Board of Public Works - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everyone.

The microphones are on. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the regular meeting of the City of Charlestown Board of Public Works. Today is September 3rd, 2026. It is 10 a.m. This meeting is being live streamed by Under Production Multimedia. If you'll please join us, we'll start our meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance. for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. The director showed that all board members are present, as well as clerk treasurer Bonnie Coomer and attorney Perry McCall. An agenda that's been provided. We'll retain a motion to approve. I'll make that motion. All right, Thompson makes a motion. I do, Wells seconds. All in favor say aye. Aye. That's unanimous. We have our standing business from last meeting, which the regular meeting that had been canceled as well as this meeting. So this includes our minutes from August 6th, the claims that were made for August 20th, our current claims, our payroll allowance docket from July 27th to August 14th, and then also to August 23rd. Need a motion to approve those items.

I'll make the motion.

Maggie Bottle makes the motion. I'll second. Irene Thompson seconds. Any questions? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. That's unanimous. No one, I think, has signed up for public comment. Good. So we'll move straight into new business. First up, we have quite a few things here. Chief, are you presenting all of these? Yep. On behalf of the police department? Come on up. All right. First up, we have a canine dog purchase agreement with Jeffersonville Police Department. All right.

Yeah, this canine purchase agreement, between Georgetownville Police Department, City of Jeff, and Charlestown Police Department in the City of Charlestown. The agreement outlines payment. It would be for the purchase of one canine dog named Bo. He's a Belgian Malinois. His birthday was actually yesterday, so he's now two years old. So he has several, he's already had several certifications under his belt. And this dog, if purchased, would go to Sergeant Matthew Myers, who's been trained for the last couple of years to be a canine handler. uh the the agreement outlines that upon uh signature of this we pay a half now three thousand dollars and then once uh the training is going on and some of the certifications get completed then we pay the second half of three thousand dollars uh to complete that purchase uh matt myers will be an exceptional uh canada handler so he's been training quite a while for this and We've already got equipment ready. As far as the money goes, it was completely fundraised by our community, and we got plenty. I think we have about $18,000 right now in our K-9 non-reverting fund. So as far as the money goes. So we'd be asking for us to sign into this agreement.

Do we have a motion? I'll make that motion. All right. Thompson makes the motion. Maggie Wall second. A couple questions, Chief. Do we have the funds then to outfit another vehicle for this? We have the proper cage and stuff.

Yes, so Sergeant Myers actually already acquired a K&M cage kennel for the car probably six months ago or so. And so that was already paid for. He got a really good deal on it. It's usually about a $5,000 or $6,000 cage and he got it for $200. So it's essentially brand new. And I believe they've already got it put in the car, right? Yep, so it's already installed in the vehicle and all that's been taken care of. The only other thing we're waiting on that is a hot pot, which is the automatic door opener for the vehicle. And that will be taken care of with a non-degreed hood as well.

I do think it's appropriate to give a special shout out to absolutely you, Harris Law and Melissa Duvall. She really did a lot of work publicly to collect money for this. We had a lot of community donations. So if everybody did donate to this, much appreciation. But Melissa really drove a lot of the publicity with that through social media posts and doing specific ways and fundraisers to collect money. I think she collected quite a bit. Yeah, she did.

um so community comes together for that yeah we had a lot of participation for the from the entire community from jersey mike's the sponsor of one of our events there to uh melissa and absolutely you uh a lot of people came together so uh you know everybody in charlestown loves dogs so dogs and police all right good deal so we have a motion with a second i'll call for the vote all in favor say aye aye aye

I'll give you the executed copy. Do you want to make sure it's understood? Yep.

Yeah, we'll hand deliver it down there.

We have to make a few edits. None.

They had us down as town in Charlestown. Yeah, it was this morning. All right. Next up, a license agreement with Indiana American Water for the antenna.

