County Council - Regular Meeting

the June 15, 2026 commissioners meeting. There are Title VI forms in the corner by the door if you'd like to fill one of those out and return it to the auditor's office. Janet, will you please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance? And Brian, if you could lead us in prayer.

Heavenly Father, we gather here today, this morning, for Decatur County, for our constituents, for just to watch over us. We just ask you to give us wisdom, give us guidance as we make decisions for the citizens of Decatur County. In your name we pray. Amen.

Amen. All right, let's start first with the review of the June 1st meeting minutes. All right, I'd entertain a motion to approve. So moved. Second. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed? Motion passes. Moving on to claims.

I didn't see anything out of ordinary.

I'll make a motion to approve claims.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion carries. Moving on to payroll. Payroll for the week of June 5th, 2026 in the amount of $432,087.72. I also had nothing to make a motion to accept. Second.

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

Motion carries. Okay, Tim Ortman with the Highway Department. Welcome back.

Thank you.

Morning, Tim.

Thank you. The storm event last week, we didn't sustain any major damage. We did sustain a lot of damage, a lot of stuff, washouts, road washouts, debris on the road, plugged pipes, debris jams. So last week, a couple, three days, quite substantial of that. We're finishing that today. What we know, there will still be stuff people report we find, and we encourage them to report it and find it for us to address some issues. But we did have that. Going forward, 400 north today, they will start actually outlaying asphalt and road edges up there and doing that. So that's estimated to be one week to do that project up there, be from the barrier storage plant out to State Road 3. So Dave O'Meara is doing that. So they are starting on that today. SC Construction, they're scheduled here tomorrow for a pre-construction meeting for Chippenseal. So we'll get their updated schedule. We are have to identify their schedule a little bit because of the rolling bicycle turn to adjust around that for that portion of it. So there'll be a little bit changes in their scheduling to accommodate that. Mainstream fiber, we do have an agreement with them. They're meeting with the landowners out in that area to identify all the private gas wells, gas infrastructure. They are employing ground penetrating radar and locators offered to the private residents out there for any of their water lines, et cetera, et cetera, and they are responsible for any of their damage they hit. So we do get an agreement with them. TDS is looking to do fiber next up in the northwestern part of the county. We've instructed them we'll use the same type of situation with them.

to address that stuff up in there.

So 421, we got contract start tree trimming out there today. So it'd be about seven days is what it'll take for them to go up through there and do that section 421. They're going to trim everything 20 feet high minimum, at least four foot outside the pavement edge minimum up through there. so that'll be giving day also this morning an enterprise rental truck the 2027 model pricing is not released yet so they cannot get us a firm quote on that the other thing they're doing is verifying that the manufacturer didn't change any specifications on the chassis to make sure all the up fit still works in order to give that that's kind of where we sit we had had the meeting um

about the unofficial detour out on 74. Yes. We were supposed to have another meeting, another follow-up on that. Have you heard anything?

I have not heard anything. If you want to all follow back up and reset. I'll do that. Yes, absolutely.

And then I was contacted, um, about a week ago. There's a specific route for the battery energy storage or the traffic in and out.

Yes.

Um, so three 50 West and 400. I know 400 would be 400 north.

So the routing of them loaded trucks in will be State Road 3 to 400 north to the site. Once they unload, they'll be going empty out 250 south down to 421. Part of the reason is to keep the trucks from meeting on the road, to keep them from tearing their shoulders and stuff up. So yes, it'll be a one-way in, one-way out type situation.

Okay, because they're seeing a lot of traffic on 350 west is what they're saying.

Okay.

From that site. So probably 250 West. I was going to say. I don't know. I'm reading to you what was sent to me.

Yeah, 250 was our first road they bonded is what they did. So that was going to be an in and out route is what it was going to be. That's the way the original was. That was addending to the heavy loads to be a round robin situation.

I knew that we had an in and out. Yes.

Yep. That's the traffic plan they got.

I requested a map from Honda for the 421 route and referencing, but I don't know if we, do we still need that?

I just told him to, I mean, I got an instructor contractor just to do the whole thing. So we should have, we should have identified and we should be tall enough and wide enough. Shouldn't have been an issue.

Okay. I'll let him know.

I appreciate that. Thank you.

Thank you, Tim. Doug Westerfeld.

Good morning. I've got three APC petitions that I need your signatures for approval. It was 9-0. All right.

So every member was present. Every member voted in favor.

Parcels are not for him to build on. He will sell those laws to someone else.

Were there any concerns from the APC just looking here quickly at this Doug about floodplain or anything like that? Because it looks like there's at least a large ditch or creek that flows through there.

