Common Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. It's 6 o'clock. We'll call to the order of the meeting of the Auburn Common Council for June 2nd, 2026. We'll begin with a moment of silent meditation or reflection, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Move on to roll call. Councilman Fincham. Councilman Braun. Here. Councilman Webb. Here. Councilwoman DeWitt.

Here. Councilman Williams. Here. Councilman Bundy. Here. Councilwoman Prosser. Here.

Council, in front of you, you have the meeting minutes from the May 19th regular meeting.

Move to approve as presented.

I'll second. And we have a motion to second to approve the minutes. Any questions or discussion by the council? Hearing none, I'll call for a question. All in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye. Opposed?

Motion carried. Recognition of visitors. Mike Littlejohn, Brian Parrish, Norman Yoder. Welcome.

Patty Miller.

Welcome. Long time. Betty Kelly, Jennifer Schaefer, Megan O'Dear. I'M SORRY? O'DELL. THANK YOU. HUBERT SHAFFER, DOUG COX, RICK RING, JUSTIN FRIED, JEFF JONES, WELCOME. IS THERE ANYONE IN THE PUBLIC THAT WOULD LIKE TO ADDRESS THE COUNSEL? ANYONE IN THE PUBLIC THAT WOULD LIKE TO ADDRESS THE COUNSEL? HEARING NONE, WE'LL MOVE ON.

Good evening. We have the current vouchers for $2,632,918.20. Move to approve. Second.

We have a motion and a second to approve the vouchers. Any questions or discussion by the council?

I'll abstain from 98775 in the amount of $50 for my participation in the AIM budget seminar.

Any other discussion? Hearing none, I'll call for a question. All in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carried. Thank you. Thank you. Moving on to ordinances and resolutions.

Ordinance 2026-12 IURC opt-out ordinance. I make a motion to open and hold in accordance with the public notice. Following the public meeting, I move to continue the public meeting till July 7th, 2026, at which time the common council intends to take a final action. Second.

Okay, we have a motion, a second. On ordinance number 2026-12, we'll suspend the council meeting. We'll open up the public hearing. Is there anyone that would like to come forward and speak in regards to ordinance 2026-12? Please state your name, sir. It's for those that don't know me.

For those that don't know me.

You got to push it one more time.

Okay.

Okay. So I had the pleasure of meeting with the mayor for about, I think, 30 minutes today and voiced some of my concerns. I've recently just noticed, I think you had some hearings on it, and I was out of country doing some important investigations. I haven't said that. So some of my comments he answered, but there's one There's a public meeting, and there's one thing that always bothers me when you do something where you've got a set of checks and balances, which the IURC provided, although I concur that we should opt out. It's the right thing to do. It'll save the ratepayers a lot of money, and it'll make the city electric department much more nimble to make changes on the fly than what it is now. So there's a lot of advantages to it. But the disadvantage to it is you've eliminated all the checks and balances. Now, granted, I don't have a problem with the cast of characters, for lack of a better way to put it. I'd sit up here now or the cast of characters I had when I was mayor or the people on the Board of Works for both administrations. But there's no guarantee. This is going to be probably for forever or for a very, very long foreseeable future. And without any checks and balances, it leaves room for some skullduggery, for lack of a better way to put it. I know in your number five issue, you said the day-to-day operation will continue to be responsive to the AMEU, electric employees, and the Utility Service Board. So the question I have is, do you plan on establishing an electric utilities org? I know that Columbia City, Mayor Daniels did it when I was mayor, as more of a transparent and another set of eyes that were educated and understand it. Because electric rates tend to be very complicated. And it's a very complicated business. And if you don't understand it and dig into it to some degree and understand it, you can get yourself turned all the way around which ways. So I would encourage you to create that as part of the thing as a check and balance. For no other reason, you've got an independent, non-elected board that's actually looking at what you do. Not that they're going to have no voting power or anything else, but if something goes off the tracks, They've actually got a voice and they can inform the public from an educated point of view of what's going on. So that's the only concern I have. Otherwise, I would, like I said, I think you save, well, we just saved millions of dollars over the 20 years that I was mayor. And we'd had a lot shorter meetings in some instances and probably ended up in much of the same spot we did. But you are removing that. check and balance is somebody else looking at it so i would can really encourage you to consider that you published it in here so i think there's some intent to do it but i didn't nobody seems to make a commitment to do that so with that i'll close is there any questions I think this is the first time I've ever been in this building room when I didn't have questions to answer.

What were your investigations overseas?

Well, I was over in Vietnam for about three days, and we'll get into that later.

I'd like to just add what former Mayor Yoder said. mentioned i have had some conversations with mayor daniel columbia city it they have a five-member board they are non-voting it's an advisory board that they meet typically once a year when the end of year reports come out look through those department heads answer questions they've got four members within the city limits and one rate payer outside city limits makes up the five-member advisory board They meet, like I said, once a year, and then any time there's anything to do with rates or cost of service, they meet again. It is a public meeting, follows open-door law, and they review that information with department heads, the consultants, council, whomever. So that is how they structure theirs. They typically meet about once a year unless something comes up in the meantime. And they... they are set up to where the five appointments are chosen by the mayor, but then suggested to council for approval. But I have to have Zach look into the city attorney. I'm not sure if that's the way it's set up by statute or if they were able to do that, or if you can split the appointments.

I'll have to, we'll talk. I'll have to look into that, the exact statutory requirements. One thing we need to do is just go through again the process for the opt-out.

Do you want to take that or read light?

That's... Okay. I'm happy to do it. Yeah, whoever...

