, excuse me, on Saturday, there will be
- flag placement by the AMVETS at Valhalla Memory Gardens. Then on, for Memorial Day services and ceremonies,
- we have on Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Little Union Baptist Church on Bromance Creek Road, there'll be a service.
- on Monday at 9 a.m. at Rose Hill Cemetery presented by the American Legion and then at 10 a.m. at Valhalla
- Memory Gardens there'll be a ceremony as well. The Bloomington Community Band will begin at 930 and
- again that's promoted that's presented by the VFW.
- Additionally, I had a quick veteran update, veteran story for you. I wanted to share a recent experience
- that highlights the importance of carefully reviewing military records to ensure they're accurate and complete.
- Earlier this month, I assisted a veteran who was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1947 to a father serving in
- the United States Army while stationed in Japan. Although he is a veteran, although the veteran is a U.S.
- citizen by birth through his American parents, his DD 214 military discharge document contained a small
- but significant administrative error. In box number seven, they incorrectly indicated that he was not
- a veteran.
- The veteran carried this around with him for many years not realizing there was an error until he went
- to file for social security benefits Where social security said you're not a vet you're not a citizen
- So he had to jump through a lot of hoops to try to figure out how to prove his citizenship We reviewed
- his record and the error was clear There was one small checkbox on his DD 214 that indicated that he
- was not a citizen so we
- put together a package for a board of correction of military record to have his DD 214 updated. So this
- is interesting to me for a lot of reasons. One, something similar happened to me when I retired. My
- unit put down the wrong retirement date, which actually put me at just under the amount of time needed
- for retirement. And I was able to get that fixed, but it took
- almost a year. So my word of advice to all veterans and families out there is if you do see an error
- in military documentation, please reach out to my office. It can be contacted at 812-349-2537. We're
- happy to see what we can get figured out with that. So thank you again for all of your support, and
- I'll leave you with that. Thank you. Thank you so much. And that's such an important
- tips such good advice just check your military record absolutely great advice and thank you for the
- information on the events this weekend we will there absolutely see you then thank you any other departments
- have an update for us good morning
- excited to be here. I was going to just sign in real quickly. Trondin Randolph, Nero County Surveyor.
- I'm really excited to be here yet again to share a bit of good news. We just recently attended the Indiana
- Geographic Information Council GIS Conference. It was here locally. It was pretty awesome. Everyone had
- great things to say about the community. And during that, our GIS division within the Surveyor's Office
- won a special achievement in GIS award. And this is basically a collaborative project with the Monroe
- County Public Library. It's the Hoosier Character. The Hoosier Character is a interactive website aimed
- at inspiring Hoosiers to find out more about the history
- of the place we live, work, and play is a living project with new data being added regularly. This is
- an award that recognizes special geospatial projects developed through teamwork, demonstrates commitment
- to working with others towards a common goal, while performing important work to create outstanding
- information resources to the public. It's
- Again, my pleasure to introduce our GIS coordinator that helped with this collaborative effort, plus
- a few folks within our GIS division to share a bit about this project and demonstrate it. I also want
- to bring a little recognition that after endearing the conference, they did a transition of leadership.
- So our GIS coordinator,
- Dr. John Baten is actually now the current IJIC president, which is pretty great. It's a very important
- role, and I'm very excited to see what happens with our GIS community across the state. And with that,
- here's John. Thank you. Commissioners? TSD, can I share my screen? Sorry, I'm trying to get a laptop
- up here with a mouse. There we go.
- And let's see here. Oh, and I'm going to unmute myself there so I can talk here. Hello? All right, guys.
- Let's see. Is that showing up on the screen? Yeah, there you go. Hey, OK, cool. It works. Yeah, so thanks,
- commissioners. I'm John Baten. I'm the GIS coordinator. Yeah, so three years in a row, we are
- G.I.S. champions in Indiana, so huzzah for Monroe County G.I.S. and the Surveyor's Office. We won two
- years ago for our website, last year for the election reporting, and this year for Who's Your Character?
- And this is a new one. The previous ones were Excellence in G.I.S. This one's Special Achievement, so
- it's really looking at that kind of collaborative work. What this, oh man, I hit the wrong thing. I'm
- just going to get out the splash screen. Nobody reads those anyways.
- This is as Tron mentioned like an interactive and immersive project that's allowing Hoosiers to kind
- of get a better idea of what's going on in the past and where they live. It's a again it's an interactive database.
- A lot of the legwork for this was done by the Monroe County Public Library, pulling together an amazing
- amount of historical data. This website allows you to search by last name or business. It also allows
- you to search by a field note. And a field note's gonna be more of the qualitative information. But
- for instance, if we type in to the dashboard, Smith, I'm just gonna do a last name. I did practice this
- too, so I picked out some interesting characters to look at. And we can go to Henry Smith. The map will
- zoom in on the map.
