Monroe County commissioners OK $11.375M North Park land deal for jail; now to county council

The Monroe County Board of Commissioners voted 3–0 on Thursday to approve an $11,375,000 purchase agreement for the North Park site for construction of a jail and justice center.

It’s a move that commissioner Jody Madeira framed as “not so much a vote for North Park as it is a vote against this lawsuit,” which drew immediate comment from commissioner Julie Thomas who said North Park is the only viable option on the table.

Madeira put it like this:

Just because we move forward with this purchase agreement, by the way, does not mean that if a better option presents itself, we don’t have to go down this road. If we have a better option that presents itself tomorrow, we can go with that option, but this option is before us on the table today. So to all of those who say, “The commissioners love North Park,” this is not so much a vote for North Park as it is a vote against this lawsuit.

By the “this lawsuit” Madeira meant the fresh litigation that is expected to be filed by the ACLU, if the settlement agreement related to a 2008 lawsuit is allowed to expire and the ACLU dismisses the older case.

The most recent extension of the settlement agreement goes just through May 29, having been extended on an annual basis for several years. A condition on any further extension, beyond May 29, is the approval of a purchase agreement for North Park by county commissioners before the end of April, and an approval of the same purchase agreement by the county council at one of its two meetings in May. The first county council meeting next month falls on May 12.

North Park is a roughly 52-acre site, located off SR-46, northwest of Bloomington.

Thomas followed Madeira’s remark with a blunt assessment of alternatives, saying she does not see a realistic path for any other site to meet the deadlines tied to the county’s private settlement agreement with ACLU of Indiana. Thomas put it like this:

I’m going to offer my own opinion on “if something else comes up.” I don’t think there’s any possibility that anything else can come up and be ready for a bond, a bond initiation in July, because you would have to have everything else done,” Thomas said. “I just don’t see that that’s even possible. I mean, it wish it were. It’s just not.

Commissioner Lee Jones stressed that people currently incarcerated in the county jail are those who are most affected by the long unresolved issue of the jail.

“I’d just like to say that I think that the people who keep on being forgotten in this discussion or ignored … are the people who are in our jail,” Jones said. “I can’t imagine what they think, watching these arguments go on, that to them must seem pretty petty.” Jones added, “It’s just really sad that we have forgotten, apparently, about that population that is suffering at this time and we aren’t actively moving forward …”

The vote by county commissioners means the purchase agreement, and any needed appropriation, will be sent to the Monroe County council, where it could appear on a council agenda as soon as May 12. The deal approved on Thursday morning is similar to one that was approved in 2024 by commissioners and councilors alike in 2024. That was before the county council voted unanimously to deny the required appropriation to close the real estate deal in late 2025.

The $11,375,000 purchase price is unchanged from the previous one. A big difference for the new agreement is the omission of the earlier agreement’s requirement that at least some elements of a justice complex be constructed immediately along with a jail.

On Thursday, Thomas acknowledged that the county council had not had input into establishing the terms of the recent extension of the private settlement agreement for the 2008 lawsuit. “Yes, that is true,” Thomas said, giving as a reason: “Because they are not party to the lawsuit.” She added, “It was up to us to work with the sheriff to agree to the private settlement agreement.” The original lawsuit, Thomas stressed, was filed against the board of commissioners and the sheriff, not against the county council.

Addressing Bloomington’s city council, which passed a resolution at its April 22 meeting expressing opposition to the North Park site, Thomas said on Thursday, “To my city friends, thank you for your interest,” adding, “Here’s what we need your help with. We do need to provide transit now.” She said, “We can figure out a way to make a [bus] route to go anywhere in the county, including North Park. It can be done. … That’s something the city can help us with.”

Her second explicit request to the city involved pooling opioid settlement dollars. “We have this pile of opioid funding. It’s limited in how it can be spent,” Thomas said, adding a question: “Why can’t the county and the city get together, share the money and provide substance use disorder treatment, inpatient, outpatient mental health treatment?” Thomas concluded, “That would be a help to Monroe County government. That would be a help to every resident of this county, every resident, and it would help keep our incarceration rate down.”

The reference to opioid funding is to a stream of lawsuit settlement dollars paid by drug manufacturers, distributors and related companies to state and local governments nationwide after litigation over the opioid crisis. Some of those funds come with restrictions, generally requiring that they be spent on treatment, recovery, harm reduction and prevention efforts.

At the end of 2025, the city of Bloomington had in its year-end balance for restricted and unrestricted opioid settlement funds a total of about $973,000 with no expenditures so far in 2026. Based on information from Bloomington’s online financial system, the city’s expenditures in 2024 and 2025 from opioid settlement funds look like they were mostly grants to local nonprofits like New Hope Family Shelter, Amethyst House, Sojourn House, Beacon, Inc., Courage to Change Sober Living, Centerstone of Indiana and Community Kitchen of Monroe County.

In her prepared remarks on Thursday morning, Madeira called for collaboration. While disagreements are to be expected in a healthy democratic decision making, Madeira said, “There is too much at stake to let this agreement become distrust or give rise to personal accusations, and it can prevent us from doing the work that the public elected us to do.”

When Madeira wrapped up her commentary, it drew an “Amen!” and applause from Jeff Richardson, a former city council member (1976–79). When Richardson took the public mic, he praised Thomas and Madeira for their participation in the city council’s meeting and the tone of that exchange, which he described as “very substantive” and “very civil and very grounded and helpful.” He said the 17-year history of the jail discussion is widely viewed as a collective leadership failure, and urged both city and county officials to do more “heavy lifting” between formal public meetings.

Richardson said Monroe County and Bloomington have “some of the brightest, most dedicated” elected officials and urged them to finish the work together. “We can figure this out. We can do this, and my plea and my prayer is that we just do that. Let’s get this done, working together.”

The new purchase agreement for North Park and any needed appropriation are expected to appear on the May 12 county council agenda.