- It is 541. This is the Monroe County Women's Commission. It is August 20th. I apologize for the delay. We do have... So at 541, I will call this meeting to order. The commission shall serve in an advisory role to assist residents, businesses, and the government of Monroe County in addressing issues of gender equity.
- The mission is to advance the status of women and marginalized genders in all areas of county. I know we have minutes from two months ago that we need to approve. From May. From May, but not June, correct? June was canceled due to weather and I still need to get us July to approve for next meeting. This is May and then July, okay.
- I sent May out last night if people hadn't. Do you want to get the microphone over? Did everybody have a chance to look them over? Do I have a motion to approve? I move to approve the minutes for May. Do we have folks online? Yes. Maria is there. Do I have a second? I approve.
- We have a second. So we have a motion to approve the minutes from May, what day is that? I'm sorry. 15th. 15th, 2025. We'll do roll call. Julie Hardesty. Approve. April. Approve. Molly Otto. Approve. Maria Hamilton. Not Hamilton. That's a totally different person. Maria Douglas. Yes.
- And wait, is Tiara here or not here? I don't think so. I don't see her. Okay, sorry, Maria. And myself, yes, so we approved the minutes from May of 2020. And then next month, we will get this and last month. I know there was, it is confusing with, I don't know how you guys have been doing, Liz, with the,
- new website. And I didn't even, I totally missed that memo that that was happening and what a nightmare I'm sure it was for all of our people. I know it looks nice though. It does look nice. I agree. And it makes sense, but I'm sure it's been a nightmare. Right. It's a learning curve. Yes. I do find it interesting that none of our pages forward us or like, cause there was anyway, but that's neither good or not. Okay. Um, commissioner,
- updates, myself. The only thing, and I can talk about it later at the data, but okay, I'll talk about that later at the data. Yes, I have no, I'm trying to think, nothing, right? I always think of it later, but.
- I will announce to my colleagues here is that one of my passion projects has been reopening a venue we used to have here in town called Rhinos. Oh, yeah. And it is something I was looking into doing a couple years ago and then tried to find people. It fell away by the wayside.
- Recently, I, thanks to Reddit, got like re-just supported in the thought, have been making some more conversations with people. And so, just so you know, it's not associated necessarily with us, but be looking forward to hopefully more information on that.
- focus that they did before. Great. Yes, I guess. Like, yes. My guess is yes. I need to get, I have people that I need to connect with still about because I really want obviously to get youth on board and probably have an advisory council of youth and XYZ. But still just trying to move things forward is all that happens why I don't
- lose my personal momentum, I guess, in a sense. That's really exciting for me. So I don't know why, but it's just my little product that I want to make happen. OK, that's really all I have. Julie? So I ended up having more time off this last month since we last met than I realized. So I don't actually have a status
- women in Monroe County report at this point to give but this month the topic was going to be health outcomes and I got it started and I think.
- We are really lucky in Monroe County because I'm already seeing, just looking briefly, that we've got the Monroe County Health Department along with IU and some other groups. They put out a Monroe County Community Health Assessment in 2021 that was very specific. We also have the Monroe County Health Equity Council that put out a full report from 2021 as well. And I'm going to be planning on looking in those resources first before I even go to the
- resources I've been finding nationally and at the state level for health outcomes, in particular for women and marginalized genders. So I think that's looking promising, but I don't have details yet for what that looks like right now, but I should be reporting on that in September.
- That's that report for this month. I also went into teams in the data subcommittee folder, and I added the summaries from the previous topics. So there's like four summaries that I uploaded there, and I'll do that for the rest of these topics that I'm looking at as well. Commissioners, would you like me to start with you, Eve?
- If you have any updates you'd like to share that we will not be discussing. Yeah, so the project that I proposed, the last meeting I was able to attend here, which was, when was that? May? I believe so, May. Because June was the one that was canceled and July I was not able to attend. So it would have been May.
