Town Council - Regular Meeting

Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. N. kick it off. I know it's police matters, but this is just as you guys know in our capital improvement plan, uh we had proposed the construction of a police substation training facility and uh the council did authorize us to look at an option that had come up and so we wanted to kind of give you an update on where

we're at on that. Um as you guys know, whenever we purchase property, we have to do uh two appraisals and we're only able to pay the average of two appraisals. So, you do have a copy, and I did the quick and dirty work in in my handwriting at the top of the first page. You'll notice that's the average of the two appraisals. Uh, you do have copies of at least a couple of the pages from the appraisals that I shared with you as well. Um, as you guys are aware, this was a formerly a shooting range. And so, uh, we also did an environmental assessment. We got that back. Uh, there was the presence of one environmental concern, uh, which was lead from the firearms. I don't know a lot about lead from firearms. So I I'm gonna defer to Tom and Sean who have become experts in this matter if I may say and they'll give you a little bit of an update and maybe walk you guys through. Uh Tom's also been doing the negotiating with the property owner on the purchase agreement. So I'll let him kind of walk you guys through what the property owner is proposing as well. So I'll I'll turn it over to them. Um, I'll just go ahead and start off um just to try to dispel any myths that might be out there. Uh, the first thing is as soon as people hear the word lead, it's immediate. It's like, "Oh my gosh, this is like uranium. It's going to be here for 10,000 years. It's it's never going to be gone and you can't ever go back in that area." That's not true. Uh, we've been reassured by the remediation company that uh, lead's actually very easy to clean up. Uh, it's very simple. they come in and and it's done in a matter of a couple different uh ways, but it includes sweeping it up. It's just it's it's almost overly simplified. Uh they obviously wear the protective gear. It's going to settle down. Then they're going to come back. They're going to wipe everything down. We're going to have air test done and things of that nature to make sure that it's safe before we would ever um occupy the the building for training. Um I'm going to kind of turn it over to Tom. he's

been dealing with the remediation company a little bit. He can probably talk a little bit more about that and then see if you have any questions about the the lead part of it.

So there's two issues with the lead in there. One is uh the accumulation of it behind the bullet trap. So the end of the range there's quite a bit. So they would collect that in a different way than the rest of the building. They would use uh hea vacuums and what they call a wet wipe to clean everything off. and the the large amount at the end by the bullet traps they would uh capture, seal up and chip off to another place to dispose of that. So they uh gave us an estimate not to exceed $75,000 for the cleanup and that includes the uh entire building. They said it would take about 3 weeks start to finish and then they would be done.

So I'm seeing the estimate 757 not to exceed. But my question would be how often are they recommending that we repeat this process when we are using it ourselves after we own it? So we're going to switch to lead free so it would be frangible ammunition so we wouldn't have the lead concern going forward. Okay. Uh I'd recommend we do another test after the cleaning just to make sure everything's fine and then a subsequent while we're still using it just to confirm. Sure. Um, in your negotiations, is the seller willing to cover the cost of the 757 because it is an environmental health issue?

Uh, yeah, removing it from the purchase price. So, he originally didn't want to sell it. He wanted to continue to lease it. Uh, so I got him to agree to sell it. Um, and then based on the average of the two estimates we got for the value of the building, he would take the 757 off that price. Okay, good. Um, and then do we have estimates on what a new buildout will cost? If you remember, um, when we met with, uh, the the engineer that we started working with on the project to start the initial design work at the other location, the other location, there was going to be right out of the gate, um, I think it was just over $120,000 just to move the sewer line.

So, that's one of the things that was going to have to we were going to have to do. I think the other uh meeting that we had, he threw out a price when he was pressured a little bit um at about $370 a square foot.

And we're talking about a 15,000 square foot building. That's going to come out to be several millions of dollars. Um based off of what the appraisals came in at here, uh it's going to be substantially less to purchase this property. We feel like it's in a better location. it's the the same size or very comparable to what we were going to build. Uh most of it is already built to suit our needs. We do have to do some repairs, which is something that uh Ryan and I were working on as far as working with RDC possibly to try to see if we can somehow do those as we move on down the road once we take um possession of the building and so forth. So, uh substantial savings as far as building. Um we feel like it's in a better location. Um the building itself's in really good shape uh because it is a metal um frame building. So um it's and it also has a lot more room for expansion not just outward towards the bays but also up that has never been um uh remodeled or anything like that. So

you ask about the remodel costs. I did ask about the remodel cost. So I think what what we've talked about as a total project budget would be $2.5 million. Okay. 1.5 to buy the property and a million dollars to remodel. So, okay. And I just did a quick look up. We were projecting $16 million for us to build the facility new was what we had in the capital improvement plan. Again, substantially substantial amount of money, but it's substantially less to go this route versus the other route. Mhm. No, I think we're fortunate that it, you know, became available the way even the way that it did when we were looking for something. So,

the other piece we should probably share was that I think you guys will like um you know, we always ask would would you let us split the price up over a certain number of years and Tom did get the property owners to agree to that. So Tom, would you walk them through? I'm not sure exactly what figures ended up being, but yeah. So the first payment would be $400,000 uh this year at the time of closing. Then the remainder split up over 2027 and the first part of 2028. So it would be even between 27 28 about half million. Okay. With interest.

So again, we would be able to pay it over three years, which again helps our cash flow. It also helps the police department to be able to do those re some of those remodeling expenses upfront. Uh our proposal is to use the HR tiff money. Julie paid off the HR bond on February 1st.

So we will probably have to amend um our plan for the tiff to allow us to use it for projects and specifically for the police station. But that's we can get with Ice Miller and go through that process. That's pretty simple. We do that every time we we do create a new TIF. You do that anyway. If you guys remember, there's always a TIFF plan in there and it says we're going to use it for things. We'll just have to amend it. The original one we think just said to pay the bond back. That tiff's bringing in about $1.2 million a year. So, the payments that Tom did plus the remodeling, we would basically be able to afford those out of the tip fund. Tom is going to go talk to the RDC on Monday night as well to give them this this kind of same update. One other thing um that even though he allowed us to spread the payments out, he did ask for interest um for the unpaid amount after the closing. So the about $1.1 million.

Um he originally asked for 6%. Um Julie quickly called the bank and found out that we could borrow the money for $4.75%. So Tom went back to him and he said, "Well, fine. I'll I'll I'll do it for 5%." So there is some interest in there. I know that isn't what happened on some of the previous ones, but again 5% interest is is pretty good. And for our cash flow, yeah, I think that works still works pretty well for us. So sorry. Yeah, no closing costs if we do it this way. And

there were a couple things he proposed about like quarterly payments, but we may try to negotiate some of those things. So are you putting together an amortization schedule then to show this payment schedule with the as we move forward they have uh submitted a proposed purchase agreement that I've shared with Dan and Anna to start reviewing and that would probably be our next step is we'll we'll get it into a sources and uses document for you Greg and schedule and kind of show you guys what that actually looks like. Um again before we got too far and started spending money to go forward with the buy. We wanted to make sure you guys were still on board and uh willing to keep moving forward.

So, are they going to prorrate our going to prorate taxes, things like that? They have agreed to that. And then, um they're going to pay title policy, all of those things that are typical in the purchase agreement. I know you said no closing costs, but I'm wondering how those other typical fees and things were going to pass through. Purchase agreement is 48 pages long. We've just begun to review, but Yeah. Okay. All right. Can we pay more with all these added in carrying cost than the average appraisal? Because when you add it all together,

we can't pay more yet. This is just the purchase price purchase price. The the the two appraisal rules only purchase price. All right. What's your opinion on the interest? Prime rate 675 now. So if you're at 5% you're 175 less. That's why I want to see your amortization schedule because then once once you make your second I'll call it principal payment. Then that shrinks your your balance and then your interest rate tied to that. So that's

that'll tell you what your extra carrying cost is. Okay. What about there was conversation early on that they wanted to pass this liability on to us for the environmental um cleanup. We're not doing that, are we?

Well, that's again that's maybe why the purchase agreement is 48 pages and why I've got Dan looking at that. So, I know that was a conversation I think they had with Tom. Again, I'd defer to Dan on that to see how they're addressing that in the purchase agreement, but yeah, my guess is they're asking us, and I think Tom said that he wanted to put an indemnification in the purchase agreement that he wouldn't be responsible for it. So, that's not up to us. We're we're getting the environmental cleanup. We'll get the indemnification letter from IDM or whoever's going to issue it, but until we get that, it's their responsibility. I don't want to take on that liability.

Yeah, we don't want to close on it until such time as that's remedied, mitigated completely. Under the law, they remain in the loop of ownership. Well, they're in the loop of ownership. So, you can go back to everybody that owned that property, but there's only been one owner, right?

Right. But if they if they're asking you to dify them from their statuto obligations, I I would probably the thing I like about what Tom said is that if we they're willing to basically pay for it by giving credit, but we can control the methods and means of the remediation. I I prefer that. I'd rather our people watch them and be satisfied rather than I like that part of it. But yeah, the implementation we'll advise you about that if it's in I haven't gotten that far yet it's four it's a lot longer than I was saying. So, we've been through many phases. I've been through

I think what what Tom's negotiated is good for us except for that point. And then you've got this environmental insurance company that's saying, "Hey, we do X, Y, and Z. We're going to give you a clean bill of health. They shouldn't have any concern about it. It's still their indemnification, right? And they're insured for 2 million up to 10 on their umbrella." So, take a little hard look at I hear you. Other than that, I like it. Mhm. Yeah. Good job.

My only other question for you, Chief, is we've done a lot of work at this station here. We a lot of add-ons, a lot of improvements, and we're going to build and now this is a a better option. What does this do for you and your department? we'll say for the next 10, 15, 20 years down the road, do you have ample space to add on staff to create uh additional space for whatever the use may be?

