City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening.

We're not live.

We're not live. I'm sorry, Hal. Or, you're not even Hal. George. Good evening. We'll now call to order the July 6th Common Council meeting for the City of Carmel here in the council hall. First order of business is agenda approval. First order of business is agenda approval. Move to approve. Next up is our invocation. I'd like to invite Pastor Tim Birchall from Carmel United Methodist Church to the dais, please, sir. Thank you.

Oh, yeah, nice. I'm Tim Birchall. A lot of discussion. Momentous holiday weekend, 250th anniversary of our country, and we reflect back on the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice so that we could have the freedoms we have as a country, and we can take up the responsibilities we have that go along with those freedoms, and we've talked a lot about the different people, but I think the real heroes of the revolution were those who had their nose to the grindstone and and worked legislatively to make the changes and come up with a constitution that needed to be written. And so I, student of history, I want to make our prayer this evening the first prayer ever offered at the First Continental Congress in 1774. So it's 252 years ago. And Reverend Jacob Duchesne, director of Christ Church of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, September 7th, 1774, 9 o'clock a.m. We even have the time down. I've adapted it a little bit so it would be applicable for us tonight, but let's be an attitude of prayer. O Lord, our Heavenly Father, high and mighty King of kings and Lord of lords, who from your throne behold all who dwell on earth and reign with power over all the kingdoms, empires, and governments. Look down now in mercy, we ask you, on this our community of Carmel, those who come to us, those who trust in us, to find in you your gracious protection. Be thou present, O God of wisdom, and direct the councils of this honorable assembly. Enable them to settle things on the best and surest foundation. that order, harmony, and peace may be effectually restored, and truth and justice, religion and piety prevail and flourish amongst the people. Preserve the health of their bodies and the vigor of their minds. Shower down upon them and those they represent such temporal blessings as you see expedient for them in this world, and crown them with everlasting glory in the world that is to come. All this we ask in the name and through the merits of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Thank you. Okay, next up we're going to have one of Carmel's youngest business owners, Danny, lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to

Thank you, Danny. Recognition of city employees and outstanding citizens. I'm going to turn this over to Councillor Shannon Minar.

Thank you, Mr. President. I would like to ask Barb Crane to come up to the podium if she doesn't mind. While she does that, I'll just tell you a personal story. Barb has known my family for 20 years? I was just going to say, you would know better. She has watched my family grow. She's watched all the changes that have happened. And I would just like to read a statement about you, if you don't mind. OK. You're welcome. I'm glad you're here tonight. And thank you to everybody who came this evening to honor her.

OK.

Today, it is my great honor to stand before our community and celebrate a woman who has given us something truly rare, 50 years of service to her country, and 46 of those years spent walking and driving our streets as our mail carrier. Let that sink in for a moment, half a century, in a time when so few, well, I'm not that old, so, you know. Okay, I might be a smidge over that. In a time when so few things last, she shows up day after day, year after year, decade after decade. That kind of dedication is almost unheard of, and it deserves every bit of the recognition we can offer. Here's the truth I have come to understand. Nobody knows a neighborhood quite like the mail carrier. Not the folks at City Hall, not even the elected officials, myself included. She knew our names, she knew our kids, and she watched them grow up. She knew which families welcomed new babies and which ones needed a kind word on a hard day. Thank you for that, Barb. She knew our neighbors as neighbors, not as names on a list. That is knowledge no title can give you. It only comes from showing up and caring. And show up she did, rain, sleet, snow, or shine. Is that right? All right, I did it right. Okay. She was there with a friendly smile and a warmth that made an ordinary day feel a little brighter. She carried more than letters and packages. She carried a genuine love for the people she served. And I bore witness to that. And she did it with grace and humanity that we should all hope to live up to. She is not just someone who delivered our mail. She became a part of the fabric of who we are as a community, her daily visits, were a small, steady thread woven through all of our lives. That is why, on behalf of the mayor of Carmel and the entire city council, I'm proud to present her with this letter of recognition, recognizing her extraordinary half century of service and her deep, lasting devotion to the people of our city. To everyone who had the pleasure of knowing her, I know I speak for all of us when I say, we will miss you dearly. Thank you for your 50 years of showing up, caring, reminding us what public service is truly about. I promise I wouldn't cry if I did.

I don't want to cry either, but it has been a joy being a mail carrier here in Carmel. My first route was downtown Carmel, and the post office was downtown Carmel. I walked out of the post office with a bag full of mail, and I started delivery, and when I got that bag delivered, I was at a relay box that was full of mail. I reloaded my bag and kept on walking. And I walked 12 miles a day. And I had that route for five years. I was the skinniest I've been in my life. Because I didn't have a vehicle to go anywhere to get lunch, so there was an employee at the post office that lived on that route, and she would take my lunch bag home with her when she went home for lunch and leave it on her kitchen table, and I would stop at her house every day and eat my lunch that I had in my lunch bag, and that's how I had my lunch every day. But it was just wonderful to be around so many people. And there were a lot of older people on that route at the time, and some of them didn't have family close by. And they needed help getting to the grocery store, getting to the doctor's office. So usually on my day off, that's what I did. If they needed help, I would go to their house, I'd take them to the doctor, I'd take them to the grocery store. O'Maya's would be downtown on First Avenue Southwest, and we'd go down there and we'd go shopping. And it just did me good to know that I was helping somebody that needed help. And then when I decided it was time to get a driving route, because my doctor told me that it was starting to affect my back, he said, get a driving route as soon as you can. I said, OK. So then I got the route that Shannon lives on. And I've been on that route for about 40 years. And these people are like family to me. And yes, I've been retired now for a month and four days. But I miss them all so much. And I've already been out to lunch with three or four of them on days that they'd call and say, Barb, can you come up and go to lunch? I said, okay, I'm on my way. And several of them are here tonight that live on my route. And it's just their family to me. And some of these people, I don't think they realize what they did to my life. And when my parents died, several of them came to their funerals. And I've done that for them and for their families. And it's just amazing how you can make so many friends just by being a mail carrier, but I did, and I do miss them all. But I did get on Facebook last October, and you wouldn't believe how many times I've been on Facebook now talking to people. I never thought I would be doing that, but it's a great way to keep in touch with people, and I miss everybody. Every morning I wake up and think, maybe I should be on 465 going back to work. But then I think, no, I don't like 465 in the morning or at night. So it's been a good thing that I retired, but it has been a wonderful job. I'm glad that I had it. Thank you.

So, Mayor Pinkham, did you have any words you'd like to say now?

Okay.

So, on behalf... We'll come over here. Oh, okay. Thank you, Mr. President. On behalf of the mayor of the city of Carmel and all nine city councilors standing here tonight, We'd like to present you with this letter of recognition for your 50 years of service, and we're ever so grateful for you.

Thank you very much. I appreciate all of you for doing this. I have an exercise room in my house, and now I have seven or eight photos of my postal career and my awards I've received.

Thank you.

Thank you, Barb.

We have something, just a little something from city council.

Okay.

And you can open this when you get home. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Barb.

I really appreciate this.

Thank you, Barb.

Truly inspirational. Thank you, Shannon, so much. Does anybody else have anything under this category? I would just like to say that as an open comment from the council and to the mayor, as the maestro of the symphony that was Carmel Fest, Always impressed. And this year, I was probably more impressed than I've ever been. And I don't know why exactly, but maybe I saw more. But after the parade, how many street department employees were out cleaning the streets immediately? The order with which the police cars were parked and staged and the firemen were at the critical spots and moving and all of Rotary, of course, but the city staff and the street department and our public safety Just an absolute incredible job. So thank you, Mayor, and thank you to all the staff. Moving on, persons who wish to address the council. You will have three minutes. It's been a while since I've read these, so everybody's clear. We want to hear from you. Your comments are very important. You'd submit a blue card, you'll be called up. I'll also say who's on deck. You have three minutes. This is for you. It's not conversational. The light will turn yellow when you have 30 seconds left. When it turns red, please finish the sentence you're on. And for the crowd, no form of demonstration is allowed. So up first, Mr. Jack Feldman. And your time doesn't start yet.

I don't want to keep you waiting.

Now, before you start talking, Jack, one of your deans reached out to me. And about six, eight weeks ago, you won a pretty major award. I can't remember what it was.

Yeah, that was the Schmidt Award at my school. And I wasn't expecting to get an award because I'm I guess not very award-winning, but I was also not expecting you to mention that.

Well, it's worth mentioning because you are one of the most prolific stewards of our community. You attend most meetings. You always have logical comments, and that award was very well-deserved, and you should know that, and I think everybody sitting up here would agree with that statement.

Thank you very much. Mr. President.

Now you can file your gripe about us.

All right. Now back to complaining. So I want to talk about there was a crosswalk installation at Flowing Well Park, and that's at a site where a child was hit and unfortunately nearly killed about a year ago. So this is a very tragic sight, especially to some people in my neighborhood. This is on Gray Road, just as you exit the roundabout at 116th, in that little dip. It's a rather dangerous area. I'd say that's where all of the kids are crossing, especially with that new entrance to the park there, and even before then, because it's just annoying to go up the hill and to the roundabout and down. It's shaded, so the visibility is not very good. And even if you're not on the accelerator, it seems like you get to at least 40 miles an hour at the bottom of that hill if you're not paying very close attention. And the speeds are very high. So I commend the city for installing some semblance of a crosswalk there. There have been curb cuts there for, I think, like six months now. And there have been signs there indicating the crosswalk is there since the installation of the raised crosswalks at the roundabout. However, the actual crosswalk has not been marked yet. And I feel like I would like to see that be marked, especially to some people who may have been traumatically affected by the collision that occurred there. I would like to see pedestrian safety be improved in that area. and more expeditious improvement to create a crosswalk in that area that is actually a crosswalk with white paint, because I know the city owns some. Thank you very much, Council.

Thank you, Jack. Next up is Kelly Nagy. On deck is Michael Ho. Hello.

Hi, everyone.

I'm Kelly Nagy. I'm a Carmel resident and mom of three, two in a playpen in the lobby. And we love living here. First, I want to thank you for the work you've done to make our streets safer for pedestrians, particularly the raised crosswalks in roundabouts. I know changes and construction can bring some grumbling, but they send an important message. Getting somewhere a few seconds faster is not more important than someone's life. I also want to share a story about my 14-year-old babysitter, Allie. She lives in a neighborhood divided by 116th Street. Her house is on the north and the neighborhood pool and clubhouse on the south side of the street. Now that may not have been a problem when the neighborhood was built in the 70s, but today 116th Street can feel more like a highway than a neighborhood street. Ali told me how much she loved the period when 116th was closed to through traffic near her neighborhood. Suddenly, she could cross the street by herself. She and a friend could bike to the clubhouse without needing mom and dad to drive them. They could visit neighborhood amenities and have little adventures in their own local world. The happiness and look on her face as she described the freedom has truly stayed with me. Safe pedestrian and biking infrastructure gives children independence, confidence, exercise, friendship, and a sense that their community belongs to them too. It offers similar freedoms to older people, folks with disabilities, and anyone who cannot or does not want to drive everywhere. Consider the shops at 116th and Keystone. Somewhere around 6,000 to 7,000 people live within just one mile of Neiman Marcus Market Harvest Grocery Store. about a 20 minute walk or five minute bike ride. Imagine how many short car trips we could avoid collectively if walking or biking there felt safe, direct, and most importantly, enjoyable. No one wants to take a leisurely walk to the grocery store, zooming cars, spitting exhaust with no shade and only concrete. But if it's pleasant and safe, more people will choose to go that way. And every person that does walk or bike there removes one car from the road, thus reducing traffic for everyone. Therefore, pedestrian and biking infrastructure is truly for everyone, people who actively use it and people who benefit from fewer cars on the road. As Carmel grows, I hope we will resist turning neighborhood streets into faster and wider thoroughfares, and instead prioritize livability, walkability, cleaner air, shadier streets, and freedom of movement for people of every age, regardless of their driving status.

Thank you all. Thank you. With the... At the direction of the mayor, encouragement of the mayor, we did a thoroughfare study for that exact section. Do you know where that stands?

