City Council - Regular Meeting

Well, Brandon, just walk in. Yeah. You get a window to cancel it. Nope. So, go ahead and run. Yep. All right. We'll go ahead and call to order. Start with the pledge. Pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. you bow your heads. We'll start with a prayer. Dear Lord, we come to you today to ask for your guidance and protection from all that seek to go against us, to watch over us, and let us make the best decision for the city and everyone in it. Amen. The minutes show everyone's here. Um, Roger may be joining us late. He had some doctor's things to get to. Start off with the minutes from April 10th. Anybody have any questions or corrections? Make a motion to approve. Motion to approve. Second. Second. Motion a second. All in favor? All opposed? Pass. 5. Go on to claims. Anybody have any questions on claims? Seek a motion to approve. Make a motion approve claims. Second. Motion by Brandon. Second Stacy. All in favor? I. I all oppose. All right. 5 on that as

well. Anybody have any old business? Joe, I do not. Anybody down here old business? Move on to new business then. Um, we have a salary ordinance here. Ordinance 2025-05. I'll let Chris go over that briefly real quick. Uh, yes. This is uh as you aware we have a grant with the Royal Alliance Water for Chris O'Neal and part of this grant is once he completes training in this that he gets a salary increase. Again, they're paying uh they're paying for this. So, I had asked Josh to do it as a um apprentichip program through them, just an upgrade to the salary ordinance for that position. I'm just ask you all approve it. I mean, it's not costing us any funds. Anybody have any questions over that? Seek a motion to approve that. Motion to approve. Motion by Joe. Hear a second. Second. Second by Mike. Mike. Yeah. All in favor? All opposed. We need to suspend the rules on it. Josh, we need suspend rules on that. When do you need five time this week? Okay. Uh motion to suspend the rules and pass on second. Thank you. Second. Motion second. All in favor? I. All opposed. 5. Second reading. Motion to pass on. Second read.

Hear a second. I'll second. Second by Brandon. All in favor? Opposed? 5. Thank you. Good on salary ordinance now. Yep. All right, we'll move on. You want to do the comp do comp last or do go ahead and do it now. Okay, we'll go ahead. We have Amy here um to go over the comprehensive plan. All right, just here in case you have questions, I can make sure I can grab any pages, but um I think I know almost all of you. I'm Amy though Williams. I've been going through the comp plan process with the city. Now we're working on the ordinances. Um I have presentations. I think most people have seen it already. Maybe one might or two might not have. So I didn't go through any questions but figured out was this probably not needed to plug in and do a whole uh thing here. But um basically the plan commission did have a public hearing. Uh had a favorable recommendation to council for adoption of the comprehensive plan and they had a couple of amendments that were sent to Melissa and and Chris. So um again it was changing a couple of the future land use areas one area on the future land use map um adding gateway on 256 adding advisory to your plan commission just to specify you guys are advisory versus area. um reworking a little bit of language on the reviews and then also adding just the current zoning map to the existing conditions more just a reference point in time even though that will change probably here when the ordinance get you know adopted and whatnot. Um, so I know again most have definitely been through this and in much more detail, but I can go through anything, read and pull it up on screen if you want any any questions. But um, so there was a a steering committee

that uh, like some of us were on. It went through that. Then it went through area planning commission. They approved it there. Um, I think Stacy, Mike, you two would be the only ones that may have not seen. Have you seen it? I have not. Yeah, I don't mind though. Okay. Do you have a copy? You can digital PDF on here. I did not I don't want to plug in. Yeah. If you want me to get [Music] [Music] All right. Yeah. Do you mean I got a PowerPoint that summarizes it and I have like the actual plan. It might just be Yeah. more helpful if I do a quick little um All right. So, we can cover a little bit of the overview of what the plan is and some of our next steps here too. Um, so overall the first three tasks for updating the comprehensive plans. That's your rolling range document on how the city kind of wants to strategically grow. The next tasks that's what we're in currently are re um are updating your zoning ordinance and you actually don't have a subdivision ordinance how you divide land. So that's getting done currently. We'll be back to you guys here um you know more towards the end of this year to to work through some of that adoption. Um so when we look at the conference of plan there's three sections to that kind of where Austin is today. Um what is the vision for the future and then how do we get there through implementation steps. Um a big