There was discussion on that. Brad Schuette, who's the president of the agency, obviously was fascinated. Didn't see any concern with any of the water drainage on that property.

Do you guys want to review any of these?

I would make a motion to accept all nine members for them for the board.

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

Motion carries. Second one is APC 2026-9. It's Rob Merrick to purchase a 6.87-acre track, and they are rezoning 2.99 and A1.

All members were present all members voted in favor. Any discussion or any questions.

All right entertain a motion so moved.

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

Motion carries. And the last one I have is APC 2025-25, Nick and Lauren Beckett, to survey all four acres out of 112 acres in recent years.

like we had six members present to

I did also want to update on the comp plan. We had a June 4th steering committee meeting. Now we're moving forward with the rough draft plan. And then once we get the rough draft, then we'll meet again, go over the rough draft before we send it to OCRA for their approval.

HWC or OCRA? So HWC will do the rough draft, and then it has to be sent to OCRA for approval. because OCRA as part of the grant has, what is it, 12, it has a certain number of set guidelines for their criteria that you have to check every one of those boxes for them to receive the grant. And so we're kind of dictated on direction of specific, not exactly on the content of it, different bullet points that we have to make sure are being hit for the plan and so we'll have to submit a rough draft to them and we will get approval for that we'll also release the rough draft for the community to review so that everybody can see the wording and we'll have another public meeting at that point to get comments back from the community on the egg the exact content of what's written in the comprehensive plan draft and then we will have I think one more meeting for the steering committee to get the feedback from the community about that draft to then finalize the plan and then it'll go to the APC and then it'll come to us for final approval thank you Doug all right we have on here out of state travel and conferences so here recently there had been several conferences that were out of state and Just some different things that come up with some of those about Costs that were being incurred through traveling out of state per diem was one topic use of county cards for services or not services for food while you're out there versus reimbursement when you get back and then also is there a preference of do we want to say if there's a similar training in the state that's available, do we have a preference for staying in state versus traveling somewhere outside of the country, outside of the country, outside of the state. And then also at the same time, if we're gonna say in state travel, if there's a training in Michigan City, I don't think that should have preference over like a training in Cincinnati because obviously it's much closer. So I don't know if we necessarily say in-state travel, but closest available. Proximity. Yeah, closest available training. So those were kind of the ideas, I think. Patty, did you have anything else on those general highlights there before we dive into?

I don't think so. I mean, I think. The others is just going over the per diem as far as the fences. And we had a few where they went. more spelled out so people know more.

I mean, I went through your policy. You sent the policy to us. I'm looking at it now. I went through it. It's pretty specific. I don't know if we need to change anything or make sure that the people that are going on the conference prior to understand this is our policy. Please stay within these requirements. I think maybe that's it. It gets maybe a little loosey-goosey when you say, okay, I'm going to a conference, and then they don't understand what the basic policy is, so. I'm not sure if we need to change it is my point. I just think it needs to be followed and maybe those that are going on a conference need to be reminded. This is our policy. Please look at it. Make sure you follow it because the policy is decent. I don't know. What do you guys think?

I agree. I think it spells it out. not being followed all the time.

Right. And on the per diem side, I mean, every conference I've been to supplies breakfast, lunch. I don't know if your conferences, if things that you've been to, anybody, any other department heads here, I mean, speak up. I mean, I want to hear what your guys' experiences are. Because, I mean, when we're looking at per diems, if 40 is appropriate or not, we need to hear that.

Janet, when you go to conferences, you typically have breakfast or a lunch included in your conference?

Normally we do, but...

Or if you can't eat it.

Well, that's true. Yeah. Yeah.

So, I mean, that's a thing. And then they, of course, they don't eat it on their dinner.

Right.

But I have wondered a couple things as far as London Congress. They've always wanted to bring a basket.

What is... Or door prize.

Yeah, they get a place. Every county brings one.

No. Well, they do it at, like, the commissioner's conference. We don't do one. We don't.

I mean, they don't even... They've never asked us to bring anything.

But I guess I've seen... Every conference we go to, they always remind you, like, don't forget to bring it. Because that's something that we've had to spend out of pocket. So, like, we were wondering if that's something you can take out of your budget.

Or you can say no.

And then also, we were wondering about tips. When we have elections, we had a particular restaurant this year, and they would tell them up front when we order food for the absence of burgers.

Sheriff?

Yeah, so typically, if we're going overnight, references are provided.

Launches are 50-50. And, of course, dinners are usually not. Right. So that's kind of where we're at. Sheriff said, up to about 50-50, we're going to train as they train.

And so in those circumstances, 40 per diem is not. I know that 40 was set quite a while ago. I think if anything, we can probably address that.