So, and usually I don't respond, but since we're doing this. Kelly, you're still here? Okay. 116th Street, we've paid for a study to look at how we can continue to look at that road in the future. And I spoke with city engineer, Brad Pease, and they have the results back. They're kind of looking through it and seeing what recommendations would go forward. But there's kind of two goals they're trying to do at once. We do have to move cars because we are seeing that some backups and some areas with a little bit of congestion. But I agree with you that, and this is kind of what the study is showing too is, Adding more lanes is not the best solution to the problem. It creates what they call induced demand. We'll have a bigger parking lot on the road, harder to cross the street. We've got a church, a elementary school, and a swimming pool there. So there are ways that we can move cars. Get rid of some, maybe deal with some of those turns that are very difficult to get out of. Maybe that's adding roundabouts, looking at medians in certain areas where you don't need as many lanes. That can both promote pedestrian safety, but also keep the cars, keep you moving. So I'll let you know when Brad's ready to talk to the public about that. I've encouraged him to kind of, meeting or something, but we're still working on it. So I apologize that nothing's fast in government, but we are working on it.

Thank you, Adam. Thank you and good evening. I'm speaking with you now in regards to a bicycle and automobile crash that occurred on June 27th at, I believe, 106th Street and Monon, and generally the safety of the Monon itself. I bike the Monon most days of the week to get to restaurants, work, and my grocery store. Carmel has made some great strides to make intersections with automobile traffic safer, especially in the urban core. However, the crash on the 27th illustrates the difference between the core and the transition period between Carmel and Indianapolis. Drivers seem to be more distracted. whether it be their phone in their hand or whatever else it may be in the car that's distracting them. I've seen and had my fair share of distracted and negligent driving in my daily commutes, both in the Corps and outside this Corps. It does seem to be more, this bad driving behavior does seem to be more flagrant within the Corps. I frequent with less speed-restricted crossings for drivers down towards Indy and lower amounts of trail traffic and traffic signaling and the like. Drivers have an immense responsibility with how they use their multi-ton automobiles, and we need to encourage users to put down their phones and keep their eyes on the road. Clearer markings where trails are coming up, increased visibility, and usage of traffic calming around these intersections should be used so we can subconsciously pressure drivers to slow down. We have the tools at our disposal, and we know as a city what works and what doesn't. As the city grows in population and activity down this Down this corridor, let's create an expensive trail system that is safe for anyone of any age to enjoy and use. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hoy. And once again, at the encouragement of the mayor, especially Council Green, improvements to the Monon at 106th and 111th are in design. Funded to be constructed, so I don't have a timeline, but when mr. Or city engineers Back will shoot you an email with an update, okay? Chris Kevin On deck is any breed love

Mr. President.

Yes, ma'am.

One note to add regarding the crossings at 106 and 111. We continue to apply for multi-million dollar grants as well from state and federal to actually do separated grade crossings. It's estimated to be, I believe, roughly $10 million each one. So we continue to apply. and hope that we get one one day. We haven't hit that, but we'll continue to do that as well.

And we greatly appreciate that. Obviously, a great separated crossing would be amazing. And what the mayor is referring to is federal. If we get the state funding, it would cover about 80% of the actual cost, so that $10 million drastically reduces to something palatable for us to be able to do. So thank you, Mayor, for continuing to go after that.

My name is Chris Cadden. I live at 514 Lexington Boulevard. Carmel Elementary, new Carmel Elementary, is right in my backyard. And when it was being constructed, well, Carmel Dads owned the property before Carmel Elementary developed it. And Carmel Dads was level with my yard. When they built Carmel Elementary, they graded it so much that You know, when there was a storm and water retention, it went right to my backyard. They put in a beehive, and that was supposed to make that storm water go to the beehive, but it doesn't. It's been ineffective, and I've had several contractors look at it, and they've said the same thing, that the Carmel Elementary... And the parking lot are graded higher than my yard. And recently, the street crews have been coming through our neighborhood and draining the drains for any debris that's in there. And I think that's a good idea. And I hope it works. And I don't know how often they do it, but it's a good idea. I can't think of anything else, but that's it.

Thank you.

Mr. Breedlove?

On deck is Allie Missler.

All right. Good evening. My name is Denny Breedlove. My wife and I have lived in our current home in Carmel for 20 years. I'm here speaking on behalf of myself and our neighbors on Shelbourne Road. The area where we all live is on the east side of Shelbourne between 126th and 131st Street. I want to speak about the drainage issues we endure because of infrastructure deficiencies. I know there are other areas of Carmel that are also having infrastructure problems of various types. The problem that we're having with infrastructure as it pertains to sewers is that we don't have any. Although we don't have storm sewers, we are charged and we do pay them through our monthly utility bills. The impact of having no storm sewers causes drainage issues on our property. At our home, earlier this year, we had to have a dying tree estimated to be 200 years old, cut down because of root rot. Obviously, this giant and beautiful tree can never be replaced. Although the tree is gone, a small swamp on our front yard remains. And in our swamp, I think we grow some of the finest mosquitoes in West Carmel. If you'd like to experience them for yourselves, please come by. I know they would love to see you. The Joes have lived in their house for 29 years. They have sustained similar damage with the loss of many trees and a swampy yard. The Rowans, who have been in their house for 13 years, have had their daily lives impacted the most. Their septic system is in their front yard, And no, we don't have sanitary sewers either. Last spring, the soil saturation was so bad that their septic system was essentially working backwards. Groundwater was channeling back through the finger systems into their septic tank until it was completely full. When that happened, the drains in their house ceased to function. That means no showers, no washing clothes, or flushing toilets. For them to live in their house, they were forced to have their septic tank pumped out repeatedly. These are the conditions we live with year in and year out. We on Shelbourne are good citizens. We pay our taxes and we even pay utility bills for services we don't receive. We ask for your help in correcting this matter such that we too can receive the same services provided to the vast majority of Carmel residents. Despite our best efforts, we as property owners cannot fix the existing problems. We ask for your help. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Breedlove. Allie Missler. On deck is Angela Wheeler.

First of all, when I grow up, I want to be just like Barb. First, I want to sincerely thank the city's engineering staff and crews for recently coming to our neighborhood. I am in the same neighborhood with Chris Cadden to assess portions of our stormwater system. For many of us who have lived with repeated flooding for decades, simply seeing crews on the ground offers us a measure of hope that meaningful progress may finally be underway. But I must also express my genuine appreciation Genuine shock that there is still discussion about whether a flooding and infrastructure problem exists in our neighborhood. Respectfully, that question was answered years ago. Numerous residents from my neighborhood have testified before this council repeatedly. We have submitted photographs, repair invoices, insurance claims, and decades of correspondence with the city. Members of this council have stood in our flooded yards, have walked our crumbling streets and our deteriorating sidewalks. They have seen firsthand what many of us have endured. My own home was featured on the cover of The Current beneath the headline, A Deluge of Issues. That wasn't because of one extraordinary storm. It was because years of aging infrastructure had allowed a predictable problem to become a recurring one. At its core, this discussion is about one of the most fundamental purposes of local government. We come together as a community to do collectively what none of us can reasonably do alone. No homeowner can replace a city's storm sewer network. No family can reconstruct aging draining systems beneath public streets. Those are public responsibilities because they protect everyone, even those who may never personally experience flooding. That is the very principle of shared risk. We all contribute to services that preserve public health, public safety, and public infrastructure because we recognize that the strength of a community depends on our willingness to invest in one another. For that reason, I strongly support the proposed stormwater rate increase of approximately $3.15 per month. This increase amounts to less than the cost of a single cup of coffee each month, yet it has the potential to benefit neighborhoods all throughout Carmel are facing many of the same flooding and infrastructure challenges as ours. It is a small individual investment that can produce a tremendous community-wide return. I understand that no one welcomes additional costs, but the alternative is far more expensive. Residents continue to bear thousands and in many cases tens of thousands of dollars in preventable damage while the underlying infrastructure continues to age. We cannot continue asking individual homeowners to shoulder costs that belong to a community as a whole. As you consider future investments, I respectfully ask that the city's most essential responsibilities receive the highest priority. Projects that enhance our community's appearance and amenities certainly have value, but they should never take precedence over the fundamental functions of local government. Communities are remembered not for the monuments they build, but for the problems they choose to solve. Thank you.

Thank you. Angela Wheeler.

Thank you, Mr. President. I have been a resident of Carmel for five years now, and I absolutely love living here. Thank you all for everything that you do to make this community such a great place to live. I live in College Commons, which is a neighborhood that runs from 106 to 101st and between College Avenue and the Monon Trail. It is an older neighborhood, so there is no public access to the Monon Trail, unfortunately. There are a lot of young families, such as my own, in the neighborhood that love to utilize the Moton Trail. I love going up to movies at Midtown on Tuesdays and utilizing the great restaurants that we have on Main Street and being able to ride our bikes to all of these places. It's such a great thing for my family. There is no current... Safe way to get to the Monon, though, from my neighborhood. There's no sidewalk on the south side of 106th Street. There is on the north side, but crossing 106 is easily the scariest part of that commute for us. So I am asking us to put in a crosswalk at the intersection of 106th and McPherson Street. That is the center-most street from our neighborhood, and it doesn't have any major hills or anything that would deter people from utilizing it. I think that would make it a much safer route. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you. All right. Council and mayoral comments.

Mayor? So thank you very much for your time tonight. We don't have a deputy mayor, but we have another special guest here that can kind of illustrate something we've been working on. I'm proud to report that we, the city of Carmel, is a founding member of what's called America the Entrepreneurial. And basically, it has three main goals. Reduce barriers to entrepreneurship. There's a lot of young folks here who want to start businesses, or maybe more tenured folks who want to start a side hustle, perhaps, or have a side job after a full-time retirement. We also want to expand entrepreneurship education and access to resources, so similar as we're doing with the Food Access Commission. We want to better understand what the resources are here for entrepreneurs, how we can get our entrepreneurs plugged into those, and then see benefit for all, families and the community. So I had the opportunity of meeting a young business owner here in Carmel on Saturday at the Fourth of July, and I thought I'd invite him here to talk about his entrepreneurial journey so far. Danny, you want to tell everybody a little bit about your business?

Hi everyone, my name is Danny and my business is called Danny Pro. I'm seven years old and live in Carmel. I started my business about a year ago because I wanted to make my own money. My dad and I talked about different jobs I could do and we decided to start with helping people with their garbage cans. Every trash day I take the cans to the street and bring them back after the garbage truck comes. I also pick up sticks and water plants for people Pretty soon I'm going to start mowing lawns too. We wanted to start with something I could do really well and then keep doing more jobs as I got bigger. I like doing my job because it makes me happy to help people. I also like knowing I've worked hard and earned my own money. Thank you for listening.

Can we give Danny a round of applause for that amazing speech? So Danny, like a lot of entrepreneurs, had a goal for himself, and he explored opportunities, tried to find a market niche he could fill, and then is testing it and growing it over time with success. That's a wonderful story. So thank you for modeling for others, especially those of your age and many more years older, how to take a little bit of a risk, right, can reap big rewards, both personally by making you feel good, but also monetizing a business. This is exactly what I want to do to help other entrepreneurs here in the city of Carmel, is help them find their way and help them shed a light of success for others. So thank you for doing that. And thank you also for being brave enough to come here, because you did a very good job, better than many of us do, on a daily basis in front of a microphone. You did a really nice job. So more to come on the America the Entrepreneurial. We're just kind of getting our feet underneath us with this amazing network. And I'm really proud that Carmel can be a part of it. Lastly, and then we'll hand the mic back over to President Snyder, I want to thank President Snyder for his comments about Carmel Fest. And we have, obviously, Carmel Rotary, which has been a strong partner for decades. The hundreds of volunteers that make this event happen is incredible. Selfless time away from families in either torrential rain some years or really, really hot years like this year to make this the pride and joy of the state of Indiana as far as a parade in particular. not to mention the fact it's a full two-day festival. And then, of course, our City of Carmel folks, as President Snyder mentioned, from police, fire, streets, our comms people, and beyond. And this year, and like every year, we have a big event. We have folks camped out in our Emergency Operations Center, usually monitoring a big event, because when you get tens of thousands of people in a very small space, there's a lot of responsibility to make sure we keep them safe. This year they had the added challenge of when and or if storms were going to take out fireworks. And I'd like to report, as you all were able to witness, the Carmel bubble is real because we watched literally an alley break apart and go around Carmel for about a half hour to allow us to get those amazing fireworks in. So also thank you to the council for allowing appropriation to help support those fireworks purchase because They were truly spectacular. So thank you very much. And again, Danny, thank you again. And also thank you to Danny's family for getting here and bringing him here tonight. So thank you very much, everybody.

