County Council - Regular Meeting

All right, make sure your mics are on and we are ready. Really? Yep. Go for it. Good morning, people. Welcome, council. Please make sure your mics are on. I get interrupted before I get started. I know. Hey,

good morning people. Welcome to the February 11th Cal County Council. First off, I want to remind some of you um Friday, you're two days away from the witches day, Friday the 13th. So, and all you guys who get in trouble, Valentine's Day is the next day, Saturday. So, do not forget Valentine's Day next. And then next, a week from today is Ash Wednesday. All you religious people and remember two 21826 is recon makeup days for all you guys who dropped your girlfriends over Christmas and Valentine so you didn't have to buy gifts. So anyway, we got that out of the way. Bob, you can open up a prayer.

Father God, we uh thank you for another day of life, another day to serve. I pray for each one of these uh council people that um you would give us uh wisdom, discernment, and help us to serve the taxpayers of the county the best we can is today in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Uh please stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty, justice for all. [clears throat]

Well, uh, we'll start with the additions. Uh, it looks like we've got two here. Uh, and due to the fact I'm not a very good reader, I'm going to let Susan help me out here. So, I'm going to turn it over to her. Okay. Well, I'm not going to read these, so we just need to know if there's any corrections. If not, they would need a Oh, wait a minute. I did miss the meeting. Okay, let's back up. As a new president, without knowing what it is, I know how Vance feels when he's trying to deal with Trump, but we have to has everybody um looked at the minutes and is there any corrections for January 7th? For January 7th, I move to approve.

Second. I got a motion and a second. All in favor say I. I have to roll call. I have to do roll call because uh somebody on the TV. [laughter] All right. So, Chris Craft, yes. Proer, yes. Demsky, yes. Bob, yes. Bill, yes. Rick, I saw you. I read your lips. We just can't hear you. Thank you. Well, thank God once. Okay. So, those are done.

All right. Now, can I go to additions? Yes. Okay. So, the first additional is for probation um addiction treatment court. It is for $2,300. This is the grant award that they receive from drug-free decalb and it pays for their drug screens. The pricing is anywhere between 1177 and 1339 per test. And um it's not something that is generally included in the budget uh because these aren't awarded until the year end. So we wouldn't know the amounts. So they were awarded the 2300 and they need to put this in their account so they can pay invoices.

Move to approve. I'll second. We have a motion second. Is there any comments from um the council or the public? Brian, do you want to say anything? You sure? Here's your chance to ridicule me. And [laughter] okay, no other comments. Uh, take a roll call. Okay. Chris, yes. Proer, yes. Demsky, yes. Bob, yes. Bill, yes. Rick, yes.

Okay. The second one is for um from the auditor's office. This is for the Okra sewer um grants money that was awarded which is $750,000. And um so this is just simply because I didn't put it in the budget when we were doing budgets last year. And it's putting the money in the accounts so that I can pay the invoices as they come in and then we get reimbursed. Do I have a motion? I'll make the motion to approve. I'll second.

We have a motion and second. Uh any comments from the council? Robert Kraft's on. You have anything to add? Anything from the public? Well, we'll take the roll call vote. All right. Chris, yes. Proer? Yes. Zky? Yes. Bob? Yes. Bill? Yes. Rick? Yes. That's all the additions we had, right? Yep. Okay, we'll move on to the uh transfers. Um what do we Let me see here. I'll just turn it over to you. You can explain it better than I can.

The first transfer has multiple. Um so first I assuming that you guys are going to do all at once. Is that all right with everybody if we did it all at once? Such department

for the department. Okay. So, at council or budget time, council approved 200,000 200,000 from the general fund for the health department due to the decrease in their HFI funding. Um, so we budgeted that. Now, they are transferring it into all of those different contract amounts that are on the spreadsheet for um Children's First Center, St. Martins, Northeastern Center, Soil and Water Conservation, Hoosiers Feeding the Hungry, Purdue University, Garrett Ker Butler School, Drug-Free Noble County, YMCA, Kelp County, Iris Iris Family Support Center, and the Jam Center. And those are all broken down that equal the full 200,000. So nothing more than what you already did, just putting them in the account so that she can pay the contract fees.

Okay. Do I have a motion for approval? I'll make a motion. Do I have a second? I'll second. I have a motion in a second. Any discussion on the council? I'm going to abstain from this vote. And that's because you're a YMCA. Any uh discussion from the uh public? If none, roll call, please. Okay. Um Chris, yes. Presser, yes.

Demsky. Um Bill, yes. And Ring, yes.

Okay. Then the second one is from it and okay if you remember during budget time there was discussion on the community corrections software maintenance amount of 30,504 that was paid by community corrections for a few years prior to that it was always paid by IT and it was discussed and you guys all agreed that we are going to take that back and put it all into the IT budget. So when in budget time then we had left it in one of the personal services accounts because that is where the extra money was that was advertised for wages. Um so now this is just transferring it from the account that it was in approved at budget time into the software maintenance account for their bills.

Okay. Do I have a motion to approve this? I'll second. Got a motion and a second. Uh, any discussion from the council?

I have a question. This was moved over because the grant fund was less, wasn't it? Or is this agreement that we made because we thought it should be in? If I recall, I believe that it was kind of both because they did they didn't get everything that they had requested for their grant funds and then it was also agreed that it should be in the IT budget just like um commissioners used to pay a tiny portion of phone bills, but we put that all in it because it's the same fund um and it's IT expense. So we just kind of consolidate them so that we know what is actually it expenses.

You're you're lazy. Bob Crafts trying to take all the That was my fault. Any anyway? Okay. Any uh discussion from the public? If not, roll call, please. Okay. Um Chris, yes. Presser, yes. Demsky, yes. Bob, yes. Bill, yes. Rick. Okay. That that was all the the transfers, right? That that we That was all the approval transfers. Yes.

Uh excuse me. Next is on the approval of the 2025 county receipt expenditures and total comprehensive. Right. Yep. So every year I have to present and advertise all of our receipts and expenditures for the prior year and all of our wages. So commissioners had um approved this at their February 2nd meeting. So now it is for you guys to approve that it was done that it was done. Is that what you said? I provided it to you.

