I will call the June 5th meeting of Monroe County Election Board order.
 Now my mic's on, okay, fine.
 So we're called to order.
 We need to approve minutes of the May 1st Election Board meeting and the second vote
 hearing.
 Can we do that at once?
 Do we have to do them separately?
 Can we do that at once?
 We've done them collectively in the past and I have read and reviewed the minutes.
 I have no additions, corrections, or deletions.
 So is that a motion to accept?
 It is.
 Second that, those in favor, aye.
 Aye.
 Opposed?
 That passes.
 That's Ms. Kiley.
 Yes.
 Okay.
 So, voterless maintenance started at the end of May and we're still working through
 it currently.
 We are expected to be completed with voterless maintenance by September of 2025 and then
 I did want to also give an update that we are currently processing our annual SVRS audit
 and that has begun this week and it should be completed by December 31st.
 That is connected, is that connected to the postcards we received in the mail?
 So the postcards will be part of the voterless maintenance portion of that that is just verifying
 that every registered voter is still at their current address and if they are not, then
 they can update or request to cancel their registration if they've moved out of state.
 And then the SVRS audit is strictly auditing users that have access to SVRS, so all of
 the employees in the office ensuring that there are not any on there that are seasonal
 workers such as our leads during the election and just maintaining the order of SVRS.
 Is there public comment on this?
 I see none.
 New business.
 Is the?
 All right.
 Just to enter for a second.
 Somebody texted me that audio is not coming through for the online portion of the meeting.
 Can folks hear it?
 Yes, we can hear you online.
 Okay, thanks.
 Thank you.
 So the contract review and resolution.
 I did not prepare a resolution for this agenda item, so I guess I can quickly prepare one
 based on election board compensation.
 Question I'm going to ask is what do we have to do with this?
 Do we approve it and then it goes to the commissioners to sign?
 I think historically election board has not reviewed election related contracts, but this
 is one where there was a request for the election board to review it.
 So I think that would be the process that ultimately the contract is to be approved
 by the commissioners.
 Based on my understanding again from what I've done with the last week, Hart sells us or
 leases us, sells leases, leases the stuff, and then we have used B&L to make it work.
 So I guess the question is, do we support that?
 Is that, am I reading that correctly?
 We actually do own the equipment and B&L services helps us with the IT portion of our election.
 They're our IT vendor.
 They also move our equipment prior to election day and then pick it up.
 And then they also help us, I'm doing a very poor job of this, Mr. White is on the meeting
 if you have specific questions, but they also help us with our IT during early and absentee
 voting as well as on election day.
 Based upon the meeting that I had last week with Kylie and with Mr. White, it's the company's
 job is to when there's a glitch that occurs or something's not correct, they come in and
 fix it.
 Would that be...
 They work with heart to address any issues that we might have.
 They also help us with preventative maintenance.
 Mr. White submitted a letter for the election board's review providing extensive detail
 on what it is that he does.
 He has worked with us for more than 11 years.
 He started under the previous Monroe County clerk and has continued with under my administration.
 So you'll have to forgive me, I have a couple of different questions.
 I really wouldn't...
 Probably a couple of different questions.
 I've had only a day or two to review this.
 There's a mention in the letter that is serving as a statement of work of a team of 20 and
 just my fundamental question is whether that team of 20 are direct employees of the firm
 or whether they're subcontractors.
 I think it would be fairest to ask Mr. White who has been made a presenter.
 You hear me?
 Yes, we can.
 Yes, subcontractors.
 Is there any...
 Is there a way...
 Do you have an existing employment agreement or assurances or indemnities with subcontractors
 and machine access to include with the contract?
 I'm unclear what you're asking.
 Is there any sort of just like a memorandum of understanding and outlining of liabilities
 and protections, what the employment agreement for those subcontractors looks like?
 Do they have access to voting machines, voting software, that kind of thing?
 They have access to the voting machines, the software is provided by Harkin, that's their
 software provider, and it's gorgeous.
