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Vanderburgh County Board of Commissioners Special Meeting February 22, 2001
The Board of Commissioners of Vanderburgh
County met in session this 22nd day of February at 6:05 p.m. in Room 301
of the Civic Center Complex with President David W. Mosby presiding.
President Mosby: I'd like to call
to order the special hearing of the Board of Commissioners. I'd like to
introduce with us tonight is Suzanne Crouch from the Auditor's office;
Jane Laib, Recording Secretary; myself, David Mosby; Phil Hayes, Counselor;
Commissioner Fanello; Commissioner Mourdock; Acting Superintendent of County
Buildings, Tammy McKinney; and Tom Pitman with Baker & Daniels out
of Indianapolis. Before we start the meeting, if we could, please stand
for the Pledge.
President Mosby: If anybody would like to speak during tonight's hearing, there are some slips of paper back by the door in the wooden tray. Please sign one, put your name on it, bring it forward to Suzanne and she'll pass it over and we'll call on you during public input. At this time, Commissioner? Commissioner Fanello: I want to start the meeting off first by giving some information that Counselor Hayes gave to me. The memorandum of understanding between the ICLU and the County has been extended to June 1, 2001 that places our cap at 329. Accordingly, I'm going to read you a paragraph from the agreement. The parties stipulate and agree that by June 1, 2001, they will either present to this court a private settlement agreement in lieu of a preliminary injunction which will contain definite dates for hiring an architect, approving of plans, initiating and completion of construction, and opening of a new or improved Vanderburgh County Jail with a population capacity designed to alleviate overcrowding at the jail or present this court with a case management plan containing a request to set the matter for trial along with relevant dates and deadlines leading up to a trial date. I just want to reiterate that this county is committed to moving forward on this jail project. We are committed to working with every county official and the public on moving forward with this. I have submitted a request for statement of qualifications to be sent out to interested design firms. It's been reviewed by each commissioner and their input has been given. Tonight I make a motion that we send this request for statement of qualifications out immediately. Commissioner Mourdock: Before there is any kind of second on the motion and, yes, Catherine, obviously you did send it at and I did get your copy back about 2:20 this afternoon. I appreciate the chance to add some comments to it. I know Mr. Hayes has certainly looked and it and I understand that Mr. Pitman has as well, but I would like to talk through several points of that. Commissioner Fanello: Okay. Commissioner Mourdock: Without an agenda I'm not sure how you want to structure this, this evening? President Mosby: This is fine. Commissioner Mourdock: I want to start with this issue. I guess, the primary point that I have that I think needs to be discussed, as you know, I included with my comments what I called in some quasi official sounding statement the minimum acceptable standards. I have the concern that while the information that is now included in this RFQ is fine, I don't have any problem with that, but I want to make sure that the county gets off on the right foot with this thing and that we don't run the risk of litigation down the road by someone feeling that they were not assessed fairly under this document and/or by not having people go through the exercise, and it's a pretty...I do this everyday. I respond to these kinds of things everyday. It's a strenuous exercise. It takes a lot of time and money on the part of firms to respond to these things. I want to make sure that this gives direction as well as request information. If we don't do that, we're not being fair to the contractors. Again, I say that with lots of experience in filling these things out. With that, I had submitted seven items that I felt and still feel, are legitimate points of discussion as to what we need to set for the minimal level of experience for the people that we might have design this facility for us. I understand that Mr. Hayes has said that he prefers not to include that, but I need some more definition as to why we don't want to set some minimal level of standards? Commissioner Fanello: Well, what I think we need to do is probably read out loud the minimal acceptable standards and also read from the RFQ the evaluation criteria that I included and that you also made some recommendations to. Philip Hayes: Inaudible. Commissioner Fanello: Let's just wait on that for a minute. Do you want to read the minimal acceptable standards? Commissioner Mourdock: Sure and as you just suggested, I'll read them one at a time and we can discuss them that way. Commissioner Fanello: Okay. Commissioner Mourdock: Let me just read the short paragraph... Commissioner Fanello: Instead of doing that why don't I read the selection process and criteria that we include in the RFQ and then you read your memo of acceptable standards and we'll go through them line by line? Commissioner Mourdock: Okay, which page are you on? Commissioner Fanello: I didn't have the pages numbered. I think it's page three. Is this microphone working? Can you all hear me? Jane Laib: It should be working. Commissioner Mourdock: Can you hear me? Unidentified: You can speak louder. Commissioner Fanello: I'll try and scream. I've got a small voice. Okay, the selection process and criteria...let me read this section to you and how it reads: The Board of Commissioners will evaluate all the responses with consideration given for:
Commissioner Mourdock: I think what you just read, excuse me, is a good...very general...I think what you just read into the record, Catherine, I have no problem with as a very general characterization. I will tell you...I will absolutely guarantee you, that every architect that's sitting here in this room, and I'm sure there are more than a handful, when they heard you read those things, they are thinking "Yeah, I meet those standards". It's that general. In contrast what I suggested as the final page of this document as minimal acceptable standards: The Vanderburgh County Commission seeks to have the county's new correctional holding facility to be designed and built efficiently and to all current and reasonably foreseen standards. For this reason, the commission establishes as minimal standards of experience for the architect or design team of the facility:
Commissioner Fanello: Well, let's have a little discussion about it. I don't have any problem...I think the three commissioners here are going to take these proposals and we're going to know when we receive these proposals by what they submit whether they are qualified to do a job or not and we are going to rank them accordingly. By saying that the past experience by the firm or team in the design of not less than five jails - I cannot say that somebody in the audience who only has done one to three jails is not qualified to build our jail. Commissioner Mourdock: And that's a fair comment. That's where I said that this is not stone; this is paper. Maybe five is not the right number but would we agree that zero is the wrong number? Do we want to issue a learner's permit on our jail? I think not. Commissioner Fanello: No, I don't want to issue a learner's permit but I can't say that I cannot close this process to everyone...I just think it's too restrictive. Commissioner Mourdock: Even with zero being number is too restrictive? Commissioner Fanello: Tom, you had some comments about that because I... Tom Pitman: When I reviewed it just purely from a legal standpoint, I could understand why the three of you or any individual among you might lay out criteria in your mind to provide guidelines that you're going to use to evaluate various proposals. Where I ran into problems was the idea that if you purport to have bound yourself by these criteria, you may later find that the architect or group you most prefer doesn't meet any of those with a possibility that others would come forth and say, "Why are you giving them consideration?" at that point. Commissioner Mourdock: Let me be the devil's advocate on that one, Mr. Pitman. Why would it be that we prefer someone who doesn't meet minimal qualifications? That doesn't sound right. Tom Pitman: For example, just hypothetically, theoretically, there may be an architect firm out there that's new to the business but has done the best four jails in the state of Indiana in the last two years. Commissioner Mourdock: Then by definition, they're not new to the business. Tom Pitman: Well. Commissioner Mourdock: If they've done four jails, how are they new to the business? Tom Pitman: Well, but they...right. When I read this, and again, just purely a legal reading, that the minimum standard that you must have met for consideration would include design of not less than five. In my hypothetical you've got one who is truly the best in the business, new in the sense that they've only done four, but is very up and coming and you have erased the possibility. Others competing for the business might say, "You have no right, Vanderburgh County, to even consider them at this point because they didn't meet your minimum standards. Why are you considering them?" The problem is that you will want to consider them, if there is such a firm out there. You will want to do that in furthering the interest of the county. Commissioner Mourdock: I realize that your example is hypothetical - Tom Pitman: Right. Commissioner Mourdock: - but again, we're not going to find...I think, and again this is the industry I work in when I'm not in this building, you're not going to find the best in the business simply because they've done three or four jails. Again, understand that I'm not saying five is the magic number; maybe it's something less than five, but zero is clearly the wrong number. Tom Pitman: Um-huh. Commissioner Mourdock: This is inferring, "this" meaning what you read into the record, Catherine, there's no definition here as far as what a minimum is. A firm that worked as a teaming partner, again hypothetically, a team that worked as a teaming partner with three other companies that were actually the lead architect could claim they had the experience and expertise with jail or community corrections. They could claim that they had the ability to work with the owner. They could claim to have experience in programming. They could say they have experience in developing energy efficient and they could say all these things but they've still never built a jail...or designed a jail rather. Tom Pitman: But saying those things, as I read it, doesn't entitle them to one minute of further consideration. When you get the responses to the request for qualifications, you will then sift through those and it will make sense at that point to have guidelines in your minds as to how to evaluate them. You'll be able...you can apply every one of these. You have the discretion to do that. Commissioner Mourdock: Every one of which of these? Tom Pitman: You are free, and any of you are free or all of you are free, to apply criteria to the facts that you think make sense in the context. Commissioner Mourdock: So do I interpret that to mean that these seven items and maybe it should be five and maybe nine and maybe instead of the number of five jails, it should be four - whatever those numbers are - are you inferring from that, that this board should act outside the RFQ to establish standards and then judge the RFQ's that come back or the proposals based on those standards? Tom Pitman: It was my understanding that what you were trying to accomplish here was to notify the industry of what you're doing and to request, at least, a minimal description from those interested and their qualifications as a general matter without requiring them to do all the work that goes into a formal proposal and to use those submissions to narrow a field based on what appear to you to be appropriate qualifications. Commissioner Mourdock: Okay, then let me ask it again because I think you just said the same thing. You're saying that we establish a standard but we don't send it out with the RFQ package? Tom Pitman: I think that in your own mind...when you get back materials, some of them will obviously show that you are dealing with highly qualified companies and others will tend to do that less. You'll be able to read them all and I think the best ones will present themselves. It's my understanding that what's to be done with this is to ask for not the full scope of work that goes into a response but to collect those qualifications and then based on what your review leads you to, to narrow to a group all of which will surely be very qualified and then from that list to request a more full response. Again, Commissioner, my only concern was that if you appear to set out definitive criteria that legally, I feared that you would tie your own hands in a way that you might think, "Geez, we really, really like what these people are telling us, but we get down to criteria number five and can we really say they met that one?" It's more of a...I think you're looking for more of a gestalt impression when you go into the review of the RFQ's. Commissioner Fanello: I just want to say that I met with Joe Wisinger from the State Building Commissioner's office and under his direction of Susan Williams and this was modeled after the state. I had extensive discussion with him on the process that they follow in the state. They don't apply or make a part of their RFQ any time of restrictive standards like that. In fact, we even asked more questions than they do in the state process. Commissioner Mourdock: And we should because they do that job in the Department of Buildings and the Department of Corrections eight hours a day and we are three part-time commissioners who don't do this job full-time. I'm trying to make this easier and...I'm trying to get us to the best possible answer in the shortest period of time. Let me put on my other hat...again, my eight hour a day hat. By leaving this as constructively vague, to use the legal term, I think we're being unfair to companies because I don't think...I think we're sending a message that is send it in and we're going to give it full consideration, but based on what Mr. Pitman said, with a wink and a nod we're all going to say that we'll short file those real quickly. I don't think that's fair to the people. Commissioner Fanello: I think the whole purpose of the RFQ is to go through them and see who is the most qualified. Like Tom said, right off the bat, you're going to know when firms submit if they are qualified or not. Commissioner Mourdock: Let me go back to point one then. Are you comfortable in saying as a minimal acceptable standard whether we send it out with this package or not, that whoever is going to be awarded this project will have designed at least three jails? Commissioner Fanello: I don't know because we have not received