The subcommittee racing to recommend a new jail site has settled on how it will evaluate properties, and it plans to begin site evaluations at its next meeting.

The Collaborative Justice Project Working Subcommittee has two weeks to recommend a site before a July 13 deadline.

After committee deliberation and public comment, the metrics for evaluating potential jail sites now include each property’s address or location, whether it has utility access, the earliest possible groundbreaking date and separate questions about whether a given site can provide adequate space for 448 beds and a single-floor jail facility.

The deadline for the public to submit alternative sites through a form on Monroe County’s website is Wednesday, July 1, at noon.

Bloomington resident Seaforth Breeze recommended the subcommittee include a metric that factors whether potential locations will be near transit services. A volunteer at Bloomington Bike Project, Breeze said they have seen recently released inmates searching for transportation.

“They don't have any other transit connections,” Breeze said. “They don't have, you know, a phone or someone that they can reach out to with that phone, and they are desperate for a way to start reaching all those other services.”

Another resident, Zach Ammerman, said he's concerned that there has been no public explanation for why the county cannot renovate its existing jail and no information about the potential future expansion of a new facility.

“I want to constrain future expansion of the jail because I don't want to increase incarceration in this county,” he said.

City council member Sydney Zulich, responding to Ammerman, said her understanding is that the Curry Building site could serve as a potential expansion of the Zietlow Justice Center, which houses the county jail.

She also encouraged the subcommittee to be careful not to add too many extra beds to a new jail.

“My worst nightmare is we have extra space, and that extra space gets automatically sucked up by ICE,” Zulich said.

The working group also agreed to add a cover letter detailing shared assumptions about each jail site, including square footage needs, rezoning steps and cost.

The subcommittee will meet again on Wednesday, July 1, to begin site evaluations.