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.