the responses back. I think that is the... Commissioner Mourdock: But doesn't the experience dictate what our answer is going to be? Commissioner Fanello: Are you saying that just because they build a jail but maybe they're not experienced in other areas that means they're not experienced to build our jail? Commissioner Mourdock: What do you mean other areas? Commissioner Fanello: Well, I mean architects build more than jails. Commissioner Mourdock: Sure, but we're building a jail. I don't care what they build otherwise. Commissioner Fanello: Well, but they have had to have demonstrated competence in all projects, I'm sure. Commissioner Mourdock: That's a great point. The folks...and that would have included Sheriff Ellsworth, Jim Raben and former Commissioner Tuley when they were in the PONI meeting out in Colorado, one of the things...and I think several of them are here, if they care to join in on this...one of the things that they heard about was when it comes to building a jail, it is a specialized form of construction. Commissioner Fanello: I agree fully. Commissioner Mourdock: Of design...of architecture. Commissioner Fanello: But the fact that I'm going to put something in this that's restrictive...I'm trying to keep this process as open and fair as possible. Commissioner Mourdock: But you're not and respectfully I say that. You're not being fair to people who are going to turn stuff in and spend days putting this together only to have it quickly thrown in the corner. Commissioner Fanello: I can't imagine that any architect in the audience would waste days on proposing...or sending a proposal or statement of qualifications, if they were not qualified to do this project. Commissioner Mourdock: Qualified under what definition? That's the "if" right there. Qualified under what definition? Philip Hayes: I'd like to speak briefly to the issue of doing it...there's public policy matters here that are overriding in doing a Request for Qualification or and RFP either one. First of all, this is not a private enterprise operation, this is a public community building. Second, this is governed not only by our wants, desires, practicalities and desire not to put any architects or engineers to too much work that they just don't get anything. We're also concerned with the eighth amendment to the U.S. Constitution. We're working under applicable law and we're working under applicable court orders now. I can tell you that in order to meet, I think, every possible qualification that may be out there for you to come back in with, you will avoid any suggestion of legal activity if you truly make a record here tonight that you are going to let "come one, come all, come in." You may apply your experiences with the National Institute of Corrections at Longmont, Colorado, under the auspices of the justice department but so far the record of events in here is that you've ignored those completely. They have not become part of any of the previous documentation in regard to building this. It has not been of consideration. Commissioner Mourdock: Time out, time out, what have we ignored? I'm sorry, you've lost me. Philip Hayes: The NIC's operations in Longmont, none of the community aspects of their recommendations have been followed. Their template that is available on the internet as far as involvement of the entire community in planning and looking at what is a life time experience basically - you build these and you do one in a lifetime. You don't do any more than that. One would hope that this time the 30 year span in the future will comport with the U.S. Constitution as the last one did not. Functionally and legally, it was determined by 1979 that a jail built ten years before that, barely ten years, was an unconstitutional facility. It had a lifetime of ten years. It's an issue then...and we're not conceding that legally on the record here...but those criteria that you have aptly suggested or those which I think fit private industry perfectly do not fit a government/public extension of invitation to participate because you have a wider public policy purpose. I think that is where the foundation of the lawsuit comes if you don't apply that in your critical analysis of what the responses are. Apply your minimum standards as you see fit when you receive the responses at that time. Commissioner Mourdock: Apply them but don't state them, is what you're saying? Philip Hayes: I'm saying apply them and state them but not in the request for the proposal. Commissioner Mourdock: That was my question to Mr. Pitman a minute ago, when do we state them? Philip Hayes: I think that the three of you can state those positions once you see what has been submitted and you apply your legal critical analysis to the submissions, the responses to this request. When you see that...and you can do so at your discretion. You can narrow them down. You can ask for more if you believe they are insufficient. You can one by one do it, but to plant them in the invitation unduly restricts the ability to have responders come forward with their qualifications whatever they may be. Commissioner Mourdock: Okay, fine. That was my point and question to Mr. Pitman. Philip Hayes: We don't want that wide field by (inaudible) cause of action. Commissioner Mourdock: If we don't want to include this page, that's fine. I'm okay with that, but by the same token, if we don't include it, are we saying that we are going to adopt either in this meeting or some other meeting what the standards are? Because we use the terms up here all time - this isn't Republican; it isn't Democrat and I mean that from the bottom of my heart. The bottom line is, we need to be seen as above reproach in how we do this- Philip Hayes: Yes, Commissioner. Commissioner Mourdock: - and I have great concern that if we don't establish standards and we have companies with qualifications here, here, here and here and all of a sudden we choose somebody down here for whatever reasons, all of a sudden we're not above reproach and that's going to have a bad smell. Philip Hayes: And may I say simply that bad smell and above reproach are not the least of it. The standard industrial and government industrial procurement protocols that are established and I think the pattern setter is the Indiana State Office Building Commission because they build every single corrections operation that we have in this state, and they RFQ all of those; they RFP those and they're in our community now doing a hospital on the east side of town. Those protocols are as far as they're concerned virtually no brainers. The amount of hours they put in a day in looking at that is not an apt comparison on the legal side, at least, as a lawyer here looking at the format of what I can recommend for you on your invitation or I think Mr. Pitman either one. It's not above reproach and all of that, is there a sign...is there a flag going up that what you're doing is gunning for the narrowest sources of providers? This is in an atmosphere where again the head of NIC says basically of the 500 jails that were in construction at the time he wrote this are not particularly anything to get terribly excited about because, in his opinion, many of those are outmoded and under attach by the legal operations...the litigation that gave rise to the Prison Litigation Reform Act that's been superimposed on this county since 1995 and exactly why we're in federal court, and there will be more of those. They will be on each and every inmates mind as they continue to attack this system of incarceration that we have in this country. In drafting the legal documents...advising a community legally as to what to do, I've talked to bond counsel, I talked to other counsel on a more casual basis about it, I try to look at what the literature and history has been of this prison industry that we have in this county which is $26-$28 billion dollars. What it comes down to is that my best advice is go in the community, send out an invitation to those persons who believe they have the qualifications to build a prison, examine those...to build a jail, corrections facility, and/or a juvenile detention facility and then you are the folks who were elected here. You have every legal discretion available to you to apply such standards as in your best knowledge is in the best interest of your community. I know you're trying to do that, but I would ask that on the legal aspect of this document that providers feel that they can come here and they can have the widest submissions possible rather than the most narrow. That, I think, will avoid the litigation operation that you're looking for and I think it will also encourage those persons who are involved in the communities that we've listed specifically which is yourselves, the commissioners; the county sheriff; the county judges and those justice system organizations which would include a wide variety of folks to be able to get involved in this process with you. That is the reason for the legal opinion that we're coming with. It's not to diminish your ability to apply critical analysis to who responds. Commissioner Fanello: Just let me say, Richard, you and I talked and I told you that I had samples of evaluation criteria that we could use. I'm not opposed to us coming up with some evaluation criteria that we want to set as maybe standards. I think these are too restrictive and it just opens up a whole new can of worms. Tom, let me ask you this question. Have you seen or heard of lawsuits that have come from and RFQ being too restrictive like this? Tom Pitman: Well, let me answer that slightly differently. I have among the samples of RFQ's that I've seen for this type of project, I haven't seen any that did purport to bind the county to minimal standards. Commissioner Fanello: In all the samples that I've looked at, I've never seen one... Tom Pitman: I think that Counselor Hayes and I really are just taking a legal approach here. What our advice is that the Indiana statutes allow you to have discretion. As your counsel and bond counsel, we advise you to preserve that discretion and not to bind yourself when Indiana law really is written in a way that suggests that this type of judgement needs to be within your discretion and that discretion needs to be preserved. We just are advising you consistently with that. Commissioner Mourdock: Okay, well two points. Number one regarding the Indiana statute. The Indiana statute also says that we have to have the hours the documents that we referenced in here are available within our office. It's a minor point, but we need to add that to this document. Second point it - Philip Hayes: No you don't. Tom Pitman: No. Commissioner Fanello: Not in the RFQ? Philip Hayes: No you don't. Not in the Request for Qualification. Bidding documents I think you may have to. Commissioner Mourdock: I'll pass on the reference. Second point is that certainly while there may be litigation if, in fact, people have seen RFQ's too restrictive, it has also gone the other way because people will sue over anything at the drop of a hat. I'm sure you'll both agree with that. Okay, so we're not going to include this, this is clear. Let me also ask the question, if we're not going to include this - and Catherine you made reference to the thing - Commissioner Fanello: Samples? Commissioner Mourdock: Yeah, whatever. Would you agree at this point that all of these items, and I'm not talking about five jails versus six jails versus nine jails, would you agree that all of these items are worthy for consideration as we go through that format? If not, which one of these do you not want to include when we evaluate companies? Commissioner Fanello: I think some of them are worthy of consideration and I think that's something that we need to in a meeting adopt what we would like to consider when we evaluate, but I'm not going to say because a person has built less than five jails that they are not qualified to build a jail in Vanderburgh County. Commissioner Mourdock: Okay, same question. Would you agree though that they have to have had built at least one jail? Philip Hayes: No. (Inaudible) Commissioner Mourdock: If five is too many, and as I said, this is not stone, this is paper. If five is too many, is one too few? Do we want...do we expect to build...we've got a project that's coming up here that's going to cost every man, woman, teenager, toddler and infant in this county between $200 and $300. Philip Hayes: Is that the library? Commissioner Mourdock: No, that's the jail. That being the case, are you willing to agree at this point that we want whoever we're going to select to have built at least one jail? Commissioner Fanello: I don't know at that point. Let's leave that up for discussion. Why don't I distribute some of the samples of evaluation forms that I have and we leave that up for discussion. We've got some time to adopt that in a meeting. I think it should be up for discussion. Commissioner Mourdock: Well, we're here to discuss. The other seven points - Commissioner Fanello: The problem with discussing it now is that I would like for each one of us to take a look at the sample of evaluation forms that I have before we - Commissioner Mourdock: Are there any of these seven points that right now absolutely, positively you feel should not be included in our evaluations? Commissioner Fanello: Yes, I do. Commissioner Mourdock: Which one? Commissioner Fanello: Number seven where you say excellent references from past clients in at least 75 percent because I think it's too subjective. Who says what excellent is and why 75 percent? Commissioner Mourdock: Again, 75 percent, if it's not the right number, I won't argue the number. Commissioner Fanello: When you say excellent in quotes, it's kind of a subjective- Commissioner Mourdock: But this is the way the business operates because architects, construction people routinely go back and ask for references. Commissioner Fanello: I don't have any problem asking for references; I would ask for references. Commissioner Mourdock: No, no, no, no, you don't understand what I'm saying. I'm saying that sure we're going to call people and ask them, but I'm telling you as a routine matter companies that do work for owners, whether it's private sector or public sector, routinely when that project is over go back and ask for a reference. That's what I'm asking for. The reference that's given at that time. Normally, it comes in the form of a letter. Commissioner Fanello: Okay. I think if we could spell that out a little more clearly. To me that's not what that means when I read it. Commissioner Mourdock: Okay, how about six? Commissioner Fanello: Design experience incorporating the expertise of not less than four other firms of technical specialty. I'm going to need a little more time to explore that. Design experience - President Mosby: Are we incorporating these now or what are we doing? Commissioner Mourdock: No, I'm just asking the question to see if they are going to be incorporated later. They're not going to be incorporated in the RFQ. President Mosby: Right, then we have time to decide that. I'd like to move on with jail discussion. We got