- I'm going to call to order this work session of the Monroe County Board of Commissioners for Thursday,
- February 26th. And thank you for your patience as we got through technical issue. We're going to start
- with Ms. Ridge. Good morning. I'm sorry. This is last minute. I received the last quote yesterday evening.
- the tree removal. We've received quotes for the tree removal for our baby Creek Road project 6 29. Um
- it is time sensitive because we only have the month of March before the bat restriction begins on April
- 1st. So we asked that the low quote be accepted, which was from Monroe site work LLC and the amount
- of $39,000 and that is paid from. Our cumulative
- and you do have it in your emails that I sent probably around 7 30 this morning. Cunebridge number 11
- 35. Correct. Thank you. Before we even move into questions, I'm going to make a motion to approve the
- agreement with Monroe site work LLC for work on Baby Creek Road.
- The amount is $39,000. The fund name is Cume Bridge. The fund number is 1135. Second. All right, we
- have a motion and a second. This will have to be ratified on March 12th, just FYI. All right, comments
- or questions? Commissioner Jones? No, I don't. Commissioner Medeira? No. All right.
- Let's see if there's any public comment on this item. You raise your hand on teams or come to the podium.
- Seeing none, Mr. Cockerill, will you please call the roll on Monroe site work LLC agreement? Mr. Thomas?
- Yes. Commissioner Madeira? Yes. Mr. Jones? Yes. Motion is approved three to zero. All right, thank you.
- Okay. All right. Um let's just go through our next our first item Bobcat of Ellisville and Richard Small
- Engine Equipment and Implements. This is a purchase. Um. And. These are pieces of
- 4932 in the amount of $119,858. And that's my motion. I second. We have a motion and we have a second.
- Ms. Whitmer, thank you for your patience. Oh, no, this is wonderful.
- took three quotes on the compact track loader and four quotes on each of the implements. And when we
- chose the equipment, it wasn't exclusively chosen because of the lowest price. But once we chose the
- compact track loader, it did not make sense to purchase another vendor's implements unless the implement
- had more capabilities. So that's what we did. We put our package together, and we believe we have
- chosen wisely and the equipment will last for years to come and we would we'll need to bring it um put
- it on the county insurance yeah for sure um and this will also have to be ratified on march 12th okay
- well the county legal was not sure that's why i'm at the work session i think they can approve it today
- so you can get going but then it still has to come back and be talked about at another meeting because
- march 12th or after
- That's fine because I also we will not order until the Monroe County Council appropriates the money
- in the proper account on March 10th. Okay. All right. Sounds good. Right. Um, so, um, any comments or
- questions? Uh, commissioner Jones? No, I don't. Thank you.
- This is for the Nature Preserve, and we're going to have a building of some sort to put this in,
- and yep. And we do have to add, yeah, you're right, we have to add this to our insurance, especially
- given what happened earlier on the property. Okay, thank you. All right, let's see if there's any public
- comment on this item. And raise your hand in teams or come to the podium.
- the motion. Seeing none, Mr Cocker. Will you please call the roll on the Bobcat of Ellisville and Richard
- Small Engine Equipment and Women's Purchase. Mr Thomas. Yes Mr Madeira. Yes, Mr Jones. Yes Motion is
- approved. 3 to 0. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr Myers. I'm going to have you hold on a second.
- We got a couple other quick things to take care of. I
- regarding ADA and Title VI plans. Good morning. Good morning, and thank you, Dave Schilling from the
- legal department. Counties are required to adopt ADA transition plans and Title VI implementation plans
- and to maintain those plans. And years ago, the county had adopted such plans, and we've recently prepared
- some updates to that. Working with staff
- throughout another. Those, these plans need to be heard and considered at a public hearing. And so we're
- simply asking the commissioners to public hearing on these plans for March 12th or March 19th, if possible.
- I think we could do it on the 12th. The 12th is much better than the 19th.
- Commissioner Jones, what do you think? March 12th? That's fine. Okay. Yeah, that's fine. Okay. We are
- set for March 12th to hear this. I assume that we can set it apart in our agenda for a specific time
- or do it first, or is there anything else we'd? Yeah, that would be up to you. It just has to be done
- within a reasonable amount of the meeting time starting, so you could do it
- first or take a break and do it. So it's just a regular business item. We don't have to treat it specially.
- Correct. Okay. And then you're going to manage the advertising side of it. Yes, we will. We will have
- these plans and the notice of hearing on the county website, hopefully by tomorrow. Great. Thank you.
- Thank you. All right. YSB. That is you.
- Okay, I am requesting that you guys approve an amendment to the residential treatment services provider
- contract that's between the Indiana Department of Child Services and Monroe County. This amendment to
- this contract updates several key compliance requirements, specifically related to confidentiality,
- stricter protections of confidential information, compliance with state and federal laws.
- AI usage approval and state RAMP, which is cybersecurity standards. It also updates their employment
- eligibility verification requirements, including mandatory e-verify participation. And it requires an
- increase in cyber liability insurance to at least $1 million aggregate.
