Town Council - Regular Meeting

Heat. Heat. Yeah. Yeah. Good idea. We're going to go ahead and call the work session to order. And we don't normally do the pledge of allegiance uh before the start of this meeting, but we do have two Boy Scouts in the audience tonight. And we're going to ask uh John and Daniel to please come forward and lead us in the pledge.

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.

Right. The uh first topic is the civic center construction. I guess we're looking for an update from either Ryan or our Veritus team or someone. Hi.

Yeah, I'll do a quick intro. Um I gave you guys a heads up. We were going to invite Veritis today. Uh Veritis also did an update for uh the school board a couple weeks ago and so um we've asked them here to give you guys a little bit of an update, show you some photos. I know I've talked to a couple of you. Again, I'll extend the invitation if anybody wants to go out and get a tour. It's actually to a spot where a tour is worthwhile of your time. So, if you guys want to get with me and get an actual tour, but I did ask Veritis to to come and just give you a little bit of an update, show you some photos, and they're also going to walk you kind of through where we're at financially on the project as well.

Veritis. Awesome. So, okay. So, I'm Josh. Um, project manager on this project uh for Veritis. We're the owner's rep. Um, let these guys introduce themselves. Yeah. And I'm Hank Rose. I'm assistant project manager on this job. David. So, thanks for uh giving us the time to give you a little update on the civic center. Uh oh,

we're not moving. You're pointing it at me.

He's like here. See, I told you guys would be way better than it is here. There we go. Yep.

This is the construction update. All right, we can hold there. Um, so this is a drone view of the current progress of the job site uh taken um couple two weeks ago. Um, so you can see um kind of generally what's uh the progress of where we're at right now. Um, we got the left side there is the school side. Um that's area A. Center side center area is the town's area. Um that's area B. And then the right side is the event center um where the events happen. So um the center area there is the I guess the outdoor event space. And then the left and right sides you can kind of see the parking lots developing. But overall you can see bricks getting started on the event center. We have roofs on and um windows are starting to go in. You'll see that in the other pictures, but pretty well pretty well dried in. And um yeah, next slide. So, just uh just have this one other view in here from the back side of the building. Um you can see where the retaining wall is on the south side there. I guess that's the north side of the building. Um we're looking towards um Rockville Road there, but that gives you a better view on the left and right side of the parking lots. Um and the brick has been going up on the back side. Um it's pretty well all the way around. It's kind of hard to see in this picture, but on the school side there on the right is where we're ending up on brick, but uh next slide. So this is the event space. Um give you a little view. Well, I just think these arches are really beautiful. Um, you have them inside and outside of that event space and throughout the building. So, we wanted to capture that just to show you in this update. Um, the one on the upper

left is on the interior of the event space. Well, walking into the event space there. And then, um, the one on the right is, uh, in the bottom right is the exterior of it. And the lower left is the um actual interior of the event space. We can go to the next slide. Um this the top picture is the mural um area. That's the curtain wall. As you walk in the main the main entry coming from the south. Uh we just thought that was a good progress shot of where the big mural picture is going to go. Um and it's just a nice glass front there. Uh the bottom picture we have the town area, the first and second floor just to give you a progress shot of there's drywall installed. We have mechanicals, mechanical, electrical, plumbing all being installed and um we call that the buildout. Um that's all in progress. Next slide.

Real quick before you go on, I just want to add to that mural wall. I think that it can be an absolute beautiful feature of the the entire space right as you're coming as you're coming down the road and see that. So I just

Yeah. Um this is the school side. Um the upper left corner obviously is uh that that was taken yesterday. Um that's the current progress on that area. And then a couple interior shots. Um the progress on the inside and the outside is working in a counterclockwise um direction. So this area a the school side will be the last area to finish. Um next slide. Uh so now that you've kind of seen a visual of the progress update of the construction side, here's a schedule overview. Um just want let everybody know we're we're on track um for the completion date of um in November. We're complete 46% as of now and we have about 54% remaining just to give you an idea of um where we're at in the entire construction process. So about halfway there. Um some major milestones we completed um up to now is the access to the job site from the developer. That was a huge milestone to get the job going. Um the foundation and structural work's all complete. Site grading and utilities are installed. Um there'll be some finished grading around the building um left, but the rough grading and utilities are in. The building's um pretty well dried in. Um B and C where the drywall is in that's all temperature controlled and uh dried in. and the start of the interior buildouts is um underway. So to give you an idea of where we're headed um currently we'll continue to progress over the next two months of window installation um which is in on the school side the interior buildouts in all areas and the

school and office exterior brick and the site lighting. Um, I don't have a picture of it, but some of the uh parking lot light poles are going in. And I do know that well getting into the starting area, the asphalt will be coming, but starting over the next two months is the metal panels to help finish up the exterior facade. Um, we're going to final order the furniture and interior signage. We're working through that. That should be um put a pin in that here not too long. We have a meeting on that this Wednesday or Wednesday the 18th, next Wednesday. Um so that's exciting. And then uh asphalt and remaining site work. Um soon as the weather breaks and asphalt plants open up, we'll get asphalt down and they're planning on setting the rooftop units. Um I think it was the end of this week

soon. Today was it today? Yeah,

today was a beautiful day for it. Uh next slide. Um off to the budget. Um can tell you that we are on budget. Um no change to that. The total project budget's 36 million. Um the town budget is 20 and the school budget is 16. And there's has been no change to that. We are on track. Um currently we are 46% complete on the overall construction. Um and the overall well 46 complete on the construction and overall on the project were 36% build through February. Um and then I have just made a note of the owner contingencies that we have left. Um so the owner contingency budget is about 3.3 million and we have um the remaining amount of almost three million. So we got got some money to left to play with. So what's the difference say you're no change in the budget but you're using up your contingency. What was your contingency for? Was it something that was unknown or

Yeah, it was a mix of uh owner directed items um that changed throughout the project that we would add or changed. Um there was some design clarifications and that's where the um contingency comes into place just for those unknowns and there was a couple unforeseen conditions as well.

Would you foresee any unknown contingencies now? Because I would think that you'd probably get them early on in the project versus once you're 46% completed you can kind of see the end of the road. Yeah, I think a lot of them I don't know Ryan if if you agree, but I it seems like we got a lot of them out front and then um I do feel Garmong has is doing a great job of looking ahead and trying to foresee any of these. Um

yeah, I would agree. I mean there I wouldn't say that there's I keep asking that question, Greg, and they keep telling me, well, as you go through construction, you still find other things. But the things we've gotten done, we've basically resolved any of those issues as we've gone along. Some of them are small things. Some of them are like um like we had to do some snow removal and there were some winter conditions. Like those were unexpected things because we were later in the construction. That's actually probably been the majority of our costs. But there are other things like we realized we don't have AEDs in the building. Well, that's something we want to have AEDs in the building. So adding those costs and and getting some of those things, those are owner contingencies, too. There are things kind of along the way that that we find. I again I I agree with Josh. I I think we're not expecting we're going to spend all $3 million of that owner contingency. I would expect we'll spend some more of it. But and and

say that. Will they say that? Yeah, they'll say that. And I guess and to remind you guys when you approved it, Garmong also has a construction contingency which is within their GMP and there's still money left in that too. So some things are that was outside of Garmong's control that goes to the owner contingency. If there's other issues like construction side, those come from the GMP contingency. So kind of like the elevator issue that we had, right? Okay.

And that even even like that issue like we just found out we thought it was going to be a lot more expensive and it at $600 $700 or something like that is all it ended up costing. So, but that's what you're exactly right. Garmong is paying for that out of their contingency. That's not coming from the owner. So, that's what depending on what those things are or or there have been some things where the school has said, "Hey, we don't really like how this is shaping up. Can you change it?" Or Suzanne and I realized we didn't put a cabinet above the copy machine and we wanted a cabinet. So, we added in a cabinet and it was only $800 or $1,200 or something, but that came out of the owner contingency then because we said, "Hey, these are things we want to make the building work and function the way we want it to." So, again, it's it none of it has been again, I mean, you can see it. It it's added up to something, but what what have we had like 26 change orders or something like that,

I was say. So, and again, they're they're of obviously there's 30 of them and they've only add up to 300,000. So it's not that substantial that any of them that we've done. So and some of those were no cost change orders. Some of them were credits. So yeah, some of them are credits. Some of them we've shifted back and forth between pots of money with again all within the $36 million. Some of it has shifted over. We figured out like some things we're going to provide as part of the furniture. The signage we backed out of Garmong's contract and we're going to put that into our furniture contract. So like some of those things we're moving money back and forth. It's still within the $36 million budget, but it's moving between kind of the different pots of money within the $36 million.

And when this is the owner's contingency budget, is that the town's owner contingency budget or and the school has their own or is this an overall budget?

It's overall. It that's the school and the town. So yeah, if at the end there's some percentage left, the town would get 55% of it, the school would get 45% of it. So we'd share like that's what everything is being broke down in terms of our share of the overall project. Yep. That that concludes u the update as to where we're at as far as schedule, budget, and construction. Um this is this slide actually shows that mural um in the background that David speaking of um if any of you haven't seen it yet. Ryan, who are we going to have do that mural? Do we have somebody local?

Well, so I Great question, Greg, because I have it on the RDC agenda for Monday night. Um I had tried I was working with the Hendricks County um arts group and asked them to suggest somebody. They did not suggest somebody for me to use for the artwork. the physical once once the artwork is designed, the actual film that glows goes on that glass wall and the installation of the film is in the GMP, but the actual design of the artwork is on us. So, since they didn't get anybody, it's now getting late in the process. We've found somebody to help us to actually do the design of the artwork. And we the Avo that's in the front on that image is also is not in the GMP. It was shown we had discussions on whether we really wanted to do that in the front or not. So the same company that's designing the wall, we're proposing to have them design and cost out what it would cost to do something like the AV to decide if we want to do it or not. So we will at some point once that design gets done come back and say is this something we actually want to do? here's what we think it's going to cost. We didn't really know what that would be, so we didn't put that originally into the GMP. So, again, that may be something that if we decide we want to move forward with, it would come out of the owner contingency, but I wasn't able to find someone to design it, so we're going to pay someone. Uh, the company's called Sign Works.

What is it? Signworks. Signworks. Y, are they um only doing one design or are they doing a couple? They're going to do a couple and then they're we're going to have the ability to choose. Yeah. And is that something what's the life of that once it goes up on the wall? Is that something we have to replace every so many years or So that's a great question. What was actually spec by structure point could last a very long time. The question may become is do we want it to stay for that long? Now it's not inexpensive to put up and to buy. Do you guys remember what Garmong said was in the GMP? Oh, for the mural itself.

Yeah, for the mural itself, it was somewhere around what was allowed was $80,000. Oh, yeah. Okay. So, yeah, it wouldn't be inexpensive. So, I wouldn't It's not something we're going to change like every 3 months, but maybe every 5 10 years, like we may say we want to change it, but if we want to keep it, it should last. It It shouldn't It shouldn't all of a sudden like it fades out or something like that. It It's It's like wrapping a car then. Yeah, it's Yeah, basically like wrapping a car. And again, that's I think it's a little higher end than probably what a wrap car wrap is. But keep in mind,000, right?

Yep. So, yeah, we're working on both those things as well.

Any other questions or we have any events planned yet? Another great question. Um, so we do have a Main Street coordinator in the budget for this year. Um, I had thought that we'd hire that person in the middle of this year. I've had some conversations with Republic. Part of the challenge is going to be the timing of all of this. So, originally we thought the commercial development would be ahead of us and it's actually inverted now. So, the town is ahead of the commercial development. So my concern at this point is is that they may not be done till like the end of 27. And so even if we start planning events, again, our plaza in the way it spills out would spill out into a construction area that's actively under construction. So I'm not sure how that will work. We would be able to start planning some stuff on the interior, but maybe not in the exterior. So um I'm trying to decide what the right timing of that is and when we start planning events. Um but we have not done that yet. So no.

Thank you guys. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Ryan, are you taking over the Riverwalk economic development district for Eastern Gray?

Yes. Actually, Anna and I will will do this together. Um you guys will recall and great feed in actually from Robert's question. Um part of the goal of East and Gray in the Riverwalk district is to be able to attract restaurants and to create energy and things like that. Uh one of the problems Avon has is that we have limited liquor licenses as a as a result of our population. We did get some additional liquor license um after the 2020 census, but most of those have been eaten up. So, uh, we thought this may happen, um, when we did this project, and that's part of the reason we called it the Riverwalk district as well, because there's a provision in the Indiana code that allows you to create a Riverwalk economic development area, which if you're in within a certain distance of a river or which is really defined as a waterway, um, you can create this Riverwalk district. Planefield has done it with their town center for the same reason that um we may not be able to get restaurants or whatever the kind of uses we want into the civic center if we're not able to generate additional uh liquor license. So, if you create this special riverwalk economic development area, it will allow us, the town has some control and we get to recommend um to the alcohol uh tobacco and firearms if they would issue or the ABC for them to issue a liquor license based on its proximity to the river. So, the state has taken this economic development goal of we want to create these vibrant areas around our waterways, which again is the same vision we've got for the White Lake Creek, but there are steps that we have to go through to create that district. Um, and that's what I asked Anna to do some research on what those steps were. Uh, Eastn Gray, uh, the Republic Development folks, they're starting to work on getting their tenants, and this is a concern that their tenants have

raised as well. Now, they still may not come in to the space until late 2027, but we don't want to wait till late 2027. We want to make sure that they can get the kind of tenants we want to support uh the town center development. And so, I think this is something we should start to put in motion, but I didn't want to make that assumption. I wanted to have Anna share the information with you guys, answer any questions, and then if if you guys are supportive of it, then we'll put it in motion and get an ordinance on one of your guys' future agendas to talk about it. So Anna, you want to take it from there? Is this also known as the Dora district?

