- Hello, it is one thirty two and we waited for the bell to chime. It did not. So we'll call the meeting
- to order the Monroe County Election Board on Thursday, November 6th, twenty twenty five in attendance.
- My name is Frank Andrew and I'm serving as a proxy for Danny Shields. And then we have Penny and Penny.
- Your last name is pronounced Gibbons, Gibbons and then we have Nicole Brown.
- And from there, tell me where we're at in public comment first, or do we read the agenda first? The
- adoption of the agenda, and if you need a motion to adopt the agenda, I will happily make one.
- Thank you. I will make a motion to adopt the agenda as presented for Thursday, November 6, 2025. So
- moved and seconded. All those in favor, say aye.
- I. So now we'll move to approval of the minutes from the October 23rd 2025 special meeting. And I don't
- believe this chair. I can move that they be accepted. I will make a motion to accept the minutes for
- the October 23rd special meeting. This the meeting where you have the spelling that needed to be corrected.
- I'll second the motion with the.
- and would move that we correct the spelling of Ashley Kerberg's last name. It should be K-E-H-R-B-E-R-G.
- Is there a second? I'll second that. So the motion has been made to accept the minutes as written with
- the one correction. All those in favor? Aye. Minutes have been approved. So now we come to our public comment
- section is there anyone present that would like to make a public comment seeing no one approaching the
- podium we'll go ahead and move on to the next topic at hand is there anyone online that wanted to make
- a public comment seeing none we will move on to the approval of the contract with
- Is that where you want to go? Do you want to go to the showers project showers project update?
- Good afternoon, members of the board. Richard Crider, Monroe County Building and Fleet here to provide
- you with an update regarding the showers renovation for early voting. Strauser Construction and the
- Commissioner successfully entered into contract on October 30th.
- In anticipation of that, Strouser went ahead and applied for the building permit in advance to get that
- expedited. We're looking at next week for that permit to be issued. Strousers received their credentials
- and begun the field work inside the suites. Assuming the permit will be issued, they plan to mobilize
- on the 14th with demolition beginning on the 17th.
- I'm currently working with Voters Reg and clerk staff on loose furniture for the suite. And that's where
- we're at right now. OK, Richard, thank you for the update. Anybody have any questions? I do not have
- any questions. I think we're good. OK, is this a monthly meeting? All right. I'll just plan on coming
- back next month.
- I was actually gonna suggest that we just go ahead and add him to the agenda monthly until the project's
- completed. I think that's a good idea. Thank you. Thank you. Now we'll go to Michael Sher, and his last
- name is pronounced Shermus. If you have something that you'd like to say. Mr. Shermus, first of all,
- thank you because you came on very last minute notice, but I was,
- letting the proxy know about your previous presentations and i shared with him the information about
- blue dag and so i just mentioned that you said that you would come in case yes happy to be here michael
- from the city of blue intense the community resources department um the ada coordinator at the city
- um and the liaison for the council for community accessibility
- We do work in the community in terms of training volunteer surveyors to go out and review physical facilities
- to see if they have barriers for people in wheelchairs and people who are blind to be able to access them.
- five years ago we did this for the county. Usually we only do things within the city bounds but everybody
- said civic engagement we want to do it and so we extended to the county and did all of the polling places
- in the county and surveyed them. But we've gotten way better since then and we use a software called
- Blue Dag and it enables us to do a much more professional job that is higher in quality in terms of
- how it lays out what the bearers are and what
- potential remediations to address those are. And I've presented a couple of times to you all and provided
- as much information as I possibly can. I would just say, do you have any questions? I think the fairest
- thing, Mr. Andrews, since you're chairing the meeting, is that Chairman Shields
- has seen the presentations. He was supportive of it. Something happened last month. I don't know how
- we never got to voting on that contract. Somehow the topic got sidetracked or something. But at this
- point, I am ready to make a motion that we accept the Blue Deck
- services and ask them to give us an expedited contract that we can take before the commissioners so
- that we have their services for the 2026 year. I'll second that since Mr. Shields asked me to vote in
- an affirmative fashion on this as his proxy. We need to in this kind of a motion because first time
- I've seen any kind of contract come through under my
- time on the board. Do we need to specify what the amount was for? So it's what I have what I should
- that you have the quote for how much it will come to the services will come to us. I just does that
- need to be in the motion? The amount that's all I would defer to your attorney to see if he feels that
- that is required.