- to the location of where Henry Smith in 1856 lived. And you can see a field note here that in 1856,
- he was a property owner in Salt Creek Township and oral histories for local leads about the Underground
- Railroad. So this is an Underground Railroad contributor just outside of Monroe County in 1856.
- You can zoom out too on the map and you can see there's these beautiful historic maps in the back. This
- is from an atlas of Indiana that was made in 1876. And so what we've done is geo-references for the
- entire state. This is on the state's GIS website as well called Indiana Map. And so you can type an
- address in into the search bar here, something like Noblesville, and it's gonna allow you to zoom in.
- to an area in Noblesville or wherever in the state and see kind of what's going on. So just kind of
- another cool resource. You can also search by field notes here. And so if I type in school here, we
- go down to a field note and you're gonna get a bigger kind of qualitative understanding of what was
- going on. So this is the location of where the Clear Creek School was in the 1820s. You can see here
- on the map right next to the Chicago rail line and zooming out again there.
- Lastly, you can also look at the original federal land patents. So these would be things as the United
- States was colonized and moved west and kind of divided up, different individuals would be able to buy
- land. And so if we go to a specific section or a specific county, let's go to Decatur County, it'll
- zoom in and you're going to get the different federal land patents. These are clusters. So this circle
- right here is showing that there's 22 points of data at this area. I'll zoom in.
- here, and we can kind of just expand one of these. I clicked it, there we go. We're gonna open up this
- cluster, and we can see the different individuals that bought property in this section of land in the
- 1820s. I'm gonna pick on Henry McDonald here, and this is gonna give you kind of the area of where he
- actually purchased property in 1823, but we have a link here to the actual federal land patent that's
- gonna zoom in, and you'll be able to see what that image looked like.
- I'm going to blame this on the Bureau of Land Management. Hey, is it going to work? I also call that
- my Swiper the Fox voice. I've got kids who watch Dora the Explorer, and I say that too often. But this
- gives people an idea of what that actual land patent looks like. And so again, this is this interactive
- website, and it's growing, and it's going to continue to grow. And the goal here is for folks to contribute
- to this so we get a better idea of where we came from and maybe where we're going.
- That's Hoosier character. And again, this wouldn't have been possible without our collaboration with
- the Mineral County Public Library. So, yeah. Awesome. That's really cool. Thank you for bringing that
- in. Congratulations on your hard work and your achievement. Any of my colleagues? It's just very cool.
- It is very cool. Thank you. Yeah, awesome. And I love the fact that if families especially have information,
- material in their own archives, they could upload it onto this. That would be incredible.
- Yeah, very cool. And it works well, despite the fact this is an 1870s-era map. And you're dealing with
- older data. It still all fits fairly well. Well, I mean, there could be information that we pull into
- Hoosier character that's prior to 1876, right? But as a base map, it works fairly good. And the goal
- here isn't to move past 1900, because we have other websites that are doing that as well. So it's kind
- of pre-19th century.
- I'm sorry, pre 20th century. Yes. Really cool. Thanks for the show and tell. Thank you. Any other department
- have an update for us. It's hard to follow that one. I'm seeing that we'll move on to public comment.
- This is for items that are not on our agenda.
- speaker to limit their time to three minutes per person and TSD if you could put the clock the stopwatch
- up that would be great and I guess it's a countdown clock give us your name and county of residence
- that would be great waiting for the timer to be added don't see it
- up there. In a new place. It's that blue bar up there. Okay, excellent. Thank you. Thank you, TSD. Sir.
- Good morning, Madam President, commissioners. This is Christopher M.G. from the Greater Bloomington
- Chamber of Commerce, a membership organization with 900 such members and 80% of those being of small
- business nonprofit. I just want to do a little housekeeping tonight. We had our third annual Valor Awards
- presented by CEMTRA
- Biofarm Solutions, which was a wonderful event at Ivy Tech. We honored law enforcement, fire, EMS, dispatch,
- and corrections. We had Sergeant Trippany from the Sheriff's Office that was a winner, and Lieutenant
- Williams from Monroe County Fire District, among others. I recommend going to our photo gallery and
- checking out some of the fine shots and the stage display. It was quite a ceremony, very moving. Going
- on to our next awards, we have, I want to encourage some
- to submit their nominations for
- that we'll be hosting. This is our 15th annual web award where we recognize local civic minded women
- from a wide range of professions and backgrounds who men or others lead by example and just give back
- to the community. Nominees just work in the business or nonprofit sector. The common thread though is
- leadership and those who inspire others. The eligibility is just going to be 21 or older, not have won
- a web award, but previously
- You also, you don't need to be a chamber member. It's not required unless you do live outside of Monroe
- County. This is a great opportunity for residents, employers, coworkers, friends, communities, just
- to recognize women who are making a meaningful difference in Monroe County. Nominations are due June
- 26th at 5 p.m. Where can you find those? ChamberBloomington.org. And then our next little business,
- we have our Showcase Bloomington Next
- Thursday. This is our business expo. That'll be Thursday, the 28th at Switchyard Park from five to eight
- o'clock. It's our community facing event of the year with local business entrepreneurs, food vendors,
- music, family-friendly activities in a very welcoming, cool outdoor setting. It's a chance for residents
- to discover some businesses, connect with the community organizations, enjoy some food, entertainment,
- and just really celebrate all that is Monroe County. While the Chamber does a lot of work and advocacy,
- as you know, and workforce and business support, this is really the opening the door to the, while we're
- inviting the entire community. And so again, join us for that on May 28th, next Thursday, five to eight
- at Switchyard Park. And again, more information at chamberblueington.org. Thank you. Thank you so much.
