Town Council - Regular Meeting

Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Okay, we're going to go ahead and call the December 18th meeting to order. Please rise for the pledge of

allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Julie. Roll call, please. Robert Pope, present. Jason Pucket, present. Don Lden present. Greg Zusen present. Bill Holland. Okay, next is employee retirement. John Taylor.

Thank you very much. Um, I'm going to do a little bit of an introduction and then if anyone else wants to say anything, but uh, we do have a little bit of presentation to John as well. So, I know John, you're standing behind me, so it's a little weird talking to you and you're behind me, but I'm going to face the camera and in the community who's probably watching, which is who I really want to know uh, the impact that you've created here at the town of Avon. So, uh, about seven and a half years ago, the town made a decision uh, to hire an economic development director. And so, uh, we weren't really quite sure what that was going to look like when we hired the position. And actually, I met with John earlier this week, and I still had a little laugh. There's still no job description for the economic development director, which uh, isn't great. But, um, regardless of that, John has done a fantastic job. Uh, the town council had challenged uh, John. Certainly, people know that we have a lot of, uh, residential development in Avon. And so the goal of the council at the time was to be able to hire someone to push us towards getting more uh 3% assessed value industrial development. And so uh that was really uh the impetus to hiring John to work here. Uh we did have a a rigorous process and John was uh hired. So that happened seven and a half years ago uh in June of 2018. And at the time, and John I'll still tell you now, he only committed himself to five years with the town of Avon. So somehow we pulled him along and coerced him into doing an additional two and a half years. So um I think a couple of points I want to hit uh really about John. Um if you know John, John's been around forever. Um sorry, I don't mean that negatively, John. Sorry. Um he's been around the state forever. He started at the Indiana Indian Economic Development Commission. uh worked for multiple different governors and again anybody who knows him and you've heard him tell his stories and all the things he's seen over the course of time and so

um one of the things I love though about John is uh I think he recognizes it but I also think the impact that he's brought to this community is I think more valuable than probably any of those other things he did because I think he's been able to see that what he's actually accomplished Whereas when you're doing it across a whole entire state, it may feel a little bit different. So, uh, that's one of the things that every time if you've ever had a conversation with John, he loved this community. He wasn't from here, but every bit of his soul and everything he did, he put into making Avon a better place and doing whatever he could to get more business development here. So, um, his heart is just incredible, but what he accomplished is even more incredible. So uh since 2018 our assessed value has increased a billion dollars. Our assessed value in 2018 was a billion dollars. So that mean meant in basically 22 years of the town. Sorry I'm doing my math wrong. 2017 to 95 to help me out Greg. 95 to 17

22. I did it right. See, I was right the first time. So, in 22 years, we got to a billion and in in 7 and a half since then, we went another billion. So, again, I I strongly believe John uh deserves uh credit for for that. Uh over 4 million square feet of industrial development over the last 5 years has been built in Avon. Uh over $300 million in construction value for those uh for that square footage. That's just construction value. That's not assessed value. that's not personal property. That's not employees that have come along. Uh and on top of that, that's what he's accomplished in in five short years. Uh but the more important thing was he created the opportunity. He changed the culture. He changed the mindset of what we actually had to do to be able to attract these kind of developments uh to Avon. And again, we we've gotten that much, but there's at least that much still in the pipeline and available uh for us to build as well. Um, I always think economic development is a little different. Uh, it is not a science, it's an art. And if it's an art, John truly is an artist. Uh, his training in hospitality, in hotel, uh, in restaurants certainly gave him a different approach to the to the way that he did economic development. And it's one of the things I've always really admired about John. The way he talks to people, the way he treats people with respect and care. Uh you really just don't see that from a lot of people. So um he's playing trips to Utah for us, which I never would have thought ever that a town of Avon, a little town in Indiana, would pack up elected officials and travel all the way to Salt Lake City, Utah. But that little gesture as and again it was it cost some money, but that is what got us to the point. And and again, I don't know if previous the mentality that the town used to have to have that

kind of mentality of let's go to the place to get development here. Uh without John, I don't know that we would have ever got there. Uh on top of that, he hosted dinners with developers. He met with people. He's constantly talking to people. And if you know John, nobody can talk better than John. So um or longer