All right. For this next one, this is a license agreement for Indiana American Water. So our current VHS repeater system, antenna system, is on the north end of town at the water tower by the hospital. So that was originally put on there back when the city owned that tower and operated it. But now that tower is getting demolished. Sometime this year, we were originally given a date, I think it was July or August, and it's been pushed back several times. We've been waiting for this, for this agreement. So with the agreement that they're gonna allow us to replace and put a new antenna and repeater system for our radios up on the tower at 403 at Gospel. And then we'll hire, we've got contractors ready to hire to put them in there. So that is what this agreement is about. So it allows us to put an antenna up there and continue to use our low-band repeaters inside our cars.

Perry, you looked over this.

Yeah, I did. He sent it to me. one that we had drafted and then one that they decided they wanted to draft and they're virtually the same, so it's good to go.

Do we have a motion to approve the license agreement? I'll make that motion. Maggie Weil makes the motion. I'll second. Ernie Thompson seconds. Any questions about it? All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye, that's unanimous. And then general order 26.0903A, the block ALPRS update.

All right, so I guess many of you have already heard about the flock debate going on in the country. So when we first originally got flocked, we got it in 2022. So we had a policy generated by then Tim Wolf. The policy was great. It's worked for us for several years now. But with some of the news and enlightenment coming out with other agencies around the country, we decided that we should be proactive and and strengthen and update our policy on flock and make sure that we're not gonna have any incidences of abuse or anything like that. So that's what this policy does. It takes our whole policy from about two pages up to eight pages. And it also increases the discipline if somebody was to maliciously abuse the system. So it also creates the requirement for case numbers, reasonings, training and so forth like that so if you all had time to read it you know i think it's good that we go ahead and do this so that way we can you know, rest assured, and also creates actually a requirement in the policy that we do audit the systems, the administration does, which we've already been doing, but it needed to be in the policy that we do, that it's required.

I think those are the two strengths of the update that I like, is that, of course, you have to have, in order to access the database, you have to have a case number attached to an active case. It's not like you can just go in and Randomly look at whoever you want to look at. It has to be an active case. And then also that you're doing a regular audit and that you're incorporating some of their tools to do that to bring notice to any search that might be out of the norm. So I like those. I think that's good insurance. Do we have a motion to approve that policy update? I'll make that motion. All right, Thompson makes a motion. Second. Second. Any other questions on it? All in favor say aye. Aye. I have a chance. And then you have one more thing and I'll let you sit down. Opening sealed bids for police cars.

All right. So this is the opening for the sealed bid for police cars. We put out a request for bids. Assistant Chief Broder handled it all and he submitted the request on August 12th and I think it went in the paper August 15th of this year and with a very specific list of the seven vehicles that we needed along with all the equipment that we needed with those vehicles for upfitting equipment-wise. The deadline was this past Monday. As of Monday, we received one sealed bid. So, I have no idea what's in here. So, if you all can open it.

Yeah, open it up and read the total amount. We'll take it under advisement for you to review that it is a quote based off of what your specifications were. Do you need a pocket knife?

All right, so with the seven vehicles, five of those would have been Dodge Durangos. And of those, the five Dodge Durangos, the total price for five of those with equipment upfitting, with all the necessary lights and the radio installs and stuff like that, would be $342,547.50 for those five. And then on the 2026 Chevy Silverado, which would be one, and that would be for the assistant chief, the total price package for that with the equipment, with lights and all the essentials would be 69,987.50. And then there's also a second option for a truck, and that would be a 2026 Dodge Ram, fifteen hundred so net price with total equipment pack and everything would be sixty two thousand five hundred and forty six dollars and fifty cents so like with the two trucks that would be one or the other so it's not an eighth vehicle it's just there's two options for the for the truck part i'm still only see okay so two silverados yeah so there's either two silverados or two rams is that what you're saying no either one separate or one ram so that's six vehicles not seven yeah and then there's a seventh vehicle sorry and this is the last one okay

What's the last one?

All right, last one is a 2027 Jeep Grand Cherokee. That would be for a detective. And the total price package for that would be with equipment and the necessary unfit and everything would be $63,011.50. How much for a bicycle for Adam? Oh, okay.

