- Good morning. I'm going to call to order this meeting of Monroe County Board of Commissioners.
- It is Thursday, July 9th, and we will begin with 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. We also stand in support
- of our public school systems, both RBB and MCCSC. With that, we will move on to our
- Department updates. We have Ms. Kelly joining us from the Health Department. Good morning, Commissioners.
- There is currently a gastrointestinal illness that's going around that's caused by a parasite.
- Several states, including Indiana, have reported cases. This is called cyclospora, and it's thought
- to be linked to raw vegetables and fruits. But the CDC is still working to identify the source at this
- time. The Health Department does have vaccine appointments available. You can call 812-803-6364 for
- an appointment. All right. Thank you so much. Comments or questions? Commissioner Madeira?
- That's horrifying. Thank you so much for giving us an update on that. All right. Thank you so much,
- Ms. Kelly. With that, let's see if there's any other department that has an update to offer. Raise your
- hand on Teams or come to the podium.
- Seeing none, we'll open this up to public comment. This is time for comment on items that are not on
- our agenda. We ask each commenter to limit their time to three minutes and to provide their name and
- county of residence as they begin speaking. Does anybody have any public comment for us? You can come
- to the podium or you may raise your hand on teams.
- Seeing none, we'll move on to agenda item five, please. Yes, I would like to move approval of the minutes
- for July 2nd, 2026. I will second that. Any comments, corrections, or edits? No. I don't have any either.
- And all those in favor of approving the minutes for July 2nd, 2026, signify by saying aye. Aye.
- Motion carries 2-0. Next item, please. I would like to move approval of the claims docket for accounts
- payable for July 9th, 2026, and for payroll for July 10th, 2026. I will second that. Ms. Guyard? Hi,
- good morning. The accounts payable claims docket for July 9th, 2026 totals $1,419,944.70. This includes
- all emergency claims and adjustments.
- The payroll docket for July 10, 2026 includes $1,729,788.50 in direct costs, and the remaining $721,856.30
- were for indirect costs for a grand total of $2,451,644.80. All right. Thank you so much. Any comments
- or questions?
- I don't have anything. I don't either. Thank you so much. 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,
- it accounts payable July 9th, 2026 and payroll for July 10th,
- 2026 signify by saying aye aye motion carries to zero I have to step out and log in so sure one moment
- we're going to take a two minute recess thank you okay thank you we're back all right we're going to
- now move on to new business please
- Fund number 9103 in the amount of $9,880 annually. I will second that. Good morning. Good morning. Hello.
- Well, how are you guys today? I'm here on behalf of our safe place contract continuation. This is just
- approving our safe place contract between Indiana Youth Services Association and the Youth Services
- Bureau of Monroe County. It will be in effect from July 1st, 2026 through June 30th, 2028.
- Thank you so much. Comments or questions? Just underscoring how very important this contract and what
- it symbolizes, what it represents to the community is how important the self-safe places remains.
- Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. This is a continuation. Grateful. All right. Let's see if there is any public
- comment on this item.
- Raise your hand on teams or come to the podium. Seeing none, all those in favor of approving the safe
- place contract continuation, signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion carries to zero. Thank you so much.
- Thank you. Next item, please.
- I would like to move approval of the Josh Huey service agreement. I fund name parks, not averting capital
- fund number 1179 in the amount of $250. I will second that. And I believe we have Mr Robertson joining
- us on team. Yep, I want teams today. Good morning. So this service agreements with Josh Huey's local
- bluegrass musician. It is for a musical performance at Senior Day at the Fair. So historically, our
- department has assisted the Fair Board in coordinating auditorium activities for Senior Day. The event
- this year was on the 30th of June. Unfortunately, just with the timing of our park board meetings and
- the commissioner meetings, we couldn't get it to you before the event. I explained that to our board
- at our meeting. They felt in light of that, it was appropriate to use non-reverting funds.