Yeah. So, there's already plenty of office space because this is not going to be something that's going to be housing a lot of officers on a daily basis. This may have one or two training officers that might be down there and then the people that are going to be coming there on a regular basis are going to be the police officers that are doing the training. So, they're not going to need office space for that. So, there's already enough office space there. There's enough training um classrooms there space. The uh space that we have for the range itself is is almost four times the size of what we planned in the building that we were going to try to build. Um the free space where the bay doors are, there's more than enough room there to build the indoor um shoot house for the simunition training and things of that nature. Plus, there's extensive storage. All of that is already there for what we were going to build in the old in the other building, but at the same time, there's space above that hasn't even been developed yet. And that's above the office area, the common area, the entryway if you've ever been in there. Um, it's even possible to build above the range uh because of the steel. I know it sounds kind of scary, but it's it's really not because of the safety features that are designed in there. It's nothing's going to get through the through the ceiling. Um, especially with frangible ammunition, it's just a composite. It's almost like dirt, dust that's packed together and it just turns to dust on impact. Still dangerous, but it's not like lead. Um, so there's plenty of room for expansion. There's also room outside because the parking lot is so big uh for a K9 area. We've already kind of scoped out that area where we could fence in. Uh there might be a little bit of u excavation work and that needs to be

that needs to be done in an area uh where there's a deep drain, but uh we've already kind of talked to some people about that. That's easily uh made into a level flat area by adding drainage tile and back fill dirt and things of that nature. So it's probably even better than what we could have built down at the salt bar in the same space. And that's in our opinion. So, yeah, we were pretty excited when this opportunity came up and it was uh it was it was pretty apparent that it was going to be a lot less expensive. Um it was going to be more than what we need for the next 20 or 30 years. Now, if you're going to have a hundred people down there at a time trying to train, that might be a little difficult, but we're not even close to having that many people down there at one time. Um, I know that the other building when we were going talking about the salt barn location, you had said about the gym, but now we have the gym already in the other facility. So, you're not thinking about moving it or anything like that?

No. The officers are very happy with the facility. Okay. Uh, that we've created downstairs now.

Okay. Good. Looks like a win-win. All right. Next is uh prohibiting mailbox parking. never even crossed my mind until I had a complaint come in. It was just two neighbors disputing and one neighbor decided the way to get back at the other was park in front of their mailbox and there wasn't any thing we could do really about it. So, we had to defer them really. Drew with the uh public works or I'm not exactly sure who he's with, but

enforcement. Yeah, he came over to me with the problem and I looked into things and we didn't have anything. So, we had to refer them to the postal inspector. I don't like not being able to help our citizens and so I felt like it's something that we needed and then uh Anna helped and drafted it up. So, um comments, questions? Well, the the postal specs are it can't do anything, right? Right.

Well, that's just it though. They don't and they take it back to the post office and it sits. I I have never known the post office to do anything with something like this anywhere. There is a federal statute that would allow them to, but I don't believe that they enforce it.

I've never known that they've ever done anything anywhere. And I happen to have a relative that was a postmaster. So they they just don't get involved in it. I know we had talked about the parking um issue in the one neighborhood and we decided we didn't want to be the ones to try and enforce that. What do you what do you guys assume that you're in Korea? I mean, you've only said you've only had one of these in the last however many years. Do you anticipate getting additional calls for service out on this if we pass this?

I don't think it's going to be an overwhelming issue at all, but I just wanted us to be able to shore up some areas that I thought we were lacking in and at least give us some ability to help citizens and instead of just tell them, hey, shake hands and be nice because if we can't help, then usually it gets worse. Sure. And we don't need that. So, I don't think we're going to have an exponential situation where we have a lot of these ordinances to deal with. I just felt like we needed it. Sure. So, having having said that, Dan, I guess I'm going to go to the legal aspect of this.

Can associations enforce these kind of things? Um, you mean associations. Yeah, they can enforce their own covenants. They can't they cannot enforce our ordinances. But it but are they they can have the same they could put something like this in their That's what I was asking. They could enforce it. Yes, it' be I've never heard that done, but I I have

almost every town and city has has an or has a provision like this. I'm surprised that we didn't. Someone had asked me, "Can you park in front of a mailbox in a I would have said, oh no, you can't do that." That's what I would have said because every other uh code of ordinance I know says that. But um Did you write this?

Yeah, I like it. I think it's I think it's good. I also think that just for the same reason that uh Dave talked about is often the only times I've been aware it's kind of a spiteful thing. And if you think about um Anna reminded me as she often does that, you know, in this day and age, some people receive their medicine by mail and that that makes this really much a whole different thing than just getting your mail. Yeah. You know, so I do think it's something we need to protect. And I think it's something where if we had an orders like this, it would probably be a two-minute conversation and that car would have gotten moved because Dave could have said, "I'm going to have to write you a ticket if you don't do this." And but the the idea of uh I think what really drives it over for me is the idea that people if they get their medicine, and a lot of people do now, they get their medicine by the mail and they can't get that, you could we could have problems. So it's more than just a nuisance now in my opinion. So my my initial thought when this came through is it's an HOA problem and it's the HOA educating their people and let them police it. But because do we really want our resources out there going and resolving mailbox disputes on a regular basis when we've got, you know, hostage situations and and other things going on, retail thefts and more important things. So my my first thought was was that. Um and then secondly, I guess my next thought immediately following that was, you know, just with the climate nationally of people not liking law enforcement intruding or overstepping and things like that. So then we have our police out there and we say, "Oh, look, you got

to move your car or you're going to get a ticket." Well, they don't. And then we say, "Okay, well, we're going to tow your car." And it's just like an escalating thing where it makes people more angry at our law enforcement when we're wanting you guys supported for the important things, not policing who parked in front of the mailbox. So those are, you know, I'm hearing the one side, but on the counter side, those are things that I'm trying to weigh out as well.

Well, the reality of it is is we get called now for things that I would consider to be not as serious or as aggravating to homeowners and neighbors as that. We get called because someone mowed their grass and their grass clippings went over the property line into the other person's yard. So, we're already dealing with those type of things, right? I just think that this would help. We we don't intend to drive around these neighborhoods and and find a car parked in front of a mailbox and just write the ordinance. It's just a tool for us to help resolve a peace a peacefully hopefully resolve a situation so that two neighbors don't end up fist fighting in the street over this. Uh

um and I and I just I think that you know from an HOA perspective since I happen to sit on an HOA is that you know I think it would be beholding for us to educate our people as you have indicated at least we have the threat knowing that you know there is something on the books that's they're going that they're violating. But I think we should take the first steps to try to prevent those kind of things in the HOA.

It brings me back to an educational thing and Ryan, I know we've talked about that before with communications department here. It's an educational thing and if we can use our platform to talk about those things again I think that's why we have the communications department it's not to just say hey there's a meeting on Thursday it's to educate that's why we develop that department and I think this is another instance in which we should utilize that department for that

I I think we've got such a diverse community now that not everybody is well aware of the requirements such as your license plates have to be renewed. Uh not parking in front of mailboxes. Uh not parking the wrong way in in a neighborhood. And quite frankly, some neighborhoods are older than the town and so they don't have the city street widths to withstand some of this stuff that goes on in in Avon. So, I I was lean I was leaning toward, you know, letting letting the associations deal with it, but I kind of like the fact that there's something on the books that we can fall back on, not necessarily use it as a first event, you know, is calling the police to take care of it. that you know we as as association should work those things out and if it becomes impossible um I mean I I've seen some some places where cars are broken down in front of a mailbox and people have to go pick up their mail because they can't get their car moved or they won't get their car moved. Uh and it's not like it's an operational car but it sits on the road. So anyway,

first form of deterrence is usually dispar or just the knowledge of of a code whether it's a statute or not only is it a tool that we will have when we need it, but it's also a tool like said we use it and educate the community that it's there. It itself is going to probably return to that cause someone to think twice about parking in front of their neighbor because the man or something like that.

We're going to respond anyway. So, would we rather respond to a parking complaint or would we rather respond after that parking complaint has already escalated to a domestic dispute between two neighbors? Uh would rather handle it at the lowest level form possible. I know it's we don't want to waste the resources. Um like Dave said, we're not going to be out there proactively. We're not going to set put up a task force that goes out and it's the mailbox parking task force. It's not going to be like that. Um this is just a tool so that when someone does call in, we've we have something there that we can actually go out. We may not even go out and write the ticket, but we may go out and educate them and say, "I'm not going to give you a ticket if you move it right now, but if you don't, here's the ordinance. it's it's going to cost you some money. It's easier just to move it. We can settle this dispute another way. Uh so that's that's all that's all we're asking for. U it's just another level of deterrence. Just hopefully we'll only ever have to use it, but at least if we do, it's there. It's

two things. It gives you another arrow in your quiver for one. Two, I don't have a homeowners association, so we can't rely on homeowners associations to do it. And three, we don't have that problem in my subdivision anyhow. You got white streets. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Oh, and you misspelled compelling in the resolution, Dan. Sean. Uh, next is the buy money program.

You want to start? You want me to start? You go ahead. Or you want Julie to start? It involves Julie can handle.

So, this Yeah. So, this this involves uh just about everybody, it seems like. So, uh, one of the problems we ran into last year is we had, uh, a pretty in-depth investigation into, um, massage parlors that were being accused of doing, um, some solicitation and inappropriate touching and things of that nature. We had a little bit of buy money from a group that we um were a part of through MLAlin. Uh, it's not part of the general fund. It's not part of any organization uh, that's with the government. It's a private organization. They provided that buy money about probably 13 or 14 years ago when we had this problem once before and we used most of it and then what we didn't use they didn't want it back. We have it in a file. We tracked it all and it's been sitting there ever since. So when they needed some last year to finish up that investigation, uh they depleted that pretty quick because there was only about $100 or so in there. Um, so we said, "Okay, check back with McGlaughlin. Maybe they can give us some more money." They don't do that anymore. Um, so what we did was we talked with uh Dan and found out that uh there is a way to establish a buy money ordinance. Um, he made some recommendations. It seemed pretty uh in line with what we do here at our level. Um, we're obviously this is not Miami. Um, this is not San Antonio, Texas, or somewhere where you're going to be spending thousands and thousands of dollars a day on buy money for criminal informants, undercover drug buys. Uh, you might be trying to purchase stolen cars. It could be a number of things. Um, so we try to build that amount off of what our needs might be here. Um, and so that we wouldn't have to keep coming back and asking for more money. So that's kind of how that amount came

about. Um there was some some changes that we we asked be put in here because it was initially just kind of directed towards drug buys because that's what usually people think of. But um we also do other kind of operations um where it's fencing operations where people are stealing things and then they put them up on uh Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace or something like that. Um and then so then you're trying to set up a buy. you may not get the stolen item that time, but you know that that's that's the person that's got it. So maybe you're going to go get it the next time. So that the money can go fairly quick if you're not careful. Um so it does require a little bit of amount to be uh put back so that you have it there available when you need it. So, this initial fund balance would come from a line item for something we've already approved in the budget for the police department.