And I'm also, I think it's, you know, the company I used to work for, you know, per diem was paid before you left. That way, you know, you had that money to spend while you were, you know, gone. Sure. So there's also that option we could do as well.

What happens? You're Mr. Frugal and you go and you buy your two pounds of lunch meat, you know, for your three or four day conference and, you know, a super cheap loaf of bread and an extra large bag of chips and that's what you eat on for your three or four day conference and you'd gotten $150 per diem ahead of time.

You could still do that and still get the $150 afterwards. It doesn't matter if you do it before or after. If you're going to do that to save the money, then that's... But more often than not, you go to the conferences and there's a group going to dinner and you're going to go with them and wherever that dinner might be and it ends up $30 30, 40 bucks for dinner. Of course, nothing's cheap.

So then first on per diem, what do you guys think would be the appropriate?

Can I get in real quick? There's a bunch of auditor emails going around on this exact topic about whether or not per diem is just that, you get it for being out, like to your comment about possibly getting paid beforehand, or if you have to turn in receipts.

We have to turn in receipts.

And it's about half and half right now. It looks like half the counties are saying no, they just give it to the person since they have to be out of town. And then the other half say no, they have to turn in receipts. And they're reimbursed up to the per diem amount.

See, I would lean more towards receipts personally. That then... if you are using it, you're using it. If you're not, you don't take that as pocket cash. I would rather see a, and if it's, I don't know if we can, I hear Eric, I hear some of those examples of where you don't get anything and you're there all day and maybe we raise that per diem to 50 bucks or 60 bucks or I don't know what, 75, I don't know what it is. But I definitely don't think it's something where you should be able to use that and use that for Now I've got $150 and I'm going to just eat as light and as cheap as I can so I can put that in my pocket. I don't feel that's correct either. I lean more towards the receipts. Just bring your receipts back and we'll reimburse you up to this amount, which makes more sense to me.

And I know personally from folks that have ran into this that Our employees need to be careful on what exactly they're paying for at dinner. So it will require two separate receipts. That if you're participating in some type of revelry and having an adult beverage, it can't be on the receipt for what you're turning in here. That it needs to be just the food.

Food only.

Yep. Right.

And I guess I'm a little surprised, Janet. A tip would be included in that. I guess I just don't understand.

I think that's in the personnel policy that it states no tip. Oh, okay. All right.

I didn't see that in this.

Which I do feel like is, that's another thing going around on the auditor emails. They put up to, like, 15% or 18% is acceptable.

Yeah. I mean, that makes sense to me. I think my company is 15%. Yeah.

I know we follow the state, you know, as far as, like, calendar and holidays. Mm-hmm. and that's that's the consensus with the auditors because then you have to keep track of receipts and then

Well, you have DoorDash and all of that now, too, and Apple Pay. Yeah.

All right, so per diem amount. I mean, a lot of these are in conferences or in larger cities where food is going to cost generally more. I'm comfortable at $55 or $60. Brian, $55 or $60? I have a preference on...

I mean, 60, it should cover it.

Okay. I'll entertain a motion to, or I'll make the motion to increase the per diem to $60 a day.

Can we do a caveat here? Yes.

I'm doing the amount first. Okay, all right. I just want to do the amount first, and then we'll do the next portion of it. All right, so motion to increase to 60 a day. All right, all those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

All right, are we putting that out? Are we giving them the money ahead of time, before the conference, or are we doing the receipts?

I would make a motion to use receipts to receive your per diem.

I will second that. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion carries. All right, amending the policy for tips up to 15%. Any discussion?

I would make a motion to approve.

All right. I'll second that motion. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Those opposed. Okay. Motion carries. One last thing. Yes.

In this, it talks about credit card use, that no tax, tips, or gratuity can be charged on a credit card, but that's using the county's credit card. And I get that when we go to a conference, the tax for the hotel. But when you go to a restaurant, they're going to tax you. You can't get out of that and say, well, I'm a government entity. I can't get charged sales tax. They're going to tax you on your food. And I look at that tax as the same as the tip. You should pay a tip included in that. So if we're going to use the county's credit card to pay for a meal and get a receipt, this policy says no tax or tips can be charged to the credit card.

In the conference case, it wouldn't be using the credit card to buy the meals because it's receipts for reimbursement. You wouldn't be even, you know what I'm saying? So you wouldn't use the county credit card for meals. That's part of the problem now that needs to stop.

Okay.

So it would be you purchase it on your own. On your own. You turn the receipt in and get the money back.

Okay.

Now, in the case of like the election situation, I think that also needs to be addressed because there does have to be something there with the tip of that. So if we approve the up to 15% here, I feel like that needs to be amended on the credit card piece as well.