key component of that too though is your future land use plan. So that just says if that land use changes what should it be in the future? Um, and so really that outlines where should we have housing areas or commercial areas or mixed use areas, industrial growth, um, and that sort of thing. And one of the proposed changes from land commission that came with the the recommendation was, and I'm not going to be tall enough, the area between uh, Christy and the interstate, that little kind of polygon area up there should be included as a future residential growth outside of the city limits. Um so we could that was one of those recommendations a residential growth area kind of in that northwest area of the city. Um so again this is just a tool that you guys would use and plan commission would use more so as people come forward and say I want to reszone my property uh what that would give you guidance. It's one of the five criteria by state statute that you look at is this comprehensive plan idea. So it's not the end all beall but should give us guidance as to how the city wants to grow and what uses those should be in the future. Um what we've also done is looked at um what area around the city the the city may want to take jurisdiction of in the future. So Indiana code allows up to two miles in terms of an extra territorial jurisdiction like jurisdiction for zoning outside of your area. Uh the little leg that you kind of see that goes off to the east that's an easier run because it is your utility service area right now. So the city can take that in to their plan. Currently you actually are doing jurisdiction in that area. The other kind of brownish area is that two mile up to a two-mile fringe and that could be worked out with the commissioners in terms of uh who would have had jurisdiction over that the city or the the county. I'm feeling it's a little maybe unknown still. Um and then obviously the little bottom part is Scottsburg coming up as well.

So, we want to include the entire thing so you have options as we work through the ordinance section. Um, it also includes transportation. So, we looked at uh really sidewalks were one of your biggest uh items for transportation improvements as well as some of the gateways. So, that was one on 256 that wanted we wanted to add an extra gateway idea just, you know, it could be a sign simple as a sign saying welcome to Austin. Um, it's really just identifying you are here. Um, but again, we even looked at priorities in terms of sidewalks. So, the red is for the highest priority, yellow was kind of that middle moderate priority, and then the blue was the lower priority, but still in the 20-year vision of where the city wants to kind of go. Have we taken into consideration widening roads? I I don't believe so. Something to think about whenever we talk about wind or implementing sidewalks as well. Roadways are fairly narrow. And that's something for new roads we will take into account for sure in the zoning and or subdivision control side of things. So like the new subdivisions coming in what should that road be because currently you don't have standards um on that and it hasn't been a huge issue because you like you're having big subdivisions coming in but we want to make sure you then it's it's built to a standard that you can maintain too easily and it's not you know what I mean become a burden over time. So the plan does kind of include three levels. It includes goals. There's five goals in here. Um it includes strategies which are kind of giving a little more direction and then it includes action steps. What should we do and when? Um and as we started to kind of go through those there are five goals. Uh one goal is on housing, one is on quality of life, one's on transportation and utilities. Um the fourth goal is about interchange and downtown. to specific areas of development. And then the last one was on local services and initiatives. Um

and again under each one of those strategies. So our plan 19 strategies. You can kind of see how those get broken out. It's just the idea of if we have a goal of you know creating a diverse housing um you know stock here, we have three strategies that start to break that goal down. And then the action steps further break that down um into how do we actually do that right um and those are all put onto a timeline either a short mid or a longterm timeline again this plan is 20 years it's a guide it's not a rule it's not now a shall right it is a guide and a direction for you all and also for others in the community that are maybe doing things either public or private um so you can kind of see again most strategies you really get concent concentrated in the short terms. As you finish those, you'll start to populate more things, right? Um you'll get something done and then you'll be able to kind of move to that next thing. Uh and more will start to populate over time. So, we do kind of break down each of those. But some of the big things initially were housing. Um looking at incentives, it could doesn't mean it's financial. It could be zoning bonuses or zoning incentives even or creating the right zoning districts to allow the housing to come in. Um, for example, town homes are not in a district right now. Like that can't happen by right right now. Um, looking at infill again, how do we fill in some of these older lots and make them productive? Uh, neighborhood parks was an item that was in the shorter term expanding the sidewalk network again strategically and incrementally. Um, wastewater treatment plant that's already underway and happening. Um, interchange development. So, how do we start to attract the right things to the interchange? Downtown is the same idea. Um, and starting to explore the idea of some sort of community center or sharing municipal center, right? Um, in usually the Dale County area and then also continuing that marketing strategy that you guys