Well, it's from what I understand, it's pretty clear where it has to come from and I think Julie could even maybe expand on that a little bit. Well, you'll appropriate the money for that. It's going to be its own fund, right? Um, you'll appropriate the money for that fund. Um there's a lot of internal controls that go along with it. It's there's a lot of checks and balances um that in tracking its own receipt book and everything, but basically you'll just appropriate money to that fund. But where's that money coming from out of our budget we've already established?

Well, you can't transfer money fund to fund. So since this is its own fund, you would transfer this out of funds without appropriation. So let's just say that when Julie puts your money in the bank, you're in interest. You don't appropriate that. That money's never been appropriated. You'll come back at the end of the year. You have the option to appropriate it. So this appropriation is comes from funds without appropriation. Uh stands by itself. You you do that. Uh if this were all general fund money, you could do a reduction of one line and an increase in that line, but you can't move money fund to fund. So because this state board of council requires this to be its own fund, the only way to do it is to appropriate it from funds without um appropriation.

So you're reappropriating it from the general fund. No. From the fund balance or fund balance fund balance, not quite the same thing. Yeah. And it may not the $10,000 was a placeholder. It may not need to be that much. And then you know when you guys approve a budget every year you have an account an amount that we would budget then in the future going forward once we do it just like just like you do for le fund and every other fund we would propose a budget for it and then you guys would approve it going forward and according to the DGF we have plenty of money to do this theoretically speaking say that Julie theoretically speaking that's true

wonder they're mad at Theoretically speaking, you seed this account, you seed this money and then it's used, but it's recovered. So, the idea is that you put money in there and then in the long run, it kind of takes care of itself. And but to the extent that doesn't happen, you may need to replenish that account from time to time. The state board of accounts has lots of regulations of a fund like this, as you might imagine. They need it to be transparent in the respect that people need to see that we're not hiding money in a fund like this. That's one of the reasons that the proposed appropriation is relatively small given the size of your budget. We're not saying put $100,000 there and use it for whatever. It's very controlled. And then what we did was we told the chief that if you're if you want to do something like this, it's done all the time, but they're very specific rules. And that's why they have all these rules. It's for the integrity of the overall program obviously and accountability.

One last question then. So we make a traffic stop and drugs are involved and cash is involved and it goes through the process and they're guilty and we get some percentage of whatever cash vehicle sold whatever. Can we take those funds and put it in this account then? They actually kind of recommend that. Yeah, that's what I all I needed to know source of funds. Yeah, it says court ordered forfeitures and donations of seized money, right? So, it does

and that money could be just depends if on your luck there's $100,000 you get 50. Now you got 50,000 in an account that we may only need 10, but it's there. Got it. Um, and then it says it's a non-reverting fund. So, if we spend $6,000 out of that 10,000, then how does it get replenished? It doesn't get replenished till the next year's budget. No. What non-reverting means is that uh for a general fund or a a if it for mo for all of your funds that are not non-reverting at the end of the year any money any appropriations that's left in that go to zero.

Okay. And so all this means is that whatever money you the town council decide to whatever appropriation you agree to that does not get lost at the end of year that money is going to stay in that account. Okay. And it's not going to go to the general fund. Okay, that's what that means. It's going to stand on its own, right? Two feet. Okay. And the only people who can take that money out of there would be you, the town council. Okay. Okay. But it doesn't naturally go back to the general fund. Okay. Thank you.

Anything else, guys? Are you looking for guidance on us on the amount? If you guys want to provide guidance, yeah, this would be the time. And we're looking for guidance. Are you willing to institute a program? The next step on votes to buy money in the prohibiting construction of mailboxes would be to put the ordinances on your agenda. So yeah, if you guys want to give us input, if you like them, don't like them. That that's what we're looking for. And then again, we'll put them on your agenda if it's something you guys are willing to do. If you don't, then we'll move on. I'm good with both ordinances. Is $10,000 seems sufficient to you?

Well, in the last 13 years or so, only use about a thousand and it's like Ann says it's non reverting. Um if we start at 10 and we down to eight the next year we we don't have to always keep it at 10 every single year. We may wait until might not have to think about this for five years 10 years. Yeah. Cost of living and everything else goes up. Well so does drugs and so does fencing operations and stuff like that. a little more. So, this ordinance doesn't require us to keep it at 10,000 every year. It's just what we're starting at, right? Okay.

Then we would do it in the budget process every year going forward. So, even in June, we would propose a budget. We look at again, this is what we do anyway. We may say there's still $10,000 in there, so next year we're only going to budget 5,000. Remember, the appropriation is your approval for us to spend it, which just means when you appropriate it, they can use it. And so that's and again, we would make sure we keep a fund balance in there and that we can keep it rolling. Like Greg's example, if they were to get a $10,000 thing, but we may say, "Yeah, we're going to budget $10,000 fund balance still keeps going." We we put in more than what we actually needed.

Okay. The only other thing I have is maybe we could create a definition for what is buy money program. If someone looks at that and they go, "What? What is the police buy money program? What are you talking about? Just maybe define it. They're going to go buy money. It's for the holiday party or something." You know, something you're like squeaking over here. I don't know what you're doing. That must be my old chair. Oh, is it maybe your chair?

Hey, Greg. In the first paragraph, it does have a definition. Would you want something more than that? It says whereby use I just saw this for the first time, so I haven't read it. But that's why I'm asking you. Is that correct? It says appropriate for use in undercover drug purchases, prostitution investigation, human traffic investigations, fencing theft investigation, and other criminal investigation required use of fine money. Perfect. Okay, perfect. Thank you. I'm good with them. All right, Shelby.

Hello. Um, I know we have two things on this agenda. They kind of tie me hand in hand, so I hope by the end you've got a good cohesive plan just ties everything up for you. Um, first I'd like to start with naming our parks and trails. Thank you. Naming our parks and trails. Um, one, this is a safety and security issue, which is our next topic, but two, there has never been any ordinance passed, anything to name any park, any trail, anything. I jokingly refer to this park as Ant Park because the sign out front says Avon Town Hall and Park. Ryan laughs at me every time,

but it's the truth. It's, you know, it's what the sign says that Julie didn't even see. Um, so I would like to propose and I'll pass these out. Um, park names. Sorry, I only made 10 of these, so you guys are going to have to share. Do you want to pass this out? Thank you. So, as you guys know, um well, I'm going to give it in my department update during the meeting, but um we have three park projects out to bid right now. Finally. I know, right? I know. Yay.

So, uh with that, obviously, we need to put names to these parks so that we can start referring to them as such and the public starts realizing that, hey, this is going to be a park and this is going to be the name of it. Um, so in this is multiple options. Um, all of which have the same feel of the generic sign. It does not have to be this. This is just a visual for you guys to to see what this could look like. So, uh, I'll walk through all of them. Starting with Town Hall Park and Park. Um, we could name it something like Heritage Park and Trails or Lakeside Park and Trails. Um, I did discuss this with the park and wreck beautifification committee last night and they suggested maybe allowing the public to vote on some of these options. In my opinion, um, this would really be the park that the public would have any knowledge of at this point unless we upload all of the master plans and explain what everything is going to be in these parks, which they're going to be done in phases. So, it might not make as much sense to the public to do that. Um, so this park really is the only one that if you guys would like to do that, that's obviously up to you. I will do whatever. If you say go on all of these, then I will start to name all of these officially. So

I think it would be good to have community participation in doing it in just this one or in all of them. I think the other ones have names associated like the Bernett Woods, Bernett property. I mean that's it was the other one on 900. I don't know about that one. Went to Meadow or might be somebody they wanted because no one knows it's there. And then the summer lot obviously is a summer lot property. You need to look through this packet. Greg, I'd love for there to be a theme. If you'd hand this stuff out for the name. I like the theme. Might want to call one zoo and trails. Well, that'll be the cemetery up here.

We don't object to doing some public participation in the naming. I I may take you back to when we attempted to do that on some of the street naming and we've got a bunch of names like podium fake road. I was gonna say don't have a write in option.

No again. So this has kind of been an irritation of mine for a very long time that there's no names for any of our trails in our parks. And so one of the things that really defines us as a community is the things that we have in our community. We don't have character and we don't have names for those things. People don't even know that they're parks or they don't even know how to refer to them. Even when we talk when Shelby and I have conversations we're not even know that the world is talking about the state park. So this is kind of been one of the things I've challenged Shelby on that I really want to do. But the other part of the challenge is we have like eight parks and we have like 25 trails. We can't ask the public to help us navigate eight parks and 25 trails. Now, for example, what Shelby just suggested, like at the town hall, if we narrow it to two or three and we say vote on one of these two or three, maybe that's okay. But I don't want to do that for eight parks and 25 trails. It'll be a ton of work. And at some point, we just need to make a decision and say, "Here's what we're going to call them, and we're going to pass a resolution and say, these are the name of our parks." and then we're all going to move forward and we're going to do it. So again, don't mind some public input, but I can't do it with everything probably. And so again, I challenge Shelby to come to you guys with recommendations of names of parks.

And so that's what she's attempting to do today. The pickle patch. Don't look ahead. That's why you guys didn't have this in your packet. You're not supposed to look ahead about Canon Canyon. No, no, nothing. I said Cannonball Park for this one. The Heron Haven.

Yes. All right. The second page of this. Thank you so much. Um, these are just park names on here that I'm suggesting. The trails that are in these parks will have names associated with it. Um, in Tiffany's, uh, discussion here on the trail and safety plan, there are some of those names that you'll kind of see a theme and a pattern with. um on your second page. Um this is town the current town hall. Um doing a little facelift on it and it could be called the heron haven because the park has a theme of the blue heron and that was our old logo. Um so people would like to see that. I could see this being a a small rentable facility. This room being small wedding venue or French doors behind you guys. And you know, obviously we won't be here anymore, but um keeping that park property

the third page um should we start the budget for this now or? No, it's within the park costs which is being paid for out of the bond. So it's good. The third page um Greg, as you kind of alluded to, some of these obviously cannot be changed like the Bernett Woods Park and Nature Preserve. Currently, it is the Bernett Woods Nature Preserve. We're not going to name a park something different than that. So, we've discussed with the Central Indiana Land Trust about this name and making it cohesive so that people realize, oh, there's a park here and then there's the nature preserve.