people that want to speak yet. Commissioner Fanello: Just let me say that I would like for us to look over some of the sample ones that I have and then come back to the table and talk about these along with the samples we have and maybe we can come up with something even more definitive than this. I think we need to discuss it at a time when each of us have a little more information on some evaluation criteria that has been used from other RFQ's. Commissioner Mourdock: Before we move on, and obviously there is a motion on the floor but I presume you're looking for people in the audience to have some discussion before we act on that motion? President Mosby: Before we vote I would. Commissioner Mourdock: I would also request that at some point I'd like to talk through, and this is separate from the RFQ, but I'd like to talk through what I see we need to continue to do as a system. I obviously did not know until you made the opening remarks tonight about the statement of the time period, calendar, that's necessary as part of the agreement with the Indiana CLU but I have a thought on that and I'll even present a tentative schedule also for discussion. President Mosby: We're going to do a tape change real quick. TAPE CHANGE President Mosby: Okay, the first name I have is John Klipsch. I hope I pronounced it right. Commissioner Mourdock: Yeah, you did. John Klipsch: My name is John Klipsch. I represent a firm. Our name is Lamb, Klipsch & Associates. My partner Lee Lamb is with me. We're an owner's representative firm. We're not a design firm. We're not here to compete with the designers, but we have over 30 years experience in public projects. We've been the owner's rep and project manager on large public projects like Circle Center Mall in Indianapolis, Conseco Fieldhouse, Indianapolis Arts Garden. We're currently working for the entity you were talking about, the State Office Building Commission on the Indiana State Museum. Before I talk about the public process that we work on in those projects and our firm I wanted to also let you know that I am originally from Evansville. I grew up here and graduated from Bosse and I have a stake in this community. I have lots of family here and I am very interested in seeing what happens here with the Evansville landscape. The owner's representative services that we provide help you, folks who don't have a staff to work on projects like this. I wanted to take a few minutes of our time to introduce us to you while you are considering the process for the selection of architects and while you're considering what to do about how to build the project. Over the years when we have worked on these large projects we went through the same kind of struggles you're going through. Whether to send out a RFQ or an RFP. What to put in the qualifications for the RFQ. I would request of you on behalf of the vendors to leave yourself some flexibility. Use the information submitted as your selection process. Don't box yourself in with a hard and fast rule on how to select the professionals. Evansville has got a great group of design professionals, a list of talent that will be able to fulfill your needs and you need to take a look at their resumes, give them a chance. You can talk all night long, all day long, for the next ten months about how many jails need to be in a vendor's resume for them to be good, but what matters is the service that they give you as the owner. This is a people business. It's not a manufacturer line and it's the people that these design teams, these contractors, the engineering firms, it's the people they put on your project that make a difference. I have seen some of the biggest construction companies and architectural companies in the country give poor service to their clients because they didn't put the right talent on the project. We wanted you to know about us. We wanted you to know that we have experience in giving advice on this kind of venture. We wanted you to ask questions and leave yourself some flexibility. We also are looking for business. I wouldn't want to kid you. We think we would add some great talent to this project in the project management portion of the project. Once you get the talent onboard that you finally decide on you need a staff to help manage these folks. That's what we provide. We could be your staff. We could help manage the architects and engineers. Help manage the contractors and make sure the team works together. Have a win-win team that produces a product for you, the Sheriff, the citizens of this community that you deserve. Get the most bang for your buck. Bring the project in on budget, on time. One of the things that we specialize in is maximizing and using local contractors. We have increased and improved minority participation on all the projects we've worked on. We help the contractors figure out a way to get the project done quickly and within budget and have a high safety record. We have a lot of experience in public participation. We even held publicly held forums for contractor recruitment to find local contractors to work on these projects. We want you to know about us and we appreciate the time that you have allowed for me to speak. President Mosby: Any questions? Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Clark Field. Clark Field: Good evening. I know a lot of people, a lot of you, are very impatient to get this done and you field the impact of a court order or a possible court suit. I'm going to ask you tonight, the Commissioners, to be patient. I am a little disappointed that the public has not been invited before this. If it has I've missed it. But it seems like before you make decisions, and it seems like a lot have already been made, you would want to get as much input from the taxpayers, the people, as possible, so I am a little disappointed that this is so late in, you know, in the development of your decisions. I talked to the Sheriff's Department today and found out the population of the jail is 268 so that is down from over 400 not so long ago. If you remember the headlines in Section B of the January 29, 2001 Courier & Press was that crime is down here locally and nationally. So if crime is down and we're below the maximum number of beds in the jail then I think we need to look at the purpose of building a jail. What is the purpose? Former Judge Brune was a prosecutor for many years and a judge. He said two elements in people that came before him during those years were two main elements were the people didn't have a job and they didn't have an education. So it seems to me that when we build jails one of the things that we're doing is, you know, we're closing the door after the horses have all run out. We're not preventing crime. We're locking people up after they commit the crime, so I think when we think in terms of spending money and human resources for the next 50 or 100 years we might look at what are we doing to prevent the crime, from people being hurt in the first place? The thing that former Judge Brune says is that we need training. We need programs so that people don't keep coming back. I would wonder how much money is being allotted to training programs, job training. As far as I know in the state of Indiana very little is done. When I came here 27 years ago the paper said that the average inmate at Michigan City got less than one minute of counseling during one year. Less than a minute of counseling. In talking to a friend who is at the training center up out of Tell City he said the only people that got trained there was the staff, that none of the inmates got any training even though it's called a training center. So if we're not training people and we're not trying to rehabilitate people then we are just warehousing people and is that good? Is it good for the people that are being locked up? According to a former jail commander that was there many years he said about five percent of the jail population would be violent. According to Judge Brune again we don't need to have a maximum security facility for those people that are not dangerous or violent. According to the jail commander, the former one, he said perhaps ten to 15 percent of all people in jail were there because they couldn't make bond. I would guess it would be higher. People are in jail because they can't make bond. In St. Joe County years ago they had...the churches went together and had a revolving fund and they had certain criteria but if somebody fit that criteria then they would put up the money and get them out of jail and when they came for trial the revolving fund would be replenished. There record was that more people showed up for trial through that revolving fund than the average person, so they had a better record. I have talked to a church leader here in town that said he would like to get involved in that, so if we can get people out of jail that are awaiting trial who are innocent, presumed innocent, that makes up about 50 percent of the jail population, people awaiting trial, so if we get some of these people out through a revolving fund then we don't have to lock them up and they can get a job or keep a job or get an education or whatever. So what I am saying is what is the purpose of the jai? Why are we going to spend so many million dollars and then we have to staff that jail and then we're going to fill the jail. Once we build it we will fill it. Evansville, Vanderburgh County, for some reason locks up more people than anybody else in the state. So whether that is good or bad that is what we do. So I guess I am asking how much research has gone in to community based corrections having a great facility, having great training programs where we actually train people while they are in the facility to get a job. Judge Brune says we don't need a jail. We do not need a new jail. He said the state hospital is going to have plenty of room out there for all kind of people once they build the new hospital. So that's what I am asking you all tonight to take a look at that, to get more input to figure out...what are we just going to build a building and we're not going to have programs, not going to have any training programs? We're not going to try to keep people out of jail or are we just going to lock them up? I mean, I would hate to see us just do that. Thank you. President Mosby: Any questions? Commissioner Mourdock: I would just make a couple of quick points, Mr. Field. First of all regarding the public meetings we've been having public meetings for almost...well, probably better than two years on the jail issue in various groups. Part of what I'll be talking about in a few minutes is about the processes we need to continue to go through to talk about both the juvenile facility and community corrections, so I'm sure there will be more discussions coming up on that in the future. Third, on the job training issue, one thing this Commission did, not this group of people, but the County Commission did six years ago was we used part of the county's riverboat funds, about $600,000 a year since 1996 for job training. I was a big supporter of that and much to my amazement very little of that money has ever been used and I don't know if that comes back to how good the economy has been or what, but that has blown me away every year that there has been no demand for it. But certainly the process is public. We're here every Monday night, same time, same place. Clark Field: Yes, but people don't realize it. I mean, I know what you mean. As you know, I have come before, but the public has I don't think been invited to come. I thought I read where you was going to have a special meeting for the public to come. I mean, people can come, but they don't always know when, where and if they are going to get to speak or what. I mean, if you want the public I think you have to have a public hearing and really advertise it early. Commissioner Mourdock: Okay, duly noted. Commissioner Fanello: And we are considering scheduling public hearings on the jail, so we have not excluded that. Clark Field: But it seems kind of late. Commissioner Fanello: No- Clark Field: It seems like you all have made all kind of decisions. Commissioner Mourdock: Not at all. Commissioner Fanello: Well, no, we have not made any decisions. Clark Field: Well, okay. Commissioner Fanello: We're trying to start to process. President Mosby: I was going to say, that's my comment is I don't believe any decisions are really made. We're here tonight to try to get an RFQ out to get an architect and design team onboard, but there has been no decisions made. Clark Field: But that is the biggest decision, to build a new jail. President Mosby: Well, that decision was made by PMSI after their $100,000 study that we needed a jail of five to 700 beds. Clark Field: Well- President Mosby: Now maybe PMSI should of held public hearings- Commissioner Mourdock: They did. President Mosby: -and had more public hearings, I don't know. I wasn't here at that point in time. Clark Field: Well, I don't want to criticize that study. I mean, I think we have to have studies. I'm not criticizing that study, but I just think before...I mean, that is one consulting firm, but I mean I think before Ft. Wayne built their jail they went all over the United States and took about a year and talked to all these people that had built the jails before and the impression that I've got is number one, you have to somebody that has built a jail before. At least that is the experience that I have heard from the professionals, but it just seems like to me it would be good to go to Minnesota who has lead the nation, at least a while back they did, in community based corrections and see what they're doing and see some of the programs other than just a building. A building is a building, but I mean people are people and we need programs. We need training programs. We need to be helping people to stay out of jail, you know. Once they get in jail they've already committed the crime. I think we need to be forward thinking and not just trying to, you know, build something because there is a court suit. That can be dealt with. President Mosby: Questions? Clark Field: Thank you. President Mosby: Thank you. Jeff Drury. Jeff Drury: Hello, greetings. Thank you all being here tonight at this civil forum. I'm glad we live in a good society where we can gather together and discuss matters of how we will deal with mistakes which are made by our citizens. I hope to not trouble with any punitive rhetoric. I hope to speak clearly and precisely to this matter. I believe that it does matter if we build this prison or how. I think it actually is very important in how we build this prison. Commissioner Mourdock: Excuse me. It's not a prison, it's a jail and there is a big difference because in the jail presumably under the Constitution in theory presumably everyone there is innocent. A prison is where people are sent after they are convicted so this is only a jail. Jeff Drury: Huh. Well, I think about that. I know we're dealing with a...this will be a local jail. I guess...I presume the dollars will be state dollars. Commissioner Fanello: Oh, how I wish. President Mosby: I wish