have already started. How do we perpetuate that and continue that along? So, those were some of your short-term items for strategies and plan. Um, and then each of those have said action steps as well. Um, so again, the the plan commission did um give a favorable recommendation and these were the five items. They wanted to add that residential growth area kind of the northwest side that I kind of pointed out. Um, add a community gateway on the map on 256. Uh, add the word advisory to plan commission. This is specified you're advisory on an area plan commission. You used to be area when you were with the county. Um, and then add a recommendation. We had one for quarterly review just more regular review kind of a little bit looser terms there and then put the current zoning map in just for reference even though again there's a knowledge that that's a point in time right um as we go forward. So what we were looking for was again adoption from council. It goes through the same process that a resoning would go to planning commission they have a public hearing um make a recommendation it comes to council and council gets to have that final kind of say on that. I can also pull up the document then for you here on the right screen here for you. Um you have a page in that on the community input for the two events that we did. Yes. Yes, we did have a number of public events. Um I will actually go to the very end. Those are we do I only sorry I'm like not used to looking at it on a different screen here. Uh so we do have I think do a quick summary. So we did have again a number of public we had a steering committee that had a number of you all on it. land commission folks, um, mayors on that, as well as even some of other folks like your your consultant

or your engineer, um, some other key folks that maybe are are involved in things in the community or the city. Um, we did have a couple of public events, too. Um, so we had one of them at one of the high school basketball games, so we could again grab folks that maybe wouldn't have participated. Um we had actually high school kids found a lot of the cheerleaders were pretty um active and wanted to come and participate. So I thought that was really great. Um but we also prior to that had one here as well. Um and we had an online survey as well. So we had couple of again number of comments just from those uh meetings and then at the end of the plan and the appendex and I'm gonna oops I hit the wrong button here. Um at the end of the plan we also have those broken out in a little bit more detail. we get in the seats here. So each meeting we have we do have a summary in there for that as well. So um first year committee meeting, second committee meeting, third, fourth and then the public meeting that happened here that was in October. Um and then we also had the second public meeting in January at the high school at Basing as well. [Music] So I can answer I don't I can take I don't know but I know that your uh your time looks valuable too. I can go in any details you might want but don't want to over I don't know if I have one or not but um I thought did Melissa email those out I thought she did I don't know I know I got one but I don't know I thought yeah I've got one but I thought Melissa emailed them out she did email I thought she did but I don't won't swear to thisable for public consump consumption. Uh yes. So it was in um like Melissa had a public review

this very detailed document over here. Is it available somewhere? Well, it's not approved yet, but once it is be in the mayor's office. Well, it would have been there already prior 10 days prior to the plan commission meeting. She had a she had a copy for public review. Uh she had a PDF too. So I'm assuming that if you go on the website once the website get on there but yeah but I can get on there. Yeah. Energize also plan but I would not have been on the email sheet like forwarded on. I'm not saying anything. Yeah, I would love to have a coffee. I need a copy table it until next meeting to give everyone a chance to review it. Yeah, for sure. And do you want me to have Melissa for that on? Yeah, we have set up. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I've been ask. So, there a motion to table it. Sure. All in favor? Second. Uh Stacy, you taking it over? I'm sure you've done fine. Thank you.

once um she does if you have questions just email me your comments answer any of those things so that you can get those answered and you know what I mean beforehand and then um Melissa does have a copy of she has a PDF too so um I'll try to direct everybody through her so I'm not like the you know what I mean person but I'm happy to make sure so we'll table that next meeting give everybody a chance to look at it and uh then we'll vote on it next Sounds good. Super. Thank you. All right. Thank you guys. That moves us onto this resolution on a property transfer. Um I'll let Chris or Josh, one of you guys give a little overview. This is on 605 North Church. This is a property that the city had done some clean up on and had removed and a structure that was dilapidated. Um, so we had several leans that had racked up on the property. The property then was listed for tax sale. Property did not sell. So the county commissioners then acquired a lean. Um, so then the county had the right to sell or transfer that certificate and the county commissioners transferred that tax sale certificate to the city a couple years ago. So now the city is desiring to transfer the property to the redevelopment commission for the redevelopment to commission to take further action. I think it's one of the lots that does have possible interest being developed. All right. So I'll entertain a motion on that for that property transfer. How motion? Motion by Brandon. There a second. Second by Stacy. All in favor? All