- and revises non-discrimination provisions, strengthens background check compliance language, and updates
- the designated DCS contact title. All other items of the original contract remain in effect. So there's
- no additional costs for this? No costs, nothing. This is just kind of changing some of the. OK, so we
- don't have to ratify this at a future meeting. I'm going to go ahead and make a motion to approve the
- US Service Bureau contract, which is amended.
- Um, regarding residential treatment services provision. It's the residential treatment services provider
- contract. Right. Okay. I second. Thank you. We have motion and a second. Um, any comments or questions?
- Commissioner Madeira? I do not. Commissioner Jones? No, I don't. All right. Um, all right. Um,
- public comment on this item. Raise your hand on teams or come to the podium. Seeing none, Mr. Cockrell,
- will you please call the roll on the amendment for YSB to the Residential Treatment Services Provider
- Contract? Commissioner Thomas? Yes. Commissioner Geary? Yes. Commissioner Jones? Yes.
- Thank you. Ms. Purdy, can you help us with the letter? I think, oh, Ms. Kelly is still here too, but
- there's an extension, grant extension. Can you provide that info, somebody? If Ms. Kelly would like
- to do that, since it's her daily work, but if not, I'm willing to speak.
- I'm here. So what happened is our current grant funding for our disease intervention services. So the
- grant cycle ends on February 28th of 2026. So we are waiting on additional funding for the next grant cycle.
- But during this grant cycle, due to the hiring freeze, we were unable to use the additional funding
- that they had originally provided for an additional disease intervention specialist, which resulted
- in an amendment for a reduction in funding. Since that was still in process, then a new contract to
- my understanding, according to the call I got, was that they couldn't reissue that. So what they have
- done is they have
- provided an extension for the amendment that reduces the grant funding under the same award. Once that's
- processed through our channels and then the Indiana Department of Health, then they will provide additional
- funding through another amendment under this same contract. So that's kind of my understanding and based
- on the call that I received yesterday. So they have sent to my understanding
- this through DocuSign to the commissioner's email address then for signature. And I would bring this
- to the next commissioner meetings for ratification. I don't think you have to actually, I don't think
- we need to ratify this. Yeah, so good news there. Yeah, Ms. Purdy.
- I have pulled the grant up, and this grant now terminates on February 28th of 2027. The grant funding
- was decreased by $58,835. So the total amount of funding for this grant is now $289,909. And unfortunately,
- this is all because we didn't get a position paid for by state tax dollars through a hiring freeze.
- I don't I don't understand. Crazy doesn't make sense. But okay so. And I call it can I just say that
- this is what I'm moving to approve an extension and amendment of the disease intervention services.
- from the Indiana Department of Health. Does that work? Second. All right. We have a motion and a second.
- Commissioner Jones, comments or questions? No, I don't. Commissioner Madeira? I do not. Thank you. I
- don't either. I've already made my comment. All right. So let's see if there's any public comments on
- this item. You raise your hand in teams or come to the podium.
- Thank you. And let's go backwards to
- Great, thank you. This is ordinance 26-07. Thank you. Let me share my screen here in one second.
- All right, so this is located at 3521 South Roger Street. It is in Perry Township, section 17.
- It's 1.01 acres.
- The zoning map currently shows it as PUD Summersburg and it was discovered by staff that this is actually
- an error in the zoning map and it should be zoned a different district. So this was brought to the attention
- to the plan commission and through the plan commission process as acting as the petitioner, the plan
- commission decided to rezone or request a rezone to residential one instead of the PUD, which was an error.
- A little bit of background here. As I stated, staff discovered this error. We were talking with the
- property owner of the property and their eventual goals for further development of the property when
- it was discovered that the zoning district appeared to be off given other information and evidence.
- Some of that evidence is included in this packet.
- Essentially, the PUD Summersbee ordinance itself has a legal description that doesn't match, including
- this parcel of record, as well as the Summersbee PUD subdivision also does not include this piece of
- property. And then there's also a map that was generated by the city of Bloomington in 2004 that also
- verifies that this parcel is not part of the Summersbee PUD.
- All right, so there's a location map. Highway and stormwater don't have any comments regarding the rezone.
- Stormwater said any future development may require a local and or state stormwater permit. Here is the
- current zoning map that we're showing. High development residential surrounding the property. And you
- can see the gray is the PUD. And this is the parcel record or subject parcel is in red.
- outlined in red, and you can see that it's showing as gray here on this map as well. All right, so the
- petition type exhibits a close proximity to water and sewer services with the City of Blooms and Utilities.
- There's a sewer line cutting through the property, actually, and there's an existing residence on the
- property that's operating as a two-family dwelling that does have that sewer service included.
- The petition or the property owner, when they first came in, was interested in providing additional
- dwelling options for the property, potentially additional bare patio homes, maybe even a subdivision
- if the zoning district was right. And then of course staff began that conversation with, it looks like
- this PUD is, this PUD district is off and it should not be including this property in question. So we
- went through that discussion as well.
- So the rest of this page includes more details regarding the site and the site conditions and
- the infrastructure here. It is adjacent to the Bloomington Rail Trail. You can see on this screen here,
- the Bloomington Rail Trail is in blue here, which also leads me to the discussion of House Bill 1058,
- which if it is approved by the state legislature, it would go in effect in July.
