Area Plan Apc / Bza - Regular Meeting

There are Title VI forms over in the corner by the door if you would like to fill one of those out and turn it in at the auditor's office. If you'd please rise. I was going to ask Mike. He's closing doors for us. Mike, you want to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance? Pledge of Allegiance.

and if you can remain standing Ken Mobley is going to lead us in prayer we thank you for this day we thank you for the opportunity just to see your glory and to see your presence we just pray that you'll be with the leaders and the citizens of Decatur County that have came out to discuss business within our county and to make decisions that glorify you so we just ask these things in your name amen thank you Ken thank you Mike

All right, up first we have a review of the July 20th meeting minutes.

They look good to me. I didn't see anything in there that looked out. I'll second that.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion carries. Moving on to claims.

There was one claim that we removed. It was part of the pool project. It's already been paid for by the pool project. Not sure how it got sent to us, but it's removed now. Otherwise, I don't have anything with claims.

I'll make a motion to accept. With that one deletion, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion carries. Moving on to payroll. The week of July 31st. It's in the amount of $428,620.93. I looked through it. I didn't have any questions. Same here.

I make a motion to approve payroll.

I'll second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion carries. Tim, if we could, we're going to move the Arts and Cultural Council topic up real quick just for some scheduling. I apologize, Tim.

Hello. Hi there. My name's Leah Kane, and I'm the president of the Arts and Cultural Council of Decatur County. And I'm here to request approval for the Arts and Cultural Council to move forward with a mural project along the connection trail at Barishaw Lane. I reached out to you guys earlier this year just kind of sharing the initial idea of doing a mural along the trail. And since then, our committee has completed the artist selection and finalized a mural design. So this evening, like I said, we're seeking permission to install the mural on the trail and get started hopefully sometime this month. The artwork will be painted on one side of the trail and pause at Baruchel Lane and then continue to the other side of the trail. And then this project was funded through a grant from Visit Greensburg. So we're simply requesting permission to utilize that section of the trail and With me here this evening is Emily Rosales. She's the artist whose design we selected. And then Kate Acra, she's on our committee with the Arts and Cultural Council, and she represents Visit Greensburg, too. And then I think I emailed you guys renderings of the mural. Do you guys have any questions?

I must tell you, I was in the middle of something when I opened that email at first, and I really thought that we were proposing the hot dog hamburger fighting thing. And then once I went back and actually looked at it, I saw the actual renderings later in the email. At first I was like, why are we? But no, the actual proposed mural for me, I think it looks great.

Okay. I have copies here if you guys... Need to look at them.

Yeah, if you don't mind. I'm looking at them now.

It was the very last attachment. It's really nice.

Do you guys have any questions about the process?

They're mulberries. Mulberries, oh. Courthouse trees and mulberry, yeah. There you go.

Yeah, it's really cool looking.

Yeah, I like it. Yeah, it looks good. Now, I'm assuming it's a special paint. It has a sealer on it and all that. Does it have to be sealed annually or...? That was the only thing I thought about is continual maintenance and or sealing it. Yeah, it was good.

The stuff that they sent us as far as your portfolio is pretty cool. Thank you. Any discussion or any recommendations at this point?

Make a motion to approve the installation of the mural.

I will second that. Very good. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you for coming, too. Yeah. All right, Mr. Ortman. The podium is yours.

So the bus project's moving forward. It's moving along. All the design paperwork, permission, everything's been accepted by NDOT. They just have to submit their bond, which they're supposed to tomorrow, fully executed. So then that project will get started, widening that intersection at 400 North to State Road 3. So there is going to be bridge jumpers installed over top of the bridge drain structures during the trucking of the delivery of the batteries, the super loads, et cetera. We will be closing the road except for local traffic, emergency services, and school buses while that takes place out there.

Do you have a time frame for that or do you need the bridge jumpers? Right. So I appreciate that because those definitely would be damaged, those two bridges there by Jane Brown's house.

Yes. And there's a third one over on your side, shallow cemetery.

Okay.

I know from the, um, emails that were going around that there was somebody that lived out there that had some concerns. Um, the response that I saw from the company was not really addressing, um, some of the driving behavior that seemed like it was the main concern.

