A Monroe County Council member says a decade-old court case raises questions about whether the county may be overpaying for the North Park property that commissioners have proposed as a future jail site.
Commissioners last week approved an agreement to buy about 52 acres of the property for $11.375 million, or about $219,000 per acre, based on two appraisals.
However, court documents from 2014 show appraisals of North Park, at the Ind. 46 junction with Hunter Valley Road, as low as $6,000 per acre, though under different development assumptions.
“I’m not sure what the current value of the property is, and we need more time to get that independently assessed so we are getting the best value for money for the county,” Monroe County Council member David Henry said Thursday.
The council is scheduled to take up the matter in a meeting May 12.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana alleged in a 2008 lawsuit against the county that the jail’s overcrowding violated state and federal constitutions. The parties in 2009 reached a settlement that, among other things, limited the jail’s capacity and prompted county officials to pursue construction of a new jail.
Commissioners and the ACLU’s legal director, Ken Falk, had filed an agreement in court April 13 that lays out that if the county council, which controls the county’s finances, does not approve the North Park purchase in a matter of weeks, Falk would renew the long-running lawsuit.
Council members including Henry said the agreement caught them by surprise and has the effect — intentional or not — of narrowing their options to a site they don’t support, while benefiting commissioners, two of whom — Thomas and Lee Jones — have long favored North Park.
Julie Thomas, president of the commissioners, said via email Thursday that the commissioners were required to get two appraisals for the North Park property and pay the average of the two.
Should the property’s commercial value relevant to government?
However, Henry said appraisals listed in the 2014 court case raise questions about the property’s actual value.
The property is now owned by Logan Land Development LLC, the registered agent of which is Steven Crider. In 2014, in a divorce case between Jeff and Christina Crider, one of the appraisers “saw significant development potential in North Park” while the other appraiser did not, court documents show. The site’s development potential included that it was being considered, in the mid-2010s, as a site for the IU Health Bloomington Hospital.
Henry argues the higher appraisal at the time was based on the property’s economic potential, which is irrelevant if it’s developed by the county. The site is an old quarry with some drainage problems, he said.
“If we’re not developing that land for commercial or economic value, and instead it’s for government value, which is the jail, it does raise questions about whether or not that property’s valuation makes sense,” Henry said.
Both of the commissioners’ appraisals from 2024 also value the land based on its potential for private mixed‑use development, including commercial uses.
Henry said that leaves an unresolved question: whether the county is paying a market price for development land, or a government price for a jail site. Council members will have to confront that question soon, as the commissioners’ agreement with the ACLU extends the settlement only through the end of May.
Boris Ladwig can be reached at bladwig@heraldt.com.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Is Monroe County overpaying for North Park jail site?
Reporting by Boris Ladwig, The Herald-Times / The Herald-Times
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