 So not for that nation, but you have the ability to vote and select the proper polling location.
 Sorry, that was a little bit unclear, the audio was just off and the transcript was
 hard to understand.
 Could you please repeat?
 Yes, each one signs an agreement that they are subcontractors and is defined by that,
 but they are limited in what they do.
 The actual program is provided by Harkin and they load the information on the correct piece.
 I think it was we load that information on the correct piece, I don't think it, I don't
 think it.
 Yeah, I think we got it.
 Yeah, it's just some of the wording Mr. White, as you're using, it's not translating wellness
 and I just want to clarify that.
 You are.
 I think we're fine.
 I think I understand.
 Yeah, thank you.
 Questions that I guess we could call if there's public comment on this, correct?
 Public comment on the hello, Monroe County Commissioner Julie Thomas, I just wanted to
 reiterate information that we sent in this letter in May.
 And we have questions about whether you all had reviewed the contract and were fine with
 it, whether there was a search for multiple vendors to find a good price, whether this
 is something that could be done in-house, how many other counties do this with outside
 IT versus inside IT.
 And our biggest concern was that there's $100,000 in non-election year cost that goes to this
 particular company.
 And yes, while HART may indeed offer some software updates this year in a non-election
 year that happens, we don't understand the dollars.
 And that's all we were asking for because we were asked to approve a contract that there
 is missing information for us because for transparency sake, we want to make sure that
 when we get asked a question by the public about why does it cost this much to do this
 when you're also paying HART that, what is this person doing?
 What is this company doing?
 We want to be able to answer those questions and we felt like the contract had a lot of
 gaps in it and Ms. Turner-King is aware of those gaps, so thank you so much.
 Commissioner, did you receive a copy of the letter from Mr. White where he responded to
 the commissioner's concerns?
 No, I did not.
 I just got a copy of the letter yesterday so I did not have time to distribute it.
 So Mr. White, are you, would you mind to summarize what you listed in that letter?
 Yes, good afternoon, basically the current costs are normal election costs, and maintenance
 of all these, and we test them all each year, make sure they're in good working order, and
 do that here also to be corrected, and then, so we're expecting it to be hard for the state
 to be approved by the state that will have to load it up with the equipment, and then
 there are also anticipated election improvement groups that have already began due to improvement
 the election office, and we handle that, and then, quite honestly, we've already done the
 elections to provide the clerk's office on projects that will be provided information,
 that kind of thing, for both centers, and the status now, we did a lot of work with
 those offices. So, that's what happens with the office here. On a regular day in and out
 basis, the clerk provides the equipment that we purchase, and then they provide the software
 which then will call, that is what their office did, and then day in and out, we include something
 around, take it off the clerk, we do it, we support it, we pick it up, put it all in place,
 and then we, with the tools, along with scanning buds, and the balance.
 So unfortunately, there is still, there continues to be some garbling, the translation between
 what you're saying. I believe that they are reviewing, the election board is looking at
 the letter that you presented, but is it fair to summarize it in a way that costs, whether
 or not there's an election, there are still costs. Is that a fair thing to say? We continue
 to pay for software and licensing, we do preventative maintenance, we could pay HART to come from
 Texas and do that, but you work directly with HART for the off-election year responsibilities
 with respect to the election equipment that we purchased under the contract with HART.
 Is that fair? That is fair.
 And is it also fair to say, when you see the $100,000, it is up to that amount, you have
 given us an amount so that we can have an idea of how much it could cost, it may not
 cost that much, as I understood it from your letter, we have never gone over that amount
 where we had to go back and ask for additional appropriations.
 It does not exceed that budget and allows you to change out the batteries and other preventative
 maintenance as HART recommends what we need to do each year to get ready, whether it's
 an election or non-election, the preventative things and that that is what your company
 does and has done for the last 11 years without incident.
 Is that fair? That is fair.