Can we use the card when we're buying it for everything? I don't have to pay for that.

No, that would be, and to me, that's where the credit card would come into play. But for travel, for travel and expenses, conferences, things like that, it shouldn't be, We have to use the commissioner's credit cards to purchase the hotel because that's the only way you're going to be able to get tax-exempt status. So we have to do it that way. But for the meals, we're not getting out of that anyway, so it shouldn't be on the credit cards.

Clear as mud?

Well, I want to make sure that we do address that on the credit card policy, though. I agree. The tip should be up to 15%.

Yeah, tip's up to 15%. Questions? Yes.

I'm guessing from your opinion, probably on the gift basket, that you don't want that to be in my room.

That is really bizarre, honestly.

I didn't realize that it would have been a super shock to you, because should they do it?

Like, let's all just assume they are asked to do it. So door prizes that are just given to other people, like names are just drawn out of a hat from everybody that goes to conference?

Yes, you receive a ticket when you register.

Is there a set amount that these gift baskets are supposed to stay under or achieve? No.

I was asking if we could do up to $50 for each.

I know vendors do do it.

Yeah.

Um, I don't, I don't, I don't think that we should as a County be making gift baskets that are given away to individuals, especially individuals that don't work here. I mean, if you're talking about a large conference, uh, for all of the clerks and you know, deputy clerks for the state of Indiana, um, 92 counties with a whole bunch of employees. I don't think that we should be paying for gift baskets to go to other individuals in other counties. Yeah, that one is a shock, Janet. I'm sorry.

It's one of those things that we've had to come up with.

Right. Yeah, that's a lot to ask, and I don't know why. Yeah. why that's a thing, but yeah. All right, other questions? All right, moving on, we have the HWC engineering invoice for the comp plan. All right, this one was for 30, is this 36?

36,000? Yeah. Yeah. I believe so.

Part of it comes from the grant and then part of it comes from the county.

Yes. And we're paying this out of the line and edit? Yes. That's for the comp plan? Yes. All right. I'd entertain a motion to approve this claim for HWC.

What's the breakdown on our portion, their portion? I didn't see that.

I just have a total here, Brian.

I want to say 36 and 32 or 33,000. It was close.

I'm looking at my email.

So the total, I think, for the county, if I'm reading this correctly, Christy, is 62,000. That's the total? total that the county will pay?

I was thinking that was the total for this, this invoice here that needed to go. I wasn't sure if that was in full.

Let me get to it here. Is this the invoice for $69,000?

Yes, that sounds right.

It says... 37.2. Is that our portion or HWC's portion?

Well, HWC is the one that's getting paid.

They're the bill. I'm sorry. Yeah, the OCRA. The OCRA. Right. Oh, up at the top. Okay.

36,000 OCRA, 33,000 Decatur County. Let's start saying we're 69. yeah okay too many numbers floating around there okay all right so 33 000 is our portion is our portion i'll make a motion that we approve hwc's claim i'll second that all those in favor say aye Those opposed? Motion carries. All right, Tom DeBond with Duke Energy.

Good morning.

Good morning, Tom.

Previously, I had submitted a... memorandum of understanding for the ability to use the Decatur County Fairgrounds for staging in an emergency event where we would need to come in and Restore power, repair assets, parties, Duke Energy Indiana, Decatur County Commissioners. We talk about the timing. We talk about compliance with zoning, no hazardous materials, activities, and then any restoration that we would need to perform for any damage that may be done on the facilities inadvertently.

Give us an example, scenario, what you're doing.

Well, just like your street commissioner was talking about the storm that happened over the week. Right. If there were trees down that took out power lines or knocked down poles or we needed to replace substation equipment, things of that nature, we would need one place where we could amass those materials. That would be our gathering point and our staging area, and we would go out and make those repairs. much like Michigan City or Merrillville and others had last week.

I don't see an issue with this, but I want to have our attorneys not here today. I want to have him look at it, and then we can put this on the agenda for discussion and potential approval at our next meeting, Tom.

And I'll ask for, if you could, once your attorney has had the opportunity, if he has suggestions, send those to me, and then I'll get you a document that actually is something that you could take action on.

You want to, can you send me like a word document so I can send it to him? If he wants to make some red lines and whatnot on it, then he can do that and then we can send it back to you? Yes, I will.

Okay. We also want to make sure we lay out an area of that too. You know, we don't want to have line trucks driving over the new asphalt and stuff like that.

I mean, I would envision. East end. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, no, that's fine. If you all would designate an area, we could get our local ops center person on site, meet on site, make sure we understand where that is. It shouldn't be a problem.

Yeah, we can figure that out.

All right, I'll get it to you. Very good. Thank you for your time. Thanks, Tom.

