Late-breaking sewer news means postponement of land purchase for new Monroe County jail
At their regular Wednesday morning meeting, the three Monroe County commissioners put off until an undetermined date any decision on an $11.375-million purchase agreement for some land where a new jail could be built.
The property on Wednesday’s agenda amounts to about 52 acres in North Park, off SR46, south of Hunter Valley Road, which is owned by Steve Crider through Logan Land Development.
The postponement came on a rare split vote by the three commissioners. Voting against the postponement was Penny Githens, who wanted to go ahead and approve the purchase agreement. Supporting the postponement were Julie Thomas and Lee Jones.
The reason for the postponement was some news received by county attorney Jeff Cockerill the previous day from the South Central Regional Sewer District (SCRSD).
According to Cockerill, SCRSD thinks that a back-of-the-napkin cost for building a connection from its North Park Wastewater Treatment Plant, to serve an alternate site for the jail, on some land on Vernal Pike, outside the Bloomington city limits, would be around $2 million.
Previously, it had been thought that the only option for sewer service was the city of Bloomington utilities. The news seems like it could put the land on Vernal Pike back in the mix for some additional consideration as the site of a new jail. That further consideration includes two studies.
At their work session following Wednesday’s regular morning meeting, commissioners approved two contracts that are key to further consideration of the Vernal Pike land. They approved a Phase 1 environmental study and site reconnaissance with VET Environmental for $6,000.
Commissioners also approved a $12,000 contract with Patriot Engineering and Environmental for geotechnical engineering.
County attorney Jeff Cockerill told The B Square after the work session that the Phase 1 environmental study is hoped to be done by next Friday.
The $2 million cost of connecting the sewer service comes in the context of a smaller land cost for the Vernal Pike property compared to North Park.
In a letter from the two Vernal Pike landowners—Craig Cowden and Dee Burris—they clarified that they are willing to cap the price of their real estate at $3 million apiece for a total of $6 million. That’s independent of the two required appraisals that would have to be done by Monroe County government in order to purchase the land.
Both the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Ellettsville Area Chamber of Commerce championed the Vernal Pike property as better than North Park. The two groups sent county government leaders a joint letter of support.
Proponents of the Vernal Pike property have pointed to its more direct transportation connection to downtown Bloomington, on a surface street.
The $11.375-million purchase price for the North Park property is the average of two fair market appraisals, according to Wednesday’s meeting information packet.
So the difference in real estate cost that Monroe County government officials might weigh would, all other things being equal, be more than $5 million, when comparing the North Park land to the Vernal Pike property. The roughly $2 million that it would cost to make the sewer connection to Vernal Pike would be more than covered by the savings in the cost of land acquisition.
What made Thomas and Jones want to revisit the Vernal Pike land is the possibility of the alternative sewer connection, which is more feasible than the option offered by the city of Bloomington.
To connect sewer service to the Vernal Pike land, which lies outside of the city limits, Bloomington would require the property to be annexed voluntarily, which would also mean the voluntary annexation of all the land, no matter who owns it, between the Vernal Pike land and the city. That’s because of a contiguity requirement for annexation.
Speaking against the postponement, and for approving the purchase agreement at Wednesday’s meeting, Githens said, “I would like to go ahead with this agreement.”
Acknowledging the opposition that the commissioners have heard from residents of Ellettsville, Githens said, “We have gotten emails from people—I’ve read every single one of them. These are people who live in the Ellettsville area, saying that they oppose the jail going into North Park.”
Githens added, “I want to point out that North Park is not Ellettsville.“
Githens continued by pointing out that DLZ Corporation, the county’s master planning and design consultant on the jail project, had identified challenges for the Vernal Pike property related to karst features and steep slopes that could prevent a building a colocated jail and justice buildings in close proximity.
Based on the start of the remarks that Jones made, it sounded like Thomas’s bid to postpone would fail. Jones opened by saying, “I really agree with everything that Commissioner Githens just said.” About the opposition from nearby landowners at North Park and in Ellettsville, Githens said, “I would like to add that it’s obvious that there’s really no one in the county who is dying to have a jail put in their midst”.
Jones also said, “The human suffering that’s being caused by our lack of movement is not something that should be ignored.” She continued, “I certainly hope that the taxpayers aren’t ignoring the fact that every delay is costing us more and more and more money. ”
That part of Jones’s comments got to the reason that the county is planning to build a new jail.
In 2008, the ACLU filed a lawsuit based the Monroe County jail operates under a settlement agreement that has been extended several times. The current effort towards constructing a new jail, stems from two reports from consultants hired to study the local criminal justice system. The reports were delivered three years ago, in July 2021.
The reports from the two consultants—RJS Justice Services and Inclusivity Strategic Consulting—highlighted a number of challenges in Monroe County’s criminal justice system. The key conclusion from the RJS study, which prompted the start to the recent effort was: “The jail facility is failing and cannot ensure consistent and sustainable provision of constitutional rights of incarcerated persons.”
Still, on Wednesday morning, Jones landed in support of Thomas’s motion to postpone: “I do think that we owe it to people to explore further what could happen with the Vernal Pike site.” But she continued, “I don’t want to devote too much time to that.” She added, “I also want to make it very clear that I will not support anything that does not allow the jail and the justice center to be placed adjacently.”
For her part, Thomas called North Park a “preferable site, much preferred.” But she wanted to get an initial review done by VET Environmental—she thinks there are probably more karst features on the land than are already marked on the map. Thomas has the same reservations about the Vernal Pike property that Jones described—that it might not be possible to locate the jail and courts close enough to each other.
Thomas said none of the “on-the-ground reviews” for the Vernal Pike had been done, and she wanted to get a firmer idea of the cost for running a sewer line from the South Central Regional Sewer District (SCRSD) treatment plant. That was her motivation for wanting to put off a decision on the purchase of the North Park land.
“This is the biggest decision we’re going to make in this office, and it’s the most important one,” Thomas said. But Thomas wants the additional information about the Vernal Pike property to be gathered quickly, saying, “Time is money.”
Under state law, the county council also has to approve the purchase of any new significant property, regardless of how it is funded.