- I certainly think it's beneficial for the public to know what the amount is. I'm not necessarily thinking
- it has to be in the motion itself because this contract would then be forwarded to the county commissioners
- who had the ultimate authority to approve it. I do think it's important that the public would know that
- it's $11,988.
- And so now it's been mentioned. And I would just like to point out for not only the benefit of the audience
- here, but those online that Mr. Sherman's was instrumental in getting this substantially. And I want
- to emphasize the word substantially discounted from what their service would.
- would actually cost us and this also allows us to partner with the city so that they're helping us with
- the polling site so it's a it's kind of a trifecta the city the county and Blue Dag to make sure that
- all of our polling sites are ADA compliant ahead of the 2026 elections and so now that the price has
- been mentioned I will reiterate again my motion to ask
- for the board to go forward in asking the commissioners to sign a contract for the services with Blue
- Dag and I have asked Mr. Sherman's that if that vote passes today, that we get that from Blue Dag as
- quickly as possible so that we can get it to the county attorney and get on the commissioner's agenda
- ASAP. The money is in the contractual for this year.
- services would be for 2026 but of course the budget ends prior to December 31st so we it's not the same
- kind of deadline if we were talking about the calendar year end it's the budget year end which is closer
- to mid-December and we want to get on to surveying them as soon as we can in the start of the new year
- to absolutely absolutely
- Did I leave anything out? No, I was just going to say, um, Jeff did mention that if we want to get on
- an agenda, we need to push to be on next week's agenda, which means that the deadline is tomorrow. Correct.
- Yeah. The commissioners aren't meeting on the 20th or the 27th of this month for the holidays. So I
- just wanted to make sure she knew that schedule and we get something from blue deck.
- I will, if you vote in the affirmative, I will go back from here and immediately call them and see what
- we can do. Hey, well, the motion had been made and seconded. Are there any questions from anyone in
- attendance? Seeing none, any questions from anyone online? Seeing none, I move that we go ahead and
- hold the vote. Ashley, if you'll call the roll. Nicole Brown. Yes. Frank Andrew. Yes.
- Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
- Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
- Michael, I also want to say I look forward to working with you and your team very soon. Thank you. We'll
- connect soon. Yes. Thank you. I have a couple of questions I'd like to ask, if possible. I did raise
- this right before the meeting with Clerk Brown. Because it is hard oftentimes, I think, to get the spelling
- people's names correct, I would like to see us put a sign-in sheet at the
- and ask people to print their names. Just to again make it easier and as Kirk Brown is has pointed out.
- It's not a requirement, it's just a request that people do that. I what I said was I don't want to spank
- somebody. You know you come up to that podium. If you're from the public, you're nervous. You may or
- may not remember to sign in. You may or may not remember to print. I don't want to spank somebody who
- wants to give public comment,
- I have come up in some time to speak, and there have been times where there's not a sign-in sheet. You
- do state your name into the record. And so I don't have an issue with it. I just don't want it to feel
- like we're criminalizing somebody for forgetting or not being able to do that. Yeah. And also,
- in anticipation of next month's meeting when we're supposed to talk again about vote centers, at last,
- that the special meeting and actually the beginning of one at the beginning of October, Mrs. Ferris,
- you explained that printers had to be specially built from Monroe County and that it would take six
- to eight months to get those. Where did you get that information about them having to be built in that
- timeline? So when we were originally talking about the vote centers last year, the heart group, so our
- direct vendor,
- When we discussed with them they said they would suggest a deadline of six to eight months before the
- primary election. After the last meeting I reached out to them again. They said that since the production
- rate is much
- lower right now due to not needing supplies. We could get a turnaround of within a month or two months.
