Monday’s meeting of Monroe County’s community justice response committee (CJRC) was the last one of the full committee—at least for a while.
County commissioners voted at their Wednesday work session to “suspend” future CJRC meetings, and instead to form subgroups to focus on specific issues, like judicial process, facilities and siting, and treatment.
It was a somewhat anticipated move, even if the timing had not been certain.
News of the committee’s suspended work filtered quickly through the community. At Wednesday night’s Bloomington city council meeting, councilmember Jim Sims said during his report time, “What I’d really like to hear is an explanation—I’d like to know why, and then why now.”
Tensions on the committee have recently escalated. Most recently, sheriff Ruben Marté has objected to the way commissioners portrayed publicly the process by which DLZ was selected as the architect for the new jail. Continue reading “County commissioners suspend meetings of full justice committee, issue challenge to judges to do work of their new subgroup in public”