Okay. Uh, I do have a motion to accept or approve the the county 2025 county receipts plus. Yeah, I'll move to Do I have a second? Second. Is there any discussion among the county council? Take a roll call vote, please. Chris, yes. Presser, yes. Demsky, yes. Bob, yes. Bill, yes. Greg, yes.

Okay, as we move on, acknowledgement of the annual reports from emergency management, public defense, DCCC, and corner that on our thing here. So, yeah. So I had provided the annual reports that they sent to everyone and we generally do you can do them all together. We generally do a motion to acknowledge that you guys did receive them. That's all we're doing is acknowledging that we saw them, right? Yep. Okay. So I have a motion that that we saw the reports.

I'll make that motion. I'll second. We have a motion and Second. Any other comments from the council? Over to you. Roll call. Okay. Um Chris, yes. Yes. Demsky, yes. Bob, yes. Bill, yes. Rick,

all right. And next thing is our Sunny Metal Committee appointment. I've talked to uh Bob Craft Dave Yard over this appointment and uh since he was on I'm going to appoint him to represent the council at the at the committee for the Sunny Meadows. Is that all right with you? Yeah. Council asked you have something to say, Bill?

Yeah. on that uh committee for Sunny Metals that is uh moving forward with what we're going to do with Sunny Metals and Kellen had originally nominated Chris Craft to that committee but found out that the council had to do that. So I would like to see Chris Craft included on that committee. He has demolition experience. Yeah, I thought my opinion is I think Bob, he's had the experience of working out there and he knows what the building's like and I'm going to for me I'm going to stick with Bob unless unless the council want to change that. But that's what I'm going to point

just talk through just a little bit about what is what what's the goal going forward with Sunny Meadows? Like what are we looking at? Why is there a committee going forward? What's that committee about?

What it would be about? It'd be recommendation to the council and to the commissioners and what would would happen with that facility, whether we would sell it or or uh tear it down. Basically, it's decision and there's some other options actually on the table, but we'd have to look into that. We're going to have a gentleman come in and give us some guidelines on what can be done with it, what the financing could be available to uh do something with that facility without any cost to the county. So, it's it's going to involve more than just tear it down or keep it. How many people are on this? Seven. Seven.

Seven, including myself. What's that what's the makeup of I guess that committee? The makeup. The makeup. I mean where like the seven people that are on there where might be councilman commissioner uh Theresa Cindy Fogong are residents oh

taxpayers Chuck Knox and Larry Lane our supervisor be on that committee. Anybody else have anything else to say? I do like the idea of having Chris on there if possible. He's been on there helping us through the the ending of it. I like the idea of Chris being on there just because of his experience with demo understanding what I don't know if that would help with that as well.

Building. Okay. I'll do whatever anybody ask me. No. [laughter] Okay. Be careful. Then reason. Well, unless you guys going to vote over me, I'm going to still stay with Bob and go with that wave because I think he's he has worked out there and he knows what the buildings look like and everything. Nothing against Chris, but I think he has he's been out in the buildings. He knows what it is and everything.

I would like to Mr. President, this is totally different concept. Yeah, Bob Bob has been much very much involved in the activities out there, but going forth this is something different and and just because it has been doesn't mean that it should be in my mind, but it's up to the council. I think if council has a vote, then it that would be upon us to who we nominate and we would want on the committee. I don't want to feel like we're being torn by other people. But we're it's causing an issue with council. I mean, I just I think it's somebody that we should nominate and on that committee and I don't I don't care who it is. If somebody has the experience, then so be it. I agree.

I just don't think we need to have a division.

Let's let's just table this until after our our break. I'm going to have to have a break sometime. And then I want to disc I want to talk to both of you and and I want your your opinion and everything if I'm going to have change my mind. If not, I think I will have a vote for the as council. Just I just want to make sure we're making the right decision because I understand this is representative of I think as a brand new council who's only had his second meeting, it would be more appropriate to have someone who has the long-term council experience to be honest. Okay, let's uh let's table this for a little bit so I can talk to both of you. I understand both sides of the point and and I we'll just let it go until later in the meeting. Okay, that fair to you. Chris, you all right with that?

I'm good. Um

Okay. What's our next deal? Wateroo Grant Township Library Board appointment. Yes. So, the library had been looking for a replacement for one of their open board seats and it has been recommended by the director Jenny Books to have the council appoint Deborah von Bergen for the term ending December of 31st of 2029. This would be a full fouryear term. Jenny, do you have any comments before we move on?

Yeah. Come up there and state your name. What did you say? I didn't catch it. [laughter] I do. I really need to say that. Oh I don't I question

is she she [snorts] is from Wateroo or Grant Township or whatever in there. Okay. Okay. [laughter] I'm all choked up. I was hoping she had to repeat it again. Okay. Do I have a motion to approve this nomination for the Waterlue Grant Township Board? I'll make the motion. I have a motion. I have a motion. A second. Any other comments from the council? Okay. Um, roll call, please. Um, Chris, yes. Passer, yes. Demsky, yes. Bob, yes. Bill, yes. Rick,

yes. Thank you.

Okay, moving on down. We're at the um encumbrance 2025 and 27 26 auditions. Susan, um yes. So after we did the original encumbrances, there were um four items. Okay. The first one had to do with highway that um he just simply had forgotten to bring over the engineering for bridge 503. um from what was budgeted last year into this year. So that's the first one. And then the other three all have to do with um grants and they either got processed right after the end of the year that we weren't aware of until we went through that first um pay or claims processing date. So those the 220 57413 and 204 those are so that we make sure that they're they hit the reports and funding correctly for their grants.

Okay. Do I hear how do I put put this motion to encumber? Is that what I want? Cumber 2025 and 2026 budget. I'll make the motion. I'll second. I have a motion. Second. Any other comments from the council? Okay. Roll call, lady. Chris, yes. Proser, yes. Demsky, yes. Cob, yes. Bill, yes. Rick, yes. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I did see him come in, didn't I?

Yep. Okay. The airport update report. Randy Fox, you're on.