Um, moving down the Homestead Hollow Park um could be what I would refer to as Summerlot as what you guys know. Um the park plans for that kind of fit that kind of homestead um not campish but lodge type vibe um for that park. So calling it something like Homestead Hollow um park and lodge because there we there's a plan to build an event space for that. So that could be the lodge. Um going to the Wood Haven Park that would be what you guys know as Winton Meadows. Um, that park is situated in between three big housing additions, only one of which being called Winton Meadows. So, I don't think it was I didn't think it was right to just call it Winton Meadows Park. That that makes it seem like their HOA would own the the park. So, that's why I'm suggesting a name change with that one. And then the Pickle Patch. See, you're laughing. That's great because um you're going to remember that name and it's not it's supposed to be a fun outlandish name that you know people are going to say hey let's go to the patch and play pickle ball or you know you're going to remember that and you're going to it's funny it's not a stoic you know heritage park name it's fun which is what pickle ball is on the next page um are the three uh sport properties that we have. So, foundation park would be the old AJAA um you know building that foundation starting where the game begins. Um the three fields that we purchased last year would be Apex Park which is like the next level from foundation and then the indoor facility could be called the summit. Um and then you know obviously that's your indoor training your um you're trying to go to the summit you know you're trying to get there. So,

and then this isn't in your packet. Um, but I may have named the other building for the police department going along with this. Um, just I was just having fun. Sorry. Um, so it could be called the forge where strength is made, developed, and refined, which is perfect. Here to serve you guys. Okay. So, just just ideas. Um, I have for the last three years gone over and over. Ryan and I have talked about these names countless times and he's right. It is time to just pull the plug. I was about to say pull the trigger, but I won't say that. Um, pull the plug on what we're going to call these because there are they're going to be online this year. Three of them are.

I I like I like the design of these. I think they're beautiful markers. Um, I think for the town hall here, I kind of like the heritage park one because this is where it began. Yeah. Versus the heron. I mean, we have herand here and there's herand in the heritage room here. So, yeah, I kind of think that that name fits this. Yeah, that's what that's what the goal I like the lakeside park because it used to be the fishing park back here before it was us. Yeah, that's pretty, too. Yeah, I would the heron one would be the one that I would just take out.

Bernette Woods is fine. Wood Haven's fine. If you hand out candy, I'd go with this the sour patch pickle. Yeah, I kind of like how you uh you know did this in stages. I think if the signs have these words under them, then it's kind of explains itself. Yeah, I think that's good, too. Why don't we Why don't we I'm not sure about the park and lodge. To me, a lodge would mean you can check in and stay there.

Well, it would be like a retreat kind of place. I Yeah, I totally get where you're coming from on that. And that's kind of, you know, do you call it a retreat center? Do you call it a what do you you know? Um, so I was kind of going with this what that building would look like. Um, right now it's kind of Well, we haven't finished the plans for that park, but kind of old barn theme. um woodland lodge type. Okay. So, that's kind of where that lodge came from. Or, you know, it doesn't have to be lodge, like I said. Yeah. Your foundation park could also be Heritage Park. I mean, that's where AJA's been there for 60 years. Yep.

But it was that's the foundation where a lot of these kids came from sports. So, I get that, too. Yeah. So, if you didn't use the heritage here and you use Lakeside Park here, then it could be the heritage one down there. I kind of like the mountain theme though that that she's got on all three there. What do you mean the mountain? You know, the summit, the apex, the foundation, next level of success, right? I I think we should sell them to the highest bidder starting at 50,000. Here you go. There you go. State Bank. Chick-fil-A park. There you go. Yeah,

it's fun. If you have a big investor, absolutely. I'd rather have an an indoor athletic complex, but okay. No, I think this this makes it cohesive and I think when somebody sees, you know, this design, they know it's a park. So, cohesiveness, they'll associate it with Avon Parks. I mean that logo will be on it somewhere, you know, an address will be on the side of it up here and it'll it'll just all look and you go anywhere in Planefield and you see that P, you go on any trail and it's there, that's kind of their thing, this type of sign could be ours. Would these be would these have lighting on them to see at night?

Um, just up lighting. We're not going to light the parks up, but just uplighting so that people could see. Oh, hey, there's an entrance right here because people coming to an event that's after dark, they would want to be able to see the signage. I guess this Okay. Did you do this yourself or did you work with context design? Um, I worked with a firm called Chat GPT. So, we don't need context design anymore is what you're saying. That's right. I love So I I guess I wish the architecture like stone and stuff. That's just what chat GPT did. No, I I told it to make that like that's the feel I wanted it.

The names of the park is what we want you to focus on, not necessarily the design. Is this plagiarism? I really like the signs. I'm not saying the signs couldn't be that way, but for now focus on we would have to find out if we could actually produce the signs remain tech GP design and it all rolls into trail safety because we can't move forward with trail safety if we don't have names. Yeah. Yeah. Which I'll roll into. Are we do you have any any other feedback thoughts? I like it. We put together a resolution and a plan will support it. If you put together a plan, then we'll think about a resolution. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Oh jeez. You do it in less than 27 years, please. Yeah.

I'd like to see you do it in less than 27 years. Yeah. Right. Um so the next thing we want to talk about is our trail and safety plan. Um which goes hand inand with naming all of these trails and parks. And really um I'm going to let Tiffany talk about that. She has been working on this as a special project over the last few weeks and she's done an amazing job in my opinion. Tiffany. Sorry. Yes. Tiff. Well, where's Tiffany? Maybe they've met Tiffany. This is Tiffany.

This is Tiffany Bates. Um, she came to us when I promoted um when I put out that we were going to hire another full-time position. Um, the park development and special projects director. Tiffany applied for it and through the interview process, she was the one that was selected for this role. She comes to us from the part-time event planner role with us. So, um, like I said, she's done a fabulous job. This is the first project I gave to her and she took it in stride and I think we're ready to move forward with it if you guys like it. But, uh, yeah, basically because I don't know half of what's going on with bigger projects. So, this is easier for me to jump into first. But, um, really it's fairly simple. Signage is the most important thing. wayfinding signs, mile marker signs along the trails, and then color coordinating with maps. So, that's essentially the bottom line, color coordinating, wayfinding, and signage. I met with Dave. I've also met with Jason Porter from the fire department and Greg O'Brien from dispatch, and we've all kind of coordinated on how we can make things easier for our first responders as well. Um, and those were the the main things. So, in your packets, you've got some some ideas that I had on what those would look like, but it all again ties back into making sure that things are named. Um, once the parks are named, then we can name everything within the park. And one of the biggest things is making sure that all of the smaller landmarks are named as well. So, all shelters should be named. Right now, we've got shelters in this park that are not named. Um, all trails should be named appropriately and going forward, anything that ties into any of our other parks that we do, they should all follow suit and be uniform throughout the town. And striping the

trails will really become important as our trails start to intersect and cross. So once somebody crosses onto a different trail, they will easily be able to look down and see that they've left their trail they started on and are now on a different trail. Um, the main wayfinding signs will have a QR code that goes back to a map on our website that they can scan once they get on the trail and they can have the map with them. Fairly simple. And that's really the the basis of it. It's not it's not super complicated. I think I I like these designs. I like that it has our town logo in it. I think the yellow is hard to read and I was thinking maybe orange and then the second page has it in orange. I think that's much easier to read than this

than what's shown here on the yellow. It's hard to read the white lettering on the yellow. Yeah, there will have to be multiple different colors and then we'll have to figure out which ones work best for visibility. Um, those signs, the outer edges of the signs would be reflective. Um, and we can always make the lettering on them reflective if we needed to, but for now, what I had anticipated was that the reflective border would be on there. M and is the idea for every single trail to have a different color because you have 25 trails and I don't know I don't know 25 colors.

So let's say for instance this park in and of itself has the circle the lake it's got the north trail. It's got this. So every trail within this park and headed out to 625 would be the same color. White lick would be the same color. Um, and then as we move forward, we would go from there. Would it be the same? The trail around the lake then that goes to the library. Yeah. Yep. That one would be the same color because this is a lakeside park. So everything within the Lakeside Park would be one color. Be one color. Yeah.

And then on the So the plan is a quarter mile. Every a sign every quarter mile. the loop around this this lake is just barely over half of a mile. So, fairly minimal signage there. Um, but there would be more defining characteristics on each sign. So, once they leave the north side of the lake and head north, that sign would then read at Lake Loop North or whatever whatever that would be. Not to jump ahead, but maybe I am. Mhm. Uh the emergency call stations. Uhhuh.

Do we have any uh regulations or recommendations on how far apart those should be? No. So, you really don't necessarily Let me back up. It depends on your budget because those call boxes should depend on safety. It should depend on safety. However, when you're talking about putting those call boxes out on trails, you're talking about getting the most expensive option because there is no electricity. So, that that would that would be my next comment about this. But, right,

but these trails, you know, are miles long and people have health issues sometimes, let alone predators. So, I mean, I'm thinking in terms of the health factor right now, somebody having a heart attack and I got to go, you know, threequarters of a mile to get to a post. I don't want to speak for Bill, but is there an industry standard? There's not. There's not that kind of a question. I think because most people have their cell phones with them,

it has changed. Like if you go to college campuses like they normally say their standard is they want one to be visible from wherever you can stand. The reality is on our park trails there's no way we would ever be able to put one and we'd spend millions of dollars and still not do that. And so I think what Don was just shared is the answer is that in some cases you try to put them around and have them in spots that may be strategic, but then that's the point of the mile markers is you have your cell phone and you can say I'm on the red trail at mile marker whatever and then at least I can get an emergency vehicle. Like right now if we call like and it's happened a couple times even in the town hall park someone will call and they'll be like I'm on the trail but we'll see ambulance driving. They don't have any idea what trail they're on

and so they don't know where to go. So at least we're getting them that system will help direct them to it. So yeah, we love to have one every 800 ft as long as we think in those terms. Absolutely. No, I I definitely think we are. I think that was what what she shared in in the proposal is yeah, we'd love to and maybe we start with trying to get one on every trailer or one in every park and then we see if we need more but we supplement the less expensive assign with a locator on it and so we're still making it safe and helping but not spending millions of dollars. Well, it's like when you're on the interstate, you know, you have the mile markers, you know, on there and you have to rely on your cell phone

but you have rest stops too. rest stops and that's that's exactly what we're proposing like those push buttons are going to be the rest stops mile marker signs on the trails right same concept

so the idea with maybe starting these would be um putting them on the most remote areas of the trails like white lick trail it's actually happened there was somebody that was like stranded over there and she called and nobody knew where she was and nobody knew how to get to her so in Tiffany's research and in talking with these three professionals Um Greg with the communications said they they essentially have a map and they can write notes on there. So if somebody calls and they're on Lake Loop West Trail, East Trail, West East Trail, that one back there, there is a very sharp curve in there and there's also a bridge that absolutely no vehicle could ever get past. They can make a note in there that says if somebody calls in this location on the red trail on Lake Loop East D if it's within this and this mile marker the fire department UTV you know whatever needs to be on that run. So then obviously all of all of police officers could see that too and it would just be a more defining thing they could go in. I mean, GIS will talk will take care of the um names of everything, but that was another thing that we felt was very important of naming these and putting the colors in and the call boxes.