- Appreciate you being here.
- Good morning. Good morning. And happy last day of school. I'm Mike Chavis. I'm the forest supervisor
- at the Hoosier National Forest. It's been a little bit since I last came to one of these meetings. So
- my primary objective this morning is just to reintroduce myself. And we have one new commissioner. Nice
- to meet you. It's the last time I was here. And to make sure that you all know who I am and how to contact
- me so I can leave a business card if there's any comments,
- any kind of discussion you want to have about the National Forest. We're 205,000 acres of public land
- located in nine different counties, so fairly scattered from Lake Monroe down to the Ohio River.
- And 19,000 of those acres, more or less, are located in Monroe County. So two specific things I did
- want to bring up while I'm here is a common misconception I run into in the counties where we have land
- located is that
- the counties don't receive any financial benefit, that it's a loss to have national forest system land
- within their county. So I just wanted to address that quickly because some payments were recently made.
- So it is true we don't pay property taxes, technically speaking, but we make payments in the form of
- payment in lieu of taxes. And then there's also a different fund called the Secure Rural Schools Act.
- So it comes in two different tranches. And in the 2025 payments were just recently made. So that amounted
- for Monroe County specifically to
- 119,000 acres. That's not a huge windfall, but that's that's fun. That can be funds that can be applied
- to road schools, public. And of course, we think there's there's other value besides that payment to
- having a national forest with within your free with that for sure.
- And then the other thing I wanted to point out was an upcoming opportunity right here in Bloomington.
- We have, well, there's an annual conference called the Fire in Eastern Oak Conference happens every
- year. It's being hosted in Indiana for the first time ever this year. And it's right here in Bloomington
- at the Convention Center. And that's June 2nd through the 4th. So I know that's been a topic of interest
- is fire and the use of prescribed fire on our natural lands and on our national forests by this commission
- in the past. So it's a great learning opportunity.
- it's a it's not our event we'll have some participation there but it's it's being hosted it's a it's
- a litany of different land managers at the federal and state level for multiple states academia and
- nonprofit organizations NGOs who also manage land as well so I hope you look into that too and like
- I said I'm glad to leave my business card if I leave that with Miss Purdy just so you all know how to
- contact me happy to take any questions too if you have them
- Thank you so much for coming in, Mr. Chavez. Do you have any? Not at this time, thank you. What was
- the conference called again? Fire in... It's called the Fire in Eastern Oak Conference. Okay, awesome.
- And there's a website, I don't know if I can, but if you Google that, you'll find it pretty easily.
- Excellent, thank you so much. Thank you, thank you so much. Any other public comment? You can raise
- your hand on Teams or come to the podium.
- Seeing none, we'll come back to our agenda if you could make a motion. Yes, I would like to move approval
- of the minutes for March 30th, 2026, for April 2nd, 2026, and for May 14th, 2026. Should I say what
- they are? Yes, if you would please. For the March 30th, 2026, Commissioner and Council Executive Session.
- For the April 2nd, 2026, Commissioner and Council Executive Session.
- and for the May 14th, 2026 Board of Commissioners meeting. Second. All right, we have a motion, we have
- a second. Any comments, corrections, edits? I sent some notes in. All right, all those in favor of approving
- the minutes for March 30th, April 2nd and May 14th, signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion carries three
- zero. Next.
- I would like to move approval of the claims stock it for accounts payable for May 21st, 2026. Second,
- we have a motion we have a second is guy or though you tell us all about it please. Good morning the
- accounts payable claims Docker for May 21st 2026 totals 9,000,000 125,000 730 and four cents. This includes
- all emergency claims and adjustments. Thank you so much comments or questions Commissioner Madeira.
- Any public comment on this item? You can raise your hand on teams or come to the podium. Seeing none,
- all those in favor of approving the claim stock and accounts payable for May 21st, 2026 signify by saying
- aye. Motion carries.