Comments?

Go ahead. I also want to thank the mayor for the... work that was done at Carmel Fest to keep people safe from the heat, because the heat was really a difficult thing for us to work through. And upon a simple request, she opened City Hall as a station for people to be able to get cool. And I think that was helpful to everyone, including our police and fire, who could rotate through, get cool, and also provide security for the building. So I appreciate that very much. I think it may open another conversation on the use of City Hall, but I think it's a good one, and I appreciate it so much.

I wanted to comment because it seems there's a common theme with a lot of the speakers that spoke tonight and last meeting about the importance of pedestrian safety in our city. And first off, thank you so much for your comments. Please continue to come talk to us about any crosswalks that you think need improving or crosswalks that really aren't there and can be added. Right now, a big issue that I'm dealing with in my district is all the construction of the raised crosswalks at the roundabouts. Yes, yes, and Councilor Menard as well. And we do get some people who don't understand the need and are very frustrated that there's a road closed or that it's slowing down their car trying to get into their neighborhoods. But this is all kind of done with the vision of supporting what the people are telling us is that this isn't just a luxury being able to ride your bike places. This is a mode of transportation that many rely on to get to places. I think we were just talking to Councilor Menard about that, like there's many households that want to downsize to one car and maybe use an e-bike. And talked with our boy scout before the meeting about sidewalks needed in their neighborhood and we added that. So this is an important issue for us. Please keep communicating to us about areas where pedestrian crossings can be improved. We'll continue to get that information to City Hall. And if you don't see action immediately, keep pushing us because we share that same desire. We're trying to get as much of it as we can. And you're not annoying us, you are helping us. So please keep communicating about anything we can do for pedestrian crossings.

Yes? You were president last year. Counselor Austin. No, I just wanted to piggyback on what Adam was saying. And one of the things that I think is really important to express to people who don't understand why we did it, and the data shows through engineering, through study, that a car that goes over a race crosswalk slows their speeds by 7 to 10 miles per hour, which is literally the difference between life and death in a collision. And as a bike rider myself, I appreciate that. Just wanted to put that out there that it is actually more of a safety slowing cars down. Cars can still move through roundabouts, but they just have to move a little bit slower. And I'm OK with that. So thank you.

Thank you, Mr. President. I did want to acknowledge the Rotary Club of Carmel for a fabulous Carmel Fest, but specifically The chairperson, the chairman, is Stanley LeBron. He should get a huge round of thanks. They made a lot of improvements this year. Perhaps you noticed all the additional things for the younger kids to do that were sprinkled throughout as well as a fantastic kid zone. And Nancy Heck, the president of the Rotary Club, and Doug Willard, the outgoing, they all worked so hard. But the thing that I was so impressed about is after circling back around and watching the parade, the military tribute is the grand finale of the parade. And as those men and women come to the, and are bringing up the finish of the parade, Carmel residents are standing and applauding. I was so proud of the residents of Carmel for doing that. for showing the tremendous love to our veterans and all those men and women who have sacrificed so greatly, just like Councilor Green. It was amazing. So I wanted to say a thank you to the Carmel residents for making sure that Carmel Fest Parade grand finale military salute was special and that we continue to do that each and every year.

Thank you for bringing that up. I wanted to kind of piggyback on Adam and Shannon and advocate for one, for a crosswalk as well, on behalf of a resident, and that is at a Keystone and 100 and, excuse me, Keystone and Main Street. And the issue that I've gone and sat and witnessed is as you get off Keystone, you're going very fast and you don't, It's hard. Velocitation is real. And if you're turning right or westbound, you're not necessarily slowing down if traffic's clear. And the residents there have requested a raised crosswalk. Because as, thanks to Counselor Worrell, pushing these studies has shown us, Shannon indicated, coming out of the crosswalk is just as important. And if we could slow the traffic right at Main Street Before we get to the school, I think that would be a great idea for school safety. I do agree with the residents' requests there. So on behalf of some residents, I'm advocating for one there. And then it would also make sense to have them on the east side of Main Street as well at Keystone and probably looking at all of the Keystone ones because you're coming off the road fast. And I don't think people are intentionally being reckless. It's just you're going fast, and it's hard to readjust. Any other council comments? Moving on to consent agenda, approval of minutes from June 15th. Second. Claims. Payroll in the amount of $4,725,826.20 for June 12th and $4,490,203.58 for June 26th. HSA payout, $296,800. General claim, $6,356,851.71. And purchase card, $35,895.31. Retirement, $136,972.44. Move for approval. Mayor Alvito, there are no committee reports. Councillor Taylor.

Finance Committee met at 4.30 today and reviewed three items on the agenda. Ordinance D-28-29-26. It's related to establishing the non-reverting ERP implementation fund. Resolution CC-615-26-3. transfers $2 million from the General Fund to the ERP Implementation Fund. And now it will be the second reading of Ordinance D-2831-26. The ordinance appropriates $2 million to support the ERP Implementation Fund. All items return from the Finance Committee with a positive recommendation.

Thank you, Councillor Taylor. Dr. Joshi.

Land use did not meet last session because we had resolved all the business before us previous to that. We will be meeting this Wednesday at the library and I think perhaps taking up the ordinance that has been before us with regards to City Hall. We also will be looking at the UDO review. Thank you.

Thank you. And for the first time I can recall, we have no other committee reports. We had CRC on the agenda, but Mr. Mistechsky is indisposed, and he had nothing new to report. So we can skip all of that. Hold business. A and B remain in committee. C, second reading of Ordinance D-2829-26 in Ordinance of the Common Council of the City of Carmel, Indiana, amending Article 4, Section 2-132 of Carmel City Code, sponsors Councillor Austin. What came out of committee today, if you want to?

There was a presentation by Workday, the selected ERP provider, which provided some additional details on efficiencies and functional capabilities. This returns from finance committee with a unanimous positive recommendation to the full council.

Thank you. So before you start, this is implementing the fund. That's step one, right? Do you want a presentation? I don't have to do a presentation. What do you think?

I know that committee members don't feel they need a presentation, but that's up to the rest of the council if they have additional questions.

I'm just creating the fund. Do we want to have further discussion on creating the fund?

This fund is created specifically for transparency purposes for all funds used for the implementation of the ERP system can be tracked and easily monitored by the council.

I'm open to further discussion or if somebody wanted to call for the voted. I move for approval.

Second.

Further conversation? Discussion? Hearing none. Okay, we have set up an ERP implementation fund. Resolution CC-06-15-26-03, resolution of the Common Council of the City of Carmel, approving a transfer of funds between the General Fund 101 and the ERP Implementation Fund, just created, number 928.

This item also comes back from the Finance Committee with a unanimous positive recommendation. You'll see this is the resolution for the transfer. And then the next item on the agenda is the official appropriation, which has now received its second reading. Go ahead, Zach.

Thank you, Mr. President and members of the Council. As you know, there's three items before you tonight. I'll just mention our existing accounting system was installed in 1994, which means that it predates DVDs, the iPhone, social media, the creation of Google, the OJ Simpson trial, and the important debate of whether or not Ross and Rachel were on a break. You're welcome. I'm asking council to appropriate $2 million to cover our implementation costs for Workday, a cloud-based ERP system that will unify our finance, HR, and planning modules. As I presented at the last meeting, the annual licensing cost is estimated to be about $30,000 more a year than what we pay today for our existing licenses for Central Square, ADP, as well as the other small accounting systems used by the Parks Department, utilities department, Brookshire, and the Carmel Bond Bank. This transition to a new system will drive efficiencies by replacing manual and paper processes with more modern, smoother workflows. It connects our data from our payroll, finance, and HR platforms together. Earlier today, I was joined by Carmel resident Tom Helt, who is the vice president for, I think, government affairs for Workday, and walked through a presentation that they had put together. I'm happy. I've passed that out. Everybody saw it at Finance Committee. I've given everybody else a copy. Happy to hit highlights there or take questions, whatever you prefer.

And I want to point out just kind of some of the languages within this ordinance. It's a $2 million transfer to implement this program to redo all of our... accounting and right now payroll and something else doesn't talk and kind of going through what we've been hearing for the last year. But you've got a two-year window to do this. And this ordinance says that any unspent money must be refunded back to the general fund by December 31st of 2028.

I believe that's the way I originally drafted it was 2028. I'm optimistic that we will be done a year in advance of that. But I gave myself a little bit extra time just in case.

I just have a couple of questions and one is I know we discussed Workday and it looks like here you've kind of tried to explain the reasoning behind Workday versus other possible vendors that had more experience or had longer track records with government agencies because this one And correct me if I'm wrong, we will still not be doing payroll for or working through the fire department and police department. They have their own system, and that will not flow into Workday's system. So just those couple of questions.

Yeah. Let me bring up one slide that was from the Workday PowerPoint here. But to answer that question, yeah. Currently the complexity of fire and police payroll probably indicates that they need their own separate timekeeping system. Now that timekeeping system will still feed into Workday in terms of they will get their payroll through the same module that everybody else does. They just won't use the timekeeping system that other employees that are on a standard 7.5 hours per day per city code Theirs is much more complex, and so they enter time differently in a different system. I believe they're both currently using first due for that. And we will be working to migrate that or whatever other solution they prefer to connect to Workday.

And besides payroll, are there any other things within contractual issues with police and fire that will not go through the system that other departments will go through this system so they will be kind of

Yeah, that would be the only thing. I'd mention also Parks Department will use the accounting system, but they won't use their payroll policies. The way they accrue time is different than city employees, so they'll be kind of half on the system. But yeah, in regards to everything else, they will be treated, the fire and police will be using the system the same.

And none of the other systems that you looked at as competitive bids for this contract were able to do those combined in a way that you felt was streamlined enough for you? That's correct. Was there anyone that came close, just out of curiosity?

You know, I think ADP, Workday, Paychex, they all have state-of-the-art payroll systems. But I don't know that any of them specialize and have a specialized product like First Do does that tracks public safety time as well. And so for that purpose, we're still using our existing solution for them. But Workday is equipped to connect to other data sources very easily. And so in my mind, keeping them what they're using today, if that works for them, no need to change something.

OK. And you aren't concerned about any increasing costs based on the changes that are going on internally with Workday's own restructuring?

No. We would be entering into a 10-year contract. There are no price increases during those 10 years. To answer your other question, and again, this was a... Admittedly, this is a workday marketing slide that I have before you, but the source here is Gartner, which advises a lot of financial industries and otherwise. As they surveyed users of different cloud-based ERPs, specifically for U.S. local government, in this... And the coloring does not show up nearly as well as it might on your handout. They've kind of got too gray. It just doesn't appear as well. Essentially in this, you would rather be in Maine, if this was the United States, than San Diego. You want to be in that northeast quadrant. Workday, based upon surveys through Gartner, without Workday's hand on the scale, have significantly rated or consistently rated Workday better than pretty much every other ERP solution. I'll note that our current finance system is Central Square, which is the one that's one of the lowest on here.

So the $2 million is the appropriation for the initial setup and then the ongoing costs were, remind me, I'm sorry.

Our current ongoing costs are a little over $300,000 a year. That's what we pay for all these systems today, annually. The new cost will average about $30,000 a year more than what we currently pay for the six or so separate systems that will be going away.

So this item that we're addressing right now is the Resolution CC6-15-26-03. I move for approval. Second.

SECOND READING OF ORDINANCE D-2831-26, AN ORDINANCE OF THE COMMON COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF CARMEL, INDIANA, AUTHORIZING AND APPROVING AN ADDITIONAL APPROPRIATION OF FUNDS FROM THE ERP IMPLEMENTATION FUND NUMBER 928. SPONSOR, COUNCILOR OSSEN. COUNCILOR TAYLOR.