No, Dora is different. So Dora is just allows you to walk around outside drinking alcohol. So you may have the Riverwalk district and then you may create a Dora as well, but they're two different things. So you'll hear people talk about the Dora and that's just a designated outdoor drinking area is basically what the refreshment area. Thank you. And so a little different, but we would want to probably do we may want to do a Dora too, but that's a future step because we want to find out who we get there. Then we'll work with whoever is in the town center and see there are certain requirements for the Dora district that if they want to allow people to go outside and drink that they have to meet certain requirements. So we'll want to have that conversation with the restaurants and the businesses in the Riverwalk district to see that they want to support that. If they do, then then we would create the DORA. Okay. Yeah. So, you guys should have a memo before you and I'll summarize it for you because I know there's a lot in there. Um, but essentially what you'd be creating is the Riverwalk district is what we call a municipal riverfront district or project. The statute calls it a project, but we're really considering it a district. Um, generally speaking, alcohol permits, both oneway, two-way, and three-way beer, beer, and wine um liquor permits. Essentially, there's a quota based system that is enforced by the um ATC alcohol and tobacco commission in Indiana. Um that's why they essentially don't allow too many liquor permits to be issued in one geographic area. Um they normally have to follow that. This is kind of a caveat that to that which allows local governments to encourage economic development by attracting businesses that may want to serve or sell alcohol on the premises. Um, so by creating this district, you essentially are able to recommend the issuance of permits to the Indiana Alcohol and Tobacco Commission. And in doing so, the commission can

ignore their quotas that they normally have to follow. Um, and they can issue generally as many permits as they'd like as long as it's supported by the the creator of the district. In this case, it would be um the town. So, the process is actually pretty simple. It's just passing an ordinance like you normally do um from the you know legal side but there is some administrative steps that would have to be taken and some requirements that you have to meet and for the most part um in the planning that Ryan has done you guys would meet most all of those requirements at that time at this time. Um the primary one it's called a riverwalk district. You have to be near a river. Um I know White Lake Creek might not actually look like a river but it qualifies as a river as a body of water. Um the district can't be more than 1500 uh feet, you know, a radius from the river. Um so you guys would meet that as well. It would go all the way out to US 36. Um and also you have to have contribution from both the local government and the state. In this circumstance, you would meet both of those requirements. Obviously, we have put money into this project and so has INDOT um by the improvements that are being made to US 36. Um, additional requirements are that you have to be in an economic development area, kind of attaching to that idea of economic development. So, it's since it's in the Avon econ economic development area, um, you'd be fine there as well. Um, so those are really all the requirements you have to meet. Um, so you would pass an ordinance stating that you would that you have met those requirements. Um, and then once you've created you pass the ordinance, then you're kind of able to start moving through the administrative process. Um that process really is coming up with an application um for people in the district, these businesses to ask to be issued a permit to ask you to back them essentially to the um alcohol and tobacco commission. And so they would go through the process that would probably be processed on the staff level and then it would come

before you at a public meeting. they would ask for your recommendation um and then you would essentially sign a letter saying we recommend this um business or this lesser to the um uh tobacco commission. They do their own application like they normally would um with the ATC and then they would u be approved. If they meet the requirements for the state, then they'd go through without having to look at the quotas. Um, some things to think about when we move forward with this process is the ordinance can be very general and say that you're wanting to encourage economic development in the area or you guys have some leniency to kind of structure the types of businesses you may want to invite into that area. Um, so if you wanted to put language as to, you know, you're trying to encourage certain diversity in restaurant types or certain cultural experiences or um cooperation amongst uh different groups in the town, those sorts of things you could encourage in your ordinance and that would essentially be something that when they go through the application process, they're saying, "Does this business meet the um goals that we're trying to achieve in this district?" So it doesn't mean you everybody who's asking for an alcohol permit, you know, we're letting them all in. it's still going to come before you and you can kind of make a decision um at the time that they come before you. Um you can also have some written commitments that you require of these um businesses which is essentially saying that if we give you a permit we want you to stay sim like similar in use to what you are when you got the permit. Um so those are things you can um require in your ordinance that they make those written commitments. So therefore, if they, you know, lease the building to a different owner in the future to somebody else, they can't completely change what's inside of the business and have a whole different purpose, you can say, "No, you made a commitment that this is the type of thing that you were going to be doing. We're going to hold you to that commitment." But also, you could modify those commitments um in the future, just like you would on like a planning and zoning case. It's kind of similar to that. Um, so yeah, really it's passing an ordinance, directing staff to develop

an application, um, coming up with, you know, different commitments that you may want to require, um, of these businesses, and then we'd come up with a standard letter that we'd put before you that says this is the business that wants to come in. We they want your recommendation. Are you willing to give them a recommendation? Then they take that to the Indiana Alcohol and Tobacco Commission and um, they seek approval there. So that it's actually a pretty simple process and um quite a few uh municipalities in the state of Indiana are moving in this direction as well.

What happens to that permit that's granted the nonquota system this business goes under moves out whatever perhaps that permit

this all just goes away or does it go back on it? That's a good question and it would depend on the type of permit that they're issued. So depending on whether it's a one-way, two-way, or three-way permit. The same rules apply for all alcohol permits on whether you can transfer them or not. Um, for example, three-way permits, there are structured rules on who you can transfer those to, and they have would have to seek approval from the Indiana Alcohol and Tobacco Commission, so they know who that permit's going to. Um, so it would definitely depend on what kind of permit they have, but um, it's not just an automatic. They can transfer it to whomever they want. And again, those written commitments would be a really good way to make sure that you still retain control.

Question around quantity. Has republic given us any indication of how many whatever that number is? Now, question for you is there like a limit on this process. Is there any metrics that we have that say, "Oh, yeah, that qualifies. We've done five for that." No, you aren't over this many populations, so you're only 82. Is there any kind of rules on that?

There's no rules. And that's what's beautiful about it. You guys get to decide how many permits you want issued in that area. So, the Alcohol and Tobacco Commission won't care because the quotas, they don't they ignore the quotas and they leave that to your discretion because you're the one who's trying to develop that um area. So, that's that's really kind of the purpose of it is that you don't have to worry about that. If you wanted all to be everyone in the area to have a permit, you could say so. Um, but it really lets you craft the kind of design and feel for the area. I think originally it's it was earmarked for four to six restaurants. So again, I don't

four to six is with the range I would expect. Now if they get all kinds of interest in restaurants, they may say, "Well, yeah, we'd like eight."

And if they have more interest in shopping, again, there may be some diversity between the restaurants. It wasn't just intended to just be places for people to eat. Now, if that's what what we wanted to only solely be places for people to eat and not to have shopping and again, it was supposed to be mom and pop shops, too, and like other things that people could do, walk around the downtown and and do other stuff, ice cream or whatever. So, it could be some of those things, but those things wouldn't require that permit. So, again, those other uses could be there, but I think in general, four to six restaurants is probably what we're looking at. And Anna, if we make a recommendation, is it pretty much a given that then they would get this license or is that still some kind of determination made by ATC?

It would definitely be a strong recommendation, but it's entirely up to them. They are the one that issues the permit. Um, as long as they still meet the require all the other requirements outside of the quota, then they would likely get the permit. Um there are different things they have to qualify for with the state like they can't have done. It depends on have they had permits in the past with violations those sorts of things is what the tobacco commission alcohol and tobacco commission is going to be looking at. Um so we definitely can't force them to issue the permit but it really just says don't look at the quota is really all that we're doing here is saying just ignore that part of it. Okay. I see an application fee.

Have we already discuss or research around what we should charge and or what that application would look like on that?

Um yeah, I've looked at some and I kind of gave you a range. I know it's a really large range. So, you'd want an application fee not only for the initial application, but over time you're going to also have um renewals or potentially to kind of get rid of if they want to transfer. Those sorts of things they're going to be coming to ask you for um if they're moving out of the area. And so, some are really low, some are upwards of of a grand. Usually, the the initial fee, I think I said, is yeah, 1,000 to,500. the application of fee initially is going to be more expensive than the fee for um in the event they're going to try to remove their permit essentially um because there's usually more work involved in that. My recommendation is that you that staff we kind of see how many staff members are we going to need to work on this process and and kind of do some math there um before we come to a decision um on how much that's going to be.

What about input from our law enforcement? one and then two, you issue this permit. How do we supervise it? You get maybe an establishment that we have issues with. How do we take it away? Do we have that all lined up too?

So, in terms of um they have to still follow all the same laws as anybody in the state of Indiana that has an alcohol permit. Um if that would be the alcohol and tobacco commission that has the ability to revoke the permit. Um but we can enforce our written commitments uni in a unique way. So if they are operating in a different way than we force them to have a commitment then we do have a cause uh we can go after them for those commitments and require them or we can pretty much report that they're violating the written commitments to the Indiana Alcohol and Tobacco Commission and ask that their permit be revoked. Um so if there's a hearing does it have to go to the Alcohol and Tobacco Commission hearing if there's a hearing on them violent?

Yes. That they control the they're the ones issuing it. We don't issue any permits, so we can't take them away. Well, you know, they have issues down in Indianapolis, so I just don't I'm fine with doing what we're doing, and I support that. But if we've got we get a bad apple, we want to be able to react to it quickly, not at the whim of the ATC downtown who doesn't even come out to Avon and they won't listen to what we have to say to to either suspend it, remove it, or whatever action is taken. That's that's my concern. Absolutely.

So, we have a really good working relationship with ATC as well as the state excise police. So, anytime we have a problem with another establishment here in town um that that's an alcohol regulated business, uh we work with excise to we immediately send those reports. We get their licensing number which they're required to provide to us upon inspection. Um they're required to report any and all crimes, criminal activity, any kind of other nuisance on the property that might be related to the alcohol sales. Um, and then once they get that, uh, excise goes and then they go and they do an on-site inspection and they do their own investigation and then they report that to the local ATC board here for the county. And then after they get if they get so many of those violations, then the local ATC board can recommend or um make a u a motion to put them on some type of it probation or refer them to the state ATC so that they can have their license either temporarily removed, suspended, or they can also be put on another type of probation at that level. Um we currently have one establishment that's on that right now. Um, and it seems to have quite I won't jinx us, but it seems to have quieted things down. Um, and they seem to be doing really well on that that uh that program. So, I don't as long as they're required to follow the same ATC regulations and laws and reporting and licensing requirements and to cooperate with any on-site inspections when we come on premises. It should be just like what we're already dealing with some of the establishments. So, it should be good.

Thank you. Any other comments? Thank you. Moving on to animal control. Yeah, this was a fun one. Um, one of the things you always kind of thought you'd never talk about, but you end up doing when you work for a town. So, um you guys may have heard that the county was having some issues with their um with their shelter. And so the county did some review of their policies and I I think again I'm I'm trying not to speak for the county and what they're doing but trying to pass on what I've heard from Todd McCormack the county administrator that when they kind of went back and looked the whole reason they created animal control was to deal with animals that were dangerous to the public and that at some point in time between when they created it and to where they are today that mission expanded to we just want to help animals and things like that. And so the county wanted to get back to their mission of we're really only concerned about public safety. And so what they've uh the decision that they've made is that they're going to shift their animal control underneath the sheriff's department. And so uh when they do that, it changes things a little bit. The way it's functioning now is animal control was would it was a service that the county is providing to everyone in the county. the town. Obviously, we don't have an animal control department. Um, but now that they're shifting it to the sheriff, the sheriff has taken a little bit of a different tact or approach um on how he's going to deal with it. And so, I'm going to let Sean speak to that in a minute. Uh, but again, Todd McCormack presented this to all the town managers. uh we do monthly town manager meetings

and Todd normally joins us and he made us aware of this issue and and um we we all kind of had a similar reaction and when I say all of us it was Danville, Avon and uh Planefield is hey that's great but you're not just going to try to dump this on to the towns right like you're going to come up with a county solution on how to deal with this issue and Todd kind of didn't necessarily answer it, but kind of said, "Well, yeah, I think that's what we'll try to do." Well, I don't think that's really what the county did. I think the county came up with a solution that that they want to do, and now they're kind of dumping all the municipalities. And and again, the discussion with all the town managers were that doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense for us to go create six animal control units in the county so that each town has its own animal control and that we try to do this. This makes sense for it to rest with the county and for the county to be able to provide those services. And of course then I know you guys have heard this debate. The debate comes, well then maybe all the towns should pay for it. At which point the town managers all heads exploded and said, "What do you mean we should pay for it? We're all paying county taxes now. Why would we have to pay more to provide those services when the county is already collecting taxes from our residents that is supposed to be going towards this service?" And so Todd kind of said, "I understand, but that's not the way the county sees it. And we think that, you know, everybody should pay their fair share." But again, it it appears based on uh the way the county is dealing with the situation that they're not trying to come up with a collaborative solution that's good for everybody. It looks like they're pushing it down. So, I think that's my piece of the component. I'll share with Sean and let him share with you what what the sheriff's doing and how he's approaching animal control and then we can circle around and get your guys' input on how you think we should proceed forward. I'm going to let uh Deputy Chief

Marguson address this. Uh he's been working on this with the uh with the sheriff's deputies who are also working on this. So, some of my notes may be a little bit uh repetitive of what Ryan had mentioned, but animal control and animal shelter were one entity. They began to have issues at least last fall when they made a removal of the chief there and they were sitting down having discussions trying to figure out what they were going to do. Sounds like they had slight communication with Ryan through the town manager meetings and things, but no communication with law enforcement at all, at least with our department. no concern for how this would be an impact to town budgets until last month at the county chief's meeting on the 17th of of February. We were just notified by Sheriff Sadler and Colonel Larson with a packet of Indiana law that related to uh animal laws and crimes and advised about state requirements for bite reports. And here's this packet and we're no longer going to be taking animal runs in the town incorporated areas and we will only respond to county locations. We're not going to be coming to pick up dogs that might be in a vehicle that you need to impound unless it's aggressive and pretty much just tossed the ball and didn't want any more communication about it. And that's the way it's going to be. That's that's the feeling that we got. I think seemed like that's the feeling Brownsburg and Planefield had. Um

they actually took over animal control duties from the county on January 1st. So there were at least a month and a half they could have maybe had some of these conversations with us until just dropping it at this chief's meeting, but they didn't. They said they would only respond for aggressive animal runs and that's it. Well, little did they know, two days before this meeting at the chief's uh meeting where they told us this, our officers had a situation with a with a dog on the 15th of February that was in a vehicle. We needed to impound the vehicle. The dog was not aggressive, but we didn't know that was their policy because they didn't convey that to us yet. So, we were trying to get a hold of an animal control officer and they made three or four attempts and got a hold of no one. And then the sheriff's department supervisor spoke up and said, "We're not doing that anymore. That's your guys's problem. So, if you don't have anywhere for this dog to go, you need to take it to the shelter." Okay, great. We can do that, but what are we going to do? Just sit outside and wait for them to open the next morning? and they said, "No, we we have the ability to fob you into the building and can help you put the dog in a kennel there, but we're not coming to get it." So now it's our responsibility to transport non-aggressive animals to the shelter on our own if we don't have anyone to take the the animal and they will meet us there to put it in a kennel. So that's kind of where things are now. Uh, Chief Stops and I have received two separate emails. Now, I'm sure that number is only going to grow from residents within the town wanting to know, we know that this is what the sheriff's department's now told everybody. What are you guys doing to train your people to handle these things and we're worried about the animals and you don't have the proper equipment and