 So under your time, Nicole, under your time, have they done what they said their contract
 would do and have they been timely on an issue either on election day or early voting pops
 up?
 Absolutely.
 They have more than fulfilled the terms of the contract that we have with them.
 There has not been any issue.
 And because we could we could pay a lot more, I would guess two to three times what B and
 L charges us for heart to come here from Texas to do the things that we need to service our
 equipment.
 We actually are getting B and L at a lower cost than where Mr. White previously worked,
 which was the Indiana voice and data.
 So we kind of, I guess, got bang for our buck by going with B and L because what they charge
 is exponentially less than what we would charge and as to only so many vendors make election
 equipment and everybody is not does not have the experience or background to work on that
 equipment.
 B and L does.
 This is just short of just short of bringing heart in here to service their own equipment
 and work with us.
 We are getting an incredible deal and he's been good to us for the last 11 years.
 His ethic is beyond reproach and we are incredibly fortunate that he continues to lend his talents
 and services to Monroe County government.
 He retired from city technology, the city of Bloomington technology and I really do not
 short of bringing heart here.
 I really do not believe we can do better than B and L. Thank you.
 So it does not seem like the quality of service provided is really in question.
 I hope not.
 The contract seems like it is being executed.
 I think there is more of a question to the commissioner's comment that how costs are
 being structured, how they are being documented.
 Storage is mentioned a couple of different times.
 Is equipment stored at a county property somewhere?
 Yes.
 So the county is not paying a private storage facility for anything?
 We were paying a private storage facility for election-related items, not the equipment.
 The equipment is stored in a county facility in the showers building.
 How much are we paying directly for private storage or is it going to B and L?
 So we were, so the annual contract for the storage unit came due for renewal.
 I negotiated with them to keep their prices set and they agreed if we would sign the contract
 for two years, which would be until the end of my term, then they would not raise their
 prices as they intend to do for their other storage customers.
 When the time came to sign that contract, there was concern.
 What I thought initially was the concern was that B and L did not feel that they had any
 ownership or interest in the contract, I'm sorry, in the storage, the property that was
 in the storage.
 And so we were asked to move, I did not make that choice.
 We were told we would be moving and so movers were hired and property was moved.
 And as I understand it, that ended up costing more than if we had maintained the contract
 with the storage facility.
 Sure, if you could just clarify for me, the costs for the storage, like the actual disbursement
 of money for the cost of storage, was it disbursed to B and L or was it disbursed to the storage
 facility?
 We were paying, the invoice would come to us from the storage facility.
 Okay, that's what I was looking for.
 I didn't know if that was also a subcontract where B and L was paying a storage facility
 and the money was passed through the LLC or if the county was paying storage directly.
 It was coming out of my contractual.
 Understood.
 Thank you.
 Mr. Udak, I can provide some additional commentary on this as I dealt with the storage contract.
 Please.
 So originally, the storage contract was with a company in Ellitsville and it was not in
 Mr. White's or B and L's name.
 Right, that's, yep.
 The items were moved to the Showers Building as there was available space to house these
 items at no additional cost to the county.
 And so that was one of the reasons they were moved and there was also a concern that there
 was county property in this outside storage facility when no other department has a storage
 facility of that capacity and in order to maintain a storage unit, there are certain
 state statutes including a public hearing that we have to have in order to maintain
 that storage unit.
 Yeah, my concern is less that we had a storage facility or that a storage facility was paid.
 It was more what was the flow of money relative to cost structure that's outlined in the letter
 here in the contract as it exists.
 But it's clear that is a separate expense that's coming out of the clerk's budget.
 It has nothing to necessarily do with the contract and that was one point I was confused
 on because there's mention of moving equipment back and forth and I just know who was managing
 that contract and how it was being paid, but that makes sense, thank you.
 Any other comments or questions?
 Okay, so what do we need to do then with or was this just information?
 I think my recommendation to the election board is if you're in support of this contract
 then you should, as a board, state such.