they would give us- Commissioner Fanello: I wish they would send us a check. Jeff Drury: Well, I have been reading of the now corporatization. I understand you can buy stock for jails on Wall Street. Anyway, I guess it is a lucrative business. I think what is most important here is that we maintain our ethics and that we remember that it is inherent in our Constitution and in our nation that we remain civil to one another always and always respect human rights and to never forget human rights regardless of what a person...how heinous a...whatever crime a person has committed. This person may face and may need correction, no doubt, no doubt, but we need humane conditions. If there is overcrowding well, we may need a new jail. You know, this is not my decision. In God we trust. I just hope that above all if there is one thing I leave before you tonight it is that we keep our eyes on the prize of human rights. I have a brief article I would like to share that has inspired me in better understanding for this situation in regards to our current criminal justice system and our society at large. It's written and it is brief. It is written by a man named Robert Jeffrey and the title is Black on White. Robert Jeffrey is pastor of the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church in Seattle, Washington and I'll read this brief: "I am an African-American man, 52 years of age. For most of my adult life I have been angry. It is an anger that I have diligently learned to control in order to maintain my sanity as well as my freedom. I have seen in my lifetime how anger such as mine has led many to sedate themselves with drugs or lobotomize themselves with religion. Many others have been driven by this anger to lives of crime and violence. I consider myself and others like me to be survivors, controlled sufferers of a rage that swirls inside the mind and spirit like a never-ending storm. It's a storm that can be ignited by the slightest provocation, a misguided glance, a mis-spoken word. My anger grows out of my despair over the sewer that I must walk through each day. It's a sewer filled with the waste, the unfulfilled potential of countless brilliant men and women. Their decomposed lives litter the alleyways and roadsides that I must travel as I walk between the two worlds I live in. It's a world where brilliant people that you know personally are hopelessly strung out on drugs, a world where most of your high school friends are already dead or in prison. It's a world where you daily see teenage children spread-eagled face down in the street because the country is at war with them. A world where you bank with institutions that launder the money of corporate criminals that provide the drugs to your children and then refuse to give loans to the community-based businesses that could create the jobs they so desperately crave. Life in the sewer is life lived in full knowledge of statistics. You learn early to know how many are in jail, how many have good jobs, how many are on drugs, how many drop out of school. It is a world filled with memories of civil rights struggles, of men hanging, or preachers in jail or Klan sheets blowing in the wind. In my life I have met very few white people who fit the old stereotype of race haters. Most white people I've met have been decent, respectful, and sincere. But my anger towards them is on most occasions without compromise. What do I want from them? I want them to do what any decent human being would do when confronted by a tragic situation: I want them to jump in and try to make it better. Instead, they usually respond with defensive expressions of regret, prefaced by abdication of any personal responsibility. Sometimes they blame those who live in the squalor for its existence. It is their indifference to my things, the horrors of my life, that angers me. For unlike my white brothers and sisters, I am forced to care about the things of their lives. Just to survive, I must care about their fashions, their political processes, the threats to their survival. I must care about the threat of communism, or the threat posed by Iraq. I must care about their industrial pollution of the planet. I must work in their companies and care about their government, their police, their clean streets. I must care about their children on drugs, and about protecting their banks - the ones that won't give me a loan. I must care about their mass murderers that kill only their kind, while they ignore the murderous effects of drugs and ignorance on my people. I must care about their things. I must also be prepared to intelligently discuss them and even to offer solutions for them or be deemed ignorant, regardless of my educational qualifications. It is impossible for me to understand what I must do each day, and then do it without feeling angry. It is an anger that comes from the absence of real freedom, a freedom to be a person with bearing the pain of a group I did not choose. I am assigned to the group by those who stand outside and require me to mark a racial box on every registration form from the cradle to the grave. They do this while accepting no responsibility for either their present indifference or the past racist actions of their fathers." Commissioner Mourdock: Excuse me, Jeff. Jeff Drury: Yes? I have one more paragraph. I will complete this, sir, please. This is our civil forum. Is this now too much to ask? Commissioner Mourdock: It's about the jail, please. Jeff Drury: "They do this oblivious to the fact that although racism has in a moment become as extinct as the dinosaur, its racial waste, like nuclear waste, remains resistant to their failed attempt to clean it up. And so I am left alone to live with my anger in the midst of this waste, alone to grieve over and over again, alone to hope that one day they will get it, and my anger will subside." Yes, this is the topic of jail, incarceration, imprisonment. I guess there is a difference between a prison and a jail. You know, I guess this is what I will take home with me to reflect upon. I just offer my petition that we always remain focused on human rights and that human rights be and remain our primary motivating force. Not (inaudible), not corporate wealth, but human rights. Ethics, our Constitution, which is based in an understanding of morality based in spiritual understanding. In God we trust. President Mosby: Any questions? That's the only three speakers I had. Did you want to give your- Commissioner Mourdock: Pardon? President Mosby: That was the only three speakers I had. Commissioner Mourdock: Oh, that was the only speakers then? President Mosby: Yeah, I had three. Richard Helzerman: Can I speak? President Mosby: Pardon? Richard Helzerman: Can I speak? President Mosby: Yes, come forward. Richard Helzerman: My name is Richard Helzerman. I'm pastor of the Seventh Adventist Church in Newburgh. I'm president of Dictionary Data, Incorporated, a data processing consulting firm. Your second speaker indicated that the new jail is not needed. I think a new jail is needed simply because the standards for a jail have changed so much and the old jail does not meet the new standards, but you do not need a new jail to handle overcrowding. The problem of overcrowding, and this is a report that you all get once a week, inmates by confinement reason. If you look at the categories of people in the jail there were 283 in the jail and 152 of them were pretrial felons. These were people who are to be considered innocent, but they have not received their trial. One half, over half, consistently for the last year or so over half of the people are waiting for a trial. Now the...when PMSI did their study and I have here from their proposal the top page that I have given you, acknowledgments it says we will ask for commitment letters from each of the individuals listed below. In other words you paid $98,000 at the last meeting you said you paid $98,000 for a study, why don't we follow the study and why do we need additional work? Here are the people among who signed a letter like this. Circuit Court Judge Carl Heldt; Superior Court judges Scott Bowers, J. Douglas Knight, Maurice O'Connor, Robert Pigman, Robert J. Tornatta. Now the letter that they were supposed to send back, and this is a sample commitment letter on the second page of what I have given you and the fourth bullet there says: "I will act to implement changes in policy or practice as recommended in the PMSI teams' final report whenever reasonable and practical to do so." And there are a few other conditions, but as my understanding according to what is in the paper that all of the judges returned back a letter like this and they agreed to do what PMSI said. They put in one other condition about whether it was legal or not, but still the...all the judges have agreed to this. Now, when PMSI gave this $98,000 report I have a page from one of the executive summaries here that was passed out at the Commissioners' meeting. At the very bottom one it says PMSI recommends that the courts strategically plan to implement pretrial conditional release programs. Now, so the judges all agreed to do what PMSI says. PMSI said develop a pretrial conditional release program. Now if the judges would implement a pretrial conditional program the jail would not be overcrowded. You can see half the people in the jail there pretrial. Now, I have listed here of the 152, this is on the 2/14 report, the latest one that has been distributed, and on here I have three pages, 101 people in the jail who could be released if they could afford their bail. Now of the 152 there is some that don't have bail, but 101 of them do have bail and the only reason they are sitting in the jail is simply because they are too poor money-wise to raise their bail. Now, in my pocket I have $485. Okay there are two people on this list that the money that I carry around in my pocket would get out of jail. Now I have a credit card that has a $15,000 limit on it. Now if you go through this list of people there is 12 that could be gotten out if they had $1,000. There is 22 that could be gotten out if they had $1,500. There are 30 that could be released if they had $2,000. There is 43 that could be released if they had $3,000 and there is 48 that could be released if they had $4,000. The median bail is $5,000. In other words, half of these 101 people would be out of the jail if they had $5,000 to raise for their bail. Now if you were accused of something or if your son, or your daughter, or your sister, or your brother, or somebody and $5,000 would get them out of jail they would not be sitting in jail. The only reason the jail is overcrowded is because the people are poor and this is what the rage comes in. Just because some...it shouldn't be a crime to be poor. But you have people that are sitting in jail that are just there because they are too poor. Last time I said this to you and one of the people got up and denied it so I went through the list and here it is. These are all people according to the jail records that if they had the money they could be released. There is only a few that have this real high, but 100 could be out. Now, in the jail was 283 as of 2/14. The jail's capacity is 268 so there is only 15 over the capacity. Twelve of those if they had $1,000 would be out. Now, just because you need to have...the capacity of the jail cannot be at capacity though because you have...in a jail you are supposed to separate people. You're supposed to separate them according to four categories. Whether they are violent or non-violent which was referred to. Also, if they are juvenile or if they are adult. Also, if they are male or female and also if they are felony or misdemeanor. So there is four categories, 16 different groups of people that you have to deal with in the jail. So the jail, if you have 16 blocks, the jail could be full with 33 people because you would have 16 in one and one in all the other categories, so it is necessary to have the population of the jail way below lower than what the capacity is in order to not have an inhumane situation where you've got violent people beating up on non-violent people. Now, it would be a shame...I would like to say one thing about the cost of the jail because that has been in the news a lot and I want to give my appreciation for Commissioner Mosby for standing by the $50 million dollars. Now the State of Indiana says it takes four jail beds for every thousand population. There is about 170,000 population in Vanderburgh County. If you take four times that, that is 680 beds. The cost of building a jail is $75,000 per bed. If you multiply $75,000 times 700 that is $52.5 million. If the County Council has only authorized you to spend $30 million it is not enough. You might as well not waste your time and money building something that is not adequate. Now, the jail will fill up. The only reason that these numbers are so low in the jail and not the 430 that somebody mentioned before is because all the public attention has been put on it, but there are 10,000 arrest warrants outstanding in Vanderburgh County. Unless you build a jail of 5,000 or so the Sheriff can have that jail filled immediately. Any number of beds that you put out there, even the 680, could be filled in an instant. He knows where the people are. All he has to do is go round them up. He can't round them up now because there is no room to put them there. The answer to the problem...the reason the jail is overcrowded is because these pretrial felonies and until you deal with that problem it doesn't matter how big a jail you build. Now I would like to say there are over 50 people who are sentenced that are in the jail. They're not contributing, but if you look at these categories, inmates by reason, the SENF there is 13. That's those who are sentenced felons. Now when someone is sentenced they have like 30 days or so many days they have to sit in the jail before they get sent to the state, but sentenced misdemeanors, anyone who is accused of a misdemeanor and the jail term is a year or more will be spending the time in the Vanderburgh County jail, not sent to the state, so there are people in the jail who are prisoners, so it's not a simple as what you were telling that gentleman there. Further I would like to say the Constitution of the United States...the Constitution of Indiana says the basis of punishment, the basis of the criminal system will be reform and not punishment, okay? When you go to build a jail there should be as much room there for classrooms or whatever. You should get someone who has built a school and has some experience building a school that knows what kind of atmosphere it takes to be in a classroom situation so we can deal with some of those problems. Thank you very much. President Mosby: Change tapes again. Tape Change: President Mosby: Was there anybody else that wanted to speak? Roger Madden: Roger Madden from Evansville. I was kind of surprised to hear the constitution mentioned so much tonight since it is the supreme law of the land, I wasn't sure that the government still used it or believed in it. But the article about the 50 million still needed, ten