- July 1st, I believe. The premise behind this bill is that it would provide a property owner the ability
- to annex to a jurisdiction through the contiguity language with respect to a difference of that area
- being the railroad.
- Um, so because, um, the rail trail was formerly a railroad, it's staff's understanding that if this
- bill was approved, um, that the petitioner could theoretically request, um, annexation to the
- city voluntarily. Um, but any other, um, additional questions related to the house bill 1058, I would
- defer to County legal, um, for those questions. But it is pertinent information in this discussion.
- So here's the site conditions map. You can see the green lines here. That's the sewer line that cuts
- through the property. We do have the comprehensive plan information here as well. It's designated as
- mixed residential. I'll have a slide show prepared for this presentation when it goes to the formal
- session. I just scrolled through the findings in fact. And we did receive an initial letter from the
- property owner.
- At the very beginning of this petition, the process of this petition, staff had originally suggested
- to the planning commission that it be rezoned to high development residential. Through the planning
- commission process, the planning commission acting as the petitioner to correct this error, decided
- to change that request from high development residential to residential one. So here now on the screen,
- there's some site photos. You can see that existing residence here.
- property. It's just a long east-west property here. Some more photographs of the site from South Rogers
- Street. These are from 2023. They're Google Street View. And then these are from this year when we had
- all the snow. You can see South Rogers Street there again. And then looking back onto the property,
- this is from across the street, looking onto the subject property as well.
- And then the rest of the exhibits are the evidence pieces that indicate this property should not be
- part of the Summers BPUD, as I mentioned earlier. There's that subdivision plat. The petition site is
- just south of this subdivision plat. It's not shown. And then this is that map from the city of Bloomington
- that I referenced as well. The petition site is located here, which was a zone of RM15
- prior. And then I've also included the page from the County Development Ordinance for the Residential
- One District showing all its permitted uses and such, and its development standards as well. And that
- concludes this packet. And I'll have, like I said, a presentation ready for you all for the formal session.
- The Planning Commission did vote to forward this with a positive recommendation unanimously.
- So I will take any questions at this time. All right, thank you so much. Comments or questions, Commissioner
- Maduro? None. Yes, it does definitely make sense why that is residential one instead of high development.
- I'm sorry, high density, yes. Yeah, and there's no sewer, and it's a very long piece of property, and
- I don't know how that
- becomes something else. But it certainly is Res1. And so it's being used. And it certainly doesn't belong
- in this PUD. That's a longstanding typographical issue. Commissioner Jones, comments or questions? You
- are muted. So I don't.
- I'm sorry. No, not at this time. So this is really a plan commission petition. So we really don't have
- a petitioner, so we don't really need to check with people. But I wonder if we could do this on the
- 26th of March. Would that work? I just hate to load up our 12th of March.
- the board of commissioners. Thank you. Thank you for waiting. Think you know, technical difficulties
- along agenda. Mr Cockrell. We have a letter.
- And this came about because when I was talking to Commissioner Thomas, she had been hearing from the
- public about concerns dealing with the elections and voting, dealing with outside people coming and
- intimidating or otherwise disrupting the meetings on a side or the voting. On a side note, I was also
- at the county council meeting on February 10th where there were public comments about concerns about
- disruptions of voting. And so this letter is a letter to the election board.
- asking them to work with our emergency management to discuss and plan for any types of disruption or
- intimidation at polling places and at the early voting site. And so that is what this letter does and
- is intended to do, is just put them in contact with each other so they can develop a plan to react and
- deal with those kind of emergencies if they were to come up.
- I'm sorry. Um. We do have to take a vote on approving this letter to be sent. This is just.
- Request Um. There's no. Funding attached to it, but obviously, um, election division has its own funding
- mechanism if they need to.
- They can't. We need to figure it out quick. Comments or questions, Commissioner Jones? No, I'm just
- glad that this issue is being considered. Commissioner Madero? No, I think it's excellent timing. Great.
- We don't need to take public comment on a piece of correspondence.
- I will assume if we can get this on DocuSign or something that we can get this out promptly.
- I will get it. If you approve it, I will get it to Anita and she can. Great. Thank you. Mr. Copper,
- will you please call the roll on approving ratifying the letter to the election board? Commissioner
- Thomas. Yes. Commissioner Madeira. Yes. Commissioner Jones. Yes. Motion is approved three to zero.
- Thank you. Last item deals with Council's resolution of last Tuesday. And I guess what I'm talking is
- a little expanded from that. Meeting earlier, the Council had indicated that they wanted updates. They
- said weekly, turn it into every other week because, and I'll get into this.
- But I've also been doing some things that are with one commissioner, with council president, you know,
- and I want to make sure you guys get the update and then we'll go ahead and forward it to the county
- council. And of course, they have questions that feel free to give me a call and ask what's going on.
- I have intentionally not included names of location. And these were all discussed at the, you know,
- the February 16th or the February or the earlier February.