or longer. And so the other thing it always makes me laugh and John actually it was funny because I had already wrote it down to speak about today and I was talking to John earlier today and he said it again and so it kind of made me chuckle but he always tells me 90% of economic development is building relationships and that's what John has really uh been incredible at doing is is building relationships. Uh the final final thing I kind of want to talk a little bit about and I did already but is the value of John's character. Uh he's a storyteller. Again, he cares about the kind of things he does. And again, this week I had a perfect example that I was going to share. Uh if you don't know John, John is a big advocate of the lottery. So this week, John actually went and bought 40 lottery tickets. And he went around and gave every employee at the town hall a lottery ticket. And in exchange he said if you win you have to at least give me $100 million. But he also said if he won that he would give everybody money. And I just think again the character of a person who's willing to do that is it just again it says the whole story about uh the kind of uh person that John is. Uh again I have great respect for John. He's he comes in my office. He gives me pep talks when I'm down. Uh he's one of the people to kind of keep me up. He's always positive, which is weird because I'm always positive. So, when someone really needs to pick me up, uh that's uh really impressive and and appreciated. He didn't just do it for me, he did it to the younger staff as well. So, I know that um all of the staff here who have interacted with John have uh appreciated getting to know him. And I know a lot of some people don't know him because he's been working outside the town hall for the last few years, but um again really appreciate him uh counseling and and being that wise adviser to all of our staff. So, I kind of want to end on a story and I know you guys have all heard the story and I won't do it justice, but I think

again it it goes to the to the character of John Taylor and uh that's is one day I I think I was I was down at 100 South and I was doing something trying to get 100 South built and my phone rings and John says, "Hey, can you meet me up at a building at 1:00?" And I'm like, "What what are we doing, John?" He says, "There's someone coming in town. I want you to come meet them." And I think he actually called Robert went with us. So Robert and I went up there. We met I think Robert and I stood outside and we were like what what does John have us doing? We have no idea what we're doing here and we went in and we met with a company and when we had that meeting with the company I think it was probably only 20 minutes but we told our story. We talked about Avon. We didn't even know who the company was. It was just there was a building and and we met with them and John gave the company at the time a coin. And so again to John's character giving someone a coin and I I remember at the time I don't know if I told you or not Robert but I'm like that's corny. Why is John giving someone a coin? And then maybe six, eight months later, we heard a story. The company that actually owned the land was at a conference in Las Vegas and was talking to the company trying to get them to build a building on their property. And the person that John gave this token to pulled it out of their pocket in Las Vegas and said, "I've been carrying this Town of Avon token around with me since John Taylor gave it to me." Well, we all know that company now is Sephora, who made the decision to come here and build a beautiful building in our community. So, again, it's a very small gesture and I don't know that there's anything we can do to probably repay John for what he's done. I think he's changed the trajectory of the town. So, but we had just at least one small gesture we thought we'd give him. So,

We had a coin made for John that actually is the town's new logo and that says happy retirement John Taylor. So, JOHN, you know, you're not going to get away with me. I weren't done already.

This could go on to like 10, 11 o'clock. Just sit back and relax. No, I To me, economic development is relationship building. And I built a wonderful relationship with Doug Holberg. And Doug believed in us once he and I got to be really good friends. And in fact, I called him this week and said, "I'm following you out. I'm going. I'm retiring." And he couldn't believe it. But um you know, it was it was not me. It was the five people in these chairs. It was the person sat there who's not there now and some of the people aren't here, but they're the ones that said, "All right, take us there. What do we need to do?" And and not everybody believes in using tax abatements or utilizing tiff or those kinds of things. But I never spent the town's money on a golf course. I rarely spent the town's money taking people to dinner. But what I did is I shook a lot of hands. And I will tell you that I told every client I've ever worked with that was looking at Avon that I'm going to be your biggest cheerleader inside the town, but I'll protect the town first. I'll get you everything you need to succeed, but I'll protect the town first. This morning, I was talking to Rick after we got off the line with him and and he said, "You really were the biggest cheerleader for this for our project." And I said, "Yeah, I that's what I think I'm supposed to do." And by being a cheerleader, that means I come in front of you guys and say, "This is why we've got to give them this tax abatement. This is why we have to allow them to use a tiff to to clear the land or whatever it means." You know, I've been it's you you've been in the banking business for how many years?