you don't know how to sanitize vehicles and so that's where we are now and that's where the chief comes in and Ryan come in. So, so after learning this, I had a meeting with uh our legal staff. Um to the best of my knowledge and I believe what I was explaining from our legal staff is there's no statutory requirement that requires us to do this. Um the second part of that is this is not a law enforcement function. This is typically handled by uh another division that a city or a town would develop um through some type of maybe code enforcement or something of that nature. Before you get too far ahead on that, um Mr. Taylor spoke up very quickly and said, "But I don't want our code enforcement doing this as well because they're not trained. They're not qualified uh to do this. They don't have the the physical resources. we don't have the location to store animals in a short interim or anything like that. Um and he explained to me that um he has other clients who actually contract this out. Um so we it would help us avoid assuming any extra liability. We have nothing in the budget. I know in the police side to spare to create any kind of a a a section or a division to do this. Uh, I know that this budget set for the town as well for the rest of this year, which is another issue. You know, if we maybe had been told this last year this could be coming, maybe that would have helped us prepare a little bit better as well. Um, I don't feel like it's we're putting our officers in danger even if it's a non-aggressive dog at that time because if they respond, that dog could turn aggressive. We don't have the equipment, the training, or the

proper vehicles to transport these animals. Um, I know that the sheriff said that they would continue to respond to the aggressive animals. Uh, but I do not want our officers responding to any of these runs. Um, and I think one of the other issues is they were wanting us to file these bite reports that seemed kind of almost not not redundant, but almost as if we would file this report, then it would go to the state, then it would go back to, I believe, animal control. So, it seemed almost like it was kind of an unnecessary step for us to even be involved in it. chief. It would actually they advised it would come back to us,

right? And we would have to investigate and do the followup and make sure the dog was quarantined and all those things. Yeah. So, animal quarantine was another issue and we we were advised that they would not be quarantining non-aggressive animals at the shelter. Um, those would you were to instruct the owner of the animal to self-quarantine on an honor system for non-aggressive. But my question is, how can they be non-aggressive if they've already bitten someone? It doesn't

just because they stop being aggressive. So, there's a lot of areas that are left uncertain. Um, I don't I don't feel like we have the ability to do this. My plan was to let our officers know that they would not be responding to these calls. I would also be notifying our dispatch center to not dispatch our officers there. But before we take that step, I wanted to get the input from the council because this could cause a little bit of an issue from the public because they're going to want to know I why I called the dispatch center for this stray dog. The sheriff's department said they don't come out for that. So call Avon police and then they call for Avon police and we say we don't do that. So there's going to be a stray dog out there.

So this isn't just an Avon issue. It's a countywide issue. So why can't we take the position of a united front? Planefield, Brownsburg, Danville, Avon, Pittsboro are all on the same page. So we're all united as we go back to the county. You can do that. Um, this is going to go probably to the county commissioners because that's going to be their decision. Well, that way you can tell them they're barking up the wrong tree.

Uh, Sean said this isn't statutoily required of us. Is it statuto statutoily required by anyone? State or county is what I'm looking at. So, usually the county does this, provides this service. Um, a lot of, at least Dan's clients, they contract it out or they have a division developed to deal with this issue. Um, if the county chooses not to do it, it does follow the sheriff's office, which is what's happened here. Um, so they are doing what they are required to do, which is respond to dangerous dogs. But the issue of stray dogs, impounding dogs, that's just doesn't get provided for. No, there's no law that says anyone's supposed to provide for it. There's typical standards of what happens, but no, the town is not required to do this. They aren't required to direct their police officers to do it or to direct code enforcement to do it. You may do so if you so choose, but you are not required to do so.

Have we talked to our lawmakers, see their opinion or thoughts on this? I I can't believe that that's their opinion. It's h we don't care. If you want to do it, you do it. That doesn't It's not Indiana's way. Just Well, you're just talking to dogs. There's stray cats. Yeah. Any other animal that's out there? Ducks that fall down storm ins that get trapped. I mean, we have all kinds of weird stuff that happens. My staff is laugh, but those are things that happen. If the past always calls animal control, it doesn't.

Well, it's important to separate the wild animals from from the uh pets because animal control even before would not come out for any any wild animal. You had to reach out to DNR if they had someone in the area. I think we have one officer for about six or seven counties for this area. So, it's hard to get them out here. Um so, that usually doesn't happen very quickly, if at all. communities together. Let let them know how the community is right back at their feet and if they want to ignore it. I would agree. I mean, has AIM said anything either? You know, I mean, it's going to be a statewide thing, I'm assuming.

Yeah. I mean, this I mean, Sean, like this just happened like in the last 30 days. Like, and again, even when when it was shared with us from Todd, he made it sound like it was coming in like the next four to six months, like just, hey, I'm giving you a heads up. this may transpire, but it's happened like so quickly that I don't think anybody has had a chance to respond or or again even if we want to go to the legislature, which I mean they're already out of session, so it'll be 2027 before that can even be taken up. But certainly we can have those conversations and and

again I I appreciate Greg and Bill and Dawn's position like I think that's what we would like to do is work with the other towns, take a united front, go to the county and try to get them and have one voice

and have one voice and and try to speak on behalf of all the towns. We didn't want to do that without assuring that the council was supportive of us us doing that or again if you say you want us to stand up animal control and you want us to provide that service, we'll we'll do that if that's what the council wants. I again I don't I'm not recommending that to you, but we wanted to give you that opportunity to give us direction before we do anything. I just think in this fiscal climate that we have with the changes in the laws and the funding that every municipality's been forced to deal with starting January one of this year that we can't all go build an animal shelter. We can't hire the employees, staff it. We can't we can't. So, they're going to have to come up with another solution. And the solution is we pay the county for certain services and that would be one of them.

Well, they already have the shelter. They have the facilities. They Exactly. It's just been mismanaged. Yes. And now the easy way out is to give it to us to fix their problem. Right. That's the That's the issue. Why don't we find out if they're willing to join forces or not? because without them,

right? Yeah. I I would definitely say again the Planefield and Danville were in the same situation as me. Like we could speak as town managers that we didn't appreciate that we didn't like that approach, but nobody had had a chance to talk to their councils to confirm that. So yes, absolutely. That's what I'll I'll read. I I think Planefield there was some discussion and again I Brownsburg doesn't participate in our town manager meetings so I don't know what Brownsburg was but I think Todd shared that he thought Brownsburg was interested in potentially starting their own which even if that's the case like we kind of joked and said well if Brownsburg wants to do it for the whole county that's fine Brownsburg can go do it for the whole county but um so I don't know where Brownsburg stands that's the one I I can't speak to but uh without a doubt Planefield and Danville were not supportive of of this municipality by municipality creating again it's really inefficient way to provide services and like you said Don in an era of fiscal constraint and trying to provide efficient government services this isn't the way to do it we're working backwards so

you said this is going to be in front of the commissioners or I mean it's already implemented right it's already implemented so I don't know I don't know how that decision got made at the county level

yeah so they have contracted civilian employees police to take over the shelter. The sheriff has employed um people to be animal control officers. Some of those are retired sheriff's deputies and things of that nature. Um and then they have their own policies and training on how to do that. The commissioners have already given them the green light to do all that. What I'm saying is if you decide to you want to take this anywhere, that's where it's going to have to go. And there's nothing in the pipeline right now set a date set for that to happen.

I know that it was a heated discussion at some commissioners meetings already. It overflowed into the lobby area and even into the over spanding room that they have there. So, it is a big topic that a lot of people resident wise are upset about. And um you're right, it lies at the commissioners.

My number one concern is the safety of the officers that are responding then the safety of the animal for that matter because if we don't know what we're doing, we could in unintentionally hurt that animal. Uh another issue is the financial part of it that we've suddenly been thrusted into. Uh we haven't even talked about what Highland's going to say when it comes to our workers comp and our liability. what's how's that going to impact uh those premiums as well. So, there's so many things here that we're expected to do within two weeks. Um and it's not even really our responsibility.

Well, and we're already short staff on police officers just to take care of our own general humans in our community. This could be something that the township could do is be part of their their financial assistance. They could have financial assistance for the township. I mean, how how you going to do you say, "Okay, do you live in Avon or do you live in the township?" Avon, you handle it or no, the sheriff will come and handle it. So, if you're going to do this, structure it the right way, which I don't know what way that is, but let the township do it for the whole township.

Those are fantastic points. In the interim though, I have I strongly oppose sending our officers on those types of calls for service. And that's kind of what I'm kind of looking for a consensus here tonight from the council is in the interim, do I have a consensus to instructor officers to not respond to those runs unless it's an aggressive animal and the sheriff's department's far away and it's attacking someone? we will most certainly go there and we'll try to intervene and save that person's life or that child's life, whatever it might be, um we'll be there for that. But if it's a bite that's already occurred and someone needs to go there and do an investigation, uh that needs to go to the sheriff's department. If it's a stray animal, I don't want our officers going there and collecting stray animals. You don't know stray animals vac vaccinations if they've had any um parasites, everything that you're bringing into your car because we don't have a vehicle to go collect these animals. We have one pole that our canine officers use when they have a canine that doesn't respond to training properly. They have to get a hold of them, but they're the only ones that's kind of trained in how to use that. Um, there's protective gear that you need. I I just don't want to send our officers out there until until this is until this is rectified with a with a solution that addresses all of these issues.

Anna, do we have any liability if we don't send officers on these runs? I wouldn't say that you have liability. I mean, you, as you know, you can always be sued for anything. Um, but no, I wouldn't. You don't have a duty. I mean, usually for li in order to have liability, you have to have a duty of care and in this situation, we would not because we're not statutoily required to provide this service.

I'll be the first to say it. I don't want you going out there for it. I I I've been wanting to ask this. I I want to preface this by saying I I I support the the the plan to United Front and push back on the commissioners. I wholly agree that's where this should lie. Um that said, I'm trying to look forward in case this doesn't work. What might this contract cost? What's what's what what are we looking at potentially budgeting for next year?

No idea. Yeah, we have no idea. I mean, that's the problem. We have no idea the quantity of runs that the county was doing before. I don't think we have any information. I think Anna just suggested maybe 50 to $60,000, but again, that we have no idea. It's going to depend on Yeah. shot from the hip. But again, you know, until we know the number of runs and how often they do it and what the frequency is, there there's no way to know probably. Yes.

Well, I don't I I don't know if this necessarily needs to have a spin up a whole department. I I like the idea of a of us having a contract with someone and let them deal with quarantining and cleaning and capture and all that and and the liability of it. Um but right now we don't have any of that anything. So uh to answer your I I don't know if you heard it. I'm I'm not if we have no liability. I don't want to increase our liability by having our officers deal with something they're not trained on or have the equipment to deal with. I would have to agree with that statement.

I agree. We don't have any liabilities. I mean, I don't want to just play ignorance or just not be sensitive to the issue, but they threw it in our face. And if we don't have a liability, we we have no idea what we're getting oursel into. We got to stop and hit the brakes and give it back and say, "No, we don't have a liability. We're not doing it." It sounds like municipalities didn't even have a chance to initially respond before a decision was made to at least collaborate on a countywide Mhm. Correct.

Sean, do you have everything you need from us on that? I think so. Thank you. Okay. Uh, we have some time left. So, relinquishing a portion of County Road 525 East.

Just going to talk loud. So, I'm gonna let Steve talk at least start you through this. Um, go ahead, Steve. So, 525 between US 36 and Main Street is supposed to have improvements that they want to record.

Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. uh we have anou with eastn grade to make the improvements that are required at in that stretch of uh road and that those improvements are slated to be about $500,000 right now. We're thinking it might go down because of the ATL project. Uh we're doing some coordination with them and and they actually have some overlap in what we were going to do. So, but $500,000 is a good round number. So, we'll use that. Um that's only to do the work to improve the the um road. The road was recently repaved by the county and is maintained by the county and the so we'd have to have permission from the county to do the work and we do have that permission. But the county in addition to that $500,000 of improvements wants us to also repave the whole road that was just paved. I can't be too upset with them because I would require someone to do the same thing for us. Whenever we create new seams, uh it's a point of um infiltration of water. It uh looks aesthetics, you know, maintenance- wise. You want a monolithic surface if you can. So, I'm I'm I'm not uh upset with him for that requirement because I again I would make that same requirement, but I don't want to do it at the same time. So, I got a plan. I would like to ask for relinquishment of that stretch of road from the county and I talked to John ers a county engineer and he said that he thinks that that the uh commissioner would be amendable to that request. What that would save us? It would save us about here hang it save us about $60,000 um of paving milling and paving areas that we wouldn't need to to um pave

otherwise. It would it also give us um authority over that road. would not give us any liability for um the uh rest of the road because um or the uh the properties adjacent to it because that would still be outside of our property. We would we just maintain the road like we do in other places other other stretches of road like 100 South by Ronald Reagan. Um there's a stretch that's not in our either side's not in our uh jurisdiction, but we took over maintenance of that section of road. Uh, we do we do it there's multiple places. So, it would save us the $60,000. Now, it that's that's a good amount of money to save, number one. Number two, it would um keep us from having to um uh do further improvements because again, we would have authority over that road. We would get to choose what's done. Um the state would put it on our inventory. It's nominal what we get per mile. you know, it's like I think it's like $700, $800 a mile. We get it every year um per mile for maintenance, but we would get that money in our budget. Um so to save the $60,000 um I think it might be worth our while to do that. Plus, I think at at some point not too distant future, we might be annexing. In fact, the car dealership was supposed to been annexed years ago, right? Um, at some point we were going to annex the car dealership.

I don't think we're contiguous. Yeah, we're not contiguous yet. Yeah, but we're trying to get there yet. Yeah. So, at any rate, the point is at some point it's going to be ours anyhow. So, I just have some heartburn of spending $60,000 of of uh taxpayer dollars for something that we don't really have any control over. So, so if I understand is if if it's the counties the county owns it and they we have anou that we're going to fix it and they want us to repave it and we don't want to but because they're they're the ones that control it. How much would it cost to repave it

to rep the the part that they want us to do that we shouldn't have to do? That's that's the $60,000. And if we they relinquish it to us, we're not going to spend that 60,000 on No, I'll spend 6,000. I'll spend 6,000 putlamite on it. So that way it protects the surface. So the thing that we had worry about is that um having a problem with water infiltrating. Well, I'll put the reclamite on there and I don't have that problem. So I I will spend 6,000. I I don't want to spend 60. So really, that's only you're going to spend $6,000. They're going to relinquish it and everything's the same. Yeah. We have to put more money into this road according to theou.

Yeah. Right now we're putting $500,000 into it. And so then we're putting $500,000 into someone else's road. But I mean that's part of theou.