- Executive sessions where we're talking about property for This is kind of the update of where we're
- at with with that process. Thank you. So on February 16th, we had that executive session where we went
- through some properties some made the cut some didn't but Following that meeting I was to set up a meeting
- with the city of Bloomington planning Talk to some of the representative of the property owners from
- from the locations we reviewed
- Um, that setting up that meeting with the city of Bloomington took a little longer than a week. So that's
- why we didn't have a weekly update last week. So, but on 20th, on February 24th, uh, counselor Crossley,
- commissioner Thomas and I met with, uh, city of Bloomington planning, um, and, and other affected
- departments. I know the city legal was there as well to discuss some of the various sites. Uh, we got
- some really nice feedback, I think, from some of the, some of the plan from the
- from the city of folks. And so we're kind of looking at how are we going to develop looking at some
- of their suggestions and moving forward with that. But that meeting did occur. Then on yesterday, I
- guess February the rest of these happened yesterday on the 25th. Again, Councillor Crossley, Commissioner
- Madeira and I met with a representative from IU real estate.
- to discuss and brainstorm potential sites in the community. We chose IU Real Estate because they're
- one of the big landowners that has zoning already applicable where this would be a conditional use.
- So part of it was to just see what they have, what's out there, and what they'd be willing to look at.
- Clearly they didn't have any
- parcel in mind, but they did say if we saw something that we thought would work really well that they
- owned, to get in touch with them and contact them about that. We also talked about a couple other sites
- that we hadn't mentioned previously as part of the executive session that he brought up, which may or
- may not be good, and I don't want to bring them up until we had the whole group weigh in on whether
- those are good ideas or not. But I thought it was a very productive meeting.
- person we met with has a vast wealth of experience with real estate and looked at kind of some of the
- issues that we're talking about in a different way. So I think he had some feedback. I also talked with
- a couple other property owners to see if those properties that we had been discussing were indeed available.
- The two other ones said yes.
- meeting with the city planning. I had contact with Scott Carnegie to kind of talk about some of the
- questions that came out, particularly about the Thompson site, of that meeting with the city planning
- access. I'm seeing if he could figure out how it would be accessed with what has happened with the PUD
- to the west, with that. So we're working on that, and I guess
- I got a hold of the resolution that the county council passed the night before. I read that and looking
- at the financial report, it appears from that document that the max, not to say that it is the budget,
- but the max budget would appear to be about $170 million if you look at that report. So I immediately
- got a hold of the WGSR estimators and say, hey, if we do it for $170 or less, and they just to jail,
- not talking the full
- and they indicated that that would be possible and probable. I asked them if we could do it for under
- something or less, and they said yes. And that would include a reasonable purchase price of property
- if we had to do that. And so from that aspect, it looks like we can't afford it. I mean, that's not
- to say that there's not a lot of discussions on appropriate savings or appropriate bond size.
- a plethora of other conversations, but the bottom line is that there is funding available to build the
- jail facility. And not having to wait until 2029 now, because there's a way to do it where we would
- meet and not exceed the 25%
- of lit being spent on a bond that the state legislature imposed. And that's, I have not confirmed yet
- with bond council. Okay. Because there were two things that we were looking at. And one of them was
- with that future revenue stream, the future lit, whether we could pledge that and not have to renew
- that pledge. And I'm sure I saw that in the legislation. The other question was,
- that would enable us to enact that type of lit now, even though we know we're not going to collect it,
- with the assumption that we would at least have the debt service covered with that. I need to talk to
- bond council and everybody that said that made it in. I'm assuming it did. I just haven't seen it, right?
- So bond council's next on that list. Yeah, and I would also point out that
- these documents that were presented were based upon what we have today, right? And I am not a fortune
- teller, but I would be surprised if we had worked far enough along by the end of this year to have issued
- bonds and begun construction, right? So, you know, when I looked at their report where it says
- Estimated lit available for debt service as of today as for this year. That's 11 almost 12 million dollars.
- Well, if we don't spend that that would be transferred to one of the balance as of what would be 1031
- 2026. So there's right. There's some other things in play but I think the What's represented here absent some
- that we could afford building in jail. Okay and just just so folks following along at home understand
- there. There is
- And then on the subsequent page we have. A listing. If you look at the left side column. That indicates
- that between that
- that there is currently sitting in those lit funds. Unappropriated at this moment. That. That there
- is. Ostensibly 170 million. To actually move forward now. No. Maybe I will just state the numbers and all that
- The $35 million in cash, roughly, that's not going to be removed from the fund in one fell swoop. It
- will be invoiced. We spoke about this yesterday in that those invoices will be coming in and will be
- paying as we're also receiving funds from the state. So I just want to clarify that there's not going
- to be a $35 million
- And I think what we're getting at is sometimes with our highway grants, right? Because we do highway
- grants and NDOT funds the highway process and then bills us for the full amount of our share of that
- project. And that all comes out upfront, right? And then they go and perform the project. And if there's
- anything left over, they figure out how much gets refunded and all that. That is not this project.
- But I guess the 170 number is derived from the estimated bond size calculation in the first column of
- the last page of the Exhibit A to their resolution, which has $135 million. And that is based upon current
- lit 25% of that, which is the statutory maximum we can do.