- to cover Josh's fees in case there were any questions or concerns, but I am happy to report that the
- event went off this year without a hitch. We had around 130 folks attending, so it's popular every year
- and continues to be. I can't really see Justin's face, but I wanted to tell him how badly he missed
- out on this event, so I hope the vacation was worth it. But if there's any questions, I'm happy to answer.
- Thank you so much. Comments or questions? I don't have any, no. Sounds like a great event, and I'm fine
- with okaying this after the fact. Is there any public comment on this item? You raise your hand in teams
- or come to the podium. Seeing none, all those in favor of approving the Josh QE service agreement signify
- by saying aye. Aye.
- Motion carries, two zero. Thank you. Thank you. All right, next we have the bid openings for crack ceilings,
- crack ceiling, feeling of cracks in the asphalt. There we go. Thank you. So we received three sealed
- bids that looked like. We sent out a list to the contractors for the areas that we would like to perform
- crack ceiling preventive maintenance on the county roads. The first one is from RLH seal coating. This
- bid is $145,995.60. The second one is from CNC contractors.
- Their bid is $237,858. And the last bid is from All-Star Paving.
- This bid is $319,878. Based on last year's bids, we estimated it to be approximately $159,000. So we
- will take these under advisement and then hopefully get something awarded at next week's meeting. OK,
- I'm happy to take this under advisement, yes? Yes. OK, great. And I appreciate your
- work opening those and giving us the information. This is that sort of hot tar drizzle that goes in
- the cracks in the asphalt to keep it, especially during the winter when you're freezing thawing, to
- keep the asphalt in one piece. Yeah, it's actually, yeah, to seal it up so water doesn't get in the
- cracks because then the cracks expand and then we get big potholes. There you go. Perfect. Thank you.
- just so people know what we're talking about. All right, excellent. Thank you so much. We're going to
- take that under advisement. Let's wait on a motion on this last item. Next we have our ARPA discussion.
- And we have Ms. Woodruff here from the auditor's office. Thank you so much for joining us. So this is
- In relation to the meeting of Tuesday, June 30th, and the council made a determination. So if you could
- just give a small recap and then we'll see if Commissioner Madera has any questions.
- Yes, so at the meeting on the 30th, the council made appropriations contingent on Commissioner action
- as a recommendation for how the ARPA dollars that are in excess for some of the projects should
- be reallocated. The auditors
- advisement is that we reallocate those dollars within the open projects. Right now there are three open
- projects that are requesting additional funding and all three of those projects were tentatively appropriated.
- The appropriation amounts if you'd like me to go over those would be 200,000 to the Monroe fire ambulance
- project 100,000 to the karst Park field project and fifteen thousand two hundred twenty five dollars
- and 41 cents to the airport stormwater drainage project All right, do you have any Questions
- do not. I was actually attending the meeting while I was shuttling back from Colorado, and so I have
- a good understanding of the expenditures and the reasons why. So I am fine with all of these. Great.
- My concern is pretty minimal, but I want to run something by you. So
- we have information in that packet from June 30th from the airport that they won't know until the end
- of October whether or not they need any of this stormwater funding. I would be surprised if we didn't
- have that answer before October, but I believe October is when they plan to have their project finalized.
- So my question then is,
- What happens in October? Can we pivot and move that money back out if they don't need it and then reallocate
- it quickly to something that can be spent before the end of the year?
- Yes, so actually at that same meeting, the council also voted to have any additional funding that becomes
- available be automatically funneled to the CARST project. Those actions would still come before the
- commissioners and the council at your independent meetings. However, it would be our plan to just go
- ahead and funnel that money directly over to CARST, at least as much as CARST can take. And then if
- we run into a situation where
- car project is maxed out we can have a conversation then but I really hope that that won't happen. Okay
- so that's that's not in our wording. No. The last document in the packet in front of you is the council
- action that directs that.