Mostly mostly on. Yeah. Um the uh we had our reorganization meeting in January. Uh we elected the same slate of uh officers that we've had for the last eight years, I guess. Um, I'll be serving as secretary, but I'll be continuing to do these reports until somebody tells me to stop. Um, we did take delivery of the uh new multi-function snow removal machine. Um, last month, right after the board meeting, we went out and if you want to feel small, please come out and take a look at this machine. Um, I'm going to try to get some pictures of this week from Friday at the facility and put somebody next to it for scale. But this thing is huge. Uh, 24 foot broom that is adjustable for angle. It's got a 22 foot blade on the front with two foot wings on the side that can be adjusted to carry snow out to where it needs to be. Um the old broom is still functional be used as a backup and we've got that new fence tractor that again has a 20ft blade on it. Um also there's a bobcat a tracked Bobcat with a I believe it's a 10ft blade that they use for snow removal in and around the uh area. Uh Russ reported that the uh the broom worked well. Um, it it's like being in the Starship Enterprise when you get in the seat. There's controls all around uh on the vent tractor. It's dual direction. You actually turn the whole operator's seat around and it's hydraulic, so it doesn't matter whether it's going frontwards or backwards, but you can move stuff. And then uh they

also showed us that the guys fabricated a liquid uh dispenser that'll do a 20 foot wide uh snow deicing liquid. And uh they built this on a small trailer that they can tip up, take the Bobcat and and load a 500 or 250gallon container on, wire it up, put it on the back of the tractor and go. And they can spread the icing liquid as well. So, all of that happened this year. This last couple weeks has been quite a surprise. Uh, again, Russ reported that the uh airport, our runway was cleared as much as they could and got it down to bare pavement and that we actually had some cancellations, not because we were closed, but because areas around us were closed. So, we're pretty happy with the uh with the equipment. We again, we anticipate if we get the kind of traffic that we're going to get or anticipate that this new runway and structures will give us over the next couple years that this is going to be a a vital piece of equipment to keep the airport running because we're anticipating more and more traffic.

When you say surprise, we weren't expecting that until this summer, right? That piece of equipment,

right? Yep. So, it's uh but like I say, I think the the floor of the cab is right about my chin um when you start climbing up and uh the the cab is actually well above the main floor, but it's huge. Dual diesel motors to run this thing, one for the broom and one to actually make it move. So, it's it's quite the piece of equipment and uh the guys said it functioned exquisitly. So, happy with it. And uh also just for the sake of conversation, I may have said this last month, but we had 14,887 operations either coming in or out of the airport um for the uh 2025 comes down to about 40 operations a day average if you do the whole 365. We were closed for a number of weeks for um repairs and and uh construction. So, we're looking at probably 50 or 60 operations a day out of our what we everybody considered our small little airport that is again I think the largest general aviation runway in the state of Indiana right now.

That's going to kind of hurt you when uh you shut down for six weeks there to repave it, ain't it? Pardon? Ain't that kind of going to uh mess up your operations when you close down for six weeks and here to repave it? Right. We had this we had this a year and a half ago. We had to shut down for two weeks. Yeah.

I believe uh we gave everybody notice. Um they a lot of airplanes moved you know and some of the airplanes are just pleasure craft. They don't really operate in and out on a regular basis. Uh some of them could stay in the hangers. Um a bunch of them will move. We gave them abatements on rental when they couldn't use the runway for those people that did want to uh move to somewhere else. So they weren't paying rent two places, which is unkind. But when this thing is done, uh we're going to have the worldass runway for operations out of our airport. And we have to um I saw a video or a picture. Uh one of the jets came in and everybody knows what the engine reversers are. There's little buckets that come off the back of the motor and they actually run the thrust forward so they can stop. They don't have to stand on their brakes and smoke the tires and all that stuff. As they were stopping, it was blowing chunks of of the runway surface up onto the wings. Yeah. which again, you put a stone through a jet engine and they don't do well. They don't last long. And so this and and this is with Russ and Jason doing constant maintenance on the runway. So it needs to be resurfaced. It needs to be repaired. And once that's done, I think the last time this thing was actually had heavy duty work on it was like 25 years ago. and the guys have been on it as much as two people can or three people with the maintenance guy, but it's uh it's a vital piece and if we're expecting jet traffic, we can't have stones blown up on the back of the wings. Can't happen.

Any questions? Any other questions, council? All right. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. We uh appreciate you coming in. Okay. What's next on our just agenda? Well, the compreh the presentation won't be until 9:30 because that's when we scheduled it. So, um we can either keep going down the list or if you want your break or you want to do it.

What's the wishes of the council? You want to keep moving on or someone needs to Okay. So, we don't have to listen to Chris for another half an hour. That's good. No, we're fine. We're fine. Okay. Uh, what are we looking at? Oh,

so we have a salary and hourly wage ordinance amendment number 2026 OCC-3. And that is um just correcting the error for the academy trained road officer is they actually make the 2839 not um the 2408 as that category is. And so when I did this before I mistakenly put the category amount and not the for that position only. So it's just a clerical error, right?

Basically what it is, but it's an ordinance. So we have to do first reading then wave it and then second. Okay. Do I have a motion for first reading on the 2020 6 county salary and wage or amendment number 2026ccc3? Make the motion. We got a motion and second. Is there any questions from the councilman? Yeah. So, this is for all the road officers. Oh, this is for um when they have part-time um academy trained road deputies that are part.

It's not Yeah, it's not a huge amount that's going to impact our projections for our financial projections for the year. It's going to be correct. Any other questions? Um, roll call vote, please. Chris, yes. Presser Demsky, yes. Bob, yes. Bill, yes. Rick, okay, I need a motion to suspend the rules. I have a motion to suspend the rules. We have a motion and a second to spend a rule. Roll call vote, please. Chris, yes. Professor Demsky, yes.

Bill, yes. Yeah. Okay, that's back to me, right? Yep. For second and third. I need a motion for the second and third reading of the ordinance number 2026-0cc-3. I have a motion. I got a Motion and second. Uh, roll call, please. Chris, yes. Bob, yes. Bill, yes. Rick, yes.

Okay. Next is the council commissioners, right? Yep.