oppose. Okay. Anybody have any other new business? [Music] Joe, you have new. [Music] Anybody out here have new business? You have Lauren, I'm here in a conversation with the mayor. Uh trying to keep a breast of the disposition of the street lights are being taken out. [Music] You mentioned coming to the meeting. Yeah, we declared those excesses at noon today when we had the board works. We declared those excess today board works meeting. So, okay. How many did you need? How many how many how many lights you going to try out there? Well, I think the park might be interested in 30 of them. Uh, now 39 total. 39 total. There's 39 total. 39 total, guys. And I just guess because we're going to 20 of them still standing. So, um, yeah. And uh our our vision, our thought process is uh to look into the uh replacing the internal electrical internals with solar and putting those on the walking trail because we had to thrift the solar lights out of the DNR project. And uh our plan looking at would be to put one adjacent to and then complement with the benches that are in place there where we potentially use the concrete pad for bench and look at moving them over to the edge. Now in terms of excess excess, you're going to sell them the the other nine or

whatever. You say declare excess. We can cut them all access. I mean, I would say see what the parks board wants and then go from there. Yeah. So, I I personally would be interested in Would you need to um cut down trees and things in order for the solar to work? Well, would you need to cut down trees for the solar to work? Well, uh it's a potential, you know, but you know, we have to look into it. Our vision would be to, you know, put them wherever we can in conjunction with the benefit. And then uh if they're in the far east, northeast corner, which is probably the most uh tree populated, we might not be able to go that far back. And 30 was just a finger in the air. I once upon a time walked and there was 31 benches like where there's three, you know, put one things like that. Yeah. So we would be very much interested in we pursue u I realize that they're you know AC electric 220 for some other reason. I think that's a state requirement. Uh but we would look at replacing the internals of the globe with solar lighting or solar pan be tremendously less expensive to buy. Uh the reality is the cost of those lights is the base and the top is whole $4500 because we had met our house. Yeah, I was just curious. So you declare them excess and the city parks would be very interested in pursuing and

clear. Do you have plans on replacing the sign over there? Replacing what? The sign. No, we're painting it. Yes, ma'am. We have plans on replacing the sign. All right. Funny you should bring that up. Yes, that's okay. We uh uh we we actually are are looking actively looking at what potential access we will have with the U grant. And probably the first highest priority thing we should have the bids in by Monday I believe uh is to track seal and seal the pack. We've got some rather attractive bids on how to shop this up. We got about 10 somewhere between eight and $12,000 left that we could do. And we'll have to buy the obstacles for the skate park. So, we actually got two of those [Music] came over. It looks good over there. the a sign which shocked me. It's a good point and I'm sure you guys are okay too. Titan signs over in Salem. You can buy some really attractive get some really attractive custom signs from them at a song. I mean the one that we did at Campbell Park with the intended picture and the banner underneath it. $280. Well, we we declared those excess earlier today, so I think you can just negotiate negotiate that with Roger whenever you decide how many you need for sure and go from there. So, think

good there. Any other new business from anyone? I didn't have anything, but I did want to circle back on old business really quick. I know, and I keep talking about this one. I feel like I'm very right now, but the recycling component, did we extend hours for that yet? for the recycle? No, we have not. Okay. We did get a camera just get a camera installed last week. So, we haven't done anything on the hours, but we did have just for y'all's information, we had uh about 53 loads dumped out there for the cleanup. Filled three dumpsters up so far. So, they taking advantage of it for the spring clean up. Anyway, we have the end of this week as well. Yeah, we have this Friday and Saturday as well. Shane was really pleased with the turnout so far. So, anything else from anybody? Seek a motion to adjurnn. I'll make a motion. Motion a second. I'll second. Second. All in favor? Five.