YES, SIR. THIS IS THE APPROPRIATION ORDINANCE THAT ACCOMPANIES A TRANSFER AND APPROPRIATES two million dollars to support the ERP implementation cost this return from the Finance Committee with a positive unanimous positive recommendation Thank you do we have comments on Just I did want to note regarding public safety fire has a bid process that they go for various positions and and whether on a B's and C's and and whether they're afloat or assigned to a station. It's very common throughout the state of Indiana in public safety that they have very specialized systems that is outside a traditional ERP system because of the way their shifts fall. Same with police and their schedule and also how their overtime is accounted for. So I'm sure we could eventually get some information from the two chiefs about why it was important for them to stay on their own systems. But it's a very complicated, complicated timekeeping model. And most EZRP systems, they just can't be everything to everybody. So I just did want to note that. We already discussed sort of the the transfer, so I'm going to move for approval of Ordinance D-28-31-26.

I have a question before we vote. So we're moving this based on projected costs, but are you negotiating this after selection since it's a professional service? That's correct.

We have negotiated a price of $1.879 million. for the implementation. That includes the implementation as well as, for some reason, they price the training separately from that. That's both components. As I've mentioned before, there's kind of one other piece of implementation cost, and that is that we functionally have to operate both systems at the same time. We start paying for the workday license once we ink the contract, even though we will not be going live into the system for probably six to nine months, something along those lines. Once we go live, have tested, and can migrate away from the old systems, we'll turn those off, but we'll essentially have from, you know, July 1st of this year through June 30th of next year, where we have to pay for two systems, that's a separate additional cost of around $300,000. I'll be coming back to Council at some point to ask you guys to transfer over the Utilities Department fair share, kind of, of all these costs. And so combined, we have a pot of about $2.3 million to address the implementation costs the double licenses, as well as any other extra costs that we may have along the way. We've got a significant amount of work to do on this. I mean, yes, Workday will be doing a lot, but so will the finance department, HR department, and IT departments. And there might be something we encounter down the road where we need a little bit more help, temporary accounting staff to come in and help us clean out vendor files, things like that. I don't foresee those yet, but I have about 100,000 of cushion built into my request to cover some of those things that might come up.

The utilities just kind of overhauled their Website and billing and all of that, is that...

So they will maintain their billing system, which is an Oracle product, but their accounting system is Great Plains, a Microsoft product that has indicated that I believe in 2027 or 2028, Microsoft will no longer support that. So they were going to go out and buy their own ERP if we weren't... their own new accounting system, if we weren't already moving in the same direction. So they're helping cover their fair share of the cost.

And when will you have the realized savings, once this is all done, of what you're no longer paying for?

Yeah. We believe that there's probably a return within about three to four years on this $2 million investment, just in terms of other efficiencies that we've realized through getting away from paper and manual processes and going towards automated workflows, those things.

Thank you. It's been called and seconded. Thank you. Public hearings. Our first one is a petition to vacate a public way at 942 West Allman Drive. That petition is by Stephen and Nicole Koff. I'm not even going to try.

Petition, go ahead, Sergei. Yeah, so you're familiar with these ones. I think this one might be, both of them actually, they go together, might be the easiest ones you've seen. Then petitioners came to the city and inquired about the possible dedication, sorry, vacation. We didn't know what they were talking about because that wasn't in our system, and it hasn't been in our system since June of 1961. So what happened there, at that point, the county vacated that particular portion of the land. I can show it to you on the aerial map we were talking about. But they didn't properly record it. So even though in our system, on our maps, on our GIS maps, and this is exactly what we're talking about here, It's indicated as already vacated. There's no right of way there that we maintain or believe to be owning. And in fact, we didn't. And in fact, all of it has been vacated over the years. These two parcels haven't. Not because they weren't, just because they weren't recorded. The vacation documents haven't been recorded in 61. So Rick Lawrence is here. He represents petitioners. If you like, he can provide more detail to that, but he did quite a bit of work and legwork on this and provided us a summary that we were very comfortable with and, in fact, confirmed that that was the case. Engineering department reviewed it, recommends approval. Again, it's just a cleanup item. In our system, we don't have any right way to vacate. It just appears on the plat still. And the petitioner needs it to construct a home. The title company has an issue with that. And it's the same spiel for item number B, because they go together. They will be split down the middle. As you know, this is a public hearing portion. We recommend having two of them separately. In the ordinance portion that are items 14A and B in your packet, we ask that the rules be suspended at your actions tonight. And we'd be happy to answer any questions. Again, Ray Clarence is here representing petitioners, if you have any questions.

Wedgwood didn't want to buy it twice?

I'm sorry?

Wedgwood didn't want to buy it twice? I don't blame the individuals, but Mr. McNutt? We'll open the public hearing at 7-11. Not seeing a stampede to the podium, we will close the public hearing for A at 7-11 and some more seconds. We're going to open the public hearing for Item B, petition to vacate a public way at 1006 Almond Drive West, owned by Wedgwood Building Company, at 7.12. Not seeing anybody rush to the podium. We'll close that at 7.12, plus some seconds. New business. First reading of Ordinance D, 2832 2-6, an ordinance of the Common Council of the City of Carmel, Indiana, vacating a portion of public way. Sponsor, myself. Move to introduce. Second. Thank you. This is in reference to 942 West Almond Drive.

Any further conversation? Move to waive the rules and enter into action tonight. Move for approval. Second.

Thank you. That land is vacated again. First reading of Ordinance D-2833-26, an ordinance of the Common Council of the City of Carmel, Indiana, vacating a portion of public right-of-way, sponsored myself. This is in reference to 1006 Almond Drive West.

Move to introduce. Second. Move to suspend the rules and act on it this evening. Second. Move for approval.

And this has been vacated again. Thank you. Thank you. All right. First reading of Ordinance D-2834-26, an ordinance of the Common Council of the City of Carmel, Indiana. authorizing the acquisition, construction, installation, and certain improvements for the water work system of the city of Carmel, Indiana, the issuance of revenue bonds to provide the cost thereof, the collection, segregation, and distribution of the revenues of such system, the safeguarding of the interests of the owners of such revenue bonds, and other matters connected therewith, including the issuance of notes in anticipation of such bonds and repealing ordinances inconsistent herewith. Sponsors are myself, Councilor Taylor, Councilor Raul, Councilor Taylor, you're the expert on some of this.

It's a bond ordinance permitting the issuance of water work revenue bonds of the city to pay for the design, acquisition, construction, installation, and equipment of various improvements to the city's water work systems. Lane, some of this is relating to the AAA way, Carmel Drive and 116th Street.

Correct. Good evening, Councillors. Thank you for letting me be here tonight. This ordinance and the one following, one is on the water side of our business, the other is on the wastewater, so we have to do those separately. But we have some projects that have been needed to really expand and improve and replace some aging infrastructure. So on this issuance... One moment.

I'm going to move to introduce real quick.

Oh, sure. Thank you. Procedural. Sorry about that. These procedural things I've got to learn. Thank you for your patience. So on the water side, in this, there's a couple different projects we're working on. So this will, you had referenced the Merchant Square area. There's some improvements that both the city engineer's office with new roundabouts in conjunction with us. As we all know, this is a very dense and congested area. And we got together with the city engineer's office to decide, let's try to do all of our projects together under one umbrella so that we could better control schedules, different contractors being in that area. So we really only closed that down at one point and reopen it and get all of our infrastructure in. So on that project, there's water mains that were installed in 1972. That's 50 years old. It's cast iron. Those are some of our older mains. We do have some older ones, but those are up there, right? And so those were in need of replacement. They were 10-inch mains. We're now going to put in a ductile iron 12-inch main. So that's along Carmel Drive and then up what will be the new Kinzer Drive that's being built at the south edge of the Gramercy project. So that's about two million dollars of this eight million dollars that we're looking for on the water side. In addition to that, on the far west side we have a 16-inch ductile line that will be going in from just south of 116th, right around, what is that, Cole Court, running west of Michigan Road. That will help us better serve that Michigan corridor. That's quite a, very dense, quite a bit going on there. We don't have, we only right now feed that from the south, coming along kind of 106 going up, 96 going up. So this will give us another feed into that. And that's about $1.2 million. On Westfield Boulevard from 98th down to 96th and then over to Wild Cherry. That is some of the Indianapolis customer base that we purchased years ago. that have stayed on Indianapolis water that we need to get those off of their mains and onto our mains. So we'll be constructing some mains to take care of that group of people. I think there was around 8,000 plus customers when we bought that years ago. We're down to about 160 that still need to be taken care of. Some of that work out west on Michigan Avenue will also help us to take more of those off. And then the county is doing a roundabout at 146 in Hazeldale, a project that's coming down the road pretty quickly. We will have some of our infrastructure that will need to be moved as part of that project. So that's about $1.5 million. So that kind of is the projects that we're looking to fund out of this water issuance.

These will be going, both of these will be going to Finance Committee. But go ahead, Adam.

On the water works one, we're still on the water works one, right? The exhibit A, you've listed here under some of the projects, physical security and cyber security upgrades.

So that is some work that we may try to do depending on how these projects come in. But I don't know yet if we'll get to that. So we wanted the flexibility in the ordinance to be able to, if these projects come in under budget or at budget, we have a little bit left over. There's some physical security improvements we need to make at our plants. Not all of them have fencing all around them. There's just some modernization that needs to happen that we wanted to be able to, if we had the money available, to invest in that.

Okay, and then cybersecurity? Cybersecurity, we're doing a lot of that right now.

Probably we'll be able to fund that through our operational revenue, but again, depending on what comes in, We wanted the flexibility to be able to use those funds if we needed to.

Okay. Another question on Exhibit A. It says wastewater, and then it's waterworks. Is that just a typo? Or is that, okay, because should we amend that before we pass that through so we know what we're talking about so it's consistent? I just, that was just one that popped up. I don't know if that's worth doing now. It's page 31, exhibit A12. It's under project. It says wastewater, which is different, obviously, than the water system, the drinking water system. So I'm just trying to understand what we're looking at. So I just want to make sure we're consistent so that if we're allocating funds, we know exactly where we're allocating them.

So what page, I'll just make sure that we, I would assume that's a typo.

Yeah, I'm assuming it is too, so that's fine.

Page 31.

And then there's another typo on the adoption date of 2024 on line 417. That would be 2026. So just a couple of cleanup things. And then are we anticipating that this is going to affect water bills and costs for our residents now as a new, or I know that's something you're going to be talking about in committee. I'm sure those questions are going to come up. but just want to make sure that we're addressing those.

Happy to answer that. No, neither of these issuances will have any rate effect. So our current rate structure will give us the coverage and the ability to make payment on this debt service.

And we're also talking about competitive bidding versus doing a, you know, so just wanting to make sure that we're getting the best rate for taxpayers if we're looking at this for bonding it out. So those are questions I would have. Because I can't always make it to finance, so I appreciate just being able to give you those questions ahead of time so you can address them. But those are a couple of my questions. And then these are primarily for, I mean, you mentioned obviously upgrading the infrastructure, but are these also related to the development projects that are going in those areas and to support those as well?

The only one that's directly involved is that first one I mentioned for some of that project that's going just north of it in Kinzer, along Kinzer. But the mains along Carmel Drive there from AAA Way all the way to Keystone Way are older mains that we need to replace and invest in and upsize.

Are we working with the developer then also to discuss those?

We are, and they've actually made quite a bit of contribution overall not necessarily tied to this issuance, but we have funds we received funds for them for phases that they've Completed or started building in and then there are some more so they are and I'll leave the rest for committee.

Thank you Thank You mr. President So lean thanks for being here and filling us in on this. I guess I would like to kind of understand the overall physical health of our water system. I'll probably ask you the same question on the next one. But could you kind of share with us, you said, so I get it, you know, we're going from a 10-inch main to a 12-inch main. I know that big one heading south is a major one. But what, how, so are there other things that will need to be replaced, fixed in the near term that maybe are not part of this investment? And I do appreciate the investment. Can you just kind of give me an overall sense of where this will put us for the future and assure me that we're doing everything we need to do right now?

