City Council - Regular Meeting

Just come to the park.

Yeah.

Here we go.

Well, he just asked me about collision and about collision. He says, if you need, you need something. Yeah, I know. Right.

Here we go.

which part i'm i'm almost afraid to drive i think i'll just walk around He's screaming.

Grandson and great-grandson together. First time.

That's what that squeal was. I thought that was Shannon.

She's so excited to be here.

Yeah.

Yeah.

If not this year, then this year. This year.

Bye. I'd like to call a meeting to order. Linda, you have a roll call. Mayor Crane. Here. Council Member Copenhaver.

Here. Holzer. Here. Easter. Here. Smith. Here.

Randall. Here. Did you sign in, Alex? Would you please? First thing we have is Ordinance 2026-5. There shall be no parking on the east side of 4th Street from Jefferson Street and Harrison Street from Jefferson Street to Harrison Street. Violators of this ordinance may be charged with a Class C infraction with fines imposed pursuant to Ordinance 10.99. Any questions on it? I was consistent with our discussion with the last couple months about parking around the museum, right? Yes. And where there's cars continuous on the other side of the street, there's not enough room. Right. Move for approval.

I second it.

Andy?

Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

I thought they'd talk about something that went on for many years, and it's gonna go on until the earth is destroyed by fire someday. And I don't have to tell the town that Mother Nature's been pretty cruel the last couple years, and all the trees have to be trimmed and everything. But anyway, long story short, farmers go through town all the time, and the tree limbs, they hang down, and I'm here because branch, and so it becomes a value, which I've had other things, but not that much money. And also in the county, there's trees hanging down everywhere. But anyway, I just wanted to know if, or wanted to ask if something could be done about trees, where farmers have their main routes, and I come in from the point, and I go south on Stringtown, and I also go on the north And, I mean, it's just about, you name a farmer, he probably goes through town. And I've raised the issue, not only because of what farmers have on top of their tractors or combines anymore, it's expensive stuff. I don't have the most expensive, but whenever it costs you $1,500, that's the expense. And so I just want to come here. I have nothing against the town on any of it. It's whatever you guys decide you want to do with it. The town looks great, all the trees, but there is an issue with that. And the other one is the safety, because sometimes you come through town with a piece of equipment, and of course we have to watch out for traffic, but sometimes you have to stop because there's a low-hanging branch or possibly a trash can right along the road. So you have to wait for traffic to pass so you can get around it safely and not hurt anybody. But one of the big ones is, and it's not too far down the road, but county has a problem too, is when you go out on Stringtown Road, they're on the bridge, right, and all that along there, the trees and stuff block. But when you get to the bridge down there, they really hang out, and it depends what type of equipment. open your eyes and you close them hoping everything went by safely and so but and even then i know it's not the cities but where you turn it to mount hope cemetery from coming from the east farmers come that way too but you cannot see who's coming across the bridge when you're up in a tractor combine sprayer or whatever so this is make it good for the people knocking stuff off the top of our implements, our tractors, combines, but also from the safety. There might be some places like the bridge out there that may need to be done, but I have no idea what the rights of the city is on the trees that are on somebody's property. I'm not going there unless you guys, but I would say designated pass-through, like most farmers will take 136 because they do keep stuff back. But when you hit the city streets or Stringtown Road, it changes. And so if you had a, where you could designate and put a sign up that says designated farm route this way, and so the farmer would know that he's got a good chance of not getting something knocked off his hood or ceiling with his outfit. And I knew, and I'm not going to even talk for the ones on Portland Arch or going out on Complex Road, because I don't go out that way, and I don't know what they're, if there's a problem there or not. I'm just mainly about what is Liberty, Liberty and Pearl. Well, combines, at least for combines now, if you've got enough money to buy a new combine, or a modern combine, the hopper's pulled down. So that brings it down to the top of the cab. So anyway, just wanted to mention this.

Some people may not want theirs trimmed.