 If you need me to make a motion, I am in full and complete support of the B&L contract.
 I have reviewed it.
 I've spoken with Mr. White.
 This year's contract was actually based on one that was written by the county attorney
 previously, so most of the language stayed intact, there were some things that Mr. White's
 attorney asked be included to protect him.
 I am also in agreement with that and again, it is not to exceed budget.
 We do not intend to spend what was quoted but up to so that we wouldn't have to ask
 for additional appropriations.
 I will second that motion that we approve it.
 I agree with the strong suggestion that at least a memorandum of understanding with regard
 to liability with subcontractors, at least protecting if not outright indemnifying the
 county from any kind of liability with those subcontractors be included before it is signed
 by the commissioners.
 Aye.
 Aye.
 Opposed?
 Okay.
 The motion carries.
 Have any other public comment for the day?
 I think you have one more item.
 What item is?
 Okay, well, and I've had a conversation about the hearing this board.
 I would be perfectly content to wait until your appointment has been made and then we
 can have a discussion.
 I mean, it seems to me that it's supposed to be or it usually is done two years for
 one party, two for the other.
 We can work with that either way.
 I mean, I don't care if it's the first two, the second two, if it doesn't matter, particularly
 if it's someone who has more experience, I do letting him have the first two years.
 I'm not been out of shape either way about it.
 Yeah, I think it's I think it's appropriate to wait.
 I don't I don't think my making a decision about that makes sense in this way.
 I appreciate the patience with it to be quite it's not a huge deal.
 Sure.
 You call it to order.
 You call them.
 I mean, it's.
 Yeah.
 And there's no like code actually governing who chairs the board, right?
 Correct.
 There is no code.
 The election board adopted a resolution in twenty seventeen and then when Miss Bankhart
 took was appointed in July, she was originally came in as the chair.
 She chaired thirty seconds of a meeting before she relinquished early the chair to the Democratic
 Party.
 Well, I would prefer to wait until you have we have the permanent appointment and then
 we can.
 Well, that person and I can have a discussion about how to do it just if it's if it's legal,
 we can have a discussion privately and then make it you know, we can just move to it that
 if that works.
 It may not with two sitting members of the board, I think that would probably have to
 be noticed.
 Right.
 Correct.
 Yeah, so the conversation probably has to happen in public, but yeah, but but I'm not
 trying to hide anything.
 It's just, you know, I don't think it's a huge deal.
 No, I agree with you.
 I think it's appropriate to wait.
 I think that's the I think patience is the right attitude and much more to say on it
 beyond that.
 Thank you.
 Thank you for catching that, ma'am.
 You're welcome, sir.
 And now for other public comment.
 We're sorry we interrupted you.
 Go ahead.
 Danny, one thing I would suggest that the letter for the appointment for today be read
 into the minutes.
 Want me to read the letter into the minutes, or would you prefer to read your own letter
 into the minutes?
 I can read it.
 So I wrote a letter this morning, appointing myself for a short term to the board, it reads
 as follows.
 To whom it may concern, this letter serves as notice that on June 5th, 2025, I'm appointing
 myself to the Democratic Party seat on the Monroe County Election Board effective through
 June 30th, 2025.
 A formal notice of a permanent appointee will be made to county staff no later than that
 date.
 As of the writing this letter, the chair has made no other formal appointment to the position.
 Thank you, Samuel Udak, chairman of the Monroe County Democratic Party.
 I will move that's added to the record.
 Second.
 Those in favor?
 Aye.
 Now.
 Hi, I'm Cheryl Langdon, Monroe County citizen.
 I have yet to hear about any investigation concerning what happened to me during my employment
 as a Monroe County employee at Election Central as the Democrat representative in my office.
 I want to share openly to everyone that I didn't vote for Trump last year.
 And I'm here to share the Monroe County Commissioner's public statement shared last night on social
 media and today in this room.