- That project that I proposed then, after much discussion with a lot of people from my community and everything in regards to the topic of this and how this would be done and everything, it seems like the best bet right now would be to probably just put a pin on it for a little bit, just at least until the dust kind of settles.
- like socially, so to speak, because things seem to be getting a little bit crazy right now. And a lot of people within my community are a little bit hesitant to come forward and tell their stories, lest that can end up being used as unintentionally sort of like ammo for people who might want to cause harm to me or my community. So they kind of want to wait a little bit, which I totally understand.
- Things are a little bit scary right now within the transgender community. So we kind of want to try to stay safe and everything. So I kind of want to wait before I move forward on this project, too, until when things seem to be a little bit safer to be able to explore something like that. I would like to be able to do something until then that hopefully I can still have some sort of strong impact of some level to be able to help my community and other communities
- I'm here in Monroe County, but as for something that big and ambitious, probably we'll have to wait a little bit, unfortunately, which I totally am fine with. That just gives me more time to be able to come up with more ideas and be able to make it even better in the end and try to find really good candidates and stuff. But as of right now, just purely for safety measures, it probably would not be the best idea to try to attempt it at this point.
- I'm sorry. I'm a little disappointed by it too, but I totally understand from their perspective. And obviously I don't want to do anything that anyone would be uncomfortable with. Yeah, I do agree that it gives you time to really, you know, work on it and like come up with outlines and make connections and figure out, you know, I know, yes, but hopefully that day. I don't know when it. I'm trying to stay optimistic, but
- Hopefully it comes sooner rather than later. Yeah, I'm hoping that we can continue talking about it. Me too. Yeah. I was really excited for it. Yeah. I think it's a really great idea. Oh, gosh. I think so too. Yeah. And I think for me, the question or I don't know, in the meantime, is how can we support the community
- In the meantime, I mean, and yes, I don't, if there is ever anything we can do or we want to do, then I would certainly think, you know, would be willing to do what it takes to do. Yeah. I mean, maybe there's, there's something to consider of, you know, something to bring to the council or to bring to the commissioner's attention to help in the County.
- Yeah, that's what I've been trying to look into myself. I haven't been able to find any leads just yet, but I'm still looking into it and seeing if I can find anything. It's been a little chaotic right now anyway, especially with all the students coming back. And my job at the hotel has been super busy at the moment. But in my free time, I've been trying to do what I can to see if I can find anything to help. Pride is this weekend, so maybe something will come to me then.
- Yeah, it's on Saturday. Yeah. Yeah, please keep us in the know. Do you think that if you could add, and I know the impact is to have people's personal stories, but to add anonymity to it where people could submit all of their things, but not necessarily have their name attached to it? Does that make sense?
- No, I mean, just like the whole project is what. Right. No, I get you. I was considering that too for a while. Obviously. Yeah, I was considering doing that with some of the stories for a while, but even then I didn't want it to obviously be totally dominated by animinity, which I feel like would end up what would happening because then that could just turn into people just assuming that it's like made up.
- which is kind of the issue that you run, especially when I was like, I have a journalism background. So anonymity, it was always one of those things you had to be super careful with, especially if it gets too much dominated within your story, then it blurs the line for people to believe, OK, well, if someone's disinformation is anonymous, how do I know what is true and what is fiction?
- Yeah, it was something like I'm totally willing to do it for like a few of the stories here and there but obviously I would like to have a project that like you can actually have a face that you can look at and not just hear stories because I think a visual component to something is better for like speaking to people's empathy. I think for me something that might be interesting to come out of this would be
- Even I mean, I know like in summer grad, we're not officially allowed to make statements unless we go through chains. But I mean, even coming up, you know, with the story or maybe even one anonymous story that would be saying why we why this project can't go through, you know, would be is I mean, and I know you're saying that here. So that is, you know, but I don't know if there's something because I mean, that is a message in and of itself. So maybe.
- on the microphone. I'm still too far. Sorry. It's been a day. OK. Anything else, Eve? I don't think so. I was thinking, though, I've been thinking about this for the past couple of days as well, like speaking of Pride. Obviously, it's way too late now, especially because Pride is just a few days away from now. But it might be something we'll want to consider next year for Pride, assuming we still have Pride as a thing next year.