- And again, these are all as recommendation. Okay. Do they have they don't have resolution numbers on
- their documents at the council, correct? I don't believe they do. Yeah, because they just made these
- motions without without writing. Okay. All right. Give me a second.
- things at once so mr. Roddy can we can we just affirm by a motion and a vote can we just affirm the
- D appropriations and appropriations made by the council on June 30th would that be clear enough without
- having to go into the
- I'm going to go ahead and make a motion that we affirm the deappropriation motion and the appropriation
- motion regarding ARPA funding made by the council at the June 30th joint meeting. Perfect. Okay. And
- the total amount is going to be $315,225.41. Okay? Good? Am I covering everything? Okay. All right.
- So let's go ahead and see.
- If there's any public comment on this item, you can raise your hand on Teams or come to the podium.
- Okay. Seeing none, all those in favor of affirming the Council's deappropriation motion and appropriation
- motion of June 30th, 2026 signified by saying aye.
- Motion carries, two zero. Thank you so much. All right, we don't have any appointments today. I do want
- to note that on Saturday, July 11th, we're going to have a little ceremony here in the courthouse. For
- anybody who's been in the rotunda, you'll notice there's a little curtain up there.
- And everybody wants to peek behind it, which is fine. But we are going to be unveiling a new plaque
- to commemorate the Monroe County residents who served as soldiers in the American Revolution. And this
- has been a project of the Daughters of the American Revolution. They've really done a wonderful job.
- And so Saturday at 11 a.m.,
- here in the courthouse. We invite the public to come and attend. And right after that is the history
- center's block party appropriately enough. So if you want to make a bit of a day of it, head on over
- to the Monroe County History Center and just block away and enjoy the festivities there for America's
- 250th. So we really want to thank everyone
- with the Daughters of the American Revolution who've made this possible. They did the research. We had
- some names missing, some names misspelled, and they found everything. So there's a wonderful pamphlet
- that they made up that we have copies of downstairs as well, which explains who each of these men were
- and their connection with Monroe County. It's very, very cool. So we do invite you to attend that.
- I just want to remind folks that we do have office hours, six hours each month. Just go to our calendar,
- log in, and you can speak with one of us. The utility vehicle code that we passed last week was as a
- result of a office hour call, so it's a good thing. We do encourage folks to sign up for
- the resident alert system for any emergencies. You can receive a phone call, text, and or email. Just
- go to our homepage and find that button and sign up. It's free to all Monroe County residents.
- We do want to, if I could... ESD, if I could...
- share my screen. I would really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Okay. So one of the things that we
- have run across
- and we continue to run across is, it still seems there's a lack of information out there, although the
- information's there, it's just that it's not getting to the public about this justice center project.
- And I really think it's important to
- about this project and get moving on this project as soon as possible and we'll talk about the subcommittee
- in a moment but there are a couple of things that the board agrees on are required for the Justice Center
- project and one is time and by that I mean as short of time as possible to move as quickly as possible
- Without delay, time has become the most important factor for us. It's going to help defray some of the
- future costs of inflation the sooner we get started, because we all know that construction inflation
- is even worse than what we pay at the gas pump in the grocery store. And the human costs are too much
- to ignore.
- Do you want to talk about the space side of this? Yeah, so we need to find at least 25 acres and that's
- an official determination I believe by DLZ in cooperation with the sheriff and other entities to build
- a jail facility and in the future when
- the council deems it possible when the board of commissioners deems it possible to construct the remainder
- of the justice center project, which will include the prosecutor, the public defender, and the remainder
- of the courts, and also the clerk's office. And so I'd like to talk a little later about this too, but
- a single floor jail facility is both empirically valid, evidence-based in other words, and it will also
- save money long-term
- because it's more efficient in terms of personnel proximity and access. And in terms of facility maintenance,
- it enhances inmate and staff well-being. It's more secure for jail staff and inmates. And it avoids
- additional risks as well for correctional officers who must be in that facility. And so other justice
- offices may be sited in a multi-floor structure, however.