Yes. Well, one of the things that we're working on right now is a comprehensive asset management program. We've been doing that for about a year now with a consulting partner, where we have actually gone and had them on site to do a physical assessment, condition assessment of our assets, looking at different things. You can't obviously dig up every piece of pipe that we have, but between physically at our plants as well as looking at the age the amount of breaks that we've had, the amount of repairs that we've had on lines. So doing that assessment to give us an idea of what's the health of all of the pipes that we have. We should have the results of that project program by the end of this year, let's say maybe first part of next year. I will have a better sense of, okay, where's our complete system? What's at highest risk of failure or highest consequence? Some things may be younger, but if they fail, the consequence of that would be catastrophic. Last time I was before you all was an example of a main that we have that's in fine shape, but we had a catastrophic failure with that hydrant blowing off, right? So there's consequence of failure, likelihood of failure, level of service, all of that's going into this project that we're working on. we will come out with a rubric that will show our most at-risk assets all the way down to our kind of best assets. And there will be a curve there. And if we make, then we will determine the right investment to make to keep us out of that upper quadrant, right? That level of investment and that situation is something that we're not ready to do right now. not ready out of our rates to do that either. But we're working toward what would that be, and I think when we are able to show the investment we need to make annually and every five years to keep all of those risks at bay, I think we'll have a good product to bring to you. So to answer your question, these are some projects that had to happen now because of the other things that are going on, and they are addressing age and need

but there are others out there. So when will that study be finished? I didn't catch that part.

It could be as early as at the end of this year. It may be first quarter of next year, but we're getting close.

Okay, all right, great. So would you be willing to include the council in on if you find something that we're not expecting so that we can all kind of get prepared should we need to, because obviously this bond will be let and that money will be already committed. So if there were to be something that shows up that is unexpected, would you commit that you'll share that with us as soon as possible?

Yes, I would love that opportunity. I think I would love it to present it to council, but I'd love to present it to our customers and our citizens. I think there's quite a bit of misunderstanding of just the amount of infrastructure and the cost that it takes. So I would love to be able to bring that to everyone and let everyone understand that. Got it. Happy to commit to that. Yep. Very good. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you for yielding. I just want to say thank you. I'm so glad Councilor Orrell brought up the study that you were doing. I've been anticipating that for over a year when it passed through BPW. So I'm really looking forward to seeing what those answers are. So I appreciate it.

That's it.

That's all I wanted to say.

Thank you, Director. At finance, do you mind having bond counsel there as well? Also, and I spoke to Director Pease about this as well, but using the BOT procurement, it's great to have the guaranteed costs. but it's important to implement transparency into the process. So I want to ensure our contractors are providing scope-level bids to ensure we're getting the best value for each bid package. If you could come back, both of you, on a report on how that's working. And also any contractor doing any self-performance work, that they're also comparing that scope of work with the rest of the market to ensure that we're not overpaying for Contractor self-performing using using the build operate transfer delivery method come prepared at finance to speak about that Also, it appears that these are Currently planned to be done as a competitive sale versus a negotiated sale of these bonds if we could have a discussion at Finance Committee why that's a best approach considering our low bond rating for our water and sewer utilities, it's many times best to take a hybrid approach with a negotiated sale, specifically when we want to articulate the story as to why investors should invest these bonds, though the rating's much different than our city proper rating. If you could be prepared to discuss that at Finance Committee. I will.

And I will just say this briefly, and we can get into detail in the Finance Committee. But due to our financial picture getting stronger since our last issuances, we are expecting that both our water and wastewater ratings should be in the A range or better on maybe even the wastewater. So we're hopeful that when we go through the ratings call that that will happen and then we will there be able to go to market. at a higher rate. Perfect.

So we are hoping to have our next finance committee meeting on Wednesday, July 15th at 5.30. We just need somebody from the clerk's office to staff it because a couple of them are on vacation.

May I interject, and I am so sorry to do this, I will be out of town July 15th through the 22nd. It's the only time I'm gone this summer, but

Well, then we'll have to obviously then this won't be able to be come forward by next meeting on July 20th. What's your timeline?

I think we had an August time frame as our the August meeting is when the second reading was going to come. We're looking to close probably in September.

Okay, perfect.

So I think we have some time.

Perfect.

I wanted to maybe ask a question that Councilor Joe, she asked in a different way. She asked about development kind of driving some of this. Just to specifically, a lot of this is around the Gramercy project, which is a lot of additional units. If that project didn't exist, would some of these upgrades still be needed?

We would definitely replace the water on Carmel Drive because that is older. That's some of the pipe that we age-wise would make a change in investment in. Going north on Kinzer wouldn't necessarily be the need to do that. So there are elements of this project that the developer and the development needs. That's on the water side. I will say, and I know we're going to get to the wastewater one next, and it's the larger issuance. So I'll talk, if you don't mind, I can speak a little bit more to it in that one. Sounds great.

I've got a request and a question. and a statement. One, just so that everybody's clear, money from the 2024 infrastructure bond that we committed to projects within the same general area is also going into this, which is fine. I just want to make sure that's clear, that that's how you're packaging it. It makes sense that if we're going to be doing Carmel Drive, we should do the water and Tantra at the same time or vice versa. The request is, And Rich, correct me if I'm wrong, please. But when you go to do your BOT selection, you will have a selection committee. My request is that you would have a council member on your committee for the selection process to help act as a liaison to the council. And then my question for Sergey, because I've read this, is that accurate?

Yeah, but they had already completed the procurement earlier this year, which I wasn't aware of. You already selected your... They did it along with the road procurement that Brad ran and packaged it under one request for proposals and qualifications that Director Pease ran. And for correction, the clerk's office is at a clerk treasurer conference. I apologize. I misspoke about vacation.

At finance meeting, can we go through the selection of the firm doing this so we can understand the merits of why they were picked? Sure.

Yeah, we went through a process. It was a BPW. I guess it fell under their jurisdiction for approval, so that's where we took it.

Yeah, the two procuring agencies under the city can be the Board of Public Works or the Redevelopment Commission. I think we'd just like to understand why they were picked.

Sure. I'm happy to discuss that, yeah.

And then for Sergey, just because I keep reading this and I don't, Fully understand it is the last few words of your, the ordinance description. The issuance of notes in anticipation of response and repealing ordinances inconsistent herewith. And it does talk about some ordinances being repealed, but that also, it just seems vague to me. I guess I don't understand the sentence. Repealing ordinances inconsistent herewith. I mean, how do you determine what's inconsistent?

Just full disclosure, this is a notary ordinance that we drafted in our department. It's our bond council ordinance. But this is a catch-all provision that we include in most ordinances that whenever we introduce a new ordinance that might establish certain rules or modifications or bond issues, we include that language to make sure that this is the controlling language. And anything that interferes or duplicative or does not follow that language is hereby repealed. So it refers back to any inconsistencies in the previous ordinances.

Normally, the language we see, though, is more of a null and void or supersedes or overrules. Repeal sounds like an act.

Right.

I can confirm that with bone counsel between now and the committee meeting and get back to you in that particular repeal versus supersedes or any other language. Am I off base with the question? Repeal certainly is a much stronger legal term. It means that all the ordinances inconsistent with this particular ordinance are null and void, they're repealed, they're done.

But how do you determine that? What happens when... there is something that might be a conflict. Right.

Usually, there is a certain consistency to the ordinances, or a lot of the times, in fact, majority of the times, it comes when one ordinance is completely replaced by the other. So an example of that would have been Most recently, our right-of-way ordinance. So we completely redone it, essentially. So that's when we use the word repealed, when we replace one ordinance that was in existence in the past in its entirety with an ordinance that is front of you. Not just certain provisions within the city code, for example, but the entirety of the city code section that we are considering.

But we knew what we were doing then. We knew it was a replacement. That was the intent.

And again, I will confirm that for you, what exactly we're appealing there, if anything.

Thank you. Anything else? We've done all the action on this one. We're going to do this evening, correct? So this will go to finance. Next stop. First reading of Ordinance D-2835-26, an ordinance of the Common Council of the City of Carmel, Indiana, authorizing the acquisition, construction, and installation of certain improvements for the sewage work system of the City of Carmel, Indiana, the issuance of revenue bonds to provide the cost thereof, the collection, segregation, and distribution of the revenues of such system, the safeguarding of interests of the owners of such revenue bonds, and other matters connected therewith, including the issuance of notes in anticipation of such bonds, And repealing ordinances inconsistent herewith. Sponsors, Taylor Worrell and myself. Councilor Taylor.

Moved to introduce. Second. This is a bond ordinance permitting the issuance of sewer works revenue bonds of the city to pay for the design, acquisition, construction, installation, and equipping of various improvements to the city's sewer works system.

So on the wastewater side, so the sanitary sewer, we currently have a $10 million, this is about 10.4 with the interest owed, a bond anticipatory note that was issued a couple of years ago for two projects mainly. One was the upsize and building some redundancy in our lift station at 106th Street. And I'll get into a little bit of that in a minute, just how important that is, because that basically receives almost all of our flow, and sends that down to the treatment plant. So it needs to be a large structure. We needed some redundancy. So that project, and then we had digesters at our plants. That's a process of how the solids and the, we'll get into all the technical stuff. It's too late for that. But anyway, those needed quite a bit of work. There was gas piping that was aging. We needed to get better stainless steel. There was some security and safety improvements that happened in that project. That's all been complete now. But that ban was a two- or three-year note that needs to be paid off. So that's due, I think, May of next year, April, May of next year. So in anticipation of paying that off, and then with this work that we need to do, the bond dollar amount is around $25 million that we're asking for. $15 million of that is new money on projects. And then the 10 is paying the ban off. The vast majority of what I would like, even though, as you had mentioned earlier, Councillor Austin, the language that's a little more, allows us to do various things. We have some projects in our lining that other projects we could, we've asked to put into this. But this is a unique project that I think I would rather, based on where prices are coming in and projects are getting bid and the depth of this project, I'd like to basically say that this $15 million is gonna be for this project. in Merchant Square. So what's happening there is we are taking a 12 inch gravity sewer main that starts at Range Line, comes all the way down Medical Drive, comes down AAA Way, connects into Keystone Way and comes back up kind of where the sign in Merchant Square is and when you're exiting the Keystone into that development there. That is a 12-inch main now that has surcharge. It has not overflowed. We've never had a sanitary sewer overflow, but it has surcharged quite often. So it's just an undersized pipe because the way our sewer works is if you just very simplistically, our treatment plant is at 96th and Hazeldale, the far southeastern part of our city. We take waste all the way up from even west of of 31st and up around 146 and has to get all the way down. As that moves down, and especially with all the development that has happened over the years in Midtown in particular, quite a bit of that flow comes down range line into that gravity sewer main, that 12-inch. And so we've been fortunate that that sewer is 25 feet deep. So if you can imagine the depth, we've got manholes structures that are pretty big. So they've been able to sort of absorb that extra flow when there's been spikes and rain events where we do have some I&I where rainwater gets its way into and surcharges our pipes. So this has been a project that's been needed to take place for a while. So I mentioned that, that while it is tied to the work being done in Merchant Square and certainly a little bit of the Gramercy development, there's some work up there that will upsize pipes so that flow that's going to come from there. But a large chunk of this, probably $10, $10.5 million of this project, is that line that's very deep that needs to be upsized. So that's a big part of it. Then there's some upsizing of mains along the northern part of the Merchant Square area running just south of Carmel Drive, and then it will go up in the newly built Kinzer to grab some of that Gramercy flow as well. So that's the vast majority of this issuance, all the projects tied to that on the wastewater side.

So you're obviously reacting. It's not 100% because of new development, but that definitely brings it more to the front burner. We've got land in the Midtown area that doesn't have approved projects, but has probably proposals coming at some point in the future. Does this anticipate that future growth as well, or are you going to have to come back and address that as well?

No, it does anticipate that. Right now, this is a 12-inch main. And we're upsizing it to an 18-inch main, which gives us quite a bit of capacity. So in anticipation of quite a bit of that potential growth in there.

Probably have just the same questions from kind of the last, how does this affect rates? Are we looking at that, the issues that we're going to bring up in finance committee with bonds and Also, just kind of geeking out on the bio-pasteurization heat exchanger. I was like looking at that and wondering if that you're going to kind of give us maybe a little, not tonight because everybody wants to go watch the game, but I just want to see if we can go get just some more information on that. I'm curious because it's an interesting system and why that versus something else and kind of, yeah.