So, Ryan, due to cost, you would not recommend the ones with the cameras. Well, I'd love to do the ones with the cameras. I mean, if we could we could do it. And I think as Tiffany even said in the report, there may be some just solely camera options, too, just for if something does happen, we can go back and pull the footage on cameras. Again, that gets to be a little expensive and we have to figure out how we get a how we power them or if they're solar powered, if they're battery powered, like it it gets complicated to have cameras. We have cameras in the town hall park now. We've had issues where people have broken into the bathrooms. we can go pull the camera footage and see what's coming and going in the bathrooms and figure that out remote on the trails. It gets to be a little more difficult

and solar gets difficult because of the tree coverage. So, well, I think this is a great idea. I mean, safety first. You know, when I looked here and I said, "Okay, where are we going to get the funding?" Things three things came to mind. We have our RIF funding, right? that we get. We have grants that we can apply for. And an unknown is what about our community crossing grant money? Can we use community crossing funds for something like this? It's trails. It's roads. Come on. Stretch. Go. Go to the boundaries.

We're talking about INDOT here. Does not stretching. It's very linear. Yeah. They won't let us use CC because it's gas tax. So they won't let us use it for that. They won't even let you use the for trails. Well, and this is something that you're not going to build out overnight. This is a work in process and we need to identify where do we want to get started, which we've kind of done here, where do we want to end up? We're going to take a step at a time. We're going to learn as we go. We're going to enhance it as we go. But at the end of the day, it's going to give our police the ability to find these people sooner, save lives. don't rely because you even say it in here. Everybody doesn't have a cell phone.

So, you know, you've got kids that some have cell phones, some don't have. So, you know, we need to do this as if nobody has a cell phone. Thank you. And start from that way and work your way up. So, I like it. I mean, is has anybody else in Hendricks County done something like this? There's other trail markers in Hendricks County. with the blue towers that I'm aware of. I've asked the manufacturer that I talked to and they don't know of any. Um,

my thought process is that we start with the mile markers. That's the simplest thing to do. Move on to the trail marking and then from there start with a single phone at a place that has electricity. So whether that be one of the things that I thought was let's do one of the smaller phones that we can put at the ballpark that has the PA system on it and that right there in and of itself if there's let's say a missing child we can get right on that and say there's a child that is wearing a blue t-shirt and jeans with dark hair look for this child. It's a PA broadcasting system that is the lowest level of the phones that we can get and the least expensive and the least expensive to install. that gives us a starting point and then from there we can go on.

I uh I I hear that and I I appreciate that but personally I think you need to have a comprehensive plan and then you all can pick and choose just what you just said to where you're going to start. Where's the next phase? Where's the next phase? But at least we the council know what we are in for costwise with a finished product. Well, I think we start with the three that the three that are out for bid right now. The three parks that are out for bid. Yeah.

And that makes sense as we're developing the park. Those are the ones, you know, we do it at the same time because we don't need it on vacant land that no one's knows is a park. We don't have trails there right now. So, it makes sense to do it as we're developing. So, what we're wanting to start with was this park and White Lick Trail. Well, I think what you just said, you you're you're trying to start where you have groups of people. You have density. Yeah. It's the softball fields, baseball fields. It's when you have your events here,

that's where you want it most. And then we can kind of grow it out. I I don't disagree. We need a comprehensive plan. And I think you you can identify your 25 trails. Blah blah blah. We put all the names to it. And but then again, it's a it's a matter of cost. Is it solar? Is it electric? Is it can this camera? It's going to be one of those. We just don't know which because we budgeted money for our waying programs already. Now it's probably not a lot of money. What? 50 grand maybe or something. I don't think it's even that. It's like 15. But I mean there there's a fund that you can use.

We may have next year we may come in the budget process and say here's our plan. We'd like to do four of these and two of these and that cost $50,000. And so we may ask for that in our budget then for you guys to consider for next year. And then every year again if we don't start anywhere we never get any. We got to start somewhere. Well it's no different than we get a new subdivision that they're going to put in a trail. we should incorporate that cost into that developers and put it in when it's being built and then we it's like remember when we started putting sidewalks in sidewalks to nowhere and everybody complained about it. Now they're now they're connected but you got to start somewhere.

Great job. Y thank you. Um so we're on to other topics. Anyone have anything else? I guess I have one question. Um, have you met with department heads concerning the DLGF? Um, situation.

Bring that up. I have not met with department heads yet. Sean and I have had a discussion. Um, Julie and I have had a discussion. Uh, FSG and I have had a discussion. Um, I think at this point I I want to wait a little bit. maybe your March work session we may have a conversation. I'm also a little curious what happens with the legislature and we'll find that out in the next couple of weeks because I don't depending on what they do may change whatever plan I give you anyway. I think what Sean and I have agreed for now. Remember the majority of that money was police officers. We're just not going to hire any police officers till we have a conversation with you guys. So, um, well, he's going to fill his vacant positions, not the three new positions that we budgeted.

Okay. Um, Sean's working his way through his list. He's filling his vacancies that he currently has. Okay.

Um, and then I think we'll revisit that and and have a conversation with you guys then either in March or April and give you guys a plan. Again, I don't I don't know that you need to cut the budget necessarily. I think we have to make a decision about the officers and whether we hire them or not. A lot of the other expenses, if you remember in in our appeal, we just said we cannot do these. So, we won't necessarily cut the budget. We just won't spend that money. And so, that will kind of be the plan that I bring to you. But again, um I mean, I almost say even June, I wouldn't mind waiting to have the discussion till June. We may have to make a decision about police officers. the other some of the other stuff we're just not going to spend and and then again you guys have the ability to at a later time decide do we want to spend it do we not want to spend it we may find out that we're under spending anyway or whatever and maybe we don't need to do anything at all so yes we we've had some discussions but I don't know that I'm ready to make a recommendation to you guys at this point yet if you guys want to give us direction I'll put it on the March session agenda you can give us direction and what you want to do, but um I don't feel like I have enough information to give you guys to make a good recommendation to you on what you want to do.

We were again almost like 900,000. Is that correct? A million50. Oh, a million50. Okay. A million50 was what our appeal was. Now, they did approve 11 to $12,000, something like that. They did approve some of it. So, I mean, we'd be talking about cutting about a million dollars. And again, 500,000 of that was police salaries. So, and again, the big one that was not police salaries was operational costs for the civic center, but we're not going to have operational costs for the civic center this year anyway. So, again, I'm not going to spend that money.

So, we did appeal. We did appeal and we and they said our ability to appeal ended on January 1st, but they denied the appeal on December 31st at 4:07 p.m. but didn't give it to us till January 5th. Well, that was the the 1782, which is the budget, which we still would have known what to appeal because they didn't give us 1782 until So, we didn't know what they did. So in the 1782, they still approved us at a10,200,000 budget the budget we asked for. What makes us think anything's going to be any different in June other than the way we spend money?

Well, this is it. They're not going to give us any more money, right?

Correct. So, but it it it may depend on how much revenue we bring in because remember there's a there's a a difference between what we actually spend in our revenue. And the my concern is is if we just go and cut the budget, we do exactly what the DGF punished us for and didn't give us a levy appeal is what we're gonna end up doing is growing the fund balance again and then next year they're going to do something different and say you don't need this money and they could try to lower our levy. So again, I need we need more information. It's it's bigger than just cutting the budget. what is our revenue and what is our fund balance going to look like and we may need to be careful to not be growing our fund balance which means we may need to spend more money so our fund balance doesn't grow which is hiring the police officers

correct and so that's what again I may say and that's what Sean and I have kind of had some general discussions we may say definitely we're going to fill one position maybe we fill two positions depending on what his hiring list looks like but maybe or maybe we say we're going to fill one in May, he'll offer the job and maybe we offer the other job in October. And so that way we don't experience a full year of of budget impact as a result of that. I mean, we're already even at this point if Seawn made an offer, you know, we're not going to get an officer to start until April or May, which means we may only have 50% of that $500,000. we may only experience that much of the hit to it. But again, if our our our revenue is growing as well, which is what's causing our fund balance to boost, we also, if you guys recall, over the last two years, we got special distributions of lit. That was over a million dollars. We didn't spend any of it. And so, again, that's making our fund balance grow, which was the reason they declined our levy appeal. So doing nothing or cutting a million dollars is only going to grow our our fund balance.

What have we learned? We've learned that being good stewards of taxpayers money will cause us to be punished. I just want to make sure that's on the record. I also but I want to caution you in what 2028 when our first tiff rolls off we're don't make it sound like we get all this money because it's going to go the other way. That's right. Right. And so the other piece of which is

and I won't be here then. And the other piece is that the the legislature is talking about pushing back your ability to do the lit as well from it was supposed to be in 2028 we could do the lit and now they're saying 2029 and um again I I feel like they have gutlessly said well they're not prepared to do it in 2028 so let's move it to 2029 but that prolongs our potential pain and so um again it it's a more complex issue than just let's just cut the budget.

Dan, two of us aren't going to be on this board next year. What What can we do politically to help the state legislature to understand what they've just done to those to those municipalities who are good stewards of the money? Seriously, what get them to listen to us.