So one of the requirements is to explain the opt-out process. The first step is having the first reading. We did do two town halls on April 1st at McKinney, excuse me, J.R. Watson Elementary. And then we had our first reading on April 21st. Upon that meeting, we had to distribute notices to all rate payers that allowed them a 30-day notice for the public meeting, which is being held this evening. where it stated that the council may or may not take final vote. Councilman Bundy made the motion just to be clear that he would like to continue the public meeting on July 7th where council would take the final action. Upon final action, if it's approved by council, then there begins a 60-day petition period or window that a petition could be completed, acquired the required number of signatures and filed to put it to referendum, which would go on the November ballot. That is, again, a 60-day time frame. If no petition is received, then at that point, within 30 days, you have to notify the IRC of the final vote and to complete that process. Did I miss anything?

No.

Okay.

Zach, correct me if I'm wrong. Isn't there still something in the ordinance or state statute about So there is a check and balance in there, so to speak?

Yeah. I mean, we still have to do the same. We still have to have the consultants, the organizations that look at our rates, that make sure that they are right. What's the term?

Fair and reasonable and non-discriminatory.

There you go. Reasonable and non-discriminatory. So we are still required to follow those requirements. We just don't have to take the additional step of spending all the money to go to the IORC to get those rates then approved. So obviously those all come to you to ultimately vote on whenever we do make a rate change.

And at the May, was it the 19th meeting was the last meeting? They did approve a new set of rates to take effect later this year in the third quarter upon successful opt out of the IRC. So it is contingent. Is there anyone else that would like to come forward and speak in regards to ordinance 2026-12? Close the public meeting. We'll reconvene the council meeting. So we had Councilman Bundy make the motion.

We got a second.

Councilwoman DeWitt. Is there any discussion or questions by the council? Hearing none, I'll call for a question. All in favor, signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carried.

ordinance 2026 15 an ordinance establishing a fund for the auburn fire department cadet firefighter program summary this ordinance establishes a fund for the auburn fire department cadet firefighter program i move that we pass ordinance 20 26 15 on second reading second we have a motion the second to

approve ordinance 2026-15 on second reading. Any questions or discussion by the council? Hearing none, I'll call for a question. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye.

Opposed? Motion carried. Resolution 08-2026, a resolution of the Common Council of the City of Auburn, Indiana, approving the sale of 213 East 12th Street in the City of Auburn. Summary, this proposed resolution calls for the Common Council of the City of Auburn to authorize the mayor of the city to negotiate and sell, on behalf of the City of Auburn, certain real estate commonly known as 213 East 12th Street Auburn, Indiana 46706 for $1. I move that we approved or resolution 08 on the one and final reading.

One second. OK, we have a motion to second to approve resolution 08-2026 on first and final reading. Any questions or discussion by the Council? and just to note that if the fair board or fair association does not utilize the property for the intended use it is to revert back to the city and that will be in the deed is that correct there will be a reversion um recital in the deed that if that happens it comes back to us and the city acquired that property in 2011 for the amount of the amount of ten dollars And it is in a floodplain, so it's very limited use. And I think they've maintained it since then. And so I think it's a good use for it. Any other discussion or questions by the council? Hearing none, I'll call for a question. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carried.

Resolution 09-2026, a resolution of the Common Council of the City of Auburn to designate allocations of commercial vehicle excise tax funds, distributions, vehicle excise tax distributions, and financial institution tax fund distributions. Summary. The attached resolution designates allocations of commercial vehicle excise tax, vehicle excise tax, and financial institution tax fund distributed between the funds maintained by the city. And move we pass resolution 09-2026 on the one and final reading.

Second.

Okay. We have a motion and a second to pass resolution 09-2026 on the first and final reading. Any questions or discussion by the council?

Mayor, I just want to ask one question.

These percentages were basically what we've done in the past, correct? percentages in here yeah and those came from the clerk and just a little history behind that as of January of 2026 the civet and the fit was already being distributed into the general fund per the latest legislation and now the auto excise is going to be required to be distributed directly to the general fund january 27 for example fire parks and street they all get a piece of that and those budgets fire for example it's over two hundred thousand dollars so that's the purpose we have to create a resolution in order to be able to transfer those revenues back to those specific funds thank you any other questions or discussion Hearing none, I'll call for a question. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carried.

Thank you.

Moving on to reports from the mayor. Just an update. The first draft of the budgets were delivered to Baker Tilly on Friday, May 22nd. It should be distributed around the third week of June to the council in preparation for the July meeting. And then mayor's youth advisory council is having a game night this Friday, June 5th from six 30 to nine 30 Memorial park. So if you've got kids or would like to come out and support them, please do. They'll have a lot of games and some food vendors set up council president.

Just a reminder, Strawberries in the Park is at Eckhart Public Library this Thursday from 4 to 7. Also, DAVA is getting the teacups out around town, which is very exciting.

Great. Thank you. Planned commission. Councilman Fincham is gone. I don't believe there was any updates. So we'll move on to committees.

uh tax phase in we have our list of cf1s and we'll be ready hopefully we'll be ready to vote on those next meeting which is what we've got scheduled but i do want to thank andy bar barrand Cause he's done a lot of work to accumulate the list and contact companies. Cause for some reason, this whole CF one thing is confusing and the people send them companies, send them to the County and then they get a bounce back to us or whatever, or they forget to send them in at all. So he's done a lot of follow-up and then Laurie Pontius has done a lot of work on these. So appreciate the work they have done to keep this thing flowing.

Are you allocating those to us?

I'll talk with you guys individually about that.

Finance Committee hearing is July 8th, 9 a.m. here in Chambers.

Nothing for ordinance and resolution.

Okay. Thank you. Is there any unfinished business to come before the council? Any new business? General good and welfare of the community? next regular council meeting is tuesday june 16th at 6 p.m move to adjourn second and we have a motion a second or a motion of the second any discussion hearing none i'll call for a question all in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed meeting adjourned