Over 40.

Okay. And you know what works and what doesn't work. And you also have a sense of this. this would be a good loan to give to somebody and you know this is going to be really challenging. Well, I've been doing this 35 years. I have those same kind of senses and uh I've never brought a project anywhere in my career that I thought was bad for a community. But I will walk away from here knowing I've done more for the town of Avon than I've done for anywhere else I've worked. and I've been involved in just under 14 billion dollars of successful transactions. And what I've done here is going to pay dividends for the next 40 or 50 years with the as the tiffs roll off and the tax revenue comes in. You know, if if we ever been able to do this 15 years ago, we wouldn't be bonding for a new town hall. We would have paid cash for it. And that's what will happen 25 and 30 years from now. Long after we're all no longer associated with the town, people go, "What'd they do though? We got all this money." And they can go, "The town council was there. Ryan Canon was there and I was here." And um I'm very very proud of what I've done here. And um I I do have a lot of heart in this community. Even the repaired heart I have for this community. So, um, thank you for trusting me. Thank you for believing in what my beliefs were. And, uh, Ryan and I are trying to work out that I can continue to help on economic development projects in the future. So, you may still see me. Um, and you may not. Who knows? But thank you. Thank you so much. And thank you for the coin. That that was good because that guy really did. I gave him a coin. said he went he looked he went it says Avon on both sides I said yeah cuz I told him if

you need to make a decision just flip coin so that's my coin that's my coin sen thank you for what you did thank you very MUCH wants to say

I'd like to say that you know when John came on board. I had the same vision John had because I've been around for over 20 years knowing that we had to change our tax base and bring in commercial industrial development. But we weren't, like Ryan said, we weren't making a lot of movement because we couldn't get everybody up here to agree to it. And John, I said, "John, just go out there and make it happen." And I think the things that I enjoyed the most was John called me up and says, 'What do you think about this?' I said, 'Well, what do we have to give away?' He goes, "Well, we just do this. We'll do that." I said, "Okay, I'm on." And I and I think that was the the uh the interesting part about it, knowing that he could call you and we would have a conversation and uh you know, he he'll say, "Well, you're the first one I called." So, I I appreciate that, but I

Me, too. I Well, you called me first. I didn't answer. And but I I think too

the key was is and I was going to I already have written it down. It was relationships. John had to go out and mend a lot of fences. A lot of people always said, "Yeah, Avon, we've heard about Avon." And it was never good. we were always, I don't know, in that negative light. And uh we were able to to change that. And when Robert and myself and Ryan and John went out to the Church of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City, they became believers and it's made our our life a whole lot better. So, thank you, John. enjoy your retirement and go pack go. Um I I really like to reiterate everything Greg says. There's a few things that you've I want to come back to some of the things you said. I want to really highlight, but um I don't know if there's a single person in this community that has had a a singular person has had a bigger impact on the community at large, the landscape itself, than I think you have. That landscape hasn't fully changed yet. It hasn't even been realized yet. So many of the things that you're currently working on now in the 5 10 years in the future we'll see them being built and and complete you've you've had an incredibly lasting impact um on the community just itself um on myself. Um I'm I'm in it. I had no idea about zoning any of the things that we really do up here. I've learned everything we need to everything I believe I need to know for economic development from you and I appreciate that. Um, I I I don't think this town's future would be as solid if it wasn't for the work that you've done for us.

And so with all that, John, I thank you. Thank you very much. Um, and I'm envious, but at the same time, and you deserve it. And keep him away from us. Like, not not for our sake, for his sake. He deserves it. Thank you. You know, so we have changed a legacy here and it's going to continue. my brother that we're going to continue to see some of the effects of things that are still pipelate and and we thank you for your time and your dedication and for dragging us along and teaching us.

Well, I will say that Greg always kind of bothered me because he'd say, "God, I I don't like these empty buildings. Greg, you don't have the empty buildings anymore.

