Dithering or due diligence? Monroe commissioner candidates clash on jail, housing

Two Monroe County Commissioners who are running for re-election said they deserve another term because they have been moving the county forward on housing, the jail and the convention center with the appropriate deliberation demanded by complex issues.

However, their primary election opponents said the commissioners are stuck on many problems, and they have squandered opportunities, increased Monroe County residents' cost of living and should be voted out.

“I am tested, trusted,” said Julie Thomas, the incumbent commissioner for District 2. She said the current commissioners thrive on innovation, listening and engaging with residents.

“Things are moving forward,” Thomas said. “We are diligent, hard workers who listen and collaborate, and that’s how we succeed every day.”

Thomas, who is vying with Peter Iversen for the Democratic Party nomination for the District 2 seat, made the comments Saturday at the Monroe County Public Library in a candidate forum organized by the League of Women Voters of Bloomington-Monroe County.

Iversen, a county council member, said a vote for Thomas would be a vote for stagnation.

Instead, he said, people should vote for change, “If you want homes for people to live close to their families, jobs where they can afford life in this community … if you want protection against climate change.”

District 2 covers Bloomington township, the north-central part of the county, including the northern part of the city of Bloomington. No Republican filed for the primary. The districts merely denote where the candidates must live. Voters in the entire county get to vote on all commissioner races.

District 3 incumbent Penny Githens said she’s running for re-election because she cares about the community and its residents.

“I continue to advocate for others, from feeding those in need to helping residents stay in their homes to expanding programming options in our jail to increasing child care options,” she said.

District 3 covers Washington Township (north-central Monroe County), Clear Creek Township (south central), the county’s eastern townships — Benton, Salt Creek, Polk — and parts of south-central Perry Township.

Githens faces two opponents in the Democratic Party primary: Indiana University law professor Jody Madeira and former city council member Steve Volan.

The winner in the three-way Democratic primary for District 3 will face a Republican in the fall. Joe Van Deventer, director of street operations for the city of Bloomington, and Paul White Sr., a bus driver for Area 10 Agency on Aging, are vying for the Republican nomination for commissioner in District 3.

Madeira said current commissioners have gotten the county stuck on the convention center, an unconstitutional jail, an urgent housing need and contentious relations with other county officials and the city of Bloomington.

As a law professor who understands how laws can worsen or improve people’s lives, Madeira said she can get the county unstuck: “Through strong, knowledgeable, competent commissioners who act with urgency and with expertise.”

Volan said the commissioners have built a moat around Monroe County and are pulling up the drawbridge of housing affordability on renters, first-time homebuyers and anyone who wants to move but stay within the community.

“If Monroe County is one community … it must plan for the change and growth that our desirable community generates,” he said.

The debate, moderated by Maria Douglas, development director for Middle Way House and member of Hoosier Asian American Power, touched on matters including climate change, city-county relations and how to listen to people with whom one disagrees.

The candidates clashed on the issues without resorting to personal attacks, though they exchanged some barbs. For example, Githens said she was different from other candidates in that she had never accepted money from the Federalist Society.

Madeira said funding from the society, a conservative and libertarian legal organization, which she received as a young legal scholar more than a decade ago, paid for a project on in-vitro fertilization and embryos and how women should have the right to decide what happens with their bodies. Madeira said the project showed her effectiveness in working with people who disagree with her on many things.

Experience like the commissioners’ doesn’t mean much if you don’t use it to get things done, she said.

Housing: Prudent approach — or driven by irrational fears?

Two issues that got a lot of attention were housing and the construction of the new jail.

Like much of the country, Monroe County has seen housing and rental prices rise sharply in the last few years, particularly during the pandemic. Median sales prices for homes have hovered near $300,000. While some local residents and employers have urged construction of more homes, some city and county officials have shown reluctance to allow denser developments including duplexes and multiplexes.

Githens and Thomas said they have supported and encouraged developments where they thought it was prudent, but have also rejected denser developments, in part because neighbors worried about noise, traffic and flooding.

Githens said commissioners have supported Habitat for Humanity developments, an expansion of the Fieldstone neighborhood and have proposed a new 70-unit housing development near Clear Creek Elementary School.

Opponents have criticized the commissioners' housing plan as hypocritical, given, as Iversen pointed out, commissioners rejected three developments in that same area in 2021.

Volan said the commissioners listen to loud neighbors, but they don’t reach out to people who don’t have time to attend commissioner meetings.

“They’re interested when it comes to land use in helping only non-city residents and certain vocal homeowners who are driven by irrational and unfounded fears of change,” he said.

Madeira said the commissioners’ decisions have created urban sprawl and their plans to change the county’s overarching zoning rules threaten to make matters worse.

The challengers also criticized the incumbents for holding meetings at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, when most people cannot attend or watch. Asked, via an audience question, whether they would change the meeting time, Iversen, Madeira and Volan affirmed, while Thomas said maybe and Githens said she would consider holding meetings at various times.

New jail: Making progress — or “abysmal mess”?

The candidates also clashed on whether the county was making progress — or enough of it — on finding a location for a new jail, relationships the current commissioners have with other county officials — especially Sheriff Ruben Marté — and how to provide more programming in the jail to reduce the risk that offenders return to the facility.

Thomas and Githens said they have done a lot of work on the jail but have not been able to begin construction because they have conducted complex investigations into the feasibility of several sites that they had to abandon for logistical and cost reasons.

The commissioners said they have a good relationship with the sheriff. They said he agrees with them on many aspects of the new jail, including that it should be one story, should have additional programming, that other criminal justice activities should be co-located in the new facility and said he likes the new location the commissioners are considering: North Park.

Monroe County sheriff: Commissioners try to delay jail progress to 'tag along' on trips

“We had tried to have a facility down on Fullerton Pike," Githens said. "My opponent Mr. Volan voted against having that there."

Volan countered all nine city council members voted against the Fullerton Pike site “because it was a bad idea, just like North Park is a bad idea, moving it all the way out of town, eviscerating the center of Bloomington.”

“They’ve had no plan to solve the interminable, festering human rights violation that is the county jail, except to move it out of the city, an action whose costs they continually underestimate,” he said.

Madeira, who said she toured the jail two weeks ago, described the facility as an “abysmal mess.”

“For 15 years, Monroe (County) has been under the shadow of an ACLU lawsuit alleging unconstitutional conditions,” she said. “And so I’ve learned, when I spoke with Sheriff Ruben Marté, that Monroe County commissioners didn’t listen (to him.)"

Thomas disagreed, saying commissioners “love working with Sheriff Marté” and initial issues involved the sheriff’s department asking commissioners for money, though only the county council can issue funds.

“We have helped with every single remodel (of the jail) and we have helped all along the way,” Thomas said.

Iversen said the county has not made much progress on the sheriff’s vision for a new jail “because of the road blocks that the current commissioners have put up.”

Iversen said he, on the other hand, made sure Marté would be part of a local commission to discuss options for the new facility.

You can watch the full debate on CATS at tinyurl.com/yc648jk5.

Voter registration ends at noon April 9. That is also the day early voting begins. The primary election is May 7.

Boris Ladwig can be reached at bladwig@heraldt.com.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Monroe County commissioner candidates clash over housing, jail progress