Yeah, I can go into that. Sure. But your one question around the rate structure, our current rates will support this debt service, so there will be no rate increase in order to issue this debt.

No further action on this. It will go to the Finance Committee with a date to be determined.

Thank you.

For you. Up next, first reading of Ordinance D-2836-26, an ordinance of the Common Council of Carmel, Indiana, amending Chapter 6, Article 7, regarding stormwater user fees, sponsor, myself. This is an ordinance amending monthly stormwater user fees assessed against residential and non-residential properties and removing the cost of living adjustment. Move to introduce. Second. Thank you. Comments? This will go to find a presentation. Does anybody have comments? OK, I do, shockingly. Really, I want to address a section of Council Royal's most recent newsletter regarding this. And before I do, I want to say that I He's been extremely busy. He's been busy with Project Civility, preparing for Carmel Fest, writing articles, serving the community, and most importantly, enjoying the blessing of a new grandbaby born last Friday. So congratulations to Jeff and his family. So I can understand that perhaps some of the newsletter regarding this may have been a little rushed and that he was distracted. I'm going to assume that the tone, the omissions, and some of the errors were oversights, because if they weren't, and I've grossly misjudged a good friend and council mentor, not just on this ordinance, but on how we talk to residents and how we talk to one another, whether we're willing to practice civility so often preached. Councillor Waugh has spoken about civility at length, and I agree with so much of what he says, nearly all of it. I don't believe that this newsletter did seek to tell the larger story, however. It did not serve the common good They use language of caution to create suspicion. They use the language of fiscal responsibility to divide taxpayers against homeowners with problems. And they use the language of data to suggest that those of us trying to start a serious conversation about stormwater are acting without facts. So tonight I want to make sure that we are going to begin this conversation on stormwater rates and user fees and cost of living adjustments on an honest platform. compares the original number to the proposed annual number that this ordinance does and calls it a drastic increase, but the largest acceleration was not going from $6.85 to the proposed $10 that I have put forth. The largest acceleration was going from no stormwater fee to $5.10 all in one day, not over 10 years. And I'm not saying that to criticize that action. That action was needed. The city needed a dedicated source of funding for stormwater infrastructure. The city created a revenue system because stormwater infrastructure costs money and pretending those costs don't exist does not make them go away. Going from $6.85 to $10 is a $3.15 per month. increase. That's roughly 10 cents a day. None of these numbers can be fully accurate. They need to be vetted. I'm doing this off of assumptions, off of annual revenues. The breakdowns between commercial rates and residential rates, I don't have that information. I have written dozens of stormwater ordinances for municipalities around the state, though. So given the information, I feel that I would be remiss if I didn't say it's something I'm very familiar with. Nobody likes raising rates. I do not. Nobody wants to increase a fee. But if we're going to have this conversation, we need to have it honestly, openly, and publicly. Which brings me to the 3% escalator. This newsletter sort of presents this as that it only sounds positive on the surface, although it's a gimmick or a trick. It's not a trick. It's the right thing to do. I'm not going to turn this to us into a legal seminar tonight. But I will say this. After reviewing the issue, I believe the cleaner, more transparent, and more accountable approach is to remove the automatic percentage-based escalator and replace it with a fixed rate that this council openly considers, discusses, debates, and votes on. That's better governance. It's better transparency. And it's fairer to the residents. We should put our names on it. We should explain it. We should defend it. And residents should have a notice, a public process, and the ability to hold us accountable. It goes on to say, as your representative, I believe we must view this increase through the lens of fiscal responsibility and fairness. I agree with that. But fiscal responsibility is not just keeping a fee artificially low while infrastructure fails. We're replacing infrastructure that's much younger than the storm systems in question here. We did 120% increase, the last council did, that hit the first day we took office. Because of ignoring the problem, It's our responsibility, our fiscal responsibility to maintain what we own before it comes even more expensive to fix. Fiscal responsibility is not telling residents for years that help is coming and then when the bill finally arrives, acting surprised that help costs money. Fairness cuts both ways. It's not fair for residents in older neighborhoods to pay into a system year after year while being told their infrastructure is too old, too complicated, too localized, too inconvenient to fix. It's not fair to tell a homeowner whose yard has flooded for decades that their feelings are valid, but their problem is not data-driven enough. And it's not fair to describe a citywide stormwater fee as though it's being created for one neighborhood, when this ordinance was specifically written to address stormwater needs throughout the entire city. The newsletter calls it a citywide impact for a localized issue that is simply and patently untrue. Stormwater is citywide infrastructure. That is not one neighborhood, that is a whole system. We have stormwater needs on the east side, including bank stabilization all up and down Cool Creek. We have pockets of flooding in Homeplace. We have west side flooding complaints frequently, especially along Shelbourne, as we heard tonight. We have side ditches across the city that no longer function as intended. We have neighborhoods built under standards that would not be accepted today. We have aging pipe, failing structures, pedestrian gaps, drainage failures, aging roads, and safety issues that all intersect at one point. This is not one neighborhood asking for a favor. This is a city finally being asked to take care of the infrastructure under its feet. And even if this were a localized project and an ordinance for a single spot, which it's not, that is still one of the most basic functions of local government. Do the people in Homeplace need roundabouts out by on East Carmel? No, but they pay for them. Do the residents in the Edens need multi-use paths on the west side of Carmel near Michigan Road? Maybe not, but they pay for them. Does every taxpayer attend the Palladium? No, but they certainly paid for it. But this city has long understood that those investments act as the identity to the quality of life and economic strength of Carmel. That is the common good. We do not measure public value only by asking whether every resident uses the same improvement on the same day. We ask whether the improvement strengthens the city. Stormwater protection strengthens this city. Safe roads strengthen this city. Functional drainage strengthens this city. Sidewalks that allow children to walk safely to school strengthen this city. And protecting people's homes from repeated flooding strengthens this city. It goes on to say, it's being introduced without the benefit of engineering data or formal fact finding to definitively isolate the root cause. of this neighborhood's drainage issues. That was the most frustrating to me because we're not talking about a rumor. We're not talking about a one-time puddle. We're not talking about something that appeared last week. One resident provided a 55-page document recording years of flooding, photographs, correspondence with the city, and all the property damage it's come with. As inconvenient as it may be to some, that is data. Photographs of repeated flooding is data. Years of correspondence is data. Residents saying water's entering their house is data. A storm sewer that a resident reports is higher than the bottom of the street, forcing it to fight gravity is data. And one of the emails, It specifically says Jeff stood in their backyard with neighbors and lamented on the flooding. So to suggest now that this problem lacks fact-finding is simply not accurate. The fact-finding has been happening in residents' yards for decades. It has been happening every time they take pictures, every time they send another email, every time they replace a fence post, or watch their yard turn into a detention basin. says we need data-driven diagnosis. Again, I agree with data, but I'm having a hard time reconciling that statement with what I've personally witnessed and heard in other neighborhoods. We've sued in Almond and told engineering that your data might say this, but we don't care because it's not the Carmel way. I agree with that. I still agree with that. Those residents in Almond should not have open front yard ditches as a long-term answer. They should have proper drainage and proper pedestrian facilities. They should have what Carmel residents expect. That's why this is confusing. One street over and everything is about data. On the other side, it's about, it's the way it should be, the Carmel way. I'm willing to fight for Almond. I'm willing to fight for Homeplace. I'm willing to fight for the west side, east side. I'm willing to fight for Lexington the same as I would fight for any other older neighborhood in Carmel where aging infrastructure is failing the people that live here. That is what citywide responsibility means. It says we need an optimized plan. I don't even know what that means. Carmel did not build its reputation by saying, let's optimize the cheapest patch. Carmel built its reputation by pursuing the best roads, the best police department, best fire, best streets, best public spaces, best quality of life. So are we saying that we no longer ask for the best or just to this neighborhood? Because when I walk through these neighborhoods, I don't see residents asking for the moon. I see residents asking for basic things Carmel residents should be able to expect. They want a road that's not nearly 70 years old. They want stormwater infrastructure that was not designed in the 60s. They want pedestrian facilities that do not randomly dead end. They want their children to be able to walk safely to elementary school, the library, and the high school without walking in the middle of the road or along broken, incomplete, non-ADA compliant stretches of sidewalk where two people cannot walk side by side. That is not extravagant. That is the Carmel way. It talks about older infrastructure and that older neighborhoods were built under vastly different engineering standards than modern developments. That is exactly right and that is exactly my point. Much of this infrastructure was designed in 1960s. That would never be accepted today. Corrugated metal pipe was allowed back then, and much of it is. It's rusted out. Brick manhole structures were used. There are many municipalities I work in where it is required if you come across a brick manhole, it must be replaced. Materials and designs were accepted that would never be acceptable today, and beyond the standards, much of this infrastructure is already at its end of life. Storm sewer systems today have a 75-year lifespan. I honestly don't know what a storm sewer designed in the mid-60s lifespan was designed to be, but we're at the end of it. Now, it's easy for me to pick on Councilor Worrell, but I think it could have been any post, it could have been any social media, it could have been any newsletter. I think it hurts so bad because it felt so damn personal coming from Counselor Royal because I do consider him a mentor and I do have so much respect for him. Which is why I'm hoping it's just his busy life and it was just a rushed article. Because I know he doesn't feel this way. But retrofitting, No, I don't need another year of study to know that a failing 60-year-old infrastructure needs serious attention. Retrofitting neighborhoods does need precision, but precision is not an excuse for paralysis. Data is not an excuse for delay, and caution is not a substitute for leadership. We have talked about the Richland Avenue extension. Frankly, the fact that it's even being debated boggles my mind. That's about public safety. It's about school access. It's about promises that were made by the city and were not followed through, and it's about children who live close enough to the school they're not allowed to ride buses, so they must walk, but they have no path or safe way to get there. If we are going to invoke the proposed school referendum as a reason to be cautious about stormwater fees, then we should also be honest about the city's responsibilities around school safety, school access, and the infrastructure surrounding those schools and our world-class library. Carmel Air was never meant to be a thoroughfare. It should not be treated as one as it is now. It needs stormwater and pedestrian upgrades as well. I still agree with Councilor Orrell that advocating for the Almond neighborhood, those front yard ditches should be filled in, proper pedestrian and drainage facilities installed. And there are dozens of more scenarios around the city. But I want to address the idea that this all came out of nowhere. They just popped up. It did not. I brought this up to the mayor last September, the same way I've brought it up to every single person I've talked to it about. I've asked the question, do you think residents currently paying $15 a month for stormwater is outrageous? The mayor's answer was the exact same answer I've heard from every single resident. No, not really. And my response has stayed the same. Me either. But the actual rate is around $6.50. I'd like to move it to $10.00. In fact, it was the mayor that told me she did not want to see the number go over $10. I did not make that number up. That was out of respect for her. I have been working backward from that number ever since. Shortly after, I had a meeting with Nick Weber, the chief of staff, after I learned from engineering that they'd hired a financial firm to work on a phase one rate study, which I found completely unnecessary, a waste of time and money. I don't care what other communities are charging. I care what this community needs. The chief of staff said he would talk to engineering whether that was necessary. At that time, I thought we would have this done by the end of last year. But here we are, a year later, nothing's been done. The flooded yards haven't gone away. The failing ditches haven't gone away. The old pipes certainly haven't gotten younger. ADA regulations have not disappeared. And the residents have not stopped waiting. I want to be clear about this, what this is and what this is not. This is not a tax increase. This is a stormwater user fee. It's not some wild new concept. It's a simple ordinance, just as it was when Carmel established and amended it in 2016. The difference is that we're now going to be honest about the cost of maintaining aging infrastructure because this city has a lot of it. And I'll be honest, the $10 a month for a single residential ERU is not enough. Not even close. But it's enough to start. It's enough to address real needs across the city. It's enough to help with failing storm infrastructure in older neighborhoods. It's enough to even evaluate a regional detention basin north of Homeplace that could help slow and mitigate the discharge of water that's affecting that area in case there is future development in that area. It's enough to begin addressing the west side ditches that could be encapsulated and covered with paths so we can continue to promote our connectivity, especially in front of Unwell and Shelburne and in front of Clay Center Elementary School. It's enough to start stabilizing banks, replacing failed structures, and moving away from the endless cycle of patchwork repairs. It's enough to stop pretending that deferred maintenance is fiscal responsibility. Reasonable people can disagree about the number. We will debate this for months, I'm sure. We can ask hard questions and we should ask the hard questions. We should not tell residents this is a localized issue when it is not. We should not say that there is no data when we have been documenting these problems for decades. This is not the common good. That is not their larger story. That is not the common Carmel way. The Carmel way is not to wait until residents are exhausted. The Carmel way is not to study a six year old problem until everyone gives up. The Carmel way is not to make residents prove again and again that water in their yard is actually wet. It's about residents in older neighborhoods who bought into Carmel, paid into Carmel, believed in Carmel, and now deserve the same standard of infrastructure that we proudly deliver everywhere else. Again, it's not about a singular newsletter or an individual or social media post or my hurt feelings. It's not about elections or even disagreement. It's about the west side, east side, home place. It's about Almond. It's about Lexington. It's about every part of the city where infrastructure we inherited no longer meets the standard we claim to represent. I'm not asking this council to do something reckless. I'm asking this council to stop pretending that waiting is free. Waiting has a cost. Flooding has a cost. Patchwork has a cost. All the infrastructure that's not perfect has a cost. So yes, I do support moving this forward after a lengthy deliberation. I do support increasing the fees on both commercial and residential storm sewer rates. I support using the money citywide. I support helping residents whose home and neighborhoods have waited long enough. And I support doing what Carmel has always claimed to do best, investing in the future before failure becomes the only option. But I want to be clear that my introduction is not the end of this conversation. It's the beginning of the legislative action. I look forward to deliberating this ordinance with my colleagues. Hearing from residents again tomorrow evening at the Carmel Library, 6 o'clock, is a let's listen to the residents about what they want town hall. I hope to see as many people there as we can. I look forward to hearing from the mayor, our department heads, our engineering team, and our financial experts about their priorities, their concerns, and their vision for how Carmel should responsibly meet these needs. But we must meet them. This should be a serious conversation. It should be a transparent one, and it should be an honest one. And if we do it right, it will absolutely be a productive one. But we have to start from the truth. This is not drastic. It's not irresponsible. This is fair. I preach all the time, nearly every day. about how Carmel is the greatest city in the world. And I still believe that in my heart. Tonight I reaffirm my belief that Carmel does not, and will not simply just do enough to maintain the appearance that we are the best. We will do what is actually required to continue being the best in everything we do, regardless of popularity, inconvenience, or fear of, anybody's fear of reelection. Because serving this wonderful city means you must love it and the people within it far more than yourself, as I do, and I know Council Royal does, and everyone at this dais does. This is the Carmel Way. So while this ordinance has caused a bit of a stir, I will stand by it, and I look forward to a lengthy debate in Finance Committee.