- like maybe we can consider if like that could be something that could be approved by the Monroe County Board. If we could have like some sort of booth or something set up just to show that we're an organization that exists within Bloomington and like try to like raise awareness for certain things like that could be something we could potentially do as well. I would love that. That would be great. Yeah. If we could if we can talk with the commissioners, maybe that is a way to bring this to their attention and say we need to be we need to
- be present at Pride next year or at LGBTQ events in the community in the county as the Women's Commission? I think it would be really important and I think a lot of people would be really defined that we have an organization like this because like I honestly didn't even realize that we had a Women's Commission here in Bloomington until Maria came to me about it so I didn't even know that we had one beforehand so I don't know how many people actually know here that there is a Women's Commission and
- in Monroe County. Probably nobody outside of us. Right, exactly. So I feel like that is why having a booth like that could bring a lot of awareness to that, especially for a lot of younger folks and whatnot who will come to Pride. Yeah. Yeah, because it's simple. It's an easy thing to do with a potentially very big impact. Yes.
- Love that. Maria Douglas, would you care, do you have any updates you'd like to share? Of course I do. So first of all, I want to, I want to thank Julie for keeping Susan on the mic because literally like if you're, we can't hear anything online if you, when you get away from it.
- It's not just you, it's the mics, but also I wanted to amplify Eve's statements around anonymity and the importance of people seeing people as people.
- Okay, I think that's important because when anonymity gets involved, then it is a lot easier to dehumanize and to not
- Like as, as Eve said, you know, have empathy or be able to take this in. Oh, this is a person that real person that I'm talking about. So anyway, um, pride, yes. On Saturday, two to 11, the women's market is the same day. So you can go to the women's market from nine to one, go get lunch and then go to pride from two to 11. Um, not telling you what to do, but also just a suggestion. And then also, um,
- So my part-time job is that people in the Animals Learning Services and Tito's Vodka, if you will, have partnered together for the last month that each
- drink order that has Tito's in it. We get uh pals gets a dollar of that and they're having just kind of a wrap up party on Friday this Friday the 22nd from 11 to 2 out on the Elm Elm's patio and there's going to be like a smash burger truck and uh clearly they're encouraging day drinking. I mean, I don't know. I'm sober so like um I also wanted to bring up
- The thing that sometimes people, the rigging of the elections, rigging of voting as some people refer to it as gerrymandering or redistricting, but it is actually cheating. And so I would like to direct everyone to go to commoncause.org and sign a petition to oppose rigging the elections. Thank you.
- Thank you. Thank you. Ali, do you have anything you would like to share? I have no updates. Thank you. Wonderful. Let's go to old and ongoing business. We will start with the policies of committee with commissioners Hargis, Dean Douglas.
- I believe we have not had a subcommittee meeting since before our last Women's Commission meeting. Is that correct, Maria? Or did we meet in July? The last time I have notes is from early July before the last Women's Commission meeting, so I don't think that we've met since July 17th.
- And I have not. Yeah, that's weird. Why did we do that? But also, yeah, the last time I remember meeting was with Nikolai, right? Yes. Yeah. And that was the beginning of July. So I think we are still we're still working through the the updates that we gave last time or so we're working through, which clearly we need to get back to that. So we'll have another meeting coming up. Probably probably next week is probably when it's scheduled, because I think we're at the end of the month when we meet. So, yep, yep.