All right, we have an invoice from Green Signs. If you guys recall, it's been a couple meetings ago by now, there was a large donor that wanted to place their logo on the water tank rain bin. Uh, at the new community building, um, we have received the $75,000 donation to that fundraising campaign. I've sent you guys wanted to go with at that point, but the size of it and the location, I didn't have an issue with appropriate. Okay. Um, and so we had a meeting with green signs, um, out on site to go over. the placement, what it would look like, and all of that. And then last week I had received this pay app here for $2,598 for the work and making the sign. It'll also include putting it onto the grain bin water tank. And so we just need approval for that. It will be paid either out of edit if there's funds left there or out of the community foundation since we have the funds there for the project.

That is a vinyl decal. It is vinyl.

It is not going to be screwed in or anything like that.

Not attached permanently? Correct.

I would make a motion to approve the invoice from Green Signs.

I'll second that.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion carries. All right. This one wasn't on here. Foundations for Recovery would like to use the fairgrounds August 29th, I think it was. Oh, okay. Very good. Chris Uli, right? Yes. All right. Very good. Go ahead and tell us a little bit about your organization and then what you want to do.

My name is Chris O'Leary. I'm the Executive Director of Foundations for Recovery. We are a 501c3 founded in 2018 by Matt and Jenny Whipple. We have two houses, one at 1916 and one at 2030 Moscow Road. We have two men's recovery residences. We hold approximately 14 to 16 men at all times. And ever since 2019, am I correct, Brian? Ever since 2019, we've hosted a fireworks show over at Lifeline Wesleyan Church. And Lifeline has graciously allowed us to use their property, and we have since pretty much outgrown it to operate at a safe and efficient capacity. Last year, I believe it was last year we got postponed because of the rain. We we we delayed it a month and so we had it in August and we ended up having a turn out like no other. You know, but with having a turn out like that, you know each year more and more people show up. And it's just not in my opinion. I just I don't feel safe. Being that up close and personal with as many people that are there, you know, because I would not be able to live with myself if there was a. an accident and somebody got hurt or a surrounding house or the or briarwood apartments or or the trailer park if there was an accident over there because of um a firework exploding and i know brian walterman he is uh he's our pyrotechnic guy that that launches everything and we use some safe fireworks you know but still accidents can happen And, you know, sitting down with our board and sitting down with Brian and talking and what we can come up with, you know, because our first thought was Rebecca Park. What would it look like to host fireworks over at Rebecca Park? And after talking to Parks and Rec, that would be a definite no from their board. And so then after talking with Brian, and we all know that the city has fireworks over there, the county has fireworks over there. And we were wondering what that would look like. So we were thinking the last weekend in August or the first weekend in September and after speaking with Bonita over at Purdue Extension Office, the only day that would work this year would be the first weekend in September. And one of the reasons these two dates would really stick with me and would really mean something is because we're wanting to switch it up to move from July. That way we're not competing, but trying to fit our fireworks show in between Waldron and the county. Because if we're going to have a fireworks show and we want people to show up, we can't have them on the same day as either one of them, especially Waldron, you know. And. So what we're thinking is we would like to ask permission to be able to use the fairgrounds and not just to be able to use the fairgrounds if there would be any way we could use the fairgrounds at no cost. And the reason we're asking that is There's a potential that there might be a little bit of money coming in because we do have free will donation buckets setting out. But the fireworks are completely funded by the sponsors for the fireworks. And above and beyond that, we're wanting this to be a community event more than a fundraising event. because September is National Overdose Awareness Month and National Recovery Month. And we've spoke with some people at DMHA in Indianapolis and INARR, which is the Indian National Alliance for Recovery Residences, and a couple other state offices that want to stand behind us if we can make this happen to help support this and to help fund this. And we want to have vendor tables set up, not vendor tables, resource tables set up, We want to invite different recovery residences because it's not all about foundations for recovery. And we want different recovery residences. We want different rehabs, just different resources that can help bring awareness to National Recovery Month and those that are still suffering and those that we've lost to this tragic, tragic epidemic that we've got going on in our nation. Yeah, a recovery day. We want to be able to have a – I've already spoke with two bands and have some live music out there starting on 4 o'clock in the afternoon and have some live music going on out there and have some food trucks out there and just make it a day for our community to come out and to learn about what's going on.

So you're looking at September 5th then?

Yes, which is a Saturday.

And it starts at 4 p.m. then?

4 p.m.

Okay. No, you're, yep.

And Brian, he spoke with, what's his name? Alan Campbell. And he's willing to continue to work with us to inspect everything and not just inspect everything prior that, you know, they soak the ground down to eliminate any potential fires. But they also send a couple of the firemen out with a tanker, and they sit out there on site while everything's going on.