Thank you. Can we maybe do a quick recess? Do a quick photo and then we'll get right back to it. Okay, we'll go ahead and take a quick recess for photos.

Thank you. Microphone. Make sure. Okay, we'll go ahead and call the meeting back to order and move on to the next item, which is the consent agenda. Any questions, discussion? If not, we'll take a motion. Make a motion that we approve the consent agenda including the check register for December 18th, the work session memoranda for December 4th, approval of the minutes for December 4th, risk management annual report, the internal controls annual report, and the ADA and Title 6 annual report as presented. Second. Second. All right. Robert Pope,

four. Jason Pucket, four. Don Lden, four. Greg Zusen for next is public comment. The public may comment on the agenda um that is not part of a public hearing or on a specific matter within the council's jurisdiction. If you choose to come forward and speak, make sure that the green light is lit on the microphone and state your name and address.

Hello council. Uh Steve Eisenbart, 7599 Foxtail Circle in the beautiful town of uh Avon. Uh just wanted to um uh say first, I'm sorry, John's already kind of exited here, but it was really neat the way that he was able to make sure that the town didn't have any liability with the bonds and and that the structuring and I I appreciated that when that came on. So that was just a neat thing to say. One reason I'm coming up just to say I have a neighbor uh his name is Cole Ritter who said he would like to uh serve and so you'll see his application hopefully in there and uh he's a pretty angry uh neat guy and I just want to speak on his just a quick uh thing to say. He uh was president of his kayak association bass anglers. I'm not a fisherman but he convinced me to go buy a kayak. So I've I've got one and I've been using that darn thing for two years now. Um, he's a go-getter. Uh, what I don't know what boards he put his name on, but I'll just say he's very competent. Uh, very much of a leader. So, uh, I would like to just vouch for him and say that he's a he's a good guy and please call him and and all those applications you have, particularly one that says Steve Eisenbart on there. Um, I would love to serve on anything that you might have. Uh, so I just want to let you know I've enjoyed the RDC. That's been great. and uh uh be anywhere. Of course, the golden one would be the plan commission, but you have lots of competent people willing to do it. And I remember when I sat in your chair, I always said I believe we should try to have as many citizens and new people doing it. So, kind of hold by that, but but if you get desperate, I'm here. Um that's about all I want to say. I just want to say I really appreciate your service and and uh kind of miss what you guys do and so I just want to say it's a valuable thing. I hope

everyone can have a a good break on the holiday and come back and be refreshed and so sincere thank you for everyone for for your service. Appreciate it. Anyone else? Okay, we'll go ahead and close public comment and move on to council comment and liaison reports. I have nothing. Robert,

um, storm water board met last week uh and and approved the discharge of it was it was less than 250k um in overdue storm water fees. Um, this was part of the plan all along when we uh we were starting this collections process when it was created. Um, I do need to make sure and give a shout out. Betsy did a just an amazing job uh of getting that number down as low as possible. um these debts were not able to be collected. Uh we just didn't have the process uh in place in time and I didn't write the note. I forgot what I what we had talked about that I wanted to make sure. I said, "Can you please remind me?" There was a collection from the beginning.

Yes, these were these were collections and debts that have been going on since we created the utility. Um this shouldn't be a problem going forward now that we have the process in place. So, uh it it sounds like a big number, but I don't think over 10 plus years it really really was. So that's all I got. Nothing for me. Thank you.

Okay. Um I think I well I attended the annual Christmas party for the um Hendricks County Recycling District. That was nice. And uh got to meet some of the people that work at the actual collection sites and um the CDC board um as well. and then attended the retirement party for Cindy Turner for the school board the other night. So that's it for me. New business proposal for the sidewalk extension design over at 575.