- And also, it should be noted that courts, the prosecutor's office, and the sheriff's office had been
- operating in a co-located facility for 40 years. And so it's also strongly preferred. There is also
- a long-term cost, or I would say long-term costs, if we fail to co-locate justice-related departments.
- This will require additional personnel, additional time, additional vehicles. It will also perhaps incur
- additional liability.
- transportation and other costs. And also, we've heard many concerns from the community as to whether
- the current Zitlo building can be rehabilitated as a jail. This building is beyond repair, both in terms
- of the jail and the administrative portion. That does not mean that it cannot be used for some function
- in the future, that it must be torn down. It would just need to be probably reduced to studs to be used
- again for some purpose.
- And so in addition, if there is no co-location in the future, transporting inmates continuously between
- the jail and the courts long-term poses not only a lot of costs, but also unnecessary security risks
- as well. Would you like to talk about circulation? Yeah. So one of the space aspects relates to that
- vehicle circulation where we need to have a separation between
- the sheriff's vehicles and the public, people accessing the court, emergency access for first responders,
- delivery vehicles, all of the things that make that little village of a justice center operate. So we
- do need to make sure that we have secure routes
- that we have sufficient access for emergency and fire services. So what this has to do with is the connecting
- roads, right? So you have to be able, and that's part of that buildable space to be able to build sort
- of the half circle or full circle driveway around a facility. We do have a design for a 404 bed facility.
- with the ability to expand in the future. I think one of the things that we do need to mention, because
- we've all heard it, oh, I'm not going to prove anything more than 200 beds. Well, Vigo County built
- their jail. We went and saw it just before it opened, just to do a tour and see what they did or what
- they didn't like and all of that. It was 2019 or 2023?
- Oh, oh, yes, okay, gotcha. More recent. They started the process in 2010. Yes. But they've already now
- been ordered by court to build a second jail because their first jail isn't big enough. And when we
- walked in the door, the jail commander said to me, the council cut our budget, we built a smaller facility
- than we wanted, and we're going to have to try to figure out how to make this work. Well, that's what happens.
- There can't be any kind of legal impediment to building. There can't be environmental impediments to
- building. And again, because those relate to that time element, that time factor. Same thing with physical
- impediments to building like harsh features, storm water, flood concerns, slope issues, et cetera. Again,
- related to time. Not that those are things that can't be overcome, they can be.
- But it takes time. And anything in the city will take an extra year. Anything. Because it has to go
- through city planning, city council process. That's just the way it is. Because notifications have to
- go out. They have a structure in place. And it's a democratic structure that allows and encourages the
- public to be engaged in the planning process.
- that process. We have a similar process in Monroe County. I will also note that we have preferences.
- So those are the requirements, time and space. Preferences, location, your highway, access to a hospital
- nearby or a direct route. We do care and are concerned about transportation services and that may be
- transit, that may be
- Lift uber on a sunday. I don't know but we can figure that out that part's sort of the easy part compared
- to everything else And everybody talks about well, I want the jail to be near services Does that mean
- a bus ride away because there's no place in this city? where you are in walking distance to every single
- type of service Christ Jail transition food
- shelter. It is all over the community, which is good, but that means you're going to have to have transit
- right now. We don't even offer transit on Sundays from from our group facility. We also would prefer
- a place where we could have natural lighting, which involves a one floor facility and green space in
- the surrounding area because we know again empirically that studies have shown that this is a benefit
- to those who are housed. Now, having given that information to you, I'm going to now share a chart because
- it's entirely possible that all of the information on our
- website. We do have a website dedicated to the Justice Center project, the jail facility. And it's a
- lot to read, right? So we've really condensed this down to the bare minimum of important points. And
- what we did is we listed out all of the sites that we have visited.
- And this may not yet be on our website, but it will be. But I'll show you how it is on our website right
- now in a moment. So do you want to talk through that? Talk through the chart? Sure. So we essentially,
- this is the same information that's available already on the website. There's nothing new here.
