Council - Regular Meeting

That's you too, Mr. Cole.

Time is now 7 o'clock. The Cicero Town Council meeting is now in session. If you'd please rise for the saying of the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Please remain standing, Ms. Garrett.

You got it, please. Thank you, Father. Thank you for this day. Thank you for this opportunity to be together. Father, be with those who have suffered such a tragic loss with all this water. Be with them, Father. Father, be with our council. Help them make good decisions for the town. It's in Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Thank you.

All you may be seated. Ms. Gary, please take both.

Present. Present. Present. Present. Present.

I have a quorum with four members present. Moving along to the approval of the agenda. Has everybody had enough? I'm sorry. We do have some additions tonight. Actually, it's already under legal counsel report. Add handicap parking under old business. I believe that's under legal counsel report. But I believe that's it. Does anybody have anything else? If not, I will entertain a motion to approve the agenda as amended.

So moved. Emily Anderson?

Second. Jacob Everett? Motion to second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? We have an agenda. Moving along to the approval of the prior minutes, has everybody had an opportunity to review the Town Council meeting minutes from August 4th, 2026? Questions? Revisions? Everything look good? Everybody's good with them? I will entertain a motion to approve the minutes from August 4th.

So moved. Emily Pearson?

Dennis isn't here, guys. Your morning is going to have to stop. Second. Jacob Everett. Motion to second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? All right. Moving right along to the approval of the claims dated 8-18-26. Has everybody had an opportunity to look those over? Questions, concerns? I'll make a motion to approve the claims. Got a motion?

Second.

Motion and a second. All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Let's go ahead and pay the bills. All right. Now to get to the meat of the meeting. We have a public hearing for the wheel and excise tax. Aaron, if you can run through that real quick, please.

Certainly. The Indiana General Assembly passed a law a year ago that requires in order for us to continue to be eligible to receive the laneage miles through the state fund, which is a significant amount of money we have to adopt. Which is essentially how we fund our roads here.

So the original, when this originally, I can talk after. Go ahead, please, Aaron.

We have to adopt the wheel and excise tax. And what that is, it's technically two separate taxes, but they must be adopted at the same time. The excise tax applies to personal vehicles and would be $7.50, and the wheel tax applies to commercial vehicles and would be $5.

And those are the absolute minimums

Allowed by law. That is the lowest amount. And the council has waited until the last moment to do this because we hoped last year they would change the law and they did not. And so we're doing this. But the pot of money is about $250 million that we have access to by passing this. And so that allows us to most effectively use our road money available to us at the lowest expense to taxpayers. If this is adopted tonight, it would take effect January 1.

And this is a tax that's collected at the BMV, not through us?

And that was all I had by way of introduction.

Okay. So originally, this was tied to the Community Crossing Matching Grant. And that is one of our major funding mechanisms for road projects. So we've used it on the Jackson Street project. We used it on East Jackson. We've used it on another fix. I forget where it was at over there. We used it on Morse Landing. So that's our major funding mechanism. I mean, our paving budget is very minimal. So we're able to leverage these other grants. Legislature made a change, however, and they split the CCMG. Correct me if I'm wrong, Aaron. and added this lane mileage direct distribution LMDD opportunity also. So they reduced the amount you can get from CCMG and added this secondary part. So the council's had many discussions. We talked about it last year and like Erin said, it was decided then to postpone it and not charge to see what happened. So what we have talked about is the minimum amount allowed to try to gain this extra funding to take care of our roads. I mean, I think everybody sees our roads are in fantastic shape, so we really need to leverage these dollars. And that's the only reason we're focused on, or we're discussing this right now, is to help use those dollars to continue to make road improvements.

Good. That being said, I'll entertain a motion to open the public hearing. So moved.

Second.

Motion to second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Public hearing is now open. Anybody in the audience like to speak?

That's my understanding. Correct. When you pay your registration each year, it will be a new line-up.

You're starting to see this across the state in a lot of different communities at varying levels. Did we close the book?

Oh, no. Any other questions?

Yeah. Does the DMV charge you for doing this? Do you get the whole five bucks?

As far as I know. To my knowledge.

There's not a fee on that side.

And from my understanding, Aaron, to clarify, we're allowed to take those funds to use as the match on the roads, correct? Yes. Because the grants are typically a 75-25 match. Some of them are 80-20.

Some of them are 80-20.

Last time it was 80-20. So we're allowed to apply those funds to the 20% match.

Any other questions? I'll make a motion to close the public hearing.

I'll second.

Motion to second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Public hearing is now closed. We will move along to... That's what I'm doing.

I'm sorry.

I will move along to the actual ordinance, which is number 07-21-2026-01. I'll entertain a motion to approve. So moved, Jacob Everett.

Second. And Wade Pearson?

Motion and second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Ordinance adopted. 4-0. 4-0, yes. All right. Moving along to council committee reports. I don't see Mr. Freeman out there.

We had a meeting today. He said that he would not be here, but he had nothing new to add.

So I do have something to add. I was approached by a person on Iron Bridge, and I can give you the number. of a drainage issue um with that news section it's whatever i think it's a park street that comes out so park street just to the south of that there's a drainage issue that i'd like him to take a look at and i can give you that number i think it's 480 iron bridge road can we talk about that today

Is that any of those people walking in the standing water up there? What?

Is that the standing water issue up there? You do get some standing water south of the park. I think I know exactly where he's talking about.

And it's headed down the driveway. So it funnels there and headed down the driveway is my understanding.

Is that 480 Iron Bridge?

Yes, correct.

I'll forward that one to you.

All right. And you can have them reach out to me if...

I was also approached by someone on Washington Street, and they and several of their neighbors have had a problem. It's been ongoing for several years. So that might be something we want to check out at some point. Where?

Washington Street. Washington Boulevard. I'm sorry, Washington Boulevard.

Between Brown.

Avenue.

Good Lord. So just for clarification on the one, it sounds like maybe yours as well, it wasn't due to this excessive rain.

It's just any rain, so it just needs to be looked at. All right, thank you.

All right, moving along, legal council report, Mr. Cole. The council has a copy of an agreement between the town and the library where the library would agree to give the town the parcel behind it that has the gazebo located on it if the town absorbs the cost of getting it legally transferred. And so that's all this agreement is. We just need a vote on that?

Yeah. Well, so what's the cost of transfer?

It's going to be less than $10,000 is the estimate we were given because we have to go through what's called quiet title action. There was an error made approximately 20 some odd years ago where this was titled into an entity that was created exclusively for a bond issue. And it was never transferred back. And the way it was set up at that time, when the board went defunct, the entities defunct. So there's no entity with the legal authority that they would transfer. However, under state law and the entities' own rules, it's required to go back to the library when the bond was paid off, which happened about 20 years ago. And so this is to file what's called a quiet title action in the court, have the court find that the title should be best with the library, which then allows the library to sign a deed giving the land to the town.

So then the 10K is for outside counsel? Yes. And you can't do that for the town?

No, because I don't litigate. And you'd have to go through and file this with the court and go through a specific procedure, including notice. And if anyone were to object, though, it's hard to imagine anyone could object to this. The library has contacted the surviving members of that board, and we anticipate they'll sign affidavits that this is what the board should have done. So we've tried to streamline it to minimize what the cost would be.

Okay. That entity was an entity of the library? Right. Okay.

And just to make sure, I know I've said this in the past, I represent the town in the library. Right. And so I have not been involved. Mr. Hunter has worked directly with Stacey Tree as the director of the library, and they came up with all the terms of this agreement. Okay. My sole involvement was them telling me what to write down, and I put it in legal format for you.

Okay. Any questions?

How long do we think it will take to clear the title?

I think Bart thought that it would take about three or four months. If you've got to file it, then there's a waiting period. And then it's just a matter of taking the steps.

So Rhonda, where does that money come from?

I have no idea, Rhonda. I'll find it. I'll find it. Maybe CCD.

That'll hit this year's budget, right?

Pardon?

That'll hit this year's budget?

It will. I'm assuming here.

Yeah, I think he's waiting for us. As soon as he hears that this is approved, he's going to start planning.

I would say so. Okay. So maybe CCD. I'll let you know for sure when I... What else is available? But I think right now, if you want to know right now, probably CCD.

And other than all that administrative stuff, there's no really other cost. I mean, there would be a cost to maintain it, but not to.

Yeah. And the library is not going to charge a dime beyond. They just said, if you can get a transfer, we'll give it to you.

So I think the transferring is not the cost. It's the legal representation. Yeah. We look good on CCD, so OK. All right.

It's an important link.

Excuse me. What if, I mean, is it too late for the board members to, I guess that committee's already dissolved?

Yes, it was administratively dissolved, I want to say, around 2002. My first thing I investigated was whether or not that board could just simply resurrect the entire committee. And we eventually concluded that it couldn't do that, or at least it wasn't clear cut that they had the authority to do that, which is why we've fallen back. I spent the better part of three months talking to people, trying to find ways not to have to do a final action. All right.

Thank you.

Sure.

Are you ready? Yeah. I'll make a motion to approve the real property transfer agreement as presented.

Motion of a second? Second. Motion of a second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Pass 4-0. Moving along, Sister O'Jackson Township. Plant Commission Report, Mr. Zawadzki.

Good evening, Council. I have nothing to add.

