The community is effectively “stuck” on the jail project, Monroe County Commissioner Julie Thomas says, and she questions whether the recently formed jail site selection subcommittee could offer a solution the commissioners haven’t already ruled out in the last few years.
Thomas told about a dozen attendees at the Bloomington North Rotary Club luncheon Thursday that county officials have spent years reviewing potential locations — ultimately ruling out more than a dozen sites through a process that examined size, infrastructure and other constraints.
She said commissioners have already done their job and have chosen the North Park site, a piece of land between Bloomington and Ellettsville.
However, Monroe County Council member Liz Feitl, who also is the council’s representative on the Collaborative Justice Project Working Subcommittee, said the council, the county’s fiscal body, already has made its position clear on North Park. The council has rejected the site in official votes twice, and in between passed a resolution to make clear that they would reject the site.
“Somehow it doesn’t seem clear to some that we’re not buying that property at North Park,” Feitl said Friday afternoon.
Thomas said commissioners have ruled out several sites, including:
County officials for years have struggled to respond to a lawsuit that alleges the current jail violates constitutional standards. The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana alleged in 2008 that the Monroe County Jail’s overcrowding and other conditions violated state and federal constitutions. The parties in 2009 reached a settlement that, among other things, limited the jail’s capacity. Sheriff Ruben Marté, who is in his first term, and his staff have taken steps to address some of the problems, but local officials generally agree that more fixes are needed.
After the county council last month rejected, for the second time, the commissioners’ plan to purchase a piece of the North Park site, the ACLU of Indiana’s legal director, Ken Falk, filed to dismiss the original suit. Local officials have said that likely signals that he plans to file a new suit soon.
“What we started with was a helicopter view map of Monroe County, and we found properties big enough, and we looked at every single one of them,” she said.
Thomas said commissioners eliminated some sites because owners didn’t want to sell, others because they lacked basic infrastructure — sewer, water, roads — and more because of physical constraints, including steep slopes or flooding concerns.
She said the site also needs to be big enough to accommodate growth, so that the community doesn’t have to go through another jail site discussion down the line. She said the site should be able to handle additional cells and courtrooms, if needed.
“We don’t want to do this ever again,” Thomas said.
All of the sites the commissioners eliminated for various reasons remain on a list the jail site selection subcommittee will consider before it makes a recommendation on a site. Site evaluation metrics committee members plan to use include property ownership, infrastructure and physical constraints.
“I don’t know why they’re doing that,” Thomas said in her presentation. “Because we did the work.”
Feitl said the council’s opposition to North Park reflects public input, including concerns about the distance from social services for inmates, and the preference stated by many members of the public — and many local officials — to have the jail remain in the city. The current jail is part of the Charlotte T. Zietlow Justice Center, on North College Avenue.
Feitl said given the preference to keep the jail in the city, the council created the subcommittee in part to seek input from city officials, who previously had not formally participated in the site selection. And, she said, the council wanted to give local residents additional opportunities to provide input.
The subcommittee, which also includes Commissioner Jody Madeira, Mayor Kerry Thomson, City Council member Sydney Zulich, representatives of the public defender’s and prosecutor’s offices, and others, plans to meet five more times through July 13. You can find meeting schedules, how to participate and other information at tinyurl.com/JailCommittee.
Thomas insists that critics’ concerns about the North Park site can be addressed. For example, she said, the county could contract with ride share companies to transport people from North Park to social service agencies until a bus route has been established. The North Park site rose to the top primarily because of time constraints imposed by the impending lawsuit, she said.
Thomas also expressed concerns about the subcommittee’s authority.
“I don’t know what their solution is going to be, but the fact is that this is the commissioners’ job,” she said after her presentation.
Thomas said she believes the council, by deferring to the subcommittee and delaying a decision, is effectively ceding part of its authority.
While Thomas acknowledged that the subcommittee could, for example, choose the former Thomson site, even though that might delay construction by two years, she said she doubted that a federal judge would be willing to give the county that much time.
She said she remains open to alternatives, but does not believe the subcommittee or county council will find any.
“They think there should be a perfect property,” Thomas said. “There is not a perfect property. … We only have what we have.”
Boris Ladwig can be reached at bladwig@heraldt.com.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Commissioner Thomas says Monroe council ceding authority in jail site fight
Reporting by Boris Ladwig, The Herald-Times / The Herald-Times
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By Boris Ladwig, The Herald-Times | USA TODAY Network