- And this is a visual representation. So instead of just representing this all in white, it's visually
- readily ascertainable what site, for a number of reasons, the commissioners in the past determined was
- the best fit, according to a number of factors. And so there is one site that met that, which is North
- Park. And of course, everyone knows why, historically.
- So there is a number of chart.
- headings, so a key barrier decision point, you'll see that North Park is marked in green because there
- is none. It meets all of the key factors. So you'll see along the top, there's an investigation period,
- how the interim period that we looked at this property, the size of the property, the timeline that
- it would take to construct, the route of access taken to the property, legal zoning constraints, sewer access,
- cost considerations. In other words, not only what the property would cost, but also any additional
- properties that would need to be acquired, any physical constraints, cars features, environmental
- consideration slope, benefits writ large. So whether the county owns it, for example, time to build,
- whether it would be close or farther away from downtown.
- know disadvantages, writ large, whether or not there would need to be utilities moved, whether or not
- it would be, for example, very small, difficult to access, and then the overall conclusion is to the
- property. And so we realize these are fairly broad categories. Down the left side of the chart, you'll
- see individual properties. Some of these, you'll notice, did not get a whole lot of discussion. You'll
- also notice that there is quite a bit of overlap between the properties on our chart
- and the properties being considered by the Collaborative Justice Working Group. And so basically, a
- lot of our information will map onto their matrix to show how the commissioners considered this property
- in the past for public members that are interested in the past consideration commissioners gave to that
- same property.
- And there is some duplication across from left to right. The one thing I will note is that there are
- some that duplication, but also the absence because we stopped investigating certain properties. And
- we did consult with neighbors on a number of these occasions. So those are noted as well.
- And we have here a pretty comprehensive list of what we've looked at. The smallest being 9.71 acres,
- which is way too small for what we needed. So this is,
- a good sort of overview of all the work that's been done. This has been done over the course of many
- years. When I read through this list of sites, I can remember going out to the sites with DLZ, Mr. Cockrell,
- other commissioners, and looking at so many of these and trying to ascertain
- the pros and cons in a quick overview way before further investigation was pursued to determine,
- you know, so there's sort of that overarching, is this property going to work? Is this possible to the
- more granular? We have to get geotechnical studies. We have to go and look at the curse features,
- et cetera, et cetera. So for folks who are interested, this will be posted.
- on our jail website, hopefully today. And we're hopeful that this will become a good way for people
- to understand all the work that's been done so far. And a lot of work has been done so far. I would
- add as well that
- if there are different properties on this matrix, they're even smaller. And so really they're not even,
- it's not really even possible to consider them. But what we don't have on here, although we kind of
- reflected it
- in the way that the columns are organized is, you know, the status is immediately visible in that second
- column with the color. And it is difficult to, with the columns that we used, to say, well, this column
- is more important than the next one or, you know, to put them in some kind of order. But clearly, if
- our requirements relate to time and space,
- those are evidence in here, right? So we may reorder that a little bit to reflect that priority before
- we post it, but otherwise it's good the way it is. I do want to show something that Mr. Beighton has
- completed for us.
- figure out how to do this. We go. I love technology. So Mr. Baton has created a
- map version of this chart. And it's really neat. Appreciate the fact that he got it done so quickly.
- But you can see the shapes in, I'll make this bigger. You can see the shapes here. And when you click
- on them, they will provide that same information that is on our chart.
- as you can see here, that pops up, which is great. There's actually two pages of that on that one. The
- other thing I would recommend that you do is to turn on the slope layer. And because if you zoom in
- onto a site, you are going to be able to see slope issues
- on those properties. So that's the Thompson property, for example. And when you click on it, you'll
- be able to see the information from that chart. So in a sense, this information is already on our website.
- So I wanted to show that. Do we want to see the committees? Anything else you want to add about this?
- No, is there a floodplain?
