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Public commenters press commissioners for transparency on jail estimates and dispute draft contract-review steps
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Summary
During public comment residents urged fuller disclosure of BW Consultants' jail cost estimates and flagged a draft ordinance's contract-review routing that appears to send requests only to the commission president rather than all commissioners; commissioners noted the points but took no immediate corrective action.
During the public-comment portion of the April 20 Grant County commissioners meeting, several residents raised procedural and substantive objections concerning a proposed ordinance and the county’s handling of a potential new jail project.
A resident flagged language in a memo dated April 16 from Mister Harger that accompanies draft Ordinance 3-26, saying the memo directs the auditor to forward contract-review requests "immediately" by email to the president of the board. The commenter said Indiana Code 36-1-2-5 defines "executive" as the board of commissioners and argued that contract notifications should go to all three commissioners rather than only the president.
Later in public comment, Carmichael Duke (on the record) asked commissioners to ensure taxpayers receive "complete visibility and transparency" of BW Consultants' deliverables before further design or engineering funds are spent on the jail project. Duke cited the firm’s January estimate of roughly $75–$79 million for option 3 and said he believes that estimate is incomplete because it omitted items such as sanitation and water-infrastructure construction costs. He told commissioners he suspects the study’s figure "is low by between 2 and a half and 6 and a half trillion dollars," an assertion the record shows as his opinion and which was not substantiated by supporting documentation presented at the meeting.
Chair acknowledged both public comments but took no immediate corrective action during the meeting; commissioners did not vote to change the draft ordinance’s distribution steps on the record, nor did they provide a revised cost estimate for the jail project. The meeting record shows requesters asked for follow-up: clarifying whether the auditor’s routing instruction reflects statutory authority and whether BW Consultants’ estimate includes utility and infrastructure work.
Next steps on both matters were not specified in the transcript. The comments were entered into the record for commissioners to consider; the board proceeded to other agenda items and recessed after scheduling the next regular meeting for May 18.