Fairgrounds as a whole, but what, if any, buildings are you guys requesting access to?

Restrooms. Okay. And that's pretty much about it. All right. Electric for... Maybe that food, that food building.

Yep.

The OA building.

Yes. Just in case, you know, the band or something.

Then I spoke with Joe Springmeyer over at Springmeyer Family Insurance. I tried to get a certificate of insurance. He can't get a certificate of insurance until 60 days or less to the event. So July 5th, I would be able to provide you guys with a certificate of insurance. I did bring a copy of the last... So we held a concert... Well, we were going to hold a concert at Rebecca Park this past May, and it got rained out, and we had to hold it at Lifeline. But with that being said, this is the same policy that we hold every year for the fireworks as well, and it's a million-dollar liability insurance. It's through Springmeyer Insurance, but he always pulls it through Markle Insurance Company. Okay. Okay.

Brian Robbins as the park board president they approached the park to use or Chris to use Rebecca Park and that was a hard no or that was a no. What's your reasoning for that? Okay. All right. The money that you generate, that goes to Foundations for Recovery, right? What do you typically generate in revenue in that?

Around $1,000. It's not much.

Okay.

It's not much at all.

Okay.

You know, because over there we would have somebody standing out front at Lifeline with a donation bucket as people pulled in for a free will. Free will. Yeah, and it's usually $700 or $800, you know. And we were selling food, trying to use it as a fundraiser, but it was just too much work.

This sounds like a lot bigger, if you're going to have food trucks and bands, it sounds like a lot bigger event than what you're doing over at Moscow Road.

Yes, I would just like to be geared towards a recovery event. And not just that. It's at the beginning of the month, and that's what the state likes, that it's at the beginning of the month because there's no other recovery events that are starting out the beginning of the month with fireworks show as kind of like a kickoff to national recovery, National Overdose Awareness Month.

One thing I would say is as commissioners here making these decisions, we have to be careful of how we, We already have a 50% discount for a 501c3. My only reluctance would be setting precedent for giving you the, if we did a free donation or free, letting you use it for free, Then we have others that come and say, well, you gave it to them. Why can't we do this? Our event is just as supportive as community event or just, you know, our events, we should have that. So that's my reluctance when we talk about just letting you have it for nothing. I don't know what you guys' opinions are.

The same. It's hard. I mean, everybody's, you know, has a, I think it's a great event. Don't get me wrong. And I, and, but there's, you know, there's lots of, lots of great events that they get put on. And I, I feel the same. It's really hard to just give something, you know, give it for free because you do have to do it for everyone.

Well, beyond that, I mean, if we're talking about food trucks and that many people, food trucks that are hooking into electrical are going to draw a decent amount of electricity. 500 some people, their own generators.

Yeah. Yeah.

Then we have use of facilities for restrooms. You know, we've got to clean them. We've got to take care of them.

I don't know. The farm and home rental base price is $500. That's with the stage. So that's actually the whole building. Right. Which has the restrooms. Which has the restrooms. So, I mean, we don't even have to open the other part of the farm and home building. We just open the restrooms.

Right.

That's available. Which one? The farm and home building? Yes. So that's the one right over by 200.

You know where the restrooms are? Before the community building, where the restrooms, the indoor restrooms were right next to the midway. There's a railing. You walk up the concrete and go in.

The bathroom's split. The green one.

Yeah, that's the farm and home building. And you're saying the regular rate for the entire building is $500. So the 501c3 rate would be $250. That would get you access to the restrooms and that whole inside building where there is a stage.

And so you could maybe have your band right there. I don't know if that's something that... Mm-hmm.

What's, do we have a set rate for the midway?

Because we have, we have.

Midway is $100. I was going to say there's.

You can use the entire midway for $100. Yep. There's asphalt there now. There's, you know, that's a perfect viewing area.

Great spot to have your food trucks and all that.

Yeah. I know I asked for free. I would be doing myself a disservice if I didn't, right? Considering we are a nonprofit. And we're not in the business of generating massive amounts of income, but I'm willing to work with you guys, however you guys are willing to work with us.

Yeah, I think that that's the midway is 50 bucks for a not-for-profit. Farm and home is 250 for a not-for-profit. So you're looking at $300. And where are you setting up the fireworks at?

south end of the midway I see.

So up like where the dumpster's at during the fair back by that that back drive.

My only question with that would be because, you know, when I was looking up the rates, you know, it was $10,000 for the entire fairground. Yes. And it was just like $5,000. That's still way above what we could afford. So I guess my only question is if we were to do the $300, would they still be able to park up top? And what about down towards the cattle barn, where they park out for the fireworks as well? Would that be available for parking?