 Quote, "The Trump administration has added Monroe County to its so-called sanctuary jurisdiction
 list, threatening over $6 million in federal funding due to our commitment to lawful and
 inclusive policies."
 Commissioner Thomas said, I quote, "We follow the law.
 We will not be intimidated by political theater or unconstitutional threat."
 Commissioner Jones said, "This is not about safety.
 It's about control.
 We'll continue protecting our people, not scapegoating them."
 Commissioner Madera said, quote, "We will not be complicit in criminalizing people based
 on fear and xenophobia.
 Monroe County remains committed to respect, dignity, and safety for all residents.
 With the hashtags #DefendDignity, #InclusiveCommunities, #StandWithImmigrants, #NoHateInOurState."
 My response is, no hate in our state?
 Here were the voices when hate against conservative Americans was at a high pitch.
 When people were being dragged on social media, in their own homes, and at their Monroe County
 government jobs, you all said nothing.
 Fellow Democrats said nothing.
 And when you say nothing, when one person or group is marginalized, nothing will be
 said when it's your turn.
 It's called cause and effect.
 It's called science.
 Now budgets suffer because of the political theater that was created by the Democrats
 in the first place.
 What a shame.
 Nothing was said against the auto-pin Biden regime when his executive office allowed an
 open invasion against American people, and his executive office actively violated conservative
 Americans' constitutional rights to free speech on social media.
 The Biden administration openly targeted these conservative Americans, and as a Democrat,
 that's a shame to see that.
 My fellow Americans.
 Biden's regime committed treason against our nation's sovereignty and against all of us.
 Shame on any party and any member of my party, the Democrat party, who supported the treason
 committed by the Biden regime.
 We are the ones that put Trump in office because there was bullying, and people refused to
 listen to fellow party members in the Democrat party, people like me.
 The Democrat party created this mess, and they have only themselves to blame.
 Thank you.
 Julie Thomas, Monroe County Commissioner here once again, but we wanted to provide some
 information for all of you and for the public, because as we know with the groundbreaking
 for the new convention center, the Napa building election operations will be demolished very
 soon, and we want to assure you all that there are plans in place, and this is, for those
 who don't know, Richard Kreider, who is our fleet and facilities manager, and if you would
 quickly just walk through what our plans are, that'd be great.
 Thank you.
 So, our plans are to renovate the east side of the first floor of the showers building
 for early voting.
 It's been a little bit of a process.
 We started in January working myself with clerk staff on getting to a point where we
 could hire an architect to start doing some real programming, and through that process,
 we've added some more space than what we originally thought.
 It was obvious and apparent that we needed more square footage, so we've extended that,
 and I think where we need to be square footage-wise, and if we can maintain the architect's program,
 we're looking at a finish in construction December 20, 2025.
 My apologies.
 You can't have it done before you start?
 Correct.
 I have a question, if I could please.
 One of the things we had talked about was possibly having multiple early voting sites.
 If you're the person, I think that maybe you should know this.
 How much trouble would it be if we decided we wanted to, rather than a month, do two
 weeks early voting, and have three or four sites?
 Do we have the space to do that currently?
 Commissioner-owned buildings?
 Do you have anything to say?
 All of our buildings are downtown, so I would imagine if you wanted to do something in the
 community, you would want to use space that is a church or a school or something else.
 I don't know, but yeah, everything we have is downtown, and I'm sure we can make things
 work if you want a couple sites, but to everything being downtown, it doesn't seem to make a
 lot of sense to do that.
 But we like the showers building because there's plenty of parking, access off the sidewalk.
 It's still downtown.
 It's very convenient.
 So we're really excited that this will be the new future home of election operations.
 Sorry.
 I was going to bring you up to speed on previous efforts, but I can wait until you have your
 finishing remarks.
 I just want to make sure that you're all aware and the public's aware that we're not getting
 caught flat-footed here.
 We are well aware that the Napa building would be demolished very soon.
