Town Council - Special Meeting

All right. I am ready whenever you guys are ready. Let me just pop out.

I'm going to get Nick a microphone.

I guess we'll call our special meeting to order. Mr. Farley, Mr. Calhoun, those absent. Other council members are present. He's been talking sidewalks. So we had three segments identified. Mr. Harris has given us pricing on those. Those are from Main to the alley heading north on the west side of the road on Broadway. from Walton on the east side of Broadway heading south to about mid block. And then from kind of that midpoint heading south on Broadway to Kaufman on the west side of the street. Those are those three segments, I think.

Have these been identified as bad spots on the analysis here?

Yeah, those were the three worst ones.

These are the three worst ones.

Other than ones that are just buried and not.

Now, on this, it's red the worst.

Is it the lower the number? I can't remember. I think it's the lower the number, the worse it is. Is that right? Or maybe it's the other way around.

I think you're right, Murray, but I'm not sure.

Sidewalk rating 10 to 19. 20 to 29, 30 to 39.

It doesn't say. I know I pulled these out a lot.

Well, which one is?

I believe the lower the rating, the worse they are, but I'm not. I believe that's true. I don't know for sure, Pam. I think that's the way it was. I know Neil and I drove around and looked at all of them that were on that list and decided that some of the ones they had listed would just overgrow. They weren't trip hazards. We were looking for things that were trip hazards, that someone could fall down and get hurt, especially for festival.

Okay. So need to be the devil's advocate, but so we're going to, just because they're in the festival area, we're going to do them over other areas that are just as bad outside the area?

No. If they were worse or just as bad, then no. But I

The ones I identified, I can't remember the first one.

Over here on Broadway, or over here on Broadway, north of Maine. And then on Broadway on the east side, south of Baltimore. What was the third one?

That same block of Broadway, but on the west side, kind of from midpoint heading south, down to Coffman. And that one's real bad.

yeah it's it's not good I would actually say of the three just other than one square of sidewalk

there's one square there next to my parents neighbors that's horrible right next sidewalk this is the tree that used to be there the rest of that i mean it's deteriorating it's not good it needs to be replaced but if we could only do two i would do this one on maine and the one on the west side would be my opinion but i think all three are in desperate need of repair

To answer your question, Pam, there were some that were on there that were, and it's been a month or two since I've done this.

These are the ratings. The ones that are circled are what we're going to do, but there's lots below it.

The other thing is we had talked about targeting worst to best, but you're going to end up with a bunch of disjointed segments if you do that. So is it, do you...

I'm just looking at how the residents are gonna see it. If they've got bad sidewalk in front of them and we're ignoring them to do something that's in the festival area.

Higher traffic's gonna move from Main Street out. I would say generally.

I see our point. I'm just saying people, other people in town that are sitting on bad sidewalks and not getting there

Do you have one in mind?

If the ratings are the ratings, there are spots below what we're looking at.

Again, just because they're rated low, you have to ask, why are they rated low? Are they underground? Are they overgrown?

Exactly. Why did we rate them that way?

Well, we didn't. We paid an outside consultant to come in and rate them all.

But if they're just grass-covered, That's not a trip hazard. That shouldn't be one of our focuses.

Yeah.

And that's what Neil and I went around and looked and tried to find the ones that someone could fall down and get hurt. Now, other than the one that's on Indiana.

Yeah, there's a big drop off down there.

There's a big drop off on that one. Other than that one. And I don't know how we fix that because there's no sidewalk worth of that.

Well, where I saw it today there was, but maybe we're not talking about the same spot. I just want to know how to answer people.

Somebody said Indiana.

Yeah.

Indiana.

Indiana and Kauffman, just south of that. No, it's way south of that. The one I saw today. Oh. I just want to know how to answer people when they say, well, it wasn't mine fixed when...

So I do think it's fair to say... Yeah, you need to have some kind of an answer. I do think it's fair to reassure people, too, that for the entire time I've lived in town, other than residents replacing sidewalks, we haven't done any, and now we're actually budgeting this every year, and we're going to continue. Okay. Right. We haven't forgotten about it. We haven't forgotten about it. We will. It is a priority. We're finally actually leaving a budget line and specifically calling for sidewalk repairs every year. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm not against replacing the sidewalks. Don't get me wrong. I just know that there have been people.

Yes, there's going to be questions. Sidewalks.

And again, down on the southern end of Indiana, out front of the trailer park and just north of that, there's a sidewalk there. It's all covered up. I mean, I think that should be last on our list. Only because it's so far out of town that nobody walks down there. on a sidewalk, generally. I mean, all your foot traffic is generally gonna be in the blocks surrounding.