So now the subcontractors are required out there to escort all heavy loads in. Okay. Dump trucks, semis, whatever. They will meet them out at 250 or State Road 3, and they will be escorting them in to control speed, monitor the situation. If there is a situation, take her out then.

So, yes, that's going to start happening. Okay. Has that already started or is that something that's going on?

It's going to be shortly if it has not. I don't know if they received any large loads this week or last week for it to be implemented. The procedure has been implemented. I just don't know what the first loads have come in being escorted yet.

And I don't think we've relayed to that information. I'll call them. Okay. You're going to follow up with us? Yeah, I'll call them. Okay.

So Lawyers 200 West will be paint striped, scheduled next week, 8-9. They are also going to do that in front of Love's Truck Stop where it's faded out, re-stripe that.

Can you re-stripe all those potholes up there at Love's Truck Stop?

Yeah, that's on the state, luckily. Yeah. Evergreen, they're going to mobilize N85 this Wednesday. So their plan is to start Thursday. Chip and seal. Chip and seal. The community crossing grant, 39 miles.

Yes.

We did do some patching, temporary patching on 700 East out there for the unofficial detour 421 South. We did receive the unofficial detour paperwork approval for Highway 421-0421 North. So that is now in place. So I was glad to get that finally accomplished.

I know you say that makes us eligible for funds. Yes.

So what they'll do is they'll go out and videotape the road all the way from A to Z, and then when the I-74 project's done, we'll go back and review it, and any damage that's occurred within that time frame, NDOT will be responsible for fixing, repairing, whatever it takes to bring it back to the condition it was beforehand.

So that's no, they don't do any intermediate maintenance or anything like that?

That would be on us to get approved with them and then keep a running total through the process.

Same as 700?

Yes.

Right. Now, they originally were going to video that already a month or two ago.

So that's what I put back in the email to them on the response accompanying the documentation, and I never got anything back disputing that.

And then can you also figure out for me, since they aren't doing any ongoing maintenance, there's going to be potholes that pop up. Yes, we are going to have to. Yes. um granted the pothole will the the patch will show up when they come back through the second time but do we get reimbursed for the the patch the additional ongoing why we get approved prior to repairing okay so yes within the paperwork it basically states we have to have net knots approval before we do any repairs to be eligible for reimbursement okay glad that's finally yes done

So, and the final thing I have, we have to deliver the 300 tons of salt, so it's in our possession, so that's complete.

Good.

And I know you have intentions of doing calcium chloride. Yes, yes.

I've ordered the tank, yes.

Is there, has there been any advancements on if we can get more salt if, you know, later in the year, if things, let's say we start having an early winter?

So we did not commit to any. We have got pricing. The problem will be it will be delayed because they'll be taking care of other customers. It could be a two-week delivery time frame versus two-day.

But it would at least get us.

Yes, they will work with us if we get in a bond.

We're going to know when we're getting down to 100 times.

Like I said, they're willing to work with us. Like I said, they can't guarantee anything because we did not commit to it. Yes, they're willing to work with us. Perfect. Thank you.

Thank you, Jimmy. Up next, Chris Knoblet, Parks Department. You guys, if you don't want to say your whole meeting, you can leave. It's not rude.

Thank you, though, for coming. Excited to see the work.

Good evening. I am here about our private drive at Park coming off Central into our park. There is growing safety concern. I know we've talked a little bit about this, just it's a private drive, but we do have many drivers that drive very hastily through there. And as you guys know, that park is Very populated. It is very busy all the time. And so I was just coming to you guys to see what the best course of action. I know we've proposed a couple different things, whether that's just putting a gate, putting some speed bumps, or just totally shutting that road down to make it a one-way in, one-way out entry to the park. So just, yeah, requesting guidance from you guys.