years ago Lewis Silva and Secretary of Health and Human Services said that 70% of juveniles in long term correctional facilities do not grow up with a father and there is no substitute for paternal affection and discipline. So actually, if you take your 50 million and multiply it by the 70% of juvenile delinquents that were denied visitation with their fathers, you could actually cut the cost of the jail down to about 15 million so, like I said, the constitution was mentioned, 14th Amendment, equal protection, prevention was mentioned. You enforce the visitation, you're going to reduce a whole lot of your crime and instead of spending your 50 million, you could spend 15 million, solve the problem, keep the people in there that need to be kept in there and we'd have a whole lot safer neighborhood. That's it. Thank you. President Mosby: Any questions? Thank you very much. What was your name? I'm sorry. Roger Madden: Roger Madden. President Mosby: Thank you. Is there anybody else that would like to speak? I see quite a few County Councilmen in the audience. Commissioner Fanello: Wait now, is this the whole County Council out there? President Mosby: I hope there's no majority here, really. I also wanted to note that I see the Sheriff in the back of the room and Circuit Court Judge Heldt and Judge Niemeier, so I didn't know if any of you all wanted to say anything. It don't look like it. Commissioner Mourdock: I promise this will not take more than about twelve minutes, okay? President Mosby: You're on the clock. Commissioner Mourdock: Alright. President Mosby: I'm just kidding around. Commissioner Mourdock: No, I respect that. Suzanne Crouch: Do you want the lights out? Commissioner Mourdock: Yes, would you get the lights? President Mosby: Right on the wall, Suzanne. Commissioner Mourdock: Catherine, you may want to, and I don't know if you can see if, David, but you may want to move over also. I will sit down to get out of other folks way, but we've had several discussions over the past six weeks or so regarding what we do with this entire facility and the building. Mr. Field mentioned during his comments that the resolved and unresolved parts of this, you know, how much discussion yet needs to take place. As you said, David, I think there's a whole lot of discussion, I don't know of any decisions that have been made yet that are really key to the facilities. In working through this process for what seems to be the entire time I've been a Commissioner, but in fact, has only been about half of that time, the thing that comes back to me time and time again is, if we're going to make good decisions we have to base those decisions on a sound process and we've spoken of that several times and I blame myself here because I don't know that I've said what I need to say very clearly. A picture really is worth a thousand words. I hope so, I've put a presentation together that, again, I'll go through quickly and I've given you hard copies of and I have a few other copies here if folks want them. But I'm not looking to make a motion with this necessarily tonight, but I think it's what we need to continue to talk about. So, first of all as we start down this thing, the purpose of the process is just to make sure that we get the expertise into the discussion from all the valuable parts of the community. We've been referring to those as stakeholders. You'll see some lists here. Inherently, every list includes the public. It's not stated that way, but inherently, it's there. With the process that we need to deal with, there's four specific areas: the jail, itself; community corrections; juvenile detention; and the courts facility. We've had the judges and the bar association tell us that a key to the whole thing with jail overcrowding is how many courtrooms we have. We have to work through that as part of the process. Community corrections, how many beds are we going to have? We don't know. We know we've got the largest community corrections in the state and certainly, we're not the largest area in the state. I think we need to question ourselves if that's the right number. And juvenile, do we incorporate that facility? Do we do it separately? And obviously, the jail itself. Stakeholders, now this is specific to the jail, not those other three areas, just the jail. Inherently, there I see the Sheriff, the Commissioners, the courts, the Building Authority. Undoubtedly, I think we're going to build on the property of the Building Authority in some location. They need to be involved. Police Department has been involved up till now in the lot of the discussions that PMSI facilitated. They need to continue to do that. We need good representation from the defense attorneys to deal with the kind of issues Mr. Helzerman typically brings to us, and obviously, the Prosecutor. Critical questions that that group of stakeholders needs to work through and this is just a summary list. I'm sure this list doesn't begin to scratch the surface, but number of beds, there is a wide range in the PMSI report: 500 to 700. That's a huge difference and obviously the number of beds is going to be determined by budget and a lot of other things. We need those stakeholders to help make that decision. The ratio of beds, as we spoke a couple of weeks ago, male to female, maximum security to normal security, special needs, and then all the things that I'm sure the Sheriff deals with every day that we never even think of, kitchen, exercise space, resource areas, courtrooms. One that was mentioned here tonight by Jeff, I believe, or maybe it was Clark, maybe it was Mr. Helzerman, about classroom space. I mean, that's certainly an issue. Location, square footage, and then we come down to the type of jail that's a huge issue. I know the Sheriff has some strong thoughts there and that's going to affect what we do in architecture. Electronic surveillance processing areas. You're going to see a bit of repetition here and I'll speed through it, but the way I see this process working now for the jail, the stakeholders meet, discuss all those issues like I just went over. They work through the issues, the build consensus among the stakeholders and then I see the stakeholders submitting a draft letter to the Commissioners. David, in one of the earlier meetings you made the point, it's the Commissioners decision. I agree absolutely. It is our decision but we need their input to make the decision and I think it's important that they sign off on a document coming to us with what their recommendation is. We would review that draft and then have several options. Obviously, we could vote to accept it, we could vote to reject it outright. If we don't want to deal with the issue, for instance, if it's classrooms and we say classroom is inappropriate, we basically just veto it. But if we want more clarification, we'd send it back. The final letter, if the initial draft is not accepted by us would be signed by all the stakeholders, we would accept it and then I see that as being a page of the RFP, basically. I mean, that's some thing that the final selected architects, as we narrow down that list from the RFQ, those folks are going to start to have to get a feel for that information and the best way to do it item by item in the RFP. With community corrections, the stakeholders for community corrections are the ones I have listed. Again, the public, those are all public meetings, what we do with that remains critical. The last one, the state DOC representative, at this point, we have not had the state DOC actively involved at the board meetings, the advisory committee meetings, but obviously, with the funding request that's before them, we need to get them better involved. The critical questions they're facing, number of beds, programs, ratios, guidelines, location and more of those facility needs, here we do have classrooms listed, counseling areas. What are we going to make community corrections? The advisory board, under Sheriff Ellsworth, I will say he's done an excellent job getting the advisory board more active in running that facility. I think we need to go further with that, but he's built them a good base to do that. Again, the stakeholders, that list I had up there for community corrections should kick through all those same issues just as the other stakeholders and the jail did. They would give us a draft. Same thing again, we vote to accept, reject it outright, get clarification, they send us a final letter and wham, bam, we have another part of the RFP if that's what we want to do. Juvenile detention, here we've got a slightly different group of stakeholders obviously Judge Niemeier, his staff, I think, would be appropriate, Youth Care Center reps, the sheriff, police chief, county commission, defense attorney, prosecutor. Critical questions, and here we've had the least discussion on this issue as a board. And I mean, not just the three of us but the previous commission as well. And thinking of it, you know, we always say the youth of the community are our future. It makes me feel pretty guilty when that's the least amount of time we've spent. We need to spend more time with this one. Again, number of beds, secured, non-secured, and the stakeholders again. Repetition, you're getting the feel by now. They work through the process and let us know. We vote, accept it and put that in the RFP. For the courts, court's representative, county commissioner, sheriff, police chief, defense attorney, the public at large, County Council ought to be on there certainly and I apologize, I left them off some of the others, too. Obviously, funding is critical. How do the present facilities impact the process, the number of people in the jail? If we add new courtrooms, where would they be? How should they be built? Should they be in the facility? Should we go to 24 hour courts or some other court system to expedite the handling of folks? Huge questions. Again, location. Where are those going to be? I jumped to juvenile detention. I don't know how that happened. That brings up a good point with juvenile detention, it's certainly the suggestion by the Rescue Mission, is that they might want to build a facility for us. So that's one we needed to look at as well. Sorry, I got one out of order there. Stakeholders again, doing their thing, reviewing the issues, we vote to accept, reject, and include it in the RFP. Okay, we get to the point of the RFP, all those various pages are not included and I think, and you don't have to nod in agreement, but I think this is what we've said in the previous meetings, once the RFQ respondents come back, how ever they're going to be judged, we're going to end up with short list of potential architects. That's my understanding. Those potential architects, and I'm guessing there's going to be four or five of them would receive the final RFP Then as they respond to that, we would probably again, short list maybe down to three, call those three in for interviews. The RFP that we send out needs to certainly include information about our budget and what the approximate schedule is. Those are two key components that outside what the stakeholders will be providing us. That, I think, falls clearly on our shoulders. As I mentioned, the short list, I presume they'll have 60 to 120 days. Then we go to the shortened short list to do the interviews and get down to business as to who we finally want to select. We select the architect and they begin that first pass to determine a better, approximate budget for us. The architect then would refine our schedule greatly. Prior to receiving the first pass numbers from the architect, though, and we've not gone down this road but this is a critical one. The three of us, representatives from the Council, certainly the Sheriff, and potentially the other stakeholders, but I think it's going to come down to those three groups you see right there, are going to have to put the wish list together in order. Regardless of what the final number is, I'll guarantee you we can come up with a budget to exceed it and that's not our mission. We're going to have some budget number that we're going to work by. If it's 35 million dollars as I read in the newspapers, then we need to say I think in fairness to ourselves, we need to put the priority list in order not when it happens, but before we get there so that we can say the most important thing for this community is at the top of the list and all those other things are in the list so that when budget cuts have to come, we start at the bottom. We don't start picking and choosing and playing politics and talking to who wants what. We've got to know in advance. And that is going to take a lot of deliberation on our part and I'm sure a lot of head butting. But if we don't do it advance, we're setting ourselves up to fail later on. After consultation with the architect, the final design proposal would be based on the funding that available. Obviously council, bond counsel, everyone else will be working together. Financing method by the County Council, then that bid package, building authority, again, assuming it's on this property, would need to be involved. Finally, we bid the project. In quick summary as to what the stakeholders are doing on a flow chart, that's it real simply. Stakeholders identify issues, they resolve them and then we go to the left hand. They recommend them to us. We might send them back. If it's rejected by us then they would take another look at it. That is the first place you'll notice in this presentation where the word consult professionals comes in. I know your feelings on PMSI. You know mine. But I heard last week or whenever our last meeting was, there was a motion made to hire a consultant to help us get us to the design point. I don't know who that person is going to be or who that company is going to be. But the sooner we get that group in place to work with our stakeholders, the faster this process can be turned through. Again, the product of this is the bottom line, the RFP Catherine, you commented earlier about the needs for dates in our agreement with the Indiana Civil Liberties Union. I worked through some of this just based on some experience and thinking how this might work, and that's what I see as a tentative time line. And again, that's not even in stone, that's not on paper, that's just on the wall. That's going to come down in a minute. But the point is, unless we start thinking of dates soon, this process is going to get muddled and we don't want that to happen. I think having ten to eleven months to actually do the design from the time the architect is selected is reasonable. There may be a whole bunch of people in this room, and I'll leave this one up there if you want to talk about it, this is the last slide. But I think that's a reasonable start for a schedule. I think this is as simple - and I don't want to be restrictive here, Phil. I think this is as much as we need to give the court under their request in our deal with the ICLU. Phil Hayes: I think that you're going
to have to give them an architect, Commissioner. On or before June 1 they
want an architect hired or engaged or certainly...