None of these on Central?

There aren't very many on Central. Jackson to Morris.

Yeah, there's that last block and a half there that, I mean, it needs redone and it would be nice, I mean, you could really go up there And then across Jackson, we've got the new one. And then it can cross there and go up that block on the trailer park side and connect back up to stuff that's better. And then there's a couple segments south of Kauffman that would need to be replaced to tie that all in. But that's probably a couple-year project to do that, but that would give you a continuous sidewalk from the north end of town all the way down to the south end.

And that's what I'm going for, is to try to get a continuous sidewalk everywhere at least on one side of the street to do to do the one on broadway here gets us from there all the way down to the other part that we said it's fixed yeah and then farther south back it's fixed and then the one on the other side of the street we've almost got broadway done on both sides if you do those two

Okay, so for yours, I mean, do we have any specific questions about this? Like, are you able to provide a little more clarity on how we've divided? Like, what different segment, which each of those would cost?

Yeah, I've got it down here. Okay. From Kauffman and Broadway, that would be $11,850.

Off on the Broadway, that would be the one on the west side.

So the furthest south on the west side?

Okay. And then the one up here on Main and Broadway, it would be 12,110. I'm sorry, that's not right. 13,190.

13-109. Yeah, 13-190.

Number one down here, I guess it's your relatives.

Yeah, so Broadway, Walton.

I've got it split up in two here. It's 60 by 6 on that one end, the south end. And it comes to $5,040. And then the piece above that is 46 by 5. That's with the block sitting on it. We never did discuss how he was going to do that, if he was going to move the block or cut the walk along the block.

Yeah. Yeah, so in the survey, it looks like there's some stuff. Like that flower bed deal on my parents' house is 80 years old, but it's on the town property.

It's been there a very long time. Yeah. And there's structural concerns. When we make a cut, when Nick makes a cut, that weight of the blocks that sit in our sidewalk now which is tapering it down a little bit but when we make the cut i'm afraid the dixons will have serious sinkage of of that block and then our new sidewalk will will then be not supporting it anymore and it will sink in and i i'm afraid they'll they'll have water problems i don't think so their house sits super high it's been there for probably 80 years so you think the block will because there's a footer under one part of it and then like down south of where the little patio thing is there's no footer there and it's just blocks and i don't want i want to look out for them

yeah i don't know what their plans are and i don't know what the right answer there is he's talked about tearing all that stuff off of there and so if that happened the expectation it's not going to be anytime soon but if that happened i mean you would need to finish it out in a way that makes sense so do we want to table that one we give them time to figure out what we're going to do i'm saying it's not going to be done in the next 10 years

And then what do you want, Nick, to do? I know you said straighten one of the ends and just pour it. Are we pouring flush with it? There's going to have to be a saw cut made on the edge of that. I guess just direct, Nick.

Well, I mean, I don't know. Yeah, it's tough to cut up against the wall on it.

THE PRICE ON THAT AT THE $46.5 WOULD BE $32.20 AND $200 EXTRA FOR CUTTING CONCRETE.

SAY $34.20. IS THAT THAT ENTIRE? SO YOU'VE GOT IT BROKEN $5,000 AND THEN $3,500, LET'S SAY. THAT'S FROM THE GOOD SIDEWALK TO THE SOUTH ALL THE WAY UP TO Walnut Street, the next street, right? It's a half block. Walton.

Walton.

Yes.

It's kind of split in two there. The one south of their house is six feet wide, and then from that point on, by the block is five feet wide.

What's the sidewalk to the south, the good sidewalk? Is that a five-foot sidewalk?

It's six feet.

The good sidewalk is six foot?

No, it's five foot. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So the good sidewalk south of them is five feet wide. You can kind of see it here.

This part here is five. Okay. That's five. Okay. And then when it gets to here, right here,

it's a huge yeah that's why we picked that one yeah it expands a little by a foot yeah there's actually an old curb on the grass side of that this i imagine is actually the property block it's sitting on a five foot all the way down to the street okay i got you

On the one end of that block wall, there's not very much sidewalk underneath the wall. I think there's a little bit more that should go south.

Where the footer is.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, that's the one we have to cut. Let's cut that one.

So these two would equal $8,000, $12,000, $25,000, $25,000 for the two segments, roughly. And then another $8,500, roughly, for that. And we've got $25,097.75 set aside.

If you look at the other, we do have some in general repairs and maintenance, other services and charges. And then if you turn it over, there's general others, but we can take some out. You're talking about $8,500, around $8,500. So just be careful. You know, we still got one more quarter yet.