Well, we've talked about this several projects, as you just mentioned, that would pretty much require to be closed anyway. So as those projects are coming to fruition anyway, you know, to me, this seems like it's it's already was already in the plan. But with school starting, I know that's a lot of the concern is coming out of the high school and flying across the plane. Tim, what is the good way to bury the barrier that offer?

no I mean like it's more of a permanent solution I mean we know we could set a gate but I would I would be in I'm for closing it but I would be I would rather see a gate or something if we needed access for something I wouldn't I don't want to remove part of the road That's what I'm thinking. Those ballards or bollards, whatever they call them, that we could put there, and you could pop them out. We could drive over it if needed. That's what I think.

Have you ever done anything like that?

Yeah, I mean, so, yeah, we've got a couple of historic bridges. We've also got them on the walking path. Yeah, okay.

That's what I'd like to see, something along those lines.

Do we have any idea what the cost is on something like that?

No. Because I'd like to see the alternatives between that and just a regular swing gate for that. Either way. And then we can figure out which way we need to go. Sheriff, any concern from your side, from your department, if we were to block off that private drive there at Rebecca Park on the north side?

We do close that off with some temporary barricades until we find the permanent solution. Could we at least get a no-outlet sign installed soon? I didn't know how schedule-wise, if that's something you had. Yeah, we had some.

Okay.

I just think it's that people don't get the idea that they, from the other way, that they could still go through there, and then now we have a traffic. Okay. Yeah, I'm all for it. I would... I don't know if we want a motion.

I think from the safety concerns that have been voiced, I think it's something that's prudent so that somebody doesn't get hit. I'll make a motion that we go ahead and close. We install a gate or bollards of some type on the north part of the drive there at Rebecca Park.

But temporarily close it now, right?

Correct.

Okay.

I'll second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion carries.

So can you just coordinate with Tim? Okay.

Thank you. Thank you. All right, Matthew Spear.

Hi, Matthew. Hey, Matthew.

I'm here today to seek approval to apply for a grant through the Decatur County Community Foundation in the amount of $20,000 to be used for TNR efforts to provide free spay and neuter for community cats in our area and to also offset the cost for spay and neuter for stray intakes for our shelter. Between 2025 and 2026, we've seen a pretty significant increase, a 46% increase in cat intakes at our shelter, and I'm hoping that having this grant will help reduce those numbers.

Yeah, that sounds like a really good plan.

Perfect.

Awesome. So the application is due on the 6th, and I have the letter of intent that I've emailed to you all. I'll just need a letter of approval to finish that application.

Awesome. Great.

Awesome.

All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Those opposed?

Thank you.

Thank you, Matthew. All right, moving down to topics, we have Mindy Meier's Tales and Trails Memorial Ride on August 29, 2026. Is there anything you'd like to speak on that, Patty? Anything else that you'd like to?

I just wanted to share that, as you all know. Mindy was our former director who passed away. They are having Memorial Ride August 29. It's a Jeep and motorcycle ride. The details I know are on Facebook. They will be posted on our website too if they're not already. And again, the proceeds then are all going towards the new shelter.

Great. Good.

Dinner, raffle prizes, 50-50, all of that.

It starts at the shelter, is that right? Matthew, do you know?

I believe it starts at the fairgrounds.

It starts, yeah, so it'll be there at the animal shelter.

It starts at the fairgrounds and ends at Link's for dinner.

Okay. Very good. um moving on we do have an announcement doug westerfeld couldn't be here tonight but he did want me to announce that the draft of the comprehensive plan is available for public viewing you can go onto the county website to view it you can also go to www.do people actually do that anymore i don't know PlanDecaturCounty.com is where you can go and find it. And then I've also talked with Dave Henderson. He's going to set up, if he hasn't already, an online comment. section it's not like a not a blog it's something that you can submit kind of like how the the highway submissions come in for like a pothole he's going to set that up and the the correspondence that we receive from the community on the draft comp plan is going to go to dug into the three of us. So we will see that feedback and then we can take it to the steering committee and also to HWC to address if we have anything that came up that we need to look at. Earlier today I had received a payout from Greg Martz from GM Development for the Fairgrounds Ready project. He asked, he said, I understand it's late and we may not be able to do it today, but he asked if we could. The amount on this pay app is $35,312.25. It's on the amended portion of the fairgrounds ready project.

What's that amount again, Jeremy?

$35,312.25. Okay. That leaves us $107,080.51 on the entire project.