- No, no, just the slope, but we have, I don't think the... It was a rush job, so. Yeah, I didn't know
- if GIS had that. They do have that. We can ask them to add that later. Okay, that's really cool. Yeah,
- excellent. Thank you so much. So all of the sites are up here.
- um vernal pike north park west which is the one we we walked and said oh my gosh way too hilly way too
- slopey um and then um the north park site here um i will just note for the record that some of these
- boundaries as well because this was a very quick um ask of the gis office uh dr bayton um just used
- parcel lines and so they're not
- always going to be accurate. So for example, Discovery Parkway, we were actually looking at this lot
- in the back, not the whole of it because that's the hospital. So the polygons are not quite right on
- point, but you get the idea. It's a rough approximation in reality. So people know where we've looked,
- what we've done. Yeah, for sure. So do you want to talk about the subcommittee next?
- Sure. Do you want to do any more with this first? I think this would be very useful for people to...
- I talk to a lot of people, for example, who don't know where North Park is or don't know where precisely
- Thompson is and the power lines property. Okay. Gotcha. Okay. So do you want to move on to talk through...
- Is that clean? Yeah. Sure. Go ahead. You start. Okay.
- As we know that there is the collaborative justice working group is meeting. I believe they have tonight
- they're meeting and they have one more meeting after that before they come up with a recommendation
- for a property. Indiana law does place the duty to establish and maintain a county jail on the county
- executive. And in this county, at least we are the commissioners are the executive and legislative heads.
- I think public discussion and
- still has value because India has opened door laws built around the idea that the public should be able
- to witness government in action and participate more fully in the government process. And I should note
- that these are my remarks. I do think it's important to clarify what types of authority different bodies have.
- I think it's important for the commissioners to discuss issues like this publicly to the extent that
- we can with the advice of legal counsel and be active in these efforts because the board still has a
- statutory responsibility of course for the jail facility and for decisions about county property and
- as does the council. The existence of another community conversation does not relieve us of
- this responsibility and it does not make our own discussion and decision unnecessary.
- I also don't view these conversations as competing with one another. Government meetings are where the
- public can hear directly from the body charged with making county executive decisions, as you've heard
- from us today. The broader community group can serve a different purpose. It can help elected officials,
- justices and partners, and residents understand the facts, constraints, and tradeoffs that surround
- any jail site decision.
- And I think representations like our chart and the community collaborative working group matrix are
- useful because they help move the conversation away from slogans and misunderstandings and toward concrete
- criteria like time and space like infrastructure and access and costs and legal risk.
- operational feasibility, and the ability to understand unconstitutional conditions. But these don't
- decide the issue for us. It helps the public to see why these issues are difficult, why delay
- is consequences, and what responsible decision making has looked like, why any responsible decision
- has to be grounded in facts rather than assumptions.
- So a non-binding group can still play an educational function. It can clarify. It can build
- public understanding. And it can help surface concerns. And here, I always think of the Indiana Public
- Access Counselor, right? It's described as a non-binding resource, but its role includes public education
- and training and advice and interpretive materials. So in a way, non-binding doesn't mean not useful,
- although it doesn't have such authority
- a statutory authority to choose a jail site, to buy the county to appropriate money or to substitute
- its judgment for the commissioners or the council or any other elected body. But I think here the key
- factor is that the committee has the ability to inform and not decide. And public education can have
- real value.
- Here a group that brings some of those perspectives into the same conversation can help the public understand
- the stakes and the trade-offs more clearly Just as I hope our chart here today can understand can help
- the public understand what the board of commissioners has done So I think the value of the collaborative
- group is not is is not in that it decides I think it's value in that is
- sorry, is in that it informs. It can help create correct misinformation, identify unanswered questions,
- and explain why criteria matter. So, and I think, you know, courts welcome good faith efforts,
- but in the end, you know, it's we as the county who must act responsibly, and that includes us as the
- council and us as the commissioners. Yeah, for sure, for sure. Yeah, I appreciate that. It is a non-binding
- group. They will
- make some sort of recommendation, but they've also limited their role to begin with. Well,
- first of all, the investigations have been done. It's not clear that every member of the committee has
- access and the ability time to find the time to read through our exhaustive, I mean, we have geotechnical
- studies that are in binders for one property. So I mean, you know.