All right. Thanks, sir. Moving along, Town Engineering Report, Mr. Bryant.

Good evening, all.

Good evening.

Waste for a project Reynolds been in and out but they've seeded and they're working on the punch list the final construction 2026 CCM and GE which is the East Jackson project the Howard company is substantially complete They're scheduling and slowly getting the punch list items done. They're looking at maybe raising those castings They were scheduled for this Thursday and Friday, but unless they were delayed by the rain and other projects That's still the plan as far as I know We've asked for an update, but that's what we know at this point. So they'll finish that. They get the hydrant markers down. In September, they're going to reseed the property there on Northeast Catherine Street that they put sod down in it. Of course, I'll die because nobody watered it. Three Morris Landing underdrain project. We discussed that, as Rhonda mentioned, with the stormwater board this morning. they're substantially complete we got some punchless items that they're going to wrap up and a lot of that is re-hitting the seed and grading again which they'll do in september which august is generally not a good time to plant seeds item for the 2027 ccmg that's the west jackson project from pearl to the west side of the bridge we're doing some preliminary engineering on that and kind of waiting to get all the survey

back the aero survey we were told we'll get back this this week so then we'll hit that pretty hard getting the design work moving on that so on that project um and my wife and i got bumped there walking across so i don't know if we need to do a raised on main i'm sure i'm not we're not the only people that have been bumped by a vehicle So my point to that is we need to closely look at what can be done there. I mean, it's dangerous.

Because we only have the raised on Jackson, right, currently? Right. One east of Maine, one west of Maine. Right. Yeah, we can look at that. One of the issues with that would be, you know, with... interfering with the line of sight at the stop sign potentially and where you're going to put that. But we can look at it.

I mean, I don't know if you move it back a car length so that at least you're not right there. Potentially, yeah. I don't know. I don't know what the right answer is. But I looked at the person right in the eye and still got bumped.

It wasn't anybody you knew, was it?

Maybe. So that would explain my part, not my wife's part, though.

That's right. We'll take a look at it and see if there's anything that makes sense from a safety perspective.

That was pretty good, Keith.

The water project is moving ahead as well. We're coordinating with vendors, looking at equipment, getting proposals for filters and softeners and things like that so that we can then review it with Sean and Terry to make sure we get the equipment we want in there. In the meantime, we're waiting for all the survey work to come back so we can really dig into that one hot and heavy.

I mean, initial look at pricing on that. Do they give you any pricing yet?

They're updating the pricing. We already had pricing before, and that was factored in the estimates we did. So it's not changed dramatically. I mean, if anything, it's gone down a little bit. And that is a big part of the water plant cost between the filters, softeners, and aerator. It's a big chunk of money.

It needs to go down a lot.

You just go down a couple million dollars. I agree. That is all I have. Any questions? Thank you.

Sir, thank you. All right. Moving along to old business. Excuse me. Moving along to old business. Mr. Cook. State your name and address, please.

Sorry.

State your name and address, please.

Clem Cook. I'm here about 250 South Peru Street. I was here last month, and I'm a man of my word. I said if I had water again, I'd be back, so I'm back. I can get my iPad going here. I need to know what time Main Street lift station went into alarm.

I believe that was 3.15 AM. Was that correct? Yes.

What was it?

3.15 AM.

3.15? OK. Hang on just a second. I'm having problems here. Well, the reason I was asking that is, I started getting water at 4 o'clock. So now I know I have approximately 45 minutes between the time it goes into alarm and I'm going to get water. Okay? I'm not the enemy here, guys. I'm just an old man trying to get a little house fixed up for my daughter and grandson. so they don't have to live with the basement flooded. Now, I know you don't think that Main Street's doing this, but where else did it come from? You all understand how West Station works? So when that gets full, it starts backing up. And it looked like it took about 45 minutes for it to come back. The sad thing is, when did it go out of alarm?

Saturday afternoon. Excuse me.

Yeah, so basically for 31 hours I had no plumbing. Couldn't flush the toilet. Couldn't go to the bathroom. 31 hours. Now that's a pretty long time. And I know this is your 100 year event, but last month was a 100 year event too, so... You know, there's not supposed to be stormwater in the sewer anyway. We noticed that the stations down along Springtown were alarmed too. Did you have a problem down there with water?

So, Mr. Cooper. Okay.

Well, again, if there's anyone out there who had a water problem, you need to tell these people so they can possibly do something about it. Now, also, the house... Well, let me get it straight here. There's only four houses with basements that are going to flood because of Main Street. OK? That's the house that I own, the one on this side, the one on this side. Skip a house and the one down there, because there's only four basements on that line coming up through there. The house north of me had two feet of water in this basement. The house south of me had a foot of water in his basement. So it's not just me. And I know you're not going to spend $10 million building that second lift station to take a load off of Main Street for four people. So why don't you pay your engineer a million bucks and say, find a damn cross connection. Where's all this water coming from?

You actually went through the investigation to figure out where water was coming from. Do you want to summarize that?

Hold on.

Do you want to finish first or do you want that information?

I'm sorry, I missed that.

Do you have more to say or do you want Terry to go ahead and summarize the findings?

I have a few more things. Go ahead and finish and then we'll move on. Yeah, just because you've got a new sewer plant doesn't mean everything's fine. You've got to get the water to it before you can treat it. And obviously, there's a really serious problem with water getting into your system. And like I said before, you're paying a lot of money to treat stormwater. Again, don't you think the public has a right to know when these lift stations are in alarm? so people can maybe prepare a little bit for that crap coming up in their basement or not being able to flush their toilet?

Do we have a mechanism to... They get a phone call.

You have a website, right? Well, you got all this fancy stuff here. Why don't you have whoever did all this do a little diagram on that website showing all your lift stations And when one goes an alarm, there's a little red light flashing there. Then we'd know if there's a bad storm, we can watch that. We'll know that the lift station is an alarm, and we can prepare for it. I mean, that's just an idea. And you also could add a place on that web page where, have you got a problem? Tell us about it. And people could actually get some feedback on some of this stuff. It just blows my mind that you want to keep it a secret that a lift station went in that long.

I don't think anybody's trying to keep it a secret. I mean, I can get alerted to it. But do we have a mechanism?

Now, there's a phone number. We'll call that number. and it said this number is not taking messages at this time, and then there was a dial tone. So do you have a number that we can call and say, hey, we have a problem. We're getting water. Can you help us?

What number is that?

It's on your web page, whatever that number is for sanitary.

I'm not familiar with it. And you said it just goes to a dial tone?

Well, what time did you call, Mr. Cook?

What time did you call?

Just roughly. I mean, was it morning? Was it 4 a.m.? Was it 10 a.m.? So it's an actual attendant number, then, so it requires a... Well, that would have been probably a Saturday, I'm assuming, 10 a.m. on Friday or Saturday.

Well, the day that when I was Saturday, when things backed up Friday, when things backed up.

So that's the number that actually comes into the office. Okay.

I didn't go down the street and ask the guy in the basement. But like I said, the three of us, you know, we had water.

Sure.

Is there anything in the pipeline at all to do anything with that Main Street lift station? Like I said, folks, it's been doing that for 50 years. This kid can attest to that.

So, Mr. Bryant can talk. I think his expert opinion would say just because it's in high alarm doesn't mean that that's what's causing the backup. So,

I asked you earlier, do you understand how those stations work?

I understand how they work, Mr. Cook.

Okay, so when they get full, that water's got to go someplace. The high alarm does not go off when they're overflowing. We have an alarm set when it gets above a certain point. I understand that. Most of the time, it's been once or twice that we've had it actually go above. Like when you were here in July, the alarm went off, it never overflowed. When we went out there, we were on site, and it never overflowed. And so the high alarm doesn't mean it's overflown. It just means that it's past a certain point where we want to have staff watch it.

Well, I understand that. But we stopped getting water early on Saturday. Main Street didn't go out of alarm until late in the afternoon. At 2 o'clock I took the lid off my backflow preventer and it was full of water.

So my line was still full of water at 2 o'clock and so was it an alarm at 2 o'clock and there's more at our last meeting because we followed up on this and Mr Brian as well as Terry Cooper. They went out and they ran the line with the camera, and they took other steps to investigate what you brought up. And we presented that at the last meeting, and they can go back through that again tonight because they reached a different conclusion as to what the problem is.

They have a different idea what the problem is, what is the problem.

So are your questions, then, as well, Mr. Bryant?

Do you have any – can you just tell us exactly what you're asking for so we can – I'm asking you to fix Main Street lift station so it doesn't go to alarm, so it doesn't back up into my basement. Now, this bullshit of it not causing that backup, come on. It went alarm at 3.15, 4 o'clock I had water.

Okay, thank you.

It came out of alarm in the afternoon. My water went what? I mean – Where else could the water come from? Groundwater doesn't push water hard up out of a sewer. Groundwater might trickle the water, but we're talking about water forcefully coming out. When that sewer backs up, you get a lot of pressure there.

Were you able to get the check valve fixed?

Partially. But finding a plumber in this town is hard too.

So Mr. Bryant and Mr. Cooper have done quite a bit of work on this. Let's let them talk and then we can have another, we can finish this discussion, Mr. Cooper.