So I would just ask for... You know, it's ongoing work.

It's finishing up at this point. Getting the electrical poles down is left, and then also communications. And Gabe, if you're okay with it, I'm going to have Scott give you a call to discuss the speaker situation, the communication lines that are out there now that need to get... rerouted that are on the telephone poles. That's more of your area and you have a better understanding of the technology in that part than I do. So I'll give Scott a text and have him give you a call.

I'll make a motion to approve the pay app of $35,312.25. I'll second that. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion carries.

That is what I have. Okay, Brian?

I got an email from Scott Sanders today, who is the director of the Decatur County Soil and Water Conservation District. They have their annual meeting every year. This year it's going to be February 1st, and he's requesting to use the community building. And I don't remember. You'll have to refresh my memory. He wants to know if he can, because it's a county – meeting, is there any cost to him for that, for two to three hours on February 1st at 6 p.m. till 9 p.m.?

No. Okay. No, I wouldn't foresee that we're charging a county department for having.

The only thing I told him is he always has these meetings on the first Monday of the month at 6 p.m., and I said that's, and he invites us to attend. I said, yeah, we can't come, Scott.

Yeah.

But, okay, I'll get back with him and let him know that he can do that.

Yeah. Gabe, anything? Nope. Okay. Brian, you have anything from the EDC?

You know I'm going to say it now.

Just to say that we met on the blight program. We had Doug there as well as representatives from the city as well. And Gloria from Westport actually came, and it was really pleasing to see what they've been doing down in Westport and how they're actually going to help our overall match. Looking forward to starting to implement that program. Just wanted to compliment Westport for coming to the table, and we look forward to having New Point and St. Paul and Little Hazen at the table as well to kind of address blight in Decatur County.

meeting was that for the the county match or the local match we can actually go back to 24 23 or 24 depends on what the circumstance had already incurred as a result of removing or dealing with some of the blighted situations, and we can actually use that as part of our local match for the project. That's pretty neat. That's great for us. Should be a good program.

I do have one thing.

As far as update for the pool, Things are obviously going slower than anticipated. There is some, we've had some permitting delays, some, I've mentioned all this before, supply chain delays, so some of those have been a problem. However, this week the slide is supposed to go vertical on Thursday, so the big four flume slide will be installed. If you drove by, there's now concrete starting on the deck. The family slide will be installed on 8-10. So that means most of the decking will be done by then. So there should be two slides up at that point. I think the pumps all come online tomorrow or the next day. So really gonna start moving again fairly quick, but all the materials are there now is my understanding. So things are progressing faster. Still not sure on an exact opening day and how long that season looks and it's unfortunate, It's not from a lack of effort, I can tell you that.

Leanne? Good. Ken?

Thanks.

One, just so everybody's aware, we are starting into the planning process for the Veterans Day Parade. We're leaning towards November 14th, which is a couple days after Veterans Day. One, that'll give us a chance to get the word out to the veterans who come over to the Decatur County Foundation. They're doing their annual Veterans Day as well. We think we're going to do that over at my office for this year because we don't have to worry about Main Street. That scared me watching all these my older generation trying to cross Main Street just to come over to get a gift card or whatever. So my suggestion was over at the annex building since it's closed because it is a federal holiday. So I think we're going to lean to do that over in that area and give a few more things for them to do. And upcoming I'll get you a family or a facility request to use the area right outside the South for the Veteran Memorial Southside. And then I last year was the first year I've ever been involved with the parade and I was down here getting things ready. So I don't know if there's a lot of people in the standing around, so I don't know if we still call it a parade. Maybe it's a veterans walked where we can try to get more people to walk with the veterans and just rename instead of a parade.

They've always had difficulty. I've been involved with it for years, and it seems they have difficulty of getting veterans to be involved in it. I don't know why that is.

I can't figure it out either.

And even the public. The public doesn't.