It sounds like your event would be using the farm and home building and the midway.

Okay.

We can't direct where people are going to park.

Okay. That was my only concern. That was my only concern.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

Good event. All right. Thank you. Thank you.

So we had, you know, Mike has been here a couple times talking about an inclusion baseball diamond. Originally we talked about it at the sports complex, kind of shifted gears to Rebecca Park. At the meeting, we had asked Mike to give us some possible locations, drawings, locations. He came up with three of them. The first one's difficult to see, and it really, it was north of the Pickleball Court, and really wouldn't fit in that area. So the second drawing you see is... the one with the just kind of north and east of the pickleball court, but west of the field. So that's a diagram. When we talked about raising money, Mike was giving us, and Jamie and Daryl were giving us some cost figures somewhere in the ballpark of them raising around $650,000 for that, the second site. The third site, is one of the original sites that Mike had brought to us. Mike and that Eric Schmidt, when they came in, and that was in the field, kind of a triangular field there on Northeast 80 and Central Avenue, that pie-shaped field. So that area, when you look at that, that includes parking, a restroom, a lot of upgrades, and that was in a 1.5 million? 1.5, $1.6 million they would have to raise for that. As we were discussing this in our meeting, they want us to give them a site, an exact location, so they can do some better diagrams and then start their fundraising process. The area, Chris had talked about, In this meeting he talked about some maybe uses for that field and not using pickleball court in that area. So I think we just have to have some discussion. Maybe us get with the parks department and kind of go over this a little more in depth before we make a decision. But I wanted to update you on our meeting, how it went. And I'll let you guys, Brian and Chris, add in on anything that I know I might have missed something. GO AHEAD.

I WAS GOING TO SUGGEST IT.

ONE OBVIOUSLY WASN'T FEASIBLE JUST DUE TO SIZE. My personal opinion, option two was the one to go with. Three, there are future plans for us. There is a lot of space there in that field that we may want to develop in the future. So that, for me, is the reason for two is that it does fit, does allow for that development and parking, restrooms, stuff like that.

So that's all I got to say about that. Option two for me. I don't know about you, Brian.

Yeah, our parks we're meeting tonight, that's on the agenda for tonight.

As I said, these are options. We need to look at all options and then kind of put our heads together. I told Mike that we would try to have a location for him at our next meeting in July, but we'll see.

It's good to be able to visualize it.

Yeah.

It helps, rather than just looking at beacon and trying to figure out if it'll fit or what direction or whatever.

And whatever site we choose, then Eric can go in and do a better diagram, a better layout for us so we can see it in maybe a... And I gave you this one. This is the Joe Nuxall Stadium in Cincinnati. This is kind of like what they would love to see in the third diagram, but it's a cool layout. It's got the miniature golf course. It's got a lot. There's two diamonds in this one, but that gives you some... things to look at.

And just for folks that may be watching or haven't heard about this project, they are planning on raising all of the funds for this.

The Rotary Club is the fundraising.

They're going to do the fundraising for this, yes. But the maintenance does fall on the parks, yes.

And we had that discussion, and I think that's something we need to talk about. In the meeting, I mentioned that to Daryl, Jamie, and Mike that As we do these things and add amenities to our parks department, it adds another burden to our budget for the parks department to take care of these in the long run. The inclusion park that Brendan Bridges put in, great. It's fantastic. It gets used a lot. But there's no way for a funding mechanism for maintenance. And that turf, one of these days we'll have to replace it. So those are the things we need to think about, talk about as we move forward.

Very good. Yeah, so we can wait until the next meeting and then hear back what Park's discussion was that you have tonight. So we can talk about that first meeting in July.

Very good.

Thank you for that. You guys have anything else? Chris, anything? No. Don? Very good. Welcome to your summer. Nothing? want to introduce your new very good Addie how's the planning going for the fair or the Queen contest yeah so wait a minute they're both royalty yes you're right Ripley County indicator County So very exciting, though, right around the corner for the fair. Yes. Awesome. Sheriff, anything else? No, sir. All right. Anything from court services? No. Doug, I skipped over you. Sorry, Doug. OK.

I'll put my rattle on. So GIS, .

Leanne, communications?

It was $40 for a whole day and $20 for a half, like the travel day.

I didn't see that anywhere. Was that in the case?

Does that make your total amounts any different? Personally, I like the agenda this way.

Do we need to amend it for a half-day rate as well? Make it $30 for a half-day? I think that makes sense.

Is that already in the minutes?

It's $40 for a whole, $20 for a half. That's how they did it when they changed it.