Commissioner Mourdock: Well, from what Catherine read into the record, she said the process she was defining. And I won't argue with you, Phil, but I am just saying - Phil Hayes: (Inaudible - microphone not turned on) - but may I simply say that there is no question but that this legacy case has come to the point where it is very clear that the judicial process has sharpened on us and they are not going to make any decisions and I have assured them by repeating the record in these proceedings so far in 2001 and by showing what had happened, what motions had been made and the fact that this RFQ was going out, the only thing the court was willing to give us is engage by on or before June 1. And there's no real argument that it can't be done. After that, I think that your working group suggestion certainly - been something that you all, this body has suggested and I repeated that to the court, too, that a working group can get done, but the people in the judicial process, the sheriff being, obviously, one of the most important persons there, if not the most in terms of talking about the physical aspects of this, the judiciary and then those groups that are around the (inaudible). But quite frankly, the court made it quite clear to us that they were glad to hear that, they're going to expect to see an agreement entered into by - and, in fact, about ten days before June 1st, I'm not sure of the date, but we have a progress hearing to show where we are. So Commissioner, I can tell you that the pressure is on there and I believe that the representations that were made are reflected in your record here, but I do think that your architect selection needs to be done or your design selection and then you can have some breathing room - when you have some breathing room you can get done exactly what your - Commissioner Mourdock: Yeah, and I'd like to review the text that, Catherine, you were reading from earlier as far as what the standard is. The concern I have in hiring an architect too quickly is...well, I'll use the simplest example. We won't know until the end of June what the - end of June, Brad, or beginning of June on community corrections funding from the state? Brad Ellsworth: We should know by the first of June. Commissioner Mourdock: We won't know until the first of June what the community correction is going to do with the funding for our current facility. It's certainly the advisory board's pulse that what they do is going to be critical to the future of that project. So if we don't know until June what their funding is going to be, we're not going to know how many beds we're going to need or if we're even going to go in that direction. I mean, there's a lot of issues that have to be resolved that I think should play a part in who the architect is and, again, I'm not going to go into a long argument on qualifications again. But I just think that this is a process where there is some level of patience required especially given the fact that we have superbly changed the numbers over the past year. Any other comments on the dates? Commissioner Fanello: I'll get it out in a minute. I mean, they look like some workable dates except for the architect selection and I need to give you a copy of this from the courts and I'll go ahead and give you my copy. Commissioner Mourdock: You gave me two. Commissioner Fanello: There are two separate things there. But I think we need to consider working around that and modify the schedule, but as I said before at some of the other commissioner meetings, I asked some of the same questions that you did, when we were going to answer some of those questions and I encouraged us to come up with some type of schedule. So, I'm more than willing to work with this when you modify...because we need to. Commissioner Mourdock: And just going through the list, again, the issue that came up last time about the hiring of a consultant. Is April 1 something that you see as feasible so that we can get that consultant working with these various stakeholders, again, and energize those various groups to start to get us where we need to be? Commissioner Fanello: Well, let me - go ahead. President Mosby: The working group idea that you had earlier on when we were discussing, I think that's the (Inaudible - microphone not turned on). Whatever euphemism is used but basically you're talking about organization of a working group and I think that those, as I had understood it, you were talking about the sheriff and the role this body itself, representatives of the county council, just as pretty much the same lines the commissioner has just gone through there. Commissioner Mourdock: Okay, but when you use the term working group - President Mosby: Same thing. Commissioner Mourdock: But you're seeing four different groups for the four different areas? President Mosby: No. No. Commissioner Mourdock: Well, that's pretty different. Okay. Philip Hayes: I didn't really see four different groups getting done because it seems that as far as the timetables are concerned, now I am just speaking to that, what the court order is looking for is that fundamentally, the agreement is that we have definite dates, in other words, the court order can be framed around dates to do that and we will know by that time and that the counsel not be asked - legal counsel not be asked to go to court and to basically stall or nudge the process any further. May I explain it this way? The case is a 1979 docket. The judicial administrator in Washington calls the seventh circuit court of appeals who puts the heat down on the chief judge of the division and they go straight to the trial judge. And so what we have is this legacy of a 1979 case with a grafted on - what amounts to a personal injury case that says that the 8th amendment rights of an individual were violated when he was put into an overcrowded jail and was beaten and severely injured. What is going to happen is that we have damages, hook-ons, on the liability portion of these cases so that as we try to nudge or slide or push and hope to fit in the contemplative processing here and the involvement processing, we begin to pay for that in damages. And there will not be discretion then on the part of the fiscal body to make a determination. In fact, the fiscal body's signatures will be on the stipulation. They'll be required. So that if we peaceably settle our hash with the lawsuit, they will ask for the signatories of this body and then on the money end of it, they're going to ask for the signatures of the County Council in order to assure that it's an enforceable order. So without trying to over-complicate this, it's like this, pay now or pay later. And if you will need that $458, Reverend, because that sounds like about the size of the fine per day...optimistically, if we don't get a move on. So that's what I see from that aspect. Commissioner Mourdock, yes, I think if we have a definitive schedule down, if we know what we're doing on it, and what you've presented is a standard operating procedure that certainly makes sense and it's the working group and I think it needs to be narrowed so that these individuals who've had the experience, the sheriff primary among them, the circuit judge is here tonight, the juvenile judge is here, the prosecutor's office, the council, you folks, I think you can get a job done and do it right. Commissioner Fanello: One of the things that I wanted to do was clarify my motion that I made in the last meeting about a consultant and as I was doing this RFQ and you made your suggestions and input on it, we talked about how architects had teamed up - several of them have teamed up with experts and jail experts, jail consultants, or whatever you want to call them, so it seems to me at this time if we're going to go out for a design team or architects who are willing to put their hat in the ring for this project, that it would almost seem a duplication of services and a duplication of expenditures to hire a separate consultant outside of what we're looking for at this time. So if I need to modify that motion or rescind that motion, I will. President Mosby: You've got this one on the table. Commissioner Mourdock: Right, you've got one on the table so we'll let that one sit for a minute. I know I am one vote here and I know I am going to lose, but I know that by not bringing in a consultant independent of the architects, and architects are fine people, I've got no problem with architects, but architects, yes, they want to serve the client. Every one of them does. But they're also looking to build the biggest, the best, which usually translates into the more expensive. I think anyone who worked with the process that was put in place with PMSI will tell you the $98,000 we spent was probably the best $98,000 this county ever spent because we took the jail numbers from 400 down to 268 at times. That's a pretty good investment because it kept a federal judge from conceivably coming forward eight months ago and telling us, you're going to build a jail whether you want to or not. I think that was a pretty good investment. Again, I'm one vote out of two. I know at the PONI meetings, the professionals who came through here and I'll contradict something you said earlier tonight, Phil, that we hadn't followed any of their suggestions. When they were here, in fact, they complimented us for being ahead of the curve on the kind of suggestions they make. Phil Hayes: No, I meant the process. Commissioner Mourdock: Well, here we're at words again. Phil Hayes: No, it has to do with the preliminary processes. The time for that is gone. I mean, it's over. But the preliminary processes that the justice department and the institute does, that's gone. The Sheriff mentioned the other day, they don't build jails and that's right. They send - Commissioner Mourdock: That's right, they don't build jails. I understand that. Phil Hayes: All they do is set the foundation for bringing the very entities that you've talked about here into being and into focus. So from the legal standpoint of focusing that's what, as I see this RFQ put together tonight and the invitation to respond to it, I see it as the first point focus on this so that it will possibly refocus so that the body can move forward here and... Commissioner Mourdock: Okay, well before all the bodies turn cold sitting here, the people who went to that group at Longmont, the one thing, and I know the sheriff quoted this, I think, the last time you stood before us, it was one of their recommendations, was always use a separate specialist consultant as opposed to using the architects to get you to the point of preliminary design. I still think that's good advice. Obviously, it's not something that this Commission as a whole is going to accept and I will let it rest with that. (Unidentified - inaudible, comments not made from microphone) James Raben: I would like to address that issue and my name is James Raben. I am the Finance Chairman for the County Council. A few points that Richard has made here tonight and along with the consultants and I, for one, have never been a great fan of consultants, but I would like to echo his last statement. That is very much true. And, Brad, maybe your memory serves better than mine, but there were a few different jurisdictions or counties that were part of this conference that we attended that did just that. They hired an architect before consultants and they were actually under construction with their new jail before they realized, hey, we're doing this all wrong. Is that not correct? (Unidentified -- inaudible, comments not made from microphone) Brad Ellsworth: And I think just to add, I know he's going - stopped their project midstream and went back to the drawing board even after some bricks were laid. And even, I think, a couple were going back that they had teams with Commissioners, Council and the Sheriffs at this class, and were going to go back and rethink their entire process because of that they learned in the two weeks at Longmont. That's two weeks and we've been at it forever, or it seems to be. James Raben: And again, I certainly don't want to come here and act like I am 100% behind Richard's comments, but it was said earlier that none of us here are professionals at building a jail and part of the stipulations that he mentioned tonight haven't gone over very well with this body. So, you know, again, maybe if we're not going to maintain a consultant, maybe we do need to adopt his ideas on service or how many jails that these individuals would have been part of. Let me address the time schedule issue. Councilman Hayes, you had mentioned that the judge would like to see something by June. In hiring an architect, that's all you've done is simply hire an architect. I see a time schedule like this, we're beneficiary and I am sure that would probably meet the criteria that they are looking for. And with that one last note, the stakeholder issue that Richard has brought up several times, how would you even address this project with the architect if you don't what exactly the stakeholders want? Commissioner Fanello: Are you asking that question of anyone? James Raben: Exactly. Commissioner Fanello: I see us working with the design team selected to go through this process and plan. I'm not saying we have all the answers in place before we hire that design team, but I see us working with them. Like I said, several of these design teams, they've teamed up with experts and I think you'll see a lot of that as we get these RFQ's back. But my concern is us duplicating costs and I'm understanding that from people I've talked to in the state, that once a design team comes on board you do a lot of your planning at that time and answer a lot of questions at that time. Councilmember Raben: Again, I think that we, as elected officials for this county, need to determine what our needs are, what