Well, I mean, that's why we're knocking off $8,500. We're right at the number that we budgeted.

I mean, my opinion is do it all. I don't think anybody's going to be mad at us for replacing more sidewalks. But that's just my personal opinion, and that has no bearing on where it is or who would get primary usage out of it. I mean, you identified the segments. I didn't have anything to do with that.

Well, I am a little concerned about the wall being on top of it.

Well, go look at it. I mean, something's got to happen with it. And I don't share that concern. I think it's been there a really long time. I don't think it's a significant amount of weight.

That was just my opinion. What do you think? Do you think it will end up sinking? It's already leaning. It's pressing our sidewalk a little. And what makes me... You're talking further south, right? Yeah, where the current... Where that one letter piece has a little tweak to it? Yeah. Yeah. And I'm afraid when we cut that, then it's just going to go. Not like with the naked eye, but eventually sink.

So if you're talking about the part that's a block high with the cap on it, is that where you're talking? Further south. The flower bed. If that's what you're talking about and you start tearing it apart and that one block high with the cap needs to go, get rid of it and form it up straight.

You said it's on town property?

Yeah, it's on town property.

If it's on town property, then there's... I mean, I know it's your parents, but... No, no, no.

I'm saying get rid of it, and if I need to go help them rework their flower bed, I'll go do that. Get it back onto their property. Their wall for their patio thing would still be on us, but

Oh, it's that far out?

Well, it's a straight line all the way down. There's like that patio wall, and then the flower bed continues on, just lower.

Okay.

I'll look at it when I go back. If it's doable and we can do it all, then let's do it all. I don't want to put us in a pinch. We'd have to take almost $3,000 out of each one. Are you comfortable with that, Jennifer, or no?

I am, if you guys will pay attention to the rest of the year and not go crazy. And we don't want to have to do an additional appropriation. You know what I'm saying?

I mean, it's our money. We're allowed to spend it. It's just paperwork. We've got to basically retroactively budget for it if it was what that additional appropriation would potentially be. But I don't even think this is touching that. This isn't...

Just saying if something happens in October and we need to pull money, we'd have to do that.

Right, and that other would come from our cash balance that we have.

I'm grateful that we're finally in a position where we mean look at our general fund or you know we have a considerable amount of carryover that we consistently carried and I'm not saying let's go spend it all no but we've trended in a positive direction for the last since I've been here and you know you balance that against people not seeing new sidewalks for my entire childhood until the last couple of years when we started replacing them.

I think we've been wise with walks.

Sure, and I don't know that spending a little bit of extra to do additional sidewalks that aren't budgeted for right now is not wise, is I guess what I'm saying. Then my opinion would be that would be a worthy expenditure. I'M HAPPY TO HEAR ANY COUNTERPOINTS.

IF JENNIFER IS COMFORTABLE WITH IT AND WE CAN AFFORD IT, LET'S DO AS MANY AS WE CAN. DO WE HAVE IT IN THE BUDGET FOR NEXT YEAR? WE WILL, YES. DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH? I PUT $26,000. Could this be done before the festival?

We pushed to get all of them done before the festival, but I'll try.

Which ones do you think should come first?

How long have we got until the festival? Fourth weekend of September, so 24th, probably pull out. That gives us two days. Traffic will start picking up the 24th, 25th. And 23rd is a Wednesday 24th of Thursday originally told me 1 to start on the 1.

Further South, I think that's what I told you.

I. Have you talked to Mr a lot? Is he still trying to get his stuff?

I think he, he is, but now he's. paused his guys from what I heard last. He kind of goes back and forth sometimes, but he's paused his guys until after festival.

As I recall, there was a pretty significant drop-off heading south from him, right? So we have a defined elevation we could hit, and then his stuff just meets that.

I would rather us do it first, too, because then that And I would agree. Every Saturday I wake up, I'm like, Luke and I walked that, and there seems like an obvious answer to elevations over there.

But there's a point that you wouldn't want to go above. So that's something we can and should dictate, but it makes it a whole lot easier if we've got a sidewalk sitting right there that they've got to meet.

On that one further south where we cross up, One person's driveway.

Yes. Where we're talking.

It's going to be up higher than the driveway there.

Yeah. So you're going to, I'm assuming you talked to him about doing a cut. Not in depth, no. We were just talking about, let's see, they kind of come off the Broadway and go down and then come back up. the driveway. So if our driveway goes across, our sidewalk goes across there and it's high, the side towards Broadway is an easy little ramp. And the side the other way, maybe you just throw a level on it, cut a line on their driveway and meet that. And it'd be a foot or two to make a decent transition. I don't know. I don't think it's, I don't think our sidewalks, it's not going to be a foot up. It's, we're talking, what'd we figure out, about four inches or so? Three, four inches? Four, six, yeah.