Well, I'm finished. I don't know what else I can say. And if you're not going to fix Main Street lift station, then I'm going to have to live with this problem. And I'll try to give you all the publicity I can. I'm not going to sue you. I mean, hell, that's a nowhere situation there. But If it continues, I'm trying to document this stuff, I may start asking for a little help putting things back together, drying things out, cleaning my basement. It's wrong. We spend millions of dollars building a new waste treatment plant. Like I said, if you can't get the water there, it's a mute point.

So feel your frustration, the engineer. I understand your frustration, completely do. So we wanna make sure we're attacking the right thing. So Mr. Bryant will tell you what they have found, what has been done in the past. And then we can talk about maybe how we move forward.

what we reviewed at the last meeting that that hopefully clem can are you guys able to hear him back there what we reviewed at the is that better can we turn the speakers up yeah it's good green light we're trying to turn this up you might turn is that better i can yell can you turn your individual my dial up here Better? Louder?

That's better.

All right. What we reported with Terry at the last meeting, we just kind of went through the history of where things were and what happened in the past to the sewer system. Most recently, Terry had fluid waste come in and televise the sewer there in front of Mr. Cook's house. It is, as was replaced in the 2024 sewer project, it was replaced with a 12-inch new PVC line. Couldn't find any signs of infiltration. They ran a video camera up the lateral, Mr. Cook's lateral, and we had to replace the lateral to the right-of-way line, so there's new PVC to that point. Then they went, I think I had 59 feet up that lateral, and it turned, it actually submerged like there's a belly in the pipe, and it's clay, of course, past the right-of-way line. So didn't see any issues with the mainline sewer as far as, you know, making sure that there's no immediate problems that we could find there.

So, Mr. Bryant, you said when you went on up and it was bellied. Can you explain what bellied mean, please?

Typically, when we TV a sewer line, sometimes they don't have a perfect grade and they have a belly in them which holds water. And the camera goes underwater and you can't see is generally what happens.

So going up that lateral... It had a belt, just so I understand. It had a belly, and you ran into water sitting there, not draining. I just want to make sure I understand. I'm not saying that's what the issue is. No, it's not necessarily a problem.

Their sewers, they were with bellies in them, so that's not necessarily a problem.

Right. Okay. Thank you for clarifying.

In 1999 and 2014 and 2020, the town did a number, three different sewer projects, which wound up lining and replacing 16,474 or 3.12 miles of sewer in the old part of town. Again, any and then any connections, cross connections found were removed. So there's a lot of effort in those three projects to minimize I&I. It obviously didn't stop at all. The sewer itself in front of Peru Street and the idea that Main Street, because I understand what Mr. Cook's saying, if the lift station's backed up and you're feeding in the lift station generally, you're going to have a problem, especially if you have a basement. The thing that's different about that location is the lift station, if you look at the elevations of the situation, if you look at the Main Street lift station, it's roughly about 15 feet lower than the street level at Peru. And the sewer there is 11 feet deep. What that means is we cannot possibly, we would be four feet deep coming out of the top of the lift station before we would get to the invert of that sewer in front of Brewer Street if it was a backup situation. So if you follow me, the elevations just don't support that we'd back up all the way to there.

I think part of the issue- Four feet above the grade, sorry, four feet above the grade is the inlet?

We would be four foot above the top of casting of the lift station, which should be now four feet high before we'd be at the invert of the sewer back on Peru Street. Okay. If you can envision that. I should have brought a graphic. No, I get it. Thank you. Another thing we discuss is town ordinance and standards. Unfortunately, gravity sewers out of a basement are a bad idea. That's not to say that Mr. Cook did anything wrong, because it was done before these requirements exist. I'm not saying that. But it is a situation where it's prone. If a sewer surcharges, it could get into the basement. That's why ordinance for the last 20 years plus requires you not to just put a check valve in, but to actually put a private grinder pump station in the lower level. Check valves on gravity lines can go out. They can plug. They can create backups and plug up and surcharge. So they work. Sometimes they don't work. Whereas a grinder pump lift station is a forced connection. And even if that sewer was in Peru Street was coming out of the top of the manhole, you'd still have wastewater service because you'd be pumping into it, not just gravity into it.

Mr. Cook, you had a question, but I have a question for you. Your sewer outlet, is it in the ground of the basement, or is it like a typical in the wall three feet up? No.

It goes through the floor or the wall?

It goes through the floor. Yeah.

Okay.

Well, most of them go through the wall. Let me explain something to you real quick. It's all about winding poles and things. I'd have put one in if you'd give me a place to put it to. But the old German who dug that basement by hand wasn't the brightest bee in the patch. And when he dug the sewer, he went from point A to point B. He didn't know anything about an eighth of an inch fall. And I think, I don't know, but I think that sewer probably goes into the side, not into the top of the sewer. That's why I have problems more so than my neighbors, because I'm in the middle of that damn sewer, not on top of it. Now, when you did all that lining, if I had noticed and known you were doing it, I'd have got over here and made sure, went back far enough to level that out and put it in the top where it should be. Nobody bothers to notify me that they were digging up the sewer in front of my house.

So just from my understanding, so Keith or Mr. Cook, the sewer actually is in the floor and it runs out from that?

The floor, yes.

Well, new builds don't do that. They run through the side of the wall.

A new build with a basement, unless that basement was a foot above the top of the manhole outside, a new build would have to generally run the plumbing out the first level, run the gravity line four foot deep out, have all the plumbing in the basement tied to a grinder pump station and pump up to that higher level and then go out. That way there's no way of surcharge. Correct. For a new build. Right.

No, I understand.

I was just trying to understand. I was just asking. You didn't build it.

I'm trying to understand. I haven't seen them go through the basement floor. I was just asking.

But as Mr. Cook says, it goes out the basement floor. If it's a basement, say, eight or nine feet below the first floor, now you're getting really close to the invert of the sewer on the street. So imagine it doesn't take a whole lot. If we get a foot above that pipe, it starts interfering potentially with the sewer.

Okay.

So it doesn't take much, I guess, is the end result of that.

I understand. So thanks.

In this particular event last week, State Road 19 was closed down, too, with I don't know how much, but two to four feet of water. Do you guys have any idea how much water?

Are there any other questions? No, no, no.

So three or four feet might be a good estimate. So that's the other situation you've got going on there potentially is you have three or four feet of water there. All of them are covering the castings on the sanitary sewer. You can see the water going into the sewer at that point because it's looking for a place to go. So part of that surcharge in the sewer is probably due to that. Part of it was due to the fact that we have a lot of old clay private laterals in the collection system still. So when you get a lot of rain, we had groundwater levels come up because generally speaking, unless you got a basement, those laterals aren't very deep. They're four or five feet deep. But all of a sudden we start taking in water at all those joints, you know, and there's not a lot we can do about it unless we want to go into a program to force people to replace all their laterals, which you know, we could do, it'd just be a lot. So as far as replacing the lift station, I'll just say a little bit. I mean, it's an old lift station, but it's, you know, after we did the last 2020 project, we hadn't seen it surcharge unless it was an equipment issue that, you know, that you're going to have from time to time with I&I for the last four or five years. So You know, these last two events, as Mr. Cook says, yeah, it's a 100-year event, but we've had one in two weeks, three or four weeks from each other. That's a valid point. But they were all both 200-year. One of them was a 200-and-some-year event.

So, Mr. Bryant, I'm trying to understand what you're saying. In your professional opinion, the lift station isn't the area that really needs to be looked at. It is the infiltration area. elsewhere and from the town's perspective we have relined all those lines or replaced them yeah okay and so we're talking about the ini coming in through

the service line that is owned by the property owner.

Yeah, and if you might, I don't know if anybody remembers, but back in May 10, 12 years ago, we also inspected every house in town to try to get clear water because there were a number of houses that had lift station pumps in their basement. They were pumping their perimeter drains around their building, pumping all that clear water into the sewer. If you do the math, you know, each one of those pumps are usually pumped 40 or 50 gallons a minute. It doesn't take very many of them before you become overwhelmed in an 8- or 12-inch sewer. We inspected all those and got most of them removed. And now when a house sells, we've got an ordinance that we have to inspect them again. But that doesn't mean that somebody couldn't, you know, two hours after we walked away from that inspection that they didn't reconnect it. So there could be some of that as well.

Do you... Do you all realize what all was going into Main Street? I mean, most of the old town, everything from the north, the academy, from the south end of town to the north end of town. I mean, that was the main sewer going out of town, you know, 1950, whenever.

Yeah, there's two sewers that cross from State Road 19, and that's the one at Spring Street, and then the one down at Britton Street, everything else, and then it kind of splits there in between, and most of it goes north.

Yeah, which is the worst? The line coming from the north or the line coming from the east?

Worst in what respect?

Well, which one gets the most water?

again for five six years until this year we hadn't seen an issue with clear water and you can just beat that if you've had a house back up and we weren't aware of it but uh so mr i can't say which ones are worse i i don't know well you we looked at one of them during this event correct well i think it's a reasonable question oh yeah getting it from one one leg are we getting it from both legs so we have data on one leg

Mr. Cooper, you want to talk to that? I don't know if Keith knows about that.