we want and how much we want to spend. So again, just purely for the sake of hiring an architect by June 1st, you're doing nothing more than that because you still don't have any of the particulars, what we want this individual to do at that point. Again, I think we need to continue meeting as elected officials, prosecutors, judges, councilmen, we need to determine what our needs are and then select an architect. Commissioner Fanello: Well, I am not saying that we don't answer any of those questions before we get an architect on board. I think we do as much as possible before that architect gets on board. But I am saying they'll be able to help us answer some questions that I don't think any of us can answer because we're not professional enough to answer those questions. Commissioner Mourdock: But they're not professionals in answering those questions, either, Catherine --. (Inaudible - several speaking at once) Commissioner Mourdock: - let me finish - (Inaudible - several speaking at once) Commissioner Mourdock: - let me finish mine here this time. You're saying that we need to hire an architect who will be an expert in this field. Earlier this evening you wouldn't clarify for me that even having completed one jail was sufficient minimum standards to get the job. Now wait a minute, let me finish. And everything the experts have told us at the PONI meetings, we're trying to put ourselves by not hiring a consultant into a position where we're more expert than those PONI experts, and that seems to me to be contrary to the best interests of the taxpayers of this county. The little bit of money that we would spend for consultants, and I am going to define little bit as less than $500,000, okay. It's normally not little but it's little compared to what I hear is a 50 million dollar project. That $500,000, I would submit to you, would be a huge savings compared to what an architect who, again, by your definition hasn't necessarily built very many jail, is going to bring to the project when he's helping to do the design. Clearly, that architect needs to be involved with each of those groups. And I'm not suggesting, ever suggesting, that we have those four working groups, as Phil called them, stakeholders, as I call them, I am not suggesting that those groups never meet with the architect we select. I think they need to - Commissioner Fanello: Oh, I agree. Commissioner Mourdock: - but before we get to that point, their needs need to be better defined by the professionals. Commissioner Fanello: Yeah, I am not saying just architect as in architect. Like I said, we don't know what we're going to get back with these RFQ's. We're going to get back a lot of design teams, which those teams are going to contain some consultants I imagine. I'm not saying we're making the process to - James Raben: Again, that's the importance of even so much as an architect having a great deal of experience in building jails. Commissioner Fanello: And I'm not saying that. What I said earlier was - James Raben: But you also stated earlier that you could award a contract to someone who's had no experience building jails. Commissioner Fanello: I didn't say that at all. I said let's get back the qualifications and evaluate the qualifications. I said let's - I have some samples of evaluation criteria used in prior projects. I've talked to the state like I said before. Let's get those together and set down our evaluation criteria. But I'm not going tonight to say that someone who has built less than five jails is not qualified to build a jail in Vanderburgh County. James Raben: Okay. Again, I'm speaking for only myself and I may share a few views of the other Council people but - Commissioner Mourdock: I know what that's like. James Raben: Richard has said it, I have said it. You know, we're not in the business to build jails, okay. And that's, that in itself is important enough that we would want to look at a consulting firm much like PMSI or someone like them to carry us into the next phase. So again - Commissioner Fanello: I just want to add one more comment to what Richard said earlier. An architect would like to build the best and the most expensive and that's probably true. If I were one, I would probably want to do the same. But we are going to drive the budget, not the architect. Commissioner Mourdock: But how are we going to know what's good and what isn't? We're not the experts. James Raben: I hope that two or three years from now there is not other representatives from this county making the same statement that I heard two or three other counties make, that they were underway and laying mortar, bricks and mortar on a building when they decided that, hey, they needed more than just an architect. Tom Pitman: May I comment on my experience as part of the working groups? Commissioner Fanello: Yes, please. President Mosby: Oh, we've got to change tapes first. Tape Change: Tom Pitman: If I could comment on my experience working as part of a professional teams that include elected officials, financial advisors, architects, I think the county is in for a very pleasant surprise as to what an architect design firm will bring to bear to this process. My experience is that the architects know all the questions that need to be asked in that the detail of the design becomes an interplay between people with more experience and elected officials and working group members who have to make the ultimate policy decisions. But that's my experience. The architects, once they're on board, will bring a wealth of value to the process and to the decision making. Commissioner Mourdock: Even if they've only built one jail? Commissioner Fanello: I don't think we're - that's not really the point here tonight, Richard. Because I said, you know, let's put that on the table and leave it up for discussion. I'm just not - President Mosby: That's another meeting. Commissioner Fanello: I'm not just... Phil Hoy: My name is Phil Hoy. I'm a County Councilman, and for the record there were six out of the seven of us here tonight because we are very concerned about this project. We have indicated as a body, almost unanimously, that we do not want to overspend. I think you all know that. I think we made that clear. I don't know how to say this kindly so I am going to say it as kindly as I can. We, that's a plural we, republicans and democrats, worked very hard to get to this point using a very fine consulting firm, PMSI. And here we are almost at the end of February and I think we've lost a lot of time because we simply should have taken that next step with that firm so that we can put things in order as Mr. Mourdock has suggested. I don't agree with everything that Commissioner Mourdock said, but I do agree with him on the fact that we should have already reached this point of having them on board and spent some money. The sheriff offered some money to do that. That offer should have been taken. And now we are continually pushing ourselves toward a deadline that I don't like to see us pushing ourselves toward. We are all elected officials. The election is over, the good of the county is what should have abided by now and it has not and I, frankly, am disappointed. Thank you. Brad Ellsworth: Sheriff Brad Ellsworth. I am not going to address PMSI and the consultant because I'd like to move on and I'd like to address about a hundred things I heard tonight and Mr. Helzerman, he and I have had lots of talks and Clark Field and, like I said, I could address a hundred things but I won't. I would like to tell you I think and kind of echo what Councilman Hoy said is, this is going to take a lot of working together. I started calling some sheriffs today, got a list of the most recent completed jails and called one up north and I actually didn't get the sheriff, he's going to call me back tomorrow, but I think this will drive home the point of how we need to work together on this and then make smart decisions. I got the chief deputy who, when I asked him about his jail project, he said oh, you mean the one that is done and we haven't moved into yet? And I said, well, I guess. I just heard you built a new jail. And he said well, true, we don't have operating expenses for it. And so they have a six to eight hundred bed jail, I can't remember the exact numbers, I believe it was an eight hundred bed jail that's sitting vacant because the planning wasn't there. They didn't have operating costs for it. It's a beautiful jail. He said it's beautiful. He said when they designed it, it said when the design was done, it was going to take 50 more correction officers to staff it than what the county currently had on duty. Those are things we're going to need to know going into this. What we can do. They had an agreement with - and it could happen here. I'm looking at these dates and I may be out office by then and maybe some of you. I can't remember all these dates, but, you know, they said they had a sheriff change, they had commissioners change, and the Council agreed to replace 20 correction officers. They bought into 20, 20 and 10 over the three year period and they've not gotten one new correction officer on staff and so they've got an 800 bed jail for only 200 and they can't open their jail, brand new, under mandate, because they didn't plan and think of operating expenses. That's why I am begging as the guy who is going to live there, and for me and my staff and the sheriffs after me, we're the ones to deal with it every day. I am not the expert in this, I promise you, but I think my staff and I have some good insight and what we can learn from other Sheriffs who live there. Let's see, as of today, about 17 hours a day. You know, you all don't have to do that and we do and it brings some insight. So I want to be a stakeholder, we've been a stakeholder since the start but I think we can learn from other people's mistakes in this and that's as easy as a phone call. And planning is going to be crucial in this and, like I said, I don't want - I want to be the ones that said we did it right the first time and not afterward. Thank you. Troy Tornatta: Troy Tornatta, County Council. Richard, I don't want to jump the fence on you, and I don't want to appear to be wishy-washy. I've done some investigating myself and I thought that at the time that PMSI was the right way, and maybe that was the right way to go at that particular time. The other Commissioners didn't feel that way and it was voted down. And that scattered the field and in that scattering of the field, a lot of those people you might find on some of these new teams that were working. So I guess the one thing I say is, the Commissioners have decided, two of the Commissioners have decided to go the one way. You know, we know how the system works, and if that's what they do, then I think we need to maybe - and I feel like I'm talking to you - Commissioner Mourdock: I sense that too. Troy Tornatta: But I feel like now we must look at what positives we can make in that direction and if that be the case, at some point in time, if we feel that we need somebody on board, would that be available? I mean, and I think I talked to Catherine and I'm not sure if Dave and I talked about that, but I think we said that would be a viable point once they had gone this direction. Commissioner Mourdock: Well, the silver lining, Troy, since you were speaking to me, I'll speak to you, the silver lining that I saw here is the motion that was made at the last meeting which now I'm hearing Catherine say she wants to rescind. You know, without question, I like your term. The field is scattered. I mean, the quail have come out and the covey is headed every direction right now. I do suspect that there will be some jail consulting firms that join up with jail architects if we head the way my fellow commissioners want to head. But I am telling you as a business person, by taking away their autonomy, we're losing something in value. I would rather have them report to this board directly rather than to have their words filtered back through an architect. And by the way, the check gets made out to the architect, not to that consultant when it's working for the architect, so don't think their voice doesn't get filtered. I understand what has happened here and yeah, I am sure some of those people are going to work for the architects. It's the process that's the problem right now. Troy Tornatta: Right. I mean, I understand that, too. I've got to try and make a positive spin and I'm somebody who wants to bring everybody in and I think we've discussed this between you and I, but I want everybody to be a player. And that goes from top to bottom. I think everybody is going to have their say and I think that can be achieved, but I also know that these architectural firms that come in here and whether it be a group or assembly of several firms that are going to handle this, I believe they're going to want their best foot forward. I think we're kind of putting them out to...you know, screw us, is the best way to put it and I don't think that's the intent of the architect firms and all the people involved. And that's the only thing I say. I see you've got to put a little bit of ethical boundaries on that, that they are going to try and do their best. They are out to make money, but you can make money and not necessarily put somebody over the barrel. Commissioner Mourdock: I fully agree with that. I mean, and again, eight hours a day I work with some really good consultants, some of whom are in this group that we're talking about. Maybe that's a conflict of interest. In working with them, I understand there are a lot of people there with ethics, but I understand the capitalist system, too. And right now I don't represent them, I don't represent them most directly even if they are local to this community. I represent everybody in this community. And that's what I am trying