Well, and I'm not talking about trimming way back. It's just that we're a farmer.

Well, Mark, I got it out one time, drove up the hill to get fuel in it, and when I brought it home, right in the corner of Liberty and Third Street, my TV antenna is now standing straight up over that hard maple. It's peeled. I've gone all the way to Tucson, Arizona, and never got a scratch on it. I get it right at the top of the hill.

something that Mother Nature is going to have to deal with.

Oh, yeah.

As long as you have trees.

Okay, thanks, Stan. Casey? We'll be flushing the hydrants on.

coming along with her. The inspector was the case officer for our construction and the green order and all that. And we met all that, that we needed to meet tunneling over saturday yeah so it'll be starting yeah it'll be starting pretty quick it came in friday okay and then uh the pool closes this last day of the pool swimming pool will be this sunday and the school is not going to use it through august like they usually do so we will be closing the pool now after sunday i want to go ahead and bring it down like we usually do a few feet

Well, I'm working tonight.

So he's got this information. So the first option was option one, the big rescue truck with a total of $308,000. Then breaks it down by year's finance.

option two a new tanker 530 and then option three with those trucks what you need to do is you need to get get a quote on it finance pay three hundred thousand dollars down because this is that could be paid down. So you might tell Garth that and have him come back. The rate's not bad. I'd also get a local rate too. We may get a local rate better than these rates.

original torch that was going to be for a tanker so i need to find out for sure if we go get a truck on that well he can put it on the tanker because yeah we're going to go with one or the other yeah if we go to the rescue we can't put it towards the rescue yeah so we're going to go with I mean, we've still been looking for a good used tanker if we had to go that route. There are a few farm tween. We've only found a couple of them, but the height requirements too. And the squad goes on about every call. Yeah.

The computers are in and installed. The tasers are all in.

except when we got the instructor for our tasers. Now we're all certified care, and the ARs that he has purchased

I HAVE NOTHING.

I DON'T HAVE A REPORT TONIGHT, BUT IT'S STARTING TO GET COMPLAINTS AGAIN ABOUT UNKEPT PROPERTIES.

SO I'LL START COLLECTING SOME ADDRESSES AND TURN THOSE REPORTS ON.

OKAY. OH, GOODY, I'VE GOT SOME STUFF.

Okay, the last time we met, we talked about the sidewalks, the application for replacing sidewalks, but we never went anywhere. And so I'm going to make a motion to accept the application for sidewalks, application for sidewalk replacement program to put it in place for the city of Covington so we can make it available to the residents to have their sidewalks replaced.

Do you want to explain the program?

Again?

Yes.

So I'll just read the application again. The city of Covington offers a sidewalk replacement to all home property owners on a first-come, first-served basis until the allocated money is consumed. The property owners pay half of the cost of the installation and the concrete. The city of Covington will remove the old sidewalk and pay for half of the cost of the installation and the concrete. It will be up to the homeowner to get the grounds back into presentable condition. To participate, the property owner must complete this form and return it to the city clerk's office. The public works department will measure the area and generate a project cost estimate. Once the property owner has paid their share of the cost, the project will be placed on the schedule in the order it was received. However, priority will be given to those areas that are in the worst condition and or are most traveled. And then there's information on there for the name, phone number, address, comments about the sidewalk to be replaced. And then it will also be completed by the city of Covington or the contractor for the lineal feet of the sidewalk, the unit cost, and then the total cost to the property owner will also be on there. So it's basically an application and a contract with the city to replace sidewalks.

We need to take bids from contractors that are interested. Okay. And probably do that on a contract basis.

Which would be the unit of the cost and everything.

I never did like that policy. I'm going to say no.

Before I say yes, I will say I took this straight from what Attica does in the city of Attica and it works pretty well for them. And my vote is yes.

No. Okay. You want to check and see where we're at?