It's one of those things where you really don't think much about it. There's a difference between Memorial Day and Armed Forces Day, Veterans Day, somewhere in there that some people just don't realize. And with it being late, looking at weather and stuff like that, and that probably could be part of that as well. But we're going to see what we can do this year. I'll be working with Mark Carman and Leslie, and we're trying to figure out the best course of action for that one. I do want to thank you for getting Northeast 80 open. We did have fireworks out at St. Morris for having that open, so we really do appreciate that. And everything else at the Veterans Office is doing well. We're moving along, and I've got veterans scheduled out for the next three weeks already, and so they are coming in force, and we're doing great things, and so just thanks for the opportunities.

Thank you, Ken.

All right. Erica, do you have anything from tourism?

The concert series went really well this year. Just wanted to give an update. We had up to 1,800 people come to the last two concerts. It was well over 1,000 the first two also. So it was very popular.

1,800 each event? Or the 1,800, the last two events, each one? Each one.

Yeah, the Bob Seger and then the Nirvana tribute. And I would say the Nirvana tribute brought people from outside the county quite a bit. So that's been, yeah, like. Not the normal crowd, like people like new people kind of thing. So that was pretty awesome. Also, you guys will notice the skate park doing the murals over there. So it's going to keep looking nice. We've got right now, it's just like the base coat. So we're still working on it. So anyway, that's my update.

Thank you. Awesome. Thank you. Chris, did you have anything else? No. Sheriff, anything? All right. Mike, Matt, nothing else? Christy, anything?

No.

Patty, any announcements from HR? I think we're good. Okay. Anything else for the order tonight?

No.

Mr. Crowder? Go for it.

Hello again. How you guys doing today?

Good. How are you? Good. How about you?

I am excellent. I'm upright and I'm living. God has blessed me.

Veterans parade that.

I'll give you some insight on veterans parades.

It's okay. I don't need a commitment. We're good.

I did the job, and when somebody comes up to me and says, you know, thank you for your service, I put my head down and I say, I'm not a hero. I'm not any of that. I was just doing the job. And I don't look for that. Don't ever look for that. If my sacrifice could alleviate you guys, that was all it was about. Last time I was here, I asked you guys about the moratorium. And I've been seeing stuff online that I did it wrong, that we did this, that, and the other thing. I don't take that as a grain of salt or anything like that. I look at it like this. Every time when we have a meeting here. That is another meeting gone by that. The county is not protected. And being. A veteran. That knows on me. Because the people. We have over 1,000 signatures now. We have those tonight, right? Yeah. So for that, I've got a moratorium. came up with that if you guys are willing to look at it and to put it on the agenda and to make a vote for it I implore you please do not leave the county unprotected please

How would, let me ask you this, how would a moratorium stop something from St. Paul or Greensburg or someplace like that? Because I have not sat on my hand since our last meeting. There's been, I've had a couple of personal questions that I've done a lot of reading. There's really good websites that you can get out of the fray and the advocacy stuff. You can actually get into some meat and bones about what's actually going on in this topic. And so I've spent a lot of time actually reading on this. So how would, a Decatur County moratorium on the topic help when you have incorporated towns or cities like those that have their own separate boundaries that we don't touch? Help me with that part of it.

So what would happen is as this moratorium is put in place, it would say, hold up, let's not rush into this like some places are. they would look at, for one, it would allow for an ordinance to be put into place to stop the annexation of those lands to the city. Not necessarily, I shouldn't say it like that, but it would be more to keep the farmland where it is, as a farmland. Because every time a farm has disappeared, We know what happens.

When the one that was approved by the city of Greensburg, when that was annexed, we had zero grounds. I had just become a commissioner, and I think Chad and I had talked about whether or not we had any grounds to object. I don't remember the specific numbers, so don't quote me on this. It was 60-some percent, I think, of affected landowners had to object for the county to have a position to object, and we did not have that because there were consenting landowners that were involved with it.