Yeah. You're talking about just dropping it down across the driveway and then back up?

No, make the sidewalk level and then basically make a cut in their driveway. and finish to that cut. So a couple foot of transition the width of their driveway, you know.

Okay, where are we at? As far as the flowerbed being on town property or their property, which is a

It's on, the flower bed itself was on theirs, but like the blocks. I would say, yank them out if you got to, I mean.

Or do we wait until we have a paving project and then address it then?

Broadway is going to be a while and we don't even know if CCNG will be around either.

Okay. And is that block being out there, a trip hazard, coming up that sidewalk? Since it's out in the... Not currently.

I mean, the sidewalk's really wide.

You've got a picture.

Yeah. I just sent you and her pictures. That's not even a hazard.

Sure.

I do think it's fair, especially if that block's kind of wonky, that flowerbed barrier there.

Yeah, the first block's just kind of...

get rid of that. And maybe you leave the wall part because that's a bigger that's a bigger thing to try to address.

I mean, I don't care. It's I mean, you can look in the far end of that higher part and there's probably not that much sidewall underneath the edge of it. Right. So you think you could just pull that out from under it and pour up to it? It's like it all the way down. You can't tell as you get down further how much it's in there. Sure. It has to be pretty clean.

If we need to cut that wall off and get rid of it, I can make that happen.

That's a possibility, too. We could dig up one of that a little bit and pull it back underneath it. Right. Get something to sit on.

Do we want to... If everybody wants to move forward here, we can move forward, and then before he starts, if I talk to my parents and they're fine with doing something, I'll rent or borrow a saw, and I'll just cut that thing off there. I mean, the porch part, the patio part's harder to deal with. But the flower bed part, that can get us. See that flower pot right there is sitting on a patio wall that's, I think, three blocks high.

I think it's really, but it's still going to stick out down there. Well, you just talk about this baby.

And so is that where we just tell them, hey, you can't pull a wall here. It's got to go. It's got to go.

Well, I mean, it did a little bit.

We work around things that are difficult to move sometimes.

If it can't move, it can't move.

Which is why I'm not as concerned about the patio area because it's a little more substantial and it's not falling apart like that. It's 80 years old. Yeah, it's been there a while. I get that part of it too.

Since Brad's been there as well? Yeah.

Yeah. I just sent you another picture from Google.

If we can work around it and they want to keep it, let's do that. If we can't, then...

I definitely wouldn't want to have a situation where they rebuild it where it is.

No, they're going to rebuild it.

So it either stays or it goes.

Right. I would want it to be done right this time, making it not be there.

Oh, this is a better picture. I'm in a position again where I could go help him for a day, too.

Oh, you're talking about? IT'S A REALLY WIDE SIDEWALK.

IT IS. SO HOW DOES THAT WORK? DOES THAT MATCH WIDTH ON THE OTHER SIDE? DOES IT NEED TO BE SIX FOOT WIDE?

I WOULDN'T THINK SO. I WOULD MATCH WHAT'S THERE.

WHAT'S THE SIDEWALK HEADING NORTH? THAT'S GOT TO BE FIVE.

Yeah, it looks five. Yeah, it looks five.

What's at Nela's? Is that 6 at Nela's?

That's 5.

That's 5. And then what's north of it is 5.

We get to the Ramsey's, that turns to 6. Which direction? That Broadway line, the edge of the sidewalk closest to Broadway is the line. The edge of the actual property line is the other direction, right?

So that means the edge of the sidewalk, Nela's sidewalk, is... This well onto the town. Yes. With a grass strip behind it that's down.

How about we do this at, if we made it all five and match what's currently there.

Yeah.

Instead of having it be six for a while, just make it five starting from the street side. Then you don't even run into that problem.

We want to do six feet according to the stakes, the flags, the survey. Yeah, you'd want to do five from the survey out towards the street.

The wall sticks out exactly. Murray might know this, how long a cinder block is. It sticks out exactly the length of the cinder block. Oh, 16. That's how many.

If you look at one of the pictures. Wow.

That's a cinder block. That's a whole.

The width of a cinder block, not the length of one. That's the length, right?

That's a whole block and then a piece of something. But still, you're right. It's close. 14 inches anyway. Okay. Wow. Do you want to approve it? We can either work or we'll get rid of the short one. and work around the other, and if I think I can get rid of the other before he starts, I will.