Where I've implemented the sidewalk that was requested to be replaced by the Whithurst. And then my next issue is I noticed that when it was pouring down rain this week, I live on Crockett Street, and the storm drains are plugged. Do we have a plan in place to help with the storm drainage?

That one has been plugged by your house across the street? Just the whole street. Yeah, all the way to. For years, we've had companies from Indianapolis, they're. Professionals to ride it out. They just can't get it down.

I.

You got any solution, UKC? No. When you get that much rain, I'll do it Saturday night.

Right. I realize that. But any time it rains, it's always plugged right there.

Yeah. And that's the worst problem. There and then at Harrison, those are the two worst ones. And we've went in both places. I don't know. Same issue at 3rd Street. I'd like to say we can dig it up and replace it with that building that sets over it between Harrison and Jefferson.

Okay. That's all I have.

Okay. Casey, let's try to run our jet in it again there. Between Crockett and Harrison, yes. Between 8th and 9th.

I've gained, well, when I bought the place, there was two steps to get in the house. We're down to one. I'm at the bottom of the hill on Liberty and Water.

Right across from Eric Davis' shop, Zach Thomas' shop. Now, everything coming down Liberty, I know, boy, it's white water down there side of that. That's okay.

are raised up now. So water just has nowhere to go but straight across me, which I don't know. I've got a huge hill. But I built a levee in my front yard six years ago, and I dug a ditch. Well, that ditch is filling up. It comes right straight down my driveway. My white rock is not white anymore. It comes down the driveway and

filled off both sides. This side's a lot lower, but all the silt is filling in Port Liberty and it's almost got in my crawl space Saturday.

I've been watching this all summer long and I've been fighting it. I don't feel like spending another

You turn off on water off Liberty, you go 100 feet, you're starting to break down to Washington.

So if you build that high spot off, it'll all go that way and quit running down my drive. I mean, it just piled up over the years, you know.

Are you talking about the alley in front of your house or the actual street going to Zach?

You come up, and you stand there in my driveway, you can see it. I mean, there's a high spot here, and you've got Liberty Waters, you've got nowhere to go.

And when it comes...

that'd be great.

And yeah, it's a, cause it's just, I mean, you know, you know, you could row, you could row a kayak down through there. Yeah, that'd be great. We just make that go one direction. Okay.

Henry.

I'm here for the coming from celebration group. Give my report on this year's celebration. I want to thank all the city departments for their support of the festival. The things we controlled went very well, from fantastic fireworks for the 250th to the entertainment.

Richard Goodall, we had the biggest crowd I'd ever seen in 33 years.

and he stayed over two hours to sign autographs and have pictures taken with him, free of charge, so I thought that was fantastic. We knew we were gonna spend extra money on the fireworks entertainment, but we thought we'd lose, as a non-profit, we thought we'd lose around 15,000.

We lost 25 because of the heat

slowed down the carnival in the beginning and then the loss of the carnival on the 4th because we rained out and still shot fireworks on the 5th so everybody could enjoy it.

So we're down to a very low reserve fund as you can see around $5,000 where we used to have around $20,000.

So next year's show will be back like it's been, but the businesses have supported as well. You can see on ads some state sponsors in the beginning, 21,000. And so.

A lot over on carnival rides, wasn't it? Yeah, but he just killed it.

Yeah, but he killed it, and then no carnival rides on fireworks night.

There we were 11,000 down.

So that's where we took a bigger loss than we had budgeted. We wanted a good celebration for the 250th. It was good. Yeah, it was real good. So I guess I'm here to get approval for 27 celebration in June the 29th. That'd be a Tuesday through July 4th. on Sunday. So, any questions for me?

Does anybody else have anything? Meeting's adjourned.

Yeah, I had a gal come up to me today, Shay Rice, Shay Spicer.

She was kind of pushing the music boost

for the high school band and different things, trying to generate some funding and stuff like that. And I told her about the one that Troy's brother, Rick, is about music and arts.