There was a time when the plane operator would go out and shut off the lift station from the academy because it was taking so much water. And it was really flooding Main Street. I don't know if they've done anything to help their situation. But like I said, you've got to find a way to get some relief on Main Street. Well, you know, you can shoot down Pearl Street with another force paint pretty easy. Another lift station is right behind that one. And you can actually blow right through that lift station in a normal condition. Slip escape, gets bad, drop.

So, Mr. Cooper, you guys looked at one of the... Yeah, during the high flows on Saturday, the wastewater department did go out and pop some manholes in that section. And around Spring Street and downstream, Mr. Cooper's property. And it was within, it was up into the manholes and probably, well, basically it was three or four feet to the top of the manholes.

And it was flowing, though, correct?

It was flowing, right. It was flowing.

That's the sanitary line?

Yes. But, you know, it was in there.

So what that would tell me is there was enough water coming in. It was flowing, so it wasn't the lift station. So it was flowing that way, but somewhere we were adding more water than the pipe can handle.

You know, with all the dye testing, the smoke testing, the flood testing, and all the sewer work that's been done, again, leads us back to the conclusion that, you know, that might just be all the leakage from all the laterals might be a big part of that.

Well, I think, I guess, I don't know where the advent dumps in. I mean, I think that might be something that we...

And they did some improvements, but I still think, and we could check their, because we still have our meters on there. Yes. We still check their lift stations from this flood and see how long they ran. If both pumps ran for 24 hours, then they still had a problem.

Yeah, I mean, I think that is worthwhile. So thank you for that information, Mr. Cook.

Mr. Cooper, did the Main Street lift station, did it ever come out of the top?

Not out of the top, no.

So it alarmed and rose, but it never came out of the top.

No, but it did come out of the manhole, so the gravity comes down and turns into the lift station. There was a manhole right where it turns in and drops in there, and it did bubble around the manhole cover.

The manhole's a little bit lower than the top of the lift station.

On Main Street? The manhole's on Main? Yes.

Right.

So it was, I mean, we were close to being full. Absolutely. And I also agree with Mr. Cook. We're treating all this water, so it's worthwhile to figure out where it's coming from, where we're being infiltrated.

You get the key mainstream dollar one, and you'll never see me again.

I'm not sure. I'm not sure experts believe it's mainstream causing the problem yet, so... Do you have anything?

Eventually, we do need to replace Main Street. I know I throw it out there. There's a potential for a development coming in there at some point, and at that point in time, we'll have to replace the whole lift station, too, if it happens. And when we do that, we can upsize the lift station. We can reroute the Forest Main to a better place so we can do some things. There's potential for that anyway.

I mean, there is a lot that goes into that lift station.

Is this recorded? Yes, ma'am. It's live streamed. It's on YouTube.

All this fancy equipment last year, the state legislature required every town meeting basically to be live streamed and recorded.

So before you leave, we can get you, I can tell you where the link is.

Well, I wanted to check. Do you know the number that you called over the weekend?

Just a second.

There is an emergency number. I wanted to make sure that's what it was.

We also did, I didn't note it, but the town also did a bunch of flow monitoring to locate leaky areas as well. So there's, I don't know if our flow meters still work. Those things get outdated pretty quick.

They're outdated. We tried to get them, you know, the program's outdated.

They probably discontinued them. So they could sell new flow meters. That's usually how that goes.

The reason I'm asking is on the utility side, I'm finding an emergency number, 317-773-1282.

But if you call that number, then they would reach out to you, correct? Mr. Cook? There's a number here that we have.

And it takes you to the sheriff's department, but they can call our utility staff 24 hours a day and get whoever's on call. I want to make sure you actually have that number.

Okay, just one second here. I'm still trying to find it.

I can just write it down and give it to you.

Okay, that'll work. This old people need help.

That was actually Friday.

It was, okay.

I'm sorry. No, that's okay. I'm trying to find the number that he gave, but that was Friday. When I called in, the voicemail said user mailbox is not available at this time.

What was the number?

I know.

It's okay. We'll give you the non-emergency sheriff's number. And then they can reach out as well.

Oh, what's the name of that street? Collins. That's the one just south of me that goes down and turns around. When you come around that corner, there used to be a catch basin there. I don't see that catch basin anymore. Anybody know anything about that? My neighbor's yard still had water in it for two days. It had no place to go. Yeah.

On the right hand side. Thank you.

On the right hand side, when you pull into the driveway. Just as you come off the street, there used to be a catch bait for an inlet.

Water went in it this way, an up and down thing. Because that drained that whole area.

Yeah. In the endot right away, you think? They may have taken it out when they did their project if it's an endot.

She called 984-5696. That's the office number, isn't it?

Yeah.

Oh, you weren't in the office, were you? No, not that one.

That's OK. We were just grabbing for straws.

So Mr. Bryant, do you have anything else to add to this?

No, I think we definitely could look at those run times. We could monitor the sewers in the next rain to see what's going on.

It would be interesting, because there's multiple points that flow in, right, to check to see if one's more full than another. And those hours, I think, are an interesting thought as well.

One time, about 100 years ago, somebody put a jumper line In the alley behind my house, I went someplace south over and it hits that main street, that circle I got on the straight street. Is that still there?

I'd have to look and see exactly where it's at. Can you tell me where it's at? We can check and see.

So when they reline, they... disabled or they removed a bunch of them.

We found a number of cross connections and removed them, whether it's exactly that one. Where was it again?

Well, it went down the alley behind my house.

So it's running north-south on the alley west of the house.

They picked up a manhole someplace. They were trying to relieve the

The sewer?

Sewer a little bit, yeah.

Where did it tie into then, to the south?

Into Spring Street, the manhole there on Spring Street.

Okay.

I'm not sure if it's still there or not.

So that would probably be downstream from him though, wouldn't it?

Yeah.

Yes.

This sewer runs... Yeah, it wouldn't have anything to do with what's going on. Right, right. I'm just curious if it's still there. I thought about one time putting a pit in and getting a grinder pump and pumping back to that. So I didn't have to mess with that. But when you did that new sewer or lining, whatever you did, did you notify property owners that that was going on?

So we, I mean, we do projects all the time.

I mean, there are many, many projects we're always doing. I mean, we're not hiding information. It's a little easier now that everything's on YouTube. So I would ask that you come and attend in person or watch on YouTube to get a better knowledge. I mean, we are making changes all the time. Most towns and cities are, so it's hard to notify anyone. I guess our means of notification is the YouTube channel now, and we talk about everything openly in public meetings. But I don't know that the sewers would be on there.

You can also sign up to get on an email list where you will get a copy of the agendas for all of our meetings so you can see what's being discussed. Okay.

I can do that. Yeah, I got the YouTube channel. I found that. That was easy.

But that email goes out, what, every Thursday before? The prior week before the meeting, is that correct?

I send the emails to on Fridays. Fridays? Fridays prior to both the Tuesday meetings.

Okay, yeah, thank you. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Appreciate anything you can do.

We'll take a look. Thank you. I understand your frustration.

I've hired him 40 years.

You should regret it every day.

All right. Moving along to handicap parking. Just to... rehash what we were doing with the handicapped parking. Mr. Allen visited at the last town council meeting expressing concern about the new handicapped parking spot placed in front of his house and asked that we reevaluate the location of that. Essentially, this is just east of Big Dogs. Looks like there are a total of three spots right in front of that area. Is that correct? Three in front of that house, one of which we made the handicapped parking.

Sure. Feedback?

Is he here tonight? He's not. Mr. Johnson had also sent an email out with his opinion on it.

Thank you. So for reference, this is where we are. Big Dogs is to the left. That's the hash mark for the parking. And that's where I had the parking spot. Those are Dennis' pictures. I thought I heard him.

What's his name? Mr. Alan Zemo.

That's what most of us know. Alan.

OK.

I can't really show the ball. So here's. Here's the first spot that he's talking about. So just east of big dogs, correct? That's correct. There's this. sidewalk that goes to the sidewalk to the curb and that's where the park that's where the handicap spot is it's logical access i agree with that sorry i said that is logical access to the ramp so i wasn't here last meeting so i don't i mean i read the meeting minutes but i don't know the background um i have spoken with mr cooper and this is the location it's intended to be at to support those businesses in that area?

I was here at the last meeting. I've driven around multiple times in this area and my personal opinion is that I don't believe this rises to a level of concern that the spot needs to be relocated.

I've driven it as well.

There is lots of parking spaces in that area. This house does have a garage as part of its property. If they elect not to use that garage for parking a vehicle, that's obviously their choice. I don't see a large enough issue here that it would support moving it, in my opinion.

Mr. Cooper or Mr. Bryant, there's a requirement to have handicap parking on both sides, correct?

Yeah, we have an ADA transitional plan. We have to keep adding marketplaces or we would be in a situation where you could not get CCMG grants. So when we do project CCMG, we need to be cognizant of that. And that's why we have one on both sides. There's another one just down the road into the east right by the corner by the church. There's a ramp. There's a lot of people that go in and out of the church. It would make a lot of sense to have one there. And then this one makes a lot of sense on that side with the big dogs and the restaurants. Could we move that one two spaces to the east? But the people could, but then we're inconvenienced in the disabled. It's kind of a catch point, too. So to answer your question, yes, we have to have one.

So I think part of the complaint was that one of the business owners was parking in one of those spots essentially all day, which is eating it up. He was very upset with me.