Yeah, I'm going to do it. Um and actually if Steve wants to come up and help, he can. But uh this is something Steve Shelby and I have actually been working on. um kind of came up out of the East and Gray project and then kind of became very evident to us that it made sense for us to move forward with this. But uh as you guys are aware, East and Gray is moving the traffic signal over to County Road 575 uh away from Main Street. And so when we do that, we would like to have a pedestrian crossing. And of course, one of the goals of the entire civic center and the Riverwalk district is that we want to be able to host events and we want to be able to have activities that people can come to. Well, certainly it it makes a lot of sense that there be a pedestrian crossing at that traffic signal and we would have access to 150 parking spots that is the Washington Township Park and the dog park. So, what we want to do is actually build a sidewalk connection down 575, connect to uh the dog park and then have a crosswalk that would then also connect to the Washington Township Park. Uh Banning Engineering was the engineers for East and Gray, so they had already done some of the work. uh the signal uh INDOT wouldn't actually allow us to put the pedestrian crossing there until there was a sidewalk on the other side of the road because they didn't want them to have a sidewalk that didn't go to anywhere. So, as part of that, our goal is eventually that will come along, but we need to do this portion of the project first. So, again, it made sense for us to use banning engineering. Banning Engineering has been helping us with some of our other trail projects. Uh so, we asked for them to provide a proposal uh which they have done. uh the design cost and the the um uh surveying work that would be required uh would be approximately $37,600. Uh so it is our recommendation that you guys approve the main engineering proposal and uh Steve and I are happy to answer any questions.

questions.

Do I need to ask for permission for Julie to release those funds as well? No, it's fine. It's just a design contract. So, you guys will see it in a because it's not construction. So, it'll just you'll see the invoices as they bu as they uh submit their bills. All right. All right, I'll make a motion that we approve the proposal for sidewalk extension on County Road 575 East as presented. I'll second. Julie, roll call, please. Don Laden, four. Greg Zusen, four. Robert Pton, four. Jay Pucket, four.

Okay. Um, moving on with awarding the bid for the Dan Jones Road phase three.

I'm going to do this as well and Steve can help out too. and United is here as well if you guys have any questions for them too. Uh as you are aware, we've been working on this uh Dan Jones phase 3. Obviously Dan Jones phase one is complete. Dan Jones phase 2 is complete. So this was the next step uh in our process. Phase three is from US 36 north to County Road 100 North. So uh for those of you who may not know, that's Kingsway Christian Church all the way down to Burger King essentially. and it's converting that section from two lanes to four lanes. And um and I know you guys haven't seen this as much because a lot of this has gone to the redevelopment commission, but as you can see in the information that I gave you, we actually proposed to pay for this several different ways. We didn't necessarily have enough tiff funds. So, the RDC has been approving most of these uh expenses because the RDC is paying for them. But because this bid uh does have some CCD funds, it has some edit funds and it also has some wheel tax funds that we're expecting to get all in the project. And so that's why it has to come to the town council as well. Uh but this project is outlandishly expensive. It's it's about and really if you think of the 100 South project, we we spent $10.5 million on that project and that was almost two and a half miles long of a project. This is a singular mile. Uh what we found on this project is uh every utility their vertebrae or their backbone for their utility infrastructure is all in the same exact mile, which makes sense. It's kind of the middle of town. It's it's kind of where everything kind of has grown out from Dan Jones Road in that area. So, you can see there's a ridiculous amount of utility relocation costs. Everybody had easements and so uh there's a significant amount of expense there and so that's kind of how we had to do it. The good news of course is that uh we bid the project and uh the engineers

estimate was about $9.6 $6 million and the low bidder was ENB paving at 7,973 668. Uh ENB paving has been involved in every project along Dan Jones so far. Uh they were the prime contractor on Dan Jones phase 1. They were the paving contractor for White on Dan Jones phase 2 and they're the paving contractor on the Dan Jones bridge uh that's under construction right now. So they have some ownership in this project. Uh they also just did our CCMG project. They've done a lot of work for the town. Uh they're excellent contractor. Uh we're very excited that they were the low bidder and continue to be involved with the project. Uh so it would be our recommendation that you award the low bid to ENB paving. Happy to answer any questions you guys have.

Because the bid came in lower than our estimate. Do we save the money or is that um our our federal funding that we're getting or is it a combination of both?

It's a combination of both. So the way uh the fed so in this case we're doing federal funding exchange. So we're actually getting state funds. So we have a set allocation that we can get. The way the Metropolitan Planning Organization categorizes it is utility relocation and the actual road construction are considered construction costs. So if you notice in my spreadsheet, Greg, the number that the NO is going to get, which I think is it's like 7.6 million, we will get the full 7.6 million, but that's not exactly 8020 because because of the utility relocations, we really exceeded the allocation that we got. So, we are paying a little bit more. No money will be going back to the no, but they'll only pay the max of what we were awarded.