So yeah, maybe a quick step back. So let me explain. Part of the traffic study for Eastn Gray recommended two improvements. It's a southbound left turn lane on 525 at 36 and then a northbound left turn lane at Maine. So, if you're looking at that exhibit, that's what we're building. We're putting in that southbound left turn lane and we're putting in the northbound left turn lane. Um, again, this is one of the requirements for INDOT when INDOT issued the permit was that these road improvements had to get done. Part of the reason for these road improvements is because when you go down Main Street, remember the road's not going to go to 36 anymore. It's going to go into Eastn Gray. So, INDOT wants a place for people to get off if you're going eastbound on Main Street. You can turn right on 525 and get to 36 and avoid Eastn Gray. Likewise, we're taking away that right in right out by Cabin Coffee. And so if you want to go past Eastern Gay and you don't want to drive through it, you can drive P by there. You can come to 525, turn right, and you can go north. But now there needs to be capacity to allow that left turn movement at 525. So these improvements were improvements that were a requirement of the traffic study. The town is getting infrastructure contributions from Eastn Gray that we committed to then doing those road improvements, which is why we're doing the road improvements because they're needed for Eastn Gray. And so that's why we're in this situation in the first place. The county is not requiring those improvements. We're needing to do those improvements for East and Gray when we did it. That's when the county said, "Well, that's great that you're doing that, but at the same time, we want you to repave the whole thing." So, does that make more sense than how why we're in this situation in the first place?

So, the road becomes ours. It becomes ours. Yeah. And so if if I can delay this work until next year, then I can get it done at half the price because it'd be CCMG money, but it's not my road. I can't do it under CCMG right now because I can't use CCMG money on someone else's road. So I can save $250,000 if we can get it to be ours next year. It can't wait till next year. Because we got to put it in the same time as the improvements reaching Greg. So we have to do it now.

All right. Well, then I have I mean I have it designed. It's already designed and ready to go. It's designed. We've already bought the rightway and we're actually in and we're talking about in May bidding it. Construction would be June, July. It's not that much road. Well, if we're going to put in all the improvements, we might as well control it. Yeah. So, so the next step then is for you guys to tell me that I can then ask the county for to formally relinquish it. then that would go before the commissioners. And so if you're all in approve in agreement, I I don't know. I guess I just need head nods.

I'm in agreement with this plan, but I just want to make sure it's said we're now taking over the cost of this road. Right. With no taxes coming from it. Right. Right. Well, no, we we No, we get motor vehicle a nominal amount. Yep. We're not getting for any properties on it. Oh, yeah. No, no, you're correct. make sure stated so we're all clear that we're not really being able to pay for this in the future, right? Ongoing until we eventually hopefully Well, like Ryan said, um we're getting credits from East and Gray to help pay for it as well. Yeah. Yeah. There the roads essentially been paid for already for the improvements that we want, but seven years from now, Yeah.

you're going to need to put a new code of crack line on it. We didn't get any extra funds for it. Well, you better get it annexed 15 years from now. That road's deteriorating and it needs to be completely done. We didn't get any tax money for it. That that's I like the plan. I want you to move forward with it. I just want to make sure we're we're this is not great. I want to make sure that's stated. That's all. I got you. I think there's still return on investment at this point. And I even seven years from now, it still be a positive return on investment. Can we hold him to that? Yeah. Because because in seven years, I'm going to spend another $6,000 on Reclamite. I'm not gonna have to pave it again. Fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah.

Again, I'm I'm a valid point. And you guys will remember that this was kind of the discussion we had back when we did the 100 South project with the county. And the county said, "Well, we'll give you all the roads in the entire township, but you we're not going to annex it. We're just going to relinquish all the roads." And we were like, "Yeah, we're not doing that." But again, that scale versus this scale are kind of two very different things. So again, this is a very small segment of road. It would give us some control over it. And again, I I think Steve's plan is a good plan and I think it makes sense. It doesn't make a ton of sense for us to spend $500,000 and then say, "County, here you go." It does make sense for us to manage and control it.

I do want to ask Anna one question. um because we've had um something in the past where we took over some property and we inherited a prior issue with that property. There's just been a serious issue that occurred at this intersection with the town taking over that. Does that potentially bring us into some liability? Well, the intersection wouldn't be ours if you're talking about US 36. That would still be fall under um INDOT's um jurisdiction. Okay. I just want to make sure because we've been through it with personal property before.

Yeah. No, so the right away from INDOT and then south uh north would be ours. Okay. This is more of a I don't know human or political kind of question. Is this going to open up Pandora's box for us with the commissioners? They've already pushed us to not as much as the animal control. Fair enough. I mean, in general, I don't again, I think the commissioners will probably be agreeable to this. I don't think it'll be a confrontational issue with them. Well, I'm meaning the other that makes further.

I don't want them next month go, "Hey, well, Avon took over this road. We want to just give them all of Washington Townships Road again. Let's Can we Can we start talking about that? That's what I'm That's the Pandora's box. I didn't

And that may not be a terrible discussion for us to eventually have again. I mean, again, that that discussion goes along with our our goal of what we're trying to accomplish, which is we want to we want to annex the donut areas and the areas. And so if if that conversation works its way towards the county being supportive of that, then again, I don't think we'd be amendable to the discussion of you just take all the roads, but we're going to keep all the property tax. It's I don't think that discussion goes far, but sorry to answer your question, she she wasn't really aware of that situation, but

I give her heads up. So you want to answer that now then? Yeah, I think I think I heard part of your question, but when we take on roads, um I mean we are responsible for constructing them and with engineering standards and constructing them and designing them properly and so we take on liability going forward based on our ownership of that road and how we improved it, how we designed it, those sorts of things. So it's not that past ownership would tack on to us because we weren't the ones that built that road and designed that road because it was not in fact ours. So we like you'll probably notice with a lot of our torque claims, we get a lot of we get named on torque claims a lot for US36 even though we don't have ownership for that. So that's usually how we kind of get out of those just because if we don't own it, we don't design it, we don't construct improvement on on it, that usually falls to INDOT in that case. So that's kind of a comparison for you.

Okay. Thank you. Can I ask a clarifying question? You mentioned the South project

relinquishment of roads. This was another issue that has happened in the last two months with the sheriff's department and our department. Sheriff's department administrative personnel went to the county highway department to find out what roads the county was responsible for. What they did is then they mixed apples and oranges because the county answered their question and said 100 south from 267 all the way to a little past Ronald Reagan Parkway is Avon town responsibility. That is correct for the maintenance of the roadway. Mhm.

Jar's part put that out to mean that that meant any crash that occurred in the unincorporated part of the town of Avon town of Avon's responsibility and Avon police department also responsibility which is not correct because that's all based on taxes

and police runs go off of taxes and jurisdiction. So, we had a dispute that was figured out and settled and I explained to them. The reason that sometimes that happens with best way I could get them to understand is it doesn't make financial or really logical sense for a plow truck to have it plow down on the road and plow all the way to a certain point and then pick it up and roll it away and then put it back down and keep plowing. So we kind of sometimes towns and counties trade certain parts of roadways for others just for maintenance purposes, not for police.

This going to cause an issue with this new road being in county jurisdiction even though the town build it for them and I will come back and say this anything that happens in this area is now on police department responsibility because they will do that. So Anna, in our in our agreement for the relinquishment, can we draft it and then you can be make it clear that it's for road maintenance only and not for um uh um other emergency response. Yeah.

But we could potentially do that. But generally when it comes to police powers is different than maintaining a road. There are certain roads like you're discussing that we maintain. But if they're not a part of the town, we're not collecting tax dollars. that's kind of what lines up with our police jurisdiction, our police powers. We don't just automatically get police powers over territory because we're maintaining that area. So, I don't believe that this would cause an issue with that regard. Um, but we can address that further if we need to in the relish. Maybe just for clarification.

Yeah, it's not really a contract to relinquish. They're just relinquishing it. But, um, we can address that to make sure that issue doesn't continue to occur. Any other comments, topics? If not, we'll take a break.

Oh.

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. Roll call, please. Robert Pope, present. Bill Holland, present. Greg Zusen, present. Don Lden, present. Jason Pucket, present. First on the agenda tonight, we have a swearing in of our new police officers. Sean,

thank you. Uh, tonight we're going to be swearing in two new police officers. Um, I'm going to kind of go over a couple of their bios, but before I do, I just want to thank everybody for being here this evening. Uh this is a pretty special moment in any officer's uh career. This is that first step that they take u when they launch um that career and and embark upon what's going to be a challenging career and a challenging time for them and their family. But at the same time, it's also very rewarding. Uh the first officer I would like to speak about today is Officer Robert Sner. He goes by Bob. Um, officer Bob Sumar resides in Hendrickx County with his wife and two daughters. He pre previously served eight years as a patrol officer with the Planefield Police Department and also served as a general instructor, accident reconstructionist, and a Glock armor. While serving at the Planefield Police Department, Officer Sum received the Planefield Medal of Valor, two Planefield Police Department life-saving medals, the Planefield Police Department Silver Star, and two Planefield Police Department certificates accommodation, and one Planefield Police Department certificate of appreciation. He's a graduate of graduate of Fountain Central High School. I had to look that up to see where that is because I've never heard of it, but it's way over on the east side of the state. Uh east. I don't think so. I looked at a different map than um the Indiana map, Bill. Uh what's that?

Okay. You're all right. You're you're right, Bill.

All right. This is great. This is live stream, too. So, that's the best part. Um, it's it's actually Yeah. Anyway, a graduate of Fountain Central High School. Um, he aspires to become a department instructor. He wants to be in supervision someday and possibly in investigations. Uh, usually when, um, when they apply for our department, they also fill out a pretty lengthy application. And part of that application is they have to do like a writing exercise where they talk about why they want to be a Avon police officer. There's always at least a couple interesting things in there. Um when people write uh why they want to be a police officer. So I always try to find something that captures kind of who they are at least on in the short time that we've got to know them. And so Bob said, "I feel serving and protecting those who need help and or can't protect themselves is what the good Lord put me on this earth to do." Short one sentence. Couldn't have said it better. So um thank you Bob for applying with our department and welcome aboard. The second officer I'd like to speak about is Officer Matt Wilson. Matt resides with his wife here in uh Hendricks County. He's a graduate of the St. Thomas Moore Catholic School from Lafayette, Louisiana. That's in Louisiana. Is that correct, Bob? Uh, and he studied at the University of uh Louisiana at Lafayette. He graduated from the post level three correctional officers course in Harvey, Louisiana. He also served as a veteran of the US Army. He graduated from the 101st Airborne Division Sabalowski Air Assault School. He received the US Army's Good Conduct Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, the Army Service Ribbon, and his Air Assault badge. He received his honorable discharge in

June of 2020. We thank you for your service, Matt, uh to our country and now to our community. He's a graduate of the Sledell Police Academy from Sledell, Louisiana, as well as a SWAT school in St. John's par St. John's Parish Sheriff's Office. Matt served on the Hammond Police Department in Hammond, Louisiana since June of 2021 before moving back to Avon with his wife and family recently. He served on the department SWAT team, the Hammond Street Crimes Unit, and the patrol division. An interesting thing in his file is uh the chief from his former department actually wrote his reference letter. Um, Chief Edwin Bergman Jr. of the Hammond Police Department personally wrote Matt's letter of reference to our agency. So, I thought that was pretty impressive. Matt is expected to receive an ILA waiver for his previous training, so he is not going to have to attend the academy. Uh, he's uh getting ready to start his field training here pretty soon. We hope to get him out on the road pretty soon. Um, his quotes a little bit longer. uh found that after getting to know these guys a little bit um once he starts talking he talks a little bit longer so I think he writes a little bit longer. Uh three things that I strive for every day on the job as an officer is officer safety, preservation of life and teamwork. I firmly believe these three things are the most important goals to abide by in order to ensure everyone goes home safe to their families at night and that the community stays safely served. Very well said. Uh to administer our oath this evening have the honorable superior court 5 judge Stephanie Lmain Lucan. I'm going to turn that over to Judge Lucan at this time.

You're making a lot of mistakes today. So good evening. So, uh Officer Sar, come on up. You guys are lucky. This department is lucky. This town is lucky. you getting a lot of experience. So, we're going to face this way. So, everybody take their pictures. Okay. So, officer, raise your right hand. I state your name. I, Robert Sumner, do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I will defend the Constitution that I will defend the Constitution of the United States of America of the United States of America and of the state of Indiana and of the state of Indiana and that I will faithfully and I will faithfully perform my duties perform my duty duties duties yeah more than one as a law enforcement officer

as a law enforcement officer of the Avon Police Department of the Avon Police Department impartially impartially fairly fairly and to the best of time and to the best of my ability ability. I affirm I affirm that I will enforce all ordinances that I will enforce all ordinances and laws and laws and follow all legal directives and follow all legal directives and policies and policies prescribed by the Avon Police Department prescribed by the Avon Police Department. So help me God. So help me God. Good luck out there. Thank you.

Thank you. Where's your next fancy one? Okay, come on up. Louisiana Wilson, you can come up. Take pictures. Come on. Don't be shy. Hello. Oh, how tall are you? Uh, 6'8. 6'8. Did you play ball? Basketball? No, they don't do that in Louisiana. I did in high school.

You did? Okay. My 6'4. I'm going to tell them I met somebody taller than him. Okay. So, raise your right hand. I state your name. I, Matt Wilson, do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I will defend the Constitution that I will defend the Constitution of the United States of America of the United States of America and of the state of Indiana in the state of Indiana and that I will faithfully and that I will faithfully perform my duties perform my duties as a law enforcement officer as a law enforcement officer of the Avon Police Department of the Avon Police Department impartially impartially fairly fairly and the best of my and to the best of my ability and to the best of my ability I affirm I affirm that I will enforce all ordinances that I will enforce all ordinances and laws

and laws and follow all legal directives and follow all legal directives and policies and policies prescribed by the Avon Police Department prescribed by the Avon Police Department. So help me God. So help me God. Good luck out there. Good luck to all of you. Stay safe out there.

Sean, would you like to pause for some photographs? I think we'll go ahead and uh pause for some photographs and we'll be right back.

We're going to go ahead and call the council meeting back to order and move on with the next item, the consent agenda.

Any discussion? If not, we'll take a motion. I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda, including the check register for March 12th, 2026. Approval of the minutes for February 26, 2026 as presented. Second. Julie. Roll call, please. Jason Pucket, four. Robert Pope, four. Bill Holland, four. Greg Susan, four. Don Lden, four.

Next is a public comment opportunity. The public may speak on an agenda that is not part of a public hearing or a specific matter within the council's jurisdiction. If you would like to speak, please come forward to the podium. Make sure the green light is on on the microphone and state your name and address.