He was naming names and specific cars that would come and park all day that owned the restaurant. But if that ADA spot's not there, then they can do that as well. It's public parking. Unless we post it for a limited time, then there's nothing. As far as I know, there's nothing we can do to keep people from parking there since it's in the public street. He also parks on the east side of his house in that street right away. It's stoned right there on the west side of the road. He parks a couple cars right there.

As far as the curb maintenance goes, that would be picked up by the town, correct? No, I'm sorry. I said that wrong. It's still the requirement. It's an ordinance requirement of the homeowner to maintain that curb line, correct?

You've got to keep it clear. You've got to mow. You've got to keep it clear of snow and debris and things like that.

There is an ordinance in place? Yes.

But I would agree with Mr. Bryant. Short of us passing an ordinance that places a time limit on parking on Main Street, if someone has a permit, they can legally park there for as long as they want to park there.

And ultimately, bottom line, it is still public street parking. Right.

And I would agree with Jacob. I'm not in favor of it, really. Emily?

I'm not in favor.

i was but delving into it more i mean i feel for him but i think it's got to be there i'll support so we have our consensus so yeah again just for the record you know this decision has no effect on our existing ordinances regarding mowing maintaining the the sidewalk snow and ice those kind of things i mean those things are just the rules we have in this town they don't change so i just want that on the record

All right, moving along to the budget discussion. Ms. Gary.

Yes, sir. We met Thursday at the staff meeting and started a budget, continued budget discussions. I'm just looking tonight for some direction from the council on specifically two things. Do you want to do it, Mary? So how much? I submitted the budget with a 3, 5, and 7. I'd also like some direction on fire as requested through additional firefighters. So just need some direction from wherever you'd like to go.

So from a number standpoint, budget with a 3% puts us at roughly $5.92 million operating fund. That's true. Our projected revenue sources or funding mechanisms are at somewhere between 4.6 and 4.8 million, so that leaves a decimal.

Deficit. Deficit.

Yeah, deficit.

If I may, I did get a notice from state today. My LIT, they told me to guess, estimate 4% of all. I did, so it was like a 1.9 I got noticed today. We'll get 2.2, so I'm waking up a little bit.

So 300K, so we were operating a deficit of 1.1 million?

Yes.

Minus 300K is? 800,000 is an operating deficit at 3% and zero additional FTE. And she handed out this sheet that walks through.

I do not have a copy of that. I was not present. I've seen it.

Thank you. Too late now.

So, I mean, I'm not comfortable with that level of deficit. Typically, we would go in with maybe a $300,000 to $500,000 deficit because we do get some returns.

Historically, we return from additional support like insurance approximately $250,000 to $300,000 annually.

So we're moving in the right direction at least. Yes. We're still short. Deficit. Yeah. And, I mean, given last year we knew we were going to run up against a deficit, we hired $1.2 million of firefighters to avoid the ISO situation. I shouldn't say to remedy the ISO situation. You know, and we are – We are trying to take steps to make up that revenue. We're faced with a small town budget with limited resources. We already operate pretty slim, so it's not like we can just cut a bunch of stuff out of the budget to make up those deficit numbers. But there have been some cuts made, correct, to try to bridge that gap as much as possible. But we are going to face a deficit this year until we have additional revenues coming in. But then we also have to consider a second topic in this, correct?

So before we move on to that, yeah. What raise, if any, and so we have two questions. Does NOFTE, the fire department, and what percent raise we need to give guidance to RONDA? The budget is due September 3rd.

Costs on everything are going up.

Our other option would be we could have a special meeting. We're running out of time to advertise it, but we could have a special meeting to talk budget. That's an open public meeting if we feel like we need to do that, if you guys haven't had time to look at this.

I mean, I've looked it over throughout the year since it's been available. That would have to be done before, what, September 3rd?

Yes.

I'm out next week, like on the wrong coast.

The number you described with the deficit includes 3%.

That's a 3%. So that's the first column. And then that's with three additional hires on fire. It takes it up to that. increases the deficit.

Miss Gary, what happens after the third? Can you make further amendments?

They will enter my 2026 budget.

But if you submit something And then when I make amendments later, is that not a thing?

You do additional appropriations. Appropriate, okay.

Yeah, you don't change your budget once.

So the benefit is we have a little bit in cash reserves that we're not running out of money this year, but it's not a good practice to operate in a deficit. So we are okay at this level for a period of time, but not for the long haul.

I don't want to pass a budget with that big of a deficit personally. Sorry.

I didn't mean to cut you off. So if you want to look at additional cuts, then we would need to get a special meeting for next week on the books, knowing that I won't be present.

So my recommendation for this is so typically, um, Many years ago, it was put in that you are not allowed to spend out of your medical line items. So whatever is used is used, but you can't take that and reallocate it to other funds. So if we underspend there, which we typically do, that is returned, and that's roughly the 250 to 300K a year. So you are at roughly a $500,000 deficit right now.

So essentially... Assuming not everybody takes insurance. Yeah. And we're looking at... So we're essentially looking for another $200,000. $500,000. No. I thought we were looking for another $200,000 to get down to our typical $300,000. Oh, we typically go $300,000 to be bridged by that return. You're right.

So we are about... Assuming those come true, you're operating at about $500,000 to... 800 deficit. My recommendation, there are discussions about fire department. My recommendation would be this year 3% and zero additional FTE at this time.

In this situation, I would avoid fixed cost as well.

But I'm still not comfortable with the deficit. Right. And we can also put any, I mean, all large purchases, vehicles, and those type of things come to us as well. So we, the council, typically approve that. Or you guys will be approving that next year. So make sure that all department heads know with an expense over whatever comes and can be discussed. See what can be pushed out and what can't to try to bridge the gap further.

Yep. So based on that, on your recommendation, do you feel a necessity to hold a special meeting next week to further review? I've done lots of looking.

I'm not comfortable doing that.

It's a best-case scenario.

You just don't see it. Yeah, I mean, we're going to operate in a deficit, and that will erode some of the savings that are there. Potentially, depending on what projects come forward next year and what purchases can be delayed.

Correct. And again, we did know this was on the horizon with the ISO situation.

We did. We also have a parks situation for their budget.

So the numbers you gave were $206,000 unfunded. You identified $75,000 in a mower to be removed, which leaves a deficit of $131,000. True.

When I talked to my GLGF rep, I said, what happens if I just submit this budget unfunded? He said, we will cut the $206,000 from it. I said, what line? I was okay with your wages. But he said, we don't put it in lines. We were just going to cut it because you can't submit an unfunded budget. So we can allocate more money from property tax to parks, which is acceptable, but you also have to take that away from the revenue from the town as well.

Or you just remove that $131,000 and make additional appropriations or identify other sources in the future. Yep. If it's mandatory expense.

Do we also need to talk about the levees there? I don't think so.

Okay.

Especially Dennis is a big driver of that, and he's not here, so I would prefer him to be here.

For that, okay. All right, so then moving forward as far as tonight goes.

3% zero.

Do you guys want to have a special meeting? So I missed the staff meeting, which is, I was out of town, so that's my problem. I don't want to have people have another meeting just for me, so I would...

I am happy to stay after or talk to you.

I would, I mean, what do you think? Are you ready to proceed, or would you like to have more conversation?

I think I'm ready to proceed. I'm ready to proceed. Eric, you...

ready but i think just to confirm i mean i think we're doing the best we can for next year and i think we're going to have to continue to actively manage it sounds like throughout the year to like do the best we can with what we got and hopefully dip into our reserves as little as possible but it's not it's going to be a tough year it sounds like and we do have bridge revenues on the horizon so it's just a matter of getting them here first

Okay.

All right, we'll move forward. Thank you.

We don't need a motion or anything on that.

I wouldn't say that. I wouldn't count on that. No, we'll put the budget on it.

Well, yeah, I mean. Yeah, you can't count on that. You can't count on anything until it's. Do you have a deal with what you have on your plate now? Right.

No, just a consensus. Just a consensus. I'll put the budget when we get it.

Okay, good to go there then.

Right here?

Right. Yeah, we can't vote on it.

Thank you.

Okay. So, Jacob, I mean, if you want to talk sometime, give me a call and we can go through it in detail.

All right, moving along the miscellaneous, we have nothing. Comments by citizens. Ms. Farr, if you'd like to step to the podium, please state your name and address.

My voice varies pretty well, but we can do whatever makes you guys comfortable.

We need the microphone so it picks up for the YouTube stream.

