The image is an annotated screenshot of Monroe County’s interactive voter information lookup map. The image links to the dynamic map.
A Thursday (Oct. 3) news release from Monroe County election supervisor Kylie Farris reported that an initial wave of absentee ballots sent out by the county’s election division included four ballots with an error, which had been corrected, re-printed, and re-sent to the four affected voters.
The four voters were notified by mail that they were entitled to cast the new ballot with the correction made, according to the news release.
Monroe County commissioner Penny Githens (Oct. 3, 2024)
Monroe County election board from left: Nicole Browne, John Fernandez, and Judith Benckart. (Oct. 3, 2024)
Tensions have mounted around the way that Monroe County will report local Nov. 5 election results to the public on election night.
But the numbers that actually matter will be reported to Indiana’s official election system the same way as before—by hand-typing numbers into a form that is hosted on a state-run server.
That was the key takeaway from a B Square interview with Monroe County election supervisor Kylie Farris, before Thursday’s Monroe County election board board meeting.
Arising as a topic at the board’s meeting—even if it was not an agenda item—was the source of the controversy about the way election night results will be announced to the public this year.
Monroe County elected clerk Nicole Browne has told The B Square she’ll be signing a contract with An Island, LLC for election night results reporting to the public for the Nov. 5 election.
That’s even if the county board of commissioners rejects the contract a second time next Wednesday (Oct. 9).
Browne says she’ll be using the provisions of a new law [HEA 1158] that was passed this spring by Indiana’s state legislature, which gives elected officials two different procedures for getting contracts executed.
Monroe County has not released a monthly report of food inspection results for August 2024.
Instead of monthly summaries, the health department is now releasing the results of individual reports as part of a dynamic map, on a more or less rolling basis. Check it out: food inspection reports map.
Monroe County election supervisor Kylie Farris (Sept. 25, 2024)
From left, Monroe County commissioners Lee Jones, Julie Thomas, and Penny Githens. (Sept. 25, 2024)
With 39 days left before the Nov. 5 election, it looks likely there will be no change to the way that election night results from Monroe County will be reported to the public.
A contract with An Island LLC, to display results on a website maintained by the Tell City company, was unanimously voted down by the three county commissioners at their Wednesday morning meeting.
The current method of reporting election results to the public is for the elected county clerk, Nicole Browne, to send a message to a list of email addresses, with an attached .pdf report of results. The .pdf report is generated by the Hart InterCivic voting equipment.
News outlets and candidates rely on the emails for the initial unofficial results, before the numbers hit the Indiana Secretary of State’s results website. It’s the county clerk who oversees local elections.
As one reason for denying the contract, commissioners cited the cost, which would have come to $15,000 for the first year and $13,000 for the two subsequent years.
The urbanized area inside Ellettsville in 2020 is shown in blue. To see the official Federal Transit Administration’s UA maps, see: http://tinyurl.com/FTA-Urban-Area
At its regular meeting on Monday, Ellettsville’s town council voted down a proposal that would have continued in 2025 the stop-gap funding it has provided this year, to support Rural Transit rides for Ellettsville residents.
The proposal for this year would have required the town council to come up with $70,645 as Ellettsville’s share of the door-to-door service that would have a total of $156,989. The remaining amount was to have been paid by Monroe County government.
The pitch for the council’s support came from board of county commissioners president Julie Thomas. Area 10 executive director Chris Myers was there to answer questions.
The proposal was a simple motion of support made by Dan Swafford, which got yes votes from just Swafford and Pamela Samples. Voting against the motion were Scott Oldham, Trevor Sager, and William Ellis. So the motion failed 2–3.
The light blue area is territory currently under pending litigation for annexation by the city of Bloomington. The image links to a dynamic map.
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.
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.
For about 90 minutes on Monday night, four candidates for three at-large county council seats fielded questions during a forum hosted by the League of Women Voters of Bloomington-Monroe County.
Vying for one of the three seats that are up for election on Nov. 5 are incumbent Democrats Trent Deckard and Cheryl Munson. Hoping for their first turn of service on the seven-member county council are Democrat David Henry and registered write-in candidate Joe Davis.
Moderating the forum with a combination of questions prepared in advance and contributed by the audience was Beverly Calender-Anderson, who is the retired director of the community and family resources department (CFRD) at the city of Bloomington.
At its meeting this past Tuesday, Bloomington Transit’s five-member board gave general manager John Connell a green light to go ahead with negotiations with Monroe County government on funding for a new route that would go outside Bloomington city limits.
The new route would start at the downtown transit center, head north on Walnut Street, then west at 17th Street (which becomes Vernal Pike), turn south at Curry Pike, head west at Profile Parkway, grab Zenith Drive and then Daniels Way, before looping back east on 3rd Street, then south on South Park Square Drive, east again on Gifford Road, until hitting Curry Pike, then retracing the same path back towards the downtown transit center.
The new route would reach Ivy Tech as well as Cook Medical and Simtra BioPharma Solutions.
Board member Don Griffin said that running a route outside the city limits is significant. “It’s baby steps, but this is a really big deal,” Griffin said.
It would be the first route to go past Bloomington’s current boundaries, a possibility only since Bloomington’s city council changed local law about a year ago to enable such service.
At a Thursday meeting, the Monroe County council voted to adjust its proposed rate for the new jail local income tax (LIT) from 0.175 percent down to 0.17 percent.
That means the public hearing set for Oct. 7 will be on the revised 0.17-percent rate.
On Monday, the county council held a public hearing on a higher rate of 0.2 percent. But on Tuesday, the council voted to reduce the rate. The competing proposal was 0.15 percent, and by compromising exactly in the middle, the council arrived at the 0.175-percent rate.
This aerial image from the west is from Monroe County’s online property lookup system.
BZA meeting Jo Throckmorton (Sept 19, 2024)
BZA meeting Tim Ballard (Sept 19, 2024)
BZA meeting Barre Klapper (Sept 19, 2024)
BZA meeting Flavia Burrell (Sept 19, 2024)
Petitioner Caylan Evans (Sept 19, 2024)
On Thursday, Bloomington’s board of zoning appeals (BZA) voted 3–1 to approve the conditional use application for a duplex on an empty lot northwest of Bryan Park in a central Bloomington neighborhood.
Dissenting was Barre Klapper. Voting for the duplex were: Tim Ballard, Flavia Burrell, and Jo Throckmorton.
Each half of the planned duplex has three bedrooms and three bathrooms.