Bill, are you ready or do you want to wait? Okay, back again with another uh committee appointment request. And what this involves is a uh a committee to uh an advisory committee on health insurance policy that will be coming up shortly. And what D has recommended, Dy Miller has recommended an advisory committee to meet quarterly with the the Apex with Apex does our health health insurance and to just get information as to where we're at, how this is moving forward and what we do need to do with the next uh enrollment of the health insurance plan. U we had a couple recommendations our last uh uh commissioner meeting. Dylan Dway had recommended a joint council and commissioners public meeting. Uh there was some D expressed some problems with that being a public meeting on kind of uh what can you bring up as far as personal uh health situations. So it would probably have to be a closed door executive session. I had recommended a little bit different option. I recommended one one council member, one commissioner, HR, one employee, and one citizen taxpayer. And that taxpayer probably be somebody that provides health insurance for their small business or larger business, whichever the case might be. to bring some more

perspective to uh what we might offer our employees. It's kind of a uh a split thing is we did we didn't do a vote on it. We left it kind of to the council that the council might like to do and then we will follow up with those with those two options. that representative that taxpayer representative that maybe represents the insurance industry would we have them not be a potential vendor that we would buy from? Yes. Yeah. Be somebody Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. It would not be a vendor. It' be a a business person in the community that has to furnish healthcare for his employees.

Any questions? I'd like to throw one more in here. one that me and you want to go ahead Amy go ahead discussed it

we thought maybe I'm not in favor of an outside person coming in I'll say that right up front I think it should be within county but we thought maybe you should have the HR told me so an auditor auditor uh commissioner two councilman and one other person and I and and I don't care if it's one councilman two or two, but we want to council on there that does take the health insurance. Then I thought as the last person, we should have a another employee of Decal County who has health insurance and that's was my recommendation I was I'm looking forward to. I mean, that's what I'm throwing out there.

I guess I said that right. Yeah, you did. And I I think um thinking about it, I think the only place where I would disagree with you would be I don't think we should have every single person on that committee who is taking the current insurance policy from the county. I think that could lend itself to some scrutiny of oh well they're all getting it so they're making recommendations that most benefit themselves. So I think we should use some caution there just to be sure that that doesn't wrong. Maybe waited. I was seven person four that don't take it maybe something to that in the end I think the committee will of course

share experience

yeah I think the committee I think the purpose of it would be to make recommendations two or three different recommendations and then let the council decide. I do like the idea of a committee over um an additional four meetings a year for the council um because I do think the the one of the benefits of having um the insurance company or the insurance plan being paid by the county is that we have additional information about how it's being used and that can't always be discussed and lends itself to helping in that way. previous time there was a committee with the commissioners and council and employees. Uh that was back when Don Broad and Jackie were commissioners uh because the committee was Jackie Rowan myself from council the auditor and a county employee and that worked it worked fairly well. There was a lot discussion on the entire healthare plan when that was taking place and things have been past few years. I think it would be good to have an odd number of people on the committee versus an even number. And I don't know open to having whether that's the auditor's office or I don't know if they want one more thing added to their plate. Um but When daddy sent that out, I originally said that I wouldn't do it, but I do need to do it because it is going to be affecting our office. So,

yeah. Yeah. I mean, I I do see right one of us, right? You I think would be beneficial. I don't know if we need one or two on the council. I don't know that that matters. Yeah. Five to seven. Five or seven. And Bill, just to clarify for public, I we had a significant increase we were facing last year which caused us to with vendors and it just the the trend is significant increases every year. So we're trying to address that, figure out

different better whatever kind of ways we can to address that increase. It was significant. They're not normal. I mean we can handle single digits, but we're talking double digits probably percentages,

right? Probably haven't gotten a figure on that yet or an estimate or a guess, but it'll probably be another big jump and we got to figure out a way to uh get past that and reduce that. And I think that we need a cross-section of representation on this committee and not just people that are going to benefit from the health plan, but people that have to pay for this health plan. And so I think somebody needs to be a citizen taxpayer on this committee because they're paying the bill. And I heard the comment, well, everybody pays taxes, but not everybody gets advantage gets benefit from the taxes they pay as far as when it comes to healthare. So, I think they should be included. Somebody from the general public, if nothing else, somebody has a clue, of course, what's going on with with healthcare insurance, and that would be somebody that has to provide it.

How do you select someone that you're not showing that you're biased to someone? How do you select someone that you show that you're not biased to someone? How do you select anybody from the employees that isn't biased? Well, that's true. But I mean, you that will come that will come from selecting someone outside the Why would somebody be biased if they're on an outsider providing insurance? What do you mean by bias? Well, bias probably ain't the right word to use, but you know, you have other people complain, why wasn't I put on this compared to you on the public? So, I don't I think it should be an internal deal. We should take care of it then present it.

Well, in that case, why don't we just forget about the committee and just have the commissioners do the job they're supposed to do? That's what we've done over the past, haven't we? We've done all the path. Well, I I I appreciate you bringing it to me. The only thing I disagree with is the having a a person from the public there. I think my issue is I and I don't know. I mean, I'll live with it. I mean it's not I'm not going to argue with you over that small point but I don't think I should think it should be somewhat everything in house but that's you're the you guys got make choice. I'm offering you know what my what I said I thought was right and you have your opinion too right?

I do have a question about that and maybe that would be from HR Scotty. Would there be an issue with bringing someone outside of county government into a committee meeting? Would there be some type of HIPPO laws that would be potentially violated or okay just saying no? So make sure we were covered in that way because that's you talk about insurance, you're talking about HIPPA. I wanted to make sure so that wouldn't be an issue. clarify. You're you're not saying a random person. You're saying a provider or somebody from the insurance industry that has expertise.

Yeah. I'm not saying to go out on the street and just pull somebody off the curve. you know, somebody that's has some experience, somebody that has to has provider or are providing insurance to their employees and they might they're going to have a they're going to have a good idea, you know, and bring some different ideas maybe than we have internally or even a insurance provider themselves that we're not going to buy from would be good because they possib people are attacking this, right? It's a big problem. Yeah. Across the industry. How about opposed to the idea?