Thank you. Any other questions? If not, we'll take a motion. I make a motion we approve the Dan Jones phase three contract uh and award it to uh ENB paving in an amount not to exceed $7,973,68 as presented. Second thank you Julie. Roll call, please. Jason Bucket, four. Don Laden, four. Greg Susan, four. Robert Pope, four. Next is resolution 2025-34 declaring police vehicles as surplus property.

Good evening. Dave Margusen, deputy chief of the police department. We are coming to you with a request for two vehicles that we purchased a few years ago. They were used at the time and they have not been utilized like we thought they were going to be. One is a 2005 Lincoln Navigator. The other one is a 2006 Chevrolet Impala. The Impala has 150,000 miles nearly. Not sure about the Lincoln, but it's not in the greatest shape either. These cars were purchased to use as undercover vehicles in the event we needed to have them for surveillance or something else along that lines. and the uh detectives and deputy chief of investigations have all discussed things. There's no need for these vehicles to be in the fleet any longer. So, we're asking that we be able to send these to auction.

Thank you. Questions, discussion? If not, take a motion. I'll make a motion that we approve resolution 2025-34 declaring police vehicles as surplus property. Second. Hey, Julie. Roll call, please. Robert Pope, four. Don Men, four. Jason Pucket, four. Greg Zusen, four. Thank you. Thank you. Next is resolution 2025-35, transfer to rainy day fund and the insurance reserve fund. Ryan, Julie, Dan.

Yeah, I'll start. And if Julie or Dan want to join in or add anything, they're welcome to do that. Uh, we talked about this at our previous work session. Uh we do have a couple of other steps to do this, but Julie and and Calvin uh worked diligently and obviously you guys have the reappropriation ordinance on and it looks like we ended up under spending the general fund budget. Uh at the moment again that it's subject to change is about $600,000. Uh we've identified about $100,000 of POS that we need to take out of the general fund. So that leaves us around a half million dollars of underspending. We don't necessarily want to save all that money. We want some of that to roll into our fund balance for the general fund. Uh but I think Julie and I after reviewing it, we think uh it's safe for us to do $150,000 of revenue to uh the uh rainy day fund and that we could also do 150,000 uh from the general fund to the insurance reserve fund. And so this resolution puts that into motion. I know there was some discussion at the work session about what the right amounts are. So, if you guys want a different amount or you want more to one than the other, that's fine. I think Julie and I thought it made sense to just balance them this year since we thought we had $300,000 that we could put towards something. So, again, if you guys want to change those amounts, you're welcome to give us that direction. But that was our recommendation.

Any comments? My question is if the DLGF does not approve our tax levy, maximum tax levy, do we need some of this money then to uh hit our budget to fund it?

I would hope not. I mean, again, it depends what they do with with that. If they, you know, if they short us 50,000, no, probably not. If they don't give us any of the 800,000, then maybe. But I think if if that was to happen, that's why we set that Julie should do it by March 30th. So that gives us time to make sure that we know what's actually happening. And what we would probably do is if we find that, obviously, we're going to share that information with you guys when we find out. Um, and we would come back and suggest or recommend that you do something differently if we find out something otherwise. So this, you're absolutely right, Craig. recommendation is assuming the budget gets approved as we've presented it and everything's fine, but if something changes, we we'll be back to discuss with you again.

Thank you.

Does anyone want to make a motion? I make a motion we approve resolution 2025-35 authorizing transfer to the rainy day fund and the insurance reserve fund as presented. Second. Thank you Julie. Roll call, please. Don Moden, four. Jason Pucket, four. Robert Pope, four. Greg Zusen, four. Resolution 2025-36. resolution of interest.