- that's our update, I think. All right. Thank you. The data subcommittee with commissioners Hingle and Douglas. The update that I have is that I'm throwing it in here is that we, Maria and I at two o'clock tomorrow are meeting with Diane Henschel from IU that is heading the
- that will be doing data collection with us. She requested to me in person so we could just have some face-to-face, get some good conversation going about just, I think, the process and what we're looking for and et cetera. So I don't know if, I don't think I have a real agenda. I don't know if Diane does probably with considering
- She's had experience doing such things before. I look forward to it. So far, she's been very lovely to communicate with and work with. So I'm looking forward to tomorrow. Yes. Yeah. I still plan on doing more work with Julie's data, integrating it into ours and really
- actually, I'll probably do some of that tonight to get a good idea about what kind of dashboard I'm leaning into so I can like what we're what we're thinking about. So, you know, in in that question, and what data I think is missing, just to be, you know, to have a good idea for, you know, tomorrow. But that's all I have. Maria, do you have anything else? Sorry. No.
- I was hoping to hear. I meant to check and I haven't had time. Because I thought that that was supposed to go in front of the I know Molly Turner King was supposed to request to
- haven't met. I need to get with Tiana on that. I thought Molly Turner King put something on the agenda for today. Did she remove it? Today's the 20th, so it's for tomorrow. Sorry, it's for the 21st. I keep on forgetting today's the 20th. So she said she requested to be added to the 21st Board of Commissioners meeting. Oh, not our meeting, their meeting. Got it.
- Sorry, yes. That will be tomorrow. I hope someone gets to, I was going to check afterwards. I might be able to watch tomorrow. I'm guessing no other updates since we haven't heard from Tiana and Jennifer are not here.
- I don't think so. But I'll make sure that I email the three of us and get any updates that we're missing from that. I'll try to go in person instead of watch on video tomorrow if I can. OK. And I'm going to put this out there because I just learned about it. And with outreach that I didn't know existed. And you guys can go, of course we knew this existed. Did everybody know about Girls Rock but me? Girls Rock Bloomington? Yeah.
- OK, so, yes? No? Well, that's fine. I just learned about it and how amazing that program sounds and how we're not involved in that. I hope moving forward sounds amazing to be. Maria, do you know about Girls Rock? Do you guys also know why it's so humid in the Midwest?
- Seems like everybody knew, but me? Corn sweat. Oh, yeah, OK. Well, I'll be the last one. It's fine. Better late than never. Well, anyway, yeah, Girls Rock is something I would love to spend some time getting to know more. I mean, I don't know if they need help. And I know they're growing. And it sounds like an amazing program for. That could be a cool invitation for a future Women's Commission meeting.
- Oh, that wrote, I have her in Jules Olsner's. I'm not exactly sure who it is, but yeah. I have wrote the name down, but. I think somebody coming to talk about it here would be really good because then the community would find out about it based on the recording of this meeting. Yes. I think the founder of Girls Rock Bloomington, she won
- an award at this year's Women's History Month luncheon. Yeah, I think you're right. Yeah. Amy Olsner. Everybody? Yeah. Me? Well, I think it sounds like an amazing program. Yes, they rock. I have no new business on the agenda.
- and I don't know if we have any oh wait Tiana is on but not on yeah like I think Tiana just might be logged in whenever the team meeting is going I don't know there's something weird there Molly is also logged on online but Molly is here so yeah and I'm not logged in a team
- like to watch this. So I don't know why my computer always connects. I'm logged in. I just logged in. Yeah, I'm not quite sure what's going on there. This is Jodi. I'm also online. Oh, Jodi, you're here. That's right. Yes, I had to. We just started classes at the law school. And so I had, because this was an unconventional evening, I couldn't make it in person. I'm so, so sorry. No. Actually, I should have included Liz. Let's go.
- I mean, Liz, do you have anything you'd like to share with us at all? I think I'm OK. OK. Thank you. Commissioner Madera, do you have any comments you'd like to share with us? Any news? No. I agree with everything that was said, by the way, about getting county personnel to pride. I think that would be a wonderful
- addition and maybe we should have a table in the future. I'm going to try to get down this weekend. I was there last year and I think that was a really important event. I noticed that also there was a lot of county presence last year and so but we didn't really have a table and so I think if we centralize that presence that would be a really powerful statement. So I think that was a great suggestion. Thank you. Great.
- or regard the no speaking, no public comment. I would like to call this meeting adjourned at 6.08.