I have one more question and we might you might not know because we haven't gotten that far. Will that person like will you guys like specifically like go handpick somebody or are you going to have a few like send you why they think they should be part of it just so everybody understands? quite understand the question. Um like outside, yeah, the outside person like will you and the other commissioners like will you specifically go okay I want this person or will you like maybe send it out to like five and have them send their reasons why they think

I'd say send it out to five and see what the response is and then the commissioners can decide on which one. Yes, that that makes sense. So what do we need to do to kind of move this forward? How do we Mr. President? Well, this is a commissioner's committee because it sources human resources. So I think he's asking you for an appointment correct to the committee

basically. Yes. And probably well on a verification an approval of the committee makeup of the of the makeup of the committee. Okay. Whether it's the first option or the second option. If it's the second option, obviously we'd like an appointment of that particular council person. Okay. Name your first option. Okay. Does the council act do they need to approve the makeup? I think that's a commission. I think that's your guys.

That's your decision, Bill. It'd be informal if they approved it. I mean, you wouldn't have to be bound by it, but uh if you want their input on that, you're certainly entitled to it. So, I I think difficult to have the entire commissioner, council there without making that thing.

I agree. And that was a glitch with that. So, yeah, I'd still like to go with the option two and then appoint a council member and and give us some guidance on who the uh the uh public person would be from the public. So maybe we need to you guys need to appoint somebody from the council to be on that and then maybe if you guys have a suggestion of somebody maybe you can email Bill of hey this might be a good person to reach out to for the outside person and then Bill can take it to the others. Perfect. Does that work? Y

I don't I don't have an individual in mind, but I like the idea of somebody from the insurance industry or somebody that handles it for a larger company that has three, four, 500 employees. And if there's a I'm sure there's an HR person or somewhere in those companies that has a deal primarily with the insurance, that kind of a person would be very helpful for us. they will have for those for-profit entities gone through and that was always my my idea or want my want yeah my suggestion.

Okay. Uh yeah do let's just do it the easy way. Uh is there anyone on this council like to be on this discuss that? Yeah I I would be interested in anybody else. So we don't have no She she does not Let's get this out. You do not use the county. Correct. I If the idea was to have [clears throat] if everybody on the committee was supposed to have have the insurance, then I would not work because I do not. But if if you want the makeup to be a mix of people who do and don't,

then uh who is who's the commission? Are you the commissioner heading this? Yes. Do you take do you take the insurance? No. They have two then then HR and auditor would we daddy? You have our Yeah, we both have. So you got two to two and what was the So no one wants it. I I I have no issue with appointing Amy if you everyone's beneficial to the committee and information for all and if something goes wrong we know we have someone to blame it always go wrong

that's fine I I will to me that's fine with me if Amy wants to do it because I I I have nothing in I mean I don't take the insurance and and it really my insurance is uh crop insurance and building insurance. So, I don't have I wouldn't be no good for health insurance. So, you put someone by I if that's all right with everybody here. I'll just let Amy take You got Amy. You're stuck with her. So, do you want a vote or a consensus? You want consensus? Anybody disagree? Let me know. So, it's a consensus.

I'm not going to force someone who don't have don't have time and don't do it to it. So, and Amy's one with a lot of time, I hear. Not sure about that. Okay. Anything else? That's it. All I had unless you have something. My only other comment on that is I like not having the committee made up of too many, you know, a majority of people that have the insurance, but I would certainly like to say that we ought to have employees and, you know, I'm a councilman that takes it. Um, have an input session or something to give information or maybe we can even write an email, right? I mean, I have opinions from what we switched from before to this year. had a lot a lot of problems this year. A lot of medical issues.

Yeah. No, that's great. I think it's a good idea to open that up. There's some feedback.

Maybe an open thing to get all the employees to have input on yes or this is really good what we got or this has been terrible. The only other comment I have is at the next um February 17th commissioner meeting um there is going to be a lengthy insurance discussion if anybody wants to attend, watch, whatever. I just I'm not advertising it as a council commissioner. It's only a commissioner meeting. So if a quorum of you show up, you will not be able to speak. If that makes sense. four of us shows up, Amy won't be able to talk.

And if you all know that you are coming, then I can read advertise, but I'm just letting you know that that will be the initial. I don't know what they're talking about, but it's going to be a long one. Does anybody else plan to go? I might go. I'm looking at my calendar. I will not be there. Yeah, I'll try to be obviously you should be there. Yeah, either in person or two of us and then you can add some comments if you need to to get them thinking the way you want them to. So, thank you Amy for volunteering your time. Absolutely.

Are we anything else, Bill? That's it. That's all I got. Promise. Oh, never promise. Okay. Uh, okay. Are we time for them? Well, we got five minutes. Do you want to take a quick break? Yeah, let's take a quick break. Get everyone out. Then we'll get back and we'll have Chris's presentation.

You gonna make music? All right, let's call this back to the order. Chris going to put a presentation on or someone is under Chris's guidance turn on and so up to you Chris.

Good. Hi. Um so the plan commission um has been working on the comprehensive plan decal 20 240 um over the last year and two months. Um working with our partners at HWC. Um Ally is here in person. Jen and Rachel are up on the screen there. Um and we'll be doing just a brief presentation on um what's within the comprehensive plan, kind of how we've um come to this final step. Um February 18th will be the plan commission's recommendation to the uh county commissioners and then the county commissioner meeting um on March 2nd to hopefully adopt uh what we have here. So, um, council does not need to vote on this. Um, it's just a thank you to providing the funds to, uh, have this rewrite. Um, it was important from what we've had in the past with the DAB, uh, comprehensive plan from 2017. Um, so this rewrite was is very important to the future and um, planning of Decal County. So, I just wanted to bring it to you so you could take a look at it, get to um at least see and meet the staff that have worked on this um over the last year with HWC. But um with that, I will hand it over to Rachel and Jen. They're up on the screen. Um you do have the presentation. I printed it out. Um but also, they will be having it up on the screen. So, I did text them that they need to speak loud because the sound kind of isn't the greatest up there, but um so yeah, but we'll have any questions you have after this as well. So, thank you.