- just under $11 million payment, and right now we have just under $12 million in funds that we are receiving
- through income tax that we have not appropriated in any way for this year. So that is not an unreasonable
- number. It might not be the right number, but it's not unreasonable. And then our economic development
- income tax, 1112, which prior to last December,
- The plan for that was always to spend 100% of it on this project, given the budget difficulties and
- things like that. That changed a little bit, but mostly that changed a little bit for general operations
- for 2026 with nothing for general. After that, I think there'll be a conversation about that, so I'm
- not going to say
- But that funding was $23,475.66. When I say funding, that was the cash balance of that fund at the beginning
- of this year. And then the band capital, that is the bond anticipation note that we had issued when
- we were looking at Fullerton before that whole thing happened, and that still has
- 5,721,462. And all of that money has to be spent on this project, right? It has to be either for the
- land or for the design, because that's what that bond or ban was issued for. So that has to be spent
- on this project. And then the jail lit, which is 1233, is $7,108,463. And that was the cash balance
- at the beginning of this year.
- And I guess we chose those three funds because traditionally that's what we thought the mechanism was.
- When we talk about the $225 million project, that's based on the revenue from these funds. The edit
- was passed by the city council I think in 21, 22, and we at that point in time knew this was our big
- project, and so that's why we had designated that for that.
- In 2024, the council looked at the jail at the, at the correction. I call it correctional lit. This
- says jail lit. It's, it could be up to point two. The conversation around that whole increasing that
- from 0.01 to 0.17 was for this project. And so when you look at the funding of those two, of those two for 2026,
- The estimate is about $20 million a year. And so our previous calculations had the $225 million at $18
- million a year for a bond. And that didn't include any of the cash balances, right? So I'm not saying
- that is exactly what it would have been issued. But that's where that $225 million came from, just so
- you guys are aware and remember. So I guess when reading the resolution,
- I mean, I think we can get beyond the can we afford it conversation to I think the question is where
- is it going to go and then the question after that is not can we afford it is what do we want to afford,
- what are the tradeoffs with size and location and all that versus what we want to keep for cash balances
- and things like that. I mean, we're not out of the
- woods, but I think we can get beyond the, there's absolutely no way we can afford it conversation just
- with what we're collecting now. Or the jail only co-locations, different conversation. Um, and I would
- say single story jail is what I hope WGS heard because I've heard from them before that it's, that it
- would be more expensive construction wise to build a two floor. Oh, okay.
- So I read this and I thought it was a good step forward in that I think it states the funding, it states
- the funding. The maximum funding level, right? I think there's still some work the council has to do
- to kind of get a more realistic funding number. I don't think running your cash balances and all your
- funds to zero is an ever good idea and all those kind of things. But it's a start. I mean, if I'm the ACLU,
- or I feel you and I'm looking for something, now I know what is the maximum budget allowed, right? Right.
- And it can pay for a jail to be built. I'll start with you, Commissioner Madure. Did you want to? Yes.
- Jeff, my voice is really bad and it's cracking. I was wondering if you would read something for me.
- These are not my words, these are the words of Commissioner Madeira. Before this year, it seemed that
- we are engaged in a process to carefully study the jail issue, evaluate property, et cetera. Now there's
- this new urgency to meet attorney Falk's deadline, but also we have to be careful not to fall into this
- unstated get it done, get it done at the least possible cost. While we need to be very fiscally responsible,
- of course, we must
- also invest wisely in a facility that must remain safe, functional, and legally compliant for the next
- 40 to 50 years. Often guarantees higher long-term costs through repeated retrofits, staffing inefficiencies,
- deferred maintenance, and greater litigation exposure. This facility should be durable and future-ready
- so housing,
- programming and technology can adapt as laws, population, and best practices change. The question isn't
- whether we can afford a modern jail. It's whether we can afford the predictable cost of building and
- maintaining an outdated one. I think there's a little bit more below. Page two. I'm just kidding. Oh,
- there is more. Not much. There's a little bit more.
- I'm also hearing several references to committing to constitutional care inside the jail and then references
- to offering premium services outside the jail. But these remarks unintentionally imply that there are
- two standards for treatment. This can't be the case. Both need to be excellent and evidence-based. Both
- address two different populations of individuals. One addresses the populations who cannot be kept out
- of jail despite our best efforts.
- addresses those who we've managed to keep out of jail through our best efforts. Thus, we need to do
- more than aspire to build a constitutional jail. What we're doing isn't just building a facility with
- more beds. We're building a facility that will also reduce repeated offenses and improve safety for
- the people who live and work in it. That's going to take an additional investment of funds, investment
- in educational program, mental health services, recovery services, and so on.
- Our jail lacks space for treatment, education, medical and mental health care, reentry planning, and
- safe separation of populations. Having a modern jail based on evidence-based programming, substance
- use treatment, counseling, job and GED training, cognitive behavioral interventions, we need to make
- an upfront investment that stabilizes people in crisis
- and lowers recidivism and reduces costly emergency transports and the risk of lawsuits. Because underserved
- the individuals who live in the jail, they are more likely to return there in the future. That's it.