Yeah, that's fine with me. As long as we have the money and the buy-in from somebody to move it. Can we do that one after the festival, or is that one?

That's fine with me. If it's easier for you to just do two before the festival, We'll do that and do the third one later, you know, early October.

If you want to take them blocks out, I'll take them out. Okay.

So we'll start with the $11,000 Kauffman to come a lot.

And then come up here and do this one.

What are we doing about the wall over here?

That is not on town property, I don't believe.

Yeah, as soon as we take that sidewalk out, it'll fall over.

It's in pretty good shape. There's one place where it's leaning a little bit. I thought maybe I could take the loader and just straighten it up.

Nudge it a little bit, tweak it back straight. It really isn't as bad as it looks. No. Okay. I mean, I don't know. I don't do this for a living, but.

I think it's wide enough or it's not going to fall over.

I agree. I think it's all right.

Well, I'll make a motion then that we do south end of Broadway from Toffman to... Mid-block. Mid-block. Heading north. And then on Broadway from Main to Central. Main to the alley. I'll make that motion. And then we do the other one after festival.

The other one being in front of the Dixon's?

Correct.

Okay.

Do that one. From Walton Head, Excel. So I'll make that motion.

All right, can I work at night without disturbing the neighbors? 10 p.m. is our ordinance. Do what?

10 p.m. 10 p.m. Second.

All in favor? Aye. Aye. I think that's where I move. I'll go talk to my parents and see what I can figure out with their deal. Maybe we just make it, maybe I can make it where it's just going to stretch out.

Just very quickly, I had a couple people come in talking about sidewalks. These are just cleaning them up. Nick was talking about the sidewalk. It was east and west of his mom's down here. He said it just needs like cleaned up. He thought that there was on the south side of yeah on the south side yeah is that the paved that's it yes it is it's paved and then um roberta was i'm talking about the one in front of her side just like over on john street really need to do that yeah just do it um maybe maybe that three years from now it will be done you know

She won't have to honk at my kids anymore. They're right on the sidewalk.

Well, I would say, Pam, that, you know, I understand people see things happening and it's not happening for them. But at least things are happening. At least they're moving in the direction of getting it.

The other thing is, if we get this next round of paving, the last two blocks of main will be new sidewalks. And a block of Kauffman will be new sidewalks.

Yeah, we've had people comment on it.

And a block of, what's the street's name?

People from out of town.

Oh, that's a pavement. The one south of Cochrane. Always makes sense. Yeah, I think you're right. So I think a block of Madison would be down too.

I know this is for another time, but how are we going to handle the one that's on the east side of Indiana, South Cochrane?

East side of Indiana, south of Coffman.

They have gravel there now, then grass, and then there's a sidewalk with a huge drop that's kind of tipped up a little bit. And then there's sidewalk for half a block, and then there's no more sidewalk on that side. And so you can't rip anything up.

It's got to get down at some point.

It would only be.

What you do is maybe you wait until you can do that whole block or something like that.

Because it can't go any farther south than it is because of all the culverts and drains on that side of the road. There is no sidewalk south of there on the east side.

Yeah. But yes, if you can't remove it, it would be stupid to have a little sidewalk to nowhere. So at least do that block and tie it in where they can cross the other side of the street where there would be two fans.

What was our grand total there?

33,300 cents. 0.

You're on Main Street down the corner that goes South along that wall.

Did you want me to finish it out to the street going East and put a.

Up to add there yeah, to cross both directions South crossing itself. Yeah. Yeah.

Figured out, you know, figuring you want me to and they can go.

What do we determine with the paper? I think it can be oriented to go straight across instead of angling. His main street. To the east is narrower But we don't necessarily need to make that crossing meet the corner So just make it in line with this the main street sidewalks here just go straight across Then we'll do the same thing on alley Yeah, I don't know that they're required though because they didn't I mean I like him Well, he didn't spec them in in our last painting deal I

We just thickened it up with the nine.

Four to eight inches at the alley. All right. Across the alley and then put a pattern on each side.

You can do it the way you did at Melinda's.

Yeah. I'm not as worried about the pads there. But if they fit in the budget, let's do them. If they would cost extra.

I figured two in there. Okay. Perfect. Let's leave it. Have you got time to go down and look at this? Do you want me to start down here? Yeah, the south end would be fine.

Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Is there any other business to discuss? Make a motion to adjourn the meeting. Did we vote on it? Yeah, we did.

We already did.

All in favor? Aye. Aye. Thank you. Force your aye.

Thank you.