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.