We're not trying to overwrite the rights. Right. And mind you, I'm a novice at this. I am nowhere near, I spent five years in college in business and this is not my forte. I look at this and I just go, it's written in legalese and I look at legalese where it intrigues me, I am not fully understanding it. But I do know that It would look at each individual. The moratorium, like I said, gives us time to set up an ordinance. And that ordinance, we can tailor make it to do what we would like to do. Okay, maybe it limits water consumption. Maybe it limits electricity and taxes. It would even out the playing field. And it would give us time to actually look at the whole entire thing instead of all of a sudden waking up one day and just saying, wait a minute, we've got one in our backyard now. And I know that nothing ever moves fast like that, but sometimes it's been done on the sly. And I'm not pointing any fingers. I know how you guys feel. You feel the same way I do. And I just leave it as that, is that when companies come in like that, I've seen it, you know, they jump into stuff and they start buying and selling and they don't care what's left. They don't care. We've seen it with the housing, when the housing boom happened. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, what was left after that? They didn't clean up the mess. The car, when GM folded, well, it started to fold. Oh, they're too big to go under. Who cleaned up that mess? What was left afterwards? I just don't want that mess here. I don't want to have another mess to clean up. If we can get in front of it, I mean, like I said, I'm a novice at this. But I've got the moratorium for you guys. If you'd like to look at that, I've even got electronic copies at home. I can send that to your lawyers, and we can get it. If you have a copy, you can give it to him. Up front there?

Yeah.

Yep. So...

I think what he's getting at, too, is we want to make sure we try to help educate, too, right? So we've had to deal with a lot of these things. You know, of course, we did put a moratorium already in place in January of 25. So there was some research that was done there. For alternative energy. For alternative energy. So, yes, even something you want to do doesn't happen overnight. And so it's... But again, the education piece is when we talk about slowing something down, it doesn't slow anything down. Depending upon how it's approached, if willing landowners willingly let their property be annexed into the city without your knowing of it, and then they immediately go in to sign a deal with those folks, us having a moratorium, I just want you to fully understand, because it is if, if let's say a moratorium was passed and then I'm just throwing it out there six months down the road or a year down the road or whatever, you know, it happens. And that moratorium happens to still be in place. And that situation happens. Then, then folks being uneducated then about it, about the situation then go, well, this was a backhanded deal by the county all along. They knew all along. And that's not the case. It's just the way that the functionality of the, the way that it works is, is once it becomes annexed into the city, Our area plan has nothing to do with the project anymore. So it doesn't prevent the applications from coming in because we don't have anything to do with it. So there is some other types of technologies and stuff that may start preventing that from being just only on annex land. But if they want rights to the water and sewer of the city, it'll be annexed into the city.

And that's where... That's where people like myself, because inside the city they have to do their work. And I would love to do it for them, but I'm only one man. I had a thought about what you were saying on that moratorium. The way they do this is another company comes in like a land holding company. They come in, they go to that farmer and they say, we're going to pay five times the amount of on your, your land.

Yeah.

Well, I'll tell you right now, five times after blood, sweat and tears, watching your crops fail, watching Cal die five times. My God, yeah, I'd get out from under that. And then that holding company then turns around and leases it off to Blue Sky.

I know my feelings about it. Yeah. I've heard your feelings about it. Yeah. I've heard everyone else's voices and feelings about it. Again, I want folks to understand, and that's why I respond to things on Facebook. Of course, everything you say is misconstrued against you. Always. I want to try to help educate so that folks understand how the process actually works because sometimes maybe your efforts, if they know where they're best applied, then maybe it actually makes a big difference versus if we're just trying to apply pressure at every point. and 90 of those 100 didn't matter, then you may have been able to have a lot more focused area at the 10 that did.

Thank you.

I mean, we passed the alternative energy moratorium. In 24, we passed a PFAS forever chemical ordinance. I mean, we've done things as commissioners to try to protect Decatur County. We hear you. But also, we need to make sure that we're doing our due diligence on this, because I don't want to pass something that either A, doesn't work, or B, isn't worth the weight of the paper that it's printed on. The one area that I've been looking at is something that I still have not found great examples of, and that's having a data center that is not connected to a municipality water treatment facility. I haven't found one yet, which means that they're inside municipal limits. They're within the city. I haven't found that. And so if every one of them is in the municipality, whether I agree with them or not. That's the question I have.