Okay, cool. Jackie Farr, I live at 342 Albert Court. It's part of Tamarack, just so you're all aware. First of all, I appreciate the time to speak to you about this. A letter was sent to Tamarack. We got it from Chief Rednauer, and it was in complaint of how PON4 is being taken care of. So standing up here speaking to you, I feel like I've got two strikes against me to begin with. First of all, I was not born and raised in Cicero, okay? So I'm not part of everybody who knows everybody, so I'm still trying to navigate who makes decisions in this city and how we go about getting those decisions made. So they're following the proper processes and protocols as a board, right? Um, the other thing is Joe, I know you live in the neighborhood and you have been very vocal about the complaint about pond four is what I've been told. So I want to try to help everybody understand what Tamarack is trying to do. Okay. So pond four, um, we took the approach, um, that we were going to let the natural vegetation grow around that pond to potentially Not have a mess with erosion that pond was not put in properly. Okay, the erosion Projections on that pound on that pond are ridiculous. Okay, we are trying to figure out and it's it's been it's been some trial and error I'm not gonna lie to you guys. We're just trying to figure out what we do with this pond to never have the erosion to the point that it's been projected to go. So we have been working with environmentalists, we've been working with scientists, and other experts for the last eight months to get our arms around this. So what they have recommended to us was that we needed to allow that vegetation to continue to grow. And that would create more of a strength around that pond, and hopefully we would avoid that that erosion. The other thing we did is we relied on the Hamilton County retention pond rules. So if you go out to their website, you'll see that they recommend you let the natural vegetation grow around these retention ponds. I know a lot of people think these ponds are out there to look good. I know you guys know there's a purpose to these ponds. They're there for a reason and we're not living on a Pete Dye golf course. OK, we're living in Cicero on a pond, so we've been trying everything we can to figure out what it takes to make this pond be what it needs to be. So I feel like there's a disconnect between Hamilton County and the Cicero ordinances. And that's where I think my struggle is, is to how do I bring those two, those two things together and make everybody happy? All the people in Morse Landing, all the people in Tamarack, the chief, everybody who's got an opinion about what we should do with this property. So When that letter came, Mike Shearer made some phone calls and was pretty adamant about what we have been trying to do and where we're going with this. And he was in constant communication with Chief Rednauer, and we were told that we would have the opportunity to speak to you guys before a decision would be made as to what we needed to do. Well, unfortunately, I got a call last Friday, and I was told by the chief that you guys had made a decision, and I needed to mow it right now. Well, there was eight inches of rain coming down, so I could not mow it right now. I couldn't even mow it this Monday because of the eight inches of rain. I mean, we were told by our landscapers, we're not taking any lawnmowers out there. It's a liability to the people on those lawnmowers. So I have it scheduled to be mowed. It's going to be mowed. I'm going to adhere to what the ordinances are. But what I want you to understand is what we're going to do going forward is we're planting wildflowers around that. Because the wildflowers are going to allow that moisture to firm up that land around that pond. And hopefully, we will get to a point where this is a very secure pond. But I'm going to tell you, from an uneducated eye, you might think those are weeds. Because that's what wildflowers are, you guys, they're weeds. So we're going to make every effort to do what we need to do for that pond. So I will mow it, hopefully on Monday. But going forward, the middle of September, we have slit cedars coming in and everything to plant that. So what we are proposing is that... We're going to put up a fence. We're going to put up a fence in between us and Morse Landing. Morse Landing won't have to look at our pond. We won't have to look at the back of the houses in Morse Landing where they store all their stuff behind their sheds, throw all their brush back there, and all the eyesores that our community is looking at. So that's what we plan to do. We will also be putting up no trespassing signs because there's a liability to all these other neighborhoods coming into our ponds and doing whatever they do on those ponds. There's a liability to us. So we're going to go ahead and work with I'm very disappointed that the people from Morse Landing didn't come to the board without going to Chief Rednauer. I'm more than happy to give everybody my phone number, my email address, everything. We can operate as friendly neighbors. We don't have to file violations and things like that. I just want to make sure that we are happy on both sides. So the directive was given to us to mow it. It's going to get mowed, okay, you guys? And what we're going to do then is what I've just proposed to you. We will not be mowing it after we do the slit seeder and plant those seeds in there. They need to germinate, okay? They need to grow. So come spring of 2027, we will have germination. what we hope is the beginning of what this pond is supposed to look like. We took the time and we have handouts for you. We took the time to go to other ponds. I mean, yeah, other ponds in Hamilton County. And we have pictures of what those other people are doing and how they're using the natural vegetation around those ponds. We also took pictures of what this pond looked like before we took this approach and what it looks like today. So and with the other thing I have for you is this is our plan, our two to three year plan of what we're doing about the landscaping within the Tamarack Association. So I've got plenty of handouts, you guys. This was not done lightly. We spent a lot of time and a lot of effort to make this decision to go forward this way. So I'm asking for a little grace. I'm hoping that you'll allow me to get this mowed, although it is supposed to rain the rest of the week and all weekend. So I'm hoping that they'll be able, I actually met with BAM today and said, please just get these mowers out here and get this thing mowed. He said, I can't pull them off. They're all behind, right? Because of 10, 12 inches of rain, whatever we've had. But he's doing his best to get the mowers out there for us this week. I will be more than happy to advise everybody when they've been there. I'm happy to do that. So the position I've been put in now is I have to go into an HOA meeting tomorrow night and I have to tell those people who paid a lot of money to live on that pond, who pay money every single year to be in that HOA, why we had to mow that. and what we're doing going forward and why we're putting up a fence. So I'm in a pretty difficult position because what I've done now is I've made Morse Landing happy and I've pissed off the Tamarack people. That's what's going to happen tomorrow night at that meeting. So that's on me. I'll handle that. It's not a big deal. But I just want everybody aware This doesn't need to be violation letters and things like that. Please just work with us. I know we're a new community. I know we're not part of the whole Cicero world out here, but please work with us. Feel free to reach out to us to tell us what's bothering you or what's going on. We are more than happy to work with, whether it be a resident or whether it be the town council themselves. We just want to make sure that we're taking care of our community. and the people who live in it and pay money to live there. That's all we're asking for. The handouts, like I said, they are They are our plan. They are pictures of other ponds in the Hamilton County community that's going with the natural vegetation. And they're the progression of how this pond has changed once we took those steps to make sure that we were doing what we could to stop this erosion. So it wasn't just us trying to make people angry in another neighborhood by not mowing this. There was a purpose behind this.

Sure, and just so you know, this is partially a flow of information thing. We work by ordinance, essentially, and ordinance enforcement. So I'm not sure where I came into being very vocal about it.

I had people tell me, and this is a small town, people talk.

So I don't think a lot of- I just want to give you the flow of information. We had a Morris Landing resident come and speak in the meeting last time. When was that?

It was the one before the last meeting in July.

And basically he was told he was approached by an individual and essentially was told that he couldn't mow anything back there.

Well, he shouldn't. It's not his property.

The weeds were growing up, but at that point, we didn't have any explanation. And then I had a second Morris Landing resident that lives along that stretch approach me. And he was approached by an individual when he went out there and was told it was for financial purposes that it wasn't being done. So we weren't getting the correct information either.

We have plenty of money. I'm not worried about that. But I will tell you this.

But I've also had Tamarack residents that live along that come to me too, just so you know.

They're more than welcome to come to any board meeting they want.

And you're more than welcome to come to this meeting any time you want.

Exactly, exactly. What happened is MI Homes, and you might know this better than me, Joe, because obviously you live back there. MI Homes deeded X number of feet behind certain, I believe there's eight residents in Morris Landing. They were deeded 25 feet. into what would have been Tamarack. They deeded that to them. That leaves them 50 feet off of our pond. So he can mow those 25 feet. He can knock himself out. Can't come and touch our property though. That's trespassing is what this has come down to. So we don't have any issues. So that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna take those deeds. We're gonna look at where that, we're gonna have it assessed where that property line is. And we will go one foot inside of our property And that's where that fence is going to go. Okay? And that fence – Have you checked the fencing ordinance to make sure – No, we'll make sure we go through all the processes for the fencing ordinance. No, absolutely. We'll submit all the paperwork.

Yeah, I don't know if it's one foot or five feet or whatever.

Yeah, we'll just – But you can install it and then find out it's – No, we – no, because I know we deal with those – you know, I know. Yeah, we'll make sure we do that. By the way, we're not going to just throw a fence up there, you guys. I promise you. So we will make sure that that fence goes up. nobody's going to have to see ugly wildflowers nobody's going to have to come onto our property for any reason whatsoever and hopefully we can coexist is what i'm hoping for so i really want to make sure you understand we heard you we will mow it but going forward you've got our plan you see what what our process is and where we're going with this

So, I mean, I think you heard there's an ordinance on the books. So really, in my eyes, this boils down to two parts. One is, are you taking care of the ordinances on the books? So that's what we ask chief to do is to take care of the ordinances on the books.

Mm-hmm.

The second is, I mean, this is the first time anything formal has come saying what you're wanting to do. But I think what, and Mr. Culp, you'll have to chime in. I think what that means, though, is we need to look at the ordinances and see if there's an adjustment that needs to be made before you go and do that. Because right now we have an ordinance that says you can't have. brush back there, whether it's wildflowers or not. I haven't looked into it. I don't know.

I mean, what I would ask, is there any way you guys could compare what Hamilton Town County tells us we have to do or can do with what you guys tell us we have to or can do? Because if you look at Hamilton Town County, this is what they recommend around the retention ponds.

If there's pictures, there's pieces from the website, your website.

Now, Erin, just to clarify Hamilton County, though, they only –

No, this is from your website.

No, I know what you're talking about. But I'm talking about as far as Hamilton County goes. That just pertains to the regulated drain, correct?

Correct. Their ordinances don't apply. Our town ordinance supersedes.

