Board of Public Works - Regular Meeting

Everyone, welcome to the regular meeting of City of Charles Town Board of Public Works. Today is December 2nd, 2025. It is 900 a.m. We'll begin our meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance. Please join. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Welcome to show that Maggie Wild and their hot president Ernie Thompson was unable to be with us. We have deputy clerk treasurer Lacy Gammons and our attorney recall is present as well. We have an agenda that's been provided. Entertain a motion to approve. Maggie makes the motion. I will second. I have no edits. Do you have anything you need to add? All in favor say I.

I. That's unanimous. At this time, before we get into our standing business and the rest of our agenda, I'd like to pause just a moment and take a moment of silence out of respect, honor, and memory for our fallen officer, um, TJ Johnson. He died. It's been five years ago since we lost him, TJ. And I think it's appropriate at this moment for us to pause and reflect on his service for our kid. Thank you all. We appreciate all of our officers and it's always a difficult um anniversary, but since it fell over the day of the meeting, thought it was appropriate and also we are doing some good things with the police department today. I think TJ would would be proud of that. So, um, moving on through our agenda, we have our standing business, which includes our minutes from a meeting on 11:205, our current claims in our payroll allowance docket from 11:10 to 11:23. I'll make a motion to approve second.

Second by Maggie Wy. Any questions hearing? None. All in favor say I. I. That is unanimous. Anyone signed up for public comment or are all you folks here for our good news for the day?

All right. Uh we have no old business straight into new business. First up, I will call for um our chief of police, Eric Cruz, to introduce Gracie Moore. All right, Gracie, you got to come up here, too. So, if everybody doesn't know, this is Gracie Moore. So last year when she went through our full-time application process and our reserve process, she completed the fit test, written tests, background checks. Um we talked to I think they talked to almost everybody in the community about her. Um where she then last year she was able to get on as a reserve police officer with us. So since then she's been going through the field training program. She's had a 40-hour pre-basic. Um we've got good feedback from our um field training officers about her about how well she's progressing and currently she's in phase three of that process. So um we we looked at everything in total and I think almost all of us here have known Gracie probably since she was about five or six years old. So it's u kind of makes me feel like the old man now sitting up here swearing her in. So

yes, you're ancient. Okay. Yep. Uh, so we would like for a motion to swear Gracie that Gracie as our next full-time officer, which would be our 18th officer spot. We have a motion by Mag Wild. I'll second. All in favor say I. I. I. That is unanimous. Repeat again. You got to do it all over again. Yep. You memorized it from last time, right? Oh, yeah. Word by word. All right. Okay, raise your right hand, Gracie, and repeat after me. I, Gracie Moore, I, Gracie Moore, do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I will support, protect, and defend that I will support, detect, protect, and defend the Constitution and laws

the Constitution and laws of the United States of America of the United States of America and the Constitution and laws and the Constitution and laws the State of Indiana of the State of Indiana against all enemies against all enemies, foreign and domestic, foreign and domestic. that I will faithfully and that I will faithfully and justly and justly discharge the duties discharge the duties of an officer of the Charletown Police Department of an officer of the Charletown Police Department according to the best of my ability. according to the best of my ability. So help me God.

So help me God. Let's not do that. Let's not do that. Congratulations.

I'll get with you after this, too. Okay. Always a good day.

Yep. Finishing up my notes here with you. All right, Chief. And um believe you had some awards you want to give out. All right. Where's uh They're trying to hide in the back.

So, Sergeant Matthew Myers and Officer Jorge Hernandez. Um I'll be honest, neither one of them want to be here. I didn't tell them what it was for. Um so, they have no clue what they're even here for. So, uh it it came to our attention when going through training records uh at the end of this year how many hours uh of training these two gentlemen have and have went and got. Um looking at looking at the hours there they've got almost both of them right about 278 if not more than that hours 278 hours this year of training. Um they both became instructors this year. So certified law enforcement instructors. Uh out of these almost 300 hours of training, I think these two guys have done 90% of this on their own time. Um and on their own dime, a lot of it. Um Jorge is a member of the SWAT team and Myers here is a member of the the Clark County drone team as well. They're both on the search and rescue team this year. Um and then Myers is also a part of the project lifesaver. Correct. Yeah.

Yeah. So, he's part of that now. Um, we we we thought looking at this stuff, um, that takes a lot of time and effort and they both exemplify like everything that we want out of a Charlestown police officer because they are out there actively encouraging our officers to get better and now they're both training our officers to get better. So, that's what we want to keep here. So, we wanted to to recommend them because we think it it warranted getting award for merit from Charles Police Department. So would like motion to vote to approve these awards. Make that motion. We have a motion by Maggie. I will second. All in favor say I. I. Unanimous. So I'm going to award you guys with merit. So which one of you has the most hours? Uh so according

they don't know. As much as these two compete with each other, they don't know. According to these records, officer Jorge Hernandez has 278.5 and Sergeant Matthew Myers has 278. That doesn't take in account that any train that they haven't turned in put into the system which I'm sure is another 50 hours. It's okay today. So if you have any more you want to upload just well thank you gentlemen for your commitment to the community. We appreciate you both. Guess

well flex is for sure. Small one two.

Good job. Well done gentlemen. We are fortunate to have outstanding crew of officers. Um Gracie joining in addition to that. All right. Our last item of business on our agenda today um are some sanitation right charge offs um for people that move bills whatever accounts. Um, and the sanitation amount is $134.52. So, I make a motion to approve. I'm sorry. Second. Maggie makes a second. All in favor say I.

I. That is unanimous. And I believe that unless Perry has anything for us. As long as we sign what Lacy needs us to sign, we're good to go. All right. So, I'll make a motion to adjurnn. Second. Second by Maggie. All in favor say I. I. We are. Oh, this meeting was live stream. Live stream binder production multimedia. Now we're journey. Better late than never.