Yeah, as you guys are aware, anytime that the town is interested in acquiring any property, the town council actually has to pass a resolution of interest authorizing, uh, the town staff to move forward, uh, with that process. And so, uh, this is a piece of property that has been identified by the police department that would potentially, uh, be able to work as a police substation and a training facility for our police department. As you guys are aware in our capital improvement plan, um we had identified trying to build a facility uh and we believe again we still need to do our due diligence uh that this building would potentially provide us uh that facility at a much lower cost and allow us to get the police department into the space more quickly. Uh so basically we're asking just authorization to move forward with the due diligence. uh if we do want to proceed forward with purchasing the property, we will come back before you guys again to get that authorization. This just allows us to do the appraisals. It allows us to do the environmental assessment and make sure that there are no concerns and that it actually appraises in a manner that that the town can afford. So, uh I'm happy to answer any questions. Tom Owens has kind of been taking the lead on this as well. Tom is here. If you guys have any questions, we're happy to answer those for you. I'll make a motion that we approve resolution 2025-36, the resolution of interest as presented.

Second. Thank you, Julie. Roll call, please. Robert Pope, four. Greg Zusen, four. Don Laden, four. Jason Bucket,

four. Moving on to final reading of ordinance 2025-32, the annexation reserve at Shiloh Creek phase 2. Yeah, this is the final reading. Again, this is the annexation reserve at Shiloh Creek. Uh phase one is actually in the town of Avon. John Lazaro has petitioned us to add uh phase two in the town. Uh we did conduct our public hearing. Uh we also at the town council approved uh the resolution of the fiscal plan and this is the final step. The annexation if approved tonight will go into effect uh 30 days after it's advertised and we'll advertise it next week. So it'll be effective middle of January.

I move we uh adopt ordinance 2025-32 annexation reserve at Shiloh Creek section 2 as presented. Second. Thank you, Julie. Don Laden, four. Jason Pucket, four. Robert Pope, four. Greg Susan, four. Moving on. Final reading. Ordinance 2025-34, the 2025 endofear reappropriation. I'll take this one. Um, as we discussed last time, it's just cleaning up the books. um moving moving things around to clean them up for the end of the year.

Do we know what the dollar amount is though that we're going to be moving? It's in your packet. Exhibit A. I just see the Let me look. I didn't make myself a copy. Yeah, Greg. So it shows anything in red is basically adding money to or taking money away. Anything that is in black is money being added to. Got it. And so it just shows the account line. Thank you. Mhm.

I make a motion that we approve ordinance 2025-34, end of year reappropriation ordinance as presented. Second. Thank you. Julie, roll call, please. Jason Pucket, four. Don Lden, four. Greg Susan, four. Robert Pope, four. Next is final reading of ordinance 2025-35 amending and readdopting the investment policy.

Yes, as you know, there's an investment policy statute in the state of Indiana which prohibits municipalities from investing funds in ways which are considered to be too high in risk. You have had this policy for a long time. in the most recent legislative legislative session, there were just a couple of tiny changes made in the state law. And so this uh amendment in sub paragraph R, how service charges are required to be treated uh would um bring your current policy into compliance with that. and you must um you must adopt uh and readopt your policy every four years and we're coming up on that. There are a couple technical minor changes uh also um and so but otherwise the real change is just what you see in sub paragraph R. We'd recommend that you approve this so that you are compliant and this is second reading.

Any questions? I move we adopt ordinance 2025-305 amending and readopting investment policy 34 Julie roll call please Jason Pucket four Robert Pope four Greg Zusen four Don Lden four next is an introduction for ordinance 2025-36 adopting the amended internal controls policy

yes in the annual review of your internal uh controls policy. Uh we look toward two things. One is are there any new circumstances that we need to deal with and and try to control and also we look at audit results from not just your audits but around the state and try to see what changes the state board of accounts is either suggesting or strongly encouraging. And so in this uh case there would we are uh recommending two changes to your internal controls policy. The first is policy seven which has to do with projects that are financed with bonds. The sto state board of accounts would like all local governments to provide more robust oversight into this area to make sure that the funds are um are actually used for the projects in which they are raised. And so this uh policy 7 uh addresses the issues that state border counts has been concerned about for all local governments. And so it adopts a general policy. It articulates the responsibilities of governing boards that issue bonds and that in your case is your re your redevelopment commission or your redevelopment authority or your economic development commission or you. If you issue bonds, then it really says, you know, this is what your responsibilities are. Uh it also addressed the uh how do you know that you're complying? And so there's an internal control that would establish processes that would allow you to know you, the town council, to know whether you or the governing body or some other uh agency of yours that things are being done the correct way. Um it requires the engagement of consultants to lead you through that, which you already do. you already hire bond counsel and financial counsel and underwriters and the things you should do, but they they want that in writing. Um and um and lastly, it