49 Balmoral Lane in Avon. It's uh on the other side of the uh Lexington Woods. And I just have a statement I'd like to read. I appreciate the growth Avon is experiencing. The new warehouses and development are good for the town, but with that growth, we need a plan to keep our public spaces nice. I regularly bike along 100 South along the south the surrounding paths. Recently, I've seen a growing number of trash and bow-waste along the sidewalks and trails. things like urine bottles, diapers, and other litter. At that point, it becomes more than an appearance issue. It becomes a sanitation problem. When I reached out previously, the suggestion was that I pick up the trash myself. While community volunteering is great, it's not sustainable solution for the growing town. What I'm asking the council to consider is establishing a simple littering management program. For example, first regular cleanup through partnerships with police, probation, or community service programs so people working off fines and probation can help maintain these areas. Second, we need a strong enforcement and prevention, clear expectations for businesses near these corridors, meaningful fines for littering, and a visible anti-littering campaign that encourages people to report violations. We're all investing in sidewalks and bike paths, which is great. Now, we need a plan to maintain them so residents can enjoy them. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Anyone else?

No one else coming forward. Thank you for your comments. We'll move on with department updates. Steve Moore, public works director. Um the CCMG project uh for 2026 is getting ready to go. So we'll have uh looks like 13 road 14 roads uh that will be paving. In addition to that, we'll have some skip patching projects going on. The uh Dan Jones phase three project is going well with the utility relocations looking for uh the contractor to start construction in April. Uh the raceway roundabout project is also going really well with utility relocation. Hopefully in the next two weeks that'll wrap up in time for the contract to start on March 23rd. So Monday, March 23rd will be the closure of uh Raceway and 100 North and that should last till the end of July. Um that's pretty much it. Um I have the standard signs other things, but I think we can skip that for tonight. Anything else? Any questions?

I don't think so. Okay. Thank you. Good evening. Linda Albran, planning director. Uh quickly touch on cases. Uh the BCA approved the Chick-fil-A uh on the east end for their setback for their canopy and then they approved the joint site on Avon Avenue for the new utility building that's going in there. We will not be having a BCA meeting this month due to lack of business. The plan commission heard and approved the Moetta site, the former Swenson site, the Avon Retail Shops, which is the north side of 36 east of Reagan Parkplace Crossing Commercial Building, which is the vacant Parkplace lots when you first enter that development. and then recommended approval of the gatherings resoning which you'll hear later tonight. They had a full public hearing on Walmart Avon Avenue South and then they denied the waiver to have an access on directly onto Avon Avenue. At that point, the petitioner requested a wave or a continuence to the March 23rd hearing which was granted and the petitioner is working on some redesign for that site. And um we've seen some preliminary uh renderings of the of what they're proposing next, but we don't have a full submission yet. And then we just got in for our cuto off for April four new cases. uh Avon Landing building three which is willy east of Sephora um at Reagan the joint site again for its development plan review a new

gymnastics facility on Kingston and a new preliminary plat called City View and then U Paul and I did attend the INDOT public hearing um along with council president for the US36 widening project and gave our comments to them um which they are now preparing responses to. We also had a meeting today with INDOT regarding the new project and are going having some open discussions with them on on their plans. So we're going to keep up with that. We have another meeting scheduled. So any questions?

I don't think so. Thanks, Linda. Sean Stoops, chief of police and Indiana geography expert. Uh, Officer Devin Busy is progressing well through his field training. Uh, he graduated from the academy in January. He's expected to be uh, released on time and uh, that should happen here in just a few weeks. uh new officers, Officer Sumner and Wilson. He just met. They've been on boarded. Uh they've already begun their initial training. Officer Sumner is already in field training and uh Officer Wilson is completing his uh pre-basic training and he'll be starting field training pretty soon as well. The Avon PD merit board met on Monday and approved another candidate to fill one of our uh vacancies. Um they off they tendered a conditional offer of employment. Once he is approved by Perf, we should be able to begin bringing him on board within uh we we hope within the next two to three weeks. Uh we want to congratulate Officer Kevin Casperic on being selected for the joint emergency response team, otherwise known as SWAT. We've talked about that before. Um that's a pretty demanding and challenging process to be selected. uh sever se sever several of our officers went through that process and um and he was selected um to be that to fill that vacancy on that position. So that's a pretty uh prestigious uh accomplishment for officer Casper. I want to congratulate him for that. Um

is is that Hendrickx County SWAT team? It's not Hendrickx County. It's Brownsburg uh Avon and then I think Pittsboro is on there as well. So, it is a joint team, but they just kind of focus on that area. So, uh you should have some stats and other information there in your packet that you would receive. Um and be happy to answer any questions you might have. Is the officer who was offered conditional employment a um a lateral officer? Not exactly. Uh he is with another agency, but he's just started training and he's not attended the academy. Okay. Uh, so he'll he's going to have to go to the academy and do field training. So, great.

How many openings that does that leave us then for uh I believe that's going to be two two and then hiring two. So, we still got four openings. Yes. Um, three. Have you exhausted your last list of

No. So, this list is actually really good. Um, we've had a lot of exceptional candidates. We've had some candidates that we tendered offers to um and we either didn't uh get them before another agency did or they decided to stay with their current agency. Uh so it's been really good. I think there was a list of 29 when we started and I think we're currently um on number 10. So we're hoping that without any more issues we should be able to fill the rest of those vacancies. Thank you.

Thank you. Good evening. Shelby Pride, parks and recreation director. Um, we uh I know last time I updated you that I had a couple people go into some trainings. I'm proud to say that one of our trainees uh passed the certified playground safety inspector course put on through the National Park and Wreck Association. Uh they took that last week and got their results back at noon today. So, I want to congratulate him and both of them for going and doing the work. It's it's really important for us to have that on staff. Also, this week, we received our 19-year designation for the Tree City USA. Uh we attended the picnic for the parks put on by the park foundation. Uh we were able to have a booth set up there. We took our renderings for park projects and it was pretty popular. Uh there were 450 people there. They had a goal of raising $20,000 that day. They ended up raising $60,000 and the Park Foundation of Hendricks County leadership award went to Jeff Banning. So, congratulations to him. Um, and now forever more that leadership award will be called the Jeff Banning Leadership Award. We have applied, Tiffany applied for a few grants. Um, I want to highlight those. Duke Energy, uh, we got a $5,000 grant for our trail safety project. um they would like to do a check presentation at a future meeting, so that might be on your agenda here in the near future. Thank you, Duke Energy. Uh we received the Hendricks County Community Grant uh for our World War II memorial park. Um that does maintenance, upkeep, and enhancements. Typically, it covers the cost of flags and cleaning. Um we have uh $1,299 for that. So, thank you community for that. And then uh we also yesterday

received word that uh Visit Indie for Visit Indie on behalf of the Greater Indie Trailways um they're doing a mixer later in April April for National Trail Day. Um we created an event on that day and we applied for a small micro grant and they gave us $750 to put on that event. So that's all. Thank you. Any questions? Julie, do you have anything?

I think that just leaves me. Um, this week I attended the, um, ILMCT, it's Indiana League of Municipal Clerk Treasures conference, um, Sunday to Thursday. Today, um, is when we ended it. We had a lot of great speakers. I came back with a lot of ideas I need to talk to the town manager about. Um, it's a great way to get to know and meet 300 other clerk treasures and their deputies from around the state. Um, I want to thank Mark Tedesco in Planefield for hosting this. Um, we did it at the Embassy Suites Conference, the old Primo building, but um, there was one night where he took us on a tour of Hendricks Live and um, it's just a great facility and I'm looking forward to having our own community center where we can start hosting events as well. But um I did attend that this week. So you'll be hearing a lot more about that in the future.

Thank you. Next is council comment and leaison reports. Bill, we'll start on your end today. I have nothing. Great. I have nothing. Robert, anybody wanting some really fly, loud pants, go to avonports.com. No, avon Indiana.govsports will get you there. I can't remember what the original URL fundraiser for some awesome pants. That's that's all I got. Thank

uh I attended the soft opening for Al Emporium and would like to welcome them to the community. It was very well attended. I saw some of our staff there before I left. So, um welcome to Avon. Moving on to our new business. The first is awarding the bid for park improvements. Good evening again. Uh tonight I come before you uh to award the lowest bids um for a couple of park projects that we opened in our public bid opening last week. Um, I'm requesting that the town council award the lowest bid for Bernett Parks and Whiten Meadows Parks uh to Mattcon Contracting. I believe you guys have all the documentation in front of you um to see that they were the lowest bid on that. I've also included the ad alternates that we decided um to use or not use. Um, and then the picture of the building is not a part of that. That is the actual building going up. I just added that for you guys to see. So, the recommendation, uh, we would like to accept Matt Khan's base price of 3,185,000. And then we would like to approve ad alternate number three at $89,500 and ad alternate 4 at $111,000. Uh they have deduct alternates for uh $25,000 and with a total of $3,360,500.

How much did you say? 3 million 360500. See, that's not what I have. Yeah, that's not what we're seeing. What are you seeing? 3,52500. And that it's showing that they deducted alternative or alternate one and alternate two. Yeah. Um but they're only showing 75,000 deducted for alternate one which was 81,000 and 25,000 for alternate 2 which was showing us 54,000. So what was your final number? 3 thou 3,520,500. So in other words, when So yeah, you're seeing the total of all four if we accepted all of all the alternates.

Yeah. Uh look under E recommendations shows the correct Oh, gotcha. I guess the other thing just to remind you guys, you're just awarding the bids. You don't have to do a dollar amount. So you're just approving the bids. Shel's trying to explain to you what her recommendation is, even though the bid is for some other things. So we're not necessarily doing everything. But again, when you guys make your motion, we would just ask for you to accept the low bid, which is Mattcon contracting, no dollar amount. And we don't have to ask for authorization for Julie to disperse those funds either. Okay. Do we know anything about Matcon? Have we used them for any projects before?

Um, not for any park projects. I don't know. Townwide. Yeah, we haven't. We did do some discussions. Rigdon uh who were is going to be our CMA and context were both familiar with them and said that they had worked with them in the past and that they were a good contractor. So the town hasn't worked with them before so it'll be our first time. I would like to um just put on the record that Councilman Zusen has left because of a conflict of interest uh during this portion of the meeting. So, are are you wanting both of these together?

They're both going to M. No, they're not. The pickle ball is a different contractor. If you would like to do it all in one, we certainly can. I can. I thought they were the same. Sorry. Nope. Yeah. This is just for Bernett Park and the Winton Meadows Park project. I'll make a motion that we award the bid for uh Bernett Park and Whiten Meadows to Matt Con Contracting as presented. Second. Just I guess for the record, we do have these funds available through our park bond that we approved earlier this year. Yes.

And our financial person, Greg Garage, has Ryan shown that we have the sustainability in our budget to make those bond payments. Yeah, that's um Shelby gave you guys a sources and uses. You will notice we are slightly over total for both projects.

Uh so there's a couple solutions we can we can do with that one. We had already had some conversations with the contractor. They had some things once you guys approve it, we can work with the contractor to reduce prices. That's one option. Option two, we could do additional appropriation if necessary. Shelby has under spent her uh food and beverage budget the last two years. So, her fund balance has been growing. So, we could do additional appropriation. We did have some money in our budget, but there's Shelby could choose to do other pro not do other projects uh to have money as well. And that was it. You tied the last two together.

Tied the two together. So, so we are comfortable with you awarding it. Again, I think what what we will do is we will keep you informed as we move forward before we can get into those discussions and figure out all the logistics of the dollars. We have to get it awarded. So, that's why we're asking you toward it tonight. We will keep you guys updated and we will make sure that we are capable of covering the costs. Again, we're about $400,000 over for everything Shelby's recommending. What do you have in your food and beverage?

The fund balance or fund balance total 3,8 Oh, is that right? Yeah. 3,853,980. We do have um Oh, I'm sorry. That was the bond. That's just for the bond. In the fund for food and beverage, we have $3,298. And then we also have recre recreation impact fees. And that balance is1,20,290. I think we're good. We also have tree mitigation money to to do some of the tree mitigation at $150,000 in the fund.

We had a first and a second. So Julie, roll call, please. Don Lden four. Jason Pucket four. Bill Holland four. Robert Pope four. Awarding pickle ball.

Yep. Um the pickle ball park we bid um as a separate project. It's a little bit different than just uh passive park stuff. Um so we would like to award the lowest bid to McDougall Pierce as presented. um their bid was the lowest. And you also have the same documentation. Um it's a little confusing. I apologize for that. We kind of lumped everything together in one document and we didn't break it up for you guys. Um but as presented, the 1,185,825 to McDougall Pierce, that 400,000 does that that we were over is that for both projects together?

Yeah. So that actually that is um that and then after pickle ball um I would like to award a uh contract and that is also included in that in that 400,000 left over. So it really wasn't the project itself, it's the construction maintenance that you added to it that we didn't have when we did all this evaluation. Sorry you asked that question. Yeah, that didn't bother you. Well, I mean, when you went through all these bids and stuff, we never had the construction management component. So, now you're adding it to it. So, now we don't have enough money. Well, 250 of the

430 401 shortfall is the construction management side of it. Half of that. So, next time I think we do this, we should add that in there as a contingency or something of that type.

Yeah. I mean, we our goal was to get as many of the parks improvements as we could. So, a portion of the alternates were we knew that our estimate would be over, but we wanted to take advantage of if we could get good bids that we could do more of the work. So, what we actually ended up doing is we're going to be able to do more work because we actually got really good bids. Both of the bids were below the engineer's estimate. That's why there's all these alternates because we were like if we could do more work because our bids are low. Now, we could pull those alternates out like Greg said and we could get down to a lower number. But again, our our goal is to get it's never going to be cheaper than it is today to do these projects. For us to have someone come back later, even if the alternate's 81,000 to come back in four years and try to do that, it's going to cost 130,000. It's not going to be 81 anymore. So we structured the bid in a way to try to get as much work done as we could possibly get done. And so that's why some of it is there. It wasn't necessarily because we didn't account for the CMA. It was because we were trying to get as much of the work done as possible. And again, that's still our goal and that's why we're still asking you to award the bids. Let us try to work through it and see if we can if we could do all of it. We'd love to do all of it. The reality is we probably can't because we're over. But again, we'll we'll work through those those dollar amounts and again, we'll report back to you. We'll keep you guys in the loop and share with you where we're at on the budget and the overall cost. So,

well, in our conversation, two things. I think we should do the alternates for one and find the money. Well, then part of the reason is because we don't have it budgeted for this year, but we would have it for next year. So, I said, "Let your contractor know there may be a delay until next year to paying you your $81,000 or whatever and just get it done."