I know the one in Shelbyville is going into the aquifer right there in the town. Actually, there's three aquifers that come together right in that area. So they're going to be. And props to you guys. All respect I mean it is you guys have done a lot to help you really have with the more time with the alternative energies and things like that and everything that you brought up. People in the county should be thanking very much. I mean You guys and it feels that you can feel that from one county to you can really feel it the difference. I mean you guys are willing to hear whereas other counties. I'm not going to name. They're like we're done with you. And I thank you. And hopefully the people from the whole entire county will voice their opinion in the same regard I have. And thank you very much for that.

Well, I have two gears also.

Again, thank you very much.

I'll just say I do appreciate your passion and thank you for your work on this. It takes somebody to step up and do that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I was just freshening here. I come last week and I just heard about all the stuff that's going on. I went out by Shiloh and seen all that was going on. And they're talking about a big battery plant or something out there, like a big GPS system.

That's it, Jeff. It's a battery storage system on 400 North.

And you know how dangerous that is. Lithium batteries, that much, if it burns, it'll burn a hole halfway to hell.

They passed that, I think it was in 2021, before any of us... People I know that live in that area haven't even heard about it. You know, why is that? We're all dealing with it. Yep. None of us were up here for any of those discussions from when that was getting approved. It was before. It was 21 and 22 before any of us.

So they annexed that portal.

No, it's a county. That is still county property. That's a county project. That did not get annexed. That was approved before any of us were up here. It had every... signature and every approval.

I got family that lives all around there and that could cause a lot of problems. You know, if something bad happens, it'd fry the land.

I remember the meetings they were talking about. One specific comes to mind was a tornado coming through and picking up some of the batteries and and hurling them.

Well, I've helped build a couple of them data centers in Texas, and them batteries that you're talking about are dangerous. They're more dangerous than the data center is. But, you know, that's something that needs to be really looked at, and I don't know what's been done about it, or I was trying to get some information on it, and that's the only way I know to get it.

Well, it's in the process of being finished. I mean, they're working on it now.

It was starting to build stuff.

And they are, they're, they're getting the, the infrastructure, all the groundwork all done. And as, uh, Mr. Ortman said here pretty soon in the next, within a month, they're going to start hauling those batteries in, um, to that facility. And they're going to start placing them in, putting them in place. And, and it, as Jeremy said that happened in 2020, it started in 2020. 2021, the county commissioners and the county council signed off on it.

Who were they that approved it?

The county commissioners and the county council.

At that time?

At that time, in 2020 and 2021.

Can I get that information online? Who they were?

I'd like to know who signed it because we've got family that lives around there. Yeah. You can go back to those dates and find the minutes, and it would be in those minutes.

All right. I want to look, but thanks for trying to find the insight. Well, thanks for coming, and thanks for speaking up. I couldn't even hear it last time I was at the door. I held the door open for everybody. By the time I got there, I didn't even place it in.

Again, I appreciate you for stepping up and voicing your concern.

Taking ground from the people owned by the river? Yeah, it was the DNR. They weren't taking ground. They wanted to tax you for your property.

to do a watershed project when they have flooding and or damage from the river and or water that comes down and then clearing out dams, clearing out debris. They want to charge landowners a tax rate for that and We had turned that down last meeting. Good. So they weren't taking anybody's property, but they were going to tax your property.

You know, you just hear stuff.

It said that there was a 75-foot easement. Yeah, that's what I heard. So then people took that as, well, then the county is going to own 75 feet, and it's not. It's no different than the easements that are in place across much of folks' properties. Some people don't, but some people have easements across their property. It just gives the... I'm going to use the term utility access to it. So in theory, if what they said happens, happens, then that means that the water is going to pick up speed from every County before us. And if our portion of the flat rock is not cleaned, then of course that's going to push water and back it up into the fields or homes or wherever that might be at what rate we don't know, because we haven't seen the water flow like that in a very long time. So, It's a risk, but does the risk outweigh the reward? And that's what we voted down for was to take that risk because it appeared that the landowners that had directly affected were not in favor of it. Now, if that changes, we can become a part of that and do it at that time. To preemptively do something to add a tax for something that may or may not happen doesn't seem to make sense to us. Right.

Good to go.

That's all I need.

Thank you very much.

You're welcome. I'd entertain a motion to recess.

So moved.

All right. We are recessed.

Thank you.