- who's gonna read through that, right? Yeah. But by automatically eliminating anything outside the city,
- I think they've hurt their process and it's too bad because if you look at their matrix, you'll see
- except where things are inaccurate about North Park, it's the only site that meets every requirement.
- except no, it's not in the city. But if you start with a requirement, it has to be in the city, you're
- adding a year. You're adding a year. And in fact, they have two different listings for planning and
- zoning here that would be more than a year. I think that this is a mistake and that it is truly the
- nine to 12 months total. But I don't know because you have to prepare a petition. You take it in, you
- get on the docket, et cetera.
- So it is about a year. It took us about a year to get Fullerton through city counts city planning and
- city council Sure, yeah, there may be other things there may be other Board of zoning appeals maybe
- need to be involved on something So it really depends on the property for sure So that's a low end
- You know, I think the very, if you had a petition ready to go, I think you could get it through in nine
- months. I think you could, maybe, but it depends on how many other petitions they have. I mean, it's,
- yeah, it's all dependent, but that's the fastest you could really get that done. One other thing I think
- that is worth noting as well is before you go through that process, you need full design documents,
- at least in design stage one from DLZ.
- And I believe that would take three to four months, I believe, is the estimate on a vest. It depends
- on the site. We already have one for Fullerton, for example, right? But Fullerton is a mile further
- away than North Park. Yes, it's in the city, but is it closer to downtown? No. So what is more important?
- I don't know.
- Yeah, so there are some things where we have a design we're ready to go, but most things we don't. Most
- things we don't. And a lot of these sites, again, that have been very creatively listed, you have very,
- very small lots that aren't going to be able to do anything, five acres, three and a half acres. I mean,
- that is just really, really difficult.
- And they've included the Tap Road and Fullerton and Thompson, which are all large enough, but each of
- them have their own limitations, with Thompson having not just the nine-month-plus delay, but also a
- significant delay related to the power poles.
- That's in addition. So it's more and more and more. But Taproot North and Taproot South, again, they're
- on our chart. You can go look at that map on our website. They have very significant grade issues between
- 60 and 75 feet that would have to be overcome. And they also have a lot of limitations relating to floodways
- and the siting. So even though you go, oh, it's 100 acres. Why don't we just do that?
- Well, most of that is going to be unusable. And in TAP Road South, the city has a transportation plan
- like we do, and their transportation plan requires a road be built between TAP and Fullerton on TAP
- Road South property. So that's a huge expense, right? And whatever developer develops that property
- is supposed to do that. So there's a lot to think about.
- I appreciate the folks for their interest in convening this group, but I really, it's sad that they
- limited themselves, that they limited the options and possibilities by taking a county property, which
- is a stone's throw from the city, out of the mix.
- right off the bat and it's too bad because I think the public won't understand the full range of what's
- possible as a result. And one other I promised I would
- address one other point, which is the single-level versus multi-level and the importance of a single-level
- facility. One of the things I've looked into, partly because counsel asked questions about this back
- in January, partly because it's a research interest of mine, is the criminological value of carceral
- spaces. So there's this whole carceral empirical body of work on what effect spaces have on inmate experience
- and on staff experience. And so there's all of these
- studies, peer-reviewed studies, which look at suicidality and inmate assaults and other property offenses.
- And these one-level jails with line of sight and podular design, yes, you can build them on multi-level
- facilities, but the presence of greenery and natural light and lines of sight that are truly lines of
- sight without huge corridors, efficiencies of space, those are all
- pluses that relate to one story single level facilities and the correlation to lack of violent assaults
- compared to multilevel facilities is there when you look at
- actual facilities that are in operation now. So this is not armchair philosophy. These are observed
- reality in peer review studies. And so when I look at the facility that we're building and when I look
- at the values of our community, I see an inmate experience. I want people to have the least traumatic
- experience in a facility that we know is traumatic for everyone. And so no one likes being in prison.