to serve. And Catherine and I had correspondence today where I said that to her. This isn't personal, and your comment about jumping over the fence, there's no need to apologize to me. Stand up for what you believe all the time and I'll never disagree with your motives. I may disagree with your ideas but not your motives. I'm a big boy, this is going to go a different direction. It's not the direction I would like to see if going - Troy Tornatta: I mean, I see the same thing happening and I'm not going - I would never, and I'm not saying you would either because I respect your integrity - but I would never paddle with that but I've got to see Catherine, if she sells me a bill of goods and tells me a direction that she wants to take and I think that it sounds like a decent direction, then now if that's the direction I think they're going to go, then I have to try and figure out what ways we can go and then go from there. And if that takes PMSI, who has been in question, if that takes them out of the picture, there is another one out there that might be in the picture that we could pick up at a date when maybe that's going to be more pertinent and maybe not right now. Commissioner Mourdock: Well, if that's an option and this board sees that as an option, then I would suggest Catherine not rescind her motion of last time and we keep it live on the floor to schedule at some later date. President Mosby: Royce, come on. Royce Sutton: Good evening, everyone. I guess it's not a good day to be an architect in the house today. They're kind of taking their lumps today. Just real briefly, just wanted to commend the commissioners and all those that are involved for at least putting this forum together, an opportunity to discuss whether you agree, disagree, it's an opportunity to at least get the issues on the table and openly provide an opportunity for us to clarify our positions and get an opportunity to see which direction we would like to take this process. And I guess that's really the intent of my coming up here. I didn't really intend to speak, but what I'd like for you guys to do, Richard has put together what is a schedule, a timetable, I would like for, if you guys can tell us what the next step will be. President Mosby: Thank you, Royce. Anybody else that hasn't spoke that wanted to speak? Royce Sutton: No response? Commissioner Mourdock: Yeah, there was a question there. President Mosby: Well, I don't know they we actually got a timetable yet, - Royce Sutton: Is there going to be another meeting? What's next? Commissioner Fanello: I don't know at what point in time you came in tonight, but we have an RFQ that we would like to send out, or I made a motion that we send out an RFQ, but is a request for statement of qualifications from interested design firms. Once we get back those qualifications, we would evaluate them and narrow it down to a short list of three to five firms that we may send request for proposals to or may negotiate with or however we proceed to do it at that time. Royce Sutton: Granted, you can develop your list of needs based upon the RFQ With my limited experience, and I know there are many others who have a little bit more extensive experience than I have in terms of construction and project development, but what I have found in my experience is that architects, design firms, tend to work best when they have a clear set of objectives and needs laid out before them. And I think that when you begin to - you, what I'm talking about is an architect - that you begin to try to design something. If you know specifically what the request is or what the wishes are, you feel more empowered to put together something that is within line with the desires of those who you are working for. So as you guys looks through this, whether you're intending to develop that list of needs based upon the RFQ or develop that list of needs based upon some of these stakeholders that we have heard about tonight, it's going to be very important that before any design is put forth or any pen is put on paper, the architect, the design firm, can do the best work when they know exactly what it is they're supposed to do. Commissioner Fanello: I agree with that, Royce, and I don't think that at any point in time, and whether there's been some miscommunication or whatever, that I said that we cut off all communication and we don't continue to develop specific plans of what our needs are. So I do agree with that, that we continue to keep communicating with each other and I agree with some of Richard's suggestions that we get some of these needs that everyone wants in writing and we try to come up with as clear, concise plans as possible. Royce Sutton: Any ideas, timetable-wise, when we may expect the RFQ process to begin? Immediately? Commissioner Fanello: I would like to - yes. We have one assembled here so I would like for it to go out tomorrow. I was also going to make a motion that we advertise the RFQ over the next couple of weeks. Commissioner Mourdock: The return date is the 21st? Commissioner Fanello: Yeah, giving them 21 days to respond. So March 26th would be the return date. Royce Sutton: If, I guess, council members, I can't speak for all of them, I know I would like to see a copy of that if at all possible. Commissioner Fanello: We have some copies up here for anybody would like one. President Mosby: It's being acts on now, so assuming we vote on it, there'll be copies to distribute here. Royce Sutton: I'll get my copy now. Commissioner Mourdock: Councilman Sutton, on November 19th, 1863, a group of people in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania heard a speaker talk for two hours and fifteen minutes and afterwards, Abraham Lincoln got up and spoke for less than two minutes and said what's been remembered. Your little comment there about giving good direction is what this meeting is about. That said it better than anything I've tried to say all night. Thank you. Royce Sutton: Is anyone going to learn from that? (Inaudible - comments not made from microphone) Commissioner Mourdock: I hope so. President Mosby: Is there anybody else that hasn't spoke that would like to speak before we move forward here? There's been a lot said tonight and I think we have a motion on the floor and I'm not even sure what it is at this point. Commissioner Fanello: Motion is to - President Mosby: I don't have it wrote down but...I have not made a lot of comments but I've listened to what everybody here has had to say tonight and I guess it's one reason I haven't commented. Most all of the things I've heard said here tonight is totally what I agree with and it's to move in the right direction. I, for one, was against hiring PMSI and I'm against hiring another consultant. I think I heard Jim Raben say a while ago, we need to decide, we're elected officials. And he's right. We don't need a consultant to decide for us. We need to decide. I think with an architect or a design team we'll get exactly what we're looking for. I seen one of Commissioner Mourdock's qualifications that said they need to have a 75% approval rating from all their references. Well, I don't believe any design team or architect is going to come in here and do this county a bad job because they're going to want to be a part of that 75% if they ever petition Vanderburgh County if they work for us. So I believe that the sheriff will get somebody to work with and all the stakeholders, whether it be the court representatives, building authority, police department, the sheriff, the prosecutor, defense attorneys or whoever, I am willing to work with all stakeholders. I've stated that. If it comes down to the point where when we decide what we're building and the sheriff needs help in staffing that jail, or what to do on running it, and no, I don't want to be like the county that has a brand new jail sitting there they can't walk into it or open it up because they don't know how to staff it. I am more than willing to work with the sheriff in getting him somebody who he needs to help do that job. Phil, I don't think we're dragging our feet. We've been here approximately 45 days, not two or three years, and I think in 45 days we've moved to this point. We've got an RFQ ready to go out and we intend to send it out tomorrow. We intend to get qualified people back within the next 21 days so that we can move this process forward. Them are some of things I've just heard said tonight that I wanted to comment on. I will have the commissioner restate her motion because I totally forgot what it was. We'll try to move forward here. Commissioner Fanello: I move that we send out the RFQ to interested design firms for the Vanderburgh County jail project, jail detention facility and possible community corrections project and possible juvenile detention facility project as soon as possible meaning tomorrow. Commissioner Mourdock: Okay, and with that motion and it duly noted that the suggestions that I had in there for minimum acceptable standards not be included, in the spirit of working with the two of you and moving forward, again, I have some doubts that we're going to necessarily put ourselves in the best position when we review the RFQ, but we do need to be talking to people. I don't want us to move too fast on this project, I want us to move correctly. But having heard the motion, I'll go ahead and second the motion. Phil Hayes: And if I may, just make a note for the record that I need the proceedings tonight, there were other changes that were made and they were incorporated to your satisfaction. Commissioner Fanello: You did read the last draft that - Commissioner Mourdock: The last draft that I received was at 2:22 - Commissioner Fanello: Uh-huh. Commissioner Mourdock: Okay, and I would still suggest, Phil, that the statute says that when those public documents are available, we have to state the business hours of operation. So you might take a look at that and see if that if that - Commissioner Fanello: We can add that into the letter. Phil Hayes: Duly noted. President Mosby: I have a motion on the floor by Commissioner Fanello to send out RFQ's as soon as possible, stating tomorrow and I have a second, so ordered. Jane Laib: And I need a motion to advertise that. Commissioner Fanello: I make a motion to advertise the RFQ for two weeks. I guess you advertise them on a Friday each week? Jane Laib: Friday. Commissioner Mourdock: I'll second. President Mosby: I have a motion and a second. So ordered. Jane Laib: And then also, Phil, if you could furnish me with a draft of what I will be advertising for -- that wording. Phil Hayes: We'll mail that over for you first thing in the morning. Jane Laib: Okay. Phil Hayes: And I might say that the advertising is not a legal requirement. It's being added as an effort to supplement the request for statement of qualifications that's being mailed to as wide of audience as possible. Did the place of advertisement, you wanted an Evansville and Indianapolis? Commissioner Fanello: That's something that we can discuss. Think it's advantageous to advertise? Commissioner Mourdock: I would say as wide an area as possible. We want the best. Commissioner Fanello: So if we can move - do I need to make a motion for that or is that accepted in your - Commissioner Mourdock: No, it's alright. President Mosby: We have a motion to advertise. Phil Hayes: I'll send you that language then first thing tomorrow. Commissioner Mourdock: Two other quick items of outstanding business then was the discussion of the previous motion from last time given what Councilman Tornatta said, are you willing to shelve your rescinding of that? Commissioner Fanello: I don't have any problem leaving it on the table at this time. Commissioner Mourdock: Okay, and lastly, since this is under the jail umbrella to the financing, I understand there was a meeting Friday with Crowe Chizek. Can you report on that meeting? Commissioner Fanello: We did not have a meeting Friday. Crowe Chizek cancelled the meeting, but they are going to reschedule in the next two weeks. Commissioner Mourdock: So there was no meeting? Commissioner Fanello: No. As soon as they reschedule, I'll let you know the date. Commissioner Mourdock: Okay, and I presume when that meeting takes place, the auditor and council folks will be involved. Commissioner Fanello: Yes, Suzanne will be attending and I think Councilman Raben will be there and anybody else, I guess, that wants to attend who might have an interest in finances. President Mosby: Do you have the original for signature tonight? Commissioner Fanello: We can take any one of these and - Commissioner Mourdock: We can make that amendment and then go ahead and stamp it, that's fine. President Mosby: Okay, but I can talk to you about the amendment you want in the letter? Tom, do you have it? Do you understand? Commissioner Fanello: I have one item that I want to bring up. It's an emergency item. The lights have been shut off at the Radisson so that means Weights & Measures has no electricity over there. President Mosby: No, they're fine. Commissioner Fanello: They're okay? Commissioner Mourdock: Even if it isn't, since this was a special meeting for the jail we can't discuss that. Commissioner Fanello: Okay. President Mosby: Well, I didn't know if we could or not since that was an emergency. But I can tell you the lights are on. Loretta was nervous yesterday but...is there any further business to come before the Board of Commissioners on the jail issue? Commissioner Mourdock: Motion to adjourn. Commissioner Fanello: Second. President Mosby: I have a motion and a second. So ordered. (Meeting adjourned at 8:18 p.m.)
THOSE IN ATTENDANCE:
APPROVAL: VANDERBURGH COUNTY
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Recorded by Jane Laib Transcribed by Jane Laib, Charlene
Timmons and Teri Lukeman
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