Mr. President?

Please.

May I make a couple of statements? Please. All right, well... Thank you for reading my columns in The Current and Carmel. I appreciate that. I want to just start out by saying that my newsletter, I stand behind every word of it. It was thoughtfully written, and it happens to be a situation where you and I have a difference of opinion on how we approach this issue. And one of the things I talk about with civility is that we should be able to do that, and friendship have nothing to do with my position and how I represent the citizens of Carmel. This is not personal. And for us to be able to disagree without getting mad, without trying to hurt each other or embarrass or claim that my newsletter was anything than what it is, I do not appreciate. So I just want to be clear, my newsletter is the way that I want to approach this. And I want to take a few minutes to explain why that is. When I first, and I'm not speaking to you necessarily, I'm going to speak to the community. When I first ran for office, I made a promise that I would try and remove emotion from the issues when trying to make a decision. What I saw when I ran for office back in 2015 is that there were a lot of things where if you don't agree with me or if you don't do it my way, you don't like me, or it's this side for the mayor, that side against the mayor, and I said I'm going to run against that. I'm going to keep the emotion out of it, and I'm going to base my decisions on facts and data. I would also point out that you just used as an example the fact that there was a 120% increase in the stormwater fees, and that was due to Yes, and that was due to ignoring the problem. That's not true, President Snyder. It's because we, and you may disagree with the reason that was given, but the reason was because we knew that the population would grow and there would be more users to pay the fee today than there was back when we would have had to increase it to an amount that was just unacceptable. So I don't appreciate comparing my newsletter as being not factual and you doing the same thing just now. I was on the council when this stormwater fee was introduced. I never imagined, and it was controversial, no one wanted a fee, but of course as leaders we decided that the fee needed to be put in place in order to start dealing with infrastructure and neighborhoods that were aging. A lot of money has been spent in dealing with these problems. I never imagined that we would go from $61 and whatever it was, 20 cents, to $120 in 10 years. And the reason the 3% was put in, even though there is now a legal question about that, the reason the 3% was put in, because exactly what's being proposed tonight is what many people came and stood at this dais arguing about. You're just going to get it started, and then you're going to double it and triple it. It will be $20 a month before we know it. The 3% was there to protect citizens. Absolutely. The reason that I am taking a cautious approach, there was no intent on there being anything misleading. I am being cautious. I didn't say I'm against the fee. I said I want to be cautious. I don't have enough information in order to say whether I'm for it or against it because it is raising a fee on every citizen of Carmel whom I represent. The reason I said that It's because, yes, Councilor Snider did casually, I wouldn't say we had a meeting about it, but what do you think about raising the stormwater fee? Well, when someone asks me a question like that, I can say, well, I don't know, it's catching me cold. catching me without any data, not really even understanding why we might be discussing that. I might have said, well, I don't know. I do not recall, honestly, whether I said, sure, Matt, go ahead and introduce something. I'm sure I didn't say that. But what did happen was, at the town hall meeting, this plan was thrown out there, of which I'm standing at the stage, and I did not know that was going to be presented. The dollars that were identified as to how to fix this problem was $20 million. This problem in this one neighborhood by President Snyder, $20 million. Coincidentally, that happens to be approximately the net number we would end up with, $21 million if this fee was instigated, if this fee was implemented. So therefore, I have taken it that this is the way, and I think you might have even said it at the town hall, this is a way to solve the problem tomorrow. I said at that meeting, I would like to hear from the city. I would like to know what the city's plan. I've never once argued that there's not a flooding drainage issue. I've been in the backyard, as you stated. I've talked to several neighbors. I was involved in putting in a beehive behind Mr. Christensen's house, which is on the other side of Allie Missler's house. But there are obstacles and things in the way of the swale or the drainage, which was, you probably have a fancy term for it. I don't know the fancy engineering term, but where the water is supposed to go in order to drain. So I wanted to hear from the city, what is the problem? Is it because there are fences and sheds? Is it because there is collapsed infrastructure? What is the problem? That is my job, to know that before I say, yep, let's go ahead and implement a $120 assessment on every Carmel resident. If you disagree with me on that, I apologize. But it will be the way I think I have always operated, and it will be the way I operate in the future. My newsletter is the way that I let my constituents know what I'm working on, what I'm looking for advice on, what I hope to hear from them about. And that's why You will see in my newsletter my positions. I have done it since the first day I took office. I don't necessarily talk about what showed up in the media or what happened, you know, what a ribbon cutting I went to. I use my newsletter to get feedback from my constituents. And if you go back and look at my newsletters, I've listed dozens of positions that could be controversial. But I don't want people to find out what we're doing up here after it's already been done. And I believe that the people that I represent appreciate that approach. So I'm saying that I had, whether you consider it a cup of coffee for this monthly rate increase, I feel like I have an obligation to understand, should it be $10? Should it be $7? Should it be $30? Why is that so hard and why is that not acceptable for me to do that we have to run this thing through and do it because you say it needs to be done? I said publicly, I want to hear from engineering. And so I have scheduled an engineering, Mayor Fincombe, the staff, the professional engineering consultants will come to a meeting, a public meeting on July 14th, at Carmel Clay Library, and they will present, what are we fixing? What's the issue? It could be what you say it is, but that's not good enough for me. I want to hear from the people who are putting cameras down there and looking at what it is, and is this the right amount? Is it really $20 million? That is a lot of money, and money that I want to make sure I'm careful on how we spend it. I hear all the time, that Carmel is the best place to live in America. I hear it from my colleagues. There are multiple ratings that we get. One of the ways that we got there was because we have a history of being very intentional in our infrastructure. As a matter of fact, we go overboard. We're criticized over and over again for the $1 billion in spending in debt that we have for infrastructure in order to make sure that it is the best that we can possibly make it. And I believe that that has all come from data. It has been, obviously there has to be prioritization, but it's also, it means that there are some things that don't get done today. And I would just say, if we are so great then how did we get to this situation where I feel like you have, in your speech, just said the place is falling apart? I don't believe that. And I believe that even when a situation is identified, we have an obligation to make sure that we systematically and with the information of what's really going on before we impact the entire city. That is just how I have tried to conduct myself as a city councilor and how I will continue to do it. I want to also be aware, and my newsletter did generate comments from residents who were concerned about that kind of a jump. And I want to know that ahead of time as we get into the debate. And I'm sure you're going to criticize me for the things that I've raised, but I'm just saying Everyone in Carmel should have a say in this, not just one or two counselors who say, this is the way it is, this is what needs to happen, and this is how we're going to do it right now. I wasn't expecting to have to make a rebuttal like this, President Snyder, and I do so with the greatest respect, but I don't have the benefit of being able to keep up with every single point you make. So if you would like, I mean, I would have loved it if we could have done this before you presented this and it showed up on our agenda. I would love to sit down and talk to you about why $10. What do you think has to be done? And how do you know that? How do you know that's what has to be done? I'd rather work with you that way than to be after the fact with something being casually mentioned and the next thing I know, the ordinance is on the agenda. That's just a way that I think we could work better together. I want to just say that I'm trying to remember everything you said, and it's very difficult to do because I was caught off guard, but I do, and if we're going to get into the Richland extension, I was cautious about that because I kept hearing about five homes that had to be taken. That makes me very uncomfortable with not understanding the full scope of why that extension is so important. And I did live through the construction of the elementary school where there was decisions made by the school board and by the school corporation about egress and ingress, of which we didn't have a say. We followed their instructions. So I don't have enough information on that to understand that we now have a major problem with ingress and egress at Carmel Elementary School. I know I'm probably forgetting something that I should have said when I go back and watch your comments, so I'd love to have a cup of coffee with you. To the residents of Carmel, to the people who are sitting here from Concord and Lexington, I know you're frustrated, but I am frustrated as well. And I think there are some things that may not cost $20 million that could be done sooner than later. And you know, Ali, I stood in your backyard and there was concerns about the special garden back there that I know is very important to you. And I said, then what do you, in my email that I went back and looked at from 2018, then what do you expect? Because at Mr. Christensen's, we had to do some changes to that back area, and how should that happen? So... If we need to have a cup of coffee now, these 10 years later, all of a sudden this started bubbling up again. I hadn't talked to you about this since that 2018 or maybe 2019. So if I'm remiss in that, I apologize. But I would like to find out more about how your backyard would be affected by any changes we make because that was the situation at the time. So I will leave it there. I really don't want to get into a back and forth. But I do disagree. But that's OK. We can still be friends and disagree. I still want to have a relationship. I still want to work with you on other projects. But on this one, I do not like the process. I do not like the way this has been presented and the way that it has been presented as fact that it's 20 million come hell or high water. That's my only issue with this.

Thank you. And I won't, we don't need to go back and forth on any of the potential mischaracterizations of things I've said or done. There are two points of fact. One, 16 to 18 million, that number came directly from our city engineer. So, at the time. And you mentioned that that was exactly what the dollar amount would be. My simple arithmetic showed that moving it to $10, which was where the mayor said she didn't want to go over, my math, had it at $53.4 million in capacity, and when I ran that by a financial consultant, they said I was being extremely conservative. So those are the only factual things I want to correct. Never had any intention of this getting approved in anything shorter than several months, so there's plenty of time for debate. Any other comments about this?