- I don't wanna build a prison that is more prison-like than it has to be. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and that
- reflects our community values more appropriately. I agree. So I think it's important when looking at
- the committee's matrix to think about what is more important and what is less important. Obviously,
- downtown or city versus not city, even if it's not downtown, seems to be more important
- the most important thing because they've taken one site off the map. But among these other elements
- of the size and all these other things, it would be really good to have a sense of what the committee
- thinks is the most important. I don't know that anyone thinks that time is important because they've all
- Anything in the city is going to require that year minimum minimum so I don't think that is a significant
- factor for this committee, but it is for us because we are we're facing litigation here and We really
- need to act quickly I've been attending a lot of the sessions and I've been offering comment and I
- One of the comments I put in was the need to grade or differentiate what criteria are more important.
- One of the things that came out of one of the last meetings was an emphasis on constitutionality. And
- I'm not sure what that means in terms of a constitutional facility, because a facility could
- be constitutional in many different forms, even in a multi-level form. And so I think when you're dialing
- down to this facility, what does that mean operationally?
- And so I think that can be defined a number of ways. But at the end of the day, it's going to be an
- inmate experience and staff experience and safety that I'll be looking at when I vote on a site. And
- of course, it's not up to us. It's also going to be entwined with the courts and things like that. But
- I very much appreciate the public comments. I appreciate the public input.
- all of this, and I also think, you know, we have our own layer now on what, so the public can go on
- and see how our matrix corresponds to the committees. Yeah, that's a good, that's a good point. Yeah,
- and I would just note that I get asked a lot, like, well, why do you need 25 acres? Well, because we
- do need to co-locate. Why do you need to co-locate? A bunch of cities and towns don't have co-location.
- Well, what poor planning would that be?
- because the building that our court services are in is falling apart because it was built on a shoestring
- budget 40 years ago. And I don't want to stick the commissioner 40 years from now with garbage.
- I just don't. But the other thing is that, yes, we're used to co-location, but there are risks, there
- are costs, there are ongoing costs if you're not co-located. Now, we understand we're not going to co-locate
- now. We get it.
- The money situation with the state legislature is hard to pin down, to say the least. But to not plan
- for colocation, I think, is a real problem. And to me, as a commissioner, colocation, not colocation,
- I'm not really phased either way. But we did hear this.
- from the sheriff. We did hear this from the courts. We did hear this from the prosecutor's office. They
- all understand colocation is necessary. So I'm on board with them. I'm supporting what their determinations
- are. And that's how we get to colocation. Even if it's not immediate, we do need the property. At the
- very least, I don't think we can take that option away at this stage.
- right right all right um anything else on this um no i think that i think that's my um i think those
- are my remarks okay great um we appreciate everyone listening um we do have a work session which we'd
- like to start at 11 30 um and i know we have one item on the work session which is a planning petition
- but i'm going to ask planning if they will
- Grace we have another department which is a sheriff's office that wants to come in and talk with us
- and they can go first planning can go second so we're going to do that and that will be at 1130 our
- next meeting our next regular meeting is the 16th of July anything else for the good of the order
- No, I think that one of the things I am grateful for in this entire process is I think we do have a
- growing realization that every moment we spend returning to sites that we can't move forward with is
- a moment that we are exposed legally, financially, and morally. And so I do think that we're coalescing
- around that point. So I'm grateful for that. And I think the more information we get out there,
- And I'm grateful for all of our county employees that are helping us get out that information. We have
- such talented county employees. And again, very, very grateful for that. You know, I think that's that's
- a very big step forward. All right. All right. With that, we are adjourned until 1130 work session.
- Thanks, everyone.