- Wait, there's another file. No, I'm just kidding. It's good to be verbose even when your voice won't
- let you do it. Thank you, Jeff.
- that. My third grade teacher would be proud. Commissioner Jones, do you have anything you'd like to
- say? Well, I would just like to say that I agree with everything that Commissioner Madera said, and
- I hope that it will be taken very seriously.
- Yeah, it's interesting because I started getting calls and text yesterday from folks who said, wait,
- there's not enough money for a jail? Is that what the council's saying? And that's not what appears
- on the Garitas financial report, which they asked for and
- that they commissioned and included with their resolutions. So it's very interesting to see that number.
- I appreciate Mr. Cockrell being willing to talk through those numbers so that folks understand what
- we're looking at. And I will note there's still a little give in terms of the edit rate overall for
- the County Council still.
- in terms of what was approved by the city. There's still, isn't there still a little give on that? I
- don't know if there's, I mean, I think there is room in edit, but I think that requires the city council
- approvals and things like that. I think there is definitely, I mean, we're at 0.17 for the correctional
- lit and that could go up to 0.2, which. Okay. That's, I guess that's what I'm thinking.
- million million dollars a year which would give you another 12 to 15 million dollars yeah i think that's
- what i'm thinking and i think yeah it's it's good to have these conversations um i yeah um as commissioner
- madeira did the aspirational idea of finding some sort of treatment program system
- outside of the criminal justice system, or even perhaps one that can meld with it. But it's certainly,
- our first priority has to be building a new jail at this moment. And I think even saying, wow, we'd
- like to put some money aside for that, great, but don't do it at the cost of building what we have to
- build constitutionally. It's great to have those aspirational ideas, but nothing's been done on it
- I've been here for a long time. Um so I don't know. The value of setting aside. Money for treatment.
- Um at this moment when we have a very specific. Constitutionally required building that we have to build.
- They're just kind of putting things off till 28, or now we know 29, when the lit and property tax change
- happens fully. And that's necessarily required at this moment. We can actually move forward, which is
- really good news. I do want to say a couple things about
- as I watched that council discussion. And one of the things I want to say is somewhere, oh, no, I know
- where it came from. This number of 257 million got thrown about on social media. God bless social media,
- because it needs it. And it is not true. That number has been 225. Now, of course,
- number. I don't know where that number came from. Here we are another year into it. I don't know that
- we're gonna be able to keep that number. But the number was never 257. I don't know where that came
- from, and I hate the fact that we have people repeating it. Who should not be repeating that number
- to 25. We had a higher number come in on an estimate once deals he completed the first round of plans.
- We got that number back down to 225. So I don't
- There is also some veiled criticism, not so veiled criticism about the process and, oh my gosh, people
- have been left out. We have not left anyone out of this process. This process has been thoroughly inclusive,
- not just elected officials, the public.
- both are necessary. Both are necessary. And both have been there from the beginning. And you may not
- have seen it. You may have heard somebody gripe that they wanted just one more meeting. That always
- happens, unfortunately, but we did. And every location we looked at,
- We had public meetings with area residents so we could hear their concerns. We could talk to them about
- what they liked or they didn't like. We could address some of the myths. This was in a big prison with
- big barbed wire walls and all that. We didn't leave anybody out and we haven't left anybody out. Now
- there may be some new players in the game who feel like they want to have
- You know, they want to go back to the beginning and make us go through this whole process again. We've
- gone through a multi-year process. We've dragged this community through a multi-year process. And the
- thing I hear the most from people is like, get it done. And amen. We need to get this done. And if it's
- true, even though it seemed like from the comments that the council thought this all spelled doom for
- getting the jail built,
- I think it shows otherwise, and if that's the case, let's get moving. We do have some research to do.
- There are a couple of questions. I know that we've got outstanding with various groups and agencies
- and whatnot, but we're learning a lot every day, and I think
- We hope to have something to bring as an ordinance for March 12th, because at that point in time, we
- will have had that research completed and we'll be ready to be much more decisive. But the money piece
- being the thing that continued to be raised as a question, if that indeed is truly solved,
- I'm not sure what else we need to do at this moment, but it is good news. And I think that the thing
- that we've heard, I will say two things about this project. Yes, it has to be a single floor. I'm not
- willing to,
- Personally, I don't think, you know, making it work on a floodplain is not a good plan for a jail. I
- don't think, you know, we should become contortionists to fit something on a piece of property because
- it has some magical address or something else. I think what happens when you do that is you end up with
- what we have in the Charlotte Zittlow building, which has cost us a mint.
- to keep afloat. And speaking of that building, I think it's foolish for us to plan only for a jail.
- And while we don't have the funding in place today, I'm only going to personally be able to support
- something that will lead to co-location in the near future.
- either that or we end up dumping money into the Charlottesville building and we end up with ongoing
- expenses. And we've heard from the judges, the prosecutor and the sheriff that co-location is a must
- and I support that. We'll figure it out. And no, it's not gonna be right away. Of course not, of course
- not. But that doesn't mean that it can't be in the plan. And that would be a really good thing.
