From left: chief deputy Phil Parker, Monroe County sheriff Ruben Marté, and jail transition director Cory Grass. (March 12, 2024)
From near to far: chief deputy Phil Parker, Monroe County sheriff Ruben Marté, and jail transition director Cory Grass. (March 12, 2024)
Monroe County councilors from near to far: Peter Iversen, Jennifer Crossley, Trent Deckard, Geoff McKim, Cheryl Munson, and Marty Hawk. (March 12, 2024)
Monroe County council meeting (March 12, 2024)
Monroe County jail commander Kyle Gibbons addresses Monroe County commissioners and introduces Officer Wood and Officer Figg to county commissioners. (March 13, 2024)
Planning for a new Monroe County jail appeared on meeting agendas for both the county council and the board of county commissioners this week.
For county councilors, it was a discussion with Monroe County sheriff Ruben Marté, chief deputy Phil Parker, and jail transition director Cory Grass—about a strategy for funding a transition team to be headed by Grass.
The source of transition team funding identified by county councilors is revenue from the corrections local income tax, which county councilors enacted last year.
For their part, county commissioners moved ahead with work on site selection for a new jail, by approving a $4,750 contract with VET Environmental Engineering, for a Phase 1 environmental site assessment of some land along West Hunter Valley Road and West SR 46.
This is the land that the county is now considering as a possible location for a new jail, after putting aside consideration of the Thomson PUD location, in south central Bloomington.
County commissioners also received an update from jail commander Kyle Gibbons, who gave them a rundown of the most recent jail population numbers: 164 felony inmates; 35 misdemeanor inmates, and 15 housed in the jail on other holds. Gibbons gave a nod to the circuit court judges for the pretrial release program, which is helping to keep the numbers down.
Gibbons also told the commissioners that the jail is fully staffed. There’s been just one resignation in the last 90 days, by someone who moved back to northern Indiana to be with family.
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