I'm going to say something. First off, I want to start off I know it's a little emotional for a second. I really do appreciate the passion that both of you have. And one of the things I appreciate about you most, Councilor Snyder, President Snyder, is that you don't just sit around waiting for things to happen. you're not, you take action and I do appreciate that. And I'm glad that we're starting some of this conversation. I would say this, and this means no offense to anyone, just so I can feel confident going forward. I feel like some of the discussion that we're having is similar to discussion we'd be having like on a final vote, you know, right beforehand. And I wondered if we could, as we move forward, I will be at the meeting on the 7th and the 14th, and I will be at land use for this. if that's where it goes, or finance, or wherever, committee. If we could start off with maybe a shared accepted facts. And I think that would help everyone. What is the situation of the problem? And I don't want to say, well, one person says this, one person says that. As much as we can, if we can get some shared facts on how much money this would generate, what would be the cost of the projects, year by year, all these things. And I will send you an email. I'm happy to CC everybody if they want, just so I get my questions out there. I apologize for maybe waiting a little bit on this, but I just would wonder if we could take a step back to get some shared facts and some understanding. And then, obviously, I think we all want to find out what the best solution is going forward.

I completely agree with you. And I think that's what the intent was by putting this in committee for as long as it takes.

No, no, I'm not debating on that. We were having this conversation tonight that I saw you had a lot of points in your things. I would love to, like, there was line after line where it was like, okay, I have a question about this, I have a question about that, some of the things that you mentioned. And, you know, I'm happy to have a three-hour lunch with you to go over this. And I know people want action as soon as possible.

Well, I think Councilor Taylor did a good job outlaying an actual reasonable timeline should anything be done at the last town hall. And I think the expectation is not something's getting done tomorrow. If something goes through with this ordinance, it'll be at least a year. I mean, that's, Guns Taylor went through kind of the metrics of what it would take.

And I really appreciate your passion. It's true that you really do care about the residents. Hope you know that if I or others were asking tough questions, it's not critical of the project or you personally. Sometimes the best way to get to the bottom of it is, what is the toughest question I can ask? And then, you know, find that way to kind of get to the solution. So I hope we have a good, robust debate. Oh, yeah. Don't lose the passion. But hopefully we can maybe start off with some facts as we kind of move forward. Absolutely.

Go ahead, Rich. I just have one request. The first town hall that was held, the date was set without even me even knowing that a meeting was going to be held. And luckily I was able to cancel something to attend that event. We were planning a HOA meeting. For that evening, I'm not able to attend tomorrow. You're talking about the 7th. Yeah, the first town hall, I wasn't aware of it. A letter went out, and luckily I was able to change some things to make it. I'm not able to make the meeting on the 7th tomorrow night. I can make the 14th, but there could just be so we can all have voices and receive the same information, that there's maybe some better coordination of timing of meetings so as many people can attend as possible. That's all I ask.

Easy request. Absolutely.

Thank you, President Snyder. And I echo everything that Adam said. Let's just get this work together. I will not be able to come to the meeting on the 7th either because I have a previously scheduled HOA meeting that has been on the books for about a month. So over a month. So I just want to say I will circle back with my city councilors and get their feedback. And none of this will happen in a vacuum, and I don't think it should.

So let's move forward, please. I'm tickled pink. It's been decades. Finally, we've got the conversation going. So we can't go back from here. So I think all your comments, Jeff and Rich and Adam, I think have been wonderful. We are where I wanted to be. as far as finally having a serious conversation. So this is a win for the people. Anything else?

Councilor Schneider, I have a question. Yeah. So which committee do you intend? Is this a one or both committee thing?

Well, I was going to send it to finance, but honestly, based on your comments, you're right. Let's identify the needs. So maybe land use works with engineering, where the problems are, comes up with a reasonable budget numbers, although for various projects, priorities, that kind of thing, work with the administration as far as where are some of the most aging infrastructure needs, and then finance and run through all the numbers and work with, my understanding is Baker Tilly was already engaged to look at some of this a long time ago, so maybe they've got some data already. Does that sound good? So, Councilor Schneider, the intent, it'll go to land use and then...

They'll go both at the same time.

We can study it concurrently. They want to have a joint meeting, they can have a joint meeting, and I think that would be great.

Can I make a suggestion? Please do. Is that first, problems are identified and cost assigned before we start discussing various ERU fees. You know, many times a... capital asset plan is put into place, a rate study is then conducted, projects are then prioritized, and then the process is set to set the new rate, and then based on what is the ability to finance based on that rate.

My only concern, and Councilor Worrell alluded to it, is there are some EXTERNALITIES SURROUNDING THIS THAT WILL NEED TO BE ADDRESSED SOONER OR LATER THAT WE CAN BE ADVISED EITHER IN EXECUTIVE SESSION OR INDEPENDENTLY BY COUNCIL.

THAT COULD TAKE PLACE SEPARATELY FROM THE ACTUAL ERU RATE. AN AMENDMENT TO THE ORDINANCE CAN BE DONE WITH MAYBE EVEN A SEPARATE ORDINANCE TO AMEND THE ORDINANCE BEFORE SETTING A RATE.

That's fine. I think just the initiative, what the ultimate goal is of this council is to fix as much as we can, whether it's Lexington or anywhere else, is whether to fix as much as we can based on our aging infrastructure, in which case that dollar amount is going to far exceed anything any of us are comfortable with. So I hear what you're saying, but I think no matter what, there's going to be more project costs than there's going to be appetite to raise a rate. So if $10 is the rate, whatever it is, whatever you all think is appropriate, but yeah, if you want to pause on talking about that, that's fine. It's going to be the max no matter what. It's the sheer nature of the cost of the beast.

Councillor Schneider? Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. Would it be better before we say like, hey, this is how much we feel comfortable making the rate and then find enough projects to fit in with that? I mean, I'd like to hear the whole, all the projects, even if we can't afford to do all of them or there's not appetite, I'd love to hear them all.

Yeah, and then to your point, you can say, what would this actually cost and kind of put together a,

A mock long-term. And on the 14th, I mean, we don't know what the administration is going to present. They may have solutions that don't require bonding or a rate increase in order to solve. So I would also like to hear from the administration. Sure. Yes, sir. So...

I came to the last town hall and heard from the residents and saw kind of the presentations. This is an issue that's popped up while we've been up here. And one of the things that puts me in a good spot with this open dialogue is that this is something that we as a council have become good at. We are passionate. We all have emotions and we feel them. And we're also very smart and capable of getting back to the logical reality of where we are. But we've seen this process work. So I think to your point, Councilor Taylor, the rate itself is a starting point for the conversation. It's something that came up. It was something to kind of look at. There are other sources of revenue and funding in this city that could help us ensure that we're fixing these issues the right way. When we undertook the process in finance of the first year and set the world record for number of readings on the roundabout ordinance, We got information and we ended at a point that was different than the original language based on the correct feedback. We get to do that same thing here. So I actually am very excited from the standpoint that this issue, which again, I had not heard of over on the west side until we received a project here to vote on on the very last minute, which we voted no on. which puts us in a position to have the open dialogue. And if there are other options, opportunities, we appropriated $2 million from the general fund tonight from a balance of general fund that was told to us that the last meeting is $14.5 million. There are ways for us to figure out these issues together. But in my experience so far on this council, with this city, with the smart, wonderful people we have that are helping be here, and running it every day. And then with you, the constituents that are giving your feedback, we do it best when we're doing it together in the open. So grateful for the opportunity to discuss this. My hope is that we end up not necessarily needing to raise the rate because we've got other sources of revenue to get through and we set up a plan to get there. But if that is an option and it's something that came up and has been presented in the paper, it's worthwhile to see what that looks like so we can continue the opportunity to come to the right solution for our residents. Because at the end of the day, if we're not comfortable having these conversations or we're not ready to figure out the path on things as instrumental to our lives as the water in our backyards, what conversations are happening on other things that may have no impact or a different impact or the opportunity to have a drastic impact that we don't even know are going on. So please, residents, for the rest of the time that you're interacting with the government, no matter what level that is, as long as you're watching this, there are probably 78 of you, please reach out with those concerns. Send them to us. We are stewards of these things to make sure we're in the best spot possible. And at the end of the day, Maybe that is a rate increase to issue bonds to fix an issue, or it's a fix that we all can understand and get behind that gets us to where we need to be. But we will do that best together. We will do it with open, honest dialogue. None of it is personal until it is because we are all just people trying our very best to live the best life we can in the homes that we have made for ourselves and our families. And with that, I will leave it an open point. Please reach out. We will find an answer together. City staff, when they come back in the room, will be instrumental in that as well, have been, and we will end up where we need to be. But if we don't talk about it, 20 years will go by and your backyard will be flooded and you will be here in front of hopefully our children. and they may be saying the same thing, or we can help fix it and move to a better path so they know what they need to do when they're sitting up here instead of us.

Just two comments. One is that we just did a bond refunding with Stormwater Bonds that created net present value savings that freed up cash flow for also possible projects to your point of identifying revenue to not raise rates. The second thing I think is really important is to set proper expectations with citizens. I purchased my home in 2017. The front yard flooded. We have no stormwater system in front of Gray Road. It was connected to a septic. The seller was required to, as part of this process, to implement a drain in the front yard that drains water to the back OF THE PROPERTY. THAT WAS NOT A CITY RESPONSIBILITY. CONNECTING TO THE SANITARY SEWER SYSTEM FOR MY HOME TO THE CITY OF CARMEL WAS NOT THE CITY'S RESPONSIBILITY. THERE WAS A CONNECTION FEE THAT WE HAD TO PAY TO CONNECT TO SANITARY SEWER. WE NEED TO MAKE SURE THAT TO THE BASIS OF FACTS COMMENTS BY COUNCILOR AWESOME THAT WE'RE PROPERLY SETTING EXPECTATIONS ON WHAT COMPONENT IS A CITY RESPONSIBILITY AND WHAT COMPONENT IS NOT A CITY RESPONSIBILITY AT THIS TIME. AND THEN PROPERLY PRIORITIZE PROJECTS. Setting expectations.

Perfect. President Schneider, can I make one procedural comment that I unfortunately have to make? No, I'd rather not.

It's just, I think it's important. You're going to anyway.

I have to.

Being president means absolutely nothing.

I understand, but I have to do it as a turn for. Go, say it. So it's important to note that it's a, One party that is left out of conversation right now, and I think it would be important to bring them in earlier rather than later, is Department of Stormwater Management, which is managed by the board of directors, which is currently BPW. So under the statute, under the authorizing statute, it's actually the department that assesses, collects, and establishes the user fees that we're discussing here today. They are the ones who are conducting a public meeting on the matter. It is mentioned in the ordinance. It's obviously blank at this point. But again, I urge you to bring them in sooner rather than later. And we can discuss it further in the committee, of course.

Thank you.

Yeah. Just one procedural question about that, though. You said bring them in. If there is a disagreement between the council and the stormwater board, they don't see eye to eye, what happens there?

Again, it's the council in this instance is a proving body. The initiating body is usually the board of directors of Department of Stormwater Management. I think there might be disagreement as to what happens after that because it's, I don't know a single instance that it ever happened before, but we would have to look it up. I'm not really ready to give that answer right now.

That shouldn't matter. If we vet this to death for the next three, four months, and we're going to do what's best for the people of Carmel, it would be impossible to be ridiculous. There shouldn't be a disagreement.

Right, exactly. So that's why I'm bringing it up, that this is an important piece of that process that you all should consider.

Very good. I look forward to this.

So it's going to both committees at the same time?

Yes. And Councilor Taylor can decide when it's time to discuss the rate, whenever you think that's a prudent time.

And so from a land use perspective, you want us to hear from residents on projects. You also want us to identify areas with engineering, work with administration, get that list together, and then vet.

Yeah.

OK. Just so we are clear and we understand. And that's going on the agenda for Wednesday. We usually add things after council meetings, but I think we may not have enough information by Wednesday to have a full list of projects, obviously. We can begin to compile a list, some of which are obviously here tonight. So I think that would be a first good beginning. But we're not going to get through the whole thing, obviously.

Does anybody else have questions? All right. Agenda add-ons, there are none. Other business? None. Any announcements? In that case, we will adjourn at 8.37. Oh, thank you.

Thank you.