I'll make that motion. second that all those in favor say aye aye those opposed okay so we just need to get some of this updated and then pushed out to everybody thank you for that Matthew how's the animal shelter going But how are the animals doing, the cats that came down? They're doing all right. We got some medicine from . Are you guys still shut to accepting cats at this point? Are you still accepting dogs right now? Do you think by the end of the week you're going to be open to accepting cats or is that? Tuesday next week. Okay, very good. Tuesday next week they'll be open for cats. Very good. Brian, anything?

Could you please step to the mic?

Now, I wanted to commend both the assessors and the auditor's office. It was tax abatement time this last month and a half or so, so Lauren, her team, Christine, everybody, and Doreen, I DID A GREAT JOB. AT THE STATE, AT THE CITY, WE'RE REFINING OUR TAX ABATEMENT GUIDELINES. I KNOW THERE'S BEEN INTEREST FROM THE COUNTY COUNCIL TO IMPLEMENT SOMETHING LIKE THAT HERE ON THE COUNTY LEVEL, KIND OF AN OBJECTIVE SCORING MEANS FOR ABATEMENT. SO WE'LL WORK WITH YOU GUYS ON THAT. TALKING ABOUT CONFERENCES, WENT TO A CONFERENCE IN NEW ORLEANS, AND AS I SAT IN THE BACK EATING MY BALONI AND CHEESE SANDWICH, JUST A COUPLE THINGS. In the past, it was labor force and quality of life were the main points. Now, due to the volatility and the unknowns in the economy, it's speed to market. If you have a site and you can get it permitted and everything, you're pretty much golden. People want to move fast because they don't know what's happening around the corner. So that seems to be big. The other talk was the AI, using AI to evaluate communities. And because of that, communities need to know where AI gets its information. It scans all recent trends, recent reports, that kind of thing, as well as social media. So be mindful when we design our websites and such. Make it AI applicable as far as how it's going to read your website. They went into detail on that. Another big thing is THE QUOTE WAS AI WON'T REPLACE PEOPLE, BUT PEOPLE WITH AI WILL REPLACE PEOPLE WITHOUT AI. AI IS GOING TO BE A TOOL. IT'S NOT GOING TO BE THE END ALL BE ALL. BUT THAT ALSO MEANS THE COMMUNITIES AND WORKPLACES NEED TO BE UPDATED ON EDUCATION ON HOW TO USE IT PROPERLY. LASTLY, READY WITH READY ONE, WE'RE CLOSING OUT THE PROJECTS. READY TWO, WE'RE RUNNING WELL ABOVE EVERYBODY ELSE IN THE STATE. I THINK IT WAS THE Of all Ready 2 distributions, our region makes up 25% of everything. So Doug's idea was to concentrate on some of the incorporated towns, which I think is a good one. And so we'd be able to focus on some of those. And then I will say that more and more talk has been of Ready 3 coming. It's been a request from a lot of elected officials.

So that was just a struggle as well. You know, I did talk to Charlie, and I knew he was on it, so that was good. I wanted to thank Miranda, because she pretty much had to take over, like, trying to do some of the boxes that were all wet and a lot of other things that we had in our case.

We have our budget session right after this meeting at 9.30. But one of us I'm sure can stop by. Yep. It's not going anywhere. I realized I hadn't hit this earlier. I have a federal excise tax ultimate purchaser certificate that was put up here.

Yes.

I had never seen it before. Not sure what it is exactly.

It says name of company or dealer, Walters Tire Center. I'm not sure.

So my limited... Knowledge is there is a tire tax. So I'm wondering like that Walters tire pays and probably charges. So I'm wondering if that's what this is to be exempt from that because we are government.

yes it just showed up on friday so that's that's yeah i i don't i mean reading through this um there's sure i i need to know something else before i fix my signature okay i just knew i didn't know what it was but it didn't know if you guys did or not okay i was reading through it here just a second ago they do the uh what's like a state bid or whatever on tires maybe that's part of that

I think even like with you guys, with the governmental estate bid on whatever, tires, Tim, you know what I'm talking about? I think that's part of that, I believe, but I don't. Again, I would want more information.

I'll reach out.

Okay. Very good. If there's nothing else, I'll entertain a motion to recess. Yes, sir.

It was Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

But that said...

There's a residence back there. There's a house back there as well, so that road can't be shut.

The road cannot be shut, period. That's why I didn't know during the shoot if it could be stopped. Yeah, and the highway department gets called, and it's frequent. And also the sheriff's department, other entities all fuel back at the highway department. So there's a lot of traffic down that road.

So it's Decatur County property that is leased to the power of the past. Yep. And so they have a lease for one acre where the building is at, and then they have a lease for the remainder of the ground over there for their show, and then also for the tillable acreage.

Yep.