Excellent. Thank you so much, Chris. And thank you all for having us this morning. Um I did tell Chris if you can't hear us send us a quick text and we'll try to speak up louder. Um, like Chris said, uh, we're here forformational purposes. We're going to, you know, review the the comprehensive plan with you. Um, and we're happy to answer any questions that you may have about it. Uh, I would say it's really kind of a neat thing to be presenting to a county council. Um, you know, usually we're going this before the plan commission and the county commissioners. So, you know, I would say thank you to Chris for making body was involved in it to know what's going on and uh again for thoseformational purposes. So we'll kick off uh you know our presentation. So you know obviously we're here for the uh comprehensive plan. Um then if you can go ahead and skip to the next slide. Uh so this is our planning team. We're not to work with Chris and his team on the comprehensive plan. So my name is Rachel Christensen. I'm the planning studio lead. Um I've worked with HWC for a little almost five years now. And then I've got Jen Barlay who's been the front project manager on this project. And Reese Slimmer is a planner that works on this. And then Alli is in the crowd. Maybe she can give a little wave in. So Ally is our client and does a wonderful job of working with our communities in the northern part of Indiana. Next slide, please. All right. So, what is a county comprehensive plan? And I am not sure if anyone in the room has worked on a county or a comprehensive plan before, maybe besides Chris, because like I said, we we it's not usual that we get

to present in front of a county council. Um, a comprehensive plan is a document that helps uh guide the development and long-term community investment. So, this is Typically we focus on land use. That is one of the required elements that we have to have in a comprehensive plan. Um but comprehensive plans do cover a lot of other topics as well. Uh this is a document that's used by elected leaders, staff, community organizations and property owners when making decisions about what to do county. I like to say that it's almost like a welcome map for your community too where you know people who are from outside of the county can understand you know what is important and special to county. They can understand the vision who you want to be when you grow up. Um and so those things are really helpful. Without a comprehensive plan you can't have zoning. So there's actually some counties still in the state of Indiana that do not have comprehensive plans and they don't have zoning. Um obviously I'm a I'm all about comprehensive plans and zoning. I think that really helps to guide how your community develops and grows and evolves over time. Um because if you don't have one, uh you really don't get a say in what someone is doing with their land or their property. Um because there might be uses that you don't want in your county. Um and and it's important to articulate that in a comprehensive plan. So this puts you in the driver's seat. We go to the next slide. Like Chris said, working on this for a little over a year. There's been four phases that we've gone through to get to where we are today. Our first phase was kind of casting that vision. That's where we pull a steering committee together that helps guide the development of the process of the comprehensive plan. Um we do some background research on on county and we bring it to the steering committee to make sure we're all on the same page

before we continue moving forward. Then we reach we go into the reach a consensus phase which is really where we do a lot of public engagement. We want to hear what the community has to say about what their thoughts and opinions are about, you know, who decount county to look like and be, you know, in the future. So we we do lots of engagement opportunities during that phase. Once we get through that, we start forming the plan. Uh we we prepare an existing missions report. Uh we draft some goals and strategies for the county and then we host what's called a big ideas open house where we invite the public back and we ask them hey did we did we miss the mark or are we on track and that helps us do some course correction if you know there's a hot topic that maybe what we heard didn't align with what they were telling us. So we were able to course correct them if needed. And then we we start drafting that first draft of the comprehensive plan. We are now in the last phase which is practical action steps and we also go through adoption during this phase. Um so in the fourth and final phase we put a public draft together. So you know once we had that first draft we gave it to the steering committee to review and now the the the plan is actually out in the public so they're able to review. That includes you. So everyone you know I know we'll be running home tonight to make sure they do their their nighttime reading of the comprehensive plan. Um and then we did a public presentation where we presented it to the public and got any final feedback on it. Um, like Chris said, our next steps are going to be going to the plan commission for an adoption hearing and then it will go to the county commissioners for final adoption. Um, so community engagement is really the foundation from which the comprehensive plan is built. Um, we had a steering committee and this was the

group that helped documents guide the planning process. We had 22 members as part of that. And you can see there was a variety of um individuals that served that had various backgrounds. You know, a county commissioner, we had actually a county council member, a school leadership participated, u members of the planning commission, the Amish community, a leaders, and community foundation are just some of the the individuals that help serve on this committee. Next slide, please. Um we had a variety of engagement opportunities like I had noted earlier. Um there is a specific project website uh for this process. We had over 2,000 unique visits um on that website. So people were looking at what was going on um trying to understand you know what where they could engage in this and give feedback. We had uh 62 people participate in focus group meetings. The focus group meetings were um like the title of them. We focused on a variety of topics and really zeroed in on what was going on in Decal County in specific areas and we invited kind of the local experts to the table to hear what those issues were and how we could even overcome some of those issues. So topics included aggra business, utilities, transportation and infrastructure, economic development, housing, philanthropy use, youth, quality of life in place and also uh land use. Other community engagement opportunities, we have an online survey which had almost 600 participants which is fantastic. We had two public workshops with over 75 people attending. Um and you can see a variety of other community engagement opportunities. So, you know, we felt really solid that there was a lot of input from the community, a lot of participation. Uh so, job well done county.

Um going through the public engagement process and working with the steering committee, we started hearing some common themes that popping up uh from all that community engagement. Some of those key themes included, you know, a strong there is a strong sense of community. Um, here in county, there was um a a wish for preservation of the heritage, you know, your agricultural roots, our culture, your historic places and local events. Um, the public, you know, really spoke about the protection of natural assets. Um, you know, there was a want, a desire for supporting thoughtful growth, you know, that not only balances tradition, but anything that's innovative and new for the future. Um, there's a desire for collaboration among local governments, nonprofits, and community partners. And then really just a focus on quality of life. Um, people are really proud of Dal County and want to see that pride carry on into the future. Um, but also having some economic resilience and just that long-term prosperity. So bringing all of that information together, you know, all those key priorities that we've heard, uh, we've worked with the steering committee to develop a vision for the the future of Dal County. Um, and I'm going to go ahead and just read this because this is one of the important things that is coming out of this plan is the vision. So Dal County is intentionally shaping a future where strategic growth strengthens the local community to create lasting opportunity. While County's heritage of farming, classic culture, and the people that make Tel County unique. The county is striving to be a place of opportunity for education and work for education, workforce development, and local businesses create pathways to success at every stage of life. Um, a steward of land and water,

balancing thoughtful development with long-term care for farmland and natural systems. And lastly, a home where families and employers flourish, offering quality housing, amenities, and a strong sense of place. We thought that really encapsulated um all the things that we were hearing from both the steering committee and the public. And with that, I'm going to pass it over to the project manager, Jen, and she's going to walk you through, you know, actually more of the details of the plan.