Yeah. I mean, our our case on this excess levy appeal is very great. We're expanding really fast and so we need to expand that levy faster than the 4% controlled amount and so yeah, they need to res they need to revisit that policy on excess levy because they are they are punishing good fiscal responsibility. So that that's one thing. And secondly is that they they need to um they need to figure out um they they said they've said time and time again that they need to uh if they if if they they didn't understand the tax bill as student role act one and then if there are any mistakes they'll fix it. Well again I would say well please don't ever do that again where you adopt legislation that you really don't know the impact's going to be. study it more, then do what you will, but uh the truth is they may or may not fix it, but we're stuck with it.

Okay? And so taxpayers who want the police to come when they call and they want their roads to be fixed so that they can drive on them and and they want everything that you know, all the parks, they want parks to be available to them. They don't want parks to be closed because you can't afford people to maintain them. all those things. People who want want those local services and right now you're seeing some strange scenarios being built. That's what I'd tell them. Oh, yeah. But they want it for nothing because they don't want to pay taxes anymore. But that's how we pay for that stuff.

Well, you know, if you look at the percentage of people who pay their taxes, the whole narrative that people don't want to pay their tax is not true at all. Well, you the state legislature says that people want to pay their taxes. people pay their taxes and at the local level I I just think they've created I think it's a false narrative about what people think uh of their local government and and again how many times have someone come into your public meetings in the last 23 years Greg and said I've had enough I'm not paying my property taxes you people are spending too much money how many times I don't remember a single time drainage tax as an issue I' I'd name somebody

right right but you see what I'm And yet a state representative gets a letter from someone that or two from or an email from people that have influence with them and you get this reaction. But you know I I go I go to uh nine meetings a month, nine local government meetings a month and where this big um ground swell of angst is, I've never seen it. and the state legislators who never go to a local government meeting think that they know what it is. I think it's a complete false narrative to be honest with you. But seriously,

I think the people that rebel and say they don't want to pay are the people who aren't seeing the benefit of their tax dollars. In other words, I've left this county and tried to drive in some other counties and you know, the fact that I didn't lose a will or my suspension. Um, you know, so I think that people, as long as people can see the benefit and are reaping that in their communities, they don't mind paying. But I think when you see a decline in services, that's when people get frustrated. We're we're paying our money and we're not getting anything for it. But I don't think we have that here. So I think it needs to be the those policies need to be made on the local level in my opinion.

I ask your state legislators who who contacted the tax reform. I think you'd be surprised that not people at all. I guess the other the other thing I' Dan just threw me off now. Um I I'll give you a perfect example that you know we had a pretty significant snowstorm. That snowstorm, our contract to do snow removal for that was $150,000. Yeah.

That didn't include Katon, Eli, Steve. It didn't include all of Shelby's employees. We spent $200,000 probably getting rid of that snow. Well, think about what you guys all pay in property taxes and think how many people does it take to pay your property tax bill to cover a $200,000 cost that we spent in a two-day period of time. One day, one snow. Yeah. One snow. Right. So, what's what is going to happen is we're going to start having tough discussions about how we lower our level of services and then people are going to be mad and they're going to be mad at you guys, not legislators. Right? So,

that's what I mean. When it affects the local level, the decisions need to be made on the local level. So, okay. Anyone else? I turned.

for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge 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. Thank you, Julie. Roll call, please. Robert Pope. Jason Pucket present. Don Lden. Greg Zusen present. Bill Holland present.

Next on the agenda is the consent agenda. Is there any discussion? If not, we'll entertain a motion. I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda, including the check register for February 12th, uh the January 2020 or I'm sorry, the January 22nd executive session memo and the approval of minutes for the January 22nd meeting as presented. Second. Thank you, Julie. Roll call, please. Bill Holland, four. Greg Susan, four. Don Lden, four. Jason Bucket, four.

Wonderful. Next is of the first of two public comments. The public may comment on the agenda that is not part of a public hearing or on any matter within the council's jurisdiction. If you would like to come forward, please make sure the lights lit up as green, state your name, address, and limit your comments to three minutes. Good evening, council. Steve Eisenbart, 7599 Foxtail Circle, the beautiful uh Pines of Avon. Um I'm here to just a couple comments. Uh today's Republican paper, which I know everyone is a must-read and my dog put a footprint on it before I could have it clean for you, but it talks about the US 36 about the project that's coming close to us. What I want to talk about is the project that's just east of this one and making sure it's consistent for that. So that project anyone can look at the information on INDOT's website. You can just Google the word modern Rockville Road. So if you Google modern Rockville Road, you'll come up to the INDOT R41781, which means nothing to you guys, but it's that's how you get the plans and everything. And I just want to make briefly comments about what improvements this is going to bring to the area. Now, the limits of this project, not this one described in today's paper, is going to be from um Rockville Road from high school to raceway. So, it's a four mile stretch. It's going to take two years to do it. And I know the public hates that, but it just takes time to do these things. And it's going to be adding just like that's showing on the visual here, one lane in each direction. But one thing that's really going to help and something we don't really think about is the drainage. Lots of drainage

improvements. For example, 148 inlets, 154 catch bas basins, and 155 man uh holes. So, just lots of drainage improvements, which is going to help the residents in that area. Those are things we're going to have to think about when everyone's all upset about the maintenance of traffic. What you're seeing right now on uh that area is not the project, it's the uh utility relocations. So, that's what's going on right now. So that that project hasn't even started. Again, you can find it on uh modern Rockville Road. And I just want to uh thank the public and everyone for uh putting up with the patience with this. And I know we're good on the town. I believe that we do a good job of trying to give the residents alternate routes and reminding them of that. So that's just patience is coming forward that we need to have. That's all I have. Thank you.

Thanks, Steve. Anyone else? Hello, John Lazaro, uh 8459 Kingston Street, Avon. I'm a local builder, developer, and a baggie board member. Uh came to our attention this week about the fee increase that was actually it says it's up for the final reading tonight. Uh we'd like to see if possible that could be tabled to be discussed. those that fee increase is going to double and triple the fees that are already in place. And looking at the surrounding communities, we did an evaluation that's it's definitely not in line at all with the surrounding communities. And if the intent is to stall development, that's not going to do it. All it's going to do is increase prices consumer. So, we're just looking for the ability to discuss that maybe with the town and maybe come to a better consensus. I agree fees probably should go up but maybe not that much.

Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? With no one coming forward, we'll go ahead and close that public comment session and move on to department updates.

Good evening. Linda Albrand, planning director. Uh first going to touch base on the uh hearings we had in January. The BCA approved uh the drive-thru for the Moetta's restaurant, which is the former Swenson's restaurant. Uh and then reapproved the Rise uh use variance for personal services at the Rise development. uh the February BZA we have uh variance for the joint um internet provider uh to utilize a property on a Avon Avenue and then we have Chick-fil-A East which is the one in front of Meyer um proposing a canopy covering their drive-through area uh which needs a setback variance for the plan commission. The uh January meeting was canceled due to the storm. uh all five cases move to the February meeting which are the Mobetta's development plan. The gatherings which is where Advanced Auto is their reasonzoning that they presented to you last month. Uh Avon retail shops which is the former Lazaro property uh east of Reagan uh the Parkplace commercial and then the Walmart um would be on the February 23rd hearing. Other than that, uh we're coming up on one year of being a B City USA. Uh we've got our signs ordered, so you'll be seeing some additional signage being added to our welcome to Avon signs around town. Uh Paul and I plan to attend the US 36 public hearing for INDOT uh next week on the 18th uh to give them our comments and opinions on the proposed plans. Um that's that's it for us. Any questions?

Well, thank you, Linda.

Good evening, council. My name is Keaton Olsson, asset manager with public works. Um, some of our recent updates. We completed the everything except for a few minor punch list items for the 2025 CCMG. We just got the um pedestrian beacons put up on 625 and 900 that we were waiting for. So now it's pretty much just uh landscaping and a few uh um reflective um RF. Oh gosh. Parkers.

Yes. Yeah. I'm sorry. Anyway, and um County Road 100 North and Raceway Road roundabout. Um, we got utility relocations still occurring and um, AES is hoping to for their underground work to be done by March 1st and um, everyone should be out of the way by the time construction starts in the spring. Dan Jones Road widening phase three, we have utility relocations um, that are ongoing all winter and uh, pipe and excavation should begin in April. Dan Jones road widening phase 4 design is at 40%. The 2026 CCMG is out for bid right now. It should be about 2 million and we have 11 roads throughout the town included in this project. We also have um quotes have been requested for uh trail improvements along US 36 by Zachby's and along Dr. Charles Nelson um both sides of the road and uh sidewalk and ramp repair uh at various locations around town. We have plans are complete for the Pines of Avon drainage project um to relieve the staging of the subdivision ponds. Um we can't bid it yet. We're just waiting for the commitment for the relocation completion. Um, and then I think that's about good if we have any questions or anything we want to go over.

Want to talk about the bridge? Oh, yeah. Yeah, the Dan Jones uh bridge. That's big news. Just opened south of 36. Um, so they're moving on to the next phase of that now that they can have southbound traffic going over that. So that's pretty exciting. Yeah, big news here. Very exciting. Thank you. Thanks, Keith. No problem. Thank you.

More. Really?