- Uh, but that's as far as I'll go right now on anything else. Um, but I just, um, I appreciate everybody's
- thoughts and comments and, um, it, I think the news is better than it appeared to be when we were first
- presented with this. These numbers and this resolution, I think, you know, clearly it will be, uh, sacrifice
- to get to that number, but, but it seems perfectly doable.
- this time. Did you have anything you wanted to add, Jeff? I would just say I have not watched the meeting,
- so everything that I talked about is straight from the resolution, right? Sure. I am sure that there
- are conversations to have. I guess when I'm talking about the number, I was reading this and I'm like,
- this is what can fall, or if I was the ACLU or ICLU attorney, this is how I would interpret this document,
- right? Okay. And I don't think that's inaccurate.
- So what we're saying is we can afford it. We may not want there's some pain involved with that number.
- I'm not saying there's not any pain involved, but it's a piece of paper that says we can do it legally.
- Yeah. Then that puts that burden, shifts that burden. Did you? I'm just going to say, and that's presuming
- that we would need $170 million. That's the maximum, right? That's the maximum we would.
- And we don't know that I got a pretty immediate. Yes. So I'm thinking it's, it's the word that we would
- be below that. Yeah. We're not going to try to do the max. We're going to try to do. You can't really
- have an accurate figure until you know where it's going to be. Right. Because a lot of that's what's
- the ground cost, if anything, what's it cost to prepare the ground? So it's level and you could, I mean,
- there's design costs. I mean, there's a lot of, you know, we've got some done. It's the second, you know,
- where it's gonna go. Right, because there could be preparations required, there could be other things.
- And so for me, it comes to co-location and timing, right? Timing being such an important part of this
- now, especially given the position of the ICLU ACLU box letter.
- So, but that's a good way, that's a good way to read it. And it's probably good that you didn't see
- that meeting because it is a resolution that stands on its own. And they did intend it to be a resolution
- for the ICLU, ACLU as the audience, not us, apparently, but. Ms. Turner was, Turner King was advised
- to set the following day.
- when she sent us her copy, so yeah. I mean, it's factual, right? There's nothing in there that I don't
- think is factual. But I think it's actually a very good statement as to what our maximum is. I mean,
- the next step is in, I will be totally honest with you, I would not feel comfortable
- recommending we go to the max, right? Because that is, that's dangerous. I think the column in that
- third column where it talks about, well, if this, and that's basically designed where if this were say
- a TIF fund, right? And we knew this was the amount of revenue we're getting in the TIF, we would take
- 80% of that revenue. Right, for bond. And have that be the most we would ever do a bond. Well, these
- funds are not getting, that's not 80%
- That number there, that 11, I mean, that's 40% of what's, or 50% of what's collected. Not anywhere close
- to that 1.25. I think that philosophy is good because it gives you some comfort to know that you're
- always gonna have enough revenue to pay your bond and still maintain your current expenses. So I think
- there's some value to knowing what that number is.
- And knowing that the lit max of 25% of the total lit collected would go to a bond is also helpful because
- that says, hey, you control the other 75%. And I know that was bandied about, oh, we're going to spend
- half our lit. No. You don't need to. In my mind, it's less than the amount you're not spending. You
- are collecting more than that amount, which is a good thing, right? Yeah.
- building stress levels, but they're also building, I'm kind of comfortable with that concept, things
- with her too. Sure, sure, of course. Explain the half of lit. Comments. I don't think I can. I'm not
- sure I understand. What did you hear? No, I would like for Mr. Cockrell to expand upon fusion.
- Well, I don't know what you're asking, but I will go and say I was at the February 10th meeting, right?
- And at the February 10th meeting, there were statements made that basically that half our lit is going
- to keep us on a level playing field, right? And I assume that that is half of what will be the new lit.
- I think that's baked into that. Half of your total lit will go to maintaining the status quo.
- And if it's based upon going from, you know, basically what we have now to the 1.2, and you're thinking
- half of that, well, I mean, that other half's a pretty big number, right? It's 25 million, 30 million.
- I don't know off the top of my head, but that other half is a pretty good number. So if, I personally
- don't think it will take only half to maintain status quo, right? I don't know how that works.
- If that's the case, and I mean, that's just, to me, then it goes down to priorities, right? What are
- you going to prioritize over this facility if you have, you know, if two thirds of what you aren't spending
- can accomplish this goal and one third is just still there to cover any unknown, then, you know, kind
- of what are,
- What are we worried about? What can come ahead of us in the next 15, 20 years that we really think is
- reasonable that it will be a higher priority than this project? That would be the questions that I think
- everybody should be asking themselves when they're looking at any of these numbers, right? What will
- happen in the next few years that we think we need this funding for that is a higher priority than this project?
- And that's kind of where I think the whole funding conversation, if you're going to break it down to
- its simplest terms, is we know we've got $170 million from that document. I can tell you now, I know
- things in my mind that I would consider to be a higher priority than some of the things that we would
- do that I think would get that cost up to $170 million. I think that there is a base cost much lower
- than that that we need to figure.