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for having us. So to get into the nuts and bolts of the plan organized around these chapters, it starts out with an executive summary which highlights just the recommendations of the plan. It's just meant a quick overview that if you want to learn very quickly what the plan is about rather than reading over 100 pages that you can uh quickly learn that in the executive summary. Next, we go into the introduction, which outlines the planning process that Rachel just kind of went through and also current current conditions. We do have a public participation chapter, which summarizes that engagement and public input. And then chapters 4 through 10 is that subject matter which identifies topics. the land use, transportation, housing, community facilities and infrastructure, trails, open space spaces, natural areas, economic development, the arts, culture, placemaking. So each of those chapters talk a bit about the existing missions and goals, strategy, objectives to achieve that goal. uh chapter 11 dedicated to the county and then chapter 12 are implementation uh strategies that really support what you heard in that subject um chapters. So the structure of uh each of those chapters again is a clear goal which is a long-term outcome that you want to achieve strategies that are approaches that could be taken to achieve those goals and then objectives uh those start to identify specific action. So taking the strategy moving reality. So that kind of approach it it lends itself to not the thing just not

being a vision but an active the community um that uh leaders can use to help move forward. So a little bit about the use the goal on the screen really we heard from the community that balancing preservation growth the economic opportunities is key. um online public survey results, we had 68% of respondents opposed uh developing agriculture land for large lot housing and 65% supported allowing higherity housing to preserve farmland and scattered growth. Something also important to note here is the Cal County most of its housing um and development exists within these municipalities but also within its extra territorial jurisdictions it's ETJs and that's really where the municipality has planning and zoning authority um but the count it's still count it's a little bit of a hybrid mix there um So participants really um wanted to see that cohesion between county municipalities really meet. So we really focus on that as as a land use strategy. Um additionally we heard participants um express concerns about converting agriculture land for industrial schooler. uh residents really emphasize like careful planning, appropriate location, protection of prime farmland to really preserve the county's rural character. So that large scale when they have limited supports, but other emerging uses should be monitored. So county leaders are encouraged to really

proactively establish that approach to those uses and align with the long-term goals uh and role priorities as well. Part of the land use chapter is the future land use map. Um it's important to note that future land use map is not a zoning map. They're interconnected but they have very distinct separate purposes. So future land use map is a policy guide. It illustrates like character activity intensity of development zoning by cont. This is your current map. Um from this you have quite a few different categories. You'll see in the new map that we streamline those, but overall you see the approach there like yellow, the orange is really developing around municipalities and you'll see that carry through to the proposed future on here. We do have those extra territory jurisdictions in gray. Um since the municipality had that planning authority, we pull that through into the county plan. But you see um still that focused development around key corridors around municipality instead of the county. So in short still guiding smart principles but respecting uh available resources for development. Next is transportation. The county maintains around 700 miles of county roads. Uh that's about 70% of all the roads in the county. Uh we heard

from survey respondents that 64% felt it's safe and convenient to travel around the county. So that's good to hear. Uh going forward, transportation uh planning just really aims to balance the needs of today's infrastructure but the mobility demands for future generations. So continue continue to make that progress. Housing stakeholders um really expressed a strong interest in expanding attainable housing options, rehabilitating like vacant or underutilized properties and preserving farmland in again most of housing is found within town city. So because of this the county can achieve the resident's vision for housing by being partner with municipalities offering a variety of housing types complement what is going on within those municipalities but still respecting the agriculture community facilities and infrastructure. Uh the county's population continues to grow. So investments in infrastructure and essential services is important. Uh many residents likeing water sewer broadband services is to attracting new housing and residents. Uh but funding always remains a challenge. We also heard that cow county residents choose to live in the community because they have a high quality of life at a lower cost of living but still have some challenges. For example, we heard quite a bit about child care capacity which we know um The Y is expanding their facility now. So that's good to hear. But currently Dau County families spend about 7.7% of their income on childare which is lower than Allen County which is an average about 13.3% of their income. So that lower cost

but you'll need to continue to monitor capacity as the community grow. uh trails open natural areas. Uh residents identify expanding the cook trail as a top priority. Uh so the county is well positioned to expand your outdoor recreation for residents. Um you have strong community support, great beautiful natural surrounding areas and uh you're conveniently located. So um C County is to encourage you to continue to play that supportive role in trail development, working regional and statewide organizations secure those long-term funding solutions for maintenance and expanding the trail. Next is econom uh conversations with local local economic development experts highlighted priorities. Those being that skilled workers, especially in manufacturing and trade, um can be difficult to find and they really want to training program and connecting students with local employers. Um I think it's also important to acknowledge um that agriculture is a major economic pillar. Um over 800 farms manage nearly 192,000 acres that produces about 16 revenue. Um so with that the is continued is encouraged to continue to foster a diverse resilient economy by supporting that workforce training attracting a wider variety art thinking. So it's very clear that the cow county residents really value

what makes the cow county unique your rural identity um and your love of throughout the year. Uh so promoting continue to promote and invest in those arts and culture heritage types events is vital. Maybe strategic support for these initiatives will help the county continue to offer those uh cultural events that enriches residents life visitors and celebrates. And then chapter 11 is dedicated to the The Decal County Plan Commission does oversee the town of Corona's planning and zoning which was an agreement that was established in December of 1965. So this chapter is dedicated to detailing their specific demographics, existing the public engagement we had there as well and specific recommendations for the town. Then we wrap up within the chapter 12. Um really we that launch um you know some implementation of strategies. So we heard goals and objectives in chapters 4 through 10 and this is where it really starts to put those into strategies designed to build like your first steps once the plan is adopted next. So this has said the plan can be viewed on the project.com. Um our next step is to go to the public hearing February 18th at plan commission and then we'll subsequently go to the commissioner's adoption meeting on March second.