Sorry. I know. Sorry. Good evening, council. Shelby Pride, parks and recreation director. Um, our February update. The park and rag beautifification committee met last night. Back-to-back meetings is always super fun. We discussed park and trail names and the security plan that I presented to you guys earlier just to get their input and guidance on some of those things. Um, very exciting news. Park plan bids went live on January 28th for pickle ball, what is known as Winton Meadows Park, and then what is also known as Bernett Park. So, um, we're excited. We have a pre-bid meeting next week, the 19th, and then bids are due and our opening is going to be on March 2nd. So hopefully on March 12th at your council meeting, I will bring forward a recommendation. Even more exciting news, in my opinion, uh we added up all of our statistics for sports for the year 2025, and these are some pretty good numbers that I'm really excited to share. We had 4,718 participants of ages 5 to 18, over 32 sports. We had 961 volunteer coaches, assistant coaches, commissioners, league coordinators, and we broke a million dollars in revenue. Uh we came in at 1,24,000, just a little bit more than that. Um so I'm really excited to share that with you. I'm very proud of what we've done over the last couple years with sports. Um my staffing wise, I have um encouraged them to go to trainings. Any kind of schooling that they get, I would like to reward them for that. So, they've very much taken me up on that. Um I have two people going to the certified playground safety inspector course in March. Um so that we can do that stuff inhouse. We can look at our playgrounds and make repairs as we need to instead of paying a contractor to come in. I have five of them going to

the RPA IP maintenance expo in March, which is in Boone County. I have four people going to the League of Miracles in Cami in March. That's also put on by the IP. They're just going to go tour that facility and figure out how we can do some ADA compliant things here, especially with sports. And then I have two people going to the playground maintenance course uh in the first weekend in May and that's in Lafayette. Um, on I talked about parks, but on trail-wise, I know we've got some upcoming projects with that, too. So, I wanted to update you guys. The parcel transfer for the property at White Lick to connect White Lick Creek to 625 East, that parcel um has been transferred. Everything is good to go. So, we can move forward with bidding on that, which I'll explain in a second. Um, Banning Engineering is designing a trail on 575 East to connect East and Grey, the new entrance to East and Gray um to Washington Township Park, which connects to White Loot Creek Trail, which connects to all of this. And then, uh, we are ready for a trail extension, um, to move forward with the trail extension, uh, the opposite way the of the high school that we built, um, on the west side. Now, we're going to go east from 150 150 South to Dan Jones. So, those three projects um we're going to try to bid together. Um since they are kind of smaller projects, we thought maybe it would be a good idea to just lump them all together and potentially get a better price. Any questions?

Yes. You talked about the revenue of Avon Youth Sports. Did you you didn't talk about the net income? Did we break even? Did we make money? Julie's still closing books, so I don't have that exact number unless she has it in her head. I closed 2025 books in January, but I do not have that number in my head. We did okay. But we broke even. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Was that it? I'm impressed.

That's what you told me you were going to do. So, I just wanted to confirm it. Good evening. Uh Sean Stoops, chief of police. Uh we have two new officers starting with our agency on Monday the 16th. Uh they're going to fill the two of the three vacancies that we currently have. Officer Matt Wilson and Robert Sumar. Both have prior law enforcement experience and should be able to enter into our field training program pretty soon. Um, Officer Wilson's probably going to get a waiver from IEA because of his current status where he just came from. And then, of course, Officer Sumar, he was a local law enforcement here at another agency, so that should be a pretty uh, easy transition for him. Two of our new officers that recently graduated from ILA in January are currently working through their field training programs. The third officer that graduated from the Ila Academy, the academy in January has since been activated by the Indiana Air National Guard and is anticipated to be deployed for several months. We thank him for his service to our country. We pray for him and his family and for a quick and safe return home. And upon his return, then he'll be able to be to begin his field training program. Our current hiring list is still looking very promising as we still have 20 active candidates on the certified hiring list uh to fulfill the one vacancy that we still have. Several of our police officers and detectives participated in a in three very high-profile criminal trials recently. Two of those resulted in very successful plea bargains and one resulted in a conviction. We want to thank our law enforcement partners at the Planefield Police Department and the Indiana Crime Guns Task Force for their assistance, as well as Hendricks County Prosecutor Lauren Delp and his team for

working so hard on these cases to ensure that justice was carried out. We've been meeting with the Hendricks County Veteran Suicide Prevention Coalition over the past several months to help develop a collaborative countywide team to help prevent suicide among our county active duty military personnel, our military veterans, as well as our countywide public safety personnel. uh that's still in the very early stages of development. But the coalition is focused on securing resources and partnerships to carry out its mission, which is to be pretty much a force multiplier for those programs that are already out there to help prevent suicide. Our new K9 VGO and his handler, Cody Mater, have completed their narcotics detections portion of their training. They'll begin uh their patrol training next. Uh, and uh, Bingo should be out there um, ready to uh, go help make our community safe. Uh, the Indiana Crime Guns Task Force was awarded the HID TA task force of the year. If you're wondering what that is, it is the high drug traffic area. it it's it's something that uh that that they deal with a lot over in Indianapolis as well as other parts of the state. But they uh the crime guns task force which we're a part of with detective um Taj Hai they were awarded task force of the year uh in this area. So we want to congratulate them on that award. So uh thanks to them for doing all their all their hard work that they do over there in in this central Indiana region. Uh we want to give another shout out to our uh snow crews. I know uh Mr. Cannon already spoke about that a little bit earlier in the in the work session, but uh they really made our job a lot easier being able to get all of our uh vehicles out there so we could respond to all those

calls for service. Uh the roads were handled great by by the snow fighting team. So, thank you. Our officers recently responded to a barricaded suspect twice. The first time officers were attacked by the individual with a knife, but they were able to take him into custody safely. An immediate detention was carried out, but the care providers released the individual at the end of the 24-hour hold. Officer secured felony arrest warrants for the suspect for harming family members and attempting to harm the officers with a deadly weapon. Once the suspect was back at home, he barricaded himself in another room in the house once again. patrol officers, detectives, and ERT members or SWAT responded to the home and were able to negotiate with the suspect and take him into custody peacefully. The suspect was remanded to the Hendricks County Jail on uh all of the felony charges. All the police officers, detectives, and ERT members uh are to be commended for their quick, decisive response and flawless flawless execution of their tactical operation. uh happy to answer any questions you might have.

I just want to say thank you to you and all the officers and all the agencies that we are associated with because of your hard work and your due diligence. You do keep our community safe and I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you.

Julie Locer, clerk treasurer. Um, as I mentioned before, I did get my 2025 books closed. Um, we have rolled officially into 2026 and um, we've already started a long time ago working on our annual financial report which you should have I have to submit by the end of the month. Um, it takes all of January and February to assemble that. So, I will get you reports and all that probably hopefully at your next meeting if not the first meeting in March. Um, we are currently closing January. So, I should have reports to you for January um by next week. And I am very happy to say, I think this is the first time ever that Ryan and I this week stayed late a couple nights and we're able to enter all of our revenues and expenses. So, your reports will be beautiful. Um, one of the many things that brings me joy is to have a nice report. Um, other than that, uh, I do want to give a shout out to Katon and Steve. During this last snowstorm, we had one neighborhood. It's a one street neighborhood with like six homes in it that is technically in the county. Uh the county was unable to for reasons I won't mention, but unable to plow in there. We had a gentleman um reach out to the town and say, "Is there anything you can do like who can I call at the county?" Um I asked Steve, he made a phone call. They were still unable to get out there. um for their reasons. The gentleman called back uh the very next morning and um I happened to take the call and Steve said come on Katon let's go and let's call it a you know helped another community out. So interlocal agreement, Steve went out with Katon and they plowed this and this guy was extremely grateful for the Avon department would love to be annexed um for because of Katon and Steve because

unbeknownst to us he needed an infusion at the hospital later that afternoon. So they were able to provide him a way to get out and into his treatment at the hospital that day. So, a huge shout out to Katon, Steve, who did something they didn't have to do, but just went above and beyond for a community to help someone out. Kudos, Katon. Did you get him to sign an annexation petition? I'm working. We're working on it. Okay. Uh, moving on. We're going to do council comment leaison reports. Bill, you want to start us off? Yeah, I have nothing. Thank you.

Great. I met with uh Don was there and and Paul and Linda and Ryan. We met with uh farmland reserve or now their land reserve also known as Latterday Saints about a project they want to do on Ronald Reagan that is part of our new updated comprehensive plan. So it's uh looking forward to that but it's it's a long ways to go. Nothing for me tonight. Uh, nothing for me. Just was at that same meeting and it's exciting to hear that at least there's some development talk and it'll be exciting to see what direction we go on that.

Um, next new business amendment to the pickle ball design. Shelby,

hello again. Um you guys are very familiar with the uh design architect con context that we've been working with on these park um developments. Uh when we developed these when we got into the thick of things um and we were designing buildings and what those things would look like. Um we really liked what we had picked out for the Bernett property and we wanted to replicate that onto the pickle ball um property so that it it flows seamlessly. there's, you know, that cohesive look to everything. Well, there's a little bit of price difference there. Um, well, not in the actual building, but to to our contract. So, uh, there is a difference of $24,000 between the old contract and what new work they had to do um for the architectural design. Uh, so the new contract total is $159,925. Uh, from 2025, we did encumber $100,000. So, I do have that. And then we have b we have funds in the contracted services line to cover the remaining balance of that. So I ask for your approval of this contract amendment.

So again this um amendment charge is just the architectural change. Um is this what about the construction cost? Is this going to cost us more on the construction side? No. Um and and then this new project has been put in the current design plans that are out. There's almost no change to the cost of that. this contract. Um it was $22,000 for the architectural design um and then $2,000 between the geotech boring that they had to do at the property to for research. Any other questions or discussion?

Well, that was the confusing thing. The original architectural design and geotech total 24,000, right? Mm-m. No. Our original contract. Are you looking at the Okay. The original contract total was 135,9 I'm sorry, $135,925. We are adding in the $24,000. So, the new contract total is the $159,925. Thank you. And again, this does not increase our construction costs. No, this No, that's completely different. We haven't even bidded that out yet, though. It's currently out to bid, right? So, we don't know that yet. Yeah.

So, a little clarification. So, originally in the plan, we were going to have a building, but it was going to be a pre-fabricated building.

But when we looked at the cost of the building, pre-fabricated, we thought we could actually design it ourselves and that the construction of it would be less expensive than actually paying for the pre-fabricated building. So we do expect when it actually gets bid that it'll be cheaper and again we're bidding those projects. So we should get an economy of scale as a result of be building two similar structures. So we do expect when we actually do the construction that the actual construction of the building will be less which means in the long run like Shelby said it's we think it'll basically end up being the exact same price but the building will actually be nicer. And Jim,

anyone care to make a motion? I'll make a motion to approve the amendment for the pickle ball design contract as presented. Second. Thank you, Julie. Roll call, please. Jason Pucket, four. Don Laden, four. Greg Zusen, four. Bill Holland, four. Thank you. Next is resolution 2026-05 declaring police vehicles as surplus. Dave.

Good evening, council. Dave Margus, deputy chief with the police department. We come again tonight with another vehicle that we're asking to be declared as surplus property so that we can uh deliver it to Adessa in Planefield for auction. It's a 2017 Ford Taurus. Lieutenant Nate Hawk, who helps manage our pool car fleet, uh took that in to have a check engine light looked at and some repairs made. And we were advised that the service shop located anifreeze on top of the piston, which indicates either a blown head gasket or uh more severe problems. Just replacing the head gasket is around $6,000. A new engine is around $10,000. On top of that, it needs exhaust and catalytic converters at 2,200. The vehicle has 80,000 m on it. We just don't think it's fiscally responsible to spend any of that amount to keep this in the fleet.