- piece of property, we can figure out what that is. And then we can have the conversation is of, well,
- if we did this, you know, what do we expect in the next 20 years to happen that we're not going to be
- able to do because we did X, Y, or Z with this project. And I think that's where we need to go. I think
- we keep getting, I think we start down that path and then we keep getting caught up with location.
- Not an easy location for a jail project is never going to be universally accepted. It's never going
- to be everybody's going to love it. Every some there are always going to be people who complain. Right.
- And I think that I think we are going to continue. We need to make a decision on where we're going to
- go and we need to be firm in that and get things going. And I think then we can get to where
- those conversations are.
- I'm glad you asked that question. I heard that statement differently, so. That was the situation.
- Thank you. You just said, Julie, you heard that wrong. Because I was like, I don't understand that question.
- Yeah. All right. That's why. Thank you. So kind. Anything else? We Commissioner Jones. Anything else?
- No, I don't. It's good to see you, Lee.
- It's good to be here, hopefully in person next week. We're not here next week. The meeting was already
- canceled. OK, the week after, sorry. Did you have anything, Commissioner Medeira? I think that it's
- very helpful to remember that just because we build a jail does not mean we don't focus on community
- programming. And one is not to the exclusion of the other.
- It's not an either or question. It's a both and. We have to do both. But often, they're two separate
- populations. And they have to be two separate populations. There are people who, unfortunately, have
- to be people who live in the jail. And often, they are not the same people who can be released into
- the community. But it would be great to be able to offer decent mental and physical health care for
- those folks and treatment. Yes. Yes. And we can't do that now.
- to the extent that we need to. And I agree that it is important to have all of those components, but
- I think when we think about those priorities, as Jeff said, when we think about those priorities,
- constitutionally, we have to have a jail, right? So that is priority number one.
- And I would love to do all the, you know, I'd love to have the rest of the justice system built the
- same time. Ain't going to happen. It's okay. We'll figure it out. Right. But, but then let's think about
- what's next on the priority list. Is it, is it continuing to try to keep the Zillow building going,
- um, and remodeling it, or is it, I know, um, I know that, yeah. Uh, or is it,
- or is it really to go ahead and get that built? Or is it some sort of mental health treatment services,
- substance use disorder treatment services in our community? That's a priority. And when you set a budget,
- you make a priority. And I get it. And yes, we have to have those programs. And I'm glad for the ones
- that we do have. It's not sufficient. We all know that. It is not sufficient.
- Um, but, but we also know that the state's not helping to pay for it. The feds stopped paying for it
- in the eighties. Um, and, and it will be a community commitment to pay for that kind of service. Um,
- and it's going to be a question for the community.
- Yes, and statutorily, we are charged with carceral care. Statutorily, we are not charged with community
- care. And there are so many other providers who, for better or worse, can pick up that load. And we
- can partner with them. And we need to partner with them. But statutorily, we also have that responsibility.
- And that is incumbent upon us. And that is incumbent upon, you know, that's what we need to use taxpayer
- funds for.
- our job is also to make sure that the people who live in our facility become people who do return to
- it. And that we are providing the safest possible conditions for our staff and for those who are housed
- there. And that is a priority that we have to take care of. There's no excuse.
- And I believe that the transition team that has been working with the CLD prior to October, I think
- that they were building design, helping to design a very treatment oriented focused facility. So, yeah.
- I want to say 80 to 85. This is in the.
- and then a single cell for people who have different needs. Medical treatment, and then there's room
- to do programming that we don't have now. And we saw it when we did the jail tours elsewhere,
- other states, that there are ways to set up a pod so that it becomes a substance use treatment
- forward pod, and they work every day toward building themselves up to get out and to become productive
- residents. And it's exciting to see that. And we can't do it. We can't do it. You know? Since we got
- on this topic, I just want to say, I applauded the work of the transition team. I thought they were
- very reflective of what they were hearing from the community. Sure. What was the expression? I thought
- they were doing a very good job.
- reacting to what I think was kind of the universal hate, the kind of stuff we want to see in our facility
- that we can't do now. And I thought they did a great job. And there's a lot of that information that
- we won't be able to share ever because of security issues, obviously. But we can share numbers and space,
- but we can't share diagrams and whatnot. But I will say as well that I think throughout the county,
- we had staff stepping up and working.
- at quite a few of those meetings. I know Angie and Jeff were at almost all of them. And when we had
- meetings with DLZ and department heads and getting things cut and changed to get down to that five,
- we did it. And they did it. You know, it wasn't a party and it wasn't a circus. It was tough.
- It was tough. But it was possible. But it was possible.
- And they all made it happen in one way or another. And that cooperative work that got us to where we
- were before the state legislature decided to mess with our lives. But we can't blame them if indeed
- there is a way to do this now. I would say I blame them for not being able to immediately build co-located services.
- Beyond that, if we can do it, I'm excited, just to get this thing moving. And I have a lot of optimism,
- so thank you. Anybody have anything else to add? All right, so with that, we are adjourned. Our next
- meeting is really, really, really March 12th, 10 a.m., right here in the Daniel Hill Room. Thanks, everyone.