Okay, so we'll take these under advisement, and we will not vote on this today. We just wanted to open the bids, let you look at the package, make sure it's everything that you advertise and that meets your needs and that you want. To relieve people's minds about how this is being paid for, we will be pursuing a lease agreement on these with leasing sources, and the Redevelopment Commission has agreed to pay that lease amount, so this is not coming out of the general fund. the recent changes in legislation allow the Rehabilitation Commission to make investments into capital costs for public safety. And so, they had approved that at a recent meeting. So, you'll go with that and I think Jonathan Roeder has been working on the lease.

Yeah, the lease option. Yep. Okay. So, yeah. We'll look at all these and then we'll look at the lease options and see what we can go with there.

So, you'll just bring it back to us at the next meeting to approve the purchase then. Okay.

And I think we already have seven currently on the lease so then that will put us 14 on on a five-year schedule to get rotated out which is pretty pretty good so first time ever we've been able to get something like this done good good deal all right thank you next up we have uh denver oats drainage quotes

This is an issue with the playground that is on the border of Danbury Oaks and Lakeview Highview. There's significant wash and runoff coming down through the playground, and it requires some updated drainage work. So we reached out and got some quotes. Hoosier Dirt Works came in at 9,800 to do the work, and G1 Dirt Works came in at 8,850. So it's the recommendation to go with the lowest bidder there in the GI Dirt Works. So we need a motion to approve that.

I'll make that motion.

Maggie Wall makes the motion. I'll second. Ryan Thompson seconds. Any questions on that? All in favor say aye. Aye. That's unanimous. And then something that I asked Heather Schrent to come up with was a training reimbursement agreement. There are times where we invest in training the staff. Most often it's a CDL training and We want to make sure that if we're making that investment of a couple thousand dollars to train them or to give them that training for their CDL, that we benefit from that training. With this training, this proposed training agreement, basically when they do that, they will sign this agreement to where they separate from the city at certain periods of time after they have received that training from us, they must reimburse certain percentages. So if they complete the training and they separate from the city within six months, they owe 100% back. Six to 12 months, 75%. 12 to 18 months, 50%. 18 to 24 months, 25%. And so it's just an agreement I asked her to draft up so that we would be able to cover our costs if something like that happened. Have you had a chance to look at that one?

I haven't seen that one. Which one is it?

The training reimbursement agreement. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. All right. So can we get a motion to approve that?

I'll make a motion.

I'll second. Arnie Thompson makes the motion. Maggie Wald seconds. Any questions on it? All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Catching hands. And then we had sanitation charge-offs in the amount, do you have that part? Thank you. Sanitation charge-offs in the amount of $221.12 with a motion to approve. I'll make that motion. Maggie Wall makes the motion. I'll second. All right, Thompson seconds. Any questions? All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye, that is unanimous. And I think that that concludes our agenda. So unless anybody has anything else, we can get some signatures on stuff and we'll be done. Oh, Perry's got one.

I don't know if it's through here or not, but if you remember, Tony's come through with additional stop signs and things. Yes. At some point, we need to maybe get all those together and amend so there's some enforcement mechanism. Okay. Because if someone... violated and it was a local ordinance and you didn't have it in ordinance form even though you agreed to do it they think well there's no provision to support it so that's a lot but i don't know if we can if that's through here or i think it is um or was it due if it's an ordinance it'd be council well to get the stuff i mean just to put the information together i think council would pass the ordinance yes at some point but i can't remember where tony presented it at i went through the council i have to look back there was one at the three-way yeah yeah that was here those come through this board yeah yeah but we need to we need to codify that in some in some way i thought that was here yeah it was here okay okay um well i'll connect you with um so

Hannah is kind of taking over for that, so I'll look you in with Hannah and Tony, and we'll figure it out.

Yeah, I was just mentioning.

Yep, good deal. Anything else? Nope. All right, any motion to adjourn?

I'll make that motion. All right, Thompson makes the motion. Second. Thank you all. Second.