Yeah. Pay it out of next year's budget. That's an option as well. That's a fifth option that that Greg's right. We if we know and some of this won't all happen. most of the buildings and the main stuff, but some of the the landscaping, the trees, if we fall out of season and we can't plant that stuff, that's not going to happen until 2027. So, again, some of those things we could pay for out of we could budget for them in next year's budget and actually pay for it out of next year's budget. So, again, that's what I'm asking you guys for some flexibility. I know that requires you guys to have some trust in Shelby and I to make sure that we don't spend $400,000 more than we can. But again, that's if we do that, if there's an additional appropriation or we have to do something, we have to come back to you guys to get that approval anyway. So

So with these alternatives that you're putting in here though, should we not should our motions, if we were to make a motion to approve, should it not say not to exceed at this point? I mean because you've already added in the alternates that you want.

We can't do not to exceed when we have public bidding. There's only two options. We either either accept the bid or you reject all bids. So we don't have flexibility to say we're accepting up to a certain amount. For public bidding, we've asked for them to make the bids. They've made the bids. We either accept them or we reject them all. And when you accept, you accept the lowest, most responsible and responsive bidder. you I don't

I don't know if you were in here or not because I wasn't paying that much attention to where you were going, but you've already identified places where we could do all of this. My my preference is to do it, get it done. We've waited a long time for some of this stuff. It's about time that we show some type of product uh for the community. So, I I think she's identified where the funds can come from this year if it's necessary for this year.

Well, that's what I was just going to say. When you look at your your funds report, you've got four of them highlighted. One of them we're going to use all of it up, but we have park impact fees, you got excess funds, you've got food and beverage, you have excess. So, it's not a matter we don't have the money. It's just a matter that the way we we bid on it and now we've have an overrun. So,

I'll um second what Bill said. You know, I've been here seven years saying when are we going to do something? When are we going to get something done in our parks as as opposed to just vacant land sitting there? So, I'm I'm excited to see these things come through and I'll be excited to see them to fruition, but at the same time, we just got hit with a fiscal change as far as municipality funding. And so that's why I want to make sure that we're we're solid. Yeah,

I would maybe that just even quick point, Don, just as an educational thing for anybody watching the meeting paying for these parks improvements. None of them are anybody's property taxes. They're all food and beverage tax. They are recreation impact fees, meaning new development is paying for them. The tree mitigation fund is when a development comes and they cut down trees, they have to pay us money. So that money is also from developers. So the taxpayers actually, unless you eat at a restaurant, no property tax is going towards these projects. It's fully funded outside of of property tax and the general fund. So this isn't something we can use for police department or hiring police officers. This money is all earmarked to go towards parks. No other comments or questions. We'll entertain a motion.

I'll make a motion that we award the low bid for pickle ball uh courts to McDougall Pierce as presented. Second. Thank you, Julie. Roll call, please. Bill Holland, four. Greg Zusen, four. Don Lden, four. Robert Pope, four. Jason Pucket, four.

Next is your professional service fee. Um, I would like to ask you to award the professional services agreement to Rigdon Construction. Uh, just to walk with us as an owner's consultant through these projects. Um, Pickle Ball, Bernett, and Whiten Meadows Park. They've agreed to total fees not more than $250,000. Could be less than that, but not to exceed that. So, that is we did budget the maximum for that. And there could be some cost savings there as well. My only question and I don't know if you have the answer is how do they bid this out? How do they come up with that number? Well,

so great question, Greg. So, I will say that one I want to thank Rigdon Construction because actually their proposed fee was substantially higher than this, but Shelby and I went to them and said, "Hey, our whole goal of this is which exactly what you guys all just reiterated was, hey, we want to spend as much of this money towards parks improvements as possible." So, they actually reduced their rate, but normally what we do is we do a man-hour justification. So, they take how long the contract should take and who's assigned to the project. same way we do for a a construction manager for road projects. It is a hourly contract. So, it'll be set up as an hourly contract. So, that's what you'll see Greg in there. There's hourly rates. So, those hourly rates, they did that multiplied by the period of time that it could take. Now, we don't really know. We're going to be somewhere between seven and 10 months of construction. And so, again, on the low end, they could be less than 250, but we put the cap on there that it would not to exceed 250. And again, thank you to Rigdon Construction. They came down a substantial amount from what they actually originally proposed. And so they've had a long-term working relationship with us. So again, I think they're doing it for a very reasonable cost. But ultimately, it's based on that hourly rate, Greg, just like we do on construction inspection. And it could end up being less. So again, when we talk about being over 400,000, we may not really be under four over 400,000 because we'll see how this hourly rate charges out and whether it really adds up to 250. We put the worst case scenario in the budget for you guys to see that and understand that, but it may not actually be 250. So,

um, so 7 to 10 months, are we starting on both projects at the same time or um, yes, we would like to, uh, it would depend on the contractor and how how they're doing right now. Um my goal is to if all is approved tonight, um let them know of the a the bid awards tomorrow and start working on contracts and then we can start to get down to the nitty-gritty on timelines, groundbreaking, you know, all of the things. But there was a um timeline in in both of the bid packages for 7 to 10 months.

And um especially over at Bernett, we have a lot of equipment parked there. So how do we start on our park improvements? Um they have been asked to leave that premises by April 1st. Okay. So we do anticipate something starting to move pretty quickly. Thank you. Are we using that area though to store excess material such as dirt that we could use on other locations? And if that's the case, where are we going to move that?

It was for that location. The dirt is from the Dan Jones whitening project. Um Steve was actually gracious enough to say, "Hey, I've got an idea. We have all of this dirt and nowhere to put it. Uh I see in your plans that you've got these hills um projected to be out there and so it was minimal cost if anything trucking um for us to have those out there so we don't have to haul anything in and we don't have to haul anything out for that for those hills.

Thank you. Anna, you you mentioned we um for a public bid, we we don't need to put in a stay under this amount, not to exceed amount. Uh if I remember, professional services don't need to go through that process. Do we need to put a not to exceed $250,000 on this? Yes, I would because that's the agreement for professional services. You get to choose who you want to work with and there's no real statutory process. So that Thank you. Anyone want to make a motion? I'll make a motion that we award the uh award the uh professional services agreement for Rigdon Construction um as presented not to exceed uh $250,000.

Second. Thank you, Julie. Roll call, please. Jason Pucket, four. Greg Zusen, four. Bill Holland, four. Don Lden, four. Robert Pope, four. Okay,

thank you guys. I'm done now. Thank you. That's a lot, Shelby. awarding quotes for roadside mowing. Steve Moore, public works director. Uh we received two quotes, two bids for actually they are quotes for roadside mowing. Um, the low bidder, low quer was Wild Ridge Lawn and we got references from the town of or city I'm stuck in the old days city of Fisers. Uh, they they use them and uh they're happy with their work. Um, so I recommend that you reward the roadside mowing project to Wild Ridge Lawn and Landscape. I I have a quick question. I thought I saw were they uh included in their bid that they would pick up debris.

Yeah, that's that's what we do every year. Um we do a couple things. We along with the mowing, they have to clean up before they mow. And uh in addition to that, like the last year's roadside mowing guy, he did a cleanup in January for us. And apparently in between January and now, there's some been some collection of of things that need to be picked up and these guys will pick it up before they start. This will include 100 South, right? Yes. Yes. Just wanted to make sure. Yeah. Yep. And we've already started clean up on the roundabouts. Ashley,

I know I bring this up every year, but I feel like it's a safety thing. So, when they mow, um, especially since they're not mowing our parks and things like that, they're mowing out there on the roadways, the public roads, if they could not throw their grass into the streets, which makes it really difficult for motorcyclists. Katon rode with uh each of the people that were quoting and he drove them with um with the idea of this is how we do things and so he's gone over that with them. Of course, if you you know you get one guy that doesn't you know tell the other 14 guys how to do it, they'll learn real quick that uh we don't like it if they do it the wrong way.

Only comment I have is this is a one-year contract. However, it could be extended up to three years, right? So, last year's contract winners, do we want to extend theirs for three another three years? No, thank you. All right. That's why we're bidding it out. Yes. Okay. And then we

motion that we approve the roadside 2026 roadside mowing for Wild Ridge lawn and landscaping an amount not to exceed $16,925. Second Julie roll call, please. Robert Pope, four. Bill Holland, four. Greg Zusen four. Don Laden four. Jason Bucket four. Next is roundabout maintenance.

So just like the roadside mowing, we separated out into two different contracts. Uh we find that it's good to have two different contractors or two opportunities to have two different contractors to do the work. Uh this one um Allterrain was the low bidder and um we've had them before. We really liked them and uh we use them for a lot of things and so we're happy to recommend that you accept a quote of allterrain landscape as presented. If I may add one thing just to clarify, someone may ask why do you have road roadside mowing and why do you have roundabout maintenance? And we do two different things. So the roadside mowing we mow once a month. So those are typically areas that are uncurbed and so once a month roadside mowing happens anywhere area roundabouts 100 south uh uh 200 north certain segments of Ronald Reagan Parkway those get mowed more frequently because they're curbed and they're landscaped and we've done improvements to those areas those things are in the roundabout maintenance contract and those are mowed once a week for 24 weeks and so the type of mowing is different in each of those locations and the time frames in which we mow are different. So, we do require all of them to pick up trash and to clean up those areas. Those are part of their contracts. Again, to the question earlier, sometimes in the winter we do a winter trash pickup, but it tends to be when we're not frequently mowing, it tends to get worse because there's nobody out there on a weekly basis or a monthly basis cleaning up. So, we tend to have this issue in the winter. And so again, the both of these contracts address that, but I wanted to at least clarify a little bit why why two different contracts. And what we find is somebody who's good at one may not be good at the other. And so that's why we

kind of separate out those two different scopes. And the roundabout mowing has to have more attention to detail. People see those and and critique those more. the the contract or uh pardon me, this uh this memo um references soon to be 17 roundabouts. I assume that's referencing uh 100 North and Raceway, but are they aware and are okay that they're going to be mowing an additional one later this year? Well, yeah. Again, Keen drove with with all of them and showed them that location that that will come online because that that was a roadside mowing before, right? Now, now it's going to be roundabout mowing and I assume is included in Yeah.

price. Yeah. Yeah. And the new one at Costco. Yeah. Yep. Same. I would ask that the same thing that we make sure that especially because I noticed it a lot on Ronald Reagan where they just throw it out there. Yeah. So again, this is a contractor that we didn't have last year, but three years prior we had this contractor and and I don't think you've had any complaints about the roundabout mowing in those three years. I don't remember that part. Last year, last year you had some complaints, but the the three years prior you did not. Oh, thank you for keeping track of that for me.

I make a motion that we approve the 2026 roundabout mowing contract to all terrain, landscape, and snow management in an amount not to exceed $100,2524. Second, Julie. Roll call, please. Jason Bucket, four. Don Len, four. Greg Zusen, four. Bill Holland, four. Robert Pope, four. That it awarding for the ADA sidewalk replacements and new connections.

All right. So, yeah, this is one one more. This is a a contract to redo a bunch of sidewalks and some uh actually some trail connection. It's a sidewalk connection, but it uh it acts as a trail. So, um we have also some development with a new um subdivision coming online over by um oh shoot off of 900. What's it called? Landing. Well, no, it's um doesn't matter. Um it's a subdivision on 900. What' you say? Silver Springs.

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, she knows. So, she got my back um this time. But anyway, Silver Springs. Uh so we we're connecting to an existing neighborhood and there along the the um on Faith Way is the road along there. There's a lot of uh um ne needs for sidewalk improvements in that neighborhood overall. There's need for sidewalk improvements. So we we made a a fairly large project of of repairing sidewalks uh doing some connectivity with sidewalks and this is the project. So u we got uh several quotes um and or we two quotes we got we asked several people um concrete evolutions uh is a known contractor good concrete contractor he hasn't done work for me personally but uh I know of others that have and they seem to be doing well and I recommend that you award the uh quote to concrete evolutions as presented. Go ahead.

There's a pretty drastic difference between these two bids. Yeah. Um I I understand some history of Hulllesnick and why that might be. Why are they so far apart? So again, it's a function of hey, how busy am I? How much work do I have? You know, um if I have a lot of work, I'm going to bid higher. That's a more important question. Do you feel that this is inaccurately and the other the other thing with Holeneik is in this case he uses another contractor to do most work for him. So he's we call it stepping on it. He's going to step on that guy's price. Right. Sure.

So it's a function of a lot of things but I feel comfortable with this price because this price came in uh just a little higher than what my estimate was. The low the low price was higher than my estimate. These ADA sidewalks, are they still part of the federal requirement that we needed to up update some of our sidewalks or not? Or are these just No. Yeah. So, so there are several ramps in included in here that need to be updated. Um, some are damaged, uh, you know, trucks run over them and crack them or or some of them are outdated. They met the they met the old standard, but they don't meet the new standard.

Yeah. Yeah. So, there's updating involved. Yes. Whenever we touch the concrete next to a ramp, we have to update the ramp. So, do you have a a timeline when we might have all of the ADAs updated to the federal standards? All of them in town after I'm dead. Well, I mean, we only do 50,000 a year.

Well, we do more than that. So, um, where, um, where we do our CCMG projects, if wherever our asphalt touches an existing road with an existing ramp, we update those ramps. So, that's included in the CCMG. So, that's a different budget, right? So, we probably do gosh, I don't know, 50 $60,000 of CCMG ramps, you know, a year, too. So, we we do quite a bit of ramps. I mean, but still, you know, to do them all, boy, we got a lot of miles of of sidewalks and ramps. So, yeah. I don't plus I could die tomorrow and then you I would be right. I assumed with your attention to detail you would have had some timeline even if that was out to 2200.

Well, we keep on annexing you know the more the more old neighborhoods that we annex the more old ones that need to be replaced that you know I mean I I can guess their timeline would be post Bill Holl. Yes. It's good. You want me to keep dancing? Is that what you would? Someone like to make a motion. I'll make a motion that we award uh the 2026 sidewalk and drainage project to concrete evolutions as presented. Second. Julie Roll call, please. Don Lden, four. Bill Holland, four. Greg Zusen, four. Jason Pucket, four. Robert Pope,

four.

Next is I works agreement amendment. Um, yeah, this is we currently use I works as our uh building permit and our rightaway permit system. Uh, as part of our effort to go paperless, which I know you guys are aware that we're doing, um, Linda had a conversation with them about how to transition our planning uh, program it to be paperless as well. So, how they could people could submit online, attach the drawings and all that stuff. So, we can also kind of streamline that operation. It also becomes a case management system for Linda and Paul as well to be able to manage planning cases. And so that's an additional module in addition to what we're already doing. So I know you have a contract in front of you for $14,000, but our current contract is for $10,000 for what we're already doing. So we're really just increasing $4,000. Um I I can't approve contracts. All contracts have to come back to you guys. So even though it's 14,000, it's more than what was happening before. So that's why it has to go on your agenda. Uh we did budget in the uh planning and building department budget $17,000 for for this software. So the 14,000 is still below what we were intended. So uh it is our recommendation to approve the contract as presented. And if you have any questions, Linda's happy to answer them for you.