And we have a replacement vehicle for Mr. Hawk. This is a pull car vehicle. Okay. Yes. Okay. Any questions? I make a motion to approve resolution 2026-05 declaring police vehicles as surplus property to be sold. Second. Thank you, Julie. Roll call, please. Bill Holling, four. Greg Zusen, four. Don Lden, four. Jason Pucket, four. Thank you.

Thanks, Dave. Next is a public hearing on the confirmatory resolution and tax abatement for Heistister Yale material handling for their personal property. Can we hold these three public hearings together since they're all for Heistister Yale? You may.

Okay. So, we'll go ahead and add that the public hearing is not only the personal property but new real property and the amended real property. So, we'll go ahead and open public comment period. No rush coming to the podium. So, we'll go ahead and close the public hearing and move on to the resolutions. Uh, the first of which is the 2026-06 for the personal property. Can you do all three at once?

No, please do them separately since resolutions. Thank you. I'll make a motion that we approve resolution 2026-06 as presented. Second. Thank you. Julie roll call, please. Jason Pucket, four. Don Lden, four. Greg Zusen, four. Bill Holland, four. Next is the public hear or I'm sorry, the resolution 2026-07 for the new real property. Do you want to explain that difference, Ryan?

I'd be happy to. Um so again the uh Heistister Yale in Granite Inc. the the property owner Granite Inc. is the property owner on Heistister Yale will be the tenant. Um the personal property is anything that goes inside of the building equipment computers anything that they buy. Uh the real property is any improvements that they actually do to the site. So the first one that you guys just approved was the things that go inside the building. Um the second one, the new real property is new investment that Heistister Yale is going to make above and beyond the one that Granite already made. So that is they're starting over a new 10-year abatement traditional schedule on that one. And then the final resolution 20268 is the amended real property. And as as part of this, as an economic incentive, we agreed to allow an amended schedule that would allow 70% out until the end of uh the project. it is already three years into the project and so it didn't necessarily experience some of that benefit and so heistil is asking to basically catch up and and and appreciate some of that benefit at the end and that that's why you have three separate resolutions uh and that amount is on you'll notice in your SB1s you have an SB1 with 202608 it's the original SB1 that was provided by Granite because that's still on the original amount uh that Granite actually invested at that I know we're only going to do them one at a time, but because you brought up the amended real property resolution, is that the one that's associated with the bond that's been currently purchased in the secondary market?

That's correct. Yes. And we have in writing the approval of the purchaser of that bond to amend this. We do. Yes. And so we're good, Mr. Taylor. Yes. He thought of that, too. Thank you. Okay. So, we're at this point. Um, thank you Ryan for that because we don't normally have new real property and amended real property. I wanted to make sure that was clear again. Um, so, but we are discussing right now and voting on only the new real property. I make a motion we approve resolution 2026-07 as presented. Second. Thank you, Julie. Roll call, please. Bill Holland, four. Greg Zizen

four. Don Lden four. Jason Bucket four. And lastly 2026-08 the amended real property. I make a motion to approve resolution 2026-08 as presented. Second Julie Don Laden four. Jason Pucket four. Greg Zusen four. Bill Holland four. Thank you. Next is a final reading of ordinance 2026-01. amending the planning and engineering fees. Linda, are you speaking to that or Ryan?

Hey, Don, before we do that, can we just real quick, I know Heistister Yale and Alexis are here, so maybe just a thank you to Heistister Yale. Appreciate them choosing Avon as their community uh to relocate. And I know Tom and I have been back and forth and and we're working together to try to help get some of their employees to move into Avon as well. So, uh thank you Heistister Yel. Thank you, Alexis, for all your work. Appreciate it. Thank you, Tom. Sorry. That's okay. Um I can't see him. He's hidden by my thing by the podium here. Go ahead. I'll take the ordinances. You will take the ordinances. Okay.

So 20261 is the ordinance amending town schedule for development review and updating fees and updating consulting engineering fees. This was introduced last time and uh Linda Albrand explained her methodology and recommendation. This is second reading. I'd be happy to answer any questions. I I have a question. Sure. So, since we had someone in public comment uh want to discuss this further, can this be postponed until the next meeting? It could be tabled until the next meeting is completely up to the council.

Okay. Linda, would you be willing to come up here and explain to us the comparisons to neighboring communities that you made? Well, we don't want, if we're remembering, she wasn't comparing to neighboring communities. Similar communities. No, she was looking at what our employee cost is and then calculated and came up with her fees based on that. We can't really look at what neighboring communities are doing. Sure.

What our costs are. Sorry, I I looked at what we estimate our time is to take a petition completely through the process. I provided we we thought that you might ask what other communities charge and we just wanted to have that on hand in case you ask for that information. It was not looking to where we fall into that. It was just for information only. Our recommendation of the fees is based on what the cost is for us to provide that service. So that cost isn't um per passed on to taxpayers. It's uh paid by the the folks that utilize the service. Um and the chart shows about 85% being covered for a basic petition. Uh we're probably more in the 70 to 80 range percent um because we didn't calculate full overhead of the cost of our our salaries. So, but it was an estimate that we have did in house.

When was the last time we updated this? 2019. So, we're seven years behind. That's correct. And if we do it another seven years, we'll we'll It may artificially look as if we're overcharging today, but in a year or two years, we could be losing money. All because all we're trying to do is recoup our costs, right? Correct. So, but you're saying we're not even recouping our cost of these numbers. We're only at 75 to 80%. Our net even would be what would be ideal. Um, but we can't make money off of the of the fees, right?

And we never know where a petition if it's going to cost the base amount or if it's going to cost more. Um, so we don't want to be in a position of overcharging. and our services the the public in general does get benefit from us being here and utilizing doing these services to make sure that their needs and concerns are represented. So we thought 70 to 80% of our cost was a fair fair number. Did we uh do we I think we all got a letter from uh an interested party baggie. Did you have any conversation with them?

I received the letter as well. Um, I did speak with the author of that letter and just re reiterated the points that I just made to you tonight. We did not have any prior conversation with them before coming up with the fee schedule. How did he receive that feedback

of my reasoning for the fee schedules? Um he just went on to say that he thought tableabling the issue for to have a discussion with them or other stakeholders in the fee process or the fee um schedule would be better from their perspective. I told him that we were just simply recouping cost and that having discussion on the matter was not where where we wanted to go as far as um looking at the fees.

I mean this is not unique to Avon. every municipality, every plan commission, every county that has this goes through this. And at the end of the day, we're just recouping our costs. To me, that's that's our fiduciary responsibility to do that. Mhm. And there's there going to be times when how many times does the petitioner come to your office and changes their plan and their scope and we just charge them this one fee? Correct. Mhm.

And you've put I mean so on paper it looks like it may be more than what we should be but in reality it's probably not enough. So, I get it, but I think we have to look after the town of Avon.

I think I think if you were trying to get, you know, 100% recouped, I think that that's that doesn't make sense, I guess. But I think that when we're looking at that 70 to 80%, I agree with Greg. I mean, we're here as a fidiciary um people that are supposed to be watching after the taxpayer money and and while we can't make I don't know we can't make money off of these things we can at least try to recoup some of our expenses and put them where they're supposed to be rather than ex than raising other local taxes to cover them. I think to pass these fees along to the to the actual user makes sense. Um

I mean we're not able to pass this fee on to anybody else, right? It's got to be to that. Correct. Those those petitioners have the ability to pass it on to somebody else, right? You know what the current fees are? Yes, they were in our packet last time. I have them if you want them, Bill. Yeah, if you don't mind. Thank you.

And I want to acknowledge, you know, John coming forward and asking us, you know, to have a conversation about it. But if we're if we're respectfully looking at um our fees and we're coming in at that 70 to 80% I don't know what 10 conversations would change I guess at that point because we're just looking to recoup more of our expenses that we've not been collecting in the past and I don't think any amount of conversations changes that necessarily. Bill, did you have any other questions?

No, I I think they sometimes are doubled in seven years and sometimes they're tripled. Mhm. I mean, should we I guess in moving forward, the only we didn't if we didn't have a system to where they made changes and we could charge them again, then, you know, shame on us for that. Well, I I guess I would look at to John's point, you know, it's a shock to builders and and people that were increasing. So, maybe shame on us. Maybe we should look at it every two years so that it's not such big increases as they come through. Maybe that's the conversation.

I'm not sure how they were landed on in 2019, but I think they were low even for 2019. There's no more discussion. I'm willing to make a motion. I'll make a motion to approve ordinance 2026-1 amending the planning and engineering fees as presented. Second. Julie, roll call, please. Bill Holland, against. Greg Zusen, four. Don Lden, I have to go four. Jason Pucket, four.

Uh, next is an introduction of ordinance 2026-02, the insurance reserve fund. Dan,

yes. This ordinance establishes the insurance reserve fund, a fund that the council has asked to be created and funded to provide greater security in the event that there were changes to your insurance. So this u ordinance very simply creates the fund, describes its sources and also its uses. Uh like most special funds, this fund would be a non-reverting fund and um this is first reading only. Any discussion? Okay, we'll go ahead and consider that introduced and move on to introduction of ordinance 2026-03 amending the FMLA policy.

Yes, this ordinance makes changes to your employee handbook, specifically 6.046 regarding FMLA leave. It's designed to clarify the benefit provided to be consistent with the council's direction. So it makes uh clarifying uh changes in the right in the beginning which is shown in red on your copy and tries to alleviate any um any items which were not very clear. Secondly, while we were making changes, there were some COVID emergency leave uh provisions that were temporary that were required by Indiana statute that have since expired. And so we're recommending that those items be deleted as well now that that statute and that's been about two years. So I think it I don't think it's coming back quite yet. This is also first reading in this ordinance. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Any questions, discussion? I'm seeing shakings of head. So, we'll go ahead and consider ordinance 2026-03 as introduced. Moving on to legal council report.

Nothing. Thank you. Next is the second of two public comment periods. Same rules apply. No one coming forward. Council comment. Council calendar. Ryan. Yes. Uh, your next meeting is February 26th at 700 p.m. No work session. So, the meeting meeting adjourned.