- Uh, we did not receive any reports for today and now we will move on to new business, please. I would
- like to move approval of, uh, item a herald fish incorporated showers building update to repair a failed
- control panel fund named 2022 geo bond fund number 4815 in the amount of $8,775. We have a motion. We
- have a second. We have mr Griffith joining us. Good morning commissioners. How are you?
- and cool. I was considering wearing a Hawaiian shirt after. So let's say this request is to accept the
- proposal submitted by Harold Fish Incorporated in the amount of $8,775 for repair update work to be
- done to the cooling tower control panel at the showers building tower.
- Thank you so much. Any comments or questions? It just sounds like it was needed. Beyond needed. Commissioner
- Madeira, big fan of this repair. Huge metal fan. Let's see if there's any public comment on this item.
- You raised your hand on teams or
- all those in favor of approving the showers building update repair by Harold fish ink signify by saying
- aye aye motion carries three zero thank you sir thank you commissioners item please I would like to
- move approval for resolution 20 26-20 highway bid openings second we have a motion and we have a second
- mr. Cockrell yes when we
- produced notice for bids for a couple of highway projects. The bid opening was to be at next month or
- next week's meeting. We're not meeting next Thursday. So this is being pushed to the June 4th. Justin
- or I will be in here to announce this again next Thursday at. Okay. Sorry, but thank you. Comments or
- questions, Commissioner Madura? No. Commissioner Jones.
- don't either, except that the agenda online has the wrong date. 24th. It's been corrected online. But
- that's good. I opened the online and I got 24th on here. Just to make it clear, it's 24th. Yeah, because
- I have it right. And it's right on here. Yeah. Anyway, awesome. Thank you.
- If there's any public comment on this item, you raise your hand on teams or podium. None. All those
- in favor of approving resolution 2026-20 on highway bid opening signify by saying aye. Motion carries.
- Yes, I'd like to move approval for in dot amendment number one for the pedestrian flashing weekends
- installed at various trail crossings Fund name pedestrian crossing improvements fund number eighty one
- seventy three in the amount of three hundred and one thousand five hundred and twenty six dollars and
- fifty eight cents We have a motion and we have a second So this is just basically clean up on in dots
- part they had allocated more funding at the time of the letting of the project over a year ago, so they're just
- updating their contract with Monroe County to match what they had allocated to the project. So the $301,520
- that is the total project cost and they're still paying 90% of that. That's their 90% of it. That is
- their 90%. So we paid the 10%. We'll also
- there's gonna be a change order to the project. We have to go back through and make some ADA modifications
- to it. NDOT has already allocated that they will cover that additional cost at the 90% also. So I'll
- be having another contract, increase to that contract or a change order for that. So, but this is just
- to clean up the original contract. Yeah, sounds good. Comments, questions, Commissioner Jones?
- No, thank you. Any public comment on this item? Raise your hand on teams or podium. Good example of
- how quickly inflation. All right.
- Seeing no public comment, all those in favor of approving in dot amendment number one for the pedestrian
- flashing beacons installed at various trail crossings signify by saying aye. Motion carries. We don't
- have any appointments today. I will note again that this is emergency medical services week.
- nationally, and the governor was here this week to honor some of our CMS medics, and it was really a
- nice moment. It was a nice event on Tuesday. And we do want to remind folks that there are events scheduled
- for Memorial Day remembrances Sunday, 2 p.m. at Little Union Baptist Church.
- Monday 9 a.m. at Rose Hill Cemetery and Monday 10 a.m. at Valhalla. It's a great opportunity to remember
- those who sacrificed everything for our freedom. I will also remind folks that it's a great idea to
- get yourself signed up for our notification system.
- You just go to our website, in.gov, slash, county, slash Monroe, and you can sign up there to receive
- an alert on any emergency, especially weather alerts. My phone has been very active the last few days.
- And while you're there, if you are interested in serving on a Board of Commission, we invite you to
- do so. Fill out an application there. You can see vacancies there. And we do also have office hours
- posted on the calendar that's on our main landing page. And there are six hours of virtual meeting time
- each month.
- go on there and stop in and see us via Teams. And we will continue to support the blood drives. I don't
- have the dates for June. I did ask for that and I don't see them here, but they are held at Ivy Tech,
- usually two days each month. Go to redcross.org for more information. And today's the last day of school,
- so be careful everyone.
- Um, any, anything else for the good of the order? Okay. Um, we have a work session. So, um, how about,
- uh, 10 45 for our work session? Is that work for everybody? No pun intended. Okay. Awesome. Um, we are
- not meeting next week. So our next meeting after that will be June 4th for our regular meeting. And,
- um, that'll be at 10 AM right here in the NatU Hill room.
- but we are coming back at 1045 for work session. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, TSD. Thank you, CAPS.
- We're adjourned.