I think it's great because then you don't have to get the paper and then scan it all in and do all of that. it it takes that step out of there. So, I think it's worth $4,000 on one project probably. Any questions? If not, we'll entertain a motion. Uh, I'll make a motion to approve the I work agreement as presented. Second. Julie, roll call, please. Jason Pucket, four. Bill Holland four. Robert Pope four. Don Lden four. Greg Zizen

four. Next is the Make My Move proposal.

Yes. Um as you guys are aware, we did have a conversation earlier this year about Make My Move. Uh Make My Move has continued to work with us. We still had uh several jobs when we presented this to the council previously. Um we have had some good success. We've gotten a couple more of those jobs filled. Um I think we got our sixth, our seventh. Uh we just approved an eighth that um hasn't officially signed but is close to signing. So we're starting to kind of fill that up. Uh the other piece is that the IEDC uh the governor uh the new governor has kind of gotten involved in this and he's kind of changed the program a little bit and the the state has become a strong supporter, even a stronger supporter than they were before of this program. And so they modified a little bit how it works, which is actually to our benefit. Uh the way it was kind of working before, we were paying the upfront costs and then we would go try to get reimbursed by the IEDC. It's changed now. The IDC is actually has a contract with Make My Move. The town also has a contract with Make My Move and the IDC will actually pay Make My Move directly. So I know before it made it look like we had a lot of money going out, but then we were getting reimbursed. That kind of cleans it up. I know you guys were kind of always confused and you're like, "This doesn't look right." And so, again, I think the state has done a good job of changing the way this all functions and works. Uh, we also recognized that maybe 10 jobs for our initial uh, attempt to get people was probably a little too ambitious and so we've backed that off as well and said our goal for the next year would be five new jobs. So, uh, make my move would still help us get the remaining three people and then our goal would be in the next year to get five more in addition to that original three. Um, and again, you you have the proposal in front of you. Ryan is here as well. If you have any questions for make make my move, uh, the cost ends up being our

total cost ends up being 25,500 uh, for the five jobs. That does assume that we would get a reimbursement back from the IDC of $29,000. So I think it is right around like 55,000 is our total cost, but again we would get reimbursed a little under $30,000. So uh it is our recommendation that you approve this and Ryan and I are happy to answer your questions. Do we know what the salaries were generated of these eight individuals? Brian, it's in your proposal. Is it correct?

Yeah, I believe so. Uh, I have it right here. Yeah. So, our most recent uh household income was 300,000 and then the one before that was 60,000 996 50,000 140,000 70,000 65,000 and then our first was 57,000. And so out of the seven new households, that's brought 15 new people to the communion. I think the most impressive was the last one, Michael Masten, four adults, three children in the household. So that was a total of seven people.

Do all these people reside in Avon then? Yes, that's one of the requirements is they have to live in the town and they have to bring their jobs with them and so they're bringing the job as well. Do we know if any of these have purchased a home or they're just renters? Uh Michael Masten purchased a home. Suzanne, we had one other one that p I think two have purchased a home. The rest I think were renters.

Oh yeah, one is renting a home. So, is it safe to say the program is doing what it's designed to do? It's just not generating as many applicants or respondents as we thought it would. Yes. And again, a little step back to this and we talk about this a lot as economic development and in Indiana the prop the property tax system is changing and it's going to switch to income taxes becoming more important. So again, having some diversity in our economic development plan to try to attract people. For example, you guys just approved a tax abatement for Heistister Yale and those are a lot of jobs, but that also cost us like $3.5 million for 350 jobs. That was the tax abatement. This amount for similarly type jobs is at still at a much lesser of a cost. So again, we're trying to diversify. We're not trying to put all our eggs in one basket. We're trying to have different ways to kind of attract people to Avon uh to again bring bring tax base and and bring the kind of people to our community that we'd like to have. Again, I know we'd like to have higher salaried people. We we've talked about within the program, even the way that we market to even give a boost to people who have a second income that they're also bringing. So maybe they have a spouse that also has a job and that maybe then we give them some additional incentives. So, we're trying to drive some of our incentives in the program to attract the kind of of of people in the type of jobs, high earners that we'd like to have.

Remind me where the funding comes from. It comes from edit, which is economic development and income tax. When you say 18 people, does that include children or those are working adults?

Uh, that does include children. Yes. I I just I I've never understood the program. I think if people see Avon as a good community and they want to live here, then they're going to come here. I don't understand paying people to move here. It's never made sense to me. Um, but I'm one of five. So,

yeah, I mean, we do have a handful of communities with like that partner up with Big Badu that don't uh pay. Not a very small handful, I would say. So, Bloomington would be an example. They offer a three-year membership to a co-working space essentially that's probably valued at like $6,000. So there's a way to do it if you have a valuable incentive package like a nonmonetary valuable incentive package.

Right now we don't have that and the competitive on the site roughly 95% probably 98% I'm guessing of the communities do offer some sort of cash incentive. Typically it's 5,000 per household and we're offering 25,500 Just 5,000 per household is what you're offering right now. And what we we Oh, so you're saying for the five then we'd be at 255.

Yeah, we line item for uh 30,000 total, which would be 6,000 per household. And that was because Councilman Suzanne last time sort of brought up, hey, it would be a good idea to like go out and maybe grab some local incentives even if we have to buy them. So maybe like a Hendrickx Live package or something else in the community that we go buy and then sort of detail the package when I Can we throw in some awesome pants? We absolutely can throw in some awesome pants. Just throwing that out there as an idea.

I mean, I think $50,000 it would be hard to live on a salary of $50,000 in Avon. Yeah, you haven't had a lot of 50,000. We had a 50, we had a 65, we had a 57. I'm using your numbers.

Well, again, I I some of these people are young people. So, the goal is you bring them to their community, maybe they're starting out at that level, but then as they get more jobs or their business grows, a couple of those people were they entrepreneurs. They had their own businesses. And so, yeah, maybe they only had a few customers now, but as their business grows, then eventually maybe, yeah, they move out of the apartment, they buy a home, like you're bringing people to the community, and if they like living here, then they'll want to stay here and continue to spend their money. Again, that's the concept. What's the percentage of the people that came um from other states?

They're all from other states from other the partnership that we have with the state of Indiana. Were there changes made to the incentive package between the last time you made this proposal to us and now?

Yes. The last time I think we came with a much higher like through sort of in discussions the proposal we put together had a much higher cash incentive and then just another thing kind of from feedback from Ryan channeled through all of you after the meeting. The idea was not to add more cash to the the program, but to maybe come up with some creative incentives that would essentially help the local businesses out as well. So, the plan is to keep the cash incentive as it is right now at 5,000 per household, which gets paid out, you know, half of it gets paid out when they commit to to move here by signing a mortgage or lease and then the other half is that here for at least a year.

This is a one-year program, right? That's correct. So, they get 5,000 when they commit and then 5,000 a year later. No, I'm sorry. If I was two half of the 5,000, so 25,500 they would get when they signed a mortgage or a lease and then the remaining 25,500 after they've been here for at least a year. so that we can show that there's at least a year of return on investment.

Anyone want to make a motion? Well, I supported the original one and this is probably better than the original one that was presented. So, I make a motion that we approved make my move proposal uh with an amount not to exceed $25,500.

Craig, can I ask you to consider modifying your motion just because uh the proposal is that's what our final cost will be? I don't 55 250. So, yeah. Can you do the 55,250 at least? And because again we do have to pay for it and then we'll get reimbursed. Our final cost is a 255. I'll amend my motion then the dollar amount to be it would never get to 55,000. The max that would get to legitimately would be 255 plus like 5,000 for two movers. Oh because that because you're right because that's not a cost to you. The movers is a cost to us.

Yeah. Okay. So, you're okay with the 255? If he's setting a maximum, that's the maximum I could pay you.

What's that? So, Oh, yeah. It says Avon to movers overtime 30,000. If we're paying 5,000 per mover and we're doing five movers, you're a banker. Something doesn't make sense. 5,000 cash plus a thousand in incentives. But did we approve the incentives? Who does that? Oh, so you've been doing that since we last spoke or $500. Okay.

That's a gym membership. It's not to the YMCA. It depends where the mover wants to do. We've done one to uh Anytime Fitness. Anytime Fitness. We've done one to YMCA. We did one to the Murphy Aquatic Park. That's that's part of the incentive that we would provide that to them. So, what is the amended dollar amount then? Greg, I would still ask that you just you approve it for not to exceed 55250. Understanding that's not all going to make my move. That's based on the proposal. That number is correct. That is also some of that cost is still our cost for the movers.

So sorry, just to go back to my point when you when you get to the halfway point that's correct, right? Y if you were only at two, I understand. But from the approval I need from them, I need them to approve for me to pay for the movers as well. So that's what it's not just to you. The cost of the whole program is potentially 55250. So I would ask for you to approve that or you can just approve the proposal as amended and just leave the dollar amount out.

I approve the proposal as amended. Was was that your motion? Yep. I'll second.

Julie, roll call, please. Robert Pope, four. Bill Holland, against. Greg Zusen, four. Don Lden, against. Jason Pucket, four.

Appreciate that. Next is resolution 2026-09 purchase agreement for police substation and training. Uh yeah, I'll introduce this if you do have questions. Um Chief Stoops and Anna can help as well. Um we have done some work actually Dan and Anna uh had conversation with the attorney for the u the l the current owner of the property. uh they did work out some language addressed the concerns that were previously brought up by the council. Um all of those revisions have been changed and so what you are reflecting is a purchase agreement based on uh the acquisition uh of the property that that Tom and Chief Stops uh told you guys about previously. Uh the town council did ask us to have uh financial solutions group do an analysis and so you do have an analysis from them as well that shows um the amortization schedule. Um it shows uh the sources and uses and it also has a cash flow analysis to show that uh we are able to pay for uh the purchase agreement as well. Um, this will go to the redevelopment commission as well, assuming the town council approves it. Uh, the redevelopment commission would have to approve it as well. Uh, so it'll require both of your approval before we could actually execute uh the purchase agreement. Uh, we are proposing to use um the HR tiff. Uh, as you guys recall, we paid off uh the existing loan um or the developer purchase bond for HR. And so that is freeing up that revenue source for us uh that we didn't have before. And so that's the cash flow. I know we've had some discussions about the Avon economic development area.

That's a different tiff district. This tiff district is the HR tiff. And so we had that's what we had earmarked when we talked about building the new facility that over time we were going to try to do that. And if you guys recall the capital improvement plan put that out five years because it was going to be a much more substantial investment for us to build a new building. uh this option ends up being much less expensive for us and it gets the police department into the building uh probably five to seven years earlier than they would if we tried to build our own facility. Um, again, we've we've put in about a $2 and a half million dollar budget, about a million and a half to purchase the property, and then, uh, there's another million dollars in there for improvements and remodeling, cleaning up the property. As you guys are aware, there there's lead in the building. And so, uh, all of those things are in the remodeling budget, and we're anticipating those things. So, uh, again, I think we we've covered all those bases and, uh, we do recommend approval and again, we're all happy to answer any questions that you guys have.

If I remember correctly, the owner was willing to carry this for a couple years to help us avoid closing costs essentially. But I'm I'm seeing closing costs included here. Almost $400,000 worth of if we're going to go that route, I Why would we not try to get a better interest rate at an actual lender? Where you seeing closing costs at, Robert? It's on the cost breakdown. Yeah. Uh page three. One, two, three. Yeah. One 305. 305.

Hey, do we have a that was one of my do we have a breakdown itemization of what those closing costs are? I was say sorry I'm not I don't see where you're seeing closing costs. Do you see Greg Gathau's analysis that's at the closing the 390,000 that's our payment at the closing that's not closing cost. So that's down payment or

no. So remember we were making three payments. So we're the first we're doing 10,000 in earnest money. Then we're paying 390 at the closing and then about the million53 is the carrying cost that the developer is holding at a 5% interest rate. So that means we pay 5% the cost of the 5% is a 78,000 975. The million47,000 is our renovation cost. So he just listed that as closing cost, but that's payment at closing. Okay. We are we are not paying closing costs.

And just to double down on this because I'm looking at the purchase agreement, it we talks about buyers closing costs as well. I it doesn't have a number uh page five section F. I think what he's saying there, those are costs that we're responsible for, but not necessarily that there are any or like the cost of a survey. Did we get a survey? That's a question I have.

We did not get a survey. We um we had an actual survey from when the building was originally built. So, Mike Tully pulled that for us. So, we don't intend to pay for a survey. Um the title work uh we did already order tit they order title work. It's their responsibility. So, we may have a little bit of the cost of the half the cost of the title work, but again, that's we're talking about a couple hundred bucks. It's not a lot. Okay. Title works based on the amount of the value of the property. So, it's going to be more than a couple hundred. Okay. Well, it'll be it'll be based on the dollar amount of our coverage and his coverage is whatever the remaining balance is,

right? Yeah. My biggest com I mean I've looked at this and I can share all my comments. I don't want to waste everybody's time but is the environmental and I read the environmental and I talked to Tom and Sean about it and and the only thing that it looks like they wipe down and have lead different levels of lead in different areas of the building. And within that report, it did not say anything about any future remediation or going in from a phase one to a phase two. So my question to you, gentlemen, you're comfortable with that report.

Yes, we are. You stated, I believe last time, that you want to be oversee the remediation of it so that you know what's being done, right? Rather than asking the seller to do the remediation, right? That way, if there is something that's not sufficiently done, um we can hold them to that contract, uh whether it takes them three weeks or six weeks, it's not to exceed a certain amount. So, um it's to be done until it's until it tests in the acceptable range at at below that is what we're shooting for. So,

well, my concern though, it says in this due diligence, buyer has completed all of its due diligence and inspections of the property prior to the effective date. Buyer therefore hereby waves any due diligence rights regarding the property and agrees to accept the property at closing as is. Whereas the condition is more practically described in section 10. In section 10 is building sold asis and everything is black and bolded. So they want to make certain that we understand we're getting it the way it sits.

And it's not just because of the lead. It's because there's a lot of mechanical failure that has taken place with the range itself and they don't want to be left on the hook for us coming after them to say that that they need to pay to fix any of that. Uh so it's not just the lead. There's a lot of other issues there. It's kind of like buying a used car and it's it's got some issues and when you you buy it, you know you're going to have to fix it. you know, you're gonna have to put tires on it and struts and brakes and all that stuff, but you're getting such a good deal on it that it's worth it uh to put that extra money in to bring it back up to the standard you need it at.