Like I said, I'm not from there. I'm learning who calls the shots, okay? So if you supersede Hamilton Town County, so be it. We know that. But if you look at your own website, you will see that we – Technically are not breaking any rules out here. There's no trash around those ponds. There's no garbage thrown out there That's all taken care of these are going to be wildflowers and I will definitely review the ordinance I read them front to back two different times this past week after this whole thing started on Friday and we intend to to make this attractive and to make it functioning. I can't have an eroded pond out there, you guys. It's not going to serve a purpose. And you don't want it out there. I mean, you don't. So we're just trying to figure out how we keep this pond doing what it's supposed to do up there.

So do you mind if I say just a couple of things? to someone mentioned brush there's an entire side of the pond that's unmanned so that existed already so i'm kind of confused why that's okay but to have unkept land on that side of the pond in addition to it or anywhere around it would be a problem i think that falls in regular the regulated drain area doesn't it

because that's where it outflows in the reservoir.

It's the whole side of the pond, unfortunately. Oh, I see.

It's a private, there's no public access to the pond. And we can point out 100 different places in the town of Cicero that have leaves that are public access or public view that they're not getting ordinance fines for. So it just seems a little...

It seems a little targeted is what it feels like. I'm going to be honest with you. That's what this felt like.

It's not targeted. We're one community. It's not targeted. I hope so.

Just like if there's a church, the Catholic church over there. I have two churches. I don't know if you've asked them around.

I mean, just so you know, typically the way this enforcement happens is we get a phone call with a complaint. we investigate the complaint. If it's in violation, we issue a violation. And so if there are other lots that are in violation, if you provide us notice, we will treat them the exact same way.

I'll be honest. I'm not here to point fingers at anybody, you guys. The point is that Catholic Church has a... A sign out there that says it's a wildflower oasis. I don't know what they're calling it. There's a picture there. But how come they're allowed to do that, but we would get a violation and all of a sudden we're having all this discussion?

Are we talking about the Catholic Church in town here? They have that?

There's a wildflower oasis. is it like a sanctuary or something they call it? There's a sign posted and they are growing wildflowers there. And obviously we're just questioning why that's acceptable. But you guys, I don't want to point fingers. I'm not here to do that. I'm here to try to work with you and make sure that we, but I have to take care of the community too. I have to take care of Tamarack. They pay a lot of money to live there. Pay a lot of money to live in Cicero, you guys. We love the town of Cicero. But man, this came out of left field. I'm going to be honest with you. This was a smack. And there were a lot of people angry really fast when this showed up. I'm happy to give you my phone number, my email, whatever you want. You have a problem with what's going on at Tamarack, you can reach out to any of the board members. And you can ask Doc. What's his name? Doc something. You can ask him. When he complained that there was a brush pile laying back there, I had that thing removed within a week. So we're here to react. And we really want to do this in a friendly neighbor way if we can't.

Well, when this all started, Frank confirmed for me, but there was no communication between the two when this had first came up. And to us, it just looked like unload weeds and we're taking citizen complaints. And there was no targeting. We have to manage the town.

No, I know. No, no, no. The targeting was not intended for you. I'm talking about the targeting from the residents. Make no mistake, I am not accusing this council of anything like that. The targeting felt like it was coming from the residents within Morse Landing. I'm not going to babysit somebody's six-year-old kid who's fishing on our pond. I'm not doing it. They can go down to Morrison Fish. There's all kinds of places to fish here. I can't take on the liability. So we're going to play nice, but we're also going to play safe. Okay? That's what I want to make sure we all understand. So I don't want to fine is what I'm telling you. That's why I'm here. We're getting it mowed, but please, a little grace given the amount of water that we've received. We're trying to get it taken care of.

We understand that.

Okay.

I have two comments. One, I agree with Eric just in terms of we have so much stuff that comes out at us at the council. So if you can just continue to you can ask Frank whatever questions you want to have and whatever your plan is, just do the best you can to make sure it falls within the ordinance. And if it doesn't, then there's a process where you can ask for variances and all that kind of stuff. So I would just encourage you to work through that. And then my only other question for you is again i just learned about this whole issue like within the last week and a half or whatever but um there was some communication with the county drainage and they said this and so i just i want to try to make sure we follow the steps as much as we can they said if you're creating a native vegetation area we require a non-enforcement agreement to address the need to remove vegetation for maintenance of the regulated drain Can you reach out to Hamilton County, that'd be the surveyor, Frank, is that who that was? Yes, sir. And just make sure like, if there's something you need to have with them, Just take care of it.

Absolutely. I know what you're talking about.

I don't know anything more than what I just read.

Again, you guys, our goal here is to make this thing right. It was not installed properly. The drainage isn't as it should be. And if you look through our plans, you'll see that the plan includes us to get that drainage corrected. and bring it up to code, if that's what you guys call that. Everything's in these plans. But you guys, it's a two to three year plan. A, it costs a lot of money to do this. It's not cheap. And B, it takes time for things to grow. It takes time for things to vegetate. So again, I hope that I've made it a little clearer as to what the situation is over there. And I really want you to understand we're very open. I mean, I'm probably the most transparent person you've ever seen. Otherwise, I would not have put those two points right in front of you when we started, right? I'm willing to listen to anybody, but just understand my priority is that neighborhood. and to take care of those residents.

And we're just now starting to get the flow of information. What he references came today. Who did that come from? Frank.

Oh, it came from Frank? Dude, you're in the dry cleaners all the time. Talk to me.

I'm not trying to create more things for you to do. No, I understand. Let's just make sure we check the boxes so that... Three years from now or whenever, whatever you guys do has been gone through the right process.

Yeah, we want to dot our I's, cross our T's. And when it comes to defense and all that, you guys, we will absolutely file the correct paperwork and make sure you guys are on board. There won't be an issue with that.

I'm not even sure about the wildfires with our ordinance. I'm not saying one way or the other, but we need to understand if that's an issue.

There's a couple things I wanted to address. One, I don't think this is a legal drain. I think this is a retention problem. There's a legal inlet and outlet. Correct.

Yeah, but that's not for the county.

I'm just saying, ask the question about the email then. What I'm saying is when the county says legal drain, there's a specific statutory purpose. Okay.

It is part of legal drain. Okay, it is? All right. Well, then that answers that.

So then you do want to talk to the county.

It's because of where it flows, right?

We made that decision last week. or a month ago now based on the information correct the council feels differently based on what we've learned tonight and we don't consider that we can change course or we can put a hold on enforcement while we look at because one of the things i think i suggested is if we think that wildflowers or something like this is acceptable or beneficial we can amend that ordinance to make clear that that will be permissible

I don't have enough information to deal with that tonight. I think the fact that they're trying to comply and it's been too wet is very reasonable to me.

I just saw it up close for the first time last night. I'm still kind of shocked that it was stated I was vocal about it. I took four citizen complaints and said we're taking steps to fix it.

This town, I've got to tell you guys, it's a small town. I come from a much bigger town. We're aware.

And everybody's business is everybody's business. Oh, we're mowing it.

It's being mowed, no matter what, we are mowing it. Because the truth of the matter is, you guys, I can't get a slit seeder in there. We were just letting it go until we got to the middle of September because it would make that ground stronger. And then we were going to slit seed that thing the middle of September. So we have to take it down. I'm not guaranteeing you I'll do it again. I mean, we're going to mow it either this week or next week. We're going to mow that so the slit seeder can get in there. and get that ground properly seeded. And so when we move forward in 2027, the spring of 2027, we should start to see these things popping. You would mow those wildflowers one time. You take everything down so that they re-germinate then for the next year coming up. The only other thing I'll share with you, just so you know, it's not in that plan because it just happened today. When I met with BAM today and I started explaining because I was begging them to get it mowed so that I could tell you guys it was mowed when I got here. Shame on me, it didn't happen. But he gave me the name of a company that their whole job is to maintain these wildflowers around these ponds. I hear they're out of Avon is what I've been told. That's a phone call I'm going to place just to have a conversation with them to see what they do when they call that maintaining those wildflowers so maybe we'll get some help there i hear they're terribly expensive but you know what it's worth a phone call to see if we can get some help with this and hopefully that'll help you guys out too to understand what we're doing sure just please continue to continue to communicate with us oh absolutely Yeah. Well, and that's what's in the pictures. You can see how the health of it has become so much better. The other thing in this, you know, guys don't care about this, but I kind of do. We've got fox back there now. We've got deer. We've got two twin baby deer back there. I mean, these are silly things, but in the scheme of things, it's kind of cool to have all those animals back there living and thriving. You know what I mean? Lots of butterflies and stuff. I know that's not what people want to hear when they want to see this manicured property, but... there's more to a retention pond than just being sitting there. So just know that we recognize that and we respect it. Okay.

Mr. Colt, did you have other comments or did you complete your?

No, that was what I was just wanting to put that out there for discussion.

Okay. So I'll be like Mr. Cook. I'll come every single week and you guys can talk to me. Probably not. Thank you. Thank you.

So Mr. Colt, I mean, They have a plan. I'm fine holding off on any fines or anything. There's a plan to mow it. I guess the council has to make a decision if we want to put an ordinance to accept wildflowers. Because if we don't, I mean, the next time, I have pictures if you guys want to see. I mean, it's not horrible, but it's not great. I understand the frustration of people. What do we want to do there?

Sorry, where are you going to go? I would like to understand how this plan fits or doesn't fit within our ordinance. I don't know the answer to that tonight. Do you think it doesn't or is that an open question?