 And so, yes, we began this process in earnest and it is on schedule, thanks to Mr. Kreider
 and all the folks he was working with.
 Did the commissioners own the Napa building?
 Was that purchased or leased?
 Okay.
 So is there any, there's no real significant cost difference between operating out of showers
 versus the Napa building?
 I will say I appreciate working with you, Richard Kreider.
 It's been great just getting together and being able to communicate our concerns and
 them being answered pretty quickly for us.
 You're welcome.
 Feelings mutual.
 Thank you.
 Just to bring both of you up to speed, there have been efforts, other efforts, to have
 multiple early voting sites.
 The previous administration, she had a very well-intentioned early voting operation where
 she moved, I believe it was a trailer or some kind of motorcade thing to different areas
 around Monroe County.
 That did not, the feedback on that was not good.
 And after the pandemic, when the commissioners recommended that we have more rural early
 voting sites, I consulted with the Allen County clerk because he has four different sites,
 north, south, east, west, or I believe he splits it up into quadrants, north, west, northeast,
 southwest, southeast.
 I wanted to do something like that during early voting where one week we were on the
 northwest side, northeast side, and through that four weeks of early voting, the incarnation
 of the election board at that time was not, it was not palatable due to cost.
 Now, in my mind, I saw the same team going to each location.
 I then suggested like maybe north, middle, south, dividing the county up into thirds.
 That also was not palatable, but it is something that I think is amenable to voters, makes
 it easy because it comes close to their town or their side of town.
 And the only thing that I, please excuse me, that I would say would be that we want to
 make sure to use sites that we would not use on election day because that could be confusing.
 And we have places that we used to use, but we don't.
 So a place on campus, we have that one site, I can never think of the name of it, Ms. Guy.
 Center of representative governments.
 We've never used that before as an early voting site, but I'm sorry, as an election day site,
 but that might be something right near campus.
 Or the church that we used to use off of the bypass.
 Things that -- >> I would think that we could probably work
 with churches without having to really add cost to it.
 >> So one concern about churches is that the equipment has to be able to be locked and
 stored and generally during early voting, it's easiest and best to keep it set up once
 it's set up.
 So that's the only thing that we're really concerned about because if we have it start
 on a Saturday, then that next day, Sunday, they have service.
 So where do they plan to store and keep our equipment and the process of getting it set
 back up.
 I know during my work with the vote center committee, we had spoke about doing the public
 libraries because we can use them and as long as they have a room that is sectioned off
 that can be locked, then we would be fine.
 You know they have security because it is a public library and that was one thing that
 we really lean towards but just making sure that our stuff is able to be locked, secured
 and not have to be disturbed.
 The Southwest Library branch has these very large modular meeting rooms where the walls
 are removable and they literally have a security guard posted at a desk immediately outside
 the room you would want to use.
 We have time to talk about this.
 Yeah.
 Correct.
 Yeah.
 Low cost options for libraries.
 Also, I know that like Ellisville is another location that has like questioned multiple
 times over especially 2024 where their early voting location was in Ellisville because they
 had figured that there would be one and there wasn't.
 So that is another one that we really looked at that really think that there should be
 one at least in Ellisville and then somewhere on the south side of town and then we have
 election operations in the center of downtown.
 Well, and that you're pointing out about the equipment being secured for that length of
 time.
 You have had success.
 Would you agree with the convention center where we did the the training where we had
 our training?
 We had great success with the convention center then and I know you'll know what I'm talking
 about.
 The public may not, but on the one side where we just did training for this past presidential,
 there's rooms that that's the cook room, right?
 So one could be for early voting.
 One could be for training.
 Because they locked our they guarantee that we would have we would be able to lock up
 the equipment at night.
 Correct.
 Yep.
 Thank you.
 Or not unless there's additional public comment.
 Not at this time.
 Is there a motion to adjourn?
 So moved.
 Second.
 Opposed?
 Those in favor?
 Aye.
 Opposed?
 We are adjourned.
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