- They said that that would be for us to receive them, but then they would suggest that we supply another
- month for setup and training on those devices. That is in line with the stuff I heard. I actually had
- somebody reach out to me after the last meeting to say that they didn't feel like that timeline was
- I'll put it that way. And so I actually reached out to heart inter civic and talked to Lawrence Leach,
- who is the representative and he said they have them in the warehouse. They don't have to be built.
- So I want to put this information out into the public because I think that may make a difference on
- the attitude about vote centers. He said that they could ship them from their warehouse within a day
- or two and we could have them in two or three weeks. It's what he told me. And then also
- He obviously is very aware of the timelines for elections here in Indiana because he said, yes, we should
- have them. We should want to have them at the very latest by mid-March so that we could do some of the
- setups and stuff that you're talking about. Lawrence is also the same individual I reached out to. And
- Lawrence has been a very good friend to Monroe County. If he said that he can turn them around, I believe
- that he would move heaven and earth to do that for Monroe County. Should discussions go in that
- way. I just wanted information out there before we started the next discussion. Other comments from
- the board members? Okay, then I will move that we. Oh, there we go. Public comment for items not on
- the agenda and please, if you don't mind, pronounce your name slowly so the.
- Cheryl Langdon with an S for Cheryl. Thank you, Cheryl. Each month, my voice of reason must speak on
- the insanity coming from my old party, the Democratic Party. Last month, Corrine Jean-Pierre, Biden's
- press secretary, spoke to NPR about what she wrote in her book concerning the reason she has left the
- party. She complained about what I have complained about.
- She said the infighting, the bias, disloyalty drove her and, of course, that's what drove me to leave
- the party. Socialism is never the answer. That is a half-baked scheme to fool young, impressionable
- women to vote against their best interests, and it hurts the confused young men who don't know what
- their roles are in the nuclear family. The Democratic Party has become a train wreck with no real direction
- except the direction of complete destruction of our sovereign nation.
- We are only a quarter of the way through the 21st century and the level of carnage, confusion and destruction
- by the left and 20th century terrorists throughout the world are destroying Western civilization. Forgetting
- history will only repeat history's mistakes and carnage.
- Have we forgotten what Kentucky's Democrat Governor Beshears did to his citizens just a couple of years
- ago when he sent Kentucky State Police to record license plate numbers of parishioners attending church
- in an action against private citizens protected by the Constitution to worship freely?
- Or how the California's Democrat Governor Newsom eating out at expensive dinners while poor Californians
- were locked down in their homes becoming poor? Or Queen Pelosi breaking mandates to get her hair done?
- Or how about rich King Obama throwing himself a big birthday party breaking mandates while Americans
- across the nation were locked in their homes as their children's lost their education? Oh no, uh-uh.
- These things occurred several years ago. Americans are constantly in a state of crisis in the 21st century.
- Look at the rich Democrats leveraging poor families as they lose their food securities in a mafia tactic
- to rob taxpayers for another four years. Have Democrats just lost their mind? The national debt is over
- $37 trillion, and the Democrats under the Biden's regime sent
- nation's debt spiraling out of control as NGOs to abuse the protection of the U.S. tax shelters while
- siphoning our tax dollars. Does no one remember the $160-plus billion that taxpayers spent bailing out
- financial institutions in the 80s and 90s, the Clinton Whitewater scandal? In my three minutes here
- in this speech, the U.S. accrued $14 million of debt, nearly $5 million a minute. Let that sink
- And Democrats want the American people to continue to pay the bill for the four-year invasion under
- Biden's treasonous act against the American people. Are you kidding me? Shame on the Democrats. Shame
- on my party. Thank you. Any other public comment for things not on the agenda? Seeing none online and
- none present,
- I move that we adjourn the meeting. So moved. You moved it, so you seconded it, right? Somebody needs
- to. Second. Meeting is adjourned.