articulates the state board requirements require u um proposed rule that they they want to make sure often when you have a bond, the money is actually not held by you, it's held by a trustee. And that's the only reason that people will buy these bonds because not that they don't trust Julie, but they don't know Julie. Um and so we really often don't hold these funds. Uh but this uh new policy would require reconciliation of the bank accounts between the trustee and the town to make sure we all agree about what money is there and what money has been spent. And so that that is the uh the rule policy 7. policy eight, uh, the police department is is thinking about and considering a buy money fund and those funds are um used in undercover operations. Um, the state board of accounts has really strict rules about this. And so where those really strict rules go are right into an internal controls policy. And so as you can see in policy 8, we are we have basically taken the state board of accounts rules and made those our internal controls. We're not trying to be creative here or uh impose any undue obligations on anyone. We're just restating the u what is in the state board of accounts manual as guidance and trying to just make sure we have some rules in place if our police department heads in that direction. I'll be happy to answer any questions. This is introduction only. My question is, we've had some audits done just recently and were there any suggestions or any findings in those audits that needed to go into this document?

Actually, you had a clean audit, I'm happy to say, and you always do. Um there the state board of accounts is trying to understand how redevelopment authority bonds work and Julie spent quite a bit of time with them trying to explain it and she did a great job. Uh but this was a point of emphasis with the state board of account all across the state this year and I heard it at all the audits I attended is that they just want to make sure that after we issue bonds and we build our projects that someone is is watching. And of course I find that our public officials are fiscal officers are and the trustees who are very large banks they do a great job and I think that but every year the state board of accounts has a couple points of emphasis and so uh policy 7 is a direct response to what we heard. You won't see this in a written audit because you had a clean audit but the conversations that we have with them are revealing and instructive. We try to treat those as uh educationally and say, "Okay, fine. Let's get ahead of this." And so I think that um policy 7, Greg, is a direct response to what we heard, but not findings that were made.

You agree, Julie? My my only question is, is this an opportunity for us to update uh policy one? Their first line of this was the town of Avon except for the town court. uh having dissolved that uh what two years ago now um I I I believe we have one it wouldn't matter but I know that we have been going through a process of cleaning up things like this we have and we we we did um we we will remove those references we did so in the risk management policy as well we're trying to catch them everywhere we can and so thank you but we'll we'll make sure we pull that one out good catch Sure.

Okay. We uh if no more comments or questions, we'll go ahead and um show that ordinance 2025-36 has been introduced. Moving on to you again, Dan. Legal council report.

Hey, we had a good week. Um congratulations. We received a favorable decision in the West Central Conservy District case that was tried in July. And um that's a um that's a really good outcome for us. and I provided a copy and a memo to you and also emailed it to you today. And so we're obviously very happy with that. That decision arrived to us at about 4:53 in the morning and I had to wait and call Ryan a little later, but we we're always it's always good to get a result like that. That's all I have. Thank you. This is the uh second public comment period.

I don't see anyone jumping up and running, so we'll close that and move on to council comment. Everyone, please have a happy holiday season and be safe. I say the same thing. I said it first. I I second Robert. Let's take a vote. Okay, moving on. Council calendar.

Yes. Uh just wanted to say uh merry Christmas and happy new year to all of you. Uh, congratulations. You made it through another year. Uh, I think we had a great year. So, thank you guys all for your support of of me and my staff. I think we had a really great, productive year. I hope you guys, looking back at all the things we've accomplished, I hope you guys feel the same way. So, uh, you get to have the rest of the year off. Your next meeting is uh, January 8th. We do have a work session at 5:30 p.m. So, we're going to hit it hard again the first week of January and uh, get started on next year. So we'll see you guys on January 8th. Wonderful. Ajourned.