Then when I look at the purchase price on page two, there's some numbers that are off. It's it's $500. Are we buying it for a million525? Or if you look at Greg Geratas's numbers, we're buying it for a million53,000. Uh, are we paying them $2526,500 or are we paying them $526,250? I mean, there's administrative numbers that are here. And then the last payment on Greg's is is January 1st and they're giving us to January 5th. So, why wouldn't those dates tie together? Why would we have a maturity date on your note of January 5th, but we have to make our last payment January 1st, and we're not even open January 1st. It's just they're just little things. And then on the note itself, the note of the seller is Avon May LLC and it should be Avon Map LLC. And again, it's the dollar amount. Their default rate is 10%, we don't want a default rate of 10%. I put in a default rate of 3%, not 10. And then on the very last page on the mortgage, they double the defa or the amount of the mortgage. It it really doesn't matter because your title insurance is what you're paying for, but the maximum indebtedness is 2,104. The maximum indebtedness should be the amount of our note. That's it. A million 52,000

or or whatever that number ends up being or 250 or Fountain City or whatever. So, those are just things. So, if you want me to sit down with you, I can go over them with you and share it with you. But I I think at the end of the day, the biggest hurdle here is that environmental and if we're comfortable with that, then let's do it. And you have your quotes on the environmental and we have that's been budgeted as well. It's not exceed,000. That's right. The average the last time. Yeah. Okay. Okay. And

well, one last question. They're going to prorrate the taxes to the closing date because our building will be tax exempt from property taxes. Is that correct? Not normally. Normally, it takes because you know that you're paying in the rear. So, we would probably have to pay taxes for this year when we own it, but then as of March 1st, it would go away. We'll pay taxes up to the closing date. Then we'll pay taxes from that date from the end of the year to the end of the year. Correct. And then it should go tax exempt after that. But that is not in this analysis. It's above and beyond that.

Okay. We'll look we'll look at that. And then I'd like to see a copy of the closing statement too. So, with all that said, I'll make a motion that we approve resolution 2026-09 approving a purchase agreement for real estate purchase from Avon Map LLC. Do I need to put a dollar amount in there? Do we need to include the amendments that Greg has asked? Changes that I will share with you. Subject to legal council review and acceptance

and by seller. That's correct. Another thing, if if there's any substantial changes, we have to get the seller to agree to it. Where did this come from? From the seller's attorney. Yeah, but it's been we've reviewed it. Correct. But do we need to not approve this tonight and wait for this to come back with these changes made? You have two options. Um, you can go back to the seller requesting these changes and they may accept them or they may not accept them. Um, or you can approve the agreement. Um, they may be willing to make minor changes, but as to substantial changes, they might not. Um, so I can't really tell you what to do with that regard. That's that's a risk you'll take that they may walk away from the deal.

I think we're just asking for clarification on dollar amounts that aren't consistent through the document. and we can certainly seek clarification, but if it substantially changes the agreement, we'd have to get the seller to agree to it. I think the only thing was the 10 to 3%. Everything else, you know, they are Yeah, it seems administrative, clerical, if you will. I don't see any of these things an issue that would kill the deal.

Uhuh. I I know the attorney who drafted this. So, he represents banks and he's thinking of that's how he thinks when he represents banks. I mean, we double our mortgages sometimes. It's nothing he's doing illegal or wrong, but I'd rather not see that there. Typically, when you when you add more than what you're getting, say you're doing a construction loan and six months into it, you may have overruns. Well, instead of going out and doing a whole new mortgage again, you got yourself covered that you can do advances on that without going out and getting a new mortgage. So, makes things a little bit easier. And and the default rate is is a standard default rate. They probably put 10 in because they no one reads it. So,

except bankers. Yeah. Sit on council. Said what? Bankers that sit on town council. You you made a motion, Greg. Again, Brian and Anna added some amendments. Um, I just want to clarify. Are you okay with those amendments to your motion? Yeah, I can amend my motion to attorney review and acceptance and the amended portion accepted by the um sellers council. I'll second. Thank you, Julie. Roll call, please. Okay. Uh, Jason Pucket, four. Don Lden, four. Bill Holland, four.

Greg Zusen, four. Robert Pope, four. Thanks. Thank you. Resolution 2026-10, naming our parks and trails.

Hello again. Um before you is resolution re resolution 2026-10 to formally name our uh certain municipal parks, trails, and recreational facilities that the town owns and one leased facility. Um as you guys know, I've talked about it a lot. None of our park properties have ever gone through an official naming process. Um, I think with our improvements of these parks and potentially keep growing properties, I think that it's very important that we name them and we can refer to them as such and the community can refer to them as such. So, I won't list all of the whereas, but uh I would ask that uh we name the parks. Foundation Ballpark, Apex Ballpark, the Summit Indoor Training, which is the least facility, Wood Haven Park, White Lick Trail, Bernett Woods Park and Nature Preserve, World War II Memorial Park, the Pickle Patch, and Blue Heron Park. Is the White Lake Trail one uh what we had formerly known or previously known as Summerlot?

No, that's just the White Lake Trail. The trail from 100 north to 100 South. Okay.

We we talked about this offline. I just want to make sure it's for the record. Apex is completely capitalized and therefore looks like it's an acronym to me. Um is that just a typo? The name of it is just Apex. It's not some acronym. Just Apex. Roger. Thank you.

If no more discussion, we'll entertain a motion. Make a motion to approve resolution 2026-10, naming town parks and trails as presented. I'll second. Julie, roll call, please. Jason Pucket four. Robert Pope four. Don Lden four. Greg Zusen four. Phil Holland four. Thank you. Next is final reading of ordinance 2026-04 prohibiting obstruction of mailboxes.

Yes, this is uh for final reading. Uh this ordinance would as it states prohibit the obstruction of mailboxes. Um what it would do is it would declare it a nuisance and allow um our officers to um either initiate a ordinance violation or even tow vehicles that are blocking um mailboxes. This is to prevent um uh inhibiting the delivery of mail um and for people to be able to access their mailboxes so they can receive their mail. Be happy to answer any questions you might have. The police have seen this. They're on board.

Yes. I have a question that I thought about since our last meeting. Could we possibly put in hours that would be coexistence with um mail delivery times? In other words, if a neighbor decides to have a gathering at their home in the evening hours and they're blocking a mailbox up until, you know, 6:00 a.m. or something like that, is there, you know, I'm just asking.

You certainly can. If you would like to do so, we could include that um in the ordinance. It's designed to just whenever there are USPS would be out or any other delivery people which could potentially be those outside of USPS. But again, we could definitely include that if you wanted to. Correct me if I'm wrong, but no one other than the postal service should be touching anything inside of a mailbox. Correct. Not usually. No. Doesn't mean it doesn't. So, if they're blocked, Amazon's blocked from getting in your mailbox and they're not supposed to be. Right.

Right. I don't know. I'm just thinking that kind of softens it and it might keep our officers from having to go out during nonmail delivery hours. What are those mail delivery hours? I don't know. I would say if there is a, you know, even a 12-h hour period or something like that. I'm just asking.

I would ask that you don't do that. It's going to be very hard for us to track. If you say mail delivery, I don't even know what hours the mail delivers on the on the weekdays. And that may be different on the weekends. I know some then you're going to get into maybe the whole ball game of well, my mail carrier always brings our mail here at 11:00 every day. And so now they've already supposed to been here, so I parked here at 11:30, but they're running late that day. So now it's 12:00. And I didn't know that I wasn't supposed to park here because normally they're already gone. I just that's going to be a hassle. Okay.

And can you just reiterate, we I know we talked about this already, but it's not your intention to go out and police these infractions. It's if somebody's abusing, you know, a neighbor or whatever and that you get a phone call. Correct. It's it's not our intention to be doing active patrols for mailbox parking ordinance violations. These will be things where we may have a little bit more ability to intervene in neighborhood disputes and generally they'll result in almost always I would say a a verbal warning. Usually that's the way we work to try to gain compliance and then we escalate from there if we have to with warnings or ordinance violations or whatever.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions? If not, we'll entertain a motion. Make a motion to approve ordinance 2026-04 prohibiting obstruction of mailboxes as presented. Second. Julie Roll call, please. Jason Pucket, four. Robert Pope, four. Don Laden, four. Greg Susan, four. Bill Holland, four. Final reading of ordinance 2026-05, the buy money program and fund.

Yes, I'll take this one. Uh, this ordinance would establish the buy money program and a fund for um to deposit th those appropriated funds into that fund. Um, so this program would be administered by the police department. Um, the money that they receive from your appropriation or from other sources would go into this new fund that you're creating. Um, you are also doing an appropriation tonight in the amount of $10,000. Um, in addition to that, you would are also amending your internal controls. If you'll remember, we had you uh you guys update your internal controls at the end of last year. Um, we have worked with the chief and he's requested a couple changes. So, those are reflected here as well. Um, so primarily what this is setting up is a documentation program. um the internal controls backs that up, which is what we're required to do based on um direction from the state. Um but otherwise um it'll be administered by the police. So if you guys have any question, I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.

The police are okay with this. The waist lang the language. Yes, we provided it to them and they worked with us on this. Someone like to make a motion. I make a motion we approve ordinance 2026-05 an ordinance establishing a buy money program and fund as presented. Second roll call please. Don Lden four. Greg Susan four. Bill Holland four. Jason Bucket four. Robert Pope

four. Final reading of ordinance 2026-06, the zoning amendment for 25-03, the gatherings.

Thank you, President Lden, members of the council. Paul Lambi, senior planner. Uh, this is a zoning map amendment to reszone a little over two acres from the I2 general industrial district to the C2 general commercial district. The site is the former lumber yard along the south side of 36 between Dan Jones and Sattorii Parkway which redeveloped about 20 years ago. It's got a commercial retail building out front on lot one which was reszoned to C2 20 years ago when the site redeveloped and that's got various commercial retail uses in it. The subject property for this resoning is lot two, which is the the lot to the south or behind that building that fronts US 36 where there are two buildings there that remained zoned I2 after the redevelopment. There was an electrical contractor which is I2 use um that was there for most of that 20 years. Um there was a special exception for a uh indoor recreation use which is a commercial use. Um and then over time more commercial retail type uses just kind of came in and took over some of the space without um either really being noticed by the town's planning and building department um that they weren't compliant with the I2 zoning and didn't generate any complaints as far as we're aware. Um, right now there's a a specialty ger, a dance studio, uh, martial arts studio. All of those are permitted C2 uses as well as an autodetailing um, use and those were not permitted in the I2. The reason this came about is because Advanced Automotive, who is in the front building, applied for a variance to expand their use. And in the staff's uh

review of that request, we uncovered that there were these nonconformities at the site. Um not just the non-permitted uses, but deficient landscaping and parking lot issues. um which we expect to be brought into compliance this spring, but we recommended to the owner that it would be appropriate for them to request to reszone this property lot too from I2 to C2 to formally legally establish those commercial retail uses that exist there. Um this came before you for an introduction by the owner's representative on January 8th. Um, there weren't any specific concerns raised by council. Plan commission held a public hearing on February 23rd where they considered the five statutoily required criteria for a zoning map amendment. They agreed that those were met and passed a favorable recommendation by a five to nothing vote. Um, we look at this as basically kind of a zoning housekeeping issue to make the zoning consistent with the long-standing uses there. So, we recommend approval of this ordinance and be happy to answer any questions you may have.

So, you probably said it, but really all the businesses that are in there are C2 businesses, correct? Any comments or questions? If not, we'll entertain a motion. I'll make a motion to approve ordinance 2026-06. Um, amending the Sorry, let me go. Approving the request uh to reszone as presented. Second. Julie, roll call, please. Robert Pope, four. Bill Holland, four. Greg Susan, four. Don Lden, four. Jason Bucket,

four. Thanks, Paul. Legal council report. Second of two public comment periods. No one jumping up. Council comments. Everyone's shaking their head. Council calendar. Ryan.

Um yeah, I do have two things for you. um that as you guys know there's certain things that allow us to have an executive session and we have had something arise that requires us to do an executive session sooner rather than later. Um it would be a joint executive session with the stormwater board and so we've got a couple of dates to see if you guys would be available. Um, ideally, um, March 19th would be the best date, which would be next Thursday at 700 p.m. If that wouldn't work, then the next time I would propose is on the 26th at 5:30, which would be right before the council meeting, but I would be unable to be at that meeting and get it done then. So, I prefer if you could make it work on the 19th at 7 PM. And I don't probably will be out of town on the 19th.

Either date works for me. You what? Yeah, same. Either either day works for me, but I'd agree with you. I'd prefer sooner rather than later with what's going on. And that's fine. You can do it without me. That's fine. I'll give you my proxy. Sorry. Did you stay? Um, yes. I'll be out of town, but I'll I'll get back in town. No. I mean, if it needs to be done sooner rather than later, right? I don't know the situation. So,

would another day next week work better than the 19th for everybody? say we probably can't we can't do it on Monday. So Tuesday or Wednesday we'd have to check and see that Dan can make it. I was going to say that's a consideration because softball and it has to be late for him. Friday is probably the only day that I can I'm available Friday 19th or the 20th or the 20th. I could on the 20th. You're still out of town. I'm leaving the 19th and coming back the 22nd. Okay.

Can we do it by Zoom since it's executive? Uh, I'll be on an airplane. So, maybe. Why are you so difficult? Well, maybe. Yeah, you can zoom in. We just need a majority of people here. So, even though it's an executive session and we're not live here, we have to presently be here. Yeah. Open door sold. for the presence of people. So we still need a majority as long as three people were here. That would be fine. Bill, yes. So if the three of you are here, Jason and myself will be here. Greg, it's fine. If you're on the plane, it doesn't work. On the 19th, we're talking 19th on the 20th. Yeah, we're talking about the 19th. Okay. On the 19th, I could zoom.

Okay. Correct. As long as Bill, Jason, and myself are able to make it. Yeah. Okay, I'll work on that and confirm with you guys. I need to confirm the storm water as well. 7 p.m. Dan said the later the better. And if the storm water board cannot do it on the 19th and we move to the 20th, it would still be at 7. Sorry, say that again. the storm water board if they're not available with a quorum on the 19th, then the fall back would be 7 p.m. on the 20th. Okay.

I don't know that because I'll check with Dan. I don't know if Dan's available or not. The fallback may be 5:30 on the 26th. Okay. At which point I would I' come in by Zoom. Okay. Yeah. Then we lose bills. Yeah. before we lose bill. Okay, let me let me work on it. I'll I'll send out an invite to you guys and let you know. Okay, thank you. Thank you. And then the next council meeting the 26th at 7 p.m. No work session. That's spring break, right? That is spring break. I won't be here. If anyone else won't be here, please let me know or Don know you can't attend. Okay. You have a couple items. Meeting adjourned.