I mean, I think our...

The ordinance doesn't really make a distinction between wildflowers. It just talks about if weeds or grass get over a certain height, then we issue an order to have it mowed. And I've looked and there are some communities that have carve outs for wildflowers or erosion control things and they kind of set parameters for what's acceptable and how it should be handled. And we could look at doing that if we felt that was something that kind of would be interesting.

Take a look at it. I mean maybe we look at that so much distance from the water's edge. Do you know how far you're going?

I wish I could tell you, I don't know that, but I can definitely get back to you on that without a problem. Okay. Yeah, go forward, go back. I thought it was 25 feet. No, that's different. The one thing I want to tell you is when I talked to them today, they asked me how I wanted this mowed, and there's a way, and I guess this is what they recommend around these retention prongs today. They take it down so it looks like a lawn all the way around the upper area. So when you're standing in... Morris Landing, and you look over, you see a manicured area around the pond. But when you get down to where the water's at, they let that grow. So this is, the one thing it does that I didn't know about, is this deters those geese from coming out of that pond and up onto the shore. Because they can't walk through that growth that's right by the pot. The other thing it does is it builds that up and stops the erosion. So Bam had some really good suggestions for us today. So I asked them to take that approach to how they mow, whether it be tomorrow or whenever it is. Take that approach so that we can have a look at it, meaning the board, and make sure we're adhering to what you guys are asking.

And we appreciate that. And to be my personal opinion, I'm not speaking for everybody here, but if that's the situation, I don't necessarily see necessity for offense, but that's your call. I mean, it's your community. By all means.

I've got to stop the trespassing too. Oh, the trail. I forgot about that part. I've got to figure out how to stop the trespassing too. So I personally am not a fan of fence. You'll find I don't have one in my yard. I don't like fences. But I think there is serving two purposes for us. So I think that's probably our best route going forward. might i mean the board might tell me differently this is three of us talking we'll meet up live with us to have that discussion so if we decide to go that route you guys will know it because i'll put it for the permits and things like that but if we decide to go another route we might just start with no trespassing signs and see if we can't control it like that sure okay anything else what do you think are you looking for some sort of consensus on what we do next not related specifically to them but just

The ordinance itself?

Yeah, I think, I mean, I think the ordinance needs to be looked at. I do too. I mean, just allowing something to go that goes against the ordinance isn't the right thing to do.

Right, I agree. When are you planning on doing the seating?

you say mid-september so we'll have time to come reconvene at a meeting prior to that if you guys find that you don't want us doing it this way we can work with you to see how you want us doing it okay i just know that it's healthy you guys i can't say it enough it's about the erosion we're trying to stop this erosion and make this a healthier pond sure and you do that pretty good i mean if you look at all of our other cons We're not in this situation. This was an afterthought for MI Homes. They, oh shoot, we've got to add one more, so they dug a hole.

Well, it was always designed in, but from the initial plan, it's much larger than what it was initially shown to be.

I can go through everything MI Homes did wrong, but you want me to ever sit down and tell you what they did wrong? So I just want to, it was supposed to be bigger. It definitely is not bigger. No, no, it was supposed to be small.

As it was drawn, it was smaller. I wasn't in council at the time.

Oh, so it was supposed to be a smaller pond.

By look in that, it was considerably smaller. Because when it went in, it was like, ooh.

I think they just started digging and were happy with using the digger or something. So, yeah, we're just going to work with you guys going forward. Hopefully we'll keep it friendly between the neighborhoods and such.

And I do, walking down there last night, because I can't see it from my house unless I go somewhere to intentionally look at it, and then it's still off in the distance. But you definitely have some erosion challenges there. There's no question about that. And it's very steep banking.

I've always been concerned about how steep the banking is. I don't know if those mowers are going to be able to get down there while it's still so wet. Right. Yeah, we've had them go into the pond before, so... So there is.

So Joe and I walked back there. I mean, there is one section where the homeowner grassed all the way down within a couple feet, and it looks like there's no erosion there at all.

I don't know. It's mostly on the north end where the bad erosion is.

Oh, it is? So I didn't walk. Oh, we were actually looking at the south end. Yeah, I didn't walk to the north end.

Well, there's one house over there. The basement drain. Yeah, that's another thing. We'll talk about that at another meeting. The basement drain? He's got a drain coming out of his basement in Dark Pond.

Above ground. It's probably a groundwater.

Well, where is this located?

It's in one of those eight houses.

oh there's no basements there so it has to be it has to be a groundwater surface water yeah that they're draining into it okay so we're going to ask him to eliminate that gotcha what'd you say it's one of those eight stretches i think more slings are out yes Yeah, but there's, to my knowledge, there's no houses with basements over there.

But if there's any letters go out to those neighbors, just so you know, as to obviously for him with that type and everything, and then we're going to send letters to each of them letting them know that if we're going to recommend that the no trespassing signs are going up and things like that, we're going to notify them properly so they know what's happening.

And essentially that's a civil issue.

Yeah, exactly. Last night.

Is that the one that's the box-shaped looking thing? Yeah, it's usually only inches up.

We only walked about halfway up.

Gotcha.

And if, I don't know, I mean, I was shocked that Schwartz was already, all that water was gone when I went through there today, so this might take another rest of the week, but I don't know anymore, right? So who knows? I mean, any time you guys want to see it when it's normal, that would be a better picture of what's really going on. Okay.

Absolutely. Yeah, so my request is just continue. Frank's your primary person, probably, just like as you have, you know, and he can verify. And if there are things that are not clear, he'll consult with Mr. Culp. And anything that we need to weigh in on or you want to discuss with us, you're welcome, you know, to have those discussions.

I think we owe them an understanding before they go spend thousands. I agree. Yeah, I agree. If you think it's acceptable or not. I think the next meeting we need to put that on the agenda and say what we're planning on doing.

When's the next meeting? September 8th. Oh, it's September 1st. You're right. That would make sense.

Okay, I'll make sure I'm in attendance. What do you want me to do as well?

Tamarack retention pond discussion.

But in between now and then, yes, you can reach out to any of us or Frank is the easiest person for you to funnel things through.

We don't want you to go spend money on something that doesn't work or whatever either. We want to make sure everybody's understanding what's happening.

You will get back and let us know what? from the water's edge, how far those wildflowers go?

I would definitely let you know how far back we're going and how deep we're going too. I'll let you know both, okay? So where we're starting and where we're ending. Whether it's a three foot strip, a two foot strip, and how far it is from the actual bottom.

Because I do think that makes a significant difference. I have pictures that I can I don't know if you want to see what we took yesterday. They're essentially the same pictures.

No, I took pictures. They're the same as what's in here. I think in the packet that we passed out, the plan involved not a straight line around the pond. So I think what you're trying to say is the variation. If people don't want to have that unmanicured look, they're choosing to mow further down. Gotcha. But it sounds like, Eric, what you're saying is you want to know where we're starting from the pond so that you know where that growth is going to be. Like, here's my pond. Okay, this is the pond. Then you have the bank of that pond going around that. And where are we starting within that bank? to plant those flowers and how far out we'll go once we start to plant. The thing with wildflowers is they're kind of wild. They go a little crazy at times. So we want to make sure that we're controlling that. That's why I'm very interested in talking to this other company and what they recommend.

So yeah, my question is, I mean, is it like this barrier right here? Or is that way up here?

And I'll be honest with you, when I walked back there last night, my expectation was that based on what it was described as to me that it was going to be all the way up here.

So it wasn't nearly as far as I thought.

You're more than welcome to reach out to any of us individually. Yeah, okay.

So Chief Redenauer is just doing what he was forced to do. They have an ordinance on the books.

He's the best guy in the whole wide world. Trust me. I love this guy. So, no, I know he, you know, he was very nice to me through the whole thing. He even heard about my MRI trip. We had a whole conversation about my life while I was driving 2,000 miles away to get an MRI in a city that has a doctor's office on every corner. So, yeah, no, this is not... Pointing fingers at you guys, pointing fingers at my best friend Jeff. This is no pointing of fingers. This is us trying to understand what you need.

Sure. Aaron, do we need to do anything about suspending that notification?

I mean, they have told us they're going to comply, and the police have the discretion to work with someone. The notification that I sent them?

Yes. Yeah, it's already been violated.

You stop it right now.

You stop it right now. She did tell me. We knew the rain was coming. She said she would get a mow. I was happy with it. I was like, there won't be a mow. I'll slide down to the pond anyway. So, you know, I've been within, especially with the events there when it comes to the meeting, kind of explain everything. Sure. Those steps have been taken by me to get it. Appreciate it. Anybody have anything else?

Yep. Good.

I know everything else here is very serious.

This is more about recreation in the neighborhood, not neighborhood, in the town. We live in a great country, a patriotic country. Anybody else love America?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Oh, Stephen Warner, 527 Tamarack Arch Boulevard. I don't live on that pond. I live on a different one, a beautiful pond. But great country, great state. Best city in the best state. Our state protects fireworks more than any other state. So what would it take to get fireworks on Labor Day, Memorial Day, and Veterans Day? Funding. No, no, no, not from everybody, just legal. Just like let us shoot them off.

Oh, the noise ordinance and the restriction. The noise ordinance.

I mean, what would it take?

They're all technically illegal anyway.