Rachel, I welcome anyone may have. Does anybody have any questions here? Only only thing I have and andrews probably can correct me. The bill that just passed was it 1333 is that the right bill that they this didn't address like zone one, zone 2, zone 3, zone five agriculture. We have to do that, right? The bill that was just introduced. Oh, it passed. I just wanted a number. It was I don't know what you're talking about. Did it get ripped out?

Yeah, I thought I Well, last Yeah, but but we've never zoned or rated our agriculture gun by numbers, have we? We have a we have an we have an A1 A2 A3 A4. Okay. Conservation agricultural which is our A1 our A2. So we have four different agricultural districts. Two basically mirror each other and the other are for high intensity and well ask is this bill that comes through and I'm getting off topic but it is I know it but is they did not zone any of our agriculture ground. We have to do that right.

Correct. Yes. Yes, the bill you're talking about with for the data centers and stuff. Is that the one you're saying? Solar deal. There was solar panel solar fields in there, too. Was there that in there? So, they got from my understanding they got rid of all that language. Okay. That that's all quote unquote dead in the water. Okay. That's all I want to know. Thanks to Bill for getting us off topic. Well, it's all the same. We have to It's all in the Right. Right. zoning stuff.

Um Yeah. So, thanks Rachel and Jen for your presentation. Um, a couple other things that I just wanted to add is that um, you know, the comprehensive plan is a is a communitywide document. Um, there are things in there that plan commission and the county commissioners will have to work through and and achieve, but there are things in there for other parts of the community. Child, as they mentioned, child care and and the Y doing their part. Um, a lot of those shouldn't say a lot. Most some of the goals within the plan um are communitywide that the county can offer support for and that could be monetary or it could be non-monetary, you know, letters of support or um passroughs for uh for through grants and things like that. So, um there are other ways to support um but again, you know, I I wanted you all to to get the presentation from from HWC um more as a courtesy. Obviously, there's no vote needed today for um for the council. Um but then again, allowing us to go through this process and um funding this important document for the county. So, I do appreciate it very much. Um and I know the plan commission and county commissioners will as well. So, thank you again.

Gosh, your guys' phones probably take your pills. [laughter] You know, when you get as old as we do, these phones go off sometimes and your folks take your medicine. Got you. I gota have loud enough because our hearing is not as good. God love you guys. Anyway, [snorts] but thanks Chris. Go ahead. Uh Chris, I just wanted to say thank you for a lot of time and hours and really appreciate to make this presentation. Thank you. Thank you. I also wanted to thank Chris. So, I know this has been a a lot of extra work for your office to to get this accomplished over the last year and a half, whatever. But, thanks for doing it. We had to have it. We needed it.

Thank you so much, too. Thanks to Jen and Rachel and Ally and Ree for putting up with me over the last year. That's never easy. Um, you said it. They can attest to it. Susan can attest to [laughter] people back here can attest to it, too. But, um, but yeah, it's been it's been it's been great. So, thanks again. Nicely done. Nicely done, ladies. Thank you.

Okay. So, we can move on. Yep. Everything. So, our next deal is uh uh the compliance officer revised job description approval. What is uh

yeah our HR Bob we looked at some changes in that job description after the commissioners had some input on it. Um it is we did limit it to 20 hours. Um we don't typically do that for part-time but we felt that that was important in this particular job description. We did not want that to be um something became a problem for our community. So anyway, uh and we just need to get that approved. I think it's all the HR committee's approved it. We're recommending it for approval by full council. It was already removed, right? No, that was Oh, was it

correct? The Monday the M through F Monday through Friday was just removed from the schedule part. Okay. It was on the previous job description, right? We had recommended that that be removed. Yeah, it did say Monday through Friday before. Um, but there may be some work needed to be done on the weekend. Not necessarily. I wasn't necessarily worried about the worker. I just said I don't think they should be going to visit property owners on Sundays, but on Saturdays they may have to do that because property owners may not be home during the week. Is it anything we have to take action today or are you going to

Yeah, you have to vote to approve the change the changes for the job description. The job description is the only thing that needs approved. There's not going to be an ordinance or the pay doesn't change. And we're currently we currently don't have that person's resigned and we don't have a person in this position and that's remain in the job description. Just so everybody knows, the public knows that it is a response only. I mean, he'll be responding to complaints, not going out aggressively uh trying to find problems.

Okay. I want I need a motion to uh uh say approve the job description with changes as presented. Motion to approve the job description as stated by Bob. I'll make that motion if I can and I'll second. We have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion uh among the councilman? All right. Call for vote. Okay. Chris. Rer. Yes. Demsky? Yes. Bob? Yes. Bill? Oh, yes. Ring.

Yes. Um, one other comment and I'm going to let this go to the cons. After talking to both Chris and Bob at the break, Chris has stated that he it was all right to let Bob do it and I still will stay with my appointment as Bob is a Sunny Mal committee appointment, but if the council will want to vote on it, I will let you to vote. So, it's up to you guys. Fine. If

I had discussion with both of them. We all three were there and they both called me Joe's dad. So, I can't say one's better than the other. So, I uh I think I'll stay with Bob. So, is that it? I'm done being president. Oh, remember another public reminder. Valentine's Saturday. Remember that, Chris? Your wife sitting right there. And it also this morning it said it's going to cost, and ladies, listen to this, 11.25% more money this year for your husband to buy the candy and the flowers for you. So, appreciate it. 11.25% more. Anyway, anything else, council?

I do not have back any documents that I sent around to be signed. Oh, that's because they're all piled right up here by me. I took my medicine,

so I need those. I would like I would like Senate Bill 179 which is the do there's an amendment that's being offered that will pass that will not allow the cities to stack on top of a county. So completely separate in our case would have to adjust there. So it would not assume that both cities might accept ours but there was a lot of concern from state that city for stacking the full amount on top of that probably need to be some consideration as to how we

Well, thank you Rick. Anything else? Thank you for putting up with me. I'm done being president. Okay. So, I need a motion to adjurnn. Oh, sorry. Damn. I got ahead of myself. I I'll second. I got a motion. Second. Everybody approve. Yes